40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 674 56. Interlude: Defeating Self (2)

If one day you are old, tired, and defenseless, how will you defeat a beast in its prime and full of ambition?

Leon El'Jonson is trying to find out.

A huge force came towards him and knocked him to the ground easily. The lion rolled around in embarrassment and tried to stand up again, but was kicked hard again and fell straight down the sand dune.

The hot sand stuck to his skin due to sweat and blood, and the already dazzling sunlight fell on his eyes, making him even more dizzy. The lion silently propped himself up on his elbows and climbed up little by little.

And what about his enemies? He didn't take advantage of the victory, but just stood there arrogantly.

"What are you going to use to fight me, old guy?" he said slowly. "Is it just this broken wooden stick?"

He raised his hand, held the muddy stick in front of his eyes and observed it for a moment, then threw it casually, and it was accurately inserted into the lion's feet.

"To be honest, I feel a little pity for you. Look at yourself, the most failed one among us will not be like you -"

As he spoke, his expression suddenly changed to disgust, and he paused for a few seconds before uttering a word.

"--fail."

Failed?

The lion lowered his head, swallowed the blood that surged from the kick, and pulled out the wooden stick in front of him with his backhand. Ignoring the constant dizziness in front of him, he grabbed it with both hands and held it in front of him like a sword.

His enemy actually stopped laughing and suppressed his smile, and pulled out a long sword hanging from his waist with a serious look on his face.

This sword is not comparable in length to the Lion Sword, and its lines are very elegant, with a touch of elegant purple swaying at the end of the guard. He held the sword in one hand, jumped down the sand dune, stopped five feet away from the lion, raised his sword, and spoke solemnly.

"Now you look like one of us."

The lion ignored these words and just stared at the one-handed sword in his hand: "Whose weapon is this?"

"mine."

"No," said the lion. "Fulgrim's personal coat of arms and the emblem of his Legion are on it."

"At least it belongs to me now, old guy. Stop gossiping and get over it as soon as possible. I have given you my greatest respect - now, come and die."

As soon as the words fell, the dust rose, and before the sound of his footsteps reached the lion's ears in a true sense, a sword light suddenly struck.

The lion subconsciously raised his sword - or rather raised his stick to block, but his hands did not feel any heavy pressure. Instead, he felt a heart-piercing pain on the side of his abdomen. It was obvious that his enemies were faster than him in terms of reaction and speed.

Various factors combined to make this simple attack into a stab achieve a terrifying result.

The lion backed away quickly, as if he was unaware of the pain, which was not the case.

Those who have no specific knowledge of combat and only have romantic imagination may think that being hit once or twice in a sword fight is not a big deal, but the fact is that in unarmored combat, any injury is extremely fatal, let alone a hero. The lion's wound at this moment.

His left abdomen was penetrated, and the murderer dragged the blade for a distance after he succeeded, so the amount of bleeding was extremely large, leaving a large area of ​​red on his retreat route, and also stained the place where he was standing at the moment. Blood flowers. In addition, several severed intestines and fragments of ribs were hanging precariously on the edge of the wound.

The lion stretched out his hand to cover his wound.

Thanks to the original body's constitution, he could barely stand for the time being, but he couldn't hold on for long. Thinking about it carefully, this seemed to be the most serious injury he had ever suffered in the battle. Looking at the past, no enemy has ever made him feel such pain.

The lion looked at his enemy, and his enemy stared back at him.

One face is young, the other is old, similar but different. The young man is confident, arrogant, and full of strong vitality. The old man is weather-beaten, has a habit of frowning, his lips are pursed, his face is pale, and he looks particularly weak.

Being hurt by myself is just what I want.

The male lion took a deep breath, then suddenly let out a muffled groan and lowered his left hand. He was still bleeding, but the wound looked like a mess, with bones and internal organs being pushed back.

He took up his stance again, but his enemy narrowed his eyes when he saw this, looking very displeased.

"Do you really think-"

His words were interrupted by a slow but determined charge. The lion dragged his embarrassed body and charged towards him with his sword, leaving more scarlet traces splashing out like raindrops in the yellow sand.

Naturally, his attack failed, and his enemy showed no mercy. After dodging the fatal stab aimed at the throat, he clenched his fist and knocked the lion to the ground.

The punch was so fast and hard that the lion's vision went dark and he almost fainted on the spot. It took him a few seconds to relax before he realized the discomfort in his mouth. He rolled his tongue and stuck out a few teeth. At the same time, the pain on his cheek also told him that his cheekbone was probably broken.

A voice came from above him: "Lie down, don't get up."

The Lion said no with action.

He pushed himself up and stood upright unsteadily. His enemy looked at him with a frown, the two of them almost looking at each other face to face. The lion could even see his own reflection at this moment in those emerald green eyes - how embarrassed, the great Lord of the First Army?

His face was covered in blood, his cheeks were swollen, and it was even difficult to stand still.

Don't worry, the plan is already half successful.

The lion swung his right fist and miraculously hit the target. His enemy stood there expressionlessly, his head not even shaking from the blow. He just stood there, then gently swung his arm, and the blade pierced through the lion's body.

The lion was stiff for a moment, and his enemy sighed, let go of the sword, raised his hand to hold the lion's shoulder and lowered his head, as if he wanted to say something, but was sprayed with blood in the face.

Before he could act, he felt the old lion in his arms suddenly burst out with a shocking force, followed by a pain in his eyes that was like being hit by a bomb.

Before he realized what was happening, his body immediately tried to fight back, but all his punches and kicks fell into the air - where did the old man get the strength? He was obviously dying!

This thought flashed through his mind, and almost in the next moment, his right knee joint was hit hard, causing him to fall to the ground uncontrollably.

He saw darkness in front of his eyes, and when he reached out to touch his eyeball, he could only feel the sticky emptiness. A terrible guess came to his mind, making him tremble all over, and he was so angry that he could hardly control himself.

He roared and barely stood up, dragging his broken leg and punching randomly, sniffing the air constantly, trying to find the enemy. But there was a smell of blood everywhere, mixed with his own blood, and there was no difference between the two. He couldn't find the old man at all.

He could only hear a slow sound of sword drawing in the darkness, the sound of metal rubbing against flesh and bones, which was so pleasant in the past, but now it sounded like a note of death.

"Asshole. Despicable bastard!"

He roared angrily, trying to seduce the enemy to speak with this reckless performance, but his enemy said nothing, or even did nothing.

For the next three minutes, the surroundings were terribly quiet, with only his own panting, heartbeat, and the hissing of blood being burned by the sand. He even wondered if the old man was dead. However, he knew very well that this was impossible. After another three minutes, he was panting and moving around, trying to avoid possible harm, but a whistling sound came from his ears. He immediately leaned over to avoid it, but the hot and scattered sound that brushed past his ears told him that the sound was just a ball of sand thrown at him.

So, where is the real enemy? In front? Or where? He roared and mobilized his muscles, as if he had really become a lion, and pounced forward with his hands and feet - of course, this time, he still didn't touch anything.

At this time, his enemy finally spoke.

"How did you get this sword?"

As soon as the voice fell, a piercing pain came from his back.

This seemed to be more than just a simple stab, because he immediately found that there was something wrong with his perception of the whole body - the pain that had been constantly coming from his right leg disappeared, as if he was not injured, but it was not just that, he did not feel the pain, he could not even feel the whole right leg.

And the left leg, and the waist.

"I will kill you!"

He roared, and his enemy just stepped on his back and stabbed the sword at another angle. In less than half a second, he stopped struggling with despair. It was not that he didn't want to, but he couldn't, and his hands were also numb.

"What did you do?" His enemy asked in his ear, his voice was calm, but with a completely unconcealable anger.

"Is that all you want to ask? I killed--"

With a pounce, the sword entered the body, deeply penetrated the top of the head, and came out from the jaw. His anger, shame, fear and desire to die were nailed to the hot yellow sand.

Blood flowed out.

The lion slowly fell to the ground.

He was very tired, and he had never been so tired before, but fortunately the plan succeeded. Showing weakness to the enemy is a tried and tested tactic that can be used against any arrogant opponent. However, the price he paid was still too great.

Lion El'Jonson lowered his head and touched the wound on his chest. His heart was beating very slowly, a speed that had never been seen before. There were probably two reasons, one was that he was deliberately controlling it, and the other was that he had almost no blood to bleed.

He raised his head and looked at the corpse. At this critical moment of life and death, he thought of another completely unrelated thing for no reason.

It was the second century after the end of the Terra War. He launched an expedition to the far end of the Misty Star Region to explore whether there were orcs roaming around. Since the day it was named "Misty", this star region has never been far away from the threat of orcs.

This group of abominable aliens always grows wildly in some corners. When the empire discovers them, their scale is often so large that they need to be hit hard.

In order to avoid similar situations from happening again and to leave a contactable monitoring station, the lion launched this expedition.

Interestingly, he did not fight a battle along the way, but he could always see large-scale orc warships that had been destroyed into space junk. Finally, at the end of the expedition, he met Ferrus Manus who had set out before him.

The atmosphere was naturally not very pleasant. The lion wanted to question his brother why he did not inform him of this military operation, but the wild wolf living in the Spear of Dionysus laughed at him viciously.

"You didn't plan to discuss it with him, Lion? Sometimes you two act like you've seen a ghost, which really makes people feel annoyed. I think the old man put you together not just because you are close to each other."

This sentence made the lion very angry, but also made him swallow the accusations that he was about to say. Since then, the two primarchs and their descendants have truly cooperated in the Misty Star Region, instead of just pretending like before.

Perhaps I should have informed Ferrus before leaving.

Thinking of this, the lion actually had an urge to laugh: If I die like this, he will probably dismantle my coffin at the funeral and scold me for not keeping my promise.

And that damn wolf. What will he do? Will he pour me wine in the spear?

Lion El'Jonson sighed, bent down, and began to crawl in the opposite direction of the corpse. He had no strength left, but still didn't plan to stay here.

He didn't give in.

——

Finally.

Zabril lost count of how many steps he had climbed - but he finally reached the top of the stairs, and the emblem was firmly in his hand.

Serafax had taken this trump card from his belt, but somehow returned it. The Dark Angel didn't want to know why, he just pulled open his Primarch's bloody right hand and put the emblem in.

However, nothing happened.

Zabril stared at the emblem, his breath stagnant. It was not until several seconds later that he realized that he clenched the lion's fingers, then held the hand and began to pray.

This thing still felt strange to him. Zabril was not a believer, never was. He was loyal to the Emperor, but he never thought of worshiping him as a god - but now it seemed that there was no other choice.

The Dark Angel gritted his teeth and trembled as he imitated the priests he had seen in the past.

He silently said: Emperor, please give your son some strength, he is at the end of his road, he needs your glory.

No response.

He silently said: Emperor, please take a look here, your son needs you, Lion El'Jonson needs you.

No response.

He silently said: Emperor.

No response.

He was stuck, he didn't know what to say, he only knew that the muscles in his throat were spasming, and his eyes were extremely sore.

As a dark angel, how could Zabril not feel the abnormal coldness of his original body's skin at this moment? And the heartbeat and breathing that had stopped, the lifeless face.

Blood and tears rolled down, Zabril looked at his father - never had his eyes been so sad.

"Save him." A man murmured. "I am willing to sacrifice my own life to save him."

Nothing responded to him, only darkness and silence. Zabril looked around and saw many similar faces. These people wrapped in roots looked almost identical to his original body, but they were different.

Looking at them, a hatred suddenly rose in Zabril's heart. He didn't know where it came from, but it was as strong as his love for his gene father.

Love and hate are two sides of the same coin.

The darkness around began to surge, or more accurately, to flee. They had no life, but still showed the emotion of "fear". It was as if something darker than them was coming.