40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 284 4. Meeting of the original body (3)

"You have finished what I want to say, Rogge. I also want to introduce Mortarion to Khalil personally." Coze smiled slightly frivolously.

"Should I apologize for this?"

Don asked rhetorically, displaying a rare sense of humor. However, considering his usual performance, this sentence has become a kind of humorous joke with a very high threshold. Only a few people are lucky enough to understand its humor.

Curze smiled, and so did Khalil, but Mortarion did not.

The Lord of Death was stunned and looked at Rogal Dorn carefully for a while as if he were meeting him for the first time. The respirator hissed hoarsely, and a stream of incense-scented gas shot out from both ends.

"There is no need to apologize, but I ask you to tell another joke." The Lord of the Night said with a chuckle.

He can switch back and forth between mean and funny whenever he wants. This trait is rare, and some people take being mean for fun, while others, more simply, despise both equally.

Donne shook his head and put his hands behind his back: "Why do you think I was telling a joke just now?"

"Here you go again. Well, because that sentence does sound funny - the most important thing is that it doesn't seem like something Rogal Dorn should say."

"So, in your eyes, how should Rogal Dorn express himself?" Dorn asked inquiringly.

He was not asking sarcastically, but was sincerely trying to find out what Conrad Coates thought about the matter. Neither he nor the Lord of Night thought there was anything wrong with these lines of dialogue. They were already familiar enough with each other and knew each other's style very well.

But if these words fall on other people's ears

"That's enough, you two."

Mortarion spoke suddenly, his voice hoarse. The respirator apparently changed his voice, making him sound as if he was wearing a breathing grille and as dark as a dark cloud.

"I don't think there's anything worth arguing about. It's just a name and a few words of introduction. I don't need anyone else to do it for me."

Konrad Curze raised his eyebrows, Dorn nodded to him imperceptibly, and the two of them chose silence for the time being - and the Lord of Death had also turned his gaze to Khalil.

After a while of looking and staring, he raised his hand, put down the hood, and even reached out to take off the respirator. The exposed face of the original body is thin, with deep-set eye sockets, high cheekbones, sunken cheeks, pale skin, and looks almost lifeless.

If it were an ordinary person, this face would even be called terrifying, but Mortarion was a Primarch, and his seriously ill appearance only made him more impressive.

"I am Mortarion, from Barbarus." He said while holding the respirator.

Freed from the shackles of the machine that was still emitting the scent of incense, his voice no longer sounded so gloomy, but instead seemed very quiet.

"I have heard your name many times, Khalil Lohars. My brothers seem to be very keen to talk about you. Every time there are many people attending the banquet, they will definitely have a reserved topic. for you."

"It sounds like I've become a fashionable topic." Khalil chuckled and couldn't help but make a little joke - Coates was surprised to find that the joke didn't seem so bad.

"Anyway, it's a pleasure to meet you, Mortarion. Although this may seem redundant, I'll say it again - my name is Khalil Lohars, from Nostramore."

"Conrad often talks about you." Mortarion raised his left hand and put it on Curze's shoulder. “Although it’s mostly complaints.”

"Hey!" Cozz turned his head and glared at him. "I don't remember complaining about anything."

"Maybe." Mortarion looked at him strangely and nodded noncommittally. "Since you said no, then no."

"It wasn't there!"

"Yeah" Mortarion responded with a dull nasal sound again. He looked at Khalil again, as if he wanted to say something. After several seconds of silence, he spoke again: "What do you think of psychic energy?"

"A dangerous force."

Mortarion nodded repeatedly, as if he couldn't agree more. There was finally a slight fluctuation on his face, and it was no longer completely dead or calm. Next, he spoke very quickly.

"Yes, I agree, but it's not just dangerous. It also has a meaning that we can't understand yet, just like a metaphor commonly used in literary works. Ordinary people can't understand it, only those who stare at the text and read it again It takes another person to understand what they mean, but if you do, you're not far from insanity."

"What is he talking about?" Coze turned to look at Dorn. "Why can't I understand Gothic all of a sudden?"

"This is the first time I remember you saying so many words in one breath, brother."

Dorn ignored the Night Lord's slightly mean joke and expressed his surprise to Mortarion. At the same time, he also made a keen guess.

"Are you asking for support? About Magnus?"

The Lord of Death narrowed his eyes and was silent for a while before answering this more pointed question.

"Normally I have no ill will toward others, but Magnus is different. His arrogance is beyond any of our imaginations. He has crossed a line. He is making a deal with a tiger for its skin and with some force that he simply cannot understand." . And when I brought this up to him, he proudly declared to me that there was nothing he couldn't understand."

He looked from his two brothers to Khalil.

"Psychic energy itself may not cause disaster, but his attitude will. His blind faith, arrogance, and superiority will definitely lead to some consequences. This is not probability, but an inevitable event. Sooner or later, it will definitely happen. occur."

Rogal Dorn frowned slowly - he was not a person who liked to talk about others behind their backs. Mortarion's behavior had some not-so-good connotations, but the Lord of Death never understood these things.

He is a withdrawn person, not good at words, and sometimes even refuses to communicate. It was a miracle that he could speak so much today. Dorn didn't want to dampen this enthusiasm, but he also didn't want to completely agree with Mortarion's point of view.

So he spoke slowly.

"Magnus may be arrogant, but he is a scholar, brother." Dorn said seriously. "This means that he is also very rational. Scholars are usually very curious when it comes to things they don't understand. You don't need to blame him for this."

"Blame?" Mortarion snorted. "I'm not in a position to blame him."

Dorn shook his head: "Ruth has asked his father many times, hoping that he can make certain restrictions on Magnus, but his father has never agreed. Doesn't this mean something?"

Mortarion simply looked away, refusing to comment on Dorn's words. He looked at Conrad Coates, who looked like he was deep in thought, and then turned to Khalil again.

"So, what do you think, Khalil Lohars?" asked the Lord of Death, with a desire for support. "Conrad has often warned you about psychic powers."

"I would love to echo your sentiments, but I'm afraid I don't know much about Magnus as a person, Mortarion."

Khalil raised his hand and made a calming gesture. He had realized something from Donne's attitude.

"I have only met him from a distance. What I know about him is limited to his name and a few words from you. This is not enough to support me to make any evaluation of him, but if you just want to know more about psychic abilities, Evaluation, I do have something to say.”

"Please!" Mortarion looked at him attentively.

"Like I said, psionics are dangerous, and both they and their users need to be strictly controlled. But at the end of the day, it's just a power, like a bolter and a chainsword. Or bring disaster. , depends on the user's own wishes. Just like the poison gas in the hands of the aliens, it can also be an efficient tactic in our hands."

Mortarion frowned, but then relaxed.

"I understand." He nodded. "At least you still agree that psychic powers are dangerous, that's enough - as for Magnus. Humph."

He snorted coldly and said the last words in a declarative tone: "You will know who he is, Khalil Lohars."

He turned around and left.

The Lord of Night sighed, looked at his back, and shook his head.

"We all have flaws in us, Rogg. I'm a paranoid, you're a paranoid of another kind, and so is Mortarion. But he wasn't born this way, it was Barbarus who turned him into this. .”

"What are you talking about?" Dawn asked. "Analyze the impact of the environment on people?"

"No, I'm saying-" Conrad Coates turned his head and gave him a toothy smile. "——He walked another seven steps before turning around. Within forty-nine steps, he will reach Russ, and then he will annoy the Fenrisian barbarian to death."

‘Stubborn Stone’ gave a noncommittal look. He knew what Coz was implying.

Mortarion's obsession with numerology was no secret, he believed in these things so much that Magnus once got into a big fight with him over it. The Crimson King almost stood on his chair and roared at the Lord of Death. Dorn still remembers what he said at that time.

'You accuse me of being lost in knowledge, but how much better are you yourself? You even require your own guards to stay within seven by seven steps of you at all times! ’

"Anyway," Dorn said slowly, shaking his head at the person standing near them. "At least you are right about one thing. We all have different flaws. Just like you, Jaghatai, you are always excessively silent."

"Yeah," the man known as Jaghatai pondered and narrowed his eyes. "Silence is golden, Roger."

Yes, code.

If nothing else goes wrong, I will probably update one chapter at noon every day and one chapter in the afternoon.