40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 658 40. Belated Judgment (13)

"Do you remember the legend of the Lone Knight?" Luther asked.

The warmth and light brought by the campfire were taking over his face, and the smile had long since disappeared. The firelight didn't make him look any healthier, the age and weather were still there, carving the stone.

Under their influence, every scar and every wrinkle is clearly visible. But what the Lion was most concerned about at the moment was no longer Luther's abnormal old age, but something else he had never seen in the old knight before.

"Remember," Leon El'Jonson said calmly.

He was covering up what he was thinking at the moment, and he believed Luther was too. There were probably hundreds of thousands of conversations between them, and of course similar situations like this happened many times. Luther was probably covering up based on experience, but for the Lion, this was a completely instinctive reaction.

Sometimes, he would find this a bit ridiculous, but more often than not, he would just follow it silently, just like animals in nature following the law of natural selection.

However, he didn't lie, of course he remembered - how could he forget?

The origin of the Order of the Lone Knight, protector of the defenseless.

While other large and small knights were still busy building castles, taming civilians, and preparing for war, the Lone Knight chose to patrol outside his cave day and night. He protects the defenseless without asking for anything in return.

It was he who gave the Knights of Order a unique spirit. Today, this spirit has been expanded into various virtues and flows through the Dark Angels.

However, until now, no conclusive evidence has been found to prove his existence.

Caliban's academic community has even reached a consensus - the Lone Knight does not actually exist. It is just a fictional image created by the Knights of Order in order to show their specialness.

Throughout history, this is not a rare thing. Every person who takes the lead in raising a flag will always actively or passively become the most special person, and then step by step become the flag itself.

Luther smiled.

"I still remember that I brought you some books that day."

He spoke slowly and relaxedly, as if he were chatting with a lion while sitting in a comfortable armchair. His words seemed to have magic power, and he quickly made the lion see some pictures.

He saw a blond boy wearing clothes askew, and a knight in shining silver armor. The knight did not hold a sword in his hand, but a stack of heavy books.

At his urging, the boy reluctantly sat down at a desk, his eyes fixed on the knight's armor and the long sword at his waist. Obviously, he was more interested in these two things than reading.

The knight probably noticed this, so he took off his helmet and promised with a smile——

"——As long as you finish reading these books, I will find you a sword. How about this?" Luther said softly.

The bonfire crackled, the firewood continued to wail, and the lion clenched his teeth unconsciously.

"I've finished reading." He spoke slowly. "But you didn't keep that promise."

The old knight shook his head apologetically: "Yes, I didn't. You looked at most ten years old at that time, Leon"

"Ten years old? When I met you, I had just killed a seven-clawed war beast!" Leon El'Jonson retorted sharply. "And you treat me like a child? A child shouldn't be given a sword, that's what you think, is it? You broke your promise, Ser Luther!"

After a long time, Luther sighed.

"Never mind what you're accusing. We're getting off topic, Leon."

The lion was silent for a moment and nodded.

"Anyway, you finished reading those books. After that, for at least a whole week, you were asking me about things related to the Lone Knight. You were very interested in him at the time, or in other words, you admired him - please forgive me I describe it this way.”

"This is a fact." The lion replied angrily. "Every knight's apprentice is like this."

Luther seemed to want to smile, but he restrained himself and changed his tone to a gentler tone.

"Yes, every apprentice does this. And we were all apprentices once. Everyone knows his legend, and everyone wants to be like him. I am no exception. When I was young, I even wanted to imitate him. The statue is getting himself a suit of armor."

"But my mentor at the time, Æthemeir, told me that this was nonsense, because no one had ever seen the Lone Knight, he was just a legend. The existing books, statues and paintings in the Order are actually just our impressions of him. Imagination and longing, nothing more.”

The lion listened patiently to what he said, and then immediately asked: "So? What does the legend of the Lone Knight have to do with your experience?"

Luther did not answer the question and just continued: "But I still want to be a hero like him."

The look in his eyes was extremely complicated at this moment, and not even a lion could dismantle it. But that's enough. He really knows Luther too well. They have experienced too many things together and their tacit understanding is amazing.

Luther's abnormality at this time was enough to arouse suspicion. Various speculations arose as his thoughts spread, running through his mind like a dense current, and finally turned into irrational thunder and lightning, severely hitting the dark giant tree that brought the shadow.

The chattering fruits suddenly shut up and could no longer make any sound. A raging fire began to burn in the lion's mind.

The beast that shouldn't have appeared, the path, the old Luther and the dark and deserted cave. And the legend of the lonely knight.

He looked at Luther in amazement, but the old knight just lowered his head and had completely immersed his face in the water of memories, allowing himself to be drowned, and then sighed slightly.

His voice became very soft and very vague. Every old man would make such a sound when recalling the past, and he was no exception. The pain slowly intertwined on his face, and then twisted in the firelight, becoming a mottled shadow.

After a while, he finally raised his head and looked at the lion. He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, to confide something.

The lion could see his hesitation. He understood that Luther wanted to tell everything, but for some reason, he didn't do it until the end.

He remained completely silent, which was also an answer.

The lion took a deep breath and hugged the lion sword in his arms without saying anything.

——

Zabriel pulled out his power sword from the body of the last demon bit by bit, and wiped the eyepiece with his hand.

The dirty blood slid down like a sticky colloid, and there was still a lot of it in the gaps of the steel structure, unwilling to leave, smearing his armor in a disgusting way.

Although Zabril was used to being stained with blood during battle, the situation at this moment was different. He could clearly feel that the power armor was becoming "slow", and the smooth feeling of the past was quietly disappearing without knowing it

Even if he died, could he cause trouble for him in such a trivial place?

The dark angel tightly grasped the power sword and looked up at the glass tower. The flames on the top of the tower were still burning persistently, but Serafax was nowhere to be seen. He felt something in his heart and immediately turned around with caution. As expected, the wizard was standing weakly behind him.

He looked completely different from the energetic and enthusiastic young man in the past. Zabril didn't even know how to describe his feelings at the moment. It was probably a mixture of fear and disgust.

He stared at the wizard's pale face, then pulled out the grenade launcher without any hesitation, raised the gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

Twelve bullets were wrapped in unquestionable cold murderous intent and rushed into Serafax's body frantically. They failed to tear the flesh and break the bones, but instead sank deeply into it like a ball of gel.

Pain surged on Serafax's face. He took a deep breath, coughed and said, "You shouldn't be here, Zabril, who is helping you?"

The dark angel looked at him coldly, threw down the grenade launcher, and turned into a violent black shadow and rushed straight towards him.

This charge was full of anger, but the power sword failed to hit Serafax like a bomb, but was firmly blocked by the light blue prismatic shield.

Silver liquid flowed from the corners of the wizard's mouth, but his eyes were firmly locked on Zabril's clenched hands, as if he could see the winged sword emblem through the tiny gap.

Zabril ignored it and just used his left hand to hold the hilt of the sword, exerting more force.

Under the helmet, he was almost gritting his teeth. With a flash of golden light, Serafax's shield began to shatter bit by bit, and the entire prismatic shape was covered with cracks like glass about to shatter.

Behind the glass, Serafax's expression changed rapidly. His eyes almost fell out of his sockets, and the whole person looked so terrified, as if he was an image walking out of an abstract painting. He flashed and disappeared without hesitation.

Zabril immediately raised his sword to be alert, and the surroundings were scarlet.

The corpses of civilians who were slaughtered by the demons for fun before were blooming in the soil like flowers, scarlet and dark red mixed together, muddy meat and faded bones piled up and entangled with each other.

The tree trunks were full of eyeless heads, men and women, old and young, and they were floating slightly in the wind. The intestines used to hang them instead of ropes looked extremely tight, as if they would break directly in the next second, spewing out filth and letting those heads fall to the ground.

Such a hell, Zabril was standing alone in it. He had no fear of these things, because the instigators had already been slaughtered by him.

Looking behind him, you will find a bloody road shining with light, and countless demon corpses are lying on both sides of this road. Their miserable situation is no less than that of the civilians.

"Brother."

Serafax's voice came from above. Zabril raised his head cautiously and glanced, but he didn't see the wizard.

He knew that the situation was developing in a direction that was not favorable to him, but there was no good way to reverse it. But Serafax didn't seem to be hostile to him, at least not now.

The wizard spoke slowly.

"You killed all the demons I summoned by yourself."

"Although they are weak, they should not be opponents that you can defeat by yourself, and you are completely immune to the magic here-I guess you probably don't know about this at all, right?"

"You don't feel it, because those curse spells have no effect on you at all. This is not a power you should master, Zabriel, do you understand? It was a complete mistake for you to come here, and you will die."

Zabriel frowned behind his helmet.

From Serafax's voice, he heard a sadness that shouldn't be there. This wizard seemed to be crazy, still thinking that he was the knight captain of the past, and was about to regret witnessing the death of a battle brother.

"You're crazy." He made a simple judgment. "Come out and die."

"I will die. My death is doomed and inevitable. No one in this galaxy can save me from the fate of death. After all, it is my choice to jump into it. But you are different, Zabriel, you You shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t.”

Serafax's voice lowered little by little, and when it sounded again, it was full of despair and rage, as if he was really crazy.

"He is helping you!" the wizard roared. "My inference is correct. He was indeed forced to sit on the throne of God!"

"Leon, Zabriel, don't you understand? You are just an ordinary Astartes. You have no power to travel through time and come to this timeline where I am. You also have no power. With one to ten thousand people, you have become a carrier of His power! It is He who is driving it, so He has sent you, can’t you feel it yourself?”

The wizard let out a few sobs crazily. Zabriel held the grenade on his waist with disgust and began to think about whether he should blow up the glass tower.

"——That's all, you don't understand at all."

"I understand, I know what I'm doing," Zabriel said. "Besides, I also know you're crazy."

Serafax laughed miserably.

"I'm afraid I have to go crazy, brother, and you would go crazy too if you knew what I know. Everything I did was to save Caliban, save the Legion, the Primarch, and the Imperium. But, the Emperor The Emperor has sent you.”

"He is the one driving all of this. He has become a god, no different from other evil gods. Everything he does is just to maintain his own existence. That's how God is."

In Zabriel's silent anger, Serafax took a deep breath and whispered the last words softly from the forest thousands of meters away.

"The Emperor is dead, Zabriel, and a god now rules over us."

After these words, the glass tower shattered and collapsed, instantly burying Zabriel, and Serafax disappeared deep into the forest.

He was unfamiliar with this forest, but it didn't matter. The target had been locked, and he could clearly see the person he was looking for from dozens of kilometers away.

Or rather, a child. He was sleeping soundly, his blond hair as thick as a mane.