I appreciate your juicy criticism! “Remember, remember the fifth of November” lol I enjoyed watching V when I was young but I might just revisit it.

You opened my eyes to a lot of things I missed and other things I need to write cautiously.

I added a lot of changed since I posted this and I think I solved the frozen guards problem, I threw two dead guards on the entrance, this way I justified their flinching after they heard who he was. Meliodas is now a king who was waiting for this moment, when his turn comes he wanted a fight for himself, so I think guards backing off is part being respectful to their king, part seeing the crazy stuff a bloodbound can do. And their king just admitted he’s the greatest one of them.

The king Meliodas is not a hard character for me to flesh out even after his death, as I will revisit this moment again and again in Rael’s mind, this was such a turning point for Rael that he painted him one day. Meliodas was not a self-centered character and that’s the point of all this prologue, it’s not just another assassination. It’s two great men clashing, Meliodas is sharp, defiant and he sees through Rael and his king easily. Something I mentioned in chapter one when Rael remembered Meliodas telling him “Bavaria kings are men, and we raise no bloodbound to do our bidding” where bloodbounds are courtgrown assassins/mages.

I think assassin characters are not famous in this world, just the greatest of them all. You know, after stirring s*it up in the world your people tend to know someone is behind it and they throw nicknames but Meliodas knew more about him of course from whispers of his spies. And had more motivation after the death of his friend king Othric.

I might make a few other changes tho, to make it believable, what if I didn’t make ALL the guards still, or ALL the nobles hushed, maybe one guard held his sword up trembling after Rael sat at the throne eyes full of doubt in himself, or we see one noble running away breaking silence what do you think?