40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 540 58.Primal Fear (2)

Cato Sicarius fell to his knees, pain shooting through his chest.

He could barely breathe, and his mouth and nose were completely covered with blood, but this was not the most important problem. He started moving, crawling.

At the same time, there was a sound of gobbling behind him. That sound belonged to a beast that was eating. This beast was so hungry that it would eat and bite almost anything, and once it bit something, it would never let go.

Sicarius forced himself to ignore the sound, dragging himself across the floor and grabbing a sword.

"Fire!" someone shouted.

The sound of bombs tore through the silence, turning the sounds of beasts feeding into an inarticulate whimper and wail. The firelight pierced the darkness just right, and Sicarius turned his head and saw Robert Guilliman's face distorted in the firelight.

The sides of his cheeks were bulging, filled with flesh, and several pale fingers sprang out from his lips that were trying to be closed tightly.

Sicarius should have been lying on the ground, but he really couldn't bear this. There was a voice in his heart that was far beyond reason, screaming and urging him to stand up and kill it.

Sicarius obeyed the urging of this voice. He rolled up from the ground like crazy and rushed towards the monster with the face of Robert Guilliman in the rain of bombs.

The power sword buzzed and trembled in his hand, and the bullets whizzed by like lightning passed through his body, failing to hurt him at all. The only remaining light in the corridor was gunfire and the blue light of the power sword, and Sicarius' blood-covered face trembled ferociously in these two lights.

He swung his sword and it drove the thing through his chest.

It screamed, then threw a fist that was entirely self-protective.

Doesn't it have any malicious intent? Maybe, yes, but not much, otherwise Sicarius would have died on the spot. But the fact is that he didn't die, he was just smashed into the pile of corpses and stuck in a pile of broken bones and flesh.

The things in front of him swirled into dazzling light, and everything gradually disappeared in this whirlpool of light. In the end, only one face remained, the face of Robert Guilliman.

But instead of one of those young, flawless blond monsters, it was a man with a head full of white hair. This man stared at Sicarius. He was standing on a podium, wearing a blue and white Macragge robe, and was talking to the people in the audience.

Sicarius was among them. He should have heard the original's words clearly, but now he could only vaguely capture a few words.

Moreover, the words are shaking. The way they exist sounds very ridiculous, but it is only ridiculous for less than a second. After that, they quickly become a tsunami.

"wake up.!"

"You have to you're going to be okay!"

Robert Guilliman stared at him, silent, his white hair moving in the wind.

Sicarius looked at his original body, and blood suddenly began to pour out of his mouth, nose, eyes and ears, and he began to cough.

The vortex dissipated.

He sat up and two people helped him up.

Their arms were cold steel, but their breath was not. The hot air hit Sicarius's skin, prompting him to truly feel the taste of life.

He observed the world in front of him from a confused yet detached perspective, and the full picture of the two people finally came into view at this moment.

Cato Sicarius saw a familiar blue.

He sighed, and then sighed again, blood pouring from his mouth.

"Hold on, you reckless idiot!"

Someone was yelling at him angrily, someone was tapping his cheek to keep him awake, but Sicarius almost didn't care anymore.

The color in front of his eyes was disappearing, and all real things were dissipating like fly ash, whether it was the faces of the two people, the eagles on their chests, or the fallen monster not far away.

Sicarius turned his head and glanced at it, watching it scream and roll in a pool of blood, vomiting out flesh and blood, and then its head was shattered by a bomb. Robert Guilliman's face became shattered and scattered in all directions.

At this moment, he suddenly realized that he had no fear.

His fear died as early as when he personally killed the first 'Robert Guilliman'. After that, even if he walked alone through thirteen decks and waded through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, , fear never bothered him again

Even now, even if he is about to die.

Sicarius blinked, blood covering his eyes, and then he remembered the Aquila he was supposed to receive today.

In his imagination it gleamed, the gold of the aquila on its breast like the sword held by the statue of the Emperor in the church. It can protect him and help him survive the countless wars he will face in the future.

Then the pain brought Sicarius back to reality, forcing him to accept something else.

He can't get the Skyhawk anymore, and he can't really survive every war, no one can. They are the Astartes, and sooner or later, they will die.

Sicarius closed his eyes tremblingly, intending to face death. He was ready until a cold liquid was pushed into his veins from his wrist.

The liquid was so violent that it only took a few seconds for him to scream. He suddenly felt the pain, and there was no place in his body that was not in pain.

The color he had lost returned in this excruciating pain, and Sicarius clearly saw an apothecary. The man was holding his face with both hands, and the circular saw extending from his right arm armor was covered in blood.

"Don't move." He said ruthlessly, and let go of his hands, letting the back of Sicarius' head hit the cold steel.

"You are still alive, but if you continue to move around, I can't guarantee it."

Sicarius closed his mouth and began to take a deep breath instead. In pain, he whispered a question.

"where am I?"

"You are alive, otherwise, idiot?" the pharmacist sneered back, showing considerable impatience.

Sicarius rolled his eyes downwards with all his strength, and barely saw a pair of blood-stained hands suturing his wounds. The gentleness of threading needles and the impatient tone formed an extreme contrast.

What really shocked him was the pharmacist's patient answer.

"You are staying with the 4th Company. They have retaken all decks between thirty-two and twenty-seven. Captain Idaios led his brothers to kill all the monsters, boy. You Very lucky, you know?”

"I don't know," Sicarius replied.

He was staring endlessly at the Apothecary's white-painted power armor. Except for Skyhawk, the latter's power armor did not contain any other logos.

His behavior caused the pharmacist to suddenly increase the strength of the suturing without leaving any trace, which almost made Sicarius scream in pain. He struggled through the pain without making any sound.

The pharmacist seemed to know what he was thinking, and actually started to introduce himself.

"Yes, as you may think, I am not one of you. I am from the Jairzinho Guzman Medical Research Society, and I came here specifically to exchange and learn in your war group. My name is Ser Lar, what about you, boy?"

"Cato Sicarius, from Thalasa."

"Very good, then, you have probably guessed now why I keep talking to you, right?"

"Yes."

The pharmacist let out a muffled laugh under the gloomy beak helmet.

"In short, you are about to die. The medicine I give you can ensure that you will be no different from a normal person in the next fifteen minutes. I will do my best to use these fifteen minutes to try to save you. But I can’t guarantee you’ll actually survive.”

"How bad is the situation?" Sicarius asked calmly. At the same moment when he asked this question, he was surprised to find that there was really no fear in his heart.

"One of your hearts has stopped, most of your organs are damaged, your spine is displaced, you have multiple fractures, and you have extensive internal bleeding. In short, you are no different from someone who is about to die, but I won't ignore death, so you'd better Keep talking to me, Cato Sicarius."

Sicarius was silent. He also wanted to say something, but he really didn't know what to say.

Today's events have completely disrupted his simple understanding of the world. Even if someone told him that he would only have ten minutes to live at most, Sicarius no longer had any real sense.

However, the wreckage he had seen not long ago suddenly broke into his eyes at this moment, bringing with him a burst of deep anger, forcing him to speak hoarsely.

"What exactly are we facing?" Sicarius asked sincerely. "What enemy are we fighting?"

The pharmacist laughed—almost laughed, in fact.

His hands didn't shake.

"Good question, Cato Sicarius from Thalasa, this is really a good question. You are still very young, but you can already get to the point just like your predecessors. But, that is not the enemy, you understand ?"

Sicarius stared at him, waiting for the next step amid the tugging sensation in his chest and abdomen and the slight pain of the needle piercing his flesh.

The pharmacist's voice suddenly became very deep.

"Those things are not even living things, so they are not enemies. They are just beasts with empty skins, and all their inner flesh and blood comes from what they devour."

"I have been allowed to dissect all of them. The bone strength of these things is essentially the same as that of mortals. What really drives their movements and their powerful power is not in their bodies, but in other places."

He shook his head at Sicarius meaningfully, leaving the result to Sicarius for him to understand, analyze and bear. Of course, the young Astartes couldn't understand what he said, but he could make some assumptions based on what he knew.

So, he asked: "Chaos?"

"I'm afraid not," Seral said. "I tell you, young Sicarius, those demons from Chaos behave in predictable ways."

"They appear disorderly and crazy, but that's not the case internally. Every move they make and every word they say contains a certain code, and they can only rely on this code to act."

"Essentially, they are just slaves to these so-called norms. What you are facing is different, it cannot be predicted."

"Isn't it just for eating?" Sicarius asked, suppressing his nausea.

He began to feel dizzy. The mysterious pharmacist named Seral did not lie to him. The potion could only guarantee his temporary survival. Its effect had begun to wear off, and the feeling of powerlessness Sicarius had experienced returned.

He couldn't help but start to take deep breaths. Although most of the wounds had been sutured and the bleeding stopped, he could still feel the broken bones stuck in his flesh. They are so real and the pain they cause is beyond anything.

The pain almost brought Sicarius to tears.

"It's not," Seral said heavily. "It is far better than this, Sicarius, it does not come to kill or destroy."

He stopped talking, and Sicarius also quietly closed his mouth. Time passed by minute by second, and the whistle of explosive bombs and angry shouts came from the distance.

These sounds were gradually mixed with the sound of the scalpel cutting into his flesh, and the sound of broken bones being taken out and thrown on the iron tray.

Some are fighting, some are dying. They hold weapons on Macragge's Glory and fight against the monster that bears the face of their genetic father.

But he just lay here, the honor he longed for disappeared without a trace, leaving only the most essential understanding of the war - at this moment, Cato Sicarius let out a short scream of pain.

Not for the cutting of the scalpel, only for my own stupidity.

He finally realized how naive and naive he had been.

A hand patted his cheek.

"You'll survive, trust me," the pharmacist said softly. "In the name of Jairzinho Guzman, we will never abandon any of the injured."

Cato Sicarius's world fell into darkness.

——

Standing in the astral formation, Robert Guilliman let out a gloomy sigh from the gap between his clenched teeth.

".To sum up, according to the available intelligence, the power of those things comes from people's belief in me."

"What belief do they have in you?" the person at the other end of the formation asked softly.

"I don't know, maybe you think of me as the thirteenth son of the God Emperor. In religion, I'm probably just an incarnation of him, a tool that can walk in the world for him."

"In other words, the Five Hundred Worlds do have genuine faith in you?"

"Yes." Robert Guilliman responded heavily. "I have tried to stop it, but this can only have the opposite effect. People need an image to guide them. Moreover, compared to the emperor, my incarnation that can really appear in front of them is obviously more beloved."

He finally couldn't help but smile bitterly, his face covered in blood was mottled.

"I see. Is there a church on your ship?"

".What church?"

"My church," Khalil said softly. "Wait a moment, Robert, we'll be there in a minute."