40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 660 42. Belated Judgment (Fifteen)

Holding his helmet, Zabril slowly sat down. The breeze of the early morning blew in his face, conveying some information that ordinary people could not notice. From it, he knew that the forest was reviving.

It is quite strange to use this description to describe the forest in the early morning in other places. Animals that hide during the day and come out at night and plants that do not distinguish between day and night do not survive according to human time concepts.

But Caliban is like this. Once the night falls, even the best hunters will choose to retreat to their hiding places and wait for dawn.

Zaburiel imagined the scene of dew sliding across the leaves, and got a little peace from it. He lowered his head, put the helmet on a huge rock under him that was temporarily used as a chair, and began to look into the distance.

At this time, he had come to the top of a cliff. The endless green under his feet was like an ocean, undulating slightly. The trees and their leaves plundered all the light, crowding every inch of space. Only a few areas could still enjoy direct sunlight.

The dark angel stared at this completely unfamiliar world, feeling a little shocked.

Yes, he knew this was Caliban, but.

He unconsciously looked down at the palm of his right hand, where a sky eagle emblem was being inspected by him.

The material that constituted its main body was a mixed metal, not a particularly good material, and the edges had faded in many places, which made the eagle wings look almost like they were stained with blood.

Zabril stared at it for a long time before retracting his gaze. After a brief fight with Serafax, the found eagle emblem projected another golden door and led him into it.

He was a little worried about this. The task given to him by the old knight came to his mind word by word. The Dark Angel frowned, thinking about what was hidden in those words that still seemed like riddles.

He soon realized that he would definitely travel through the timeline again soon, and inevitably felt worried about it.

Zabriel hated Serafax, but he had to admit that the fallen traitor was right about one thing: he should not have mastered this power, nor should he travel through time so casually.

What consequences would this bring? Would the future he was in, his "present", be changed because of his actions?

For a moment, the Dark Angel inevitably felt a little shaken, very slight, but it was real. Some impulsive thoughts followed this shake and flowed into his mind, and many voices began to whisper to him.

Zabril was completely unaware of the danger, and just listened to their stories in a daze. It was not until everything was silent and a whistling wind rushed into his eardrums that the Dark Angel realized with fear that those voices sounded exactly like Serafax.

They said: You can change everything.

Zabril instinctively clenched his fists, and a gust of wind passed over his head, accompanied by a roar that made him feel instinctively familiar. Without any hesitation, his body took action before his brain could react.

He stepped back to the stone, picked up his helmet and put it on, and jumped back into the tight green. The sky cut by the trees on the cliff came into his eyes, and dozens of powerful gunboats passed lightly through it.

Behind the helmet, Zabril's eyes widened instantly, and he saw the golden eagle emblem and lightning on the fuselage of these gunboats very clearly.

He immediately turned off all the tactical systems built into the power armor through the neural connection, leaving only the most basic auxiliary operation. Even if there was only a slight possibility, Zabril was unwilling to take the risk. He didn't dare to bet on what would happen if he was discovered.

Then the sky suddenly darkened, the sun was blocked, and an indescribable gust of wind, a thousand times stronger than the previous gust of wind, descended from his head. Flames, light, a kind of fascinating brilliance.

A floating city descended from his head, floated, and went away.

Zabril stopped breathing.

For the second time in his life, he saw the Emperor's Dream.

The Emperor has arrived. He came here to attend a meeting with his son, Lion El'Jonson.

This means that Zabril's time has been pushed back again by decades, and it also means that the assassination that the old knight told him will happen synchronously.

Before Luther disappeared, he told him that he had handled everything. Zabril was very skeptical of this statement. The disordered timeline may have made Luther's efforts come to naught. Moreover, he is not the only one who is in this chaotic timeline.

Although Serafax could never pose any threat to the Emperor, the same thing still applies - Zabril dare not take the gamble, nor can he sit idly by and watch an assassination attempt on the Emperor.

Before becoming a Dark Angel, he was an Angel of Death directly under the Emperor.

Zabril took a deep breath and made a decision.

——

People are reveling.

Endless wine, plates of food served on the table, songs coming from nowhere. The flames shot up into the sky, illuminating half of the night sky like daylight. The Fortress Monastery of Oduruk was wrapped in this light as if it was suspended in the sky, but the dense crowds pulled it back to reality, and a kind of ecstasy was spreading among them.

Caliban already knew what the Emperor was doing, and those preachers from Terra had completed their work in these days. Glorious Terra, great Emperor. Although they have not experienced it, the Calibans are proud of it.

Many of them have equated the Emperor with a certain Caliban native god they once believed in, believing that he is a god walking on earth who can free them from pain and live in happiness forever. .

This non-stop banquet was one of the omens. The traffickers and lackeys sat at the table and laughed heartily. They no longer secretly daydreamed about the future as carefully as before, but openly expressed their imaginations without any concern for the future. The expressions on the faces of the knights sitting at the other table.

As for the civilians, they have a new protector.

Some people were dissatisfied with this, and Zabriel in the darkness saw it very clearly.

He has been hiding in the forest four thousand meters away from the Fortress Knights for a whole day, and the construction machinery has not yet attacked him. They have cleared enough space to prepare for tomorrow.

The Emperor has arrived, and there are only a dozen hours left before he will officially meet with the Calibans. At this juncture, it is obviously not a wise move to continue to let these machines work.

Zabriel motionlessly used the eyepiece to observe the entire fortress monastery, breathing extremely softly. Although he had already surveyed, there was no trace of the security force nearby, but this was probably only temporary.

Not long ago, he saw some vague shadows flashing across the northern cliffs under the night cover.

The Dark Angel smiled bitterly to himself, realizing that what he was doing now was more like an assassin.

Three hours later, the lively atmosphere of the banquet gradually dissipated a little.

Most of the people who had been partying all day chose to leave. There were many tents in the open space not far away for them to rest. Many knights also left the table and returned to the monastery in twos and threes. They would most likely choose to meditate tonight.

Zabriel looked far into the distance and saw a huge and vague shape, undulating like a mountain range. He knew that it was the Emperor's Dream. The Emperor himself is aboard it, along with his guards, awaiting tomorrow.

Zabreel didn't know exactly how many people there were in the guard, but it would definitely be no less. However, this is not an issue that he needs to consider. He only needs to enter the interior of Alduruk Monastery, and the person who planned the assassination must be inside.

Zabriel still remembered that when he was talking to Luther, he followed his guidance and saw the faces on the wall of Alduruk. However, these people did not attend the banquet. It was probably normal. After all, this was the last day. , they naturally have to seize this time to confirm whether every link is appropriate.

Zabriel stood up and ran silently out of the forest towards the monastery. At a distance of four thousand meters, for a Terran legion veteran, even using stealth technology would only take a few minutes.

It didn't take much effort for him to bypass the overt spies and walk majestically into the crowd that was no longer crowded.

His MK2, which had gone through many hardships but was carefully repaired and maintained at the last moment when it was about to be scrapped, was completely out of place in this era. Even the cape would not attract too much attention - after all, he was now in his thirtieth year. In the early millennium, it was common for the Astartes to carve and add various decorations to their armor.

The Calibans along the way looked at him in awe and spontaneously moved out of the way. No one tried to talk to him, as if he were a living statue or something like that.

This reminded Zabriel of some of the remarks he heard when he first arrived on Caliban with the Legion.

Many Calibans who are not too young feel that the Astartes are not the same race as them. In local newspapers, these people engaged in passionate debates with their opponents, in which their views were very clear.

Of course, this thought didn't last long. When the Lion led them to truly integrate into Caliban and recruited those children of appropriate age, this prejudice was quickly eliminated——

"——Sir, sir?"

Zabriel looked down and saw a half-grown boy. He was wearing the robe of an apprentice of the Knights of Order, with a shaved head, and his expression was stuck between uneasiness and determination. It is worth mentioning that he has his hands behind his back.

"What's the matter?" Zabriel asked knowingly. He has the advantage of height, so he can naturally see what the child is hiding.

The boy stretched out his hand from behind, and a heavy wooden wine glass was shaking in his hand. The wine in the glass seeped out of the glass and flowed down. Zabriel did not reach out to pick it up, but turned his head and looked to the other side.

There was a long table not far away, and men wearing knight's robes were sitting along the table. A man with black hair and a black beard was raising his glass of wine to him with a smile on his face.

Zabriel knew this man, but he only felt annoyed - he couldn't help it, because this man was Luther.

What a fucking timeline.

The Dark Angel cursed secretly, took off his helmet with his backhand, took the wine glass in the boy's hand that was specially made for people of their stature with his right hand, and turned to raise the glass to Luther.

Out of politeness, before drinking, he asked the boy in a low voice: "What's your name, kid?"

The young man puffed up his chest excitedly: "My name is Coswayen, sir!"

"."

Zabriel raised his head without saying a word and drank the wine in one gulp. Local craft beer, nothing special.

He nodded to the boy, handed the cup back to him, and then nodded to Luther again, then put on his helmet and walked into the monastery of the Fortress of Oduruk without any abnormality.

This is no longer a place for the knights alone. The pioneers of the First Legion are also stationed here. They are not many in number, and the main forces are still fighting in various parts of the galaxy and have not yet arrived.

Zabril is quite familiar with this history. He was busy fighting a group of tricky aliens in the Oort Nebula at that time. It was not until a year after the war that he learned about the return of the Primarch.

Thinking of this, Zabril's mood inevitably became a little complicated. These things themselves provided him with precious strength during the years of escape. Although they also brought pain, they always reminded him of his oath to the Emperor and mankind.

But now, he has truly returned to the past and is on the same planet with the Emperor and the Primarch. What would happen if he revealed a little of what he had experienced to them?

Zabril tried to restrain himself, admonish and warn himself not to do such a stupid and crazy thing. However, his self-control suddenly lost its effect for some reason, and the words "can change everything" came back.

During the day, it sounded like a whisper, but now it was as deafening as if someone was shouting at the top of their lungs in their ears.

Zabril stopped silently and stood in the hall on the first floor of the Oduruk Monastery, as if their feet had taken root.

You can change everything. The voice said. Think about it, Zabril, how much you can do for the Emperor and mankind with your memory? Even if you sacrifice your life, it doesn't matter, as long as the Great Heresy has not happened.

There was a sound of footsteps coming from the front of him, and Zabril looked up and his pupils suddenly shrank to the size of a needle.

Walking towards him was a person he was very familiar with.

This person had golden hair that fell to his shoulders. His skin was too white to be a warrior, and his eyes were like green gems, which looked very deep in the light at this moment. He was wearing a simple white robe with the emblem of the First Legion on his chest.

An Astartes followed behind him and was telling him something. Zabril recognized who he was at a glance - Midris, the first person in the Legion to land on Caliban and the first person to communicate with the Primarch.

"Anyway, my Lord, we will see the result tomorrow." Midris said respectfully.

Lion El'Jonson nodded at him, and his eyes suddenly turned to Zabril.

"Who are you?" He asked calmly.