Undead Beast Master: Living Solely for My Desires

Draconis cleared his throat. The gesture made the generals flinch for a moment, but in the end, they didn't dare run, as they knew there wasn't anywhere to hide anyway.

"We are… losing ground?" The emperor repeated the man's words.

In response, the general bowed his head to the floor as he answered frankly.

"No! It is us, not your majesty, that is the reason!" He tried his best not to offend the emperor.

"Why would the fault be mine anyway? Aren't you all the ones in the front line commanding the troops? I just give you the funding you need, don't I? And considering the amount I have already given, I would expect results…"

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Seeing that the generals were simply too scared to talk, Draconis sighed in disappointment.

"I permit you to speak your true thoughts tonight. I give you my word that I will not punish you for daring to say them out loud."

The generals threw suspicious gazes at one another. Seeing the reaction, Draconis added,

"But this also means speaking your true thoughts, and only them. If you try to flatter me in any way, punishment will be in order."

Everyone in the room had the same thought, it was a death sentence! They couldn't trust the emperor's words that they would not be punished if they spoke their true thoughts, yet at the same time, if they tried to flatter him, he would have the excuse to kill them, saying that they didn't share what they truly thought.

A minute of silence passed.

"That is indeed not a bad strategy. If you don't speak, there is no basis for me to punish you…"

The emperor rose from his seat as he began to walk in a circular motion around the kneeling men.

"But, this also speaks for your character, you know? It shows that in a situation where you are forced to make a hard decision, you will freeze. I don't need people like that working for me…"

Stilling his resolve, the man with the grey beard that stood at the very front opened his mouth.

"If… we speak our true thoughts, we will not be punished?"

Draconis smiled at the question. "Yes, you have my word."@@novelbin@@

The man hesitated for a moment and then spoke. "We… how are we supposed to stop them?! You have cut our funding by more than half while taking a large chunk of our troops! And for what? That meaningless tournament?! In the end, what will you get? The people who will show up, buying the tickets to watch? Would these winnings even cover the cost of holding the massive tournament in the first place?! What was the point in making it more than 60,000 participants?! Just a few hundred would have sufficed, but you just had reduced our military strength for your amusement!"

Once the man was done speaking, silence befell the room, as every person kneeling behind him had their eyes widened in shock.

No doubt they all thought the same thing, this man is going to be killed.

"I see… Is there somebody else who wants to share something with me?"

Nobody dared to speak after that, so Draconis sighed in disappointment as he sat back in his throne.

"You." He pointed at the man who had let his rage get the better of him.

"You are staying. The others are dismissed. You are stripped of all titles and exiled from the empire. I don't need spineless men for generals."

The men trembled under the emperor's words. They had spent their entire lives serving the empire, and this was the result? This was how they were being rewarded for their unwavering commitment to the empire?

In this moment, they wanted to kill the emperor, but deep down, they knew they didn't have a chance, so they accepted their fate and turned their back to the emperor as they took their leave.

"And for feeling like you want to kill me, this is your punishment," Draconis spoke, and the next second, the men collapsed on the ground as all of them were cut cleanly in half.

The grey-bearded man gasped but didn't comment on the emperor's actions.

"What is your name?"

Hearing his words, the man quickly spoke, "It's Warren, my majesty."

"Warren, do you know why you are alive and they are not?"

Warren hesitated for a moment before answering, "Because I don't fear saying what I think?"

"No, it's because you fear it and do it regardless. That makes you brave, and you are the type of man I want to serve the empire."

Warren didn't know how to feel about Draconis's words, so he simply nodded. Then a second later, he returned to the issue at hand.

"What about the attacks we are experiencing? We will soon lose more and more territories, and our troops are not nearly enough."

"Don't worry about it."

Warren winced in shock. He couldn't stop himself from speaking his true thoughts.

"What do you mean 'don't worry about it'? Our empire would soon be overrun!" the man shouted.

Draconis chuckled at the bravery Warren was showing.

"This is how it may appear from your point of view, but honestly, we have never been so close to achieving victory. We will soon not only destroy the Crimson Sun Empire, but all the empires on the continent."

Warren didn't know how to respond to the insane claim from Draconis. The only thing that came to mind was to ask, "If… you could please share that knowledge with me? It would be most helpful."

Draconis sighed as he gazed at the cup he was holding.

"It is quite simple, actually. I will single-handedly defeat them all."

"But… I, as a person who has witnessed your strength firsthand, can say with all due respect, no matter how strong you are, you cannot conquer a whole continent alone… you aren't a god."

"That is true, I am not," Draconis chuckled.

"At least not yet."

*****

Gazing around the prison cells, the salesman couldn't help but smirk.

"So many are already here. I wonder how many more will be needed?" he muttered as he took the black cloth with which he had covered the humans… or what had once been humans.

All of them had bloody eyes, and their mouths were sewn shut, as these ones seemed to like to scream, attracting attention..

Their skin had begun to rot, slowly falling apart. Their hands twisted in unnatural ways, distorting with each passing moment.

It looked more like a monster from a fairy tale than a human.

"And to think that by just changing the soul of a human, you can turn them into something so incredible?"

He began putting them one by one into the cells.

At least these ones didn't seem hostile, so they didn't try to attack him.

As he pushed the last one inside, he noticed that one of them was looking at him with sadness in their eyes.

They had done some experiments on them and had concluded that, while their physical appearance changed and their soul began to disappear, there was a small part of it that remained. How would it feel being turned into such a monster?

"You are the ones who wanted the pills so much. It's not like I forced you to take them, did I?"

Without hesitating, the salesman locked the door, leaving the creatures trapped inside.

Ignoring the haunting roars of creatures screaming in pain, locked into their cells and slowly rotting, the man headed back from where he had come.

This week, there were eight new sacrifices to be added to the large pile.

It wouldn't take long until they had enough,

And once they did, the course of history would be changed forever.