40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 34 34. About the blade, about the mine (End)

This was the first time the ghost saw Khalil's anger.

He stood in the darkness, feeling a little uneasy about the scene before him. Not because of the killing that was about to be born, but because of Khalil's emotions.

"how many people?"

Khalil asked aggressively, his tone never so cold. Made him sound almost not like Khalil Lohars, but someone else.

A stranger.

He pinched the neck of a man wearing a blood-stained apron and lifted him up. The latter's left hand disappeared from the elbow and was bleeding continuously.

A tremor was spreading across the face.

This person's fears are the same as everyone else's fears. The ghost could see it in his face, but he couldn't see Khalil's face. He didn't know how Khalil was feeling now.

After all, Khalil's back was turned to him.

He stood in the light of the butcher's basement, covered in blood.

"One hundred and twenty-three." The man replied angrily.

"One hundred and twenty-three people? How much did it cost?"

"."

He can't answer you, Khalil. The ghost thought. You're strangling him to death.

Khalil let go of his hand in the next second, letting the man fall to the ground.

"No money spent, my lord, no money spent!"

The man who was about to be strangled knelt on the ground and said, his voice was broken and full of fear, but it still couldn't compare to the miner named Hakan.

The ghost didn't want to remember his face, but since they left, that face and that voice had been appearing in front of the ghost.

"So, it's an exchange of interests - you will send them half after completing the work, isn't that right?" Khalil asked calmly.

"Yes, yes, it has been sent over! My lord, which gang are you from? Balil? Yong Ye is on top. My lord, you can take whatever you like! Don't kill me, please!"

Khalil smiled.

He picked up the man and put his head on the only table in the basement of the butcher shop. The table was made of iron, and its surface had a strange dark red rust stain.

Khalil held him down and broke his collarbone.

High-pitched screams appeared along with tears and snot. The ghost watched all this silently, and in just half a second of trance, he glimpsed Khalil's true emotions at this moment.

Khalil is smiling - but the real Khalil, the man behind the smile

He was angry. The ghost thought.

"I don't want anything," Khalil said. "Listen, remember my words - I don't want anything, do you understand?"

"understand!"

"Very good," Khalil said quietly, then broke the man's neck. He fell limply at Khalil's feet and made no sound again.

"One hundred twenty-three."

A voice sounded in the basement.

It passed through iron tables, butcher knives, a dozen sticky iron buckets used to pile offal, and some long objects wrapped in black bags and hung from the ceiling--finally, it reached the dark place. middle.

It reached the ghost's ears.

One hundred twenty-three.

He listened silently and braced himself for what Khalil would say next.

"I'm sorry," Khalil said. "I lost control, I'm sorry, Ghost."

".Why do you always have to apologize?"

"Because I made a mistake."

"But--"

"——Because this is not what I should do, ghost."

Standing there, Khalil said. "I told you that you should not mix personal emotions at work, and now I am taking the lead in violating this rule."

He paused for a few seconds, then spoke.

"All this time, I've been telling you what's right and what's wrong. I didn't realize it was condescending and I'm just realizing it now. That's the second thing I want to apologize for."

The ghost came out of the darkness, and he wanted to say something, but he didn't know how to interrupt.

Forced, he continued to listen.

"And... and this." Khalil said in a low voice. "I found I couldn't resist the urge to do it, and this is the third thing I want to apologize for."

"Of course, I actually want to apologize to them. I was once driven by a so-called noble morality on the path of self-destruction. On this road, I forgot many things. These people should have had a better ending. , Their deaths will be on my head.”

"You used to work as a miner. How long have you been doing it, Khalil?" Ghost asked dryly.

"Three years." Khalil replied calmly. "At that time, I wasn't on that path yet. I wanted to see if I could light a fire, so I went among them."

"I didn't find the soil where the flames burned. They were numb, like ice cubes, thinking only of melting or continuing to freeze, never wanting to burn. In fact, a sane person shouldn't try to make ice cubes combustion."

".So, you know them?"

"Yes, I stayed in that mine for three years. After I left, I would go back from time to time. That's how I met you."

Khalil turned his head, and there was a complex presence on his pale face that the ghost could not understand at all.

"Don't be like me," he said softly. “Don’t just chase the light and forget what’s right in front of you.”

".I do not understand."

Ghost said confused. "I really don't understand, Khalil. You have no countdown. You also said that the flame has been ignited. You said that the solution will gradually emerge on its own, but now..."

But why are you still so sad now?

"Is it because I want a knife?"

He lowered his head, then raised it again, and asked cautiously: "I don't want it anymore, is that okay?"

Khalil stared at him calmly.

He didn't answer or react in any way, he just stared. Then, he said, "No, this has nothing to do with your knife."

He laughed, and the ghost's eyes slowly widened, realizing that the familiar Khalil was back.

"Okay." He said with a smile. "Well, alas, ghost."

He sighed.

"Thank you." Khalil said sincerely. "Thank you."

——

The death of a butcher's shop means nothing in Quintus. In Xiachao, people die every day, why can't they be a butcher shop owner?

Khalil knew they wouldn't care.

The Great Purge is coming. Even if someone wants to care, they will make themselves forget everything at this juncture.

He sighed and sat on the edge of the shelter eating nutritional paste as usual. The ghost went on patrol and was much more active than before. He was already very conscious about doing this on weekdays, but today he seemed even more enthusiastic.

Khalil knew why, and he had some scraps of evidence that he could piece together. Like his loss of control, like Hakan's face, and like the look on Ghost's face when he said he didn't want the knife.

He will remember these things forever.

But what he wants to know more now is how the other nobles who come to the nest will react?

This is very important, and it affects everything that follows.

Khalil ate the nutritional ointment expressionlessly and began to think about another thing.

That Prometheus said he would bring the ghosts, or rather, the brothers of Konrad Curze, to Nostramo.

Khalil didn't know when they would arrive, but he knew one thing.

That Prometheus is probably not an ordinary person.

The evidence is as follows.

First, his memory, and what he showed Khalil in his memory.

Second, the power of ghosts.

A one-and-a-half-year-old baby can tear apart an armored vehicle with a wave of his hand. He can easily move around in the dark at a speed that ordinary people cannot detect. His self-healing speed is astonishingly fast - all visible wounds can be healed. .

This is not the definition of a baby. In fact, if Khalil were asked to use one word to refer to ghosts, he would choose the word "weapon".

And that Prometheus calls himself the father of the ghost.

What father would let his son become a weapon? What kind of father can let his son become such a weapon?

But here's the problem.

If Prometheus simply regarded the ghost as a weapon, why did he place that knowledge in the ghost's brain? There is also that innate sense of justice, all of which are full of doubts.

Again, Prometheus.

Fire thief.

Khalil squinted his eyes and stopped eating, and his thinking gradually became slower and more deliberate. He realized that the things behind the curtain were not reacting like they were lying.

So funny, a fire thief. A fire thief who is feared by the things behind the curtain, a fire thief who can talk to me through the air, even resurrect me, and even change me.

Prometheus. The fire thief, the god who betrayed the gods.

god.

never mind.

There is no point in thinking about this, there is no way of knowing when he will come.

It's better to focus on the things in front of you, Khalil, such as eating your food, and then going to visit the upper nest. Then go and observe how the workers who have stopped to look at the noble corpses are doing now.

Fire needs care.

Then, then.

He sighed slowly.

There is always then.

I am always used to planning everything before taking action, but plans can never keep up with changes. You originally planned to place the miners at the other end of the city, but you rushed to the upper nest before doing this.

Now, they're dead, Khalil Lohars.

This is your responsibility.

Admit it, you're not one to stick to a strict plan. You originally planned to blow up the upper nest and die, but the ghost changed your mind. You light a fire, but you have no idea how to make the flames burn brighter

Khalil smiled wryly and lowered his head.

"What you see on paper is really shallow." He murmured to himself.

Plans never keep up with changes.

He thought this, and then stood up slowly, deciding to save the remaining nutritional cream for a few hours.

It can't be broken anyway.

Five minutes later he left the shelter and went to the upper nest.

And eight hours later, he will have the urge to tattoo the phrase "plans always fail to keep up with changes" on his body. As for the plate of nutritional ointment left behind, he probably would never have the chance to eat it again.

First of all, I want to apologize. Readers who want to see a rebellion may be disappointed. First of all, I don't dare to describe this aspect in detail. Secondly, if I continue writing in an indirect way, this part of the content may extend indefinitely.

Then, the book may have to be renamed.

So, all things considered, I moved some things forward.