Ahh, the moment I left the room, I could feel the stares coming from all over the place.

Well, I did have the crown, so expecting a moment of peace was too much.

It was challenging walking all the way to the palace's exit with all the stares, but I did it. I reached the entrance and left the court.

There were still stares even outside, and it remained that way until I reached the gate.

I finally arrived in front of the gate that separated the kingdom of elves from the rest of the world.

Entering was easy, but exiting well, of course, would not be easy as I could see the 16 high elf elders in front of me, out of whom I could beat none in my current state.

I finally took the step, the very step that indicated that I was now outside of the kingdom.

And took a few more steps.

The elders started to form a circle around me, and a familiar voice came from behind, saying, “Give it up, now you are outside the kingdom, hand over the gem, and I promise to let you go.”

Of course, it’s the king

“Let me go? the war has already started, so you don’t need to offer me any choices also I won’t be handing over this gem.”

One of the elders must have felt agitated, so he said, “There is no need to talk with this thief anymore, let just kill him and take it from his corpse.”

“Wait, wait, what’s the hurry, your rash actions could result in a lot of casualties.”

“What?”

“Now, the first thing, I won this gem fair and square, so it’s now my property, and you are the ones trying to steal it, so, it makes you the thieves.”

“How dare you call, the divine gem that was gifted to the elves by the gods, your property.”

The king shouted, “Enough.”

“Azrael, I know what your plan is, when you got out of the cave, you had already planted a hostage in case things went wrong, the hostage being my own daughter, inside the cave you seemed to have planted a virus, even I did not notice it at first, but right now she is being treated by the priests, your virus created by darkness won't last long under the shrine, even if you have any other plans, you have no chance to get past all of us.”

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“OH, the king of the elves, you are wise, but I like I said before, you focus too much on the lone king and put too much trust in your rook, underestimating my pawns.”

“This is not a game of chess.”

“To me, this is no different, you see you were so focused on the virus and thinking you cornered me, you never did realize, in that cave, the only person left alive was me, I had killed off the others you see.”

One of the elders again agitated spoke, “That’s nonsense, the 12 elves and 2 high elves were alive, there is no way we would have mistaken the undead as the living.”

“Ahh, the undead, in this world necromancy has just been reduced to that, turning the dead into moving skeleton, is that what you think necromancy is? No, necromancy is the ability to bring the dead back to life, in the beginning even my necromancy could only do so much as turn the corpses into undead, but once it had evolved enough I could bring the dead back to life, exactly as there were, the only difference this time being I could control them”

The elders did not seem to believe me, “That’s nonsense. There is no way you could do that.”

“So, you need proof, well you are the ones who asked for it.”

There was a sudden explosion, the elders looked towards the direction of the blast, “That’s!!, It came from where the elves live.”

“Yes, as they are under my control, I can make them sacrifice their life force and self-destruct in such a manner, that was one, there are still more including the princess, now what will you do my king?”

“I…”

The king now had a pale face and was still thinking about what to do.

But one of the elders spoke up, “My king, we are now in an unfortunate state, it seems like there is no way to avoid sacrifices.”

“What?”

“The elves live in a separate place from the high elves, the explosion won’t affect the high elves, their lives would be sacrificed for the sake of the divine gem, as for the princes, she is in the shrine, only a few priests are present there today, there won’t be much damage, now, we have to make the difficult choice, but it's for the high elves, the divine gem was blessed to the first high elf that the gods created, it has then been carried on by generations, residing on top of a king head, many have come before to obtain its power, but our ancestors always protected it, now it’s our turn, we cannot let our legacy just get taken away by an outsider and waste the efforts of the generation before us and the generation before them, I know it’s a difficult choice, but it’s a difficult choice we have to currently make, our honor, pride, everything is on line, the sacrifices made today would be considered a noble sacrifice, a sacrifice that saved the honor of the elves.”

The elder was right.

But I knew the king cared for the citizens of his country, be it high elves or just an elf he did not discriminate, he even cared for his daughter, kept his word even if it meant sacrificing his pride, he was a nobleman. But now the king did not have any reason to refuse the elders proposition, more like he could not refuse, he had already lost the gem once, and if now he made the decision to save the people instead of the gem, his very authority as a king would be questioned. He now had no choice but to sacrifice his own daughter and his people.

Out of all the scenarios I had planned in my mind, this was the worst-case scenario.