A Foolish Idea

At that moment, Tales's breathing stopped.

Eighteen years ago...

Hyman Knight Starcrest...

Bladefang Camp...

Ricky's pupils suddenly constricted!

"You?"

He stared at Fuse before him in shock and solemnity, instinctively glancing in one direction. "Ghost Prince..."

"It was you?"

Fuse straightened his robes, revealed a perfect smile, and nodded.

"Me."

Soon, everyone's gaze toward Fuse changed. Even Russell was no exception.

Their wariness and loathing... turned into dread and shock.

Tales stared blankly at Fuse.

So that meant...

He was...

"Look, everyone has a past."

"And the reason Teng promoted me to one of his deputies and sent me to become the person in charge of the Shadow Shield in Dragoncloud City," Fuse said with a smile, spreading his hands and baring a strange grin.

"There's a reason."

He turned toward Tales, still smiling warmly.

But the Prince suddenly felt that this man's smile had become chilling.

For a long time, the Year of Blood had merely been a label in Tales's mind, a backdrop.

Only when discussing it with others would that era's background occasionally emerge amid conversations steeped in the weight of history.

He had been shaken by Gilbert's account, sighed with emotion in the Radiant Star Tomb Chamber, lamented Vero's fate, marveled when passing through Lehman Pass, grown furious while listening to King Noon's story, become puzzled by Old Crow's discussion, and felt melancholy when passing the Ghost Prince's Tower.

But Tales had never experienced or directly faced the bloodshed of that era at close range. It had even given him an illusion:

That all of it was in the past.

The wars, assassinations, conspiracies, deaths, and bloodshed—all the events that had occurred between 660 and 661 of the End Era—seemed to have happened behind a curtain.

Like history, legend, and stories.

Until this moment, when Tales