40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 159 20. Conquering Differences

It was interesting to realize this - something so crazy that even Kahn himself didn't want to believe it.

He'll admit it's funny, but he won't say it.

At this moment, Kahn was standing on the ruins of the city, staring at the lonely and meditative figure not far away, and being silent with him.

The corpses everywhere caused by the massacre and bombing were turned into bloody mud by the tanks of the war dogs. The air was filled with dust, black smoke rose lonely, and planes roared past in the sky, searching for another part of the city.

The war begins, it ends, they win.

To one who had not seen war first hand, these things were undoubtedly terrifying, but their primarch quickly accepted them all.

Karn had worried that their bloodlust in war would unsettle the Primarch, but Angron said nothing about it.

First Captain Barron Benson expressed his opinion on the incident over the comms channel. He believed that the incident was nothing to the Primarch because "he had seen far more horrific things". Kahn agreed. This sentence.

We've all seen it.

The young eighth company commander thought to himself - we have all seen scarier things.

He turned around, lowered his head, and saw a man approaching with a spear. He wears two short mortal model bolters on his belt. The blue and white carapace looks very simple, with only a war dog emblem on his right shoulder. A small part of it was covered in blood, and it looked ferocious.

The man nodded to him and said calmly: "Sir."

"I'm not your commander," Kahn said. "I am not responsible for the auxiliaries."

"Then I'll just call you Kahn, sir?" The man grinned, and the roughness unique to the Nucerian gladiators flashed across his face. A smile slowly formed, and by the time Kahn realized it, he had been smiling for some time.

"No problem, Karelian." Kahn took off his helmet and wiped his wet short hair with his gauntlet.

There was a glitch in the temperature-regulating system inside his helmet, and while he could tolerate much worse temperatures, who wouldn't want to feel the breeze blowing against their cheeks for a moment if they had the option?

This smelly, burning, bitter wind belongs only to the victors.

The gladiator grinned, shook his head, and put the spear behind his back. He adapted to the carapace very quickly, and was even able to make the weapon fit the magnetic hook on his back with just a touch of it.

"I really didn't expect there to be such ugly things in the world." He pursed his lips. Kahn turned his head and saw an alien being crushed by the rubble.

"How did they look like this?"

"This can be considered a relatively normal situation." Kahn said. "At least they don't have an exoskeleton, fangs, claws, and eight legs that can stab someone through."

The gladiator raised an eyebrow.

"I'm serious, Sergeant Karelian." Kahn winked at him. "There are many far more terrifying things in the galaxy than they are."

"Okay, I believe you." The gladiator, who had been promoted to sergeant, nodded. "You are far more knowledgeable than us Nucerian bumpkins."

Kahn smiled - he liked chatting with the gladiators because of this. Their language was spicy and their jokes sounded almost sarcastic, but that's how it was.

That's it.

"So, why did you come to me?"

"What kind of manual-"

The gladiator spoke in High Gothic with a strong accent.

"——Battle manual? Is that how you read it? It says that if something cannot be decided is found, we should find the nearest officer with a military rank of at least second lieutenant or above to judge the handling. And none of us are like this. Military rank, so I have to come to you. After all, you are the biggest officer here."

"So, what is it?" Kahn asked, his smile gradually fading, he had realized something.

"Things that can speak human language." Karelian turned his head and spat blood on the dead alien. "It looks like the same thing as them, but it's a little more human."

Kahn frowned sharply.

Thirteen minutes later, he and Karelian arrived at the underground research institute. Gladiators from Nuceria surrounded the place. Many of them had extremely ugly expressions, as if they had just experienced an earthquake.

"It's all those things," Karelian said. "We originally wanted to kill them, but Kleist thought it was best to report the matter. So I went all the way to find you."

Kleist - A face full of wildness emerged in Kahn's mind, a female gladiator who liked to use spears as weapons and performed well in training. Like Karelian, she could call their original body directly. name.

"Where are they?" asked the Eighth Company Commander of the War Hounds.

"Inside, follow me."

They passed through some huge gaps opened by grenades, and then some exposed cables and pools of blood. Finally, after the third minute of bending forward, Kahn saw those things.

His cheek began to twitch.

"Tera," he said in a low voice. The gladiator sighed and patted the war dog's waist in sympathy.

The emergency lights in the institute illuminated the darkness, and Kahn could clearly see the shivering creatures hiding in the corner. They are neither humans nor aliens, they are creatures between humans and aliens.

Some of them still look like humans for the time being, but their skulls have begun to change shape, and many dense holes have begun to appear on their foreheads, with some pink granules crawling inside.

Others are almost indistinguishable from human shapes. Their faces look no different from those of the aliens, but their limbs still barely retain their human shapes. Kahn's fingers were already on the bolters on his belt, and he instinctively wanted to kill them, but he didn't.

He still has his wits about him.

"How's it going, sir?" Karelian said in that gruff tone again. "How to deal with it?"

good question.

Kahn took a deep breath - what else could he do?

Fifteen minutes later, Angron arrived here.

——

"A wise choice," Robert Guilliman said. "I'm glad you made this choice, Mr. Domingo."

The hunched man smiled tremblingly. The gray uniform on his body had been completely obscured by the dark dust. His forehead was broken and there was still blood on it.

At the signal of the two victorious soldiers, he quickly left the makeshift room. Robert Guilliman watched him go away, lowered his head and glanced at the surrender agreement on the table, and couldn't help but smiled.

Harkossus III has a intact natural environment. It is undoubtedly a good thing to capture this planet and submit it to the empire without destroying them. At least this planet can rely on tourism to boost local people's livelihood in the future, giving the civilians here an additional welfare subsidy.

Guilliman stood up emotionally but calmly, walked out of the room, and came to the communication position. Dozens of instruments were carefully placed here, and the men and women from Ultramar were busy building an important part of the Ultramarines' basic communications on Harkossus III.

"Send a message to the Flair of Macragge," Guilliman told them, smiling. "Let them contact the Nightfall and the Unwavering Resolve using ship comms or astropaths. I want to know how my brothers are progressing."

The Emperor's words flashed through his mind, and the smile on Robert Guilliman's face couldn't help but become even brighter.

He would not comment on the methods used by the Eighth Legion and the Warhounds to conquer the planets they were responsible for, but he hoped that they could remain safe while maintaining efficiency.

The communication position quickly transmitted the original body's request back to Macragge's Glory. Guilliman walked out of the position. He did not intend to wait here. He chose to stand side by side with his first chapter leader in front of the position, staring at the city they conquered not far away. Marius Gage's armor was still stained with blood, and his expression was as calm as ever.

They were silent in tacit agreement, and no one spoke to break the rare silence until Robert Guilliman took the initiative to speak.

"Four and a half hours?" he asked, his tone gentle. "If my memory serves me right, we've broken the record today."

Marius Gage nodded: "But it's just an internal record, the original body. The fastest conquest record is in the hands of the Eighth Legion. They used to conquer the planet in just two hours and twenty-one minutes during a counterinsurgency. The planet is back."

Guilliman raised his eyebrows in surprise—he was truly surprised that these records would not be spread or recorded in writing. A record of two hours and twenty-one minutes of conquest is unimaginable to anyone, especially when you know the number of people in the Eighth Legion.

"They're very efficient at it," Marius said. "As has always been the case, the Eighth Legion's tactics have been nearly devastating to the sanity of local rulers."

Robert Guilliman burst into laughter. The Chapter Master's description was very apt, but with a touch of humor that only belonged to Marius Gage.

He looked towards the far end of the city and began to think about the future of Harkossus III. Since it was close to Nostramo, could he open up a new travel route among Macragge's trading routes? ?

Passing through Nostramo and reaching the primeval forest of Harkossus III sounded great.

Roboute Guilliman was thinking like a statesman, but after just half a minute, his warrior instinct tore it all apart and started screaming in his head.

"Enemy attack!" Another half minute later, amid the huge tremors on the ground, Marius Gage roared in the communication channel of the Ultramarines without warning.

I'm stuck. Also, I stayed up late today writing.