A few minutes earlier--
"Now or never!"
"We are with you to the end!!"
"Hyeaaaaa!!!"
After the emperor's enthusiastic speech, he rose from the ground, extending his arms to his right and to his left, and then bounced towards Sakar at full speed without looking behind him in a majestic and bone-chilling scene, then about thirty sages, including his old woman advisor, set off behind him.
But... most of the elders and generals didn't move a single inch from their places.
"...."
" Damn, does he not see the number of the sages among our enemies? they are in thousands! thousands!! how many we will kill before we get surrounded and get ourselves killed? Now or never, he says, the answer of course is NEVER!!"
"Look at those fools who flew after him, they are still living in their own fantasy world, these fools were the reason the Emperor took many bad decisions one after the other, they always back whoever sits on the thrown! without having a brain for themselves"
"At least we had a chance to prolong the war until we could find a way to save ourselves or find a middle ground with the enemy, if we kept defending from the inside we will still have a chance, but now HiS MaJeStY took a third of the strongest Sages in the Empire and just got out! They are literally flying to their deaths and they know it."
"...What do we do now? Shall we go after them and get killed outside, or do we sit here and wait for the demon to come in and devour us where we stand?"
About seventy high and peak-level sages began to exchange glances and words among themselves in fear and frenzy, while the Emperor and those with him had already reached Sakar and began to strike him with their strongest blows.
Everyone in the Throne Hall now is either an important elder who has lived for thousands of years or an important general or a strategist in the country, each of them can lead their own army, no, their own country!
But after a few moments of turmoil and panic, they all spontaneously looked in the direction of one person and asked, "What do you think is right?"
They were all looking at an old man who looked as if there was a fine line between him and death, but he did not answer them immediately, but only looked at the emperor with a look of sadness and pity for a few more seconds,
then he spoke, "If we go out we will surely be killed, and if we stay in our places we do nothing, we will be killed, and if we join to defend the city, we will be killed, and not only us, but all our families will be killed after us. And the thing is, there is no glory in dying here, our nation - if they even made it out of this crisis alive - will remember us that we are the fools that almost got them killed and that we deserve what happened to us..."
"This…" The heartbeat of the sages in the hall returned to pounding like war drums, thinking about it in this regard only resulted in utter despair!
Absolute silence dominated the hall for a moment, no one spoke back and no one gave any alternative solution, they just kept silent and started thinking about their families...
What do they do now but go back to their homes to spend the last few minutes of their lives with their loved ones?
But the silence was suddenly interrupted by a loud shout from that old man that resounded over the entire imperial capital, "HEY, YOU!"
They all looked at where the old man was looking and found a human youth dressed in all-white standing in the heart of the enemy army giving command after command... He was the commander in chief of the enemy forces!
Billy looked at the source of the shout that pierced his ear, surprised, then pointed toward his chest to make sure the old man meant him.
"Yeah, you, who else is there?" The old man gave another shout
"What are you trying to do?!" More than one elder asked in one breath when they saw this, is he trying to anger them more?
"What do you want, old man? trying to distract me won't gain you anything." Billy raised his voice and said back
But the old man ignored them and continued shouting, "You said you don't want a massacre, let me put this to the test, with me here 70% of the ruling class of the empire, raise your voice and tell everyone what you will do if we order to lay down the weapons and surrender right now."
"This…" Even in their wildest dreams, not one of the elders expected the old man to suddenly utter those words
Even Billy furrowed his eyebrows for a few seconds upon hearing this, "Anyone with simple logic will see that we will win whether you surrendered or not, do you expect from this? to treat you as a trusted ally or something? where were you a few months ago? surrendering now is meaningless!"
" You will not take down this capital anytime soon if we put our all into defending it, how many of you men and.. demons.. will be dead in the process? how long will you take to control these lands after you kill us all? ...I don't expect to be a trusted anything, but there must be some middle ground!" The old man's voice rang again
Billy didn't know if this was some kind of ploy or an honest request, but he decided to give a straight answer anyway, "To implement the merciful instructions his Excellency gave us, and to save a few more lives of my men, this is what will happen if you lot surrender immediately and order your troops you lay down their weapons:
-Whoever among you had a hand in what happened in the ancestral continent, like he killed any Burton member by his own hands, or gave direct orders that directly resulted in killing a Burton family member, will be killed without discussion.
-Whoever was supporting the operation but did not direct orders or killed anyone himself, will be severely punished, going to prison, or getting tortured for an appointed time, but he will not get the death penalty.
-whoever opposed or does not participate in anything related to that process, will be presented to His Excellency Robin Burton, and he will decide what to do with them!"
"...And what about our families?" The old man was silent for a few seconds and then shouted
"AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! Traitors! all of you are Traitors!! I'm going to kill you all!!!" Before Billy could respond, an angry shriek came from above the capital, it was from the Flame Emperor.
Finally, the proud emperor looked behind him to look for the rest of his servants to see why they were not by his side, to see who they were fighting somewhere along the road or if they got themselves killed, but he was surprised that they were still standing there immobile, and... Speaking with the Commander in Chief of the enemies...?!
The emperor rushed towards his palace madly, but Sakar, Morin, and a number of other Demon Kings blocked his way with big, terrifying smiles on their faces... The thought of taking a bite out of the emperor's flesh sent happy chills all over their bodies!
While all the elders and generals bowed their heads after their emperor's cry, and Billy was distracted to trying to send more aid to fight the emperor and those with him, the old man stressed his question again, "What is going to happen to our families?"
"...the innocent will not be killed, whoever did not have a hand in what happened, his life will not be a price. Punishments may be imposed and the wealth of the family of the offender may be taken, but they will not be killed, and your current army, as soon as they leave their weapons immediately and sit inside their houses in peace, we will leave them be, this is my promise to you, a promise from the Burton family!"
"Hoooo…." The old man let out a long sigh, looked around slowly at all the generals and elders, and nodded slightly at them.
He then looked toward Billy and shouted in a voice that everybody could hear, "We surrender! All of you drop your weapons now and open the gates! WE SURRENDER!!"