The next day Rufus's army was just a few hours away from the capital. Rufus had been weirdly quiet since Leif had died and had not spoken much.

They started to see some smoke in the distance. They realized it was coming from the capital. The scouts came back who had gone ahead to scout the defenses of the capital.

"How are the defenses of the capital. Have they started to dig ditches around the city or anything?" Vlad Hunyadi asked Erik who had gone to scout the capital.

Erik didn't answer first. It was like he had seen a ghost.

"What is it. Were there a lot of defenses or not. Did they spot you and prevent you from getting any closer?" Hunyadi asked again.

"Well no. We were able to get really close to the city," Erik explained.

"How close?" count Hunyadi asked confused.

"Well. We went inside the city through the front gates."

~ ~

The army arrived at the capital. They saw the entire city smoking with no soldier in sight. From grey skins to the human soldiers, no one said a word. All of them were shocked to their core. They had no idea what had happened.

"What the hell happened here?" said Amala shocked.

"We had heard news that the people had rioted, but we didn't know the destruction was so widespread and destructive," said Doreen also equally shocked.

The entire army marched through the front gates without any resistance. Dead soldiers and citizens littered the entrance ground.

Usually, this would be a cause for celebration. Now it didn't feel like there was much to celebrate. When they saw how the city was and what had happened it even gave shivers to the most hardened grey skin warrior.

Corpses were littered all over the streets. From regular citizens to soldiers to even some nobles. Many of the buildings were still partially burning while the rest of them were burned and had collapsed down.

They saw a man going through the corpses. He was looking for anything valuable. He got startled when he saw the army arriving and tried to escape, but a group of grey skin warriors stopped him. The grey skin warriors brought the man in front of Rufus. The man was scared to his core when he looked at Rufus who was on his black yak standing tall in front of him.

"What happened here?" Rufus asked.

The man was too scared to answer. The grey skin warriors put their blades onto the man's throat to threaten him to answer.

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"I…. I…I am just a beggar from the slums. I am sorry for pillaging the corpses," the man yelled in fear.

Doreen came in front and looked at the man.

"This here is Rufus. I think you have heard of him. Answer his questions now!" Doreen said and looked mad at the pathetic man.

The man's fear turned into shock and relief.

"You are the Rufus. Oh, thank god. You are our savior," the man cried in relief.

"Shut up!" Rufus yelled in annoyance at the man's weeping.

Rufus shocked everyone by being angry for the first time. The man looked terrified and went quiet.

"Tell me what happened? What happened here?" Rufus asked sounding impatient.

The man hesitated at first.

"The king ordered that all the citizens should be made to defend the city. They sent soldiers to the city to take people from their homes by force. Something happened in the slums that caused a riot that spread to the rest of the city.

"The city fell into chaos after that. The people started to storm the royal place and loot other people's houses. The wise people left the city. I was able to survive because I fled into the sewers of the city," the man whimpered and explained.

Rufus looked mad. He came down from his black yak. He looked at the man who was previously looting the corpses.

"I will let you go, but be wise as well and leave the city…..NOW!" Rufus said and let the man run away.

"We should get going to the royal palace now. The king might be still alive," Hunyadi said.

Rufus walked away with Doreen, Haley, and Edward.

"Where are you going?" Hunyadi asked.

Amala, Pema, and Gwon also looked confused as to where they were going.

"We have two people more important here than the king," Edward said and walked away with the rest of the three.

~ ~

They entered the slums. Amala and Pema looked at the city. You could see that the buildings were in horrible shape even before the fire with the slums not even having proper pavement with just wet mud on the ground.

"This looks even worse than Lehasa. Who could live in a place like this?" Amala said and pondered while looking at the slums that were in a sorry state.

"Me and Rufus grew up here. This was our home," Haley said to Amala.

Amala and Pema were startled. They never would have thought that they came from such a place. That their lives had been hard from the beginning even comparable to that of grey skins.

~ ~

They got to old man Haufen's bar. The building was completely destroyed. The roof had fallen leaving only a large pile of burnt timber.

Rufus ran to the ruins of the building in panic. He started to dig out the rubble in desperation. Haley joined in on the digging. Both were fearing for the worst.

"Rufus, Haley. It can be that they escaped," Doreen yelled trying to alleviate the uneasiness Haley and Rufus had.

Haley stopped digging. Rufus ran to her. They both froze. They saw the burnt bodies of a man holding on a woman in his arm trying to protect her from the rubble. It was Mrs. Jean's and old man Haufen's bodies that they found. Both burnt to a crisp, but still Haufen trying to protect his wife.

Doreen and Edward ran to them. They also saw the bodies. Haley started to cry followed by Doreen. Edward walked away since even he didn't want to look at them. Edward also started to shed tears and held his hand on his face. Rufus was the only one who didn't cry. He fell to his knees and hands in disbelief.

Pema, Amala, and Gwon just looked at the four of them. They didn't know who they were crying for, but they knew they were important to the four of them. They felt extremely bad for the four of them and let them have their grieving moment.

Rufus then got up. He looked at the also ruined royal palace. Anger thrummed through his veins. Rufus started to walk in the direction of the royal palace. He walked past count Hunyadi who was at the entrance of the palace.

"Is the king still alive?" Rufus asked Hunyadi.

"We don't know. Most likely is. We would have heard something most likely if he wasn't alive," the count said.

"Good. I want to meet him now."