In the dark hall, Semir listened to Barney Jr. in a daze, his eyes swept over every corpse in the cell, but there was nothing but emptiness and confusion in his eyes, like a prodigal son who had been away for many years and returned to his home where he had no more.

"Seven ......," he muttered.

For some reason, Tails listened to their conversation, but he also felt empty and uncomfortable.

In the crowd, the hammer coughed lightly, walked quickly to Ricky's side, and pointed to the top of his head:

"Above, my people can't control it for too long, and I have to prevent possible unexpected ......"

Ricky ignores him, but the drill attracts the attention of the prisoners.

"Semir, who are the people who came with you?"

Little Barney leaned close to the fence, put away his mournful expression, squinted at the Swords of Calamity in the distance, and said vigilantly:

"It doesn't look like an official person, not a nobleman who looks like a steward, and no one looks like a soldier in the Bladetooth camp, but like a ...... Mercenaries?"

Ricky frowned, reached out and waved the hammer away, signaling him to be at ease.

In another cell, Belletti was also alert: "It's not like the person who escorted you down and arrested the fugitive." ”

Belletti remembered something, and her face straightened:

"How did you get down, Sémir. ”

Semir frowned slightly, hesitating as to how to answer.

In another cell, Cannon, who had been holding his head and cowering, looked at so many people outside the cell, suddenly shuddered, leaned against the wall and let out a moan of pain.

"They're helpers," Semir finally spoke, calmly meeting the scrutinizing gazes of his former colleagues:

"When I was desperate, the only people who would lend a hand. ”

Semir glanced at the Swords of Calamity with a nonchalant expression.

"Like us, they are a wretched bunch of people who have their own needs and needs. ”

Clay snorted and patted Josh beside him.

"It is also a group of people who do not want to be relentlessly forgotten by the merciless history. ”

Ricky remained motionless.

"Fate has brought us together," said Semir, turning his head to look at little Barney in prison, with a slight meaning:

"We were able to resist it. ”

But apparently, perhaps because of too much torture, his former companions did not respond positively to him.

I saw little Barney tilt his chin sideways, squint his eyes, and look at Semir in a rather unkind gesture:

"Why are you here, Semir?"

"In what capacity did you come back, and how did you get into the Prison of Bones?"

"Exiles, prison robbers, rescuers?"

As Barney spoke, his gaze shifted to the people behind Semir and began to look at the group of uninvited guests.

"I don't see light very often, and my eyesight has deteriorated a lot, but I can at least see ...... A group of fierce gods with various weapons did not look like they had come with invitations. ”

"As for the few who didn't have weapons...... It's the one they've kidnapped, right?"

Taking advantage of the time when Semir was speechless, Barney Jr. spoke lightly, and his tone became more and more suspicious:

"And who is that boy? Why do you put so many people around him—and the people around the hood or the gown are subconsciously looking at him?"

Little Barney suddenly lowered his chin and looked at Tails indifferently, making the prince tense.

The chisel and Russell who were mentioned by him were slightly stunned, and had to keep their men away from Tails under Ricky's gaze.

But just as Tails was thinking of something, his shoulders suddenly heavily, and his legs were cold.

"Dare to say a superfluous word, boy," Marina said coldly, holding the back of his shoulder, the blade rubbing against Tails' pants:

"You're gone underneath. ”

Tails only felt a chill attack on his upper spinal cord, and he didn't dare to speak again.

"No, it doesn't look like protection," on the other side, Belletti in the cell also stared at Tails, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper:

"I can see that the young man, he is also the one who was kidnapped. ”

Ricky's face was grim: the remnants of the royal guards were defeated beyond his expectations, and they had clearly struggled in captivity for so many years, but at the moment of regaining their sight, they saw the crux of the situation at a glance.

Semir's face was a little ugly, and he withdrew his gaze from Tails:

"Barney Jr., Belletti, worthy of being a pioneer and a penister, is still amazingly observant. ”

Little Barney snorted coldly and stared at Tails tightly:

"Who is he......"

"That's right!"

Just then, the chisel suddenly interjected, interrupting their conversation.

"Dear Crassus, your plan is to help this former royal guard renew the old days?"

Ricky's brow twitched slightly.

With a smile on his face, the chisel and his two men stepped forward, interrupting the conversation between the former royal guards about Tails as they slowly approached the prince.

"For many reasons, I don't think it's a good idea for your men to have their hearts and minds tied to these gentlemen," the chisel winked at Ricky, "maybe I can escort our sensitive cargo back first......"

Tails looked at the hand that the chisel had outstretched, and his heart was wary.

Until a hollow long sword, lightning stopped in front of the hammer.

"Touch him, Hammer," Clay said in a bad tone, clutching the Lightsaber and holding the Hammer from Tails:

"Don't want that hand. ”

The chisel's smile froze.

Russell coughed awkwardly and had to come out to play the round.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I think the drill is suggesting: it's time for us to speed things up," the man from the Northland silently pushed the drill back, motioning to the two assassins beside the drill to put away the weapons they had come up with at some point, and solemnly reminded:

"Accidents can happen at any time, don't forget where we are. ”

Ricky turned his gaze away from them and snorted.

"Of course. ”

"Semir," whispered the leader of the Sword of Calamity:

"Stay on task. ”

Semir nodded.

"As for you," Ricky said dissatisfied, looking at the drill, "we need time." ”

The drill raised his brow slightly, as if he was thinking about something.

But he eventually smiled and stepped back: "Good, of course." ”

"Then I'll wait for you outside, anyway, I'm also very concerned about the situation above, and I need to confirm it. ”

The hammer raised his hands, took two steps back, and then walked out of the hall with his men in the sword of calamity.

Russell gave Ricky an apologetic smile:

"They can get anxious sometimes. ”

The mercenaries who unknowingly surrounded the Shadow Shield let go of the hilt of their swords and put away their eyes full of murderous intent.

On the other side of the hall, the prisoners and Semir watched the little clash in silence.

Semir took a breath and seemed to adjust his emotions.

"Little Barney, I'm glad to meet ......"

But Barney Jr. rolled his eyes.

"Who's that?"

The prisoner in the cell looked at the back of the drill from afar: "The man with the hood? ”

"And that dress," the other cell, Nai stared straight at Russell, gritting her teeth:

"Damn the Northland accent—definitely not from the Coldcastle area, but further north: from Exeter. ”

Russell froze.

Looking at the two skeptical colleagues, Semir sighed:

"It doesn't matter......"

But a panicked shout suddenly broke the oppressive atmosphere!

"No!"

The first reaction was to grasp the weapon, and then it came to their senses: it was the people in the prison who were screaming.

"No, no, no, little Barney!"

Barney Jr. frowned and turned his head.

In another cell, Cannon, who had reminded the prisoners of the opening of the Iron Curtain, was still huddled on the ground with his head in his hands, but he couldn't stop shaking, convulsing and shouting in pain:

"Little Barney, I can, I can hear, like I see in my dreams every day......"

His roommate, Naki, who had been lazy before, stepped forward quickly, put his arm around Cannon's shoulder, and whispered comfort:

"It's all right, Cannon, it's all over, it's all over, it's going to be okay, those horrible pasts don't exist, we're all right, that's ......" Naki said as he spoke, looking at the ground blankly.

But Cannon still struggled desperately, his eyes closed, and he cried out frantically:

"Their steps, pressed on the forefoot, limped on their heels, like cats...... The footsteps, the voices, the people who only haunt the darkness...... Like, like those...... Those people!"

Semir watched Cannon's seizure with a wistful expression, and Barney Jr. frowned.

"They're coming, little Barney, they're coming!" Cannon cried out in pain, his dirty hair tossed around:

"They're coming to kill them!"

"It's like they used to ......"

Cannon's cry of pain lasted for nearly a minute, and it wasn't until Naki began to hum a little song again, as she had comforted Nai before, that Cannon finally fell silent.

Semir exhaled silently, looked at Cannon, whose eyes were wide open, frightened, and his chest heaved, and lamented:

"When did he become like this?"

Barney Jr. shook his head sarcastically, but his eyes were full of doubt:

"I don't know. ”

Semir was silent for a while.

"Listen, little Barney, you shouldn't be here," Semir gritted his teeth, his gaze determined:

"You are all respectable warriors, fierce fighters, fearless warriors, sharp knives, you should not be silent here, depressed to the end......"

Barney Jr. slowly raised his eyes, causing Semir, who was already slightly excited, to pause.

"Come with me, join us, and I can give you back your freedom, and maybe enough strength," but Semir insisted on his offer, and looked at the others hopefully:

to make up for the mistakes of the past. ”

"And change the fucking world. ”

Semir's tone contained force:

"How?"

As soon as these words came out, the prisoners were silent for a moment.

Barney Jr. looked at Semir faintly, Tardine and Brie frowned, Naki was still comforting the shivering Cannon, and Belletti and Nye were unresponsive.

"Freedom, freedom?"

Tardin shook his head, making him look like a clown in a circus, only to see him dramatically raise his hands, wave them in the air, and the corners of his mouth curved in an exaggerated arc, laughing: "Big guy, he said, he wants to give us freedom!"

"Hahaha......"

He laughed exaggeratedly, even fakely.

Semir looked at his former colleagues in confusion.

"What's wrong?"

No one answered him, only Barney Jr. shook his head and exhaled slightly.

"You know, Samir. ”

"Back then, each of us insisted that we were innocent," Barney Jr. said in a cautious tone, bowing his head, "and refused to admit his guilt, so we were sent here." ”

Sémir's breathing changed slightly.

"Unfair treatment and judgment," he nodded, a look of unwillingness: "This is the ...... they imposed on us on that day"

But Barney Jr. jerks his head up!

"No, listen to me, Semir!"

"We are at fault, we are negligent, Your Majesty and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, who perished in our care...... But we did not collaborate with the enemy, we are not traitors, and the royal guards did not betray the king...... I've always believed that at this point, we are innocent. ”

Little Barney clings to the fence, almost touching the dangerous magical creation.

But he still stared at Semir outside the cell with a nervous look: "Everyone including me firmly believes this, so we grit our teeth and don't let go no matter how much we are tortured." ”

"So we are iron-clad, carrying accusations and slanders, but we still walk into prison with our backs upright, like a tough guy. ”

"Because what we didn't do is what we didn't do, and innocence is innocence. ”

Semir looked back at him in a daze, puzzled.

Until Barney Jr.'s next sentence.

"Until you, Semir," Barney's face suddenly distorted, and he jerked to his feet, gritting his teeth in hatred, "until you escaped the escort and disappeared from our 'convinced'." ”

Semir's brows rose and fell, and he clenched his fists:

"Little Barney ......"

Barney Jr. suddenly lunged forward and grabbed the fence with both hands!

Everyone, including Samir, was taken aback, and Samir subconsciously took a step back.

"Barney, you ......"

"Tell me, Semir," saw little Barney clutching at the fence, his fingers trembling, as if he was in great pain, but still staring at Samir with resentment: "Why did you run away back then?"

"Leave all your comrades, all your brethren?"

Syllable!

With a flash of light from the fence, Barney Jr. let out a cry of pain and sat back on the ground.

But he didn't care, just raised his smoking hands and stared at Semir coldly: "Why use the actions of cowards to deepen our sins?"

"Confirm our crimes?"

Semir watched Barney Jr. in disbelief and turned his head to look at the other prisoners, only to find that they were all looking at him with an unfamiliar expression.

Guilty of the crime......

Semir looked at the countless bones and closed his eyes in pain.

"I ......"

He swallowed for a moment, stopped talking, and said in hesitation and hesitation: "I'm sorry." ”

"You know, little Barney, you know. ”

Semir looked down with a shudder.

"Eighteen years ago...... I could bear all the costs of that tragedy, whether it was demotion, punishment, torture, exile, or even death. ”

"But this?"

Semir's eyes snapped open and he raised his torch, illuminating the surroundings.

Bones, cells, dust.

"In a bottomless dungeon that stinks, rots, forgets, and then is silent forever, without even a splash?"

"Let our shame and stigma be buried deep in the ground forever, never to be remedied?"

Semir's expression became more and more distorted, as if a drowning man struggling in the water, and it took a long time for the next word to be snapped out from between his twitching teeth:

"Nope. ”

"I refuse. ”

He stared straight at little Barney with pain and resentment in his eyes.

"Like you said, what we didn't do is what we didn't do, and we shouldn't be burdened with such torture – that's the reason. ”

Unexpectedly, Barney Jr. smiled.

Laughed a lot.

"Yes, you just said 'I refuse' and simply ran away, but now you are running back to rob the prison. ”

"So what about your pride, dignity, and honor as a member of the royal guard," Barney Jr. said, raising his hand, shaking his shoulders, and sarcastically:

"What about the blood you poured into the oath of the Ancient Praetorian Guard?"

Semir was silent again for a moment.

It was a long time before he spoke slowly.

"I wasn't a royal guard a long time ago," said Semir, this time in a low voice and a gloomy tone, as if to speak of a disgrace:

"Our dignity and honour have been trampled to worthlessness on that day by the new kings and nobles who are high up. ”

Semir clenched his fists, his arms tensed.

"Kessel, he was just a playboy before he ascended the throne, he can't push the entire royal guard into the abyss with a simple trial, he can't just rely on the so-called 'collaborator' to brand the once loyal people into traitors, and he is not qualified to deprive us of the right to clear our own grievances. ”

Tails' heart darkened when he heard the familiar name.

Sémir is short of breath:

"He didn't. ”

Semir raised his head and looked at his colleagues who were unrecognizable and yellow-skinned, and his face was indignant:

"He is even less qualified to put us ...... Turn you into ...... It became like this. ”

The Swords of Calamity looked at each other, and Clay was about to interrupt, but was stopped by Ricky again.

The silence in the cell lasted for a long time.

Until Barney Jr. chuckled.

"What does this look like?"

Barney Jr. stood up, took a few steps back with a wry smile, and spread his hands as if to show his home.

"Hahaha, you know. ”

With a chilling smile, he said slowly, "Fart." ”

Semir was stunned: "What?"

I saw little Barney snort:

"You have no idea what kind of life we're having here. ”

Barney Jr. stepped forward and spoke with hatred: "You have not endured the boundless silence and darkness, you have not heard the desperate wails and cries of everyone, you have not seen your companions die in the dark cells one by one, you have not eaten the rotten cockroaches that burrow out the corpses of dead people, and you have not tasted the drinking water with the smell of feces. ”

Every time he said a word, the prisoners had a different reaction, either gritting their teeth, or clenching their fists, or convulsions, or pounding the wall in pain.

Little Barney stared at Semir with resentment, pointing to the neatly piled corpses in several cells: "You haven't tried to stand here as a pioneer officer, as the highest-ranking guard in the prison, across the fence, one by one, to give farewell to your dead comrades. ”

Little Barney almost clenched his teeth:

"Thirty-seven times. ”

The prisoners looked at Semir in unison with unwavering dead eyes.

Makes him pale.

"At the end of the day, when the nearest few people were sent away, I had nothing more to say," Barney Jr. turned sideways, exposing several of the "graves" that remained only in front of Semir's eyes:

"Not only because of the lack of words, but also because I have become numb, their old voices and smiles that are still in the sun gradually blurred and faded, and all that remains in my mind is their dying sorrow and disillusioned cry. ”

"I can't, I can't see the next person, in this boundless hell, sinking. ”

Barney Jr. stood distracted.

Tails lowered his head and sighed silently.

"And you," little Barney looked up blankly, the trance in his eyes slowly turning into hatred:

"You, you cowards who run away halfway and make us even more speechless. ”

"What qualifications do you have to come here as a savior to 'save' us?"

As if he had been punched hard, Semir took a step back in a daze.

He gulped for breath.

"Little Barney, all I can say is, I'm sorry. ”

"And I can make up for it now......"

But little Barney suddenly roared, "No!"

"No, Semir," looked at the stunned Semir, little Barney put away his throat and shook his head slowly:

"It's been more than ten years, and I've thought about it for a long, long time before I finally figured out something, and just now, you reminded me of some things. ”

As he spoke, he walked distractedly to the wall.

"Eighteen years ago, that trial may have been unfair to some, but it wasn't gratuitous......"

Semir frowned slightly:

"What do you mean, Barney?"

Little Barney sneered, his face covered with uninteresting indifference.

"Cannon may be insane, sensitive, suspicious, insane, bipolar, noisy all day long, so bad that we can't sleep well, fuck up. ”

Barney Jr. pointed at Cannon and Naki's cells, casually handing at them.

But it's not his fault, for eighteen years, almost every time he dreams, he dreams of that day...... The Assassins tore off their disguises and leaped out of the crowd, and the Assassins invaded the palace, revealing their blades, and engaged us in battle......"

Barney Jr. said lightly: "It's like a shadow." ”

"Shadows. ”

As he spoke, Cannon shrank again, Nai scratched her hair in pain, and Brie let out an angry "whin" and was stopped by Tardin, leaving only Naki and Beretti to listen in silence.

"Little Barney, you ......"

Little Barney shook his head slightly, interrupting the puzzled Semir.

"In the infinite darkness, Cannon dreamed for eighteen years," Barney said with a thoughtless sigh as he leaned against the wall, "he was a scout, deaf and clear-sighted, and eighteen years in the dark, his eyesight may have deteriorated, and his spirit is so sensitive that he can explode at the touch of it, but his sense of hearing may not." ”

Barney Jr. said as he turned his head suddenly, his eyes shining, "And I'm sure he can recognize the steps of those murderers in his dreams." ”

Cannon hid in the palm of his hand and cried out as if he were weeping.

Semir seemed to have figured something out, and he stared blankly at Barney Jr.

"Now, tell me, Semir," Barney Jr., leaning against the wall, straightened up again:

"Why did you ...... with that hooded guy?"

He looked up coldly, walked to the front, and when he was only a fence away from Semir, he slowly reached out and pointed at the Swords of Calamity in the distance.

“...... Hang out with a despicable assassin with a shadow shield?"