40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 432 158. Interlude: Sinner or Saint

Collapse, burn, destroy everything he knew, everything he was proud of - everything was burning in the flames of war.

And that's even just the beginning.

The Lord of Mankind stopped, the remains of the Webway still burning behind him. Except for the entrance section that he maintained with his strength, other parts have been engulfed in flames.

Perhaps in the future, they can be excavated and rebuilt, but that is not something he can consider now.

He looked up at the entrance to the Webway. At the spacious door, a huge blood-stained Imperial Sky Eagle was shining brightly. It is the exit and the only entrance. Behind it is the throne room.

It was here that the Imperial Guards fought desperately

The Wanfu regiment suffered heavy casualties.

He realized this, and the cause and effect were connected in an instant, found out one by one from Terra's broken time, and sent into the depths of his heart.

Sadness slowly welled up, but even more so was pride, because every dead Imperial Guard died fighting hard. However, they are by no means alone.

The Sisters of Silence are always by their side, and the machine spirits of the Titans of the Fire Bee Legion are still roaring. However, no matter how hard and brave the loyalists try, they cannot prevent the throne room from being gradually infiltrated by demons.

For every daemon they killed, eight more would pop up, as if it were an established pattern, an eternal fact - and as always, the Emperor knew why.

He always knows.

The answer is war, war everywhere.

Spread across the galaxy, from the far reaches of the solar system to the ghoul stars in the far east, the galaxy that humans have proudly occupied is now tormented by the flames of war they have ignited.

Such intensity and concentration gave a false god in the tide of chaos unprecedented power. He is already the strongest, because war has always been the main theme in the galaxy, and now, He is even more powerful than can be understood.

He could even engage in four terrible wars at the same time and still have some strength left.

He helped in the war in which the son wanted to kill his father. He also contributed to the war that set the galaxy on fire. He was deeply involved in the ten thousand-year bloody battle that was about to begin on Terra. He was even willing to dedicate most of his power in the subspace to start a meaningless battle with the newly born gods.

He knew the purpose of this war and understood that they were just trying to hold Him back, but He didn't care. War is war, no matter how you dress it up, it is war. And as long as it is a war, He is willing to participate.

He is never absent.

The Lord of Mankind closed his eyes and sank into the depths of his mind. His memories flashed before his eyes one by one, and finally settled on the time when La Endymion had not yet become the Imperial Guard, and on the embarrassed face of his mother Koja Zu.

Constantin Waldo executed her.

Her crime was stealing water.

He didn't care about the other things this warlord did, such as the brutal killings to eliminate dissidents, or the flesh-and-blood deformed monsters she ultimately created by imitating the Imperial Guards and Thunder Warriors.

He didn't care about any of these things, but there was one thing he couldn't tolerate.

Koja Zu stole the last ocean on Terra to satisfy her own desires. Before she died, she had a conversation with Constantin Waldo.

Those words followed the heart of the Imperial Guard Commander and reached his memory, and that woman's face still lingers in his memory, just like the other dead people.

The woman once asked Constantin Waldo a very pointed question.

"Have you ever seen him breathe? Lord of Mankind? You call him that, but have you ever heard him breathe?"

She stared at him through Constantin Waldo's eyes, through broken time and broken memories, and finally issued this accusation.

In the burning webway, someone sighed.

He continued deeper.

If someone could be as powerful as him and live as long as him, he might be able to understand what he is doing now. Unfortunately, no one can understand.

Khalil Roharth had once been his equal in strength, and was now far beyond it, but he was not nearly as old as the Emperor as a man.

Orlanis, Orr Persson, or Orr the Pious, may have had a similar lifespan to him, but he was still just an immortal who had not yet broken out of the cycle of broken memories.

His memory is broken. In order to protect their own rationality, the immortals never stay in a relationship or a life for a long time. They are not afraid of leaving, they are only afraid that they cannot forget.

And the Emperor remembered them all, starting with his father and ending with his first child. From the first person he killed with his own hands to Horus Luperkar's apology in the dark.

He closed his eyes tightly, held the ring tightly, and then continued deeper.

The pain was too painful - every nerve in his body was twitching, and the pain caused by it formed a wave of terror, but it failed to shake his rock-solid sanity at all.

Sheer willpower took control in this moment and withstood everything. His body was still bleeding from the Draconian's piercing, and he was still weak, but nothing could stop the Lord of Mankind from finding strength in his memory at this moment.

Then he finally found it.

winter.

A cold winter, a cold winter that no longer belongs to him. He followed the snowflakes and stumbled in the darkness to find a man pushing a stone.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

There was a calmness that shouldn't appear on the man's pale and sweaty face. He turned to look at him, put his shoulder against the boulder that might have fallen, and nodded towards him.

"Time on Terra continues to collapse," the Emperor said. "The effect has been determined, but the cause is still forming. I gave Orr a gem, but he has not arrived on Terra yet. How long can you influence him?"

"A long time," the man said. "Long enough for us to get everything done."

He lowered his head and began to push the boulder further. The boulder is pitch black and has a rough surface. It may look unremarkable at first glance, but if you look closely, you will discover its essence.

It is a stone made of melted bones and rusted swords, and the places where men come into contact with it are riddled with holes. Be it the neck, shoulders or arms. The blood snaked down his body in the darkness, forming a blood path that went round and round.

"Mankind's future is built on chance," the Emperor said, and began to walk with him. The man walked slowly, the Emperor even slower, both for their own reasons.

"Accidental doesn't mean everything." The man said. "You should know better than me that chance is actually a necessity."

The Emperor made no reply to this statement, so the man continued his story.

"The gem arrives from your hands to Orr Persson, and will eventually reach where it should go and become a gun. How many people have sacrificed themselves in the broken time for this thing? Can you see it? See the future, Neos, then tell me, how many times have they come back to life and death during those ten thousand broken years?”

The Emperor clutched the ring.

".Uncountable," he said. "Just as I can't tell you how many living people have died for this."

"Future living people?"

"Yes."

"From the moment they set foot on Terra willingly, they were no longer alive." The man said in a low voice. "No matter which one of these sixty-five fragments they choose to set foot on, they will become part of this eternal war."

"People will find out about this soon, those unfamiliar armor coatings, and those unfamiliar numbers of support."

"But Terra is only as she is now at night," the Emperor retorted. "There are still living people active on Terra, otherwise how can the Star Torch maintain itself?"

"And sooner or later they will be willing to stay." The man tilted his head again and smiled as Khalil Lohars. "As we stay here. But let me correct you, the Star Torch lasts because someone locked its door."

The Emperor was silent for a moment, then breathed out five names.

"I locked the door," he said. "I locked them in with countless demons. They are still hoping for support. They don't know that support will not come. It's just the five of them, facing everything else."

"How cruel," Khalil said with a smile. "We are really full of sins, so, did they go out?"

"I don't know," the Emperor said frankly. "Time is broken, the future is broken, I can't see every future, I can only see some one-sided things. I only know that we won, and the only two people who have been tortured are you and me, that's all."

"Sounds like a good ending."

"That is not the end," the Emperor said. "perhaps--"

He stared at Khalil closely, but until the end, the Lord of Mankind said nothing. The only sound left in the darkness was the sound of Sisyphus's imitator pushing his blood-stained stone, and seconds, or hours, or years passed before the Emperor spoke again.

"-Yes, that's not the end."

"Honestly, I don't care how it ends," Khalil said. "I just want to know whether the names of the war dead have been recorded and whether the names of the victims are widely known."

"The last time I came here, you told me that people built a fortress wall in the solar system based on the fragments of Terra. You said that they were city walls, but they were also monuments. So, what the innocent victims did Is everything recorded?"

The Emperor smiled.

"Of course, my friend." He sighed contentedly. "Otherwise why do you think that explorer wanted to board Terra?"

Sisyphus chuckled in response, and then blinked: "I guess Malcador must be behind this. He must be very tired, but he probably thinks it's worth it."

"It was all worth it," said the Emperor.

He opened his eyes. The webway was still burning. He lowered his head and spread his right hand, the ring sparkling.

"It's all worth it," one father said.

Update completed, total 7k

I'm writing too slowly today. I have double debuffs of toothache and cold. If the Creator really exists, why doesn't he give humans one more tooth replacement period? Damn it, God, I despise you.