Kingdom Bloodline

Chapter 452 Fratricide
tread, tread, tread...

Perhaps because his hearing, which had been severely damaged, had only recently recovered, the sudden sound of footsteps in the dimly lit dungeon was particularly frightening.

The royal guards, who were in poor condition, reacted quickly; everyone immediately extinguished the flames and held their breath in silence.

Pursuers?

So fast?
This was the first thought that popped into Thales' mind after being relentlessly pursued for half a month.

tread, tread, tread...

Belletti gave a subtle hand gesture, and the entire guard quietly and quickly dispersed to both sides of the passage, finding ambush positions, weapons in hand, ready for battle.

Thales was pinned behind Barney, and even the rope was pulled into a corner by Brie.

tread, tread, tread...

The footsteps grew closer, and a light gradually appeared at the corner of the passage.

The prince didn't need to hear it to know that everyone's heartbeats were gradually accelerating.

In the darkness, Belletti pointed her sword at the corner, preparing for a sudden attack.

Until the owner of the footsteps appeared from around the corner, carrying a torch.

"Cannon!"

Naki was the first to shout out in surprise.

"Alert lifted," Belletti said with a sigh of relief after recognizing the person who had arrived. She patted the nervous little Barney behind her and said gently:

"It's Kannon."

"Our rear scouts."

The guards breathed a sigh of relief, put away their weapons, and lit their torches.

It is Cannon.

Thales also relaxed a bit of his nervous and expectant feelings.

not him.

Cannon, one of the seven guard prisoners who had just come around the corner with a torch, looked at everyone's expressions and understood what was going on.

"You know, you almost scared the crap out of us!"

Naki shrugged, looking relieved to have escaped, and punched Cannon hard in the chest.

Cannon shuddered slightly and lowered his head:

"I'm sorry, my ear hasn't fully recovered yet."

Cannon pointed to his left ear, looking rather apprehensive:
"I can only control the sound of my footsteps by habit."

"And my reconnaissance skills have also deteriorated..."

Barney patted him on the shoulder, seemingly pleased.

“No, you did very well, Cannon, as always,” Barney forced a smile.
What happened next?

Upon hearing this, the guards' expressions hardened slightly.

Cannon handed the torch to Naki, his expression serious.
"He should have regained some of his vision, and perhaps his hearing as well. He treated his wounds, lit a torch, and walked along the wall, feeling his way forward. He wasn't moving fast, but..."

He paused for a moment, then glanced at everyone:
"He's heading in the right direction."

We've chosen the right direction?
Everyone's expression changed.

Thales was startled, realizing who Cannon was referring to.

“I’ve set a few traps, but I don’t think they’ll hold him off for long… Sacel knows all the tricks of the Vanguard Wing.” Cannon’s voice grew increasingly low.

The atmosphere became heavy and stiff.

Barney Jr. remained silent, seemingly deep in thought.

"Can we ambush him?" asked Belletti, frowning.

“I don’t think so,” the second-in-command, Nai, shook his head.
"I don't even need an assessment to see that now is not the best time to face the enemy. If we pin our hopes on the possibility that Sacel is in worse shape than us..."

“We will lose even worse,” Tardin concluded with a sigh.

The guards' expressions grew even more somber, which made Thales inwardly curse.

Naki observed the expressions on everyone's faces and coughed:
"Guys, I don't think the most urgent thing is to confront Sackel head-on. In fact, I think we should avoid it if possible..."

Thales noticed that although Naki was looking at everyone as he spoke, his gaze kept drifting towards the quiet little Barney, as if he knew the key was there.

Everyone wisely kept quiet, waiting for the vanguard officer's decision.

Finally, after a brief shift in his brow, Barney raised his head and exhaled:

"Naki is right."

Thales swore he sensed that everyone breathed a sigh of relief, more or less.

“From now on, our primary objective will no longer be killing Sacel,” Little Barney turned to Thales, a strange glint in his eyes:

"It's to protect His Highness."

Thales's brow twitched.

He awkwardly returned a friendly smile to the several pairs of eyes that were staring at him.

“Perhaps you should be thankful that they’re quite loyal?” Quick Rope whispered to Thales.

No.

It's not entirely about loyalty.

Thales looked back at Barney's expectant eyes and silently said to himself.

“Then let’s hurry up, stop resting, and continue downhill,” Samir, the leader, stepped forward and glanced at Barney.

"Perhaps we can find an exit before he catches up."

Barney frowned.

"Wait, go down?"

He looked at his other colleagues with some surprise:
"Aren't we going to the surface?"

After Belletti sighed and Samir coldly explained the situation, Barney's face turned completely black.

But seeing the slightly troubled expressions on the other people's faces, he ultimately didn't say anything. He just clenched his fist and urged everyone to continue walking down.

So the royal guard and the two princes continued on, but this time, they quickened their pace considerably.

"You'd better find the so-called exit, Samir."

Barney Jr. walked to the front of the line and stood alongside Samir.

He suppressed his emotions and spoke calmly, but Thales could sense the vanguard officer's dissatisfaction:

"Otherwise, everything we do today will be meaningless."

Samir surprisingly did not refute him; he simply gave Barney a deep look before continuing on his way.

The group walked silently into the deep darkness, their steps less relaxed and more heavy.

Samir led the way, recalling what Ricky had told him, while discussing the route with the executioner Belletti, who knew about the Bone Prison.

Barney Jr. would occasionally join the discussions, but his communication with Samir remained strained.

Behind the vanguard were the trembling Thales and Quick Rope, with Naki and Nai Shou by their side, never leaving their side.

Unable to speak, Brie and Tardin stood like two iron walls behind them, forming a second barrier.

Cannon remained at the back, constantly watching the movements behind him.

In a few minutes, they descended many stone steps and finally arrived at the empty hall on the last floor again.

The moment the torches illuminated the surroundings, everyone's expression froze.

Dead body.

Corpses littered the ground.

They are the mercenaries of the Sword of Calamity.

There were more than twenty of them, scattered all over the ground. From the far corner of the wall to the floor tiles under their feet, the blood that had flowed out was enough to soak the entire hall.

These people died in various ways: some were beheaded, some had their throats slit, some had irregularly shaped neck bones, some had crossbow bolts piercing their bodies, and some were even hammered into the wall by a terrifyingly large axe.

Without exception, their faces still bore the terror of impending death.

Looking at the scene before him, Thales almost thought that the Blood Mage had returned.

"This guy died from his comrade's sword, this one has seven or eight wounds, he was probably taken hostage and used as a human shield... and the one on the wall probably ran into the axe next to him during the attack."

Barney walked past the corpses with a stern face, his expression somewhat unnatural.

"It's Saxeel."

"It was a warm-up piece he made right after he was released from prison."

Samir stared blankly at the faces of the corpses, some familiar and some unfamiliar, and stepped over a body with its abdomen slashed open.

Naki swallowed hard.

As the guards advanced, the pools of blood on the ground gradually became denser, eventually leading to a passage.

Thales stared at the dark passage leading to Sacel's cell, glanced at the bloodstains before him, and frowned deeply.

He remembered that he and Yodl had escaped from there, from Sacel's place of confinement.

And after they left...

He remembered that Sacelle had said that the swords of calamity had "run away."

Ran?

“They must have thought they outnumbered the enemy and that there was only one, so they swarmed at him…” Belletti raised her torch, looked at the hellish scene, and slowly shook her head:
"But this time, they didn't know what they were facing."

"Forty melee guards... Ouch!" Quick Rope muttered unconsciously, his face ashen, as he accidentally stepped on a blood clot that looked like intestines or something else.

Chaos and a thousand armies.

Thales silently repeated the word in his mind, his nerves tightening more and more.

He stepped over a mercenary with a crossbow bolt stuck in his left eye socket.

“I guess,” Naki sighed, kicking aside a corpse clutching a dagger plunged into its chest.
"He was quite polite to us, wasn't he?"

No one answered him.

“Here,” Samir said, walking through the crimson corridor leading to Sakel’s cell, illuminating another side path:
“Ricky said this leads to the storeroom.”

Thales turned away, trying his best not to look at the mess on the ground, and looked at the square passage that looked like it was left for transporting goods.

Compared to the other two paths, it seemed utterly unremarkable. "Rickie said the Alchemy Tower has a secret tradition: always be prepared for war." Samir's expression was complex.

“And the storage room is one of them.”

Holding a torch, he strode forward and was the first to enter the passage.

The remaining guards looked at each other in bewilderment.

Barney glanced behind him, sighed, and followed. The others shrugged helplessly and filed in.

"How did you know about this place? And how did you discover a secret that even the kingdom had never found? Did you find some forbidden mage's journal?"

Little Barney parted a thick spider web and carefully illuminated the surroundings.

“Rickie’s hometown has some expertise in these things,” Samir said, continuing forward without turning his head.
"Judging from his tone, which was not without resentment, they may have been—at least in the past—enemies of mages, and had studied how to deal with mages and magic."

Thales frowned slightly upon hearing this.

Ricky's birthplace...

This suggests that the organization of the Swords of Calamity is not entirely pure; at least many of them joined halfway through.

"Then how did Ricky, the one you mentioned, become the Sword of Calamity?" Barney asked.

“It’s unknown. Every inheritor outside the tower has their own story, especially the leaders, and most of them are filled with bitterness and hardship.” Samir shook his head.

“Including you, right?” Barney said meaningfully.

Samir paused slightly when confronted with what seemed like a hostile probing.

But he hesitated for only a fraction of a second.

“And what about you?” Samir stepped over a low, three-step staircase and said quietly:
"If you can get out, what are your plans?"

"To escort this prince to the capital, to assist him, to watch him ascend the throne, and to fulfill your oath of royal guard?"

Upon hearing this, all the members of the royal guard paused slightly.

Thales felt awkward as he endured the unwarranted stares from everyone.

Barney was silent for a few seconds.

"not only that."

“Those brothers who died unjustly, they must be held accountable.”

Barney's words echoed in the dusty, cobweb-covered passageway, carrying an unwavering resolve:
"The truth of what happened back then must be revealed to the world."

Thales shuddered slightly.

The truth of what happened back then...

The guards remained silent, except for Brie who hummed a few words softly, the meaning of which was unclear. Naki then patted him on the shoulder.

But Samir responded to Barney with sarcasm:

"The truth? You mean what Sakel said, about the cooperation between the former king and the calamity?"

He scoffed lightly at the front of the group:
"If that were true, based on my understanding of Kessel, whether from the perspective of the stars or the royal family, he would never admit it, even if it meant his death."

Samir's words were cold:

“He would rather you be buried in your graves forever, along with your secrets and shame, never to be known by anyone.”

Even if you saved his precious son.

Upon hearing this, the royal guard fell even more silent, with only hurried footsteps audible.

Barney did not answer.

Thales pursed his lips, a slight pang of sadness in his heart.

He knew that what Samir said was very likely true.

He wanted to say something, at least to refute Samir and inspire the others.

But what could he say?

Once I return to the capital, I will do my best to clear your names.
Recalling King Kessel's cold face and the Black Prophet's sinister eyes, Thales pursed his lips again, feeling his tongue heavy and his heart heavy.

Quick Rope clearly understood the atmosphere; he obediently shrank behind Thales, not daring to utter a sound.

Naki coughed.

"Uh, Barney?"

His voice rang out behind Thales, sounding somewhat trembling:
"I'm thinking, maybe we need to hide part of the truth..."

Just then, Barney Jr. suddenly spoke up, interrupting Naki:
"That's why we need this prince even more."

Thales was stunned.

He walked through the crowd and saw Barney's back, but the latter did not turn around and just stubbornly walked forward.

Little Barney said quietly:
“He was luckier than us, and even luckier than the former king and princes, being born after the tragedy and not being overshadowed by the past.”

“I believe that, compared to the king on the throne and the gentlemen in the Palace of Restoration, he is the one more qualified to handle this matter properly and to uphold the truth of what happened back then.”

"Just like now, if he doesn't want to abandon his companions, then he will definitely understand us."

"Understand the souls who perished eighteen years ago, understand the injustices suffered over those eighteen years."

Breathing became erratic within the guard.

During the arduous journey, a few steps even deviated from the original rhythm.

As Thales listened to his words and endured the gazes coming from behind and behind him, he felt his shoulders growing heavier and heavier.

"At least, I believe he can find the best way to both reveal the truth to us and preserve the reputation of the royal family."

Barney's voice was broken and sounded quite strained.

"No matter how difficult it is, or how long it takes."

Many sighs could be heard from the crowd.

Thales lowered his head.

No one knows what he is thinking.

Only a quick pat on the back and a barely audible sigh followed.

“That’s why you’ve gone to such lengths to protect him,” Samir said softly, his voice sounding even more weary than before.

"You see him as your savior?"

"See them as the saviors of that royal guard from back then?"

Thales' vision blurred for a moment.

Barney scoffed, a hint of melancholy in his voice.

"At least."

He said absentmindedly:
“I hope that the 46 to 45 members of the Royal Guard who were imprisoned back then, including us, will no longer have to bear the shame of treason.”

"The entire guard will no longer have to suffer endless torment for the heinous crimes committed by any one person, bearing branded marks on their face for a full eighteen years, and still unable to rest in peace after death."

"We no longer need to shed tears at night, tremble in nightmares, or rot in guilt."

Many of the guards turned their heads to look at both sides of the passageway.

There seems to be something worth observing there.

A hint of relief crept into Barney's voice:
"This is enough."

Samir did not reply to him again.

The others continued walking, but Thales felt his steps were heavier.

Barney took a deep breath, seemingly recovering from his earlier emotional outburst, and his tone rose slightly:
"So yes, we will clear our names and return to Yongxing City with our heads held high, and at least see our families again."

He carried a sliver of hope:

“I remember, Nai had a newborn daughter back then…”

Nai, who was walking behind, sighed.

Just now.

Barney.

Naki suddenly spoke up.

His tone was one of disappointment and fear, like that of a bewildered child:

"And... what about Saxeel?"

Upon hearing this name, even the surrounding firelight seemed to dim for a second.

A moment later, Barney's tone naturally returned to its indifferent state:
"Ah, that traitor..."

He gave a soft snort, his words revealing intense disdain and lingering hatred:

“Sakel’s disgraceful acts must, and certainly will, be made public.”

"The entire planet and the entire world will know of his evil deeds and shamelessness, and he will pay the price for his betrayal."

The guard was once again enveloped in frost.

It was as if Barney's clenched teeth and angry words had caused the surrounding temperature to drop:

"Whether in life or after death, he will forever bear the infamy and torment of being a traitor."

Thales sensed that Naki beside him seemed to want to say something but hesitated.

Barney just snorted coldly:
"Yes, we will, and we will eventually find him, find peace—whether it is ours or his."

Naki took a deep breath:

“But Sacel, after all, was once…one of us.”

"Also one of the royal guards."

His tone was full of hesitation and pain.

Everyone was silent.

Barney frowned:
"What do you mean?"

Thales saw Naki lower his head, trembling all over:

"I think, whether it's him or us, we've all suffered enough."

He seemed to be holding back something, and with great difficulty managed to squeeze out a few words full of emotion:
Why must we...fight each other?

(End of this chapter)