40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 195 20. Night falls on Kordipo

Fortress A-3-15, a number, a number.

Perturabo personally numbered the Kordipo fortresses, but this was not what Van Cleef cared about. He took off his helmet and took a deep breath of the distorted air with the smell of gunpowder. His neat face had a thoughtful look that could only be born with the passing of years.

His mood had quietly changed in this breath, becoming gloomy and cruel, just in line with the desolate scene around him.

It was already evening, but there was no sunset on Kordipo. Only a faint light was dialyzed out from the thick clouds on the horizon.

The bodies of the Iron Warriors had been collected, and their pharmacists had made great efforts to ensure that every brother who still had a complete body could return to them to rest, rather than stay on this broken battlefield and continue to suffer from the ravages of war.

It was really interesting

Van Cleef put on his helmet again, isolating the buzzing sound of the power armor.

The blades behind him remained absolutely silent, without any sound. A cold expectation that should not have appeared quietly spread among them. They waited, full of expectation and desire.

A few minutes later, a hoarse voice descended from the communication channel and reached the ears of all of them.

"It's time to act, First Company." The voice said. "Fort A-3-15, the target is the highest-ranking officer in that fort or someone with a similar status. You have twenty-five minutes."

"Enough." Van Cleef answered softly and slowly.

He didn't say empty words.

Seven minutes after the operation began, the 1,200 people of the First Company entered the fort. Under the cover of night, no one noticed their arrival.

There was not even much killing in this dangerous fortress built on the mountain. The Night Blades relied on their superb skills to avoid most of the sentries, and the few who could not be avoided were killed by them in the fastest and most painless way.

The bodies were collected without any insults, and the death could even be called peaceful. At the fifteenth minute, they reached a military base in the fortress with the intelligence obtained through simple torture.

At the eighteenth minute, the highest commander in the base was captured by the Night Blades. There were still seven minutes left before the time was up, and there was no resistance in the military base.

The Night Blades showed no mercy. They killed all the rebels and broadcast the wailing of the dead to all the soldiers in the base through the communication channel inside the base. Surrender came soon, but Van Cleef was not happy about it.

Standing in a room that was temporarily emptied and only an iron chair was left, he took off his helmet again, and his pale face was stained with a different gloomy temperament because of the blurred light around him.

In front of him, a middle-aged man was trembling. He was wearing a slightly messy black uniform. Van Cleef's adjutant Molec stood beside him, with a cold hand on his shoulder.

The adjutant was still wearing a helmet and motionless, but his armor was stained with blood and was even still hot. He had just slaughtered a small team that came to support the officer. The means were not cruel, but you can't expect the blade to remain smooth after the killing.

Van Cleef looked up and glanced at the middle-aged man. He made a gesture, and Molec immediately pressed the middle-aged man on the chair that fit his body.

The sudden huge force made his whole body tremble violently, and a cry of surprise inevitably came out of his throat. The captain looked at him expressionlessly, staring at him silently, and silently calculating the time in his heart.

A few minutes later, there was a vibration from the helmet in his hand. The scarlet eyepiece began to emit light, and Van Cleef put it on again. A light blue rune appeared on the retina, and a voice slowly sounded.

"What's the situation, Van Cleef?"

"You just need to give the order."

"Now, do it."

"Understood."

Van Cleef turned his head and nodded to his adjutant. The latter pulled out a combat dagger from his waist and threw it to his captain.

Van Cleef usually doesn't like to carry these "spare weapons among spare weapons", so Moritz usually carries two combat knives. He also has a slightly sarcastic title because of this habit, but no one in the company dares to call him that.

The captain walked up to the officer, bent down, and adjusted the external mode of the breathing grid with the help of the neural connection signal. The next second, his hoarse and distorted breathing sounded in the room.

The middle-aged man trembled again. He opened his mouth and tried to say something, but a dagger had already taken the lead and gently inserted into his thigh.

It was not deep, and it could even be said that it only slightly penetrated the skin, but the body of the fortress commander had changed unconsciously in fear.

He might have been very tough in the past, but now, with just a little pressure, he immediately screamed, as if he was about to die.

Amid his screams and violent struggles while being held down by his adjutant, Van Cleef slowly spoke. He spoke one of the only three words he knew in Kordipo, in his still-accented Kordipo language.

The Iron Warriors offered their help, though reluctantly. They themselves did not seem adamant.

“Surrender?”

The middle-aged man howled and struggled violently, speaking a long string of words that were difficult to pronounce and unfamiliar.

However, Van Cleef did not catch another sentence of Cordipo's words that he wanted to hear in his voice. So he pulled out the blade and inserted it again, and began to separate the skin and muscles bit by bit along the wound itself.

He did this very carefully, and his movements were not fast, but revealed a strange elegance and precision. The fortress commander's screams became more and more intense, but Molec never let go, so his struggle was useless except for making himself bleed more.

One minute and forty seconds later, Van Cleef separated the skin, flesh and nerves with the attitude of peeling silk from a cocoon. They were steaming and limp on the commander's own thigh, twitching from time to time. The white thigh bone was looming in the flesh and blood, which was very charming.

"Surrender?" Van Cleef asked again.

The commander trembled, tears streaming down his face, but his face still did not show the emotion that Van Cleef hoped to see.

The captain sighed softly, his voice full of regret. Although it became a long sigh like longing under the distortion of the breathing grid, at this moment, Van Cleef was indeed regretful.

You don't have to suffer anymore.

He stretched out his fingers and gently grasped the officer's thigh bone. The cold and sharp metal gauntlet rubbed and knocked on it, and even occasionally squeezed it hard.

The officer's screams began to become more and more intense, and finally, it finally reached a critical point. He paused after a violent tremor, and his face, which had become numb with pain and fear, had no other expression.

This time, Van Cleef did not ask, and he said the words that Van Cleef had always wanted to hear.

"Surrender! I surrender!"

"Very good." Van Cleef said. "Look at me and say it again."

He squeezed the two fingers.

The middle-aged man screamed, and his face, which was twisted to the extreme, was stained with blood at this moment. He opened his bloodshot eyes and yelled at Van Cleef with a crazy look. His voice was shrill, more like begging for mercy than surrender.

Van Cleef finally let go.

Two minutes later, the video he personally recorded was transmitted to a nearby Iron Warrior position. When the commander of Fortress A-3-15 was in a coma and receiving suture treatment from the pharmacist of the Night Blade First Company, the video had been analyzed bit by bit and uploaded to the orbit.

With a certain technology developed by Perturabo himself, it began to be translated into two completely different things on the Blood of Steel.

One of them was a complete recording. The other was a complete recording. Fifteen recordings, fifteen recordings, including the time required for the video transmission, the operation took a total of thirty-three minutes.

Then a few minutes later, on the planet Kordipo, which was shrouded in the night, many suppressed screams of terror were heard.

——

"That's it?" Perturabo asked in a dry voice.

"That's it." Khalil answered casually and calmly.

"Fifteen videos and audio recordings, played on the entire planet through the broadcasting system for a whole day, that's enough, great Perturabo. What else do you want? Really create an inhumane massacre scene? No, that will only arouse their deeper will to resist. Some things are too much, you need to grasp the right degree."

"I can't believe I'm condoning you to do this." Perturabo clenched his tool hammer and whispered. "This is no longer a war, you are simply conducting a terrorist attack."

"I never said this is not a terrorist attack." Khalil raised his head and answered seemingly kindly. "The only difference is that compared to most terrorist attacks, the means we use are clean and tidy deaths and the least blood."

"Do you think a terrorist attack can make them surrender?"

"If not, then do it again tomorrow night." Khalil replied calmly.

"The first night's attack may make some of them mistakenly believe that this is the result of carelessness. Then, on the second night of heightened vigilance, they will see the various methods that the Midnight Blades have deliberately preserved. If this is not enough, we will issue a final declaration."

". Final declaration? What is it?" Perturabo suddenly felt a tightness in his throat.

"Just one sentence." Khalil nodded to him with a smile.

"Starting tomorrow night, we will continue to attack for a whole year. Tonight is the same, and every night is the same. Whether to surrender or not will be decided by them, and as for other things, it has nothing to do with them anymore."

Perturabo stopped his hand hitting the sand table, and the tool hammer was suspended in the air. The tightness in his throat began to gradually change, turning into a feeling between thirst and burning.

Of course, he was not stupid. He didn't need to think too much to understand how terrifying Khalil Rohals' words were to the Cordibo people.

A group of ghost killers who come and go without a trace can only be vaguely observed in the night. Murders are staged one after another in the night, and the videos recorded by the murderers themselves will be played in a loop throughout the day, which cannot be turned off, and there is no escape from the wailing of the dead. Then, as long as the night falls again, they will do it again. Can the Cordibo people hold on?

The answer is obviously no. They may have a solid fortress, but that does not mean that their spirit is as tough as the fortress and can withstand bombing and artillery fire.

Perturabo stopped in place, and a series of numbers suddenly surged in his heart. It was a countdown, the time when he thought the Cordibo people were about to surrender.

——lost.

Completely lost.

A complete failure.

The torrent of steel, the frontal attack, and the heavy firepower are not even as trouble-free as a terrorist attack carried out by a 6,000-man army at night.

Did they sacrifice any people tonight? I'm afraid not. If the ill-prepared Cordibo people can cause a little scratch on their armor, it will be regarded as a good result.

Perturabo thought coldly, thinking about many things with his otherworldly rationality. He had always been like this. Since he left Olympia, he had abandoned many things and began to regard everything as simple data to calculate gains and losses.

His biological father, the Emperor of Mankind, did not oppose him. In fact, the Emperor even gave him a degree of approval for this display of self-sacrifice.

What was the Emperor's expression like at that time?

He began to recall, and the emperor's expression began to be outlined little by little along with the memories, changing from blurry to clear, and then from clear to as if he were right in front of his eyes.

That glorious steel face had the admiration and recognition that Perturabo needed, but there was also a sense of regret and heartache that he couldn't bear to look at anymore. He only understood the first two at that time, and he was completely puzzled by the latter two.

"."

Perturabo opened his mouth blankly, and the tool hammer in his hand fell to the ground, making a crisp but dull sound.

He immediately wanted to bend down to pick it up, but suddenly stopped in mid-air. The hand that was about to come into contact with the tool hammer began to tremble. Starting from the little finger, the tendon itself involuntarily involved the muscles and began to tremble.

Frustration came like a tsunami, turning his natural pride into a bitter sinking. A ridiculous smile came along with him. He lowered his head and began to laugh in a low voice unconsciously.

It’s actually like this. So I’ve been doing things that make people laugh? What I pursue can be achieved so easily in the eyes of others. If this is the case, then what have become of those who died because of my tactics?

His head jerked up.

"No, it can't be like this." He looked at Khalil. "I can't be wrong."

The pale giant was covered with the bones of the dead and looked at him quietly, with a strange emotion in his dark eyes: "Why can't you be wrong?"

"Then what became of them?"

"who?"

"Them." Perturabo clenched his fists. "Eltros and the others."

Khalil smiled.

"Let's let the facts speak for themselves." He held up a finger. "First, your strategic and tactical direction is not wrong, but there is a problem with your execution style. You are the culprit that caused a large number of casualties to the Iron Warriors. Do you have a problem with this, Perturabo?"

"."

"Yes? Great Perturabo?"

"No." The Primarch thought he had buried all emotion, that he could do it easily through his own excellence. But now it seems that his emotions never really left, they just accumulated in his heart and began to gradually distort him. At this moment, his mood when he said this was calm, a kind of calm brought about by extreme circumstances. Everything in the past is now coming to mind. Those cold and huge numbers rushed towards him one after another, and began to beat his heart continuously. Perturabo covered his chest and slowly slid down against the wall little by little.

"It seems I don't need to give you a second example," Khalil said. "Your reaction is really interesting. I originally thought you would suddenly get angry and yell at me again."

"."

"Stop talking? Choose silence?"

".I-" Perturabo raised his head. "——I just couldn't find anything to say. I was wrong, but what about them?"

"They are a group of people who are completely loyal to you." Khalil replied softly. "Do you really think Sergeant Elteros doesn't know what's right and what's wrong?"

Perturabo stared at him silently, waiting for Khalil's next words like a death row prisoner waiting for his sentence.

And Khalil lived up to him.

He used the most straightforward words to tear off the last fig leaf in Perturabo's heart and tore it into pieces. The wound was bloody and exposed to the air, and the blood surged and roared.

"He knew early on how to cooperate with us in a feint attack to achieve maximum results with the minimum casualty ratio. But he refused to do so because he swore an oath. You gave them that oath, and you let them do it with your own hands. Beat their respected commander to death."

"In the blood of their brothers, they swore an oath to become steel that you would be proud of. So, no matter what they do, they are not wrong. Because the only one who is wrong is you, Perturabo."

Khalil stared at him and began to smile.

A vain smile.

"You are the one who became the laughingstock. You are the one who made the Legion an object of contempt. You are the one who made Sergeant Eltros die."

"There is nothing superior about you. Compared to Sanguinius, Robert Guilliman, or Rogal Dorn, you are the worst of them all. Have you ever seen anyone pit you against them?" Contrast? You may comfort yourself that this is because those people are ignorant. But is that really the case?

Perturabo slowly clenched his fists, his fingers crunched, and blood seeped between his fingers. His still-bandaged hand was now stained red, and the piece of steel finally began to let out a silent, overwhelmed wail.

"Yes." Khalil said calmly. "From beginning to end, this is just a game played by a group of people who are loyal to you, accompanying a naive child, with life as the basis and blood as the accompaniment."

He stopped talking, turned and left. Perturabo lowered his head and leaned against the cold wall, saying nothing.

Two more chapters.

The final chapter may be late, but I'll keep my word. Chapter three will be written before twelve o'clock.