40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 15 15. Dance on a Rainy Night (Part 2)

The old city of Quintus is a very interesting complex of buildings.

In fact, it was the ‘new city’ twenty years ago.

And today, twenty years later, it has been called the old city by all Quintus people. There is no reason, everyone calls it that. The few who know the reason also keep silent.

And the dead naturally cannot speak.

The times are changing with each passing day, and the changes of the times are so ruthless. The workers who once lived in the old city are now gone, even their bones are gone. All of them are completely buried, without a cemetery, no tombstone, and no name.

Death means losing everything, doesn’t it?

But at least there is still one person who remembers them.

A dead soul remembers.

Khalil jumped off the broken roof and avoided the patrol vehicle of the Honor Warlord.

The motorcycle ran over the potholes on the road, and the two people sitting on it were bumped and cursed a few times. They didn’t know that at this moment, above their heads, a dark shadow flashed.

Watching him and his companions go away, Khalil shook his head, with a somewhat regretful expression.

The patrolmen were very cautious, or rather, the people who set up these patrol routes were very cautious. He set up many routes along the highway, but each route had a place where they intersected with each other. This made quiet killing a luxury.

After all, in this way, the disappearance of any group of people would attract the attention of others soon.

Khalil could erase the sound of killing, but he could not erase the result of killing.

Every time he swung his knife, someone would die - and death could not be covered up.

Khalil continued to move forward.

He knew every detail of the old town. Go forward, turn, run into the alley, jump onto the gloomy spire house - just twelve minutes later, he had reached the target of this trip.

A clock tower.

Once, it was one of the many symbols of the old town. Around the clock tower, there would be many neon lights and suspended billboards from factories. The dark night will be illuminated with a variety of colors, and the wars that broke out near the bell tower have never stopped.

All gangs want to own it.

It is silent, tall, and stands in the darkness, like a symbol, forcing everyone who sees it to try to conquer it.

However, all of this was completely changed with the arrival of the Great Purge. Later, the establishment of the new city district made things worse.

Today, this place can really be called a ghost town, with only half of the area still being used, and not by workers.

It fits the temperament of Nostramo, Caril thought.

He couldn't help but pull the corners of his mouth and smiled coldly.

Caril walked forward and climbed up the ancient building in a few clever jumps. When he climbed to the top and walked into the core of the bell tower from the small arched door, as expected, he did not see the huge bronze bell here.

Was it stolen, or collected by a noble? Caril had no answer to this.

He came to the other side of the small arched door, and his sight was already on a road.

Compared to the darkness of the old city, it was very different. There was an incandescent lamp every fifty meters, making the whole road so bright that it didn't seem like Nostramo's creation.

The Honorable Warlord set up a key defense here. If you must say, the previous sentries and patrols were just appetizers. The checkpoints set up every five hundred meters were the luxurious main course.

There were gunmen everywhere, and they even had sentry mechas - a group of real low-intelligence iron golems, built by craftsmen in the Prim Hive, with amazing sales.

It is worth mentioning that the road surface condition is also very good. This is thanks to the workers who are driven to maintain the road every two months.

But where are they now?

Khalil had no answer.

He exhaled lightly, then bent down, took away the bricks and tiles piled up at the edge of the small arched door, and brushed off some dust, and then sat on the ground.

He would wait for them to come, just as he did in the past. As long as he smells their scent, he will immediately jump out of the darkness and cut the throat of the prey.

However, before all this is successfully executed, he needs patience.

A qualified hunter should have patience, which is also a rare quality. Without it, you can't do this job.

"Patience, ghost." Khalil murmured to himself. "Don't get hurt, don't let yourself down."

Yes, don't let yourself down.

He lowered his head, clenched his hands, and let the sharp blade stick to his skin.

——

"Don't run." The ghost said. "You shouldn't run, you should accept this."

"Get out of here, you monster!"

A man cried and yelled. He stood in an attic full of blood. He clearly held a gun in his hand, but he didn't have the courage to pull the trigger at the ghost again.

In fact, his hands were shaking so much that he could hardly hold it.

Half a minute ago, he had used up a magazine, but he didn't even touch the corner of the ghost's clothes.

If you go back half a minute, you will see how a dark shadow suddenly entered the attic and tore off the limbs of one of the two sentries in two waves.

If you could see the scene mixed with screams and blood and flesh splattering, perhaps you would be able to empathize with the man's intense fear at this moment.

Facing the man's cry, Ghost just tilted his head.

So, is this what fear does?

He nodded thoughtfully, finally beginning to truly understand why Khalil had to resort to silence on every mission.

He originally thought that Khalil did this just because he liked it. Ghost really didn't expect that Kalil did this just because it was more effective.

They are completely vulnerable to fear.

In fact, this is even the last outpost that the ghost is responsible for cleaning. However, this crying man was not the first person to collapse in front of the ghost tonight.

There were many before him.

"Don't come here, don't come here!" the man cried bitterly. "Please, don't come here. I don't want to die. I don't want to die."

"Aren't you going to shoot me again?" Ghost asked softly, hissing as he stood there.

"me"

"Shoot," the ghost said quietly. "I want you to accept this."

"What are you accepting? Are you sick?!"

The man yelled in collapse, his voice echoing in the shattered attic. His fat belly was stained with blood, and a torn corpse behind him was silently watching all this.

"Accept your death, Barry."

Ghost replied in a low voice, his voice was slow and low, his tone was soft and natural. It wasn't like he was threatening or pressuring, in fact, he sounded almost like he was talking to Barry normally.

chat.

"We heard your conversation with Jovan, Barry. You have accepted to be a servant of House Skolywok and have given everything to them."

"So, why can't you accept your death? You are not willing to die like this, but why? Why are you not willing to die?"

Ghost asked sincerely, and he took the question seriously. Because he couldn't think of an answer, and he didn't want to trouble Khalil - and Barry.

Barry's eyes widened and he froze.

His legs began to weaken in the next second, and then he knelt on the ground involuntarily.

We heard you talking to Jovan.

us

us.

Vengeful souls.

I see.

No wonder the bullets couldn't hit him, no wonder he was so tall, no wonder my shouting failed to attract the attention of other groups, no wonder Jovan suddenly became...

It turns out they came to find me.

Barry's face began to twitch, and he began to gasp for air, but the air he sucked in was completely unable to provide him with relief.

His breathing began to become more and more rapid, and his expression began to become more and more collapsed. In the end, he even knelt on the ground and sobbed.

The cry breaks.

"Don't cry." Ghost said softly. "Shoot me, Barry, and accept this."

"Crack."

A gun fell to the ground. Barry refused in his own way. Ghost frowned and began to think about Khalil's words.

"Why... is this happening to me?"

Barry cried. "Why don't you go find them? The vengeful spirits? Why don't you go find the people who asked us to do these things?"

"Who are they?" Midnight Ghost asked, not wanting to correct Barry's mistake in naming them yet.

"The Scolewock family!"

Barry roared, his eyes widened, filled with bloodshot eyes, and the cloudy eyeballs looked like glass corroded by acid rain to the ghost.

"Why don't you go find them?!"

Faced with Barry's questioning, Ghost just squatted down. He was entrenched at the other end of the darkness in the attic, like a monster waiting for an opportunity in the darkness.

His expression is calm, natural and patient.

Khalil taught him that during conversations, the other person should feel a sense of respect. And now, he was already talking to Barry.

He continued: "What did they ask you to do?"

Barry was stunned. He was the one who raised this question, but he didn't seem to have thought about what happened after this question.

But Ghost thought about it.

Or so - Khalil thought about it.

The hissing voice of the Midnight Haunter sounded again in the darkness: "They asked you to exploit those workers, collect taxes, and suppress those who resisted, right?"

"Yep!"

As if grasping a life-saving straw, Barry began to nod his head repeatedly, a strange madness flashed across his tearful face. "Yes! They asked us to do it!"

"So, do they let you cannibalize, open a butcher shop, murder, traffic people, kill people on the street, and rob wantonly?" Ghost asked again.

Barry was stunned again. He didn't expect this. In his mind, all this was a matter of course. Being a member of a gang means receiving these privileges.

He never thought that these things would one day become questions from others.

Moreover, he actually had no way to answer.

"Then, do they want you to follow their example and drive the civilians who can't pay the money out of the hive, leaving them to fend for themselves in the wilderness and become food for wild beasts?"

"So, did they ask you to imitate them and be superior to others?"

The ghost stood up slowly.

"You have long accepted the fact that you are a servant of the Skolywock family. In fact, you are very comfortable with this identity, Barry. You have accepted the benefits that this identity brings, and you should accept the responsibilities that it brings. ”

"No, no, that's not it," Barry said shakily.

"Yes, Barry," Ghost whispered. "Yes."

"No!" Barry roared ferociously.

"I do this because I have to do it! I have to do it! I can't live without this. I don't want to get lung disease like those workers in the factory. I don't want to cough up blood and be covered in dust like them-"

Ghost nodded silently, knowing what Barry was talking about.

Workers in factories get sick, they get all kinds of diseases. The most common is lung disease, and if one person gets it, the whole family gets it.

He had seen it many times when passing through shantytowns - a family, or a person, lying on the side of the street, coughing up blood on the moldy hard board where someone had died, in great pain, waiting for death to come.

For no apparent reason, Ghost felt a wave of annoyance in his heart. So, he took the initiative to interrupt Barry and ended the conversation.

"-Shh, stop it, Barry. Just accept it."

Ghost said softly, then took a step forward.

Barry screamed in horror. Although he hadn't been hurt yet, he was already in pain as if he had been disembowelled. Irritating tears and snot crisscrossed his fat face, but the ghost remained indifferent and continued to walk forward.

"No, please, don't," Barry whimpered. "I really don't want to, I really don't want to"

The ghost stopped where he was and stared at him for a while.

Khalil was right, he thought.

They really cry and look repentant.

'But we cannot forgive them. We are not qualified to forgive the victims. ’

Ghost stepped forward, stretched out his right hand, and lifted Barry's chin.

"Don't cry, Barry," the ghost said softly. "Crying is a human privilege, and you are not."

There was rain outside the window and it started to pour.