40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 529 47. Records of the Battle Group Era (VIII, First Reserve)

"Before we begin, I hope you won't apologize," Sevatar said.

He was obviously prepared, and his words were straightforward, precise and quick. He successfully blocked the first sentence that Khalil was about to say, and also bought himself the opportunity to say the next sentence.

"I understand this is important to you, but I just don't want to hear you apologize, instructor."

"We worked so hard to pull your old bones out of the abyss, not just to hear your apology. You still have a lot to do, and if the first thing you want to do is to see Ten Thousand with your own eyes I also fully support the empire in the future.”

Sevatar said extremely seriously. He is now close to three meters tall, which is considered unusually tall even among the Astartes. The unblocking of psychic powers obviously brings more to him than meets the eye, and Khalil has a lot to say about it.

He understood that Sevatar's body was being subtly changed by psychic energy, and this change would not stop until his death.

He raised his head and stared at the first reserve soldier from ten thousand years ago and now the first eldest son. For a moment, he felt a little dazed.

For a long time, Khalil just held up his glass and remained silent. He couldn't find the words to say, and he didn't want to refute Sevatar's words.

The idea of ​​seeing what was now the Empire was indeed an attractive idea, and if he woke up alone, maybe he would actually do that. But he wasn't alone, not long ago.

He has to take some responsibility.

"I won't apologize." Khalil said as he met Savita's gaze. "At least not this time."

He got a smile that was a mixture of surprise and shock and joy.

"Don't be too presumptuous, First Reserve."

Khalil warned in a familiar instructor's tone, and he put the empty wine glass into Sevita's hand with a half-smile.

"But, then again, don't you want to go back to Nostramo first?"

"If our great instructor, who never listens to anyone's advice, wants to go his own way and visit other places instead of his hometown—"

Savita reached out to take the wine glass and bowed grandly.

"——I'm still happy to oblige."

"I have no hometown," Khalil said. "Not even Nostramo. It is the home of Konrad Curze, not mine. My home is in the Warp, Yago, don't forget that."

"In other words, you plan to go back to the subspace for a visit?"

Sevatar raised his head pretending to be surprised, then wiped away the emotion, and put on a serious face that he didn't know whether he was sincere or not.

"Okay, sir, I'm willing to do the hard work. We will rush into the subspace behind you. Although this is no different from courting death, every day of our lives is quite suitable to die. What do you think?"

"I think your yin and yang strange energy skills have improved over the past ten thousand years."

"Oh, just a little bit of scratching the surface." Sevita said with a smile. "I just have to imitate the officials I've met. They all talk like this."

"Have you met many officials?"

"Many have seen me, but not many have I seen," said Sevatar, giving a completely contradictory statement. Khalil, however, could fully understand the metaphor. He nodded slightly and raised his hand to indicate to Savitar to continue.

The first reserve officer sighed and couldn't help but complain: "This is not a good story. You really have nothing to do."

"It's true that I have nothing to do now, but we are now in Fenris. The land of ice, snow, mead and stories. So, I want to hear you tell some legendary stories about yourself. Is there any problem with this?"

"You are not from Fenris, why do you ask me to do as the Romans do?"

Khalil kept his half-smiling expression, but his eyes stared unblinkingly at Savita's eyes. This look at each other lasted for a minute before it ended. The first reserve officer spoke slowly and reluctantly.

"Well, there was that one time. In short, there was an inspector named Kelley of the Ministry of Military Affairs. He and tens of thousands of his colleagues wandered around the galaxy and were responsible for investigating the specific situations of the third-level primary tax worlds. "

"Their job requirement is to review every ten years to see if those worlds on the list need to have higher or lower taxes. So, you can guess without me explaining that this is not a good job."

"Inspector Kekeli was only 112 years old at the time, but he had already undergone three life-extending operations and more than ten replacements of life-support components. He had an accompanying security team of 300 people, all of whom were Elite soldiers drawn from the army."

"They were directly transferred by the Ministry of Military Affairs to ensure the safety of Kelai. In their line of work, it is easy to encounter various unexpected dangers, so they must be guarded by sufficient security forces."

"He met me on his ship. The reason is very simple. The wild world he wanted to examine was invaded by demons. The locals were not alive. The governor's family was cursed by the wizards of the cultists during the resistance war. A famous family The noble family has become a thing of the past.”

"This world no longer has the ability to pay tithes. In fact, the remaining people can no longer even survive in this world. Chaos pollution is enough to change everything, not to mention that this is just a wild world."

"According to the rules and regulations, Kelai can declare this world to be a dead world now, but he decided to ask us first - a group of incompetent people who came late, so I met him on his ship. He opened his mouth Asked me a question."

"What's the problem?" Khalil asked softly.

"He asked me if the local governor was doing his job. I told him the complete situation, and then he said he needed to investigate and collect evidence."

An uncontrollable sneer appeared on Savita's face, and Khalil could almost hear his unspoken mocking: Investigation and evidence collection? Instructor, can you believe it? He asked me for evidence.

"So I asked him what kind of evidence he wanted. He told me he wanted any evidence - direct evidence - of any resistance from Governor Alfusseni's family."

"I asked him why, and the bastard actually told me that my testimony was not enough to seek forgiveness for the surviving Salenam people in this matter, and not to be beaten into slavery."

"I should have been angry, but I realized he was right, the laws surrounding the Empire were very rigid, at least at that time."

"So, I have to admit that he was very courageous. I was covered in blood, and he actually dared to tell me in front of me that he needed to go back to the slaughterhouse to photograph the remains of the loyalists to use as evidence."

"Do you agree?" Khalil asked again.

Some quiet wolves behind them were slowly approaching. Both he and Savita were aware of this, but neither of them said anything to stop them. Fenris loved stories, any story.

Just do as the Romans do.

"I have no right to refuse." Sevatar replied with a sneer. "The spirit of the Governor is roaring in my ears, asking me to quickly bring this damn prosecutor to his family's territory, take the photos, and then leave Salenam with the remaining people."

"So I took him to the ground. There was no one else, just the two of us. Inquisitor Kelley finally showed a little fear at this time, although it was only a little bit, but I did smell it. When he walked behind me He kept his right hand on the grip of the plasma pistol, but he still walked to the end calmly."

"The governor's family territory is a palace that has been passed down from generation to generation. It should have been magnificent, but at that time there was blood and corpses everywhere, and the atrocities of the demon bastards made it look no different from hell."

"In this way, we entered the palace and found the bodies of the governor and his wife. Kelley took pictures and walked out of the palace."

Sevita turned around and handed the wine glass that belonged to Khalil to a wild wolf. The latter filled it with wine, but Sevita still didn't think it was enough and snatched away the stone jug from which the wine was poured. come over.

He handed the wine glass back to Khalil, raised his head and began to drink directly from the pot.

The wolves were silent, silently waiting for him to continue. These seemingly rough barbarians always treat stories with a respect that is completely inconsistent with their usual performance. Even a bloody claw can wait until the end of the story before speaking.

Savita drank the mead in the pot completely, then smiled and shook his head: "Then, the damn misfortune happened."

"There are only eleven hours of daylight in Salem. We only spent such a short time and the sky was completely dark, and I smelled the devil."

He winked playfully at Khalil.

"Be careful, it's not a dead devil."

Khalil didn't laugh, and neither did the wolves, they listened, that was all.

"Anyway, some of them came back, and I thought we had killed them all and driven them away, but I was too stupid to think that they would come back. So the situation took a turn for the worse, and I started fighting alongside Kelley. "

"However, as a mortal, he fights like a madman. He should really join the army instead of being a prosecutor in the office, which completely buries his abilities."

"I felt relieved for the time being. At least I knew that the person fighting alongside me was not a coward. I cut off half of the palace door, rushed to the front, and temporarily used the door as an assault shield. He followed me and carried out firepower Cover, the plasma shot is pretty accurate."

"We broke through all the way to the place where the shuttle landed, but it had long been destroyed. My communication network was also affected by the power of chaos and could not contact anyone in orbit."

Savita paused for a moment full of malice, and in the eyes of everyone, he shrugged.

"Yes, this can be considered a desperate situation, no matter who it is."

"So I told Kelley that he should start saying his last words to me. The prosecutor looked at me very funny. He leaned against our shuttle and asked me if we were all going to die here, would we say anything? What does the last words matter?"

"I told him that for a child of the night, death is just the beginning. He heard this, and although he didn't understand it, he still fell into deep thought."

"A few minutes later, he used his entire set of built-in data processing servers to send me several proposals for reforming tax laws. He said these were his last words, and I stored them in the server in the armor. , and then started to escape with him."

"Devils are everywhere. This is obviously a trap, but it shouldn't be aimed at me, otherwise their number may increase several times. We fought and fled, and it wasn't until forty-five minutes later that fire lit up in the sky Light."

"At that time, there were still five minutes left before Prosecutor Kelley's death. He was seriously injured, and even the mechanical components that were surgically implanted fell out of his stomach."

"I asked him if he had anything to say but he said nothing except complaining about his job. I watched him die and then waited for backup."

"I took his body back to his ship, and finally returned with his ship and his people to the fortress near Shattered Terra. For political reasons, I announced that this matter would be taken over by the Midnight Blades. ”

"Then, there was a three-year government reform, during which both Regent Sanguinius and Seal Malcador were involved, as well as countless officials of various types."

“In short, we spent three years, using Kelley’s suggestions as a basis, to reform the tax laws and add a brand new law, which was named Kelley’s Law. "

"It saved the people of Salenam from being slaves, and also saved more people from suffering in the years to come, allowing them to continue to thrive in their homeland. From this point of view, that Kelley should be Quite happy.”

He paused, took a long breath, and ended his story. A wild wolf approached him from behind and brought a new hip flask with great respect.

"Drink, please," he said solemnly in Fenrisian, then looked around and shouted to his brothers.

"Let us drink this round for the sake of the merciful Kelai!"

He roared, raised his head first, raised the bone-horned wine glass in his hand, and began to gulp down the mead. The dark liquid rushed into their throats, and those who drank quickly were the first to howl, one after another, like a never-ending interlude.

Khalil did not join the queue, but he also finished his glass of wine.

He looked at Yago Savitarion, and just like that, he silently tore away the last bit of gauze from the First Reserve Corps from this man. He smiled, walked up to him, stood on tiptoes and patted his chest.

"Well done, Yago." Khalil said sincerely. "No one can do it better than you."

Yago Severtarion looked at him with sadness, his face showed no trace of pride, only a mutilated numbness.

"Too many people, Khalil," he murmured softly. "I've given away too many of them."