40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 666 48. Interlude: Zabriel’s encounter

Zabriel quickly adjusted his breathing.

The scalding rain fell from the sky, hitting the power armor like lava hanging upside down, stirring up bursts of white smoke. The pitch-black paint was washed away by raindrops and blurred like an oil painting that had not yet dried. However, the ceramic steel underneath was not gray, but instead showed a strange black color with no texture at all.

Zabriel tightened his grip on his sword, the only weapon he had available to him now.

The sky was now dark and the sun was gone. The black-armored giant stood in the dark rain, saying nothing, with his sword lowered.

Until a certain moment, the beating arc suddenly burst out and filled the sword body. A ray of white light shattered the rain curtain, and high-temperature steam burst out like a flame.

Zabriel let out a deep roar from deep in his chest, his face looking ferocious behind his helmet. Gritting his teeth, he drew his sword, slashed horizontally, and then slashed again. In the blink of an eye, he struck four more times.

There was no trace of the muscle spasm in his arm before. At this moment, his hand was as steady, fast and violent as every killing moment in the past.

The sword light shines as fast as lightning. The corpses were scattered on the ground, and something was killed neatly on the spot - was that really the case?

Judging from the Dark Angel's raised arm again, the answer is obviously not that.

"die!"

Zabriel let out a low roar again, and the words fell out of his throat, which was low, hoarse, and filled with an indelible animosity.

All the past experiences have not turned the old knight into a person full of resentment, and he has never been so extreme in fighting. But that's what happened, and he doesn't want to be calm now.

After all, seventy-six hours ago, he had witnessed the thing devouring an entire village.

He didn't know how many people were buried in its belly, but he only knew that there were twenty-one ruins of houses in the village. The roads in the village were full of blood, with mud and blood-stained remnants of cloth mixed together. The simple handcarts were still piled with food that the villagers had not been able to transport to their houses.

He came too late, too late to even hear the screams. But he also came just in time, because the things that committed such atrocities and evil deeds had not left yet.

The battle almost happened the third second after Zabriel stepped into the village - the first second when he saw the tragic situation and analyzed the process. In the second second, he followed the traces to find the murderer. In the third second, he raised his sword and drew his gun, and rushed towards the entrance of the village.

The explosive bomb hit the monster's head like lightning. A huge hole appeared on it, and more broken flesh and blood flowed down like melted wax.

Only then did the monster turn around belatedly, and what greeted it had changed from the weak resistance of ordinary humans to something it had never seen before.

After being slaughtered for more than four minutes, it decided to escape, and Zabriel didn't choose to let it go.

But he has no reason to do this, right?

He is in the midst of multiple histories that repeat like a maze. He has nothing to do with the medieval civilians of Caliban. He has more important things to do. He doesn't have enough ammunition, he has no supplies, and he is alone. one person.

Both roads were placed on the scale. One end is full of chips, the other end is empty. If it were someone else, how would they choose?

Zabriel had no answer, he just kicked the scale over.

No reason is needed. The Dark Angel thought. I just want to kill it.

If necessary, he could find many reasons for his almost irrational pursuit at this time, but he didn't want to, he was too lazy to find reasons, he just wanted to kill it.

Taking a break from responsibilities?

"For the Emperor and the Lion!"

The Dark Angel continued to swing his sword, and the corpses howled and were quickly shattered under the disintegration force field, the most brutal weapon in the galaxy, but they were never really destroyed or killed.

Its 'vitality' is like a kind of cancer, literally present in every malformed blood vessel and every thick bone. No matter how violent and cruel Zabriel is, it is of no use to this terrible life.

Of course, the old knight did not ignore this strange fact - after all, this pursuit had lasted for a full seventy-six hours. If he could not even notice this most basic enemy situation, there were only two possibilities. sex.

One, he was contaminated by chaos. Second, he was mentally traumatized and temporarily lost his mind and went crazy.

But what if you notice it? He couldn't kill the thing unless he resorted to another method.

In other words, the last resort. In any case, he believed that the eagle emblem stored in the armor belt around his waist could affect the monster's regeneration ability. But, for some reason, Zabriel didn't want to do this.

Whenever he had such thoughts, a sense of crisis would arise in his heart, reminding him not to do this. He was sure that the sense of crisis did not come from his intuition.

Combined with the sudden appearance of this monster and the changes in the surrounding environment, the answer is self-evident.

It was raining heavily, and the sky had turned from gloomy to pitch black. Zabriel's winged helmet was covered with dripping blood, the ceramite steel was still bearing the blow of high-temperature raindrops, and steam kept rising.

His eyepieces were all scarlet, and his hands were filled with minced meat and bones. In such a night, his outline is almost only provided by the three colors of red, black, and white. At a rough glance, he looks far more ferocious and abnormal than the monster.

If primitive people saw the way he was swinging his sword at this time, they would probably just think of him as some kind of ferocious ghost that only appeared late at night.

And what about his opponent? If Zabril is just beginning to take human form, it can't even be called a 'shape', and it's even difficult to describe its appearance at the moment.

A dozen or so pieces of flesh that are connected by a thread, crowded together and making strange noises, constantly wriggling, spraying bones, broken meat and blood from the wounds to the crowded flesh pieces around? The scalding rain fell on its or their wounds, stirring up blood mist and more screams, which spread far and wide in the dark night.

Zabriel kept killing until dawn, and when he stopped exhausted, the battle timer provided by the eyepiece had reached the eighty-seventh hour.

He could still fight, and that thing was probably the same, and its 'mass' didn't even show a significant decrease. The screaming flesh pieces revealed a strange pink texture in the early morning sunlight, and then they were glued together again.

This time, without Zabril's intervention, it returned to one without any hindrance.

However, compared to the appearance of a ball of flesh at best in the village, it now looked a bit "human" that it shouldn't have. The exhausted old knight was shocked after seeing this scene. He gritted his teeth, raised his power sword and rushed forward again, but failed.

The monster that had never resisted raised its hand just before the blade entered its body.

And the so-called arm with a lot of irregularly distributed deformed muscles, which looked ridiculous or even more terrifying, actually grabbed Zabril's wrist tightly.

At this moment, the speed, strength, and familiarity with swordsmanship that it showed made Zabril's face behind the helmet suddenly gloomy.

He had roughly guessed who was controlling this thing, unless he was extremely stupid.

"Zabriel." Serafax greeted him in a gentle tone that shouldn't have appeared. "Long time no see."

"Long time?"

Zabriel asked coldly, and at the same time let go of the sword, punched back, and broke the deformed arm with one punch. The blade fell, and the decomposition field crackled in the blasphemous flesh and blood, and it closed quickly, and then fell into the mud with the hand.

Serafax, who was hiding in the monster's body, or was the monster itself, didn't care, just took two steps back, and suddenly there was a tooth-grinding sound of flesh tearing deep in his body.

Zabril didn't want to give him the opportunity to perform any evil magic, and immediately chased him and punched his disproportionate thin neck.

There was only a muffled sound, and Serafax's bloody face was hit and flew out, and his headless and swollen twisted body stood in place, and a big hole slowly opened in his chest and abdomen.

Some heavy beast-like breathing sound began to condense inside.

"I've been looking for you for a long time." Serafax's head said with a little emotion. "The chaotic time and history are far beyond my imagination, but the promise of the Lord of Change-"

He laughed loudly.

Zabril stopped chasing and looked back, seeing that the swollen body was shrinking and deforming rapidly. The texture of flesh and blood disappeared in an instant, replaced by the roughness of bark.

In less than half a second, a strangely large and strangely green giant tree took its place and stood in its place. Its roots were still stretching underground, and Zabril could clearly hear the terrible sound of the roots creaking through the soil.

The Dark Angel couldn't help but feel a tingling sensation on his scalp, as if his intuition had told him what was about to happen.

"- It's actually real, can you believe this?"

The head chattered, and the sound was gradually becoming distant. Although it was still in place, not moving, it was even slowly disintegrating and seeping into the soil.

Zabril bent down to pick up the power sword and walked towards the giant tree. He was still tired, but his will to fight was still there.

After parting with the Emperor, he no longer had any confusion in his heart. Even though he didn't know where he was, even though he often lost his way and was taken to the depths of the unknown time turbulence, he never retreated or stopped, let alone gave up.

He took two steps at a time and came to the giant tree, pressed the end of the hilt, activated the decomposition force field, and was about to cut it down - but just as he raised his arm, the ground cracked, and thick roots sprang out of the ground and grabbed his wrist tightly.

The wind howled, and although the sky was clear, the surrounding forest was extremely cold, as if it was experiencing winter. The power armor began to warn Zabril, telling him that he was damaged in many places and that he encountered unknown electronic signal interference.

Hundreds of lines of garbled code slid across his retina in the struggle between him and the tree roots. In the end, 0 and 1 were intertwined into a few reports.

Along with it, there was also terrible pain from all the power armor neural interfaces on his body. Black smoke and electric arcs burst out from the power armor one after another. Zabril screamed in pain, but his eyes involuntarily looked at the reports.

He felt heavy.

+Servo motor is stopping. +

+Major damage detected, trying to overload to maintain basic operation. +

+Attempt failed, unable to restart, unable to connect to servo motor, unable to break the shackles. +

+Program error trying to restart. Restarting, restart failed, refused to restart. Logical errors that should not occur are detected, and errors are about to be summarized. +

+Error report A-01: No error, redirecting, re-editing. Editing, editing completed, input completed. +

+Notice: This machine will execute the setting of Ohm Messiah and protect the wearer at all costs. To achieve this goal, this machine will self-destruct to cut off the influence that the enemy is exerting on you at the level of power armor. +

+Zabriel of the Dark Angel, this machine is honored to fight alongside you. For Ohm Messiah. +

"I'm sorry, brother."

The head of Serafax spoke again, and Zabril wanted to turn back, but more roots had already wrapped around his body in that short period of time.

The power of this strange evil magic was so great that no matter how he struggled and resisted, it was useless, and the roots would only wrap tighter.

The sword had been taken away, and his fingers were torn apart one by one, which was a shame among shames. Moreover, his power armor was damaged and could no longer assist him in any additional force.

The above are all some kind of official words that exist in the mind of the Dark Angel, and he tried to convince himself with reason. But the most real and loudest sentence that echoed in his heart at this moment sounded quite confused, even enough to make him look crazy.

My comrade is dead. Zabril thought in great grief and confusion.

He didn't understand why he had such feelings, and he was confused. Serafax, the initiator, knew it clearly. Amid the howling of the cold wind, his voice continued to reach Zabril's ears from a distant place.

"I want to borrow one of your things temporarily. It can help me find someone - I think you know who it is, Zabril."

"Don't even think about it."

"It's not up to you." Serafax said very calmly.

At the same time, a root broke out of the ground and opened a secret compartment in Zabril's belt.

The sky suddenly bloomed, and the unparalleled golden majesty was revealed, as hot as the sun rising in front of his eyes. The giant tree trembled, but it did not burn as Zabril imagined.

How could this be possible? !

"His power can indeed dissolve other demons and gods, but this tree is not one of them, my brother. Thank you for your help. I will bring Luther's body to see you."

The roots tightened again, Taogang cried out, and Zabril gritted his teeth and tried to pry them apart with his fingers without any image.

He failed as expected, more roots entangled him, shattering his eyepiece, and there was only darkness around him.

A sudden feeling of drowsiness came over him, and among the broken scarlet, the old knight opened his eyes as wide as he could, trying to use his tactical instinct to grab more information - he still didn't give up.

In the last moment before he fell into a coma, he saw a blond boy, who was entangled by roots not far away. No, he fell asleep while being protected by them.

He looked familiar. Zabril thought.

After that, his world fell into complete darkness.