40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 669 51. The belated trial (20, 8K)

Leon Al'Jonson asked himself - Have I ever thought about such a thing?

Such a thing? Which kind? Oh, sorry, great Lord of the First Army, are you referring to your talent? Do you think you are unique, the only talent in the galaxy?

In the past ten thousand years, you have played it out. You have led countless armies and countless people into the seemingly silent forest, and then left from the other side.

The other side - no moisture, no chill, no mist that hangs over the tops of every giant tree like a hungry beast. A safe place, a peaceful place. For example, after a safe fortification, such as a certain deck of a battleship.

But you are wrong. It doesn't just belong to you.

I was wrong?

For some reason, Leon El'Jonson wasn't surprised. When the pain rushed into his nerves after the blade left, there was only one thought in the old lion's mind.

What did he pay for this?

The lion took a step back and stood still. He stood calmly and looked into the young man's eyes.

They were already sparkling, but now they were even more shining than can be described. The lion looked at them, obviously he was bleeding, but the hostility in his eyes was temporarily gone.

And the young man did not take advantage of the victory to pursue the victory. He stood there, his face still ferocious and angry.

The lion could see that the fuel for this flame was not only the insult he had personally inflicted before, but also another kind of anger towards himself - he seemed to be asking himself: Did I break fairness?

The lion smiled faintly, then walked aside without hesitation, bent down and picked up the long sword he had thrown away. During the whole process, the young man with broad shoulders just stared at him coldly, saying nothing and motionless.

"It's hard to get this level of proficiency, you need a lot of practice - tell me, kid, have you meditated on this?"

"Don't call me that!" the young man shouted sternly. "Now is not the time for small talk!"

The lion raised his sword and ignored the pain in his right arm. He lightly held a sword flower and performed the swordsman's salute again with extraordinary grace.

So the battle began again, and this time it was far more brutal than the last time.

The Lion didn't hold back anymore, he took the initiative to attack. Every seemingly ordinary slash presents the greatest challenge to young people. From technical, psychological to physical, all are subjected to severe tests.

As long as he takes one wrong step or is just a little careless, he will pay the price with his blood and even his life.

Cold murderous intent filled the forest. The young man was sweating profusely while swinging his sword, but his expression became more focused. He has temporarily put aside other things and devoted everything he has to this battle - he has no way to resist the sincere invitation sent by the Lion himself.

But inviters are not always as sincere as they seem. Soon, in the seventeenth round of the second sword fight, the young man who persisted longer than last time was defeated again.

Did he do something wrong? I'm afraid not. He was wary of the lion's skills and did not intend to suffer another loss. However, the lion still found a flaw in a series of sword lights that was not actually a flaw at all.

The old swordsman immediately took advantage of it, interrupting the original sword path, and suddenly thrust out a sword, and rushed forward with continuous steps. The young man immediately realized that he could neither retreat nor block.

He couldn't retreat, the sword was much faster than others, and he could catch up with him. There was nothing he could do to block it, otherwise he would be tripped directly by the charging lion, lose his balance, and fall to the ground.

What's the difference between falling down in a sword fight and dying?

The young man had no choice but to grit his teeth and hold on. The final price he paid was that he was stabbed in the wrist on his right hand. He groaned and retreated. The lion succeeded in attacking, but did not pursue him and still stood where he was.

His wound had stopped bleeding. Even though the intensity of the battle that had just occurred was unimaginably high, it could not prevent his body from healing itself as it should. At this moment, except for the damaged armor, he looked completely uninjured.

Not so with the young man, who already looked miserable. The injury on the shoulder was far from healed, and there was another hideous wound on the wrist, which was definitely not caused by a simple stab wound.

For male lions, it has become instinctive to rotate their wrists after a successful thrust. In the fight just now, he did not suppress his instinct, so the young man actually lost a usable hand.

Even if he could still swing the sword with his right hand, it would never be as flexible as before.

"I've never really liked meditation." The lion said slowly. "This requires the meditator to converge all the senses and temporarily sink into a peaceful place in the mind."

"Unfortunately, in the first few decades of my life, let alone a peaceful place, I never even experienced the feeling represented by this word. Furthermore, for people like me, restraining all senses is It is tantamount to making ordinary people blind or deaf."

"It took me a long time to learn how to meditate properly. How long did it take you, kid?"

The young man was breathing heavily, his expression seemed very unwilling, but also helpless. Just like that, he responded with a Caliban curse: "Old man. What are you doing here?"

The lion laughed it off.

"I just want to illustrate from the side how much effort it took me to master the ability you just showed."

"Ability?" the young man repeated in a contemptuous tone and shook his head. "That's a gift from my father, my honor."

His answer made the lion frown, but he remained patient.

"Even if it comes from the hand of the Emperor, it cannot be called a gift. No matter how you look at it, you cannot hide the fact that its essence actually comes from the place where nightmares gather in this world. It is also part of the nightmare, And it's our essence. If we're a painting, it's the background. You have to be in awe of it, kid."

However, upon hearing this, the young man immediately frowned, switched his sword to his injured left arm, and raised his long sword towards the lion.

"I'm tired of your nagging. You're just like a complaining old woman! I shouldn't waste time talking to you here, but nightmares? What do you know?!"

"It came when I needed it most, and it helped me kill all those traitors. If it weren't for it, I wouldn't have survived the attacks of those traitors! It is the emperor's affirmation and praise for me! It's me And the symbol of justice and glory of our Legion!”

traitor?

The lion narrowed his eyes and looked at him carefully for a few seconds, and his expression suddenly turned cold.

"Traitor?" He whispered the unpleasant word softly.

"Yeah -" the young man sneered and nodded. "—Conrad Curze, Fulgrim, Angron, and"

Before he could finish his words, an old but furious lion threw him into the depths of the forest, followed by a series of brutal blows. The steel sword penetrated deeply into the young man's abdominal cavity, blood flowed out, and his intestines and liver were minced.

The young man roared back and struck back, delivering several deep, vicious gouges to his attacker. The weighted ball on the hilt of the sword became another murderous weapon, smashing the attacker's head until it was bloody.

The attacker could actually dodge these counterattacks, but he did not do so. Instead, he chose to continue his work with a blank expression - with one hand, he tightly held two-thirds of the long sword. The remaining part of the blade is used as a short sword.

Before the sword broke due to too much violence, the young man's abdominal cavity had been completely opened by him, all the ribs and internal organs were exposed, and thick blood like pulp sprayed all over the ground.

At this time, when the sword in the lion's hand broke, the attack had only occurred for two seconds.

The young man roared and pushed him away, staggering to his feet while holding his injured abdominal cavity. He didn't even look at the wound, he just stuffed the contents back in one go, then pressed the separated flesh tightly, and immediately rejoined the battle.

Now, he had the advantage of weapons, and his sharp canine teeth flashed angrily behind his blood-stained lips - if possible, he would probably bite the lion's neck hard.

But Leon El'Jonson would do it before he could.

He dodged with a calm expression, looking for opportunities and waiting for them without any rush, even if the young man's attacks were extremely fierce and could always create new wounds on his armor or cheeks.

The calmness he displayed at this moment was completely different from before. This emotion did not actually originate from any real peace. On the contrary, it was the disguise of a completely opposite emotion - violence.

Leon El'Jonson wanted to kill him, once and for all.

But why?

The young man was also puzzled by this, but don't get me wrong. The only thing he was puzzled about was why the lion didn't mention its real intention to kill until now - so, while chasing, he packaged the question and asked it in a provocative way. mouth.

"I'm really curious as to why you didn't act until now. Is it because you are a traitor like them? If not, why can just a few names inspire you to be like this?"

He was smiling triumphantly, acting like a swaggering knight, like the kind of knight who stands in the center of every oil painting, holding up his banner or his sword.

But his eyes were always cold, and opposite them was the lion's face. His face did not show any movement at these words, and was as rigid as a sculpture.

But he still answered.

“Gifts, honors, rewards—are these the only things you cling to?”

"I am a knight!"

The young man roared, and at the same time quickly caught up with him, and cut off the pauldron on the lion's left shoulder in two or two strokes. The complex components underneath were immediately exposed, with servo components and artificial muscles glowing with a cold sheen. Before he could even take a breath, he was greeted by another sword.

The high temperature and electric current caused by the destruction coursed through the lion's body. He stood firm as steel and even still had the strength to dodge the subsequent thrusts.

"Foolish," the lion said coldly. "Knight is just a dead title. Anyone - even a scumbag with bad morals can become a knight - didn't you learn this in the monastery? Compared with true virtue and justice, honor is just a A wisp of smoke.”

"Honor is the foundation of the Grand Knights!" the young man retorted sharply. "Without its guidance, how can an ordinary person develop a heart for kindness in just a few years of training? How many people can understand the true virtues you talk about in the first ten years of their lives? Pursue honor and persevere Honor, defend honor, only then can you see the true hero!”

"A misshapen tree will occasionally bear the right fruit, but that's just by chance. What's more, with a leader like you -"

The lion gave a complicated smile and whispered a sentence that was far better than any knife or axe: "——I believe that most of them have fallen?"

The young man's face turned gloomy at a speed visible to the naked eye, just like the lion.

He stopped, took a deep breath, raised his sword, gritted his teeth and replied: "All traitors will die."

The lion smiled. Although it was a smile, there was no warmth at all.

"How does it feel to kill your brother and your son? I bet you must be very proud."

"They deserve to die!"

The young man gritted his teeth and said, his emerald green eyes gradually becoming bloodshot.

"Do you know how many people and worlds Konrad Curze has slaughtered? Do you know what evil deeds Fulgrim and his legions have done? And Angron, that mindless puppet of the Butcher's Nail. How dare you speak for them? You don't deserve your name!"

The lion clenched his fists and resisted the urge to say anything else, lest the young man would see anything. He didn't want him to gain even the slightest chance of gaining an advantage.

However, at this moment, a sharp pain that he didn't even know how to describe wiped away the shock of hearing those words.

It seemed to come from the depths of his mind, but it might not. He didn't know how to describe this feeling. He just wanted to try his best to capture it and adapt to it, just like he adapted to the forest - but the pain was fleeting. , replaced by a strange tingling sensation.

He gritted his teeth tightly and tried to endure it, but the feeling like thousands of fingers scratching the surface of his brain was far beyond the willpower he could summon at this time.

A short muffled groan sounded vaguely from his throat, followed by a large amount of blood spurting out of his nose and eyes.

The young man was still angry, but he also looked shocked at this time.

He seemed to have said something, but the lion could no longer hear clearly. His ears were filled with another sound.

This is a sneaky and tiny sound. To describe it, it is like a skilled thief holding the lightest and lightest feather in the world and trying to use it to pry open the skull of a male lion.

No, not trying, he had succeeded.

The lion felt a burning sensation, and then his eyes began to spin. His perception began to go wrong, and all the senses that could be used to confirm the surrounding environment began to go wrong. The first one to suffer was vision.

In his eyes, the young man stood not far away for one moment, and then did not exist at all. Then came the other senses, not one after the other, but in rapid succession.

One moment he smelled the unique moisture of the forest, and the next he felt the air was extremely dry. For a few seconds, he even thought that he was in the middle of a killing field, and his opponent was the Dark Eldar. The air is filled with the dusty smell unique to the flesh and blood of these dirty bastards.

Different from real decay, it is covered under the flashy pleasures concocted by various drugs and sacrilegious techniques, but it still cannot escape the stench of long-dead death.

Where am I? Who am I fighting? Leon El'Jonson asked himself angrily.

His senses were completely confused, and all the cruel scenes he had experienced in his memory came back one by one. The undead souls who fell under his hands took revenge on him in a strange way.

One after another, they distracted him from his few remaining moments of clarity, pulling at him and dragging him. The male lion vaguely felt that he was stuck in the middle of a quagmire of corpses, and he was just a little bit away from drowning his mouth and nose.

But no.

No.

He had to get out of trouble.

——"You carry too much, Primarch. So many branches that have been cut out of our past, so many First Primarchs among them, and you are the only one who is so tired. You even have to control two legions, but Those loose wolves are not your responsibility at all."

——"Ten thousand years have passed, have you ever been able to sleep peacefully, have you ever been relieved of this great burden? Just like our Lord, the Emperor of Humanity, neither you nor he deserved this fate. "

Shut up. The lion tried to shout, but he couldn't make a sound, not even a single sound could come out.

The world before him became a whirlpool, and everything was included in it. His past, his sword, his regimental emblem, his memory, pride, honor that is neither recognized nor needs to be recognized.

All of this began to spin, then twist, and gradually turned into a pale, gloomy, and hateful face.

The lion suddenly heard a sharp sound, not the sound of a sword, but another weapon. Before he had time to remember what this weapon was, his body raised his hands first.

The long-lost lion sword appeared in his hand for some reason at this moment, and blocked a pair of brutal claws.

Electric arcs wrapped around it, crackling, claw blades and sword blades collided with each other, and the huge light from the decomposition force field cruelly illuminated the attacker in the darkness.

He has black hair, black eyes, deep-set eye sockets, and a cheek so thin that it barely touches half of his flesh. He is a tall, armored but still extremely thin Nostramo man.

The lion instinctively shouted: "Conrad?"

Midnight Ghost laughed loudly.

"What a close call, bro-" He winked at the lion. "——I've never heard you call me that, but it doesn't matter, because I don't like it."

He smiled maliciously, and suddenly disappeared from the spot. When he reappeared, the two sharp claws had already struck the lion's back from an angle that was impossible to defend.

However, just when he was about to succeed, he suddenly stopped the attack and stepped into the darkness again. It wasn't until this moment that the lion realized something as if he was waking up from a dream.

Some memories that were unfamiliar to him took this opportunity to rush into his brain with all their claws, pouring some nightmarish things into it.

He had a splitting headache, but his original body-level thinking ability still allowed him to quickly refine a few key words. Some of them were very familiar to him, such as the Horus Heresy; some were extremely unfamiliar to him, such as.

Conrad Curze, traitor?

More things bite the tail of the word 'traitor' and come roaring.

Skinning, brutality, horror, cannibalism, needless violence, deranged lunatics who need to be corrected, dirty wretches

Countless titles and countless one-sided flashbacks entered his thoughts one by one. The lion gritted his teeth and let out a low roar unbearably, which was met with a suspicious ridicule.

"What on earth are you playing, eh, lion?" The sinister voice came from behind him. "I've never seen you turn your back to me - when did you learn Vulcan's tactics?"

The lion turned his head sharply.

"Silence! Shut up!" he roared furiously, his eyes frantically searching the darkness. "You are not my brother!"

"ha!"

The midnight ghost laughed again, and the sound echoed around, making the deserted ruins even more terrifying. Laughter continued to echo, and the lion stood on the spot, pacing back and forth, the lion sword in his hand turning restlessly.

He couldn't tell whether this was fantasy or reality, but Kurtz had always been a troublemaker. His voice came from the lion's ear, interrupting his thoughts just right.

"Are you finally willing to admit this?"

The lion subconsciously thrust out his sword, fire burst out, and his two sharp claws blocked the blade. A dark shadow flashed away, and the light that had not been completely extinguished flew across his face, illuminating his fangs and pale white, giving him an extremely mean look.

"We weren't supposed to be brothers in the first place!" Midnight Ghost said, and rushed toward him crazily.

That gesture could be called barbaric, and his face was even more indescribable. Now that the Lion finally had time to observe him, he felt extremely regretful - how could this be the Conrad Coates in his memory? This is simply a ghost like a nightmare!

"You are not him."

The lion gasped, enduring the severe pain in his mind and the ubiquitous sense of unreality. At the same time, he waved his sword to block, using his intuition to ensure that he was not directly killed on the spot by the surprise attack.

But after all, he was not as powerful as he was in his heyday. Faced with this crazy attack, his armor was cut with several gaps in one glance. Metal shards flew everywhere, and Midnight Ghost's black hair was torn and flying in the strong wind.

He was still laughing, completely oblivious to himself, and every attack carried absolute murderous intent. The lion became more and more difficult to block. In addition to dealing with the monster, which became more and more excited as he fought, he also had to deal with the pain in his head.

What's even worse is that just seeing this nightmare will intensify his pain - in the final analysis, this is a shock between what he sees and the familiar appearance in his memory. He had never seen Conrad Coates so thin, so ghostly.

Not to mention the blasphemous and depraved armor decorations of human skin, skinned skulls, and broken bones. In a trance, half asleep, the lion suddenly had an illogical question.

He thought, if Khalil Lohars saw this scene, would his first reaction be angry or laugh?

His question was interrupted by the hissing sound of claws cutting through the air, and the pain on the flesh came from under his left ribs.

The lion groaned, his eyes instinctively showing a fierce look. A horizontal punch knocked the nightmare a few meters away, and then he chased after him with a series of counterattack swordsmanship without any hesitation.

"Yes, that's it, Leon!" During the dodge, the monster that was dyed into a human shape by madness laughed wildly and paid tribute to him. "We should be fighting each other! How can this galaxy accommodate so many terrifying monsters?"

This time, the lion ignored him. He forced himself to focus all his attention on the attack, but contrary to expectations, not only did he fail to do it, he was distracted by the pain, and the enemy even found a flaw.

The two bloody claws broke into the sword light, cruelly but accurately inserting into his breastplate, cutting the emblem of the First Legion into pieces. Moreover, after a successful blow, the Midnight Ghost escaped again Into darkness, only the sound remains.

"This is really weird, Leon. I smell weakness. Are you distracted during the battle? That's not like you."

The lion lowered his head, his senses still recovering from the chaos. What's more, even if they are fully awake, it is not easy to track the monster with the continuous pain in their minds. He simply closed his eyes, feeling the rapid heartbeat, and held the sword across his chest.

"Decided to stand and wait to die?" Midnight Ghost asked.

He was provoking, and the voice brushed past the lion's ears and fell quietly into the darkness, like a naughty evil boy. But the lion remained unmoved. He breathed regularly and ignored the ghost's words.

He pissed him off, and the monster roared out of the darkness, bringing with it a whirlwind of extreme cold that stung the lion's skin.

Two sharp claws lightly grazed the bridge of his nose a thousandth of a second later. The lion opened his eyes just in time and saw an indescribable face. Time seemed to have stopped at this moment.

The attack failed, and the Midnight Ghost tried to escape into the darkness again. The expressionless lion with complicated eyes and his slowly clenched hands

A roar sounded, and blood splashed. The Midnight Ghost began to bleed.

"Amazing." He said in amazement, ignoring his injuries. The wisdom in his voice was completely different from the beast-like roar when he was injured.

"This is really impressive. How did you do it, Leon?"

His voice sounded confused, and the emotion was so real that the lion felt confused again.

He endured it again, wanting to wait for an opportunity to break through the illusion set by Serafax in one fell swoop, but the monster in the dark spoke again, and took his attention with the cruel and elegant tone unique to the Nostramo people.

Hissing. Bastard. The lion thought angrily.

"You've become silent - why? Are you tired of verbal confrontation? Well, well, how about I tell you a secret, Leon? They don't know this secret, but you can know it."

A face poked out of the darkness, and a pale ghost walked out with a smile, raising his hands in a funny way, with a series of skeletons on his waist colliding with each other, making a dull bang. He bowed, then stood up and bowed in a funny way, and then spoke, his voice still soft.

"You asked me before, why did you betray?" The Midnight Ghost widened his eyes, and there was a frenzy in his dark eyes. "The answer is actually very simple, Leon, why not?"

The lion clearly heard the sound of a nerve of his being stretched to the limit and then broken. Bang, just like that, it broke, causing no pain, only indescribable anger.

"Shut your stinky mouth!" Leon roared furiously. "You are not qualified to say such things with this face, you are not qualified!"

After he finished speaking, he actually paced back and forth in place, his whole face twitching nervously. This performance even made Midnight Ghost a little overwhelmed at first. He had tensed his body and was ready to face the foreseeable attack, but——

"——Conrad Curze will not betray." Suddenly, the lion said to him in a sonorous voice, but his eyes were numb like a drug addict who was taking chemical drugs.

Midnight Ghost looked at him incomprehensibly.

"They also said I was crazy."

He shrugged, raised his paws, and walked towards the lion who was still convulsing on the spot, as if playing, with a strange smile on his face.

——

The young man looked at his opponent, the old man, in confusion. He didn't understand what happened, but he knew that he was probably seriously injured and was now lying on the ground, twitching constantly.

Blood had already gushed out from the inside of the armor, staining the ground red. This scene even extinguished his will to fight. After all, no matter what, it is hard to say that it is a knight's act to attack a person who has lost the ability to resist.

"Sometimes, you have to learn to temporarily abandon honor, Primarch. He is now powerless to resist. His spirit is fighting other enemies in the past. You only need to swing the sword once." A voice said to him.

The young man shook his head without looking back: "No, Serafax. Although I promised to fight him, it was based on fairness."

"If you kill him now, we will have a lot less trouble." The voice in the forest advised patiently. "We only have this last effort to turn everything around. Don't relax at this moment, my lord."

The young man frowned, looking a little reluctant. He refused again: "You have told me about his life. To be honest, I saw a flawed hero. You once taught me that heroes should not lose their honor. Have you forgotten, Serafax?"

The voice in the forest sighed.

"Perhaps I taught you to be a little too stubborn." He said, his voice had become very calm.

The young man suddenly realized that something was wrong, and his instinct was warning him. However, this warning conclusion made him unwilling to believe it anyway - this was the first time he went against his intuition, and the last time.

A charred and withered hand pierced his chest, took out his heart, and crushed it. The young man only had time to look back before his consciousness completely fell into darkness.

His body fell to the ground with a bang, and Serafax shook his right hand. He did not see any other movements, and the sky suddenly darkened. The ground trembled, and two thick roots broke through the ground, dragging the bodies of the lion and the young man underground. Serafax looked down, his vision was unobstructed, and he saw through all obstacles.

He could only see the truth.

The truth is that there is nothing underground, no soil, only endless roots. They are united into one piece, as huge as a continental plate. And inside them, there are many corpses. Some are young, some are old, some have been dead for a long time, and some have ruddy faces and seem to be still alive.

There are only three exceptions. One is the old lion, with white hair and beard. He is the only one in the family. The second is Zabril, with his eyes closed, dying. The third is a young child.

Serafax looked at him deeply.

The last hope. No sin, no past, no shackles.

When he has done all this, learned from experience and lessons, the ideal Knight King will be born. He will surpass all the original bodies and become the only one.

The charred corpse took a deep breath and disappeared on the spot.

It's not done yet. He told himself. He had to stay calm.

And so he walked towards the lion.