Chapter 562: First Round
Soon the time for entering the Palace of Inheritance has come.
The day before the entrance, Sam along with Arman, Arkiv, and Noah entered the Imperial Palace from there the Emperor sneaked them out of the city and took them to the Imperial hunting grounds.
There is a residence within the grounds and it is just a large stone building without many facilities. They stayed there for the night and the next morning, the three candidates were escorted by an Imperial Prince, who is also the brother of the Emperor to the residence.
After dropping them, he didn't stay there and left. The Emperor then introduced the four of them to the three, but the introductions are short and only names were told.
The three candidates are all looking at him with a serious expression. Because they are thinking they came through the backdoor. But they didn't dare voice those thoughts out. At least they knew that since the Emperor has no intention of speaking up and kept mum, then the situation is not something they could draw conclusions on.
The prince however was pissed because they are all humans.
Maybe, he didn't inherit all of his father's qualities, but what he doesn't know is that all four of them could beat his ass like beating a child if he really tried anything funny. After a few minutes they entered the Palace of inheritance and the first thing they encountered is another Avatar.
This time, it is not Sanchez. The hall looked the same though.
And the basic introduction for the rules of the Palace of inheritance was next.
He clearly mentioned one thing though, that is everyone is responsible for their own lives. In the previous Palace of inheritance, it was the challenge of The Monkey King and he was kind enough to create a place that would save the lives of the people as long as they are breathing.
The whole woods are enchanted and all the trees are providing wood elemental healing. But this time it is not guaranteed at all.
"You can pick a room and go in."
For some reason as if they knew how many people are coming in, there are seven doors. But the players knew better than that.
Nothing in the Palace is something to be surprised about. They have seen too much in the past two visits.
Sam entered a room and inside there is a large and wide-open field without anything present. There is only a large field without even a single blade of grass. All he could see is the brown soil all over the place.
All of a sudden, a human silhouette appeared in front of him with a spear in his hand. His whole body is emitting a thick commanding aura. It will create a sense of obedience in any normal person that experienced it.
Sam looked at him as he observed. He could faintly guess who this guy is, but he didn't speak.
"I am Karthikeya, the Heavenly God of War. This time, a total of twenty-two members appeared. You will be competing against each other until only three of you are left. That means all of you will be participating in three clashes, except for one person, who will be the lucky guy to directly enter the top-6 after the first round.
He will escape the second round and directly participate in the third round and that person will be selected by your performance in the first round.
As for what you are going to compete in, it is the art of war. You will be thrown into different scenarios with the role of commanders of the two opposing parties and you have to use your troops to fight against your enemy's troops to achieve your objective.
The scenarios and the objectives will be explained after your opponents are allocated. Every man who lost or won will definitely be able to get some reward, but that would only be given to you at the end of the Palace of inheritance.
There is no fixed time limit for this Palace of Inheritance, so after the finals are done and the winner is decided you will be let go.
I wish you luck."
With that Kartikeya's silhouette disappeared into thin air.
Sam felt a bright light cover his vision and envelope his hole before the whole space distorted around and before he knew it, Sam found himself inside a room. He was covered in thick fur clothing. They seemed to be made of bear hide. He sat at the head of a long table and on both sides, there are many people standing.
There is a large leather map on the table showing the image of a castle and there are some wooden pegs in different shapes placed around the castle.
There is a fireplace burning behind him all the people standing seemed to have paused in their actions like a video.
New information appeared in Sam's head along with a voice.
"You are a human commander, who is in charge of the safety of the castle. The castle is under siege on all four sides. The main objective is to protect the queen who is in the castle along with the prince. The king has gone to war and some of the enemies, sent some forces to siege the castle here. All the citizens are hauled into the castle walls.
You are outnumbered by four times and there are not many provisions in the castle that could sustain the people inside for many days. The maximum time all of them can survive is five days. You have finished the operation in the five days."
Along with that, there is a lot of other information on the castle dimensions, positions, and climatic conditions. Apparently, this is winter and the cold outside is unbearable.
There is a lot of snow piling up on the castle walls, corridors, and all over the place.
The main information Sam focused on is that he and his troops, no one has any form of spiritual energy. They all normal humans. After digesting all the information, the actions of the whole room resumed and the people who are standing slowly sat down after Sam greeted them.
Sam once again heard all their reports regarding the enemy forces and their current conditions before saying.
"Guard the walls for now and stop all the attempts of the people who are trying to climb them up. As for the streams, they are already frozen, there is no way they could come in, so don't worry about it.
For now, send guards to keep order inside the castle and distribute the food resources properly. There should be no unrest. If the people starve, they would find ways out of the situation, and surrendering to the enemy is the best one out of all.
Make sure that the Queen and the Prince are in their chambers and send two maids to stay in that same room. They are not allowed to come out and go in. The food shall be sent directly by the soldiers. And only on my orders. No one should have any contact with the Queen or Prince.
How is the temperature outside?"
"Sir, the temperature is freezing cold. The soldiers don't even dare to drink water outside."
Sam nodded and went into deep thought.
"How close are the enemies to the walls?"
"They are not very far sir, they trying their best to climb the walls since the archers are little use to them. Our defenses are strong, but from what saw they are clearly trying their best to deplete our provisions. We learned that the last spy we caught already sent the message before we could kill him."
"Then let us give them a nice surprise."
Sam doesn't know the time limit and doesn't care at all. As soon as he found out there is a lot of snow, he knew that he will win. Most people might not think dirty as he does, but winning is winning no matter what.
One must not care too much about pride when the matter of life and death are decided. Anyway, they outnumbered them by too much, to begin with.
Sam ordered to start a fire in many places of the castle and all the commoners who came in were given a task, that is shovel snow into the wooden barrel and place it on the fire to create water.
Sam surely shouldn't use any drinking water such an operation. In this winter, that is also an important provision. So, he can only make do with the snow.
When the soldier heard that command, they were puzzled. But not for too long.
When they collected barrels of hot water, they understood soon.
The barrels are not too big, so a soldier can carry one directly, he quickly ran up to the castle walls and poured the boiling hot water directly on the soldier that are trying to climb the walls.
If the water is at room temperature, then it will definitely freeze before reaching the enemies and it would be no more different than hitting them with ice.
But now, the situation is different, as long as the water fell on them, that is enough.
Then only Sam noticed that there are catapults on the castle wall and he couldn't help but smirk.
He ordered the soldiers to use the catapults to throw the hot water-filled barrels through the catapults.
And just like that the enemy soldiers who are close to the castle are all experiencing hot water rain.
When the water fell on them, they didn't feel anything. The water is not boiling hot by the time it reached them, it is warm and they even felt good, but what followed next is something they didn't expect at all.