Everyone raised their eyes.

"You are too optimistic, Sak'el."

Naji shook his head, his eyes flashing with darkness:

"You also left out a part of it."

"For us, that's the worst part."

Little Barney was stunned.

Thales' expression tightened.

What?

Naji's voice was filled with suffocating pain:

"If this is the truth about the Year of Blood, it means..."

"It means we..."

Naki paused, as if he couldn't speak any more.

Sak'el said nothing, but his numb facial muscles began to tremble.

Samir seemed to understand, and he took over the conversation.

"I understand."

Samir's resentment disappeared without a trace, followed by depression:

"If the Year of Blood is a bloody internal fight in the family, blood relatives are killing each other..."

"Barney, even if I try every possible means to escape from prison and seek help and revenge tirelessly, even if you work hard to atone for your sins and send this prince named Canxing back to the royal capital..."

After a few seconds, Barney figured out something.

His originally slightly bloody face solidified again.

The relaxation on his face disappeared, followed by lingering fear.

The reaction of the guard members varied. Some showed relief and relief, some shook their heads numbly, and some frowned.

"Even if we find out who is the mastermind and insider of the coup..."

"Even if we prove the innocence and loyalty of ourselves and the rest of our colleagues..."

"Even if we..."

Having said this, Samir choked up, lowered his head, and spoke lonely:

"It doesn't make any sense anymore."

Little Barney's body seemed to have been hit hard and shook violently.

"For the stability of the rule, for the reputation of the royal family, and even more for the authority of the Renaissance Palace, neither King Kessel nor his successor, nor the entire Star Kingdom, will ever allow the ugly truth of the Bloody Year to be revealed.

, let alone making it public, in broad daylight.”

Samir glanced at Thales from a distance.

That look contained too many things: hatred, resentment, desolation, despair...

It made Thales feel even heavier.

"On the contrary, the people we once swore allegiance to will use all means to bury the truth, cover up the facts, and distort justice."

"Because in people's minds, the noble and wise Bright Star family cannot be responsible for the Year of Blood."

"The 'real murderer' back then will always be the rumored mysterious 'dead enemy' of the Bright Star royal family. 'It' will only hide behind the curtain and never show up."

Little Barney was like a zombie, listening to Semier's words in a daze.

"And our...comrades who died in the battle will never wait for justice. The thirty-seven people who died in the battle will never be able to get justice. The survivors can only bear the unfair stigma for the rest of their lives."

"As the Royal Guards of the Kingdom of Stars, we can only be traitors who collaborate with the enemy!"

Sacher shook violently, as if he had been struck by lightning.

His colleagues all had pale faces and miserable eyes, as if they were undergoing the final judgment.

Samir's words became more and more urgent and ruthless:

"We can only be criminals who neglect our duties and incompetent cowards!"

"Never reverse the verdict until death."

Except for Samuel's voice, the dungeon was eerily silent.

Samir gasped for a while and slowly regained his composure, but the desolation and despair in his tone could not be increased:

"No matter how innocent and pitiful those who don't know are, no matter how pure and loyal a lonely minister like Barney is, no matter how unjust it is for an unwilling person like me to complain."

"No matter how miserable a chess piece like your father is, he can't help himself."

"No matter how unfair it is to us."

Little Barney's hands began to tremble uncontrollably.

"because……"

Samir's eyes wandered:

"Because as the royal guard, we are destined to be the victims under the nine-pointed star emblem... and the scapegoat."

Thales listened silently.

He remembered the numb and frozen expression on King Kessel V's face when he stood in front of the stone urns of the Bright Star family in the Bright Star tomb.

Thales took a deep breath.

He only felt that the air in his lungs was getting colder and denser.

Sacher turned his head, as if he couldn't bear to hear it anymore.

No one can see his face.

Samir raised his head:

"That's why Sak'el preferred to remain silent and not take the blame, why Naki didn't want to seek justice and just wanted to leave silently, why today when the prison was broken and things came to a close, everyone was pretending to be deaf and dumb.

"

Samir said sadly:

"Because they know it makes no sense at all."

Little Barney looked at his colleagues in disbelief. Facing his gaze, many of them lowered their heads in shame.

Sacher still said nothing.

"Barney, in the past eighteen years, the things that have supported us in our survival, whether it is to rectify our grievances or to provide justice, or even the ridiculous so-called revenge, are all false."

"All the struggles we have made, all the hopes we have, all our wishes, all the answers we seek: justice, justice, truth, innocence, freedom..."

Samir's words were accompanied by breathlessness, intermittent, and contained insoluble pain:

"It's all in vain."

Little Barney turned his head mechanically, the expression in his eyes becoming more and more stiff and numb.

Samir took a deep breath, looked at the bottomless dark corridor, and ended his words with a sad smile:

"In the corner of history, we, the former royal guards, are destined to be buried in dust and never see the light of day."

thump!

Those few words seemed to carry unprecedented strength, knocking Barney down to the ground again just after he stood up.

Nye let out a soft breath, and Belletti remained motionless.

Tardin, Curry, and Cannon seemed to have fallen into eternal stiffness and silence.

Silence returned to the dungeon.

Naki stared at a torch beside him with a half-smile, tilted his cheek unaccustomedly in its light, and let out a muffled sound in his throat.

"You know what I envy and hate most about you, Barney?"

Naki said in a low voice.

"For eighteen years, you have been living a lie foolishly."

"But at least you are still living in the hope you have woven."

"In this dungeon shrouded in bottomless darkness, you live in the only place where... the light can shine."

With a soft muffled sound, the torch on the ground was extinguished.

Naki's figure was once again submerged in the terrifying darkness.

Thales closed his eyes gently, not looking at Banishu's bloodless expression.

In the past, Thales's understanding of "bloody" was still superficial. The scene that best matched the word he could think of was the ecology of beggars in the abandoned houses in the lower city and the gang struggle in the underground world.
To be continued...