40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 655 37. Belated Judgment (Ten, Ouroboros)

"What will you choose, father?" someone asked in the dark.

The lion was awakened by the voice, and even though his eyes were not yet open, he slashed with a sword as if it was a conditioned reflex. A tree was split in two by his violence, but it did not fall down. The crowns of other trees supported it together, saving the surrounding grass from the fate of bending.

The lion slowly put down the lion sword.

Did he relax his vigilance? No, not, although it did look like that. This is an obvious deception, and any opponent with a little intelligence would not regard this move as a signal of his relaxation.

However, if he really came to a place surrounded by demons, then those inferior species that could not restrain themselves would surely rush out from the surrounding bushes howling.

This is their nature, noisy, always screaming, and craving for any form of food. They are born not to know how to judge the situation, and this is actually due to the deliberate act of their creator.

The lion relaxed his five fingers slightly, lowered his head, and breathed quietly twice.

He was listening to this new world. Many messages that ordinary people could hardly detect came like a torrent, and then were completely blocked by a dam he built in his mind. Only a few key pieces of information flowed into it.

They were combined with an abnormal purity, and then became a kind of "perception" - a precious ability obtained by combining innate intuition and acquired training, an intuition that was enough to overcome everything.

This intuition made Lion El'Jonson very reluctantly understand that he was still in Caliban.

Then, he began to think: Which time was Caliban?

He couldn't help but try to deduce this matter. The previous lesson was still in front of him, not far away.

Since his rebellious offspring could use the silver mirror to send him and his guards back to Caliban when the rebellion was taking place ten thousand years ago, then who could guarantee that he would not repeat the same trick? Or go a step further and change the timeline again to achieve his deeply hidden purpose?

The lion frowned.

He had to admit that he missed his helmet a little. The whole set of combat systems built into it did seem a bit cumbersome for a Primarch, but if he looked at it now

Well, apart from anything else, it at least gave him a key piece of information: Is there a communication channel around him?

This question and its answer were very important, but they were far less noticeable than the gradually humid air.

The lion's muscles began to tense, and his perception was already sensitive to a limit. The breeze that had been blowing continuously through the treetops, pulling the leaves and making swaying sounds disappeared. It stopped when the air became humid.

A gust of evil wind came from behind him without any signs. The stopping of the wind was directly related to its arrival, but its sudden attack did not have any precursors - there was no sound of footsteps, nor the smooth muffled sound of stretched muscles on bones.

The lion turned around and thrust out his sword with one hand, but a beast the size of a chariot knocked him and his sword flying. He broke at least four trees along the way before he stopped.

Wood chips flew and fell like raindrops, and the green leaves were stained with fishy mist in the increasingly humid air. A pair of yellow vertical pupils fell into the lion's eyes.

The eyes were divided into several different areas by the leaves, but the mouth below was not like that. The black fangs were waiting for blood.

It was eager for fresh flesh and blood, but the lion just swung the sword coldly - a simple swing, from bottom to top.

Just like that, its head was neatly split in two.

Just one blow.

It was so simple.

The lion stood up with a gloomy face, and his armor was not even stained with the blood of the beast.

And it was not dead yet, at least not completely dead. A huge amount of blood was continuously flowing out of the wound, bending the grass and staining the soil red, making this place look like a slaughterhouse.

It waved its claws in vain, spraying foul and blasphemous air from its trachea, trying to touch its enemies with its claws before dying.

The lion stared at it coldly, still standing there, without moving a step.

It was not until three minutes later that the beast died with regret.

If others saw it, they would be shocked by the beast's tenacious vitality - how could a creature survive for so long with its head split in two?

And the lion would tell them that this kind of thing is everywhere in the galaxy. But he had to admit that the first time he dealt with this kind of thing was indeed on Caliban.

This brought a new problem. This beast, called a giant beast on Caliban, was actually extinct for many years after being contaminated by chaos.

Even in Caliban during the civil war, the beasts had long become a vague reference in history books, often put together with the honor of the knights or the founder of the Order Knights, a lone knight.

In other words, they have become a kind of annotation of the honor of the Knights.

They should not exist.

The lion pointed his sword at the bushes beside him, and then spoke, with a flat tone and a bright blade: "Come out."

A strange creature walked out of the bushes, it was as short as a child, wearing a dark green robe.

The lion knew it. Or rather, knew them.

Dark Watcher.

+How did you get here? +

Its voice went straight into the lion's mind, seemingly no different from psychic communication, but it was actually two completely different experiences.

Compared to psychic communication, the voices of the Watchers were more sneaky - you couldn't 'see' where it was talking to you, nor could you accurately 'hear' the direction of its voice. You only knew that it was looking at you and standing in the dark.

This caused a lot of disgust and fear.

The lion looked at it and asked, "Why can't I be here?"

+You shouldn't.+

The Watcher paused in confusion for more than ten seconds. For a creature like it, this shouldn't happen. The lion waited patiently, knowing that he would get the result - whether it was the result he wanted or not, but it was always an answer.

He had too many problems to solve.

+You shouldn't be here, but now I understand that the Ouroboros is spitting out its tongue. +

Ouroboros?

The lion narrowed his eyes. He had never heard of this term, but his heart was emitting a chill. It was rare for him to feel this way.

+He is here. +

Suddenly, the dark watcher sounded a warning. The short creature in a dark green robe raised its right hand and pointed to a path covered by shadows in the forest. The lion immediately raised his sword and observed intently, but did not see a single figure.

"Who?" The lion asked in a low voice.

+The other person in this endless cycle, the one who made you, the one who turned you from a beast into a knight.+

The watcher put down his hand and turned away. It did not make any friction sound when it entered the bushes, as if it returned to nothingness.

The lion looked at the end of the road vigilantly. For some reason, his heart suddenly stopped beating for a moment.

——

The artillery roared, and the dark and dark torrents collided and fought each other on the burning earth. The blue of the sky was smashed by the continuous falling meteors. The twinkling fire and the bright light streams that crossed the sky from time to time were like the claws of the devil, tearing and devouring all the beauty.

Before today, Caliban was prosperous. After today, Caliban will sink forever.

Under such a sky, Zabril saw the person who called him, alone.

Yes, he did not choose to lead the angels of forgiveness, but chose to split his troops into two groups. Luther's call was unquestionable. If he refused, it would be disobedience.

He must try to meet with the former Grand Master and convince him of something.

He knew it was difficult, but he had no choice. Luther was definitely a tight-lipped person when necessary. Rather than disobeying orders and causing errors in the timeline, Zabril would rather take a gamble.

He believed in Luther, and believed that the Lion would handle things before everything was irreversible.

Serafax would die soon. Zabril was so convinced.

However, before they meet, there is another thing to explain - the internal communication channel of the Angels of Absolution is specially encrypted. Even if the Lion himself tries to enter with his authority, he will be rejected.

However, Luther broke into their channel so easily, as if he was also a member of the Angels of Absolution.

No, wait.

Zabril suddenly realized that if he counted hard, Luther might be the earliest Angel of Absolution. He was exiled at first, and the Lion himself announced his betrayal of the Legion. But he returned more than ten years later and took over the power again.

Should I still call him sir? The old knight thought with a smile.

"Long time no see, Zabril."

In the ruins left by the armored torrent of the First Legion, Luther, still wearing a cloak, nodded to Zabril.

He was still old and had a head full of white hair. Ageing had worn away Luther's former strength. Now, he looked less like a half-transformed Astartes and more like a taller ordinary mortal.

As long as you ignore the things hanging on his belt.

Behind his helmet, Zabril glanced at them. He couldn't help but notice them, even though they were now gray and looked like parts that an old scavenger had found in a garbage dump, thinking they would be valuable.

But they weren't. They even made Zabril instinctively feel a thorn in his side. What was worse was that he found that he could only recognize two of them.

Considering his identity, this was incredible - and what Luther said next was far beyond the level of incredible, like a heavy hammer, hitting him in the face.

"We haven't seen each other for at least 10,000 years." Luther said.

He was smiling, and Zabril just wanted to ask questions. He spent a lot of effort to keep himself from losing his composure and just gave a simple nod.

"Good, calm down -" Luther nodded to him approvingly. "--You can have it anytime, keep it, Zabril, it's a precious quality."

He took a step back, slowly lifted his cloak, and exposed his hands. His prosthesis looked faded, far less than the shining silver that Zabril had seen on the battlefield not long ago, but there was nothing wrong with the specific shape.

Moreover, it was only faded on the surface, and those seemingly flashy bionic muscle bundles were still working with Luther's movements, and the sound they made when they were tensed was extremely dangerous.

Compared to the prosthesis, his right hand was casually placed on his belt, wearing a brown leather glove, which was stained with a lot of oil and wrinkled.

The emblem of the winged sword was waiting plainly on the back of his hand, and an ancient and black skull ring was worn on his thumb, which looked quite inconspicuous.

"Anyway, I'll try to be brief." Luther said slowly. "Time is a straight line. Can you understand this concept, Zabril?"

What else could Zabril say? He just nodded, and then took off his helmet quickly as if he remembered something.

Luther smiled again, but this time, his smile was more emotional: "You are still a young man in my memory"

"I don't remember you being that old." Zabril said in a muffled voice.

They stared at each other, smiled at each other, and Luther took over the lead again.

"This straight line will go forward infinitely, without stopping, and it cannot be blocked. It connects everything and allows them to change together with its progress. But it is a straight line after all, it will not bend, nor will it turn back."

"Therefore, in our cognition, going back to the past should be an impossible thing. However, this is only in our cognition. For other races in the galaxy, time is not a lofty and untouchable concept."

"They have played with time many times, and although they have been punished for this, they have indeed inspired some people-for these people, they realize that time is indeed a straight line that cannot be turned back, but this does not mean that humans cannot take the initiative to return to a certain node on it."

Luther raised his left hand, the middle finger of the prosthesis was put together with the thumb, clenched, knocked, and the metal collided.

He said softly: "Then, these people quickly learned to go further without a teacher. For example, cut off a part of this straight line and turn it into a separate line, making it another straight line."

Zabriel quickly followed him and then raised a crucial question.

"What effect will this have on the straight line?"

"Break it." Luther smiled meaningfully. "Then it disappears, and another straight line takes its place, continuing to move forward without looking back. However, no one has ever done this before."

Zabriel took a deep breath, and Luther turned around. A door filled with golden light slowly opened in front of him. He stepped into it without hesitation, leaving Zabril alone outside.

"Follow me." The voice of the Grand Master of the Knights came from it, with unquestionable calmness. "Your questions will be answered one by one, just like the situation itself. Believe me, Zabril."