40k: Midnight Blade

For a moment, no one spoke in the stone room, and only the deathly silence spread little by little. The result is certainly shocking, but those flickering and continuously jumping images completely skip the process, as if it was done deliberately.

Ferrus Manus frowned deeply.

"What exactly did father ask for?" he asked in a deep voice. "You have mentioned transactions and requirements many times, and you also claim to be a businessman. So, skipping these important developments one by one is actually his request, right?"

"Correct answer," the tape said. "Of course, I personally also contributed a little bit. Also, have you ever heard of the term shock education?"

After the words fell, before Ferus had time to reply, he saw the pitch-black light curtain suddenly light up with a fierce and bright blue light.

Immediately afterwards, there was a sense of separation that was so strong that it was incomprehensible. There was no pain, but it was so weird that it felt like he had actually died. When this feeling and light disappeared completely, the world in front of Ferus had completely changed.

He smelled an extremely strong odor, and his olfactory cells immediately captured various pheromones in the air, and his brain separated them one by one. Strongly polluting chemicals, hallucinogens, blood, corpse odor, domestic garbage

Ferrus Manus raised his head and saw a wonderful sky illuminated by neon lights and a sour-smelling rain that seemed to fall endlessly.

The speed of the world in front of him was slowed down, and the raindrops glowed brilliantly in his eyes, but they were so dirty that it was incomprehensible. He originally wanted to avoid it, but the rain went straight through his body and hit the ground heavily, shattering into pieces.

"What's going on?" someone asked in a low voice.

Ferrus turned around and saw Robert Guilliman.

"What do you think?" he asked, crossing his hands.

"I think this is a... special, immersive experience." Guilliman replied with a frown, genuine confusion on his too young face.

He bypassed Ferrus Manus and walked around in the dirty alley.

The coldness of the night was literally settling on his skin, followed by a foul smell he had never smelled before, almost making the Macragge gag.

His overly keen senses played a role that he did not want it to play at this time. However, after a small gaffe, Guilliman quickly came to a second conclusion.

"You see, the smell and temperature are real, but there is no touch."

As he spoke, he stamped his feet. There was no ripple in the puddle he was stepping on.

In order to increase the credibility of this statement, he reached out to the wall again. Likewise, the corroded rough stone did not stop him. Robert Guilliman's hand passed through the wall smoothly, bringing about an extremely weird experience.

Ferrus Manus approached him and put his hand on his shoulder.

"But I can touch you."

"Yes." Guilliman turned around, his expression becoming more and more serious. "What did that thing do? Where are the others?"

Ferus raised his head and glanced at the sky again. A black shadow happened to pass by at this moment and rushed down quickly. The black robe stirred, and a face full of malice was palely revealed in the darkness.

"Hello." Conrad Koz smiled strangely and bowed in greeting. "Welcome to Nostramo, how are you? Do you like the environment here?"

"Not very much," Ferus said. "You are a human?"

"Of course." The Nostramo took a deep breath of the foul air, and his smile began to grow bigger and bigger. "And I came earlier than you guys. I've already visited this hive city."

"So? Did you find something?" Robert Guilliman asked.

Kurtz had no time to answer. The sound of the world stopped at this moment, leaving only a vague and cruel scream, which came continuously from above their heads. The three original bodies raised their heads at this moment in perfect agreement and looked upward.

Then, a voice sounded in their hearts.

【well done. 】Video said lazily. [Please wait a moment while I change the scene.]

The dazzling blue light erupted again without warning from before their eyes, and then the violent tearing feeling surged up for the second time.

Ferus gritted his teeth and tried his best to resist it. Of course, his resistance had no effect. The brilliance probably lasted for a few seconds and then naturally dissipated.

At this moment, the scenery in front of them changed again.

They appeared in a luxurious hall. Even though he had lived in Terra for a long time, Ferus was briefly confused by the gloomy and confusing splendor for a moment. Then, he immediately smelled a A shockingly strong smell of blood.

"Your Majesty the Emperor," Robert Guilliman murmured to himself. "What the hell is this place, hell?"

Konrad Curze roared back at Robert Guilliman's words.

"No!" he laughed cruelly. "This is Nostramo!"

Ferrus Manus said nothing and just began to observe the surrounding environment. He saw many corpses scattered throughout the hall, and each person's death was cruel. However, from those large and fragmented body parts, Ferus could see a strange compassion.

"It's so efficient and kind." Coz marveled.

".What are you talking about?" Guilliman frowned unbearably. "What's the difference between a man who can do such a thing and a madman? Are there any of these bodies intact?"

Koz laughed softly, squatted down, stretched out a sharp index finger, and used it to accurately point out three parts of a person in the pile of corpses.

"Take a good look, rich boy, do you know how many knives the madman you mentioned used to kill him? The answer is one knife. His left hand, head and upper body were all cut off by the same knife. Look at this one, the same knife pierced the heart. And then there's that one, beheaded"

Koz's laughter began to become more and more terrifying.

"Do you understand?" He raised his head slightly and stared at his brother with interest. "The murderer had no intention of torturing them. Their bodies were torn into pieces only because they did not wait to die obediently and tried to resist."

"How soft-hearted! If it were me, all these damned Silver Wing corpses would be skinned and hung up. I would let them die in pain."

He stood up with a grin and stretched slowly under Robert Guilliman's inexplicably complex eyes.

Another scream came from their right, which was a deep and dark corridor. Curze narrowed his eyes, turned around without saying a word, and walked straight in that direction.

The pool of blood under his feet did not waver at all, and his robes were not entangled by the corpses even once, like a ghost.

Ferrus Manus turned his head slightly and glanced at Robert Guilliman, who was still in discomfort.

He spoke plainly and without emotion.

"You'd better get used to it. I understand that you come from a civilized and progressive world, which is completely different from most of us. However, if you don't want that frivolous idiot to find another opportunity to mock you, you'd better tear off the cloak of civilization for a while." After he finished speaking, he immediately followed Conrad Curze. Robert Guilliman took a deep breath again and followed his back. They walked into the deep corridor, which was dark without any light. Conrad Curze was humming softly in front of him, seemingly very happy, and even accompanied by occasional intermittent jumping sounds. The walk lasted about five minutes, and the screams never stopped. Finally, when they successfully walked out of the corridor, what they saw was another more luxurious, bloodier and darker hall. A man was killing here, no, maybe it can't be described like this, because there were no other living people in the hall, only a woman in a velvet cloak. In addition to this dress, she was only wearing a one-piece flesh-colored leather coat. The Macragge man stared at it for a few seconds, and his face turned ugly again.

"Do you know what you have done?!" The woman roared at the bloody man, holding a sharp knife in her hand and rushing towards him.

"Of course I know." The man said. "Let your family become history, let you become history, otherwise?"

As soon as the voice fell, the dodge and counterattack followed, all in one go. He dodged the woman's blade and broke her ribs, causing her to fall to the ground. Then, he approached the woman, and his eyes actually lit up with a bright blue light.

They all knew what would happen next, they had seen this part of the story, but for Robert Guilliman, when he was really there, this story that he had seen once seemed to become a little different.

He frowned and looked for the figure of Konrad Curze. He found him not far from the man, Curze squatting among the corpses on the ground, staring at the man's face very intently.

What did he want to do? A question arose from the bottom of the Macragge people's hearts.

"Tell me the truth." Caryl Rohals pulled the woman up coldly and said so.

His movements were very rough, and the coldness brought by the psychic energy was spreading rapidly. The woman opened her mouth stiffly and began to answer his questions. Conrad Curz shook his head and spoke in a faint tone.

"You are so stupid." He seemed to sigh. "What do you think the Midnight Ghost is? A laboratory hybrid created by the Nostramo nobles?"

Caryl Rohals ignored him, but after getting the cruel answer, he closed his eyes painfully, shook his head, and began to ask another question.

Curz sneered.

"Extend life span? Genetic defect? ​​No, no, the one who is truly defective and short-lived is you, Caryl Rohals."

"Your body is being oppressed by your psychic power, and your soul is being devoured by Nostramo. You can't protect yourself, why don't you use this power to take a high position and become a member of the nobility?"

"In this way, at least you can live a few more decades. Why do you do these things? Why do you teach him like that?"

He suddenly stood up, walked in front of the man who was taking a deep breath, and stared down at him.

"Stupid." He said coldly. "Nostramo will not have any mercy on anyone. Once you die, it will begin to torture him. When he goes crazy, your death will become worthless, and everything you have will sink with his madness."

He laughed cruelly, ignoring the slightly weird looks in his brothers' eyes. Ferus ignored it for the time being, but Guilliman spoke after repeated hesitation: "Conrad"

"Silence," the Nostramo said without turning around.

Guilliman took a third deep breath, retained his sanity, and politely declined Konrad Curze's 'offer' to silence.

"No, fuck you, you rude bastard."

Curze turned his head slowly, keeping his body still. He looked at Guilliman from the corner of his eye, and his hands had slowly retracted into his sleeves.

The Macragge put this obvious threat behind him and walked towards the interrogation scene. He pointed to the blue light in Khalil Lohars's eyes and took his fourth deep breath.

While calming down and sorting out his words, he also tried hard to adapt to the smell of this slaughterhouse. Konrad Coates looked at him calmly, waiting for what he would say next, as if a judge was about to make a ruling.

However, all Robert Guilliman's efforts were in vain after two seconds.

A burst of intense blue light suddenly rose from the place where Khalil Lohars' hands came into contact with the woman, drowning out his roar.

The room suddenly fell into darkness, and a series of unsettling murmurs began to appear, followed by a chill that was enough to freeze the Primarchs. During this terrifying experience, they heard a thunderous war cry

Then the darkness faded, the blue light died, turned into scarlet flames, and began to burn.

Khalil Lohars trembled and fell to his knees.

Conrad Coates turned his head sharply.

He took a few steps closer, almost to the point where he was kissing the man face-to-face, and stared at him intently and crazily, with blood filling his cuffs.

"Why are you kneeling?" He asked softly with a distorted face. "What did you do, idiot? What did you do to yourself? Psychic backlash? Is this the real reason why you died and were revived?"

"I don't think so."

Ferrus Manus, who had remained silent, finally spoke slowly. He pointed to the burning crimson flames. Robert Guilliman stared at it and saw a huge brass shadow from it.

This shouldn't have shaken his mind. However, the little bit of reality wrapped under the brass armor was cleverly torn apart by another blue radiance.

So thousands of monsters held ax blades and wore broken armor, roaring and coming, their faces covered with blood, but they still felt that it was not enough.

Robert Guilliman took a step back with a pale face.

"What's that?" he asked.

No one answered, and the thing that answered was not human.

where are you? the thing asked.

Come out—face me, and take the credit you deserve. I feel your anger, I know you want the world to burn, so come, power, blessings, blades, armor, all these things, I can give you.

Let them repent amidst their screams! Let the world burn and kill to bring victory!

"Who?!" someone roared in the darkness. "Who's talking?! Get out!"

No one answered, so the man turned to Khalil Lohars, who was kneeling on the ground, and lunged at him.

He apparently forgot that he couldn't touch anything, and his attempts to support him failed to do anything. His fingers passed through the body and finally fell into the air.

So he straightened up and repeated stubbornly, which was a useless effort. The madness on his face was visible to the naked eye, and the indescribable extreme and complexity even made Guilliman shudder a little.

He couldn't help but start to think-Why on earth was Conrad Coates so excited?

"Don't listen to that thing, don't make any promises, stick to it." The Nostramo said in a low voice, still repeating the work that was impossible to achieve any results.

Of course, he didn't know what the thing that appeared in the flames was, but as long as he still had reason, he would be able to instinctively detect the terrifying true face of that thing.

He tried over and over again, over and over again to get Khalil Lohars to stand up, but it didn't work at all. Really?

Not sure if it was an illusion, Khalil raised his hand and strangled his throat. He did not speak, but his voice began to ring out in the darkness.

I can still persist, I must persist.

"Yes!" Conrad Curze roared.

At this moment, his voice actually overlapped with that thing's promise.

The world suddenly changed, and the bloody slaughterhouse wrapped in darkness passed away quietly. The gloomy and raining sky replaced the luxurious ceiling and golden chandeliers with burning candles, and an empty ruin slowly emerged.

The only thing that hasn't changed is that there are still a lot of corpses around. They stood silently in the rain, looking terrible, occupying every corner of the ruins.

Khalil Lohars ambled past them.

Panting heavily, Conrad Curze immediately followed him, his two brothers looking at each other and following closely behind.

They first saw a child who had lost her skin. She looked up blankly at the killer named Khalil, and then asked: "Avenge us?"

"I will," Khalil said.

Then there was a worker who was crushed under the rubble. His face was covered with dust. He was as thin as a monster and was coughing up blood.

"Revenge us."

"I will." Khalil knelt down, looked directly at him, nodded slowly, and then left.

"You don't have to do this, you don't belong in Nostramo," said a woman hanging from a telephone pole.

"But I saw everything and I couldn't stand it."

"You don't belong here." The woman repeated, her swollen eyeballs looking as if they were about to slip out of their sockets. "You are a ghost, there is no need for you to suffer for someone you don't know."

"Maybe," Khalil said.

"You don't have to do this," the woman repeated, and Khalil stopped. Under the gaze of the Primarchs, he raised his head and gave the hanged woman a firm no.

"No, there is."

"But what about the child?" Seeing that the persuasion was fruitless, the woman suddenly changed the subject. "What is he going to do?"

".He will find his own way."

Countless dead people and countless ghosts were all staring at them at this moment. Even knowing that they probably couldn't detect his presence, Robert Guilliman broke out in a cold sweat.

He looked at Ferrus Manus, whose serious expression suggested that he probably wasn't feeling well either, but what about Konrad Curze?

His breathing was turning into a weird whistling grunt, and his face was gradually becoming more hideous than the dead.

"You gave him the light, but now you have to take it away with your own hands. Even if you light a fire, can this fire really cleanse the darkness of Nostramo?" A star is located in the middle of the road. The head asked.

Faced with its inquiry, Khalil Lohars stopped and responded in a low voice: "What I gave him was false light, which is not noble."

Conrad Coates slowly clenched his fists, his sleeves already wet with a thick liquid that was not rain.

"False light?"

"Yes. If he was of no use to my plan, I would not have brought him back from the mine. If he had no strength, I would not have taught him how to kill, how to look at evil impartially. I just Using him."

"Lie!" Head retorted coldly.

"When he was in the mine, he was just a beast that was afraid of light sources. How could he help your plan? Moreover, even if this was the case, in a place like Nostramo where there is no light, In the world of words, is false light worse than real light?”

"Not even close! Shut up, you idiot!"

Conrad Coates screamed unbearably. He rushed to the middle of the road and began to roar at the man who could not see him at all.

"Your ridiculous light will be extinguished by this world, and everything you do will turn into nothing and ridiculous! You protected him too well. You thought your sudden departure would make him mature quickly. No? He won’t!”

Conrad Coates waved his arms, roared, sneered, and screamed.

"He is just a weak waste. He has been switching back and forth between so-called justice and reality from the beginning to the end. He is bleeding and trying to catch both things together. Sooner or later he will go crazy, and you are the only one who can Whoever stops this”

"Stop! Stop, don't go anymore!" he shouted in a commanding tone. "As the ruler of Nostramo, I order you to stop!"

The man ignored him and moved forward firmly. He passed through him, ignoring the blocking hand as nothing.

Conrad Coates slowly lowered his head.

The world fell silent, and the voice that had been covered up by his roar sounded again.

"You are such a stupid person, ghost. I don't understand why you want to step into this cruel world yourself. You have been wandering for a long time and have seen the horrors of human beings. Why do you insist on changing everything with your own hands? "

The ghost said: "Because they are not human, is this reason enough?"

No one understood what he was saying, but the three Primarchs could hear his voice.

[Because this shouldn't be like this. 】

A very simple reason, a reason that makes little sense.

Robert Guilliman's expression became solemn, he sighed, put his right hand on his chest, and lowered his head in silence.

Ferrus Manus narrowed his eyes and began to beat his left arm rhythmically with his right hand again. The sound of metal collision was endless.

Only Konrad Coates remained silent and said nothing.

The reality is that no matter what they do or want to do, the world will not change according to their will. They don't have this power, they don't have this power. This is a story that has already happened and has ended long ago.

The only thing they can do is watch.

The head began to continue talking to Khalil Lohars, and the icy rain fell from the sky, hitting the ground and shattering into pieces. Then, starting from the eye sockets of the head, millions of blue lights slowly lit up in the surrounding gloomy ruins.

He left just like that, but the world did not collapse. Instead, the lights turned into endless black flames little by little, and the dark red boiled and burned in the deepest part.

The three primarchs clearly captured this scene. However, before they could think about anything, the world changed again.

They returned to the slaughterhouse, and the woman's body was twisted, cold, and completely dead. But the voice from the darkness continued, continuing, promising things like power, killing, or justice.

Conrad Coates slowly raised his head, his eyes were indifferent, and he stared into the darkness—or rather, stared.

He said nothing, but his neck twitched nervously.

Guilliman looked away, unable to bear to look any further. He had already seen the raised right hand of Khalil Lohars, and he understood what was going to happen next. They all understand.

Conrad Coates inched up to Khalil and stared down at his face.

"Goodbye," Khalil said.

"Goodbye," Conrad Coates replied softly.

A cruel blue light reflected in his pupils, shaped like a flame, burning a corpse.

A stumbling figure flashed before their eyes, speeding past the door piled with corpses. His speed was so fast that it was almost impossible to distinguish, and many corpses were trampled to pieces by his reckless running, but he didn't care. He just ran to the body and carefully lifted him up. He was shaking, and whimpers were coming from his throat. His muscles began to spasm, and his teeth kept colliding and shaking, completely uncontrollable.

He started crying.

Conrad Coates laughed, the tone eerie and broken.

Robert Guilliman and Ferrus Manus looked at each other again - they did not see this scene through the light curtain.

"Crying is useless."

Curze ignored his brothers. He walked over to the trembling pale shadow and sneered to himself. Is he talking to himself? Maybe, but he was looking into those tear-filled eyes.

"Your tears will only humiliate him. Can you understand how much determination he has put in? Can you understand what he is going to do? No, you can't."

He slowly squatted down and got closer to the face that was extremely similar to his but completely different, and his dark eyes suddenly widened.

"You're just lucky," he said softly. "You've done nothing, put in no effort - you're too weak to even think about crying. Well, that's perhaps not surprising considering your age, you're only eighteen months old."

"So, what can a child do? He expects you to do something that he can't even do? Give up, child, you can't do it. You can only give up halfway and then give his soul no rest."

Little by little, he stretched out his blood-stained hands from his sleeves and placed them on the pale shadow's neck.

Then apply pressure little by little.

The bony hands were stained with blood, the sharp nails were stuck in the palms, and pieces of flesh fell out bit by bit from the wounds.

His palms, wrists, and arms began to tremble together, and blue veins popped out. How much he wanted to kill this child so that he would not have to suffer in the future, but he could not touch him.

This is just a story.

"Enough," said Ferrus Manus.

He put his right hand on Conrad Coates' shoulder.

"This is not your story," Gorgon whispered. "Don't get too carried away, Conrad."

"What does it have to do with you-?"

As if he had found a reason to vent his anger, or was completely irritated, Konrad Coates stood up gloomily, then turned towards Ferus.

The rage in his eyes was genuine, but probably mixed with something else. It was so obvious that even Robert Guilliman could see it very clearly.

He stood there hesitantly, giving up the idea of ​​stepping forward to help.

Ferus punched Curze down to the ground. The fist was as fast as lightning and as heavy as a mountain top.

"Don't go overboard," he said quietly.

"What does it have to do with you?" Kurtz replied with a smile, his white teeth filled with blood.

"Yes, what do these things have to do with you?" A voice that had not sounded for a long time suddenly broke into the conversation and asked.

The blue light suddenly brightened, and everything disappeared so easily, like a sand dune being pushed down without warning. They returned to the real world, to their own world.

However, there are only three of them here.

"Where are the others?" Ferus asked.

"They're not done with their special experience yet," the voice on the tape said with a smile. "Actually, you haven't watched several of them yet. How about it? Do you think this shocking education is up to par?"

"I don't see what this story has to teach us except for Conrad Coates," Ferrus said.

"No, no, have you forgotten that blood-red shadow?" the video tape asked frivolously. "You will soon know where the shocking point is. If you don't believe it, ask them."

The blue light flashed again, and for some reason, a much older Perturabo and Rogal Dorn appeared in their respective seats.