Perhaps because his severely damaged hearing had just recovered, the sudden sound of footsteps in the dark dungeon was particularly scary.
The royal guards, who were in poor condition, reacted very quickly. Everyone immediately extinguished the fire and held their breath in silence.
Pursuing soldiers?
So fast?
This was the first thought that came to Thales' mind after being hunted for half a month.
Step, step, step...
Belletti made a gentle gesture, and the entire guard quietly and quickly dispersed towards both sides of the passage, finding the ambush position, with weapons in hand and ready to prepare.
Thales was held down by Little Barney, and even the fast rope was pulled into the corner by Brie.
Step, step, step...
The footsteps got closer and closer, and the fire gradually lit up at the corner of the passage.
The prince didn't need to listen to know that everyone's heartbeats were slowly speeding up.
In the darkness, Belletti aimed his sword at the corner, preparing to strike suddenly.
Until the owner of the footsteps appeared from around the corner holding a torch.
"Cannon!"
Naki was the first to shout in surprise.
"The alert is lifted." After seeing the person clearly, Belletti breathed a sigh of relief, patted the nervous little Barney behind him, and said warmly:
"It's Cannon."
"Our trailing scout."
Everyone in the guard let out a sigh of relief, put away their weapons, and lit their torches.
It's Cannon.
Thales also let go of his nervousness and anticipation.
not him.
Cannon, one of the seven guard prisoners, who had just walked around the corner holding a torch, looked at everyone's expressions and understood something.
"You know, you almost scared the shit out of us!"
Naki shook his shoulders, with a look of despair on his face, and hit Cannon hard on the chest.
Cannon shook slightly and lowered his head:
"Sorry, my ears haven't fully recovered yet."
Cannon pointed to his left ear and shrank a little:
"You can only control the sound of footsteps by habit."
"And my reconnaissance skills have also declined..."
Little Barney patted him on the shoulder, seeming very pleased.
"No, you're doing great, Cannon, as always," Barney Jr. managed a smile:
"What happened next?"
Hearing this, the guards' faces slightly condensed.
Cannon handed the torch to Naki with a serious expression:
"He should have recovered some of his vision, maybe his hearing, treated his wounds, lit a torch, and walked along the wall. He was not very fast, but..."
He paused and looked at everyone:
"He went in the right direction."
Chasing in the right direction?
Everyone's color changed.
Thales was also shocked, knowing who Cannon was talking about.
"I left a few traps, but I don't think this will hold him back for too long... Sak'el is familiar with all the tricks of the Pioneer Wing." Cannon's voice became lower and lower.
The atmosphere became solemn and stiff.
Little Barney was silent, seeming to be thinking.
"Can we ambush him?" This is the frowning Belletti.
"I don't think so," Second Logistics Officer Nai shook his head:
"I don't need to make an assessment to see that this is not the best time for us to face the enemy. If we hope that Sak'el's condition will be worse than ours..."
"We will lose worse." Tardin ended the proposal with a sigh.
The expressions of the guards became even darker, which made Thales secretly scream.
Naji observed everyone's expressions and coughed:
"Everyone, I don't think the top priority is to confront Sak'el face to face. In fact, I think we can avoid it if we can..."
Thales noticed that although Naki said this while looking at everyone, his eyes always drifted to the calm little Barney, as if he knew the key was here.
Everyone didn't say anything knowingly, just waiting for the vanguard officer's decision.
Finally, after a brief change of eyebrows, little Barney raised his head and exhaled:
"Naki is right."
Thales swore that he felt everyone was more or less relieved.
"From now on, our first goal is no longer to kill Sak'el," Barney Jr. turned to Thales with a strange light in his eyes:
"It's about protecting His Highness."
Thales' eyebrows jumped.
He awkwardly returned a friendly smile to the several volleys of glances he received.
"Maybe you should be lucky that they are quite loyal?" Quick Rope whispered to Thales.
No.
Not entirely loyal.
Thales looked back at Barney's expectant eyes and said silently in his heart.
"Then let's seize the time, stop resting, and continue walking down." The leader, Samuel, stepped forward and glanced at Barney:
"Maybe we can find the exit before he chases us."
Little Barney frowned.
"Wait, go down?"
He looked at his other colleagues in surprise:
"Aren't we going to the ground?"
When Belletti sighed and Samir explained the whole story in a cold tone, Barney's entire face turned black.
But facing the slightly embarrassed expressions of the others, he didn't say anything after all. He just clenched his fists and urged everyone to continue walking down.
So the royal guards and the two princes continued to move forward, but this time, their pace accelerated a lot.
"You'd better find the so-called exit, Samir."
Little Barney walked to the front of the team and lined up with Samir.
He suppressed his emotions in his heart and spoke calmly, but Thales could feel the Pioneer Officer's dissatisfaction:
"Otherwise, everything we do today will be meaningless."
Samuel surprisingly did not retort. He just looked at Barney deeply and moved on.
The group of people walked silently in the deep darkness, feeling a little less relaxed and a little more heavy.
Samir led the way forward, recalling what Ricky had said to him, while discussing the route with the executioner Belletti behind him who knew something about the Prison of Bones.
Barney Jr. would occasionally join in the discussions, but his communication with Samir remained stiff.
Behind the vanguard were the trembling Thales and Quick Rope, with Naki and Nai guarding them, never leaving.
Bree and Tardin, who were unable to speak, stood behind them like two iron walls, serving as a second barrier.
Cannon was still at the end, always paying attention to what was happening behind him.
In a few minutes, they walked down many stone steps and finally arrived at the empty hall on the last floor again.
The moment the torches illuminated the surroundings, everyone's expressions froze.
Corpse.
Bodies all over the ground.
They are the mercenaries of the Sword of Disaster.
There were more than twenty of them, lying scattered all over the floor. From the far corner to the floor tiles under their feet, the blood flowing out was enough to soak the hall.
These people died in different ways. Some were beheaded, some had their throats cut, some had irregular neck bones, some had their bodies pierced by crossbow arrows, and some even had their bodies stabbed with a huge weapon.
The terrible ax was driven firmly into the wall.
Without exception, their faces still showed the fear before death.
Just looking at the scene in front of him, Thales almost thought that the Blood Magician was back.
"This guy died from his companion's sword, and this one had seven or eight wounds. He must have been held hostage and used as a human shield... and the one on the wall must have been unlucky enough to hit the ax next to him during the attack.
"
Little Barney walked past the corpses with a straight face, looking unnatural.
"It's Sak'el."
"It was a warm-up piece for him when he was just released from prison."
Samuel looked at the faces of these corpses that were familiar or unfamiliar to him expressionlessly, and stepped past a corpse with its abdomen cut open at his feet.
Naki swallowed softly.
As the guards advanced, the pool of blood on the ground grew from sparse to dense, and finally pointed to a passage.
Thales looked at the deep passage leading to Sak'el's cell, looked at the blood in front of him, and frowned deeply.
He remembered that that was where he and Yoder came from, from Sak'el's prison.
And after they left...
He remembered Sak'el saying that the swords of disaster "ran away."
Ran?
"They must have thought that they were outnumbered and the other party only had one, so they swarmed..." Belletti raised the torch, looked at the hell-like miserable situation on earth, and slowly shook his head:
"But this time, they didn't know what they were dealing with."
"Forty White Blade Guards... Ouch!" Kuai Rope, who was ashen-faced, muttered subconsciously, accidentally stepping on a blood clot that was either an intestine or something.
Thousands of armies of chaos.
Thales recited this term silently in his heart, his nerves getting tighter and tighter.
He stepped past a mercenary with a crossbow lodged in his left eye socket.
"I guess," Naki kicked away a corpse that was holding a short knife and stabbed it into his chest, and sighed:
"He's quite polite to us, isn't he?"
No one answered him.
"Here," Samir walked through the red passage leading to Sak'el's cell, illuminating another branch:
"Ricky said this leads to the storage room."
Thales turned around, trying his best not to look at the mess on the ground, and instead looked at the square, which looked like a passage reserved for transporting goods.
Compared to the other two roads, it seems inconspicuous.
"Ricky said that the Alchemy Tower has a secret tradition: always be prepared for war." Samir's face was complicated:
"And the storage room is one of them."
He held the torch, stepped forward, and walked into the passage first.
The remaining guards looked at each other in shock.
Little Barney glanced behind him, sighed and followed, while the others shrugged helplessly and filed in.
"How do you know this place? And how do you know the secrets that even the kingdom has not discovered? Did you find a forbidden mage's code?"
Little Barney pushed aside a thick cobweb and carefully illuminated the surrounding area.
"The place where Ricky comes from has done some research on these things," Samir walked forward step by step without looking back:
"Judging from his hateful tone, they may have been enemies of mages at least before and have studied how to deal with mages and magic."
Thales frowned slightly after hearing this.
Where Ricky comes from...
In this way, the organization method of the Swords of Disaster is not that pure, at least many people join halfway.
"Then what you are talking about, Ricky, how did he become the Sword of Disaster?" Little Barney asked.
"I don't know, every inheritor outside the tower has his own story, especially the leader, and most of them are full of bitterness and hardship." Samir shook his head.
"Including you, right?" Little Barney said meaningfully.
Facing the seemingly malicious probing, Samir's steps paused slightly.
But he only hesitated for a few tenths of a second.
"What about you?" Samir stepped over a short three-step staircase and said quietly:
"What are your plans if you can get out?"
"Escort the prince to the royal capital, assist him, watch him ascend to the throne, and fulfill your oath of guard?"
Hearing this sentence, all the members of the royal guard were slightly stunned.
Thales suffered the unwarranted gazes from everyone and suddenly felt embarrassed.
Little Barney was silent for a few seconds.
"not only that."
"Those brothers who died in vain must have an explanation."
Little Barney's words echoed in the passage filled with dust and cobwebs, with unshakable determination:
"The truth of that year must be exposed to the world."
Thales was slightly shocked.
The truth of that year...
Everyone in the guard was silent. Only Brie hummed a few words, the meaning of which was unclear. Naki immediately patted him.
But Samir responded to Barney with a sarcastic tone:
"The truth? You mean what Sak'el told you about the cooperation between the late king and the disaster?"
He sneered at the front of the team:
"If that is true, based on my understanding of Kessel, he will never admit it whether from the perspective of the stars or the royal family."
Samir’s words were cruel:
"He would rather you be buried in the grave forever, together with the secret and shame, and never be known to anyone."
"Even if you saved his precious son."
As soon as these words came out, the royal guards became even more silent, and for a while they could only hear hurried footsteps.
Barney didn't answer.
Thales pursed his lips, feeling slightly sad.
He knew that what Samir said was probably true.
He wanted to say something, at least to refute Samir and inspire others.
But what could he say?
When I return to the capital, I will work hard to vindicate you?
Thinking of King Kessel's cold face and the Black Prophet's sinister eyes, Thales chewed his lips again, feeling his tongue heavy and feeling sad.
Kuaisheng obviously understood the atmosphere very well. He huddled behind Thales obediently and did not dare to express his anger.
Naki coughed.
"Um, Barney?"
His voice sounded behind Thales, sounding quite trembling:
"I'm thinking maybe we need to hide part of the truth..."
At this moment, Barney suddenly spoke and interrupted Naki:
"That's why we need this prince even more."
Thales was stunned.
He crossed the crowd and saw Barney's back, but the latter did not turn around, but just moved forward stubbornly.
Just listen to Little Barney's faint and authentic voice:
"He is luckier than us, and even luckier than the previous kings and princes. He was born after the tragedy and was not enveloped by the shadow of the past."
"I believe that compared to the king on the throne and the princes in the Fuxing Palace, he is more qualified to handle this matter properly and to shed light on the truth of that year."
"Just like just now, if he is unwilling to abandon his companions, then he will definitely understand us."
"Understand the souls of the deceased eighteen years ago, and understand the injustices suffered during the past eighteen years."
The breathing among the guards became erratic.
During the difficult trek, there were even a few steps that deviated from the original rhythm.
As Thales listened to his words and endured the gazes drifting back and forth, he felt that his shoulders were getting heavier and heavier.
"At least, I believe he can find the best way to reveal the truth for us and preserve the reputation of the royal family."
Little Barney's voice was choppy, and it sounded quite difficult:
"No matter how hard it is or how long it takes."
There were many sighs in the team.
Thales lowered his head.
No one knows what he is thinking.
Only the quick rope patted his back gently, and there was an inaudible sigh.
"That's why you try your best to protect him," Samir said quietly, his tone seemed even more tired than before:
"You see him as your savior?"
"As the saviors of those royal guards?"
Thales' eyes were dazed for a moment.
Little Barney snorted, feeling a little lonely.
"At least."
He said in a daze:
"I hope that, including us, the 46 and 45 royal guards who were imprisoned that year will no longer have to bear the shame of collaborating with the enemy and treason."
"The entire Guard no longer has to suffer torture and be branded for a heinous crime committed by a certain person for eighteen years, and still not be able to rest in peace after death."
"We no longer have to cry at night, tremble in nightmares, and rot in guilt."
Many people in the guard turned their heads and looked at both sides of the passage.
It seems like there is something worth observing there.
There was a hint of relief in Barney's voice:
"This is enough."
Samuel did not reply to him.
Everyone's footsteps remained the same, but Thales felt that his footsteps were heavier.
Little Barney took a deep breath, seeming to have recovered from his previous emotions, and his tone rose slightly:
"So, yes, we will wash away the stigma on our bodies and return to Yongxing City in an upright manner. At least we can see our families again."
He said with a little hope:
"I remember that Nai had a newborn daughter back then..."
Nai, who was walking behind him, sighed.
At this moment.
"Barney."
Naki suddenly spoke.
His tone was very lost and frightened, like a confused child:
"What about...Sak'el?"
Hearing this name, it seemed that even the surrounding firelight dimmed for a second.
After a while, Barney's tone naturally changed back to indifference:
"Ah, that traitor..."
He snorted softly, his words revealing strong disdain and undying hatred:
"Sakel's scandal must and will be made public."
"The whole star, the whole world will know his evil deeds and shamelessness, and he will pay the price for his betrayal."
The Guards were once again immersed in the frost.
It was as if little Barney's words through gritted teeth caused the surrounding temperature to drop:
"Whether he is alive or dead, he will always bear the infamy and torture of a traitor."
Thales felt that Naki beside him hesitated to speak.
Just listen to Little Barney snort:
"But yes, we will and we will eventually find him and find rest, whether it's ours or his."
Naki took a deep breath:
"But Sak'el, after all, he was once... one of us."
"Also one of the royal guards."
His tone was full of hesitation and pain.
Everyone was silent.
Little Barney frowned:
"What's the meaning?"
Thales saw Naki lowering his head and trembling all over:
"I think, whether it's him or us, everyone has suffered enough injuries."
He seemed to be suffering from something, and finally managed to squeeze out a few emotionally charged words: