Six key individuals made up Julien D Evanus's war room.
Nathan D Evans, The royal prince.
Thalion Ironfoot, The chief commander.
Alaric WindStrider, The chief strategist
Nysa, The Information head
Sir Cedric, Virex Corps Head
And
Zephyr Lightweaver, The Master Mage
Of these six, Nathan, Thalion and Alaric betrayed Julien, while Cedric died in combat.
In the end, Nysa resigned from her post as the information head, refusing to serve a young Emperor, leaving only Zephyr Lightweaver, the current mage association president and a prominent master mage, behind as a member of the old guard.
Before entering the palace, Leo had expected to enter into a conflict against the master mage, however, when he fought against Vivienne, he hoped that maybe, just maybe, Zephyr had been replaced by Vivienne and that the replacement had not been made common knowledge yet.
However, that hope of his seemed to be naive and wrong with him only realizing the folly of his ways, when he was on the verge of killing the fake Emperor.
'Fucking Mages and their tricks….. I swear I'll kill him first when I get my hands on him!' Leo thought, as he fumed, marching out of the hidden basement, and heading straight for the throne room.
*Hop*
*Hop*
Behind him, Dumpy jumped confused as although he did not dare question the judgement of his master, he genuinely did not understand what was wrong?
"What's going on here master…?" Dumpy asked eventually, as Leo began his angry mumble.
"What's going on here is that your master is too smart to be fooled….." Leo began, his words and tone sounding a lot more rushed than before.
"Nobles around the world are the same Dumpy…. Slimy and Scaredy like bleeding cockroaches.
They would beg for their lives and offer you money the moment you put a sword to their neck and not one of them will ever willingly throw their lives away.
That bravery you saw back there? That was fake…. Not one noble, not in the least a royal who has not seen war, can ever hope to have balls like that!" Leo muttered, as Dumpy nodded behind in agreement.
If his master said something was wrong, Dumpy simply believed something was wrong, even if his eyes told him otherwise.
*********
(Meanwhile within the Throne Room)
Within the throne room, Nathan, Marcus and every single other Evanus family member, now began to tremble with their arms around one another, as they did not understand what next to do?
Sir Zephyr had created perfect marionettes for them to control and all they needed to do was act, however, their pride caused them to fail.
The first one to go overboard was Nathan, who with his fake rape story and eagerness to die, sent alarm bells ringing up the mind of Ben Faulkner, who although said nothing, spotted the lie from a mile away.
Zephyr instantly criticized Nathan for going overboard, once the act was over, however, the young adults brain could not handle the criticism too well.
His alone time in the prison had caused him to indulge in quite the dark fantasies and it just happened to leak in front of Ben Faulkner, blowing away his cover.
However, as if making that mistake once was not enough, the younger brother Marcus did it again by refusing to grovel before he died, as even the slightly slow Leo figured out that it had to be fake.
Had Marcus just done as he was told and fallen to his feet to beg, Leo would never have realised that he was not the real Emperor, and would genuinely believe that his goal here had been accomplished, however, his stupid pride compromised the mission and alongside it, the safety of his family.
"Idiots…. I'm protecting a bunch of idiots–" Zephyr cursed, as he clutched on the few good hairs left on his head and tried to yank them out from sheer rage.
Creating those life-like marionettes that shared the same vision and voice as the royal family members had not been easy, and for him to maintain the illusion for as long as he did, was not easy either.
By now, he had depleted nearly 80% of his mana capacity and could not hope to hold back Ben Faulkner and his apprentice, if they came looking for a confrontation.
"Goddamn it! Jao you fool, where are you?" Zephyr cursed, as he wondered where the new leader of the Virex Corps was? As by now, the entire palace was meant to be flooded with royal soldiers coming to save their Emperor.
******
(Meanwhile Jao)
Jao led the troops towards the palace gates with hasty steps, as the royal army of 15,000 strong followed in tow.
"Quick! We must be quick! Time is of the essence here—" Jao said, flashing the seal of the Emperor, as he urged all men to not slack off.
The seal gave him temporary powers to command the army, however, assembling them had proven to be no easy task.
The army had fragmented itself into smaller units patrolling the streets far and wide, which made assembling them all very hard for Jao, setting him back quite a lot of minutes which were otherwise critical for the safety of the Emperor.
"Open the gates! Quick! Open the gates! The royal army is here—" Jao shouted as the army approached the gates, however, to his dismay, every last garden guard had already been killed, meaning that no-one was manning the walls.
10 seconds….
20…..
Time passed, however, no-one replied, as Jao was eventually forced to leap over the wall and crank the lever himself, to slowly open the path for the army to enter.
"Towards the throne room! Go towards the throne room! It's in the center! Any passage will lead you there—" Jao screamed, as he directed the army soldiers towards the throne room where he knew the Emperor was hiding.
"I hope you're still alive my liege" he prayed, joining the sprint himself, as he made a beeline for the throne room.