Responses
There was ZERO character growth in this, except maybe Heide learned his lesson and hopefully went off to have a large, happy family. Hell, maybe one of his kids will be talented enough to kill Albert... and the sooner, the better. Maybe a genius mage at the age of 8 or 10 or something.
I can't figure out what else the motive would be for purposely trashing a decent story 15-20 chapters in. The thing with the red shoes near the end was so random... and the last scene just makes me wish that Michael would stab the king in the neck and watch him bleed out. That's the only thing that could make this satisfying at this point. The way it is written, it leaves both characters looking extremely flawed - the king is morally weak and Michael is spiritually so.