Kingdom Bloodline

Chapter 332 Headquarters
Somewhere in Dragon Sky City.

This is a dimly lit passageway.

Only a single, ever-burning lamp barely illuminated the two mottled, ancient earthen walls that looked as if they were about to collapse at any moment.

A boy sat silently by the ever-burning lamp, examining a dagger in his hand.

The narrow passage, barely wide enough for two people to pass through, was like a gap between two walls. The muddy ground was covered in dust, and it looked like no one had been there for a long time.

This is a hidden underground passage beneath the cellar of the card room.

It's amazing that they were able to fix it.

The boy thought to himself.

But why didn't the Grand Duke's guards, who were in charge of searching and clearing the area, discover this place when I come here to play chess every month?

Moreover... when this place was chosen, Nikolai must have already investigated its background, right?

Ta, tap, tap...

I heard footsteps nearby.

The boy stopped what he was doing, slowly sheathed the dagger, and then fastened it back onto his belt.

A line of words on the sheath flashed by in the flickering lamplight:

A true king does not prioritize bloodline.

Ta, tap, tap...

The footsteps are getting closer.

Thales sighed and turned to look at the other end of the dimly lit passage.

It was completely dark there, far from any light.

As the footsteps stopped, a figure appeared and disappeared in the darkness.

"You should rest well, Your Highness, and recover your strength," the visitor said calmly, his voice light. "There's still a while to go."

The young prince snorted.

He stood up silently and brushed the dust off his clothes: "This is not what we agreed on."

Thales looked at the newcomer's familiar face and those distinctive dark red eyes, and said coldly:
"Raphael Lindbergh".

As Thales spoke, Raphael, a secret agent of the Kingdom who had not been seen for six years, stepped out of the dark passage and revealed his full figure in front of the ever-burning lamp.

Thales scrutinized Raphael closely.

Six years seemed to have brought little hardship to this skeletal man who lived in darkness.

He was still dressed in a white robe, his figure elegant and his demeanor composed. Only when he saw the flickering lights did he unconsciously furrow his brow slightly.

"really."

"So this is not the perfect escape we imagined, and it is even extremely risky."

Raphael's dark red eyes swept over Thales, who had now grown into a young boy, his expression calm: "But Your Highness, whose fault do you think this is?"

Thales' expression changed: "Whose fault is it?"

"Don't play dumb, Raphael, you know what I'm talking about."

"Five thousand cavalrymen advanced from the Great Desert to Qiyuan City to support the Free Alliance," the prince said in a voice as cold as ice, "which gave the people of the North quite a surprise, didn't it?"

"And do you know how many people told me in advance, told their hostage prince about this?"

Raphael raised an eyebrow.

Thales smirked, brandishing his finger in the air as he mockingly pointed to a number, uttering each word slowly and deliberately: "Zero."

"Zero! Not a single one!"

He said coldly, "These are dozens of burly northern men with dull minds and ferocious faces, all telling me this!"

Raphael looked thoughtfully at the sky above.

Five thousand cavalry?

He stirred slightly: "Is this the information from the Northerners?"

The Secretians' indifferent attitude infuriated Thales.

"What, are you going to tell me that those cavalrymen and the cross and star flag that almost killed me were fake, that someone else was impersonating them?"

The prince shrugged and grumbled, "And the kingdom didn't send any troops at all?"

In the flickering lamplight, Raphael glanced at him silently a few times before letting out a soft sigh.

“Those troops are indeed real; they were also sent out by Starry Sky.”

"But the number of cavalrymen heading west from the Western Wilderness, from the Blade Fang camp, is at most one or two thousand."

"As for the rest, they're probably just infantry or a decoy," Raphael laughed.

"Five thousand cavalry? Ha, that would cost enough to drain half the kingdom dry."

The Bone Man shrugged; his sleeves were still very tight, covering his wrists completely.

This reminded Thales of the brand on the other person's wrist and that strange thing.

but……

Thales looked at Raphael's smile and straightened his face.

He is laughing.

He didn't care at all.

Thales stared at himself and told himself this.

The prince's displeasure slowly rose.

"That's not the point, and it's not funny either."

Thales narrowed his eyes, raised a finger, and his tone grew increasingly harsh: "You know, as the target of their venting, I was almost torn to shreds by the enraged Northerners in the Hall of Heroes—"

In the dim light, Raphael shook his head with a half-smile: "They won't do that..."

But Thales completely ignored his interruption, and continued, his fingers trembling as he suppressed his anger: "—Or be taken hostage to Qiyuan City, tied up in front of the two armies, and forced to retreat by Xingchen?"

The prince's final voice was a little loud, quite jarring in the narrow passage.

Raphael stared intently at the prince, his expression slowly hardening.

"Your Highness, everything we've done is to safely rescue you and bring you back to your country..."

“Yes, the method is to have the Northmen hang me first, and then you can come and collect my body,” Thales sneered, his words dripping with sarcasm. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Raphael's expression changed.

"Please believe me, the Secret Service has its own appropriate methods and arrangements," his tone gradually became serious, "but I can say with certainty that it will definitely not be the crude, direct, and desperate methods we are using now."

The secret agent said coldly, "As I just said: Your Highness, whose fault do you think this is?"

Thales completely ignored the other party's question and sneered repeatedly:

"'Appropriate means and arrangements'? How exciting, just like Dragon Blood six years ago, isn't it?"

Raphael paused slightly upon hearing the long-unheard codename for the operation.

The prince leaned against the wall, turned his head to the side, and snorted angrily, "Damn the Kingdom's Secret Service."

Raphael remained silent for a long time.

He took a breath and slowly opened his mouth:
"You are accusing us of concealing information, Your Highness. You believe this accident is the fault of the Secret Service."

Thales scoffed softly.

“But on the other hand,” a strange glint flashed in Raphael’s red eyes, “you…”

"Is it really that completely unreserved?"

Thales paused for a moment, then slowly turned his head.

Raphael stared at him with a chilling gaze.

"Until noon today, we thought everything was going well... until the news came that we knew what you and Lumba had been up to in the palace."

Raphael's voice also carried a sharp accusatory tone: "Until I received news of your departure from the palace."

"Caught off guard, we had no choice but to take emergency action and adopt the worst-case scenario plan: a risky rescue operation!"

Thales did not speak.

Raphael took a small step forward, his gaze sharp.

"For more than two months, from the moment you boarded the carriage to Black Sand Territory, you knew that Lumba had been lurking in the city, and you even secretly made a deal with him to interfere in the internal affairs of Dragonsky City and Exter, until you were finally transferred to Black Sand Territory."

Thales felt a chill run down his spine, sensing something was wrong.

The Bone Man said calmly:
"Regarding these matters, regarding your conspiracy with Lumba, and the reasons why you were forced to cooperate with him, Your Highness..."

"And how much more have you told us?"

Looking into Raphael's eyes, Thales suddenly felt a pang of fear.

Damn.

Yes, my secret meeting with Rumba, the schemes of that little devil, all of these things, including the Grand Duchess's identity...

How could I possibly tell you?

Thales took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled.

He forced himself to calm down: "My affair with Black Sand Territory was an accident."

Raphael's brow furrowed: "An unexpected surprise?"

Thales pouted and nodded irritably:
"Yes, your accident happened first, which led to my accident! Okay?"

“If it weren’t for the five thousand—no, two thousand cavalrymen you brought, which caused the situation to take such a sharp turn for the worse, the Grand Duchess wouldn’t have been forced into a corner, and I wouldn’t have been forced to ask Lumba for help!”

The prince snorted and tried to change the subject.

No.

He said it silently to himself.

He knows.

To be precise, Thales had prepared a contingency plan long ago: their plan with Ian in the Hall of Heroes might encounter unexpected problems and fail.

For the sake of the cunning little devil, Rumba was the trump card he had to reveal when he was desperate. And once this trump card was revealed, Miko would definitely find out.

The secret service will not stand idly by; they will definitely take action.

Thales patted the belongings he had already packed in his arms and sighed inwardly: he had long been prepared for the Secret Service's rescue.

This time, Raphael stared at him for a long time.

As if they were about to discover some secret.

Thales just turned his head away angrily, behaving like a sulking teenager.

Finally, Raphael withdrew his scrutinizing gaze.

Raphael said calmly, "Then perhaps you shouldn't have gotten so deeply involved in the politics of Dragon Sky City?"

He looked at the prince with a different expression, quite disdainfully: "Even if you and the Grand Duchess have some unspeakable relationship, Your Highness, you womanizer."

Thales was taken aback for a moment, then stammered, "I, I and the Grand Duchess..."

But in his anger and embarrassment, he quickly came up with a clever way to retaliate by changing the subject: "A womanizer?"

"Hey, I wasn't the one who kissed Miss Aarond in public for a minute in Valhalla six years ago!"

Raphael's expression changed.

He frowned and coughed, shaking off some dust from his head.

The two were quiet for a while.

Thales breathed silently, hoping this would drown out the other person's questions.

"Anyway."

Raphael sighed, not without irony, "If only you had a little more mercy, had just spoken up, and told us lowly servants who have been running ourselves ragged in the secret service about Rumba beforehand..."

"Maybe we could have reacted sooner and things wouldn't have turned out so badly?"

Thales raised his eyebrows, spread his arms, and gave him a look that said, "I have nothing to say to you."

“Very well,” the prince made a stop gesture, and said in a self-deprecating tone, “I understand, this will not lead to anything.”

"Discussion concluded. That concludes the discussion."

He turned around, leaned against the wall, shook his head, and crossed his arms.

Raphael said nothing.

Until Thales broke the silence again:
"Hey, that black-robed guy with dual swords."

“When I fled into the card room, I saw him surrounded by the guards,” the prince said silently without turning his head, “Is he alright?”

No.

Thales thought to himself: The former White Blade Guards under Nicolai are not to be trifled with.

That person, in order to create an opportunity for himself to secretly escape to the underground of the card room, has probably already...

Raphael frowned slightly but remained silent.

Raphael scoffed when Thales looked at him impatiently, "You didn't recognize him?"

Thales was taken aback: "Who? That guy in the black robe?"

Raphael squinted and grinned: "Very good, if even you didn't recognize his disguise..."

"Don't worry, he'll be safe."

Thales paused slightly.

camouflage?

so……

Is that man in black robes someone I know?

Could it be...

Thales shook his head, erasing the masked figure from his mind: Impossible, that tall, thin man in black robes, wielding two rapiers, couldn't be him.

At that moment, Thales suddenly remembered something and looked up: "The attack on the inn where Lumba was—was that also your way of diverting attention?"

At this point, Raphael's expression turned cold.

“Yes, an impossible suicide attack,” his voice was somewhat subdued, “We’ve considered any means to reduce your security detail.”

Telston stayed.

The lamplight flickered, elongating the two figures' shadows on the wall.

After a long pause, the prince exhaled: "How many casualties?"

Raphael shook his head and said nothing.

Thales's face also turned cold.

Silence returned to the passageway.

"I'm sorry," the prince finally managed to say after a long pause.

Raphael closed his eyes and shook his head.

“They all know what they have to do,” the Secret Service member said somberly. “For this operation, Secret Service even abandoned its headquarters in Dragon City and sacrificed most of its intelligence network.”

Thales asked in confusion, "Headquarters?"

Raphael nodded and tapped the irregular earthen wall beside him with his finger: "This is it."

Thales was stunned.

He looked around, surveying the dimly lit passageway.

Wang Ziqi asked, "But this place... isn't this the basement of that mahjong parlor in the Mao District that I come to every month?"

In response, Raphael nodded in deep agreement, his expression returning to its usual calm and composed state.

“Wait, you mean,” Thales stared incredulously, looking around, “that chess room right above us, the place I come to play chess every month, is the Dragon Sky City headquarters of the Kingdom’s Secret Service?”

"Right in the Spear Quarter? Just a few steps from Valhalla?"

Raphael smiled.

He knocked again on the dilapidated mud wall beside him:
"You don't think the owner of the card room just happened to be bored and built this tunnel in the cellar, do you?"

"You don't also think that after you made your request to Dragoncity and the Grand Duchess approved it, the official from the Order Department in charge of site selection just happened to report this newly opened card room to Lisban, do you?"

Thales stared blankly at Raphael: "So..."

Raphael's eyes gleamed, and he nodded firmly: "Yes, the safest place is right under the enemy's nose."

"For example, the 'Dragon Blood' operation six years ago, from the start of the operation to the rest, decision-making, planning, and even the final allocation of manpower and intelligence, the forgery of Rumba's order, entering the city gate occupied by the enemy, rescuing a certain unlucky prince who acted on his own initiative, and arranging the evacuation, all of these were made and prepared here."

Raphael glanced at him meaningfully, then shook his head with a soft hum.

Thales ignored the other person's words about "a certain unlucky prince" and silently looked around: mottled earthen walls, dark passages, and a lonely, ever-burning lamp.

It turned out to be the case.

So all the secret messages I sent to the Secret Service over the past six years were sent from here...

"But Nikolai must have searched this place thoroughly, right? And he found nothing?"

The prince frowned and said, "Even when I come here every month, the guards turn the place upside down. How could they have missed this tunnel?"

Raphael smiled again.

"This wasn't a card and chess room before."

"This place, as the headquarters of the Secret Service in Dragon City, has a history of supporting countless intelligence operations and sheltering countless spies in the underground war between stars and dragons for more than 160 years."

Thales was slightly surprised.

At this point, the skeletal figure from the Secret Department seemed to have a lot of feelings: "During this period, no matter how big the operation was, this place was never disturbed lightly, and it was never exposed."

"If the Meteorites really want to find out anything, they would have to look up the reconstruction records of the Spear District of Dragon Sky City from more than a hundred years ago—the construction was undertaken by an architect from the Duchy of Anlenzo, who married a cousin of the Star People. Of course, the records were accidentally lost many years ago."

"As for why they couldn't find the tunnel—we're in the last escape route, dug decades ago, with just the final layer of soil left unexcavated," Raphael brought his thoughts back to the present, his eyes narrowing:
"This morning, when we learned that there had been an accident in the palace, I decided to break through it."

"really……"

Raphael paused, then fell silent.

The headquarters, which hasn't been disturbed for over a hundred years...

Thales watched him silently, his heart filled with sorrow.

He frowned and asked, "So, this 'headquarters' is... a vast network of interconnected roads?"

Raphael chuckled softly.

The Bone Man looked at the Second Prince with disdain and scoffed, "What, you think tunnels are so easy to dig, and that all the Grand Dukes of Dragon Sky City, all the heads of the Dark Chamber, including the current Meteorite and his men, are fools?"

"Back then, to avoid arousing suspicion, this tunnel was dug intermittently for several years, and it was almost discovered several times..."

“Otherwise, we’d like to connect it to the secret passage inside the city gate, so we could even sneak into Valhalla and assassinate a Grand Duke or something…”

Thales took a breath and chuckled.

Raphael snorted.

But then he shook his head and sighed deeply:

"However, because of this operation, this place—the headquarters—must be decommissioned."

Thales' eyes flickered: Retire?
Raphael seemed to understand his gaze and said calmly:
“You disappeared nearby. Although no one will find out for the time being, the Meteorite and his former White Blade Guard will come back to investigate sooner or later until they discover the strangeness of this place. Not to mention the Dark Chamber and other forces that have come after hearing the news. If these people put aside their own struggles for your sake, it won’t be long before they find out the truth.”

"The headquarters will be exposed sooner or later."

Thales frowned.

“If headquarters is to retire, then those who retire with it will also include all the people, things, channels, and places that have been connected to headquarters for over a hundred years—almost everything in the Secret Service here,” Raphael said, his eyes dim and his voice hoarse.
"Without a doubt, Longxiao City will undergo another round of purges after this incident."

"And the Dragon Sky City headquarters, which has been established for 160 years, and everything that the Kingdom's Secret Service has been doing here for over a hundred years, will probably all vanish into thin air."

Raphael gave a soft, ambiguous snort: "Just because of this hasty and foolish plan."

"To save you."

Listening to what the other person said, Thales silently lowered his head, unable to say a word.

P.S. To reiterate, the original VIP group was disbanded by a fan who stopped following the book (don't ask me why he was the group owner with the authority to disband the group). The new VIP group number is here: 680117692
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(End of this chapter)