Grey was baffled. He looked at his family. The queen had wide eyes, while the king had a slight smile thinking that it was a joke.

"Let me say this again. I wish to claim Idela as my own. If you do not cooperate, I will call my pets upon you." J repeated.

Grey felt a shiver come up his spine. The way beast tamers work around here is that they gain the power to command and control any animal they desire by gaining power over it. But they require a special skill and talent. Beast taming was a rare trade. Grey wondered what J was famous for.

Tamers first use special herbs to weaken an animal. The more potent the herb, the stronger the control would be. But the more fierce and powerful animals contained more willpower, so those that were more talented had better control and power over stronger beasts.

The beast tamer would then chant something incomprehensible to an average person. Soon the animal would react to the tamer as if they were the tamer's slave. The least skilled beast tamers could tame rodents and insects.

"This is a bit rude, isn't it. I think I must ask you to leave now J..." The king said in a cold voice.

The queen sat there quietly and glanced at Grey. The king realised that J wasn't joking.

"I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to stay here for a quite a while. After all, I think the point of this was to ask you to leave." J spoke with a wry smirk.

"I guess we'll have to escort you out then. Guards!" The king roared.

The king stood up abruptly. Two guards burst in dressed in leather. Both were armed with sword and shield. They both looked nervous.

"Please take this man outside and make sure he doesn't come back." The king commanded.

"Yes, sir." Both guards said in unison.

The two wary guards started to move forward towards the man with weapons drawn.

"I think not," J said with a smirk.

"Pets!" He snapped his fingers.

Two scaly snakes suddenly dropped from the ceiling. How they could fall from that height and not be injured was something Grey was amazed at. They all looked up and saw several snakes on coiled up on the chandelier. They all seemed to be venomous cobras. No one knew how J got them up there before hand. Grey thought about the possibility of a spy within the castle.

The snakes slithered almost too slowly toward the guards. They were both brown and black cobras. The guards had trembling eyes that looked quite scared and shaken. These two were obviously new to the job. They were frozen in place. The kingdom was a bit weak when it came to defences because of the last war they had with foreigners.

The guards glanced back and forth between the snakes that were now coiling up near their feet. The men were trained to be careful near snakes, but they didn't have any real experience with cobras.

"I thought you wouldn't have complied. So I prepared some extra countermeasures." J stated while standing up with his wine glass.

J walked slowly over to the king. He swirled his wine a bit, and then sipped it. He stopped a few feet away from the king.

"These snakes are a bit exotic, from Asia. Took me a little trouble to get them from India back to here. I also have a few other pets up my sleeve." J chuckled at his own joke while pulling down his right sleeve to reveal a small blue frog on his glove.

"This fellow is from Brazil. He has enough poison to kill 10 people. Would you like to try it out?" J said as he brought the frog closer to my father.

My father swallowed and backed up a bit, but J just stepped closer.

"Let me remind you to look up at the ceiling. Surrender yet?"

The king looked up at the ceiling again.

"I can't let a scoundrel like you take the kingdom all for yourself!" Grey stood up shouted.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Well aren't you a righteous one? I suppose you are the heir to the throne after all. We're just a bit alike, wanting this kingdom all for ourselves... as you said." J drawled.

"At least I'd be a better ruler than you, you mangy scum!" Grey stumbled to find a sufficient insult.

"Oh really? Well, I think we won't be finding out either way." J declared.

One of the guards finally manned up and slashed at one of the snakes, killing it, but the other one leapt onto his arm and bit into his neck. The guard started choking and had breathing issues. The venom spread very quickly. He fell to the ground and started shaking. He grasped towards his neck. There was nothing they could do. His face turned blue and he was soon dead.

The other guard wasn't too sure about what to do, so he quickly backed away with his sword ready. He looked back at his fallen comrade with desperation. The snake zipped toward him faster than before and jumped at him. The guard had good reflexes and frantically slashed at the snake and succeeded at killing it, but he forgot about the snakes from above. One cobra landed on him, and his fate was the same as the other guard. The queen gasped.

"Well? It seems like you don't have any more present defence. I believe I scared away most of the servants with the rodents I had sneak in and a friend of mine took care of the other guards." J smirked at his victory.

The king grimaced. Grey saw his father shift a little and saw a small gleam of light flashing toward him. He was quite clever to stow a knife into his clothes, but it was only a dull kitchen knife at that.

The royal family was taught slight self-defence to try and defend themselves against enemies in an emergency, but Grey only knew how to fence, and he wasn't the best in the castle... The king was particularly good at slaying foes with an axe, but he didn't have much experience with daggers or knives. The queen was a good shot with a bow, but she wasn't armed during dinner.

"So what's your decision?" J advanced closer towards the king.

"You know what my favourite motto is?" The king stalled.

"I don't care?" J said sarcastically.

The king lunged toward J and shouted, "It's give me liberty or give me death!"

The king tried slashing sideways in a wide arc, almost like how he normally did with battleaxes. He aimed for the neck but appeared to only graze J's right cheek when J moved quickly. J had fast reflexes to be able to move to the side and grab the king's dagger, but he dropped his glass of wine in the process. He turned and twisted the king's arm that was holding the knife. Grey was too far away to do anything about this scene.

"I guess you chose death." J smiled bitterly as he stabbed through the king's stomach.

"I'm sorry I couldn't do much..." The king wheezed as he coughed out blood.

The king looked at Grey and his wife. J let him drop to the ground. His breaths were getting heavier and shorter. Blood stained the wooden floor. Grey rushed over.

"Father!" Grey shouted.

"Harold!" The queen exclaimed.

Tears welled in Grey's eyes and the queen already had tears coming out. She looked at her son.

"Grey! Run! Grab your horse and go! I'll manage on my own!" She shouted.

"But... father... and you..."

"No buts! Hurry!" She shouted.

Grey quickly hurried to the kitchen door, thinking that J might get lost in all doorways if he were to give chase. Grey stuck to the walls of the room in case snakes might've jumped at him. J didn't seem to make any move and let him go. J knew that he had to deal with the mother first.

"Grey! I love you, son!" The queen cried.

"I love you too, mother," Grey mumbled under his breath as he rushed through the kitchen doors.

Many tears dropped onto the ground that day.