40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 495 13. ‘Peaceful’ time

The night recedes and the morning sun pierces the clouds. It's still raining, and it's been raining for eleven days. In the pouring rain, Litatra ushered in this year's Holy Spirit Month.

People began to celebrate, and some messengers started walking around the streets with loudspeakers, hoping to inform everyone about the incident. They are among the very few people in Litatra who still have to work for some time today.

But yes, there are always people who don’t know when they are living, and there are many people who live in a daze, otherwise these messengers would not have to work.

Those fools never care what day 'today' is, just like they don't care whether they wake up every morning and sleep on the side of the road or in a smelly ditch.

I am afraid that only the annual Emperor's Ascension Festival can touch these numb souls.

However, compared to the Ascension Day of the Emperor, the Holy Spirit Month is different. It is something else.

As we all know, the beliefs of the state religion are very 'tolerant'. As long as you believe in the emperor, the method sometimes doesn't actually matter.

Missionaries who travel to various places can freely adapt to local conditions and use the classics in their hands to transform the God-Emperor faith in line with local social customs. The Holy Month is the masterpiece of the missionary who came to Litatra.

Calculated using the Gregorian calendar given by the Empire, Holy Spirit Month is the fifth month of each year. Those with legitimate jobs will receive a subsidy on the first day of the month, which they can use to improve their lives or waste it in illegal casinos.

As for those who cannot see the light and those who stay in the gray area, they also have their own way of celebrating, which is a brief truce.

No one knows who made this rule, but after so many years of agreement, it has been deeply infiltrated into the bone marrow of the Litatra people.

No one would shoot, knife, or murder during the Holy Month—unless they truly harbor great hatred and cannot tolerate their enemies to live another day in this world.

If things develop to this situation, then some things will start to be closely arranged in advance, such as two knives, a venue, and two people without any armor.

In the noisy crowd, Tujia rubbed his brows with a slight headache.

He turned his head and asked Horst standing next to him in a low voice: "Is this really legal?"

The smiling pastor shrugged, pointed at a bald man standing outside the field guardrail and said, "Have you seen him?"

Tujia glanced vaguely at the man who was clinking glasses with the people around him. The latter's protruding belly was particularly conspicuous, stretching out his shirt in a funny and ridiculous way.

"I saw it, what happened?"

"He's the deputy detective of District 1," the priest said. "So, in Litatra, this kind of thing is completely reasonable and legal. In fact, even in the law enforcement system, there are many people who are looking forward to the Holy Spirit Month."

He smiled meaningfully at Tujia.

The investigator finally nodded without saying anything. He was not surprised by this kind of thing, but was a little worried about whether it was legal.

To him, this bloody tradition was nothing surprising. Each world in the empire had different customs and cultures.

Take the Emperor's Ascension Festival, for example. In some areas, this festival usually means a big feast and a large-scale celebration around the world. In other places, however, it turns into a bloody battle ritual.

One after another, skilled men and women would pay a great price to prove themselves to the Emperor, and death was even considered a great honor to stay by the Emperor's side.

Tujia has seen too much and is no longer surprised by this kind of folk custom. However, he is a little worried.

Not for anything else, just for this new job that he had just started for eleven days.

"The battle begins!"

Suddenly, someone shouted. Tujia interrupted his thinking, raised his head, and looked at the center of this simple venue. On the hard cement floor, two shirtless men were looking at each other warily.

Each of them had a sharp knife in their hands, which they probably brought with them and were polished to be very sharp. Surprisingly, the two men looked very much alike.

They all have dark skin and broad faces, and even their hair has the same curly shape. Tujia frowned and glanced sideways at Horst. Before he could ask anything, the pastor explained to him softly among the noisy and cheering crowd.

"These are two brothers from the Tolbert family. The shorter one is the eldest brother, and the taller one is the younger brother. Since their mother died three years ago, these two brothers have become enemies."

"Why?"

"Who knows?" The pastor shook his head. "Brothers killing each other."

He seemed to sigh, and the two brothers in the center of the field also rushed towards each other at this time.

Their boots made an unpleasant scraping sound on the concrete floor. Both men gritted their teeth and raised their sharp knives towards each other. About half a second later, two splashes of blood spattered out.

The eldest son of the Tolbert family stabbed his brother's left hand through with a knife, but he gained nothing. The younger brother fiercely cut his elder brother's cheek with the sharp knife in his hand. The wound was so deep that it almost seemed to split the face into two.

They covered each other's wounds, took a few steps back, and cursed in pain.

"You actually killed me!" My brother roared angrily. "Mom will spit on you! Son of a bitch!"

The younger brother sneered loudly, and with his trembling left hand, he made an obscene gesture towards his elder brother.

"Stop doing this! Where were you when mother died? She sent you a letter twenty days in advance, but you would rather hang out in the brothel than come back to see her again!"

"I didn't get the letter!"

"Fuck you!" the younger brother yelled angrily. "Fuck you! Fuck you! Die, you bastard!"

Tujia held up his hat with a strange look on his face and watched the two charging at each other again.

About half a minute later, the younger brother slit his older brother's throat with a knife, but there was no joy or emptiness after revenge on his face, only the fear of finally realizing what he had done.

He dropped the knife in his hand tremblingly and rushed towards his brother, trying to save him.

The crowd was forcefully pushed away at this time, and two medical doctors in white robes walked to the center of the field expressionlessly. After performing simple medical measures, they carried the brother onto a simple stretcher and took him with him. Leave the venue.

The younger brother followed closely behind, his eyes filled with tears, and he kept calling mother and other words.

The crowd had mixed reactions to this. Some people booed, thinking that the duel was not exciting enough, while others were deeply touched and were very happy that this fratricide had a good ending.

Tujia is none of the above, but he's also not one of those guys waiting to play.

To be honest, he was just a simple bystander, staying aloof from Horst in the crowd, waiting for the next legitimate vendetta.

"Oh, now we have something good to watch." The pastor suddenly said with great interest.

"Why?"

"Because the next people on stage are two people who really have a deep hatred."

Horst showed a rather scary smile and pointed out two people in the crowd who were taking off their clothes with his finger.

Tujia raised his eyes and suddenly frowned.

He first saw a middle-aged man with tattoos all over his body, with gloomy eyes and a straight mustache, who was slowly taking off his elegant three-piece suit.

The other person is much simpler and much younger. He has short hair, a long scar on the right side of his face, and a bright red skull tattooed on his forehead.

"You know these two too?"

Horst smiled, nodded his temples, and answered Tujia's question very calmly.

"Of course, I've lived here almost twelve years—the bearded gentleman's name is Elvis, and the young man's name is Billy Payson."

"Elvis killed Billy's parents ten years ago. Ten years later, Billy, who didn't know how to survive, came back here with a new gang. You probably know what he wants to do, so I will No more to say."

"Gangster feud?" Tujia asked.

"Yes, and it's the most classic one." Horst nodded with appreciation, still looking at the two people, or rather at Billy Payson.

At this moment, they had finished sorting themselves out and were walking towards the center of the field with knives in hand. The crowd cheered again, but Tujia was no longer in the mood to watch any more. He frowned and looked a little bored.

There is no other reason, just because of the man named Elvis. The closer he got to the center of the field, the tighter Tujia's hands tightened.

In his field of vision, one after another illusory light points floated out from behind the unknown man, forming many figures and then came sounds.

The voice of complaint, the voice of how he was murdered by Elvis, and the last scream before death. They echoed endlessly, making Tujia's heart beat faster, his breathing quicken, and his eyes turn red.

If Horst hadn't pulled him out of the crowd in time, he might have taken out his gun and shot Elvis to death.

They returned to the street in silence and stayed under a plastic awning. Raindrops fell sparsely, creating disturbing figures on it.

Tujia took a deep breath and spoke slowly.

"That Alvidson."

"Yes, I know." The pastor responded softly, but shook his head at him. "But now is not our time."

Tujia was silent for a while and then said: "I don't understand the meaning of this. If Billy Payson failed to defeat him, wouldn't we have let a relatively conscientious person die in vain? There is no innocent soul behind him. ”

The priest sighed and began to explain patiently.

"There will never be a shortage of people with conscience in the hive, just like there will never be a shortage of villains here. You have to go beyond these phenomena and see directly the essence, do you understand?"

"Nature?"

"Yes." The priest nodded. "At its core, this is just two people with a grudge against each other who want to kill each other."

"Elvis hated Billy's parents and the kid who ran away. He didn't expect Billy to do such damage to his power when he came back, or even kill his son."

"As for Billy Payson's revenge for killing his father and mother, just one piece is enough for one person to fight the murderer to death, not to mention that Elvison did two things at once. There is a huge feeling between them. Hatred, and revenge is always fair."

"But those people who died in vain——"

Horst interrupted him with a calm expression, and then he spoke in an unquestionable tone.

"——If he is not dead, we will visit him tonight. No matter what, hatred must have a place to go. The Holy Spirit Month will last for a full thirty-one days. You'd better be prepared, Tujia."

The former investigator and current novice avenger nodded with a complicated expression.

——

Zell stretched out his hand and picked up a woman hanging upside down.

She screamed and struggled, trying to get away from the horrific monster that had just killed her entire family, but to no avail. She could only watch as Zell led her little by little to the edge of her terrace.

A strong wind blew against her face, blowing her so hard that she could barely keep her eyes open. Zell listened to her screams and pleas, and slowly loosened his two fingers. The woman immediately screamed with a louder voice, tears streaming down her face, and the impact of gravity made her so frightened that she almost fainted.

Zell, however, kept her dry for half a minute before placing her back on the safe ground.

As soon as the woman landed, she cried and crawled towards the back room, her mind completely broken. Zell glanced at her and threw a short knife specially designed for throwing. It brutally penetrated the woman's left thigh and nailed her to the ground.

Zell bent down, grabbed her legs, and began to drag her back bit by bit. When the blade sliced ​​her thigh open alive, the woman collapsed just in time.

Only then did Zell draw out the blade with satisfaction, grabbed her hair, and began to ask some questions. Minutes later, he broke the woman's neck, stabbed her through the forehead with a knife, and nailed her to his living room.

The culprit always deserves some special treatment.

The last thing he did was press the alarm. After finishing this matter, he just left this mansion located on the top floor of the hive city.

Clouds lingered, and the sky was cut by high towers and circular tracks all over the sky. The high-speed train roared past. The extremely nervous high-ranking Litatra police officers were sitting in it, running towards the place where the alarm was generated, but they did not notice the two A dark figure was looking down coldly above them.

Watching them go away, Zell slowly put on his helmet. It was daytime, and they were a little too high. Without a helmet, he could have been blind for days.

"Your dislike of wearing a helmet will kill you sooner or later, Zell." 'My Lord' said coldly.

"I don't care," Zell said. "Instead of talking about my bad habits, let's talk about business, my lord?"

"What do you want to talk about?"

Zell shrugged: "I don't know, maybe talk about the other twenty-one families on the list? God Emperor, why are there always so many nobles in the nest?"

"They were all dead last night." The adult sneered. "The local governor also paid a special visit. After explanation, he fully understood the necessity and importance of our work, and he agreed to the terms we proposed."

"So, the only thing left to do next is to clean up the lower levels of the nest?" Zell asked, tilting his head.

Another train roared past, making a huge noise. The two black figures didn't care. They just jumped onto the power supply pillar of another circular track and even started running along the solid energy transport pipeline.

The adult spoke with a cold tone, his optical cloak rustling in the wind.

"Probably, you are responsible for this matter, Zell. We have a new list. The speed of Chaos corrosion is still alarming. There are even many middle-level officers in Litatra's local defense force who have devoted themselves to lust. "

Zell sighed.

"What? Are you dissatisfied?" the adult asked.

"No, I just don't think we're efficient enough."

Zell's words made the master stop abruptly, and a strong cold wind blew in, curling the purity mark he hung on his right shoulder armor. Zell raised his head helplessly, knowing that he was about to be reprimanded for a long time again.

However, he deserved it.

"Efficiency? This is not a terrorist operation or infiltration hunt against a rebellious world. It is impossible for you to achieve a quick victory like before. Litatra is still a generally loyal world."

"Every traitor deserves to die, and every loyalist deserves to enjoy their hard-earned life. We have a special gift, and we should use it well."

"We are one of the most terrifying inquisitors in the world, so we must be cautious. Do you want to be like those idiots who are written into the internal textbooks of the inquisition and involuntarily reject everyone they think is a traitor? Burn him in the fire?"

"Yes, yes, I understand, sir." Zell raised his hand and tapped the side of his helmet hard. "I really understand, please stop reading it."

"I think your understanding is very limited." The adult said with a sneer. "Let's do this. Brothers of the war group still have an estimated half-month voyage. I will apply for a special wheel battle on the Night Soul in advance for you."

"How about you being able to face twenty elite-level fighter servitors with your bare hands like Yago Severtalion? Doesn't this fit in with your pursuit of speed and efficiency?"

"Ah, not only that, you can still shine, great Zell, if you don't have a bruised face and a broken hand by then."

"My fighting instructor is not Siani from Terra." Zell retorted, running into a dark tunnel with the adults.

The object of his argument said nothing more and parted ways with him here, leaving him with only a series of disdainful sneers.

Zell angrily cursed in the local dialect of Vilain on the communication channel, jumped down the reserved tunnel maintenance elevator shaft, and headed towards the lower level of the hive.

Everything is going in the direction they want in an orderly and step-by-step manner.

New avengers are being cultivated, the chaos corruption of Litatra is being cleared away bit by bit, and the Night Soul is sailing in full of shadow knights.

Ironically enough, however, this was the first time in the long time since it had been the nominal flagship of the Shadow Knights that it had carried so many members of the Chapter. New recruits, veterans, and even the honorable ones buried in fearlessness

And Shen, the only Shen. Shen, who has resigned as chapter leader for thousands of years, is tightly bound to the deepest part of the Night Soul by five ferocious iron chains.

For a prophecy, a picture he saw in his hallucination, he endured it till now. Of all the Night King's descendants, he is the only one who has been able to remain within the prison of the Chains of Hatred for thousands of years.

The state religion even secretly extended many olive branches for this purpose, hoping to grant Shen some kind of canonization. However, to this day, he has not accepted this.

In his own words, if he really accepted it, it would be ridiculous.

"Although it is true, but"

Yago Savitarion spread his hands and smiled vaguely.

"Is Shen very stubborn? There is no harm in cooperating with the state religion, but he is unwilling to accept it."

No one answered, only one after another blowing across the wasteland of bones. After so many years, the wasteland outside the Altar of the End is still pale.

Savita waited patiently for a moment, but still no one answered him, but he nodded to himself and continued.

"It's been ten thousand years, and we finally have a resurrected fragment. But everything is difficult at the beginning, isn't it, Sergeant Tadeusz?"

No one answered.

"Valthek? Nuang? Ofion? Kege?"

Still no one spoke.

"Okay, you still don't want to see me. So, what about the old guys? Van Cleef! Captain Yarel! Is anyone there? Feier? I know you are here. You came out to fight alongside us a few years ago. ! Say something!”

The sound of the wind remained the same, and apart from his own voice, there was only this hollow echo left in the wasteland.

Iago Severtarion laughed slowly, slowly.

"Okay." He shrugged. "Anything for you, especially you, Terra's."

He lowered his head, took out a face of bones from his arms, and put it on his face. With a flash of golden light, he disappeared, and the wilderness returned to silence.

There was no tall black shadow wrapped in black and angry flames slowly rising from the ashes, and no one laughed softly at his weakness in the wind. There was only the sound of the wind that became louder and louder, and a tall giant slowly walking from not far away. .

He lowered his head and raised his hands, holding a small pool of white light, dotted with stars, as if he was holding the Milky Way in his palms. He looked at them tenderly and led them behind the altar.

Here, there is no smell of embers in the wind, and the ground is no longer pale ashes. This is just a place of pure and quiet darkness. The weak and cold moonlight shines from the sky, illuminating the coffins on the ground. Some are closed, some are opened

The giant buried the light spots one by one, and then looked back. Under the moonlight, a smile suddenly appeared on his pale face.

"Ah, Sai." He chuckled. "Again? They can't respond to you."

He smiled, turned into a gust of wind, and dissipated in place. The moonlight was still there, the coffin was closed, and there seemed to be the sound of a deep sleep, leaving only peace in this place.