Kingdom's Bloodline, page 477
Surprise slowly appeared in Samel's eyes as he stared at the prisoner. "Zakriel? How are you—"
"No need to worry about me, my mind is now quite clear. It's just that I haven't seen light for so long." Zakriel scowled and hit the bars, then he waved his palm. It was obvious that he was not in a very comfortable state.
"This thing is pretty useful... As for earlier, that's just a daily routine that I need to go through. It might seem a bit odd, but it's nothing."
Indeed, the current Zakriel looked just like a normal person. Too normal, in fact. He did not seem… like a man who was locked up for eighteen years.
Ricky stared at him in distrust. He said in a mocking tone, "A bit odd? Are you sure?"
"It was just part of a journey, that's all," Zakriel responded indifferently. Then, he deliberately looked at Thales. "As you said, child. It's another world, a different world."
His eyes were very calm, yet he always made Thales subconsciously clench his fists and tense up his muscles.
'This man, this current Zakriel... is the legendary Knight of Judgment?'
Nevertheless, Samel and Ricky still shot each other a worried glance.
"Do we still need to ask?" Samel whispered into his ears, "He does not necessarily recognize me. I can't guarantee that the things he says in this current state will…"
Zakriel had obviously heard their whispers. The Knight of Judgment chuckled softly in the prison. His shoulder—the side he used to lean against the wall—trembled slightly.
"Did I not tell you this a very long time ago?" Zakriel exhaled as he leaned against the wall. He narrowed his eyes, using the light to observe his own fingernails. He seemed quite relaxed. "There are plenty of times where you have to fight against yourself, but this enemy known as yourself... is very powerful."
He clenched his fists and turned to Samel. His gaze was profound. "But you just can't give up, Colin Samel. You mustn't."
Samel's expression changed, like he had remembered something. He sucked in a breath and took a step forward. He seemed rather worked up.
"Zakriel, you… you still remember me?"
The corner of Zakriel's lips twitched. He unfurled his fist and started to check the fingernails of his other hand.
"I recognize everyone in my team. I even recognize the brand on your face." He grabbed a tool that looked like a stone knife and began rubbing it against the nail of his index finger as though there was no one around him.
"As I said, my mind is now quite clear. After all, you don't usually hear fighting from the few levels above."
Ricky looked at his calm actions, and his expression became more serious.
Zakriel blew at the finger nail, which was now neatly filed by the stone knife. He then looked at Samel a distance away.
"You just said… eighteen years, right?"
Samel's cheeks twitched.
'Eighteen years...' Ricky and Thales both moved. 'This is what we said when Zakriel was having one of his "fits". He actually remembers it?'
"So, fugitive Colin Samel. Eighteen years have passed. You're here. Either they finally caught you,and delivered you down here to rot"—Zakriel narrowed his eyes and looked at his old comrade—"OR you once again broke the law, and came here not too 'legally'."
Thales examined this legendary figure of the Royal Guards whom did not seem to be of very sound mind, and wondered what kind of man he was.
Samel pursed his lips. He had experienced "reuniting" with the guards once, he now knew how to speak to his former colleagues.
However, it was the skeptical Ricky who spoke, "Very good, he can still have a conversation, although he still doesn't seem to be of too sound a mind." He nodded at Samel. "Let's try."
Once he heard the leader of the Disaster Swords speak, Zakriel's eyes moved towards Ricky and Thales. The light in his eyes sparkled, and he seemed to be thinking of something.
Samel sucked in a deep breath. He then spoke seriously in a mild tone, "Zakriel, listen, it has been eighteen years. You shouldn't be trapped here, we're here to—"
But Zakriel quickly interrupted him, "Breaking into the prison, saving people, looking for treasure, revenge, commiting suicide, penance, seeking answers to your questions." The former Royal Guard cum prisoner laughed coldly. "These are the only few reasons for you to be here."
He then pushed his body off the wall and turned his head around. "Whichever one it is, I'm not interested."
Zakriel did not even turn his head around when he said his next words coldly, "You can now go."
At that moment, Ricky and Samel were stunned. Both of them were rendered speechless by his decision to absolutely not cooperate with them.
Zakriel did not even look at them. He had his back turned to them, and he looked dignified even though his movements were slow. The three people outside the prison cell looked at each other, feeling lost.
Then, they saw Zakriel touch his rough chin. He said softly in a somewhat regrettable tone,
"Ah, maybe… I should shave my beard."
Chapter 418: A Different World |
"Listen, Zakriel!"
When he saw how uncooperative Zakriel was, Ricky gestured to Samel, making Samel somewhat anxious.
"It's not easy for us to come down here. We didn't just come here to talk about old times with you, but to—"
"Then don't waste time." Zakriel touched his own stubble and raised the small stone knife in his hand. He did not care about Samel's anxiety in the least. "Unless, you have a razor? This is a little blunt…"
Zakriel turned his head and looked at Ricky's waist. There was scorn in his gaze,
"Hey, is your sword good?"
Ricky snorted and pushed down on his uniquely shaped sword. He was filled with hostility.
At that moment...
"Here." Thales, who had been silent for a while, suddenly said, "A razor, for you."
As though he was performing a magic trick, the teenager took out a sheathed dagger from his shirt and pushed it in between the bars.
Zakriel was stunned for a moment before he responded. He instinctively took Thales's dagger.
Ricky and Samel both had a change of expression when they saw JC's dagger, which had unknowingly been returned to Thales!
Samel looked at Thales in disbelief,
"When…"
Thales smirked.
"During the chaotic battle earlier, Marina pressed me to the ground so hard that she didn't feel my hand."
Ricky frowned and immediately smiled in understanding.
"Not bad. You were able to steal the dagger just like that? You make your ancestors proud." Samel stared at the prince, displeased. "It's a pity you're not a pickpocket."
'Yes, I think so too.'
Thales sighed to himself.
Zakriel smiled and shook his head. He looked at the dagger in his hand with interest. His hands moved across the dagger sheath, but he did not draw the dagger out, let alone shave.
He darted a glance at them under the light. Then, he mumbled some words, which seemed to come out of nowhere.
"A king doesn't gain respect by virtue of his bloodline, right?"
Both Ricky and Samel were perplexed, but Thales smiled.
The prince took a step forward before the puzzled gazes of the two other people.
"Who was that?
"Zakriel, who was the person who spoke to you just now?" Thales asked with a smile.
Ricky and Samel both frowned. They seemed to be very dissatisfied with the prince's interruption.
However, Zakriel was not of the same opinion.
"Ah, after all these years, someone finally asked."
Zakriel's eyes were fixed on the dagger in his hand for a few seconds. Then, his lips curled up slightly. "This means that you aren't a hallucination, or are you?"
Thales laughed.
"Of course I'm not," the prince said plainly.
"But the man who talked to you is?"
Samel appeared irritated as he listened to the conversation, which he could not understand.
However, Ricky shook his head at him and prevented him from interrupting.
Zakriel laughed.
"That person…"
His gaze was a little unfocused. He seemed to be seconds away from returning to his neurotic state.
"When I got here, I was still fine," Zakriel said in a daze. "I treated it as solitary training, just that the time for that training was slightly longer, the light was dimmer, the room emptier, and there was no Bruley chattering away every day with his big mouth. It was good."
He murmured, and the chill meaning in his words made Samel lower his head.
Zakriel suddenly laughed, and out of nowhere he said, "Later, at some point of time, he came. That person, I mean."
Samel tensed up a little.
"What? Who came?"
Zakriel was once again immersed in his own world. "One day, I saw him talking. He was over that side in the cell."
He pointed at a corner beyond the bars. His face slowly stiffened.
"He sat there, smiled…
"...and talked.
"Him, that is," Zakriel said with a dazed look on his face.
Ricky and Samel glanced at the place he pointed. There was only dust gathering in that corner. It was clear that no one had touched it for a long time. Nonetheless, Zakriel's gaze had become still, and he had a dead expression. It was as if he saw that "person" right then.
Zakriel became as still as a statue.
When he saw Zakriel acting that way, Samel understood what was happening. He sighed in an infuriated manner.
"Him?
"Look clearly, Zakriel. There's nothing there and there's nothing where you are either. There is no one, no light!"
There was a slightly accusatory tone in Samel's words, "Zakriel, listen to me. I know that you don't want to remember all the torture you suffered in the past, but no matter how terrible it was… what you see is not true! I've seen Barney Junior and the others. They've been reduced to that state because of this f*cking prison! And you've been trapped here for eighteen years with only darkness and loneliness as your companion…"
When he heard Samel's words, Zakriel came back to his senses. He snapped out of that still state he had sank into and was no longer like a statue. He chuckled coldly.
"I've been trapped here for eighteen years, and what about you?"
Zakriel focused his stare on Samel. His eyes shone with a cold glare. "It's been eighteen years since you've been trapped in your heart, isn't it?
The Knight of Judgment shook his head disdainfully.
"In this regard, we are no different, Vice Flag Bearer Samel."
Samel was stunned.
When they reached a stalemate again, Thales sighed.
"So, Mister… Zakriel.
"You said that you saw 'him' here... talking?"
The prince looked at Zakriel with a complicated stare. "Who is this 'he' that you speak of?"
Zakriel lowered his head.
"And who are you, teenager?"
The former-Royal-Guard-now-turned-prisoner narrowed his eyes. "I suppose you aren't like these people. You did'nt volunteer to visit the Prison of Bones, did you?"
Samel frowned. He was about to move forward and pull Thales back, but Ricky stopped him.
Thales shook his head and did not answer.
"You see him talking, but you can't hear him." The prince sighed.
"I believe that you first saw 'him' before you heard 'him' talking, right?"
Zakriel stared at him and pondered for a long time.
But his answer was still not definitive.
"It doesn't matter, does it?" The Royal Guard's formerly bright eyes were now unfocused. He sank into his memories.
"Sometimes, I see him, and then I hear him.
"Sometimes, I hear him, and he appears in front of me.
"It's the same.
"There's no difference."
After he said that, Zakriel's expression froze again.
The four people in the hall were silent for a moment because of the extraordinarily strange conversation.
'This makes no sense.
'He's already been driven mad.'
Samel shook his head and darted a glance at Ricky, sharing his thoughts with him.
However, the leader of the Disaster Swords did not pay attention to him. On the contrary, he listened to the conversation with great interest.
"It's the same, isn't it?" Thales forced a smile on his face.
"So, 'he' was... talking to you?"
Zakriel's expression became a bit sad.
"Yes, he talked as usual. He smiled and talked, and even gave me orders." Zakriel's mind seemed to be wandering. He stared at the corner he had just pointed to.
"But I know... I know... Sometimes he's real. During those times, I'd be very happy."
The next moment, Zakriel's cheek muscles tensed up. He clenched his teeth, as though he had seen something evil.
"I also know that sometimes, other things disguise themselves as him, just so that they can bring out the weakness and darkness in my heart. They want to use it to destroy me."
Thales moved his eyebrows.
"Other things?"
When Samel saw that, he sighed and whispered in Ricky's ear, "It's meaningless ramblings again."
Though, Ricky obviously disagreed with him. "It's fine. As long as we can make him talk to us, let him continue."
Zakriel ignored the whispers from the other two. He only focused on talking to Thales.
"Yes, those who want to harm you."
The middle-aged man with the long face stared at the empty space. His words were full of emotion. "You know, he's very good, but those things are very cunning. I can hardly tell the difference between them at the very beginning."
As Zakriel spoke, he seemingly descended into an absentminded state.
He seemed to be talking to himself.
"They would tell me about the past. When I trained as a child, when I was chosen once I became an adult, when I performed my duty in Renaissance Palace, when I served as an envoy in Northland, when I went on an expedition in the desert, when I traveled south to Blade Edge Hill, and of course, they told me about the people around me: my father, mother, my older brother, my younger sister, His Majesty, His Highness, the old captain, Barney Sr., the old smoker, Groff, and of course, her, then…"
Zakriel trembled slightly once he said the last word.
Thales looked at him, showing that all his attention was on him to encourage him to go on.
"Those things are very detestable. They like to whisper into my ears when I sleep." Zakriel had apparently returned to the state they first saw him in. He gnashed his teeth and looked ferocious.
"They showed me things.
"They tried to destroy me."
He stared at the dagger in his hand. His gaze was cold.
"What is it?" Thales asked gently, as though he was guiding a child to learn something.
"What did they show you, Zakriel?"
Zakriel looked up and clenched his teeth like a wild beast.
His bloodshot eyes were fixed on a spot ahead of him, like his arch enemies were there.
"Sometimes it was visible rotten faces with maggots and flies…"
Zakriel's words contained a tone that chilled others to the bone. It made Zakriel himself shiver. "They had obviously rotted away so much that they were beyond recognition, but they could still move. But I know... Those are the people from the guards. It's their faces. They appear in the dark. They appear suddenly, right before your eyes…"
Samel looked at him with pity. He shook his head and said in a low voice, "He's really gone mad."
Ricky ignored him.
"Sometimes there were countless heads pierced through by spears. They filled every corner of the prison. I had no place to stay, not even a place to sleep. I could only stand against the wall."
Thales listened silently. There was sympathy in his eyes.
"All those heads belonged to people who've died a long time ago, but they still could speak. They liked to suddenly open their eyes and speak when I squeezed through them to get my food. Some would try to bite me." Zakriel tightened his grip around the dagger in his hand. He held his shoulder with his left hand, as though that spot had been bitten by the monster he spoke of.
"I have to say, the head that strongly resembled Prince Bancroft was really well done. His words kept me awake for several days."
Zakriel made a sound. It sounded like a laugh, but not a laugh at the same time.
He stared at Thales in a rather frightening way.
"There was even one day when I woke up and saw corpses hanging from the ceiling... Right there. Only the whites of their eyes could be seen. Their tongues were hanging out. They looked like they had their heads lowered to stare at me…" Zakriel pointed above him, and his breathing quickened.
"They swayed back and forth above him. They twitched slowly, and sometimes, the feet as well as robes of the dead would sweep past my hair. This would last… for around three meals, I think," he said faintly.
Samel could no longer hold himself back, and he spoke up.
"But you don't even have any light here!"
The vice flag bearer looked at the formerly-strongest guard in sorrow. "Wake up, Zakriel! There's nothing in the prison! Everything you've seen is a figment of your own imagination! We're here to save you!"
Zakriel sneered. He looked at Thales again.
"Sometimes they simply didn't show me anything. They would only leave behind their whispers in the dark," he said coldly.
Thales forced a smile. "Whispers?"
Zakriel nodded. There was a glazed look on his face.
"Babies, crying...
"A baby would start crying in the endless darkness, over and over again, non-stop.
"The cycle would repeat. They cry everywhere. Sometimes, they were close to my ears and they became the only sounds I could hear clearly. Sometimes they were barely noticeable, and I could only hear them when I focused my attention on them. Sometimes they sounded wretched and miserable. Sometimes, full of malice... Sometimes, they wouldn't cry... They'd laugh in a very bizarre manner."
Zakriel sat down against the wall and curled his whole body. There was an absentminded look on his face.
