40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 631 14. The Past of Sovet (End, The Painful Truth, 9k)

I knew who he was the first time I saw him. It had nothing to do with intuition, it was simply because I had seen him too many times.

However, the Corporal Hayed in my memory was a middle-aged man with a frightened look, lying on a dirty and bloody battlefield, surrounded by the corpses of his companions. The sky he saw was blood red, and the promethium flames were burning the entire jungle, and the rising smoke would soon turn into poisonous fog.

He held his gun tightly, his hands were bulging with veins and his fingers were white.

This is my deepest memory of him, because although his hands were shaking, they were still ready to shoot and fight at any time. From then on, I knew that he was braver than me.

And now he stood in front of me, with a gray beard and messy hair. His face was full of the frost left by a hard life, and the wrinkles born from excessive aging had wrapped and submerged the scars left by his service, making those scars of honor difficult to recognize.

He wanted to stand up straight, but his shaking legs made it difficult. There was an expression on his face that was unfamiliar to me - mixed with aggrieved anger.

That emotion almost made me collapse, because I realized that something was wrong. Details? Procedures? Or someone's careless mistake?

I could shoot at a group of civilians who were driven in front of me and timidly waved farm tools to scare them away without blinking, but I couldn't look directly at Corporal Haid's face at this moment.

I squeezed Serrano's hand, and her bones creaked lightly. She responded with the same squeeze, and I turned my head to look at her and found that her tense jaw was shaking.

Haid walked towards us, he didn't want to sit down, the glaring light sprinkled on his head, irritating him to blink constantly, so the Primarch waved his hand with a more determined attitude, and the light dimmed at this moment.

His tall figure disappeared in the darkness, and I could only see a vague, huge outline that made me breathless. The owner of this silhouette reached out and gently patted the old corporal on the shoulder.

"Sit down, Haid, you must do everything you can to hold on until the end of this trial."

"Yes, sir." The old corporal replied hoarsely.

He called the lion "sir", which was undoubtedly an overstep. But I believe that nothing that happened in this room is groundless.

After working for the Tribunal for twelve years, something I got started to work in my mind, and I realized that the old corporal himself would not take the initiative to call the lion "sir". Therefore, this can only be the request of the original body himself.

This is a kind of implicit protection.

I looked at the old corporal, at the pair of tired eyes, and at this moment, I thought about a lot of things, and I had a lot of questions to ask him, but I refused to do so.

The only person who can speak for us can be my mistress, and I have no right to cross that red line. Moreover, I have also realized where these questions come from.

You see, twenty years ago, Sovet, who was the incarnation of hell, was not the only one trapped in that sea of ​​fire.

I, and Cyrano van der Leff, were also among them.

Human life is very short, so our memory function is not very good. We can only remember a small number of particularly important things, and there are always some things in these things that will affect us completely.

I have seen good people driven crazy, and I have seen death row prisoners crying and repenting on the execution ground but refusing to be redeemed. Now, I am watching a person who is buried in our mistakes and remains silent.

These things make a part of my heart scream, it urges me to ask him questions, it urges me to correct my mistakes.

Have I told you that I hate this job?

"What is it?" asked the old corporal.

He threw the question out directly, and I knew what he meant, but I was not sure whether my mistress would reveal the truth.

Twelve years. She didn't even tell me a thing about these things. The only people who know the truth in this world are probably her and the Seal Holder, the latter is the secret itself, and my mistress

She maintains the confidentiality rules very well.

She values ​​her work more than anything else.

"It depends on how you define it."

However, after a period of silence, I heard her answer like this.

Very good, Cyrano van der Leff, a good start.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I have never been so grateful for her simple and straightforward character, although she is sometimes too straightforward and prefers to solve problems in a violent - I mean the simplest - way.

"You say it." The old corporal continued, his face looked almost numb.

The anger has disappeared, retreating into the depths of his heart, I can still see some of the remaining parts, but it is not very clear. I tried to see through his eyes, but unfortunately failed completely.

There was nothing in Haid's eyes, I think, this is probably because he is afraid of getting the answer.

How many times has he thought about this question in the past twenty years? Did he suddenly wake up in bed like me, surrounded by cold sweat and fear, and then shut his mouth and stopped screaming?

I slowed down my breathing and waited for the answer with him.

"In theory, I have no right to reveal the truth behind the Sovet incident to anyone, but..."

My hostess took a deep breath, suddenly softened her tone, and threw a question that made me completely confused.

"He's here, isn't he?"

The silhouette in the dark nodded calmly.

Who? Who are they talking about?

"I know it." Serrano muttered to herself. "The pendant - I know it's like this, I can feel it, if it's like this."

She took another deep breath, and her dagger-like shoulders fell suddenly. She pulled out some kind of power that had been supporting this dry and thin body.

My mistress was still sitting there, but I knew she was gone - at least the part I knew, the part as the judge was gone.

What was left at this time was just a poor woman who was tortured to the limit by some supernatural power.

For the first time, she took the initiative to hold my hand.

I was flattered, but I also gritted my teeth - why didn't you do this earlier?

"Demon." Serrano whispered the word. "Anyone who sees it for the first time will simply and directly classify it as one of the demons. It perfectly fits our definition of a demon."

"First, it is a supernatural entity that violates logic, reason and every law of physics. It should not appear in the material world. Secondly, the power that supports its activities in the human world comes from the subspace. Finally, it carries some strong emotions and is driven by those emotions."

She paused for a few seconds, as if she was deliberately leaving us some time to digest what she said. But the truth is not so. She paused just because she was thinking, and the three people in this room did not need time to relax.

Corporal Haid just wants to know the truth quickly. No matter what the truth is, twenty years is enough to make anyone paranoid.

And I already knew these definitions. Working for the Inquisition gave me ample opportunities to know these things that I shouldn't know.

As for the lion, I think he has killed every demon I have seen in the Demonic Guide.

"But it's not a demon."

My mistress sighed a long sigh, very sad, very desolate, as if questioning - how could it not be a demon? How could it not be?

But the fact is that it is not a demon.

I felt a brief joy that my own guess was finally confirmed, but it was only a brief moment. Soon, I fell into the same question as her.

How could it not be?

"Demons feed on souls, and the emotions they crave are essentially appendages of souls."

"The Warp is a mirror, and what is churning in it is our own reflection. Therefore, if we put aside those extreme emotions, demons can be completely regarded as our reflection."

"What they do is what we would do, and their evil and blasphemous pursuits can always find completely opposite and millions of times better examples in the mortal world. In other words, we are always fighting against ourselves, Corporal."

"This is the instinctive fear that people feel when they see a demon. We are afraid of our own bad selves, and we don't even want to look at them. But it is not a reflection of us, it does not crave souls, does not pursue any kind of madness, it is just..."

My mistress stopped talking and fell into sobs. I looked at the corporal and the lion anxiously, hoping that they could give her some time to calm down.

To be honest, seeing Cyrano van der Leff cry was probably more shocking to me than knowing the lion was here.

I had never thought she would cry in my life.

Even in my weakest and most unrealistic fantasies, the ones where I died a hero, I didn't think she would cry for me. I thought she would just close my eyes, or take my badge, and then go on a killing spree.

And now she was crying.

It made me think more deeply about what she had just said. She couldn't finish it, the most important part was stuck in her throat, but the part she said was enough to make me think about it.

I thought about the demons I had seen with my own eyes, the fear I felt, the goose bumps on my arms and the hair standing up.

I realized that she was right, at least partly right, and our fear of those demons was not entirely physiological. Even the most well-trained elite soldiers would be captured by fear the moment they saw them, even if only for a moment.

But the Astartes don't.

They can attack any foe instantly. They have undergone surgery to avoid many of the physical and psychological defects of being human, which gives them advantages. One of them, I believe, is immunity to most fears.

I don't believe they are truly fearless, but they must not be afraid of demons. I am excited by the possibility behind this idea - why are they not afraid?

Because of the Emperor, it must be. The Emperor has reached out to us, as always.

My thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

"What is it?" someone asked.

Wait, who is asking? There are only four people in this room, who is speaking?

With this question, I looked around. But the darkness seemed to become very thick, and the dim light fell from above our heads. I could only see the face of Corporal Haid and the outline of the lion, and I could not see anything else.

Immediately afterwards, I felt breathless because the air was becoming thinner. It was painful and chilly. It's hard to describe the specific feeling.

I scanned the darkness again, my muscles tensing instinctively. This time, I spent 12% of my energy observing, but still found nothing.

Could it be auditory hallucinations caused by hallucinations? Is one of my old injuries flaring up? Do I really have any sanity left? These questions made me anxious, until a hand came out of the blue and landed on my shoulder.

"Please continue, Inquisitor Dellef." A voice said behind me, soft and almost whispering.

I was so gripped by fear that I even wanted to scream - I swear to you, I was just a hair away from actually shouting it, along with the last twelve years.

However, the hand that held me tightly held me at this moment. It did not give up on me, and neither did she. She brought me firmly back from the abyss of fear, and then, I heard her voice.

He was as articulate as ever, but with a reverence that I had never heard before.

"As you command, my lord"

Which sir? I instinctively want to ask this question - instinct, damn, it always controls the body's reaction before we do sometimes, doesn't it?

This was how I was at this time, and my instinct made me turn my head away before I could fully regain my senses.

In the darkness I saw a pale man. He was dressed like a commoner, and the price of the coat did not even exceed eighty general coins, but he was unusually pale.

No, maybe it shouldn't be called pale. This is completely an inhuman paleness. Even the children of the void cannot have such an abnormal skin color as his.

I should have gotten more useful information, but I stopped there. I was stunned. His eyes were the only answer.

his eyes

"Don't look, Mr. Sable," the man said suddenly to me, his voice still soft.

He frowned, as if annoyed about something. But I didn't detect any emotion in his tone that required me to be vigilant. There was still only peace.

He knows who I am and why? Has he read the information? I turned around stiffly, trying to put these questions behind me, and didn't look at him again as he said.

But those eyes were still twinkling before my eyes.

I heard him sigh: "Okay, then please stay calm."

What to keep——

Countless torn pictures suddenly swarmed in, regardless of whether I thought about it or not, they rushed into my mind. In this way, I was forced to see many things that I could not understand at all.

Let me pick one and tell you, have you seen legion fighting? No, I'm not talking about the regiment of the Guards, but the older regiment.

How long ago? Ten thousand years ago.

The thirtieth millennium.

The glorious Great Crusade, the bright era of courage. In those days, Legion was used to refer to only one thing eighty percent of the time: the Legiones Astartes.

Now you know what I'm talking about, and this is just the most prosaic of those things.

My brain was almost overwhelmed by them. In a daze, I almost heard the screaming of the brain cells that help me think. They kept telling me to stop looking or they would die.

I wanted to answer that I couldn't, but I couldn't even answer them. When I came back to my senses, I was already in a place I was very familiar with.

I knelt in the mud and muttered to myself, the fire was raging, burning the sky, and there were dead people around me.

A hand pulled me up.

I turned around.

Do you know who I saw?

"Renthal."

The silver-haired young man who pulled me up said my name and patted my shoulder as if I were his friend. He was holding a long staff, and the famous fire of the eagle was still burning brightly, the sincere gold, the gold that brings light.

My nose was sore and I shed tears for seeing this miracle of the emperor again. The last time I saw him, this long staff stood before my eyes, and the eagle's wings were still shining brightly.

The palmer gently stroked my back: "Don't cry, child, the suffering you must endure as my chosen one is over."

What's the meaning? I looked at him in shock, almost fear.

"Do you remember the last time we met?" he asked me, and I nodded quickly - of course I remember, how could I forget?

However, if I want to describe this matter in detail, I am afraid it would be a bit too complicated, so I will try to use simpler language to express it.

The Markbearer met me before I passed through training, lined up with the other armed guards in one of the halls of the Inquisition, and was chosen by Serrano Van Derlev.

Remember what I mentioned about the Sealbearer’s permission?

Yes, as you can imagine, I was actually serving as Serrano Van Der Lev's armed escort as a spy on her.

The entire selection was carefully designed. I don't know how many men and women worked behind the scenes to promote this result. In short, they succeeded without a doubt.

They selected me from among the right people in the solar system and handed my information to the Printer's desk.

The Printer agreed to the plan, so my information was circulated again and arrived on Serrano Van Derlev's desk together with other people's names.

She fell in love with me at first sight, and I guess it must have described my strengths and weaknesses in great detail, so she would definitely choose me.

What Inquisitor could resist an armed guard with beastly physical strength, intuition, mastery of combat skills, and training from the Inquisition? No, especially since my grades were among the best.

I'm not bragging

Anyway, back to the topic, why would the person holding the seal do this? I think you've guessed the answer, because of the thing sealed inside Serrano Van Der Lev.

I didn't know what it was, that much was true, I just knew that I wanted to help my mistress in some way.

But it's taken seriously, isn't it? Otherwise, there would be no need for the Sealmaster and his spies to go to war like this, and there would be no need to secretly summon me.

The night before the selection day, I was taken by the mute guards through a secret passage into a cave beneath the Inquisition.

There I was immersed in a cold pool. The Patron appeared just as I was about to freeze to death and gave me a new mission.

My life changed completely from that day on, and I never thought about being a bounty hunter again.

"I remember, my lord," I told the handprinter loudly, puffing out my chest. "I never forgot."

"At that time, the mission I gave you meant that you hadn't had a good night's sleep in twelve years. I want to apologize for that."

The Seal Holder looked down at me. He was very tall. Behind his young face was the wisdom and exhaustion of all Seal Holders over the past hundred centuries. His eyes were so deep that I couldn't even see my reflection in them.

And his words made me panic, and I immediately wanted to refute, but the sealmaster didn't give me this chance, and he continued to tell.

"You have lived in the nightmare for twelve years. You shared those fears with Serrano Van Der Lev and brought her out of the nightmare again and again, so she can persist until today."

"You have accomplished your mission well, Renthal, and therefore you must be rewarded. First, I will clear up your doubts."

He raised his long staff and pointed toward the distance. I followed his guidance and once again saw the being with countless wailing faces. Only this time, it has not yet taken shape and is guarded by the corpses of countless Doom Guards.

I shouldn't be able to see every detail from this distance, but I just saw it.

And this is just the beginning.

"Have you ever studied probability, Renthal?" Palmist asked me.

“I haven’t studied it systematically, but I know what it is.”

"That's enough." The sealmaster nodded to me, not too hard, but enough to reassure me. "What we are going to discuss next is born from probability. From this point of view, you can call it an accident."

Accident? I was stunned, I didn't expect to hear such an explanation, but the palmer continued, and his voice went straight to the bottom of my heart.

"There's only one word in the world that perfectly expresses what it is. It's an accident, Renthal, that's all. But why is it so special?"

The person holding the seal raised his long staff again, and the world changed in an instant. The corpses, the mud, and the blood all disappeared, and the blood-red sky that had always troubled me disappeared, replaced by stars, endless, distorted stars like hellish creatures.

They couldn't see me, but I was still shaking with fear.

"This is subspace." The person holding the seal whispered indifferently. "However, I will not mention the lowly names of those evil gods. Rental has been coveting our souls since the birth of mankind."

“When primitive people huddled together in dark caves for warmth and waited fearfully for the dawn, they were watching.”

“When the colonists armed with muskets and hunting knives crossed the sea and arrived in the New World, they were there when they lit bonfires at night and tanned buffalo hides. Even when the world ends, they are still there.”

"They have been, are here, and will be forever, but you should not think that they are really gods."

Of course I don’t think so, they are false gods——

"-No, it's still wrong. They can't even be considered this. They are as despicable as parasites." The Pattern Master said in a tone that I never thought he would use.

He sounded cold and full of hatred. It was a very deep hatred, and I was

I don’t know how it happened. Maybe it was because I stood with him. In short, I briefly realized what was hidden behind this emotion.

I didn't think about it, this conclusion broke into my mind on its own, and it told me that the reason why the Mark Bearers harbor such hatred is not just because they are evil things.

Part of his hatred comes from personal emotions.

I was in shock.

"Your feeling is correct." The palm-printer said to me calmly. "They took everything away from me. They made me see my compatriots turn into dust, beasts and monsters. Therefore, I hate them and I hope they all die."

"Sir?" I called him with a blank mind.

"What is it, Renthal?"

I was speechless, I tried, but I just couldn't.

The Patriarch looked at me and continued: "They have never let go of their claws on human souls. Every minute, every second, whether they are loyal to the empire or not, there are always humans dying. Do you think their Where did the soul go?"

"Return to the Emperor's seat," I said.

I guess my tone must have been insensitive, otherwise the palm-printer wouldn't have suddenly smiled.

He shook his head and said, "No, only a small number of people can. As for the majority -"

He raised his scepter again and pointed out to me the stars that seemed to be suffering from cancer. He didn't say the answer, but I already knew it.

At that moment, I was desperate.

So this is the truth? No matter how hard we fight, we can't continue to serve the Emperor or rest in peace after death? The evil gods are watching, and the demons are waiting hungrily. Sooner or later, countless people will fall into their fangs and suffer torture.

I was so driven by these thoughts that I couldn't breathe. I even wanted to kneel down, but I didn't.

Remember what I said? Human beings can only rely on themselves.

In a ridiculous and cruel way, my heretical idea was proved correct. The Emperor may be powerful, but he is far from powerful enough to protect every human soul. He has reached his limit, so where are our limits?

I had to prove to him that I had not reached my limit yet and that I still had the strength to persevere.

I took a deep breath and managed to calm down - I was talking nonsense, but actually I don't know where I am now. Fortunately, the person holding the seal is still beside me.

"Every person who has died throughout the ages, all their souls, have been carved up by those parasites," he said softly to me. "They have been keeping a close eye on us and never let up for a moment. However, from a probability perspective, we still have a glimmer of hope."

"No matter how powerful they are, no matter how greedy they are, they will always be distracted for a moment. It won't be long, and it may not be called time in the real world, but this moment must exist."

"It is true that mathematics cannot be applied to them, but in the material world, in those places that have not been eroded by subspace, mathematics is the only truth."

"You figure out where that shell is going to land, and it's going to land there unless it's intercepted. And I'm telling you, Renthal, we figured out where that shell is going to go, and it's been twenty years since it exploded. ”

I stared at him, waiting for the next step. Is my mind still blank? I have no idea. I just looked at him and waited for the final verdict. Just like Corporal Hayid twenty years ago, he huddled in his position and waited for the shells to explode and the bombing to end.

"The creature sealed within Serrano Van Der Lev's body was untouched by any god. It was the manifestation of a pure human soul in the material world, with no god behind it."

"The Doom Guards are not willing to die like this. They want to continue fighting. They are the ones who gave it birth. From this point of view, it can represent the indomitability of mankind."

The bombardment came, and then continued, and I was dizzy.

"It is human resistance." The person holding the seal said quietly. "One day, it will become our sword."

I gasped, then knelt down, the world was spinning, and the things I was familiar with slowly returned. The person holding the print was still standing in front of me and staring at me, but I always felt that he was not actually looking at me.

I turned around and saw the pale man, smiling.

Has he been standing behind me? I'm afraid so, but that doesn't matter anymore.

I think I know who he is.

"That's great," he said.

——

"How long have you been preparing for this plan?" Khalil asked.

There was no sun in the sky, but the light was still dazzling. The earth is dry but not cracked. Although it is covered with dust, there is not much decay. The far end of the horizon is flat, without any fluctuations.

The plain is dry, but something is moving underground, teeming with life.

"I can't tell you," Malcador said.

They stood side by side under a big tree, protected from the scorching heat. This tree might be called the center of desolation, but what kind of tree is it? Even the most knowledgeable botanists would be hard-pressed to define it.

All we can know is that its trunk is made of some kind of pure colored glaze. It was once built up from the accumulation of false gravel, and then burned by fire, and finally became what it is now.

"Why?" Khalil asked in surprise. "Am I not at a high level?"

Malcador glanced at him, lifted the long staff in his hand heavily, and dropped it hard, making a muffled sound.

"No, your level is too high, but I simply don't want to tell you, this idle and nosy person."

"Come on, old friend, I'm really curious about this."

Makhado snorted coldly when he heard this: "You might as well be curious about who created Hayid's situation over the years, and who was behind your journey to guide you to Banjo-1."

Khalil reluctantly suppressed his smile and asked softly: "Is that you?"

"It's me," Malcador said, his face expressionless. "I am the only one who has the ability to do this. You are not wary of me."

Khalil sighed and said after careful consideration: "So, you use him as a bait?"

"Yes."

"But why?" Khalil asked sincerely.

"Because I have to make sure nothing goes wrong," Makado said. "You can't know all this, and you have to be here."

He turned his head and stared at the distant horizon. There was nothing there.

"I don't understand," Khalil whispered.

Malcador turned his head and looked at him. He looked at him for a long time before he spoke slowly.

"Of course you don't understand. You've missed too many things, Khalil. For example, you don't know how many people have died for this plan in the past ten thousand years, and you don't know how many people we have burned to death just to get the calculation results."

"Tzeentch scratched his head and tried to find out the truth behind the curtain. He got different results as many times as he checked. He couldn't see what we were doing, and I want to thank you for that. You made him so weak."

He paused, looked at Khalil, then raised his hand, stabbed the long staff in his hand deeply into the ground, and then opened his hands.

"If you want to judge me, do it now." The seal master spoke ruthlessly. "I once wanted to be like you, standing up to any slight injustice, but in the end I became someone else."

"I indulged in sacrifice, led people to die, and turned them into numbers filling up paper. I'm sorry that I disappointed you so much when we meet again ten thousand years later."

"I'm not disappointed." Khalil said. "I'm just sad, for you, for him, for Hayid, for everyone."

He walked closer to Malcador, shook his hand, and then hugged him, like an ordinary reunion of old friends. The Sigillite's face, as hard as stone, finally showed a little fluctuation, and his lips trembled.

On the distant horizon, a third person slowly appeared. He walked slowly, but every step was steady. His face was dark and solid, and he wore a hat on his head.

He walked to the tree, met them, and talked. They didn't leave until it was almost dark. The light had dissipated, and only the tree was still standing. In the darkness, under the terrifying night sky, countless faint lights flickered quietly inside it.

When will the next day come?