The Martial Unity

Chapter 1662 Hatred

Chapter 1662  Hatred

"So, you can't threaten me," Rui coldly stated. "You shouldn't have bothered with this at all."

"You seem rather impatient," Prince Rajak calmly remarked.

"Tends to happen when I get trapped in an ambush," Ruis snorted. "I assume the no-sky-walking and endless hoards of people thing was all part of the plan to lure me into the alleys?"

"Perhaps," The prince replied vaguely. "It allowed us to meet without anybody the wiser."

"Well, we've met," Rui remarked. "Now what?"

"I asked you to join me," Prince Rajak reminded Rui. "You have yet to make your choice."

"Join you…?" Rui narrowed his eyes. "You can't be serious."

The prince simply stared at Rui. "You know…out of all the seven candidates for the throne, we are the closest."

Rui raised an eyebrow. "We come from the same background," The prince revealed. Yet his eyes took on a dark luster.

"I was born and raised in an orphanage as well," Prince Rajak calmly stated. "Do you know what happened when my siblings learned of my existence?"

Rui stared at him silently.

Yet the silence was deafening.

"They…sought to kill me," Prince Rajak whispered. "They failed. It was a miracle, but I was not home that day in the orphanage. I had snuck out into a traveling merchant's carriage to go into town so I could partake in the Kandrian Martial Festival."

His eyes sharpened, and a glint of hatred flashed in his eyes. "Do you know what happened while I was gone? Do you know what I saw when I came back?"

His golden eyes hummed with unadulterated fury.

"They murdered everybody in the orphanage…" His mouth curled with rage. "They killed everybody I had grown to love in an attempt to finish off any vulnerable competition for the throne long before the Emperor fell sick."

He never once raised his voice.

Yet every word was heavy.

It weighed down on everybody who beheld it.

Rui's expression grew grave as he heard the prince narrate his tale.

"That was the day my journey in the underworld truly began," The prince whispered. "The Royal Family…almost every single one of those bastards. They're disgusting monsters in human form. It sickens me that their blood runs in my veins."

"Tell me, Rui Quarrier," His eyes bore holes into Rui's. "What good do you think will come from any of them being rulers of Kandria? What good will it come of giving those psychopaths any power over this nation? What good can possibly come from people who have been demented with power, wealth, and authority?"

"Tell me, Rui Quarrier. Will you stand and watch?"

Rui stirred.

"Stand and watch as one of them becomes ruler, tearing apart this nation in an attempt to fulfill their fantasies? You? You who has the power to help me stop them?" Rui stared at him with narrowed eyes. "And what about you? What makes you so different from them? You who has allied with Underworld? Who consorts with mafias and dons who poison people with drugs? What gives you the right to look down on them as some angel of purity?"

He peered deep into the Underworld Prince's eyes. "Standing before you here and now makes it abundantly clear to me. You have no ambition. You are driven by hatred. By revenge. Demented they may be, but they at least care about a nation that they seek to inherit. You clearly don't."

"You're goddamn right, I don't," The prince spat. "I ascend the throne. I will burn down the royal family and free this nation from its clutches. I will free this nation from their designs. Their shackles. Their authority. When I'm done, all but two members will remain."

He stared into Rui's eyes. "Myself and Raul."

"I thought everybody in the Royal Family was a disgusting monster?"

"I said 'almost' everybody," The Prince calmly retorted. "Prince Raul is indeed a good man. But he is naive. He is idealistic. A saint cannot be Emperor. An emperor cannot be a saint. That is why he is the most dangerous of them all. Out of all of us who strive to be rulers, he is the one person who cannot be allowed to ascend the throne."

"I would rather him be king than a man who allies himself with forces that accrue wealth and power from the suffering of others," Rui growled. "The Six Dons of the Underworld are filth. They are embodiments of human suffering."

Financial services.

Depraved Martial services.

Smuggling.

Depraved human goods and services.

Harmful substances supplies.

Information theft.

The six dons regulated these six pillars of the Underworld, ensuring they thrived, spreading more misery as a necessary and intended consequence.

"You don't have the right to call anyone a disgusting monster," Rui glared at him. "You're more disgusting than them all."

"I'll say this one last time," Prince Rajak narrowed his eyes. "Join me. I have the power to give you anythi-"

"Anything I want?" Rui glowered at him. "You're the sixth prince to make that offer. If that was enough, I would have joined Princess Raemina's faction a long time ago. Fuck off."

"Is that your final answer?"

"It always was."

A moment of silence rang in the air. The two men stared at each other with piercing eyes.

He turned, never once breaking eye contact. "I hope you don't come to regret this decision."

WHOOSH

Just like that, they had all disappeared. Rui's expression loured with displeasure as he considered everything the prince said to him. There was no doubt in his mind that the prince was poisoned with hatred that he couldn't even see, or worse, didn't even care about his own hypocrisy. He just wanted to exact revenge on those who had slaughtered his orphanage. The only way he was able to was the Underworld, for it was the only remaining powerhouse bloc that could allow him to compete with his most powerful siblings. The one entity that none of the other princes and princesses dared to touch.