Kingdom Bloodline

Chapter 414 Where is he?

In the dark cell, facing questioning from Barney and Belletti, Samir looked ashen-faced, as if he had suffered a severe blow.

Seeing this scene of fraternal betrayal, Thales suddenly had a deeper and more profound understanding of the Royal Guard and the Bloody Year.

Regardless of who betrayed them or what the truth is, it seems that the problems within the Star Royal Guard itself are undeniable, especially considering the harrowing assassination attempt at the Restoration Palace.

But that's not the point.

Betrayal is far more than just a clash of interests or a falling out between close friends. Beneath the most superficial and obvious triggers often lies a deeper truth.

In the North, Rumba's rebellion stemmed from the fierce backlash after the natural king's dominance over Exter; the swaying of the Dark Chamber was, in fact, a rational choice made after the decline of Exter's royal power; and the betrayal of the Dead Raven was rooted in the lingering poison of King Nunn's manipulative tactics of the past.

In Starfall, the Northern Duke's plot to usurp the throne revolves around the power struggle between the Starfall Royal Family and the Arend family over Dragonslayer Fortress and Starfall North. The collective conspiracy of the 'new star' noble faction, including Kevindir and Southrest, reflects their expectations and ambitions regarding the distribution of power in the country.

Even before Thales' eyes, wasn't this chaotic Baki Camp, which facilitated the infiltration of foreign enemies and led him into a predicament, also a complex and ever-changing arena of competition and cooperation between Baron Baki and the Duke of the Western Wilderness, the standing army and the conscripts, the royal family of Shining Star and the nobles of the Western Wilderness, Eternal Star City and the Wasteland, and the central kingdom and the western frontier, when facing the great enemy of the desert?

So, what about the bloody year?

Thinking about this, Thales suddenly realized that the apparent division within the royal guard was not an isolated case, nor was it the main cause; it was merely a reflection of the greatest contradiction of that era.

In the turbulent waves of that era, even if these poor people always held onto their principles, they could only drift with the tide, powerless to change their fate.

Even the most skilled masters.

Even a king of a country.

Even... a mage.

There was a long silence in the cell.

Until Ricky's cold laugh rang out.

Just as I thought.

Little Barney, consumed by resentment and bitterness, and Samir, lost in sorrow and despair, both turned their gazes toward each other.

The leader of the Sword of Calamity slowly stepped forward and stood side by side with Samir.

"Do you understand now, Samir?"

As Ricky spoke, he suddenly raised a torch, illuminating the brand on the latter's face.

A dejected look on Samir's face, startled by the firelight, caused him to instinctively raise his hand to shield his eyes and take a few steps back.

"No matter how much you want to go back to the beginning, how much you want to undo past regrets, or heal past wounds."

Ricky said expressionlessly, "No matter how much you want to get rid of that ugly brand on your face."

Samir awkwardly lowered his hand, straightened up again, his face contorted with struggle, and gasped for breath.

Ricky sneered, abruptly pulled back the torch, and turned to illuminate the other side of the cell.

"But that is the answer."

The prisoners behind the fence were also scrambling to avoid the firelight that Ricky was deliberately bringing closer to, but only Barney, who was breathing heavily, stood still, merely turning his face to the side without moving an inch.

Looking at the several ragged, pitiful prisoners, Ricky clicked his tongue and shook his head: "This is the answer the past and yesterday have to you."

Samir didn't speak; he just stared blankly at his former, spirited colleagues in the prison, now filthy and disheveled.

The past and yesterday.

He said silently in his heart.

"and who are you?"

Barney looked at Ricky with disdain:

"Also a member of the Shadow Shield, one of those disgusting scum?"

Ricky stared intently at Barney, as if trying to discern something from him, but after a few seconds, he simply smiled and shook his head.

“He can’t make that vow,” Ricky said, slowly lowering his torch, which made his weathered face shine even brighter. He gestured with his chin toward Samir:

"Because just an hour ago, he joined us in kidnapping King Kessel's only son."

"The last bloodline of the Shining Star."

Upon hearing this, Thales' breath caught in his throat!
Sure enough, the prisoners in the royal guard all changed their expressions.

"Wha-what?"

Barney spoke slowly, his tone revealing his confusion.

"Brilliant Star?"

Thales immediately felt several gazes emerge from the darkness behind the cell and fall upon him simultaneously.

Marina, who was in charge of looking after the prince, felt an inexplicable pressure and caused the surrounding swords of calamity to surround Thales even more tightly.

“You mean… a kidnapping?” Belletti’s voice trembled slightly.

"When did this happen?" Naki, who had been humming a tune, was now up from the ground, looking on incredulously.
"The new king has another son, a new heir?"

Outside the cell, Samir remained silent, his face grim.

"Kidnapping the prince? You? Samir, is what he said true?" Nai stared wide-eyed, his cheeks twitching, looking out of the cell with a somewhat nervous expression.

"That boy with the gloomy face, is that the current Canxing?"

"Hahaha, how amusing," Tardin, who had just finished a fight with his roommate and was now black and blue, looked at Samir in front of him, then at Thales in the distance, his laughter growing increasingly desolate and sarcastic.
"This is getting more and more interesting, hahaha..."

Outside the cell, Samir hung his head dejectedly and gently closed his eyes.

Seeing their different reactions and enduring their gazes cast from the darkness, Thales was stunned.

Barney Jr., Belletti, Nai, Tardin, Brie, Naki, Cannon.

The former royal guards had complex expressions in their eyes, and the prince couldn't quite discern their feelings at that moment.

Is it a stunned silence, a sigh of regret, a pang of sorrow, or an excitement and a sense of dejection?
Thales didn't know.

He felt that these people, the former royal guards, were staring intently at him.

It was as if they were looking back at the past.

Looking back on the past.

Ricky, who had just revealed the truth, looked at Samir beside him and frowned slightly when he saw that Samir was still looking lost and dejected.

The silence and astonishment, both inside and outside the cell, lasted only a short time.

"So you really can't make an oath, right?"

Naki sat back down on the ground, his expression calm, his voice carrying a hint of relief: "Samir, I really wish you knew what you were doing."

"Whether it was then or now."

"real."

Samir's expression shifted, and he raised his head with a glimmer of hope, as if seeking solace and understanding:

“Naki…”

But Naki shook his head:

"Don't talk to me, go find Barney. The highest-ranking person makes the decisions."

Samir paused, then closed his mouth in disappointment and looked at the vanguard officer, Quill Barney Jr.

The initial shock in Barney's eyes was slowly replaced by realization and indifference.

“So this is the answer,” the vanguard officer said, staring at the dejected Samir with a complex expression.

"Regardless of whether you betrayed us back then... after all these years, you have still become a traitor."

At that moment, Samir's expression froze.

"So what's this?" Barney sneered, leaning against the wall and no longer looking at his former companion.

"Giving up on yourself?"

Samir took a deep breath, moved his lips, but ultimately couldn't say anything.

Ricky, who was observing this scene with a detached eye, smiled slightly.

"How is it, Samir?"

Ricky gently dropped the torch, letting it roll on the dusty ground.

“Tell them this,” Ricky whispered.

"Then defend yourself a bit, tell them you're not a traitor, tell them you're still the same good brother you were back then."

His tone carried a hint of sarcasm.

Does this make you feel better?

Samir stared silently at the torch at his feet, watching the flames tremble on the ground.

“I have fulfilled my promise, giving you the opportunity to confront the shadows of the past,” Ricky said, looking again at the five cells before him, his gaze coldly fixed on the seven former members of the royal guard.
"But the question is, Samir, is this really the 'reunion' you envisioned?"

Samir's chest began to rise and fall.

The firelight reflected in his pupils, faint and dim, like the last glimmer of light in the darkness.

His dark silhouette was projected onto the wall by the torches on the ground, swaying back and forth, flickering erratically.

Ricky stepped forward and sneered, "How about it? Isn't it full of flowers and excitement, beauty and hope, forgiveness and understanding?"

Listening to Ricky's sharp and probing questions, Thales felt quite uncomfortable.

“Now, Samir,” Ricky said coldly, repeating the question he had just asked:
"Do you understand it?"

Samir stared blankly at the flickering firelight, seemingly unaware of anything.

“I can see that now, you’re not Shadow Shield, buddy,” Tardin sneered from inside the cell. “You sound more like a brainwashed cultist.”

Cultists?
Ricky was taken aback at first, then unexpectedly smiled.

He did not respond to Tardin's sarcasm, but continued to look at Samir.

"The past is gone, yesterday is gone, 'everything as it was' is just a dream, an escape." "Because you can never go back to the past, whether it's the people or the events of the past."

Ricky said meaningfully, "Many times, you won't find the answer by going back to the beginning."

"Or, the answer you find will only make you more desperate."

The torch on the ground continued to struggle, but grew dimmer and dimmer, and Samir's face became increasingly blurry.

Including that ugly brand.

“We must forge a new path, a new future,” Ricky sighed.

"Only then can we transcend that terrible past."

Samir listened intently to Ricky's words, the flame in his pupils growing smaller and dimmer.

"But that's life."

Ricky raised his head, looked at the stone pillar in the center of the hall, and stared at the eye-like emblem with a slightly unfocused expression.

"You can't save anything but yourself."

"You can't control anything except the future."

The torch beneath Samir's feet finally went out the next second.

Leave Samir's motionless face and pupils, along with his bewildered and sorrowful expression, in the deep darkness.

Never to be seen again.

“You’re dressed like mercenaries,” Naki sighed, brightening the dim light in their cell. “But no mercenary has the guts and the means to storm into the Black Prison—did something terrible happen at Baki’s camp that made them let their guard down and let a bunch of weirdos like you in?”

Ricky scoffed lightly, without replying.

The astute little Barney quickly realized:

"What, is there another war up there, so the main forces are all out? Who is it this time? The eight orc tribes, or the three tribes of the Wild Bone? Or perhaps the Northerners, or even a civil war?"

No one answered them.

A few seconds later, Samir's figure slowly crouched down in the dim light, and the sound of a torch being picked up echoed in the air.

With a soft pop, the extinguished torches were relit, the stinging light causing the prisoners to flinch again.

Samir's figure reappeared in the firelight.

It's like returning from a dark hell to a bright human world.

“Little Barney,” Samir’s voice rang out softly.
“You know, when you joined the Royal Guard, many people said that you only got in because of your father’s connections.”

These words drifted out into the air, causing a brief silence in the hall.

Barney was taken aback for a moment, then took a deep breath: "You..."

But Samir suddenly looked up and said sharply, "And I am one of those people."

Barney was stunned.

He suddenly noticed that Samir no longer had that pained and remorseful expression.

Instead, there was coldness and determination.

Even the brand on his face seemed much sharper.

"Looking back now, they were right, Barney," Samir said, shaking his head with a click of his tongue, his gaze cold, as he held up his torch.

"You didn't inherit any of Barney's good qualities at all."

"The old captain was incredibly wise to abandon you and choose Belletti to succeed him as the Executioner."

Barney frowned slightly, while Belletti, sitting opposite him, turned her head to the side.

“Because after years of imprisonment, you are still a fool,” Samir said softly. Stripped of his confusion and grief, he was like a cold, hard rock, making people feel pressured: “You can’t see things clearly, and you can’t judge people well.”

"A madman who has lost his mind."

The guards and prisoners in the cell were all taken aback.

Ricky looked at Samir like this and smiled silently.

“Ridiculous,” Barney took a deep breath, his resentment and anger rising again.

"These words actually came from the mouth of a traitor."

But he soon realized that the topic of the conversation had changed.

A second later, Samir coldly uttered a number: "Thirty-seven."

Barney was momentarily distracted:
"what?"

Samir waved his torch, making the flames burn brighter and illuminating the neatly arranged skeletons in the cell: "You said that over the past eighteen years, you have given a eulogy for the deaths of thirty-seven guardsmen."

The prisoners all frowned.

Samir said expressionlessly, "Back then, forty-six people were sentenced to imprisonment in the Bone Prison."

Barney's expression suddenly tightened!
“Over the years, thirty-seven people have tragically lost their lives. You seven have survived to this day, and including me, there are only forty-five left,” Samir said unemotionally, as if recounting someone else’s story.

"One person is still missing."

Behind him, Klay and Ricky both laughed.

Thales's brow twitched.

Samir took a step forward, getting closer and closer to Barney.

"It's him, isn't it?"

"He's not here."

Samir stared coldly at Barney: "I didn't see his name on the sign."

"You came in with him, where is he?"

he?
Thales' heart began to race.

There's another person...who is it?
An unprecedented silence fell over the hall.

The prisoners' breathing became increasingly rapid.

"I understand."

Barney glared at Samir with hostility.

“You didn’t come to rescue us, nor to see old friends, did you, you coward, you traitor,” he said through gritted teeth. “As for those people outside…”

But Samir stretched out his arm, and the torch pierced through the gap in the fence, pointing directly at Barney!
"Where is he?" Samir asked coldly.

"Pah!" Little Barney spat angrily as he looked at the flames that were almost touching his face.

Samir snorted and turned to the other side.

“Bellety, you took over as clerk from him, you should know that.”

Belletti simply closed her eyes tightly and shook her head.

Samir remained expressionless and turned his head again.

"Where is he?"

He said coldly, "Bri, tell me..."

But the burly man in the cell, Brie, just kept shaking his head, his face contorted in a grimace, making muffled groans: "Ugh—"

“Don’t look at him,” Tardin, who shared a cell with Brie, said sarcastically, arms crossed.

“Bri can’t tell you.”

"After he snapped Larre's neck with his own hands, he couldn't speak anymore."

what?
Samir frowned almost imperceptibly.

The once talkative Brit...

He stared at the resentful-looking Brie for several seconds before finally looking away and no longer asking him anything.

"You know who I'm talking about!"

Samir turned around and raised his voice:
“Ever since Captain Cullen and your father died in the Bloody Year, he has been the most important person in the remaining Royal Guard.”

"Anyone among us could die, but he couldn't!"

Samir spoke coldly, seemingly no longer harboring any illusions about camaraderie.

Barney asked in confusion:
"A bloody year?"

Samir snorted angrily and looked at him disdainfully:
"Yes, that year, the bloody year—from His Majesty, the Crown Prince, and the princes, down to the nobles and commoners... that year of devastation, a year in which only blood remained."

That's what they call that year.

The prisoners paused slightly, their expressions changing in different ways.

This scene evoked a sense of melancholy in Thales' eyes.

This group of people.

They experienced the horrors of the Bloody Year firsthand, yet for a full eighteen years, they did not know what history or the outside world called that year.

Samir's voice initially carried a slight hint of melancholy, but it quickly returned to its cold tone:

"Tell me now."

"The former top guard of the royal guard, the former executioner of the guard, and the current watchman of the guard," Samir said sternly, looking uncompromisingly at the remaining seven prisoners.
“‘Knight of Punishment’ Sacel”.

"where is he?"

The next chapter is still being revised; it will be posted during the day.

Pfft, the Qidian app is so... so... well, never mind, I'll keep my mouth shut. It must be my taste as a reader that's the problem, or maybe I'm just not used to it. Yeah, that's it.

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(End of this chapter)