40k: Midnight Blade

What is the Inquisition?

This is not difficult to explain. In the official definition, the Inquisition is the 'Eye of the Emperor', 'the embodiment of the Emperor's wrath', and the 'spokesperson of justice'.

Despite these fancy terms, in fact, they are only responsible for investigating and dealing with all things that may pose a threat to humanity and the Empire - potential threats are naturally included among them.

Therefore, in addition to Chaos, aliens, and traitors, they have to deal with threats from within, such as corruption, depravity, and disloyalty.

This means that their authority has no boundaries. A duly recognized Inquisitor can mobilize any kind of resource within the empire, whether human or material.

From the Adeptus Adeptus Enforcers, to a regiment of the Imperial Guard, to an entire Chapter of the Astartes - whenever they issue an order, it means there must be a response, whether it is rejection or acceptance.

However, this is only the official statement, and the real situation is much more complicated.

In the eyes of officials, the Inquisition is an organization that transcends the boundaries of power and is something that should not exist at all.

There is no common hierarchy within this organization. As long as an inquisitor has passed his apprenticeship, he can directly become a formal inquisitor and use that amazing power.

They can order or judge anyone, from a high lord to a beggar, from a warrior in the Guard or Navy, to a battle brother in a Chapter.

Such uncontrolled power makes them disliked by various bureaucracies. Even the investigators from the Ministry of Justice usually don't particularly want to deal with them.

Even if most of the accusations are proven to be groundless, this matter will not change - no one will look kindly on those who increase their workload or even endanger their lives, right?

In the eyes of the nobles, the Inquisition was equally unpopular. They don't want to be inspected every twenty-five years, and they don't like to meet a strange man or woman who has no respect for them and issues them one order after another.

However, it is true that the reason why some people hate them is because they feel insulted and think that their glorious bloodline and meritorious deeds should not be so doubted. But other people are different.

Before these never-ending routine inspections come, there are always people working in secret, trying to circumvent the scrutiny in various ways.

Either leaving the Inquisitor dead in the process, or simply leading an entire planet or sector to rebel - this is not even rare, and some people always think they can get away with it.

As for the civilians - generally speaking, they rarely have the opportunity to meet an Inquisitor in their lives, so they have no real sense of this institution.

Unless the world they live in happens to have a governor who doesn't like the Inquisition very much, and then, by coincidence, this governor also has a writer who is particularly proficient in writing skills and knows how to arouse people's emotions.

By then, even the populace would come to loathe and hate them, amid an onslaught of books about the horrific atrocities of the Inquisition.

This example actually happened, and the results were not pretty.

The governor who tried to resist was executed, as was his family, and his world was burned to the ground. The writer's true identity was exposed during the arrest, and he united with the angry people to set off a terrifying demonic wave in the hive, which directly harmed the entire sector.

In the end, it was banished, and that sector is now called Jericho, located in the Segmentum Tempest, where most worlds have been classified as dead worlds.

But this was not the end, for the book somehow escaped, and to this day, copies, manuscripts or scattered pages of it are still wandering around the galaxy.

So, back to the point, can the Inquisition really order or judge anyone?

This is not the case, they do have this power but they would never abuse it.

This is not an empty talk, not an oath made by some corrupt nobles, "I will always be loyal to the Emperor and protect my people." It is not such a ridiculous thing, but a real constraint.

Its binding force derives from both oaths and from their souls.

When an Inquisitor confirms that his apprentices are ready to leave, and if they do not die, these apprentices will be taken to Fortress 002 in the solar system. The Seal Bearer will wait inside and personally witness every Inquisitor's oath

This is why Khalil feels so peaceful at this time.

He was not angry. This rare emotion for him did not disturb his thoughts because he knew what Malcador was capable of.

Hand-selected by the Seal Bearer is still a very powerful word to this day, and the mute guards he chose were even respected by the Imperial Guards - and the question arises: Why should a soldier be deprived of his honor?

Where is the answer?

He looked at Hayid, at the strange man he had met on Banjo-1.

He recalled that when they first met, Hayid was dressed like a down-and-out sailor, but it was just shabby and not dirty like sailors. The same goes for his face, which proves he's a man with basic self-control.

At least, he is a person who wants to live a good life. Those who have given up hope in the world will not clean up themselves. This is the first point that Khalil is interested in him.

Secondly, it was his reaction. When he saw Khalil's dark eyes, the retired soldier quickly acted like a drunkard who couldn't walk properly, and planned to get away immediately.

This may not be very clever, but it is definitely enough for ordinary people.

To this day, Nostramo has long become a forbidden area to some extent, not to mention the Nostramo people. It is impossible for Hayd to get any information about Nostramo people or dark eyes anywhere.

So, he just didn't want to be associated with a person who might have a genetic mutation.

Ordinary civilians don't have this kind of mind. There are already enough mutants in the lower nest, and many people have different degrees of genetic defects. As for the sailors, haven't they seen enough children of the void?

This attitude of not wanting to be associated is very interesting. The source can only be the army, not even the state religion, because the state religion has already made saving genetic mutations a large-scale missionary activity, which is only carried out on the Emperor's Ascension Festival.

On that day, the priests would go there in person, bringing machines that could sing hymns to heal the genetic defects that caused pain for free, and declared that this was the mercy of the Emperor, and that He had erased your sins.

But the army was different. Although recognized mutants like Ratlin or Ogryn had long been integrated into it, discrimination still existed.

The Guards and the Navy discriminated against each other, and voluntary enlistment and tithe forced enlistment discriminated against each other. Even the slightest difference between regions would become a reason for ridicule, insults and beatings.

Therefore, as early as that time, Khalil had roughly guessed Hayd's true identity-a retired soldier, and a smart man.

At the moment when he put his hand on his shoulder, he even made a second confirmation: Hayd's soul had no wronged soul attached to it.

For this reason, he hired him.

And now. He stared at the wrinkled and weathered face, and came to a conclusion in his heart that Hayd was not lying.

His hanging index finger finally dropped.

"Inquisition?" The lion repeated with a frown.

He didn't even look at Khalil, which was exactly what Khalil expected.

The former corporal was silent for a long time before answering the lion: "Yes, sir, the Inquisition."

"Which inquisitor? To which faction?"

"I don't know, I just know it's a woman." Haid replied bitterly. "But, sir--"

"--but what?" the lion asked.

Hayd was silent again, this time even longer than last time.

The expression on his face kept changing, and various emotions were mixed together, like an abstract painting. Wrinkles overlapped with wrinkles, covering the scars, and the eyes were mostly covered by untidy hair.

The lion did not urge him. He was unusually patient, and this time, he no longer looked like a lion watching for prey.

The silence stretched until several minutes later, when Haid finally responded. His shoulders, which had been raised, suddenly collapsed, his lips tightened, and his gray beard trembled immediately afterwards-then he spoke.

"I'm a fool, sirs, I'm a very fool. When I joined the army, I couldn't learn how to change the magazine quickly, and I was stubborn in fighting. My company commander always scolded me for this. He said that if I didn't correct it, I would only be a corporal for the rest of my life."

"But I think it's good this way. I only have to take care of myself and the other fourteen people. That's enough. If there are more, I, a fool, won't be able to take care of them. But even a fool like me knows what it means to die."

"When we were on Sovet, we were dying. No one thought we could win. We knew how much we were worth. Unless we doubled our numbers, how could we beat those green-skinned bastards?"

"But we still went, and we went to die, because - sir - because one of your sons, a man named Harel, mobilized us before the battle."

The lion nodded slightly, finally moved. Hayd knew nothing about this. He just lowered his head and talked about what he wanted to say.

"The first thing he said was: You are going to die. This sentence made my superiors very dissatisfied with him, and many people wanted to curse him."

"But he immediately said: It doesn't matter, my brothers and I will go to hell with you. In the next five minutes, he gave a detailed explanation of this matter."

"He told us that the reason why this operation is called death is that the military force assembled in a short time cannot completely trap the second battle group of the Hadilan Orcs, so we must pay our lives - and many lives, to hold them back."

"He said, we have to do The matter is simple, that is, to delay them from leaving, the longer the better. The combined fleet cannot arrive now, they are fighting with the remaining three battle groups of the orcs, and before they arrive, we are the only ones who can stop them. "

"Finally, he said that if things are really unfortunate enough that the combined fleet cannot arrive, he and his brothers will die with us."

"With this sentence, what else can we say? One Astartes is worth ten thousand of us, and the screws on their power armor alone are more valuable than our lives, but they actually want to die with us. So we went, and they kept their promise. "

"From the track, Pastor Harrell came down with his brothers, and we turned the situation around for a moment. But we lost in the end, and I can't even tell you how we lost, because I Stunned by shells."

"When I woke up, I was in a foxhole with six other people and couldn't move. My body was covered in blood and broken flesh. At first, I even thought I had lost my legs or hands because they were Already numb."

"I was scared and didn't know what to do until I heard a guy crying, not loudly but annoyingly. So I told him, stop fucking crying, and then there were more voices and they echoed me, Stop crying that bastard."

"After that, we spent some time digging each other out of the dead, then took our guns and started wandering in the burned-to-ash jungle. There were corpses and ashes everywhere, including ours and the green-skinned bastards. Theirs, and the Dark Angels’.”

"We walked for almost dozens of minutes before we heard a sound, like a wailing sound. At first, the six of us lucky people thought we had met a wounded soldier, and the crybaby immediately picked up his gun and went to Rescue, but we held him down."

"We have served much longer than him, and we all know that it is not a human cry. People cannot scream so loudly when they are in pain. Half a minute later, we saw something shaking across the position. It"

Hayid clenched his fists, his face was full of fear and sadness, but he still managed to speak.

"It's huge, sir. It's definitely a monster, bigger than a tank, but it's crying, shouting, fussing. It has many faces, our faces."

He looked up at the lion, then jumped at him, fell at his feet and continued to describe: "Our face, sir, do you understand? We, it. It is made of us. As soon as I saw it I understand, we—"

Before he could finish speaking, his eyes suddenly rolled up, leaving only the whites of his eyes. This was followed by an indescribable violent convulsion, like an epileptic seizure. He collapsed to the ground, a strange sound came from his throat, and his hands went to his neck.

The breath came out of the throat, forming a hoarse sentence, but it didn't sound like it at all, but a female voice.

"This man has been marked by the Inquisition. No matter what he has said, it should be regarded as a lie. The mark is broken at this moment, and the Inquisition will come soon. No matter who you are, be prepared."

There was a flash of blue light in Khalil's eyes, causing the corporal to faint. The lion looked over with a sullen face and saw a smile that he was very familiar with.

"Are you ready, Leon?" Khalil said with a smile.