40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 171 32. The world will always be cruel, but I accept it (7k)

Someone was whispering, and he was extremely weak. There must be something wrong with his body, otherwise how could a normal person fall into such a confusing illusion?

He felt like he was floating naked, between the dying stars and the vast ocean. These two images should not be connected at all, but that is how they are.

He is drifting.

drift.

Lonely.

Alone.

fear.

The boundless darkness enveloped everything. As he walked through the darkness, his perception had long since disappeared. There was not even the sound of the howling wind in his ears, only a kind of pure nothingness.

He didn't know how long he had been drifting, time had lost its meaning, and everything became like an endless torture.

He passed by a burning sun and was burned until he was covered in bruises. But in the next second, he would pass through the extremely cold storm and be thrown into the broken glacier to suffer and sink. The cold water would scrape away his flesh and blood like a knife.

He had forgotten many things, even his name. He drifted and saw the stars, countless dying stars - watching and gazing in the storm, gazing at him, craving him, breathing their putrid air upon him greedily.

A beige color that was extremely sickly struck from somewhere in the rough waves in the next second and caught him.

He didn't resist, he had forgotten the meaning of resistance, he just wanted everything to end.

This never-ending torture had to end, he couldn't bear it anymore. The light flickered, quickly changing from beige to pitch black flames that enveloped him. Severe pain hit him the next second, occupying all his consciousness.

His blood began to clot in his veins, burning, and his heart beat violently.

He screamed, screamed, screamed - and then he fell.

He lands.

He opened his eyes and saw a person - wait, a person? He was so bewildered by the concept that he had no idea what the word meant, only that he should call it that.

He looked at the other person, and more words came to him. Giant, horror, skeleton, darkness, ferocious monster.

"What do you remember?" the skeleton asked, its jaws not moving at all when it spoke, but its voice came out naturally.

This thing was captured by him, and a kind of horror rose from the bottom of his heart. He huddled back, trying to get away from the skeleton asking him questions, refusing to do things out of fear, such as thinking about why he understood the skeleton's words.

The skeleton stood there looking at him, as if sighing, but not as if he was sighing. He stepped back, and the world began to change at this moment.

The grass was soft, pressed beneath him. The breeze blows from afar, fragrant and cool. The trees broke free from the shackles of the soil and rushed to the sky, shaking their leaves to shield him from the sun's gaze.

He was bruised and bruised, instinctively seeking refuge, so he continued to retreat in delight, hungry for more.

The skeleton stood staring at him from the other side of the world, as quiet as the dead. The world under its feet also began to change, but it was not beautiful. It could even be said to be so cruel that it was unbearable to look at.

One after another, worlds wrapped in clouds appeared at its feet, and without exception, they were all burning. Black flames burned, and people screamed and wailed, enduring eternal torment in the darkness.

He began to feel fear just by staring. He trembled and pleaded with the skeleton in unspoken broken syllables, begging it to stop. He didn't want to see it, he really didn't want to see it.

But the skeleton was indifferent at all. Its eyes under the hood were shining with fire. It stood there and shook its head slowly.

"Robert Guilliman," it spoke. "Don't retreat any further."

He didn't answer, he didn't dare to answer - he didn't even dare to look at the skeleton. In a daze, a satisfied chuckle came to his ears. It was low and comfortable, like an old man sitting next to him.

He turned his head tremblingly and saw an old man.

He was old and fat, but still healthy. His cheeks were rosy and he was smiling warmly at the moment. The old man spoke with a very kind voice, completely different from the hoarse skeleton.

"Are you going to listen to him?"

No! of course not!

He hunched his back in fear, his shoulders retracted, and his pale and weak hands were slightly raised to cover his face. The old man smiled even happier and patted his shoulder kindly.

"Don't be afraid, kid, it won't hurt you."

Who is you?

"Is this important?" the old man asked, still patient. "Names don't matter, kid."

Really?

"of course it's true."

The old man smiled kindly at him, and his patience made him lower his guard involuntarily. The old man was so gentle that he was worried that he would be punished for asking too many questions.

"The name itself has no meaning, it is just a title, a title used to refer to yourself." The old man said gently. "So, you just need to-"

"——That's enough." The skeleton said in a low voice.

Its voice was distorting, emitting waves of buzzing echoes. The dark flames suddenly raised on the cloak behind it like a living creature, hissing, hissing at the old man like a monster. roar.

"Let him choose, Nurgle."

Nurgle? He looked at the old man doubtfully, and the old man smiled at him, nodded, and blinked: "Yes, Nurgle, that is my name."

What about my name? he asks.

"Robert Guilliman," the skeleton said. "That's your name."

He glanced at the skeleton quickly, not daring to look further, his distrust evident in his expression. He looked at the old man again, but the old man nodded slightly and admitted it with a smile: "Yes, you are Robert Guilliman."

"Let him come here, Nurgle," the skeleton spoke again. "Let him choose."

"Hasn't he already chosen?" Nurgle asked in surprise. "He came here on his own and you like it here, right?"

The old man raised his hand, picked off a leaf for him, and pointed to the blue sky for him. Everything is so peaceful and beautiful. The green grass is swaying, white birds are flying, and insects are chirping in the distance, with rhythm and rhythm, like a song.

He suddenly felt a deep sleepiness, which came without warning and knocked him down almost instantly. He couldn't help but tremble, and his eyelids slowly closed. However, in the next second, there was a sound of thunder, overwhelming all of this.

"Boom——!"

It was extremely violent and terrifying. All his sleepiness disappeared in just a moment, and the smile on the old man's face disappeared for a moment. At that moment, he seemed a little strange.

He shook his head and questioned the skeleton: "I thought this was just a matter between you and me."

"No, this is between you, me and him. So, let him come over and let him choose." The skeleton said in a low voice. "Let him remember his name."

The old man narrowed his eyes slightly, and the insect chirping that had stopped sounded again.

His muscles immediately spasmed, and the pain swept over him like a tsunami, but there was still a name wrapped in this pain. Like a victim in a shipwreck, the body was washed up on the beach by the waves, swollen and white, and no longer alive.

Robert Guilliman.

His his name?

He raised his hands in confusion and covered his face, confused and helpless. Thunder sounded again, and an angry roar loomed in it. When he put his hand down again, the old man had disappeared, leaving only the vibrant grass and the skeleton standing not far away.

Still a scene of horror beneath its feet, it stared at him, then spat out the name again.

"Robert Guilliman," it said, like a call. "Do you remember?"

Remember what?

He instinctively began to think. He felt as if he had not done this for ten million years, but he could still do it naturally if he wanted to.

He thought, Robert Guilliman, Robert Guilliman Robert, Guilliman.

my name?

His eyes widened.

Yes, how could he forget?

He is Roboute Guilliman, the son of Conor Guilliman and Thalasha Yutun. They are not a couple, they are his adoptive father and mother. He is a native of Macragge, and Macragge is his home world, an ancient, beautiful and proud world.

But why am I here?

Robert Guilliman looked at the skeleton in bewilderment. The name returned, and so did more things. He was no longer as timid as before, but suddenly full of courage.

Tarasha Eudon once taught him that one must be brave. Conor Guilliman had told him that the brave were not fearless, but the brave simply ignored them.

Therefore, at this moment, he ignored the cruel world at the feet of the skeleton, forced himself to look into the eyes of the skeleton, and asked aloud: "Who are you?"

"Kalil Lohars," the skeleton replied in a low voice, spitting out a name.

Roboute Guilliman was pretty sure he had never heard the name before. He looked at the skeleton in confusion and actually began to observe it. He carefully memorized every feature on it and began to analyze it. The skeleton didn't give him this time, but just spoke again: "I'm here to help you."

"Help me?" Guilliman frowned, and he spoke with a sense of arrogance that came from nowhere. The arrogance belongs to every young man who doesn't know the heights of the world. He raised his head and tightened his jaw: "What can you help me? I'm very good."

"Really?"

"Of course it's true." Guilliman shook his head in amusement.

"You are such a weird person. You are wearing such a weird armor that seems to have no real defensive capabilities. You also made your helmet into a skull. Are you an assassin or a clown in strange clothes? Do you want to use this? Wearing clothes to scare people?"

He stared at the man defiantly, ready to await his next answer and analyze more. He looked calm, but his back was actually wet with cold sweat.

Of course, these insulting words were just bluff. The man might indeed be an assassin, but this could not explain the strange and terrifying scene under his feet.

Robert Guilliman didn't know where he was. He only remembered that he was sleeping in his room. But why did he wake up in a place like this?

He has no answer.

Unknowingly, he had forgotten all the nightmares he had experienced before, and even the existence of Nurgle. He only knew one thing now - he had to escape on his own.

He will never sit still and wait for death.

"I'm an assassin sometimes," said the skeleton. "As for fancy clothes, I did wear dirty rags before."

"So, you are not a court jester?" Robert Guilliman asked in a deliberately arrogant and annoying tone.

"In the eyes of some things, I might be even more ridiculous than that."

"Something? What are you talking about?"

"What do you think?" the skeleton asked, taking a step forward.

The grass itself began to burn and crackle as the blazing flames of his body rushed forward. This is definitely not a normal phenomenon. What grass makes such a sound when it is burned?

Guilliman lowered his head and stared at them, tense. He was thinking, but instinctively ignored more questions. As the flames spread, he raised his head and had to speak again: "Do you want to burn me to death with this flame?"

"It can't burn you."

"Stop joking, you-"

Robert Guilliman suddenly stopped his voice. Black flames were blazing on the grass, beating like living creatures. They approached him in an instant. Before he even had time to react, he was already wrapped in flames. Body.

The world began to change, and he couldn't control his eyes. He could only watch it all with horror.

The grass disappeared, the trees disappeared, and the dust of decay drifted everywhere. The air turned into a putrid miasma, yellowish powder danced in it, and the ground sank into a morass filled with corpses. The beautiful scene disappeared, and the sheer ugliness and filth made everything so horrific.

Guilliman almost felt sick. He covered his throat in pain and fell to his knees. There was a strange itching in his throat. He coughed, and blood mist floated in the air.

The ground at his feet began to gurgling continuously, and some maggots crawled out of it and gathered around him, seeming to protect him and look after him. He looked at all this in shock and horror, and instinctively tried to escape, but he was already too weak, too weak to drive his body to respond accordingly.

Half a minute ago he had been perfectly healthy and strong, but now he was so weak that he was nearly dying of illness.

Everything was wrong. He finally realized something, but he couldn't grasp the thought floating in his mind.

He wanted to scream, but the ground began to sink, dragging him down, as if he was about to fall into a bottomless abyss——

——until a hand yanked him out.

Guilliman fell to the ground in embarrassment, but the hand did not let go, pulling him up little by little.

The flames were burning and the crackling sounds were endless. Faintly, he seemed to hear the anger of someone or something. The sound was more than he could bear, and Guilliman screamed until a cold hand fell on his shoulder.

It's the skeleton. Can't be wrong.

Guilliman turned his head to look at him. The bloodless and tearless face of the skeleton remained calm and unchanged. There were still dark flames in his eyes.

"Who are you?" Guilliman asked weakly.

"Is it important?" the skeleton asked. "Assassin, killer, court jester who shows off his stupidity in front of others to make people laugh - is there a difference? Stop thinking about who I am, Robert Guilliman. There is only one thing you really need to think about now."

The skeleton grabbed him, forcing him to bow his head. The cruel galaxy rushed in crazily, and ten million stars were extinguished in an instant. Guilliman's eyes widened, and his neck became stiff, as if he was in pain as if he had been beheaded.

Millions of things he had long forgotten came back to him at once, forced into his mind. Confusing and terrifying, there is no doubt that this is not something anyone can bear.

He screamed - a real scream, but the skeleton just stared calmly, clenching his fists slowly.

The man in front of him was as haggard as a zombie, his strong muscles had long since disappeared, and he seemed to be skin and bones. The skin was pale, without any trace of blood, and dirty and filthy blood was spread all over the body.

Even in Robert Guilliman's heyday, he might not have been able to survive this kind of punishment. And now, he has been tortured into this state, can he really survive it?

Khalil didn't have an answer, he couldn't come up with an answer. He had exhausted his means, and so had the Emperor—if the thunder had not sounded, Nurgle would still be here.

As long as He is here, Robert Guilliman cannot be dragged out of that meadow.

Now, it seems, is a time when one can only hope for a miracle.

However, can miracles really happen?

No one knows the answer, including Khalil. He just heard a sigh, a sigh belonging to the emperor.

+After all, I can't hold them back for too long. I can only force their eyes to look away for a short while. Then, you will be the only one fighting alone. +

Khalil looked calmly at Guilliman, looked into his closed eyes, and heard the sobs coming from his throat.

+Maybe I'm not just alone+

Sigh and go away.

A vast and terrifying shape slowly approached from the sky on the other side of the grass. The shape was extremely terrifying and terrifying.

Like a huge creature composed of countless decaying corpses, the skin is rotten and has countless holes. Maggots are freely burrowing in and out of it. Pustules are constantly produced, shining like diseased stars, and a strange gurgling liquid flows in the thick blood vessels. . He has three scattered sharp claws, and the terrifying skin with dense holes is covered with strange three-leaf-shaped marks. It is like a honeycomb that keeps growing and destroying, without stopping.

Like cancer.

"return--!"

He roared and screamed, and his voice swept from the other side of the chaos: "Come back to me——!"

Robert Guilliman opened his eyes suddenly, not because of his own will, but because his body was moving. Something in his blood drove him to do this.

Guilliman opened his eyes in pain, raised his head, and looked up at the sky. The world changed again, and the kind old man floated in the air and smiled pitifully at him, as if he could understand his pain and despair at this moment.

"Does it hurt?" he asked in a fatherly tone. "Child, does it hurt?"

Robert Guilliman's nose was sore and he was almost in tears. He has lost his ability to think, like a programmed machine.

Whatever people ask, he answers and takes corresponding actions. The old man asked with fatherly kindness, and he actually began to cry. The darkness still burned within him, assisting him in his resistance.

But does he really want to resist?

Did he really want to endure this never-ending torture?

"Come to me, child." The old man extended a hand to him gently.

"You will be reborn, you will get a new name. In the chaos of your future destiny, you already have a brother waiting for you. Together you will become my princes, and you will rise from death and torture. You will Never have to endure any pain again, for you will be the source of pain.”

"Come," He whispered earnestly, tenderly.

Roboute Guilliman closed his eyes in pain, the black flames cauterizing the things that lurked in his blood, preventing him from looking directly at the old man again.

He closed his eyes, and the things and people he had forgotten were turning into a storm to attack his brain. At this moment, every second he experienced was unimaginable torture.

His muscles were torn apart, his blood vessels were cut out with a knife, his bones were bent, his eyes were pulled out, and his tongue was cut off. He seemed to have died a thousand times and lived a thousand years - he sorted out his memories from an alienated and unfamiliar perspective.

Macragge, the Emperor, his legions. His brothers, his sons. Every name, every scene.

In the end, the scene was fixed on two people.

Conor Guilliman. Tarasha Euton.

Father. Mother.

what should I do? he asked, sobbing--he asked, sobbing, expressionless.

His perspective was heightened, and he tried to grieve, but he couldn't. The thing that had forced him to forget everything before came back and started to work again, trying to make him forget these precious treasures, trying to make him a blank piece of paper with a new name.

Does he want to do this?

He didn't know it, but he did want to be free of pain, free of torture. He wanted peace.

Amid the bloodshed and decay, Robert Guilliman, a child from Macragge, heard a voice.

"I was sometimes afraid of you, my son." The voice narrated slowly, making him feel extremely familiar.

"Because you are too tall and outstanding. You are the best among us. However, every quiet night, I actually have doubts. I wonder, are you really a human being?"

"Medical examinations have proven that you will not age, Robert, and you may stay this way forever. You are an anomaly, I am sure of this, but you also have a heart, you are kind, rational, and wise. You are full of compassion. But we No, Robert, we are not."

"One day, everyone you know will die and turn into an inconspicuous wave in the long river of time. But you will always exist, and you will go further than us. You were born to bear some kind of responsibility. I I hate to say it, but if there really is such a responsibility, who else can shoulder it besides you?”

The voice let out a long sigh, and an old man slowly appeared in front of Robert Guilliman. He was transparent, like an ember in the wind, about to disappear completely. He was crying. He spread his right hand with a coin on it and waited quietly.

"I used to dream a lot. Before I met you, I had this dream at least ten million times."

"I dreamed that I was riding a horse, alone among the icy mountains. It was cold, dark, and lonely. I could only hear the sound of horse hooves and the howling wind. There was nothing in the sky, no stars, and the river was covered with ice. The trees were forced to die. I rode my horse and roamed here. Finally, I found you beside a meadow."

"You were still a baby at that time, Robert, and you smiled at me countless times in your dreams. I am not brave, I am even afraid of the scenes in my dreams, but the bravest move I have ever done in my life is to gather people. I went to the forest to find you. I never believed in prophecies and so-called spells, but I believed in a dream and I believed in you, Robert."

The old man smiled and nodded to him, his face frozen at this moment.

Behind him appeared the blue sky and forests of Macragge. The rivers began to flow, the trees grew again, the sky was filled with stars, the frost disappeared, and the sun was shining. A middle-aged man was happily holding a baby on the grass, on Macragge.

The baby is laughing too.

And Robert Guilliman was crying.

He opened his mouth and gritted his teeth. He shed tears silently. Everything in front of him had long been blurred. Extremely salty and extremely bitter tears streaked down his face. Everything was silent except for the sound of a coin falling to the ground.

Robert Guilliman swooped over and picked it up. Consciousness returned quickly, and pain came screaming. But he forced himself to open his eyes and clenched his right hands tightly, with the shape of a coin gnawing at his flesh and blood.

He looked at the sky. The thing was still waiting eagerly, with a smile on its face, as if it thought it had won. He noticed Guilliman's gaze and spoke again.

However, this time, His voice no longer sounded gentle to Guilliman, and He could no longer deceive him.

"Come, child." He opened his hands and waited. "You will gain everything, you will no longer suffer, you will no longer have to face the cruel world, and everyone will love you from the bottom of their hearts."

Robert Guilliman trembled and stood up bit by bit. The skeleton stood beside him, not speaking, not even offering any support. The smile on the old man's face began to become more and more obvious, as if he had a chance to win.

But Robert Guilliman just shook his head slowly and forcefully.

"No," he croaked, in agony. "No."

He held up the coin as Conor Guilliman held up the baby on the grass. He held it high, and it began to shine. The light was so intense that it started to make the world change color in the first second it appeared.

The rotten grass began to melt away bit by bit, like a melting wax statue. His smile disappeared, and a roar followed, but Guilliman looked at him without fear.

He was still crying, but he was fearless. There was an instinctive fury surging on his face, and it was this fury that drove the light. It was not the power of the Emperor or Khalil Roharus, it was the power of Roboute Guilliman himself.

It is the most primitive, heaviest and most turbulent anger that a son of man can burst out after seeing his father's death again.

Right now, here, in this imaginary yet real place, it beats everything.

"I only have one name."

Roboute Guilliman roared, tears streaming down his face, rage boiling beneath them, yet always dominating his own emotions.

"Did you hear that?! You filthy monster, I have only one name, I will only have one name! I am Robert Guilliman of Macragge, and I will drive you all to an end!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he disappeared into the light. The skeleton remained in place, its visor gone, its face smiling.

"Don't be too proud," said Nurgle grimly. "You can't save everyone, don't forget the price."

"Yes, the price, yes, I can't save everyone, but..." Khalil lowered his head, and his laughter resounded harshly. ".I didn't save him in the first place."

He laughed.

"He defeated you."

2-in-1, 1K more updates, updated.