40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 167 28. One-day War (6)

Khalil slowly clenched his right hand, and some pale fragments fell down, adding more white to the ground.

The last soul belonging to Harkossus died at this moment.

Believers were killed by the gods they believed in, and their beliefs in turn persecuted themselves. The fragments slowly fell to the ground, joining other companions who had already been here. They look almost as heavy as years of snow, but they are not snow. They are fragments of ashes and souls.

Khalil lowered his head and stared at them, finally gaining a little real peace.

During that battle—or massacre—the aliens of Harkossus cursed the god of fire in their eyes.

They denounced the gods' betrayal and their hypocrisy. They cursed Him, hoping that He would be brutally murdered and forgotten in history. May every altar to Him be overthrown and every temple burnt to ashes by fire.

They hoped that He would live forever and be tortured for thousands of years.

Khalil embraced this.

Why shouldn't he accept it? They have every reason to hate him. Although the relationship between gods and believers has never been equal, he has never regarded himself as a god.

If these true Harkossians hate him, so be it.

Rather than accepting an unfounded curse and fate under the control of Tzeentch, and longing for the mercy of a false god, it would be better to die a simpler death - it was with this thought that he recalled the dead soldiers of the Eighth Legion. them.

He slew in the temples of the Fire God, while they fought alongside their living brothers above the surface.

Khalil closed his eyes, and thousands of images came flooding in.

As night falls, the undead clad in black flames are killing mercilessly. Without pity or any superfluous emotion, they have become the immortal dead, which the dead never desired.

He was soon to achieve one of his goals - Khalil realized this without feeling the slightest joy.

The troubles on Harkossus One are about to be completely eliminated, but what happens after that? How would he explain all this to the Eighth Legion?

And, this is just the first step. There are three planets in Harkossus. The danger of No. 1 may be far away, but what about No. 2 and No. 3?

In other words, what about the warhounds and ultramarines? What will happen to them?

With a sigh, Khalil closed his eyes and turned into a shadow and disappeared little by little. After he left, the ancient temple began to collapse.

Temples and beliefs will become things of yesterday, but at this moment, this place is still a kingdom of God. He floated up to the surface, unstoppable by rocks and soil, as if he did not exist. After an indescribably short time passed, he appeared next to Conrad Coze.

The latter was sitting on a large piece of blackened metal, staring into the distance with his face propped up, not speaking, and not surprised by his arrival.

".Instructor?"

Khalil turned his head and nodded towards the first company commander: "Van Cleef."

"How did you show up?"

Khalil raised the corner of his mouth and the skull mask disappeared - I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but he actually made a joke: "I flew up here, like a ghost."

The expression on the Captain's face looked very intriguing. He glanced at his original body, and then spoke again: "The original body said that you have many things to explain to us."

I do.

Khalil turned his head and glanced at Conrad Coates. The latter still maintained that deliberately made posture, without even looking at him. His expression was tense, and his eyes looked straight ahead with melancholy and sharp eyes.

"Yes." Khalil said. "I do have a lot to explain to you."

As soon as the words fell, many dark shadows came out of the darkness. The soldiers of the Eighth Legion were as quiet as ghosts.

"Then say it."

Konrad Coates finally spoke - he looked at Khalil with a serious expression, without any details that belonged to the 'Midnight Ghost' lingering on that face. At this moment, he only exists as the Lord of the Eighth Legion, and he is asking Khalil to give a reasonable explanation.

And Khalil had to answer, whether of his own free will or because of the responsibilities that came with being an instructor.

Khalil lowered his head, his face under the hood pale and calm. He spoke slowly, his tone as casual as chatting, but the words themselves were as sharp as a sword, cutting almost every listener.

"I've been thinking a lot about telling the truth. I tried to be completely honest with you, and I failed because some truths need to be qualified to be heard."

He looked around, and his always gentle gaze towards them now felt like needles piercing his body. A pain surged from Van Cleef's heart, but the company commander tried his best to remain calm.

"I have thought about this matter countless times." The instructor of the Eighth Legion slowly narrated in his characteristic low tone.

"To be more precise, I have evaluated your qualifications countless times. I have evaluated you during training in the training ground, and I have evaluated you in daily life. I have reviewed you countless times, from your name, personality, I have been searching hard for information and the past. I have been trying to find someone who can let me reveal the truth.”

"Have you found it?" Van Cleef asked with a hint of hope that he was not even aware of.

"No." Khalil stared at him. "Including you, Van Cleef."

"But I've-"

"-Yes, you have faced the monster in the dark once, and you even relied on your own willpower to win at the last moment, but this has nothing to do with what I said. What we want to discuss is not Within the realm of willpower, Van Cleef."

Khalil Lohars interrupted him indifferently, sounding arrogant, inhumane, and...

Very strange. The first company commander thought.

"But, instructor"

A tired voice sounded in the darkness - it was Siani, Siani from Terra, and he sounded extremely tired now, no longer as energetic as before.

Khalil could hear his frustration at this moment, but forced himself not to be moved.

"Don't we even deserve to be revealed a little bit?"

Siani raised his right hand and pointed at the black flames on the far side of the horizon. He was wearing a helmet, and the eyepieces were crimson, and Khalil could clearly see his reflection in them.

Siani stopped talking, just pointed at the shadowy ghosts in the flames and remained speechless. After a moment, he took off his helmet and took a deep breath of cold air.

".We are fighting side by side with you." Siani from Terra said in a low voice.

Khalil felt like he had something stuck in his throat - he looked directly at Siani, but he could detect the gaze of Conrad Coates, which contained urging and anxiety, but also a little hope.

hope.

What do you wish for, child? Do you want me to tell them the truth? Or do I hope they can forgive me for hiding it?

silence. Sixteen thousand three hundred and twenty-four pairs of eyes stared silently at their instructors, and three thousand six hundred and seventy-six ghosts stood on the dividing line between life and death and stared at this place. They were dead, but they still held hope. '.

hope

".If you insist on listening." Khalil Lohars slowly closed his eyes. "Then listen, but once you've heard it, you can't look back."

The dark flames swept over and burned fiercely, surrounding the soldiers of the Eighth Legion. They remained silent and held their heads high without fear.

"Then come on." Conrad Coates chuckled. "Come on, instructor."

"good."

As the words fell, the flames climbed up and burned on their armor, leaving boiling marks. Sixteen thousand three hundred and twenty-four people fell into the boundary between illusion and reality.

Darkness covers the face, deep silence, and incomparable terror. They began to gaze into the darkness with human eyes - and then the monster in the darkness gave them an answer.

Those filthy, greedy, invisible or even invisible monsters looked back with malice. In just a moment, their reason began to boil and burn, and their proud willpower was shattered in an instant.

Van Cleef was the one who persisted the longest. He clenched his fists and shouted angrily at the darkness without fear. However, in the next second, a hand was placed on his shoulder.

He turned around and saw Khalil Lohars.

"I'm sorry I said that to you," their instructor said softly. "But I think you understand by now, Van Cleef."

"What is this?" Van Cleef asked bitterly.

He thought he already knew something about them, but he didn't expect that his so-called understanding was just something born from an ant's lucky sight of an elephant's tail.

His 'understanding' and 'preparation' were simply vulnerable in the face of facts and truth.

"This is the truth you want," Khalil said.

At this moment, his voice echoed not only in Van Cleef's ears, but also in the ears of 16,323 other people.

"This is what is hidden in the darkness. Countless monsters that are hungry for humans, born from nightmares and baptized from evil thoughts. They cannot be killed, cannot be looked at, and cannot be talked about. They are myths and legends The monster in it is something that harvests life when midnight comes. You saw it, what do you think?"

Silence, silence again, truly lifeless silence - Van Cleef lowered his head in frustration, but Khalil smiled.

He turned around, pulling Van Cleef with him, and saw Conrad Coates and sixteen thousand three hundred and twenty-three dark shadows walking slowly towards him.

"Monsters in the night?" Conrad Coates asked seriously. "Is this the truth?"

"Yes." Khalil nodded lightly.

Conrad Curze walked past him, his scarlet cloak curling like a fire in the darkness, automatic in the absence of wind. He moved forward, straight forward, almost reaching the boundary between the curtain and the real world. He just stood there, showing no fear, even sneering.

"Look clearly, you monsters. Look at us clearly, look at every face here."

he declared lowly to the thing in the dark.

"I, Konrad Coates - I speak to you from the edge of our world. Yes, yes, you are monsters, devils, seducers from hell. But you are nothing more than fairy tales. You are the thieves who steal mothers and children at night. If it is daytime, you will be extremely weak. You are afraid of the sun and the light, and from now on, you will also be afraid of us, because we will become the blade of midnight. , we will become the sentinels in the darkness, we will help those who are miserable in the darkness you have created, and we will kill you without leaving a trace!”

he roared, his voice louder than ever.

"Listen up, you maggot-like things, monsters hiding in the dark! This world is where we live, and we will protect it until death!"

Khalil lowered his head and chuckled. Three thousand six hundred and seventy-six ghosts flickered in his shadow.

"Yes." He said. "Until death."

"Till death!"

Twenty thousand voices sounded in unison.

Nothing (exhaustion)