"Hail to you as well, respected prime minister of the Luminous Empire." I dryly replied, as the grip upon my halberd slightly hardened, while my senses began working over time to detect any trap, and my muscles readied themselves for any surprise.
Something very much shared between me and my guards, but our prudence was not because we were weary of being outnumbered with our mere twenty before their thirty; in fact, many of them would've even welcomed such a challenge, because ever since they had come under my command four years ago, I had strived continuously to further their loyalty to me, so much so, that their already dogged devotion to the emperor of the Eclipse Empire had now been reinforced to such an extent that they now mimic fanatic zealots.
And in a few of them, I have even begun to notice seeds of my own madness begin to take root within them. A watered down, fleeting shadow of the tyrant that haunts me, but a mark of madness nonetheless.
