40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 622 8. Pest Control (II)

Khalil has lived for four years in this dark fortieth millennium, and will soon be in the fifth year. Four years is neither long nor short, but his way of traveling is enough to make the breadth of this journey extremely exaggerated.

He has dealt with all kinds of people, from upright but arrogant and inflexible descendants of nobles to a group of prisoners who are about to be sent to the Penal Legion.

These people come from all over the galaxy, and their minds are filled with all kinds of thoughts and experiences, and it is not difficult to dig them out.

Usually, it only takes a meal or a few words for Khalil to successfully chat with them. He learned many things that he never had the opportunity to know before, and these things reveal a consensus.

Water is very precious.

More than one person has said this to him, or expressed it unintentionally.

The descendants of the nobility would hold the reflective fork at the table and smile as they mentioned a pure water they liked to drink, describing its taste, which seemed bland but was actually sweet, mellow and refreshing.

The prisoners would use vulgar language to make jokes, and one of them, a man named Cage, told Khalil, who was beaten by the powerful short stick of the discipline, that he had only drunk smelly recycled water in his life, and he no longer expected to drink normal water in the future.

If these are two extremes, then the imperial civilians in the middle - those who live in poverty but can fill their stomachs - told Khalil that if they want to drink water, they must find the Water Purification Guild.

Yes, a guild, a guild that specializes in controlling various water sources within the hive city, from the upper nest to the lower nest, from recycled water to precious pure water, every drop of water is under their jurisdiction.

No one would want to offend them unless that person wants to die of thirst. As a planet that will be completed as a hive city within the next century or two, Banjo-1 has already had people from the Water Purification Guild settle in.

Their workplace is located on the edge of the city, in a huge water storage tower that is almost the same as a mountain, and this is only the part exposed on the surface.

It can store billions of tons of water in total and is directly connected to the water circulation system that has been associated with most of the families on Banjo-1.

But the Genestealers have already broken through here.

Khalil frowned and looked at a huge gap at the foot of the mountain from a distance. All ten fingers suddenly twitched.

Leon El'Jonson, or Leman Russ, who was squatting on a huge air purifier with him, sighed deeply.

"It didn't even take us three minutes to get here." said the Fenrisian.

Khalil shook his head calmly: "This is their efficiency, a Gestalt thinking from top to bottom, constructed by hypnosis, psychic power and innate spiritual network. Let's go, Russ, time waits for no one."

He opened his hands and jumped down. Russ bit the spear in the same way as a lion, and then jumped off the heavy machine on the top of the tall building.

When he landed, Khalil was gone. The residents of Banjo-1 were fleeing, and the Ministry of Justice, which should have responded quickly, did not drive the hovercraft across the sky in their usual style.

Standing in the crowd, accepting people's fear, worship, screams and collapse, Russ took a deep breath.

He suddenly exerted force, but he was already running at a mad speed when he started, and the distance of hundreds of meters was reached in the blink of an eye.

The power that erupted from Lion El'Jonson's body, which had never slacked off for a hundred generations, even surprised Russ a little, but he quickly adapted to this feeling that he had almost forgotten.

His faded light golden hair swung wildly, and the Spear of Dionysus pierced four purebloods at the same time as he laughed wildly. A wild killing skill that was different from that of a lion instantly blossomed in the insect tide.

The laughter of the Fenris people was uninterrupted, accompanied by the neighing and roaring of the purebloods, forming a unique song of killing. Russ captured it accurately, and then sang loudly - or roared.

The rhythmic Fenris language bloomed between the fangs and teeth, the mane danced, and the spear drank blood.

Two minutes later, the dance stopped, and the purebloods at the entrance no longer came forward.

Russ smiled at them, tilted his head, and suddenly said, "Hey, Leon, you should know what we are going to do, right?"

He blinked, and his whole expression suddenly changed, and the lion returned silently. He relaxed his fingers and let the Spear of Dionysus hang down naturally. It trembled and made a buzzing sound, as if it was urging for the next killing.

The lion was indifferent, just took a deep breath, and slowly straightened his back. He raised his left hand, tore off the blood-stained knight's robe, sneered and threw it at his feet, and the spear drew a line at the same time. Not long, but deep.

"Much clearer than you." Leon El'Jonson whispered calmly during the charge of the purebloods.

He got a pleasant chuckle.

——

The interior of the water tower is almost no different from a maze. It is not like what people imagine. As soon as you enter the gate, you can see a huge water source in a huge glass jar.

No, that's not the case. Water is very precious.

Therefore, the Water Purification Guild has installed a large number of security measures on each of their water towers or similar buildings, and dispatched heavy troops to guard them.

But now, the former has been destroyed by the hybrids, while the latter has long become a dead soul under the claws of the insects. They may all be elite soldiers, but there's no way they could handle a surprise attack by a horde of Genestealers without intelligence.

So they all died.

In the darkness, Khalil stared at their bodies and kept walking.

Countless voices hailed his return and then offered more to be judged. One said it caught a thief, the other said it caught a robber.

Khalil listened patiently to each one before granting permission again: a fair trial. The matter must be just, and it is true that some crimes are unpardonable, but theft or robbery without loss of life is another matter.

Amid their voices, Khalil went all the way down, ignoring all security measures and terrain differences, and went straight to the deepest part of the water tower.

Then he stepped out of the darkness.

A huge thing turned around quickly.

It was very tall, even taller than the Primarchs. Two of the four strong purple arms were transformed into sharp bone blades, and the remaining two were more cruel claws. A thick chitin carapace covers the whole body, and the streamlined and swollen head is inlaid with two shining black eyes.

It had almost no emotion, but Khalil could still 'taste' the doubts of this dangerous creature from the spiritual network: it didn't understand what Khalil was.

It cannot analyze it. The data and knowledge it obtained from the genetic depths after leaving the nest do not include the part of the creature in front of it.

It then tried to hypnotize him with its omnipotent psychic powers, but to no avail.

Khalil ignored the ridiculous attempt and just stared up. Behind the patriarch, he saw a huge machine with countless pipes and cables that was beating like a heart.

It has been cut open by the patriarch.

Khalil already knew what it was going to do - it was going to put its own modified genetic material into it, and then change the operating rules of the machine.

The Patriarch is not just a cold killing machine as it appears, it is more than that.

This creature is very good at learning and digging out what it wants from human minds. One after another, the people it controls and the people it kills provide it with how to use this machine.

To get to this point, it only needs to tap a few buttons with its claws, and its genetic material can be transferred through the pipes all over Banjo-1 to any working faucet within the next thirty minutes. .

It originally didn't want to do this because it believed that its group was not ready to face the defense force of this planet, and its group had not yet reached the point where it could call the brood to come and enjoy a feast.

However, since last night and today, the underground gathering places where multiple hybrid species are located have been attacked, which made it alert. It knew that the group was exposed, so it immediately decided to speed up the progress.

Khalil squinted his eyes, chewing the creature's thoughts carefully, and felt a rare impulse - he wanted to kill it now.

But he suppressed this impulse. Just killing the patriarch might cause the remaining purebloods and hybrids to collapse for a while, but they were still alive and needed to be cleansed.

Moreover, he has a solution that will solve the problem once and for all.

Although he didn't tell Leon and Russ, he was sure that the latter might have guessed

In the spiritual network, Khalil began to draw psychic energy, but the purpose was not to kill, and he even hid this idea very carefully.

The gathering of spiritual energy caused his thoughts to spread, and he briefly 'saw' the spiritual network, a large lavender net that was spread all over the bulb like synaptic cells, but with blood vessel-like things wrapped around it.

The patriarch is at the top, followed by the guards, bishops and nobles, or mixed-bloods with superior status or outstanding ability, as well as a group of pure-bloods. Below the net are those humans who have just been infected by hypnosis, as well as some hybrids who have blended into human society.

The spirits of these two are not alienated enough to be integrated into the spiritual network, and the same is true for their bodies, so they cannot be directly controlled by the patriarch like other gene stealers.

It doesn't matter.

Khalil brought his spiritual energy and consciousness close to the Patriarch's position in the spiritual network, contacted it, and eroded every detail of its existence where it could not detect it. He had never done this before, so he had to face it face to face. Only then can you be sure of success.

The patriarch knew nothing about this. Time in the real world had not even begun to pass, and its consciousness was equally sluggish, enduring Khalil's 'chewing'.

Then, he began to recall a creature, a creature that he had fought with on Sosa, and the huge shadow looming above the creature's head. His consciousness began to become colder and colder, until there was no 'human' part at all.

Until there is no difference between it and the Hive Mind - at least there is no difference in appearance.

Time in the material world passed quietly. One second, just one second passed, and his consciousness quietly climbed to the top of all synaptic points in the spiritual network.

His authority was recognized.

Khalil opened his eyes and saw the clan leader kneeling tremblingly, his long scarlet tongue protruding from his fang-filled mouth, pulsating. The Zerg have no emotions at all. They are directly commanded by the Hive Mind.

The patriarch was different. It was disconnected from the hive mind and went to each world as a separate creature to act as a pioneer. It had basic emotions, but not many. Now, its emotions were joy and the desire to return.

There was no so-called "return" here, and you were not worthy of joy.

Khalil took a deep breath, then raised his right hand and slowly clenched his five fingers.

The patriarch's body stiffened for a moment, and then he swung the bone blade and claws without hesitation and stabbed his head.

Its head turned into a pool of paste, and the skull fragments flew. Before they hit the ground, they were controlled by psychic power and crushed into harmless ashes.

A huge headless corpse fell to the ground with a bang, causing a little vibration, which should have disappeared at this point, but this vibration caused a violent tremor in a net.

From the purebloods who faced Lion El'Jonson directly, to the pope who was preaching a certain doctrine to the poor masses, or the nobles who were smiling at the banquet, at this moment, they all began to execute an order at the same time.

Suicide.

The pureblood pierced his head with his claws. The Pope pulled out the guard's automatic gun without thinking and pointed it at his chin and pulled the trigger. The noble who was tasting the wine suddenly screamed and jumped onto the banquet table, pulled out the ceremonial sword at his waist and pierced his temple.

This sudden death spread from the water tower at the edge of the city to the mansions of the nobles, and then went all the way down to a huge cave.

Here, the dark angels were watching monsters commit suicide one after another in amazement.

Outside the water tower, Lion El'Jonson sighed.

"We all know who Caril Rohals is." Leman Russ said in his ear.

"Yes, we all know." The lion sat down with his spear in his hand, and his long light golden hair became more and more faded in the afternoon sun of Banjo-1.

A dozen seconds later, a calm footstep came from behind him. The lion did not answer, but remained silent. A breeze blew, but it failed to blow away the strong smell of blood, nor did it make the lion turn his head. After more than ten seconds, he finally spoke.

"So what price did you pay this time?" He asked dully.

No one answered him, only a hand was placed on his shoulder. But that hand was not as cold as a dead person as he remembered, but very warm.

The lion turned his head in shock.

Khalil blinked at him, smiled and shrugged: "I said, I'm just an ordinary psychic now."

He opened his windbreaker, looked down at the big hole on his chest, and suddenly stopped smiling.

"Speaking of which, Leon, is there a doctor on your ship? I may need treatment."

A drop of blood slowly flowed out of the hideous wound.