Adopted Soldier Chapter 285

Chapter 285
The Greyhound family was a family that was once the royal family of a fallen nation . Their country might have been small, but every citizen in it was an elite fighter . It was a country of warriors where even women were trained to fight . Yet it had fallen in the face of the larger more powerful country of the Granado Empire . The royal family of this long forgotten country were forced to shamefully escape from the enemy .
The first thing the Geyhounds did upon successfully escaping was to try and form an alliance with the other nations, to stop the advancing Granado Empire . That's what they tried to do, but failed horribly . The other nations at the time were at war with each other, and couldn't trust the each other to keep their word . So no one rallied to the Greyhounds call, soon after the other smaller nations surrounding the Granado Empire were defeated as well .
Seeing that facing the Granado Empire in their current state was nothing short to suicide, the Greyhounds decided to strengthen themselves . They then started doing random jobs for the different countries nearby, and they called their group Shadow Mercenaries . The Greyhounds as the Shadow Mercenaries started becoming famous for their always perfect ways of doing their job . This made the unknown group into stuff of legends, that even gave birth to the Mercenary System were the people, mostly warriors do different jobs in the battlefield for money .
Yet after years went by the legendary Shadow Mercenaries became nothing more than a fairy tale in the battlefield . They had hidden themselves very deeply, until everyone even forgot the existence of the Greyhounds . The Shadow Mercenaries fearsome name lived on as stories, while the Greyhound family that created them was lost in history .
Still no matter the generation the Greyhounds had one goal, and only one gaol in mind, the complete destruction of the Granado Empire that destroyed their country . Because of this drive for revenge the fifth generation head of the Greyhounds helped the slaves of the Granado Empire revolt .
They were expecting that the newly found Berdonia could help them take out the Granado Empire, unfortunately for them the leader of this group of revolutionists had no courage to fight the Granado Empire, instead they played a defensive battle .
The sixth generation head of the Greyhounds then tried to gaud the more aggressive younger brother of the founder of Berdonia, which proved to be quite easy to do . Yet that planned failed, as the brother was killed . After this event the Shadow Mercenaries didn't make any more significant moves, and instead tried to make their power grow, as they recruited the most powerful and talented people they could find .
The Shadow Mercenaries used these powerful individuals as studs to breed the next generation of subordinates, that was supposedly going to be more powerful than the last . Well that was the eight generation head's idea, it succeeded and at the same time failed . The offsprings produced by these individuals were indeed powerful and more talented than the last generation, but it made their egos and beliefs bigger than life . It made them relatively harder to control, which forced the Greyhounds to sometimes kill such excellent subordinates .
So when the ninth generation Greyhound became head he quickly stopped the inbreeding and simply recruited people with different ideals but have the similar end goal of destroying the Empire .
. . .
The next major significant thing the Greyhounds did was force the smaller nations of the south to form an alliance . Seeing Berdonia was slowly losing the war, and a few more decades will result in their total defeat, the Shadow Mercenaries had successfully convinced the smaller nations that the Empire would devour them as well, after they dealt with Berdonia .
Unlike before when the Greyhounds did this no one believed them, the current people knew of the Granado Empire better now . They knew that what the Shadow Mercenaries were saying was the truth, so the smaller nations of the south allied themselves with one another creating a new powerful force called the Souther Union .
With this new addition to the game, the Granado Empire grew a bit wary . It was possible that even if they won against Berdonia the equally powerful Southern Union would strike them, at their weakest . This thought made the Granado Empire slow down their advances, as they simply did some small skirmishes against Berdonia every now and then .
During this time the eleventh head of the Greyhounds had a second son called Richter . This second son of his was eight years apart from his older brother, but his talents were unbelievable . Seeing how overly talented his son was the eleventh head taught him many things at a young age .
Richter was able to easily comprehend and apply everything he had learned . He was even able to get his first kill when he was but a measly eight year old . No matter what he did Richter would always win, even in a family full of elites Richter was different . Everyone knew he was different and they treated him that way, even his own father .
The only one in the younger generation that could keep up with him and treated him normally was his elder brother Leon . This person made Richter a little less lonely, since no one in his age group wanted to be with him due to his superior abilities . Even his own father kept on saying he was different, that he was the best and near perfect representation of what a Greyhound should be .
Still because of his abundant talent Richter felt extremely lonely seeing as even his father placed him on a high pedestal, not treating him as a son but some kind of rare object . The only reason Richter didn't feel completely lonely was because of his elder brother Leon .
Leon was the back that Richter always chased after, he was the only one in the younger generation of the Greyhounds that was able to fight Richter and even win against him . This made Richter truly happy, since it was possible that his brother was the true perfect Greyhound his father was talking about .
That was what Richter thought until Leon suddenly married and had children . When this happened Leon could no longer train as heavily as before, since he had other priorities now . It was then for the first time Richter actually won against Leon . The moment he won, he looked at his older brother with both shock and fear .
After that event they had a few more battles and Richter won each one, and he would always win a bit faster than the last . This would mean he was getting farther and farther away from his older brother . At this point Richter was truly scared, he was so scared .
'Am I truly meant to be alone?' Due to his fear of loneliness at the top, where all the pressure will fall upon him, Richter decided to make the playing field even again . Richter found a suitable candidate to become his wife, and like his brother Richter gained a child .
It was then, Richter once again challenged his older brother to a battle . Surely this time with them having the same circumstances his older brother could finally win again, and stay by his side at the top and will be able to hold the weight of expectations that was currently on him .
Yet even now Richter was already too far ahead, and Leon could no longer keep up . The psychological damage this had on someone like Richter was huge . He had always thought his brother would be there for him so he wouldn't be lonely, so he wouldn't be shunned by the others; but instead because he beaten his older brother repeatedly, it made Richter looked even more monstrous to the eyes of his family . It made his life even lonelier and more heavy than before .
If that wasn't enough when his father died, he actually named Richter as the twelfth head of the family, not his older brother but him . This made all the pressure fall onto Richter, the sudden increase in pressure made him finally snap .
It was at this point in time, Richter had killed his son and daughter-in-law . He was overwhelmed by everything that was happening, he was trained to become the perfect Greyhound, but he alone couldn't fulfill the final wish of the Greyhounds . They had schemed for hundreds of years, but always failed . Richter knew he needed someone beside him, someone to carry the weight with him, another true Greyhound .
He then had a thought that maybe he could pass being the head to his older brother, and then both of them could carry the weight together, but his current older brother was not fit to be the head . It was the past Leon before he got married was the one who was truly worthy to be called a true Greyhound .
With that idea in his head Richter proceeded to kill his sister-in-law as well as his niece and nephews . They put up a fight but against Richter it proved meaningless .
'Surely now that the b*tch is gone my older brother could finally be himself again . ' This was Richter's very optimistic thought, but reality was different . Leon was still killed, and he even told Richter that he was sorry . This made Richter go even more mad, as he proceeded to kill his wife and all the unworthy Greyhounds .
If the whole family was worthless then why bother keeping them . He alone would suffice in making the final wish of Greyhounds come true .
. . .
Several years later Richter would once again meet his grandson, and much to his delight Alex proved to be someone that could be called a True Greyhound, no he was someone with the possibility of becoming the perfect Greyhound . One that would bite the neck of the Emperor of the Granado Empire . He might be the Greyhound that would finally make the Granado Empire disappear from existence .