CHAPTER 332: HISTORY WAS A CRUEL BITCH, TRULY

[KAWAI]

"Seize him!!" Akila growled and the barbarians surrounded Sanjiro, not giving him so much as a chance to breathe. For them, he didn’t deserve to breathe and belong with them in the same space. He didn’t deserve anything that had been good for him.

He didn’t deserve to be in the presence of the prince much less this Lycan Chief. Sanjiro had fucked up and all because of an anger he couldn’t satiate. He was stupid for fucking it all up like that, but Kosta had punched him rightly.

Kosta had screwed him over. Igor had brought out the beast in the man and there was no going back for this. The fact that the portals are disabled was also a terrible dream for the Lycan in the midst of warriors.

’Fuck,’ Sanji sighed as he looked around him, the stench of testosterones and alpha pheromones making him uncomfortable. He knew that he would never be able to explain his way out of this and he hated himself for not keeping up with the beatings until Kosta was tired.

Igor was bound to take a break eventually and Sanjiro could have used that as a chance to make things right for himself. Instead, he had responded. He had fought back. He had ruined their chances at a discovery that meant nothing.

Now it was all just chaos and right in the middle of it, while the others were fighting to capture the free lands, was Sanjiro. He was doomed and he understood it a little too well. This wasn’t new for a man like him and boy was he fucked.

Sanji could see the way they were looking at him.

The way there was so much spit in those eyes for him. There was so much rage and disappointment and no matter how hard he tried to think, he could tell that they were never going to let him come close to the prince or the Chief anymore.

"You have some nerve, traitor, to be standing here and making claims when it was your fault that this happened," Akila said as he looked at the Lycan traitor before him.

He could see the way that Sanji was defiant and while it would have made anyone uncountable, Akila was a good and honorable warrior. He had seen blood one too many times. And he had seen what true defiance looked like.

Akila understood the bounds of loyalty and honestly, he was easily the most trusted Lycan barbarian after Igor. Then again, everyone in Igor’s barbarian camp was a trusted Lycan.

They were with their orders and right now, Sanjiro had triggered one of the passages of the one thing that the barbarians lived for. He had threatened and disrespected Tamiko. He had tried to stain the name of the young royal prince and that was punishable by death.

"Oh please, Akila. You all destroy just like I do. At least I am not hiding like all of you. Tell me something, what was it that drove you to the pits? What was it that triggered you to be part of the army if it wasn’t for the one reason that the mad king lost your father in battle?

"Are you even sure your father died on the battlefield and not at the hands of the madman’s desire to wipe out everything that stood against him? Your father was the high guard assigned to the queen, surely you didn’t think he would survive, right?" Sanjiro taunted.

For a moment, Akila stared at him, like he was contemplating what to say. The man was making vile accusations against the king, when anyone with eyes knew the king was a loyal warrior, on and outside of the battlefield.

The man was a madman, but he was never someone who would trade his loyalty. He had murdered so many Lycans, but none of them was ever a Lycan warrior who went to war alongside him.

Akila’s father was one of the best warriors who had joined that order to serve Kawai alongside their king. The Kawai warriors never tagged along with the king to the chaos he thrust himself into.

The king only took his army to fight, when he figured they needed to exercise, and it was never to fight the mad king’s personal battles. All the warriors of Kawai could attest to that.

The king only took the Kawai army when the fight was about Kawai. Which was why Sanji’s explanation was not making any sense. It was an obviously desperate attempt to make things harder for the man who couldn’t think for himself, but was that what Akila was?

A spineless man who believed everything?

"You have really been planning this for a while, Sanjiro, haven’t you? First, you came after the Lycan queen of hearts, then you went after the prince, and then the Lycan chief. All through, you failed incredibly because the king never once tried to flatten Kawai.

"And I am now your target, aren’t I? Do you think by mentioning the prince’s father dearest and his sacrifices for Kawai I would stalk up and try to question the legitimacy of the greatest warlord the realm has ever seen?

"A warlord whose loyalty to his people was something that even the enemies of Kawai could attest to? Are you always that dumb or was this the only play you got?" Akila asked briefly and the Kawai warriors started carefully.

They were alert, ready to drive their swords into Sanjiro if that was what the prince, the Lycan Chief, or Akila wanted. They wouldn’t hesitate for any of the three a day with brains that knew that.

But clearly, Sanji did think too much about what he was supposed to present because right now he looked like he was grasping at straws that wouldn’t help him with shit.

It was never going to be alright and that was something that Sanji would have thought over before it all shrunk down on him like that.

"So what? Do you think just because you got history the king wouldn’t betray you? You think he wouldn’t try to fuck up Kawai? He always did that anyway. He was supposed to do that back then.

"It shouldn’t have been so hard, but the bastard just had to go and lock himself up in the name of mourning, when everyone knew he was a jackass king who couldn’t even attend the funeral of his queen and his people.

"What a pathetic man," Sanjiro said confidently.

He didn’t want to think of anything. He didn’t have the patience for it all and frankly, it was something that he had been thinking of for the longest time. He had strived to be better, to think like the best of the best.

He had desperately tried to hold onto anything that would remind him of what life once was, and yet he had still managed to ruin every chance that he had. It was not something that he could ever recover from.

It was a bridge that he had burned, a bridge that he never knew existed, yet one he was so certain would never exist for him. He had fucked up, and karma would hit him the hardest soon enough. It was just a matter of time.

"Do you want the king here, to challenge you, to tell you what you should do, or maybe you are hoping that he will command punish you for trying to slander him, so you can prove everyone right when you were the reason the massacre happened that very day?

"Are you alright in the head?" Akila asked in earnest.