Emperor's Bane

Chapter 639 Life is short
"The Great Whirlpool Tutelary Fort?"

"I bet this isn't something our genetic father would have come up with."

The Midnight Ghost grinned, revealing a mouthful of white fangs and sharp teeth. His bright red tongue swam around like a hungry conger eel, licking the slightly blackened skin under his hot breath: this dullness spread all the way to his sea green short-sleeved floral shirt, and was only covered by two dried toad corpses.

There was a faint smell of poison in the air.

Next to them, about where the heart was, there was an embroidered, ferocious-looking, laughing skull. A bright red silk scarf was wrapped around the snow-white skull, and a sharp short blade was bitten between the neat teeth. It looked like a pirate's product: even if you look at the entire human empire, there is probably only one place that would use this thing as their tourist logo.

Catachan.

And perhaps only Conrad would choose this notorious death world as his summer resort during the scorching summer: Midnight Haunter spent two months happily in this emerald green planet hell, until Morgan pulled him back to the fleet with a slightly impatient summons. The Primarch, with a sublimated body and spirit, and huge sunglasses that were enough to blind everyone, walked into the throne room of his second sister.

Walked into the vigilant sight.

Standing aside, Virgo stared at her biological uncle, whose clothes and posture were equally lazy, and put on a vigilant look for the first time in a long time: what made the Star Maid wary was certainly not Conrad's wheat-colored skin and exposed chest muscles, but the [travel souvenirs] that the Primarch had casually thrown aside.

As luck would have it, in Virgo's highest-level memory array, these souvenirs often appear in the records of non-combat casualties of the Dawnbreaker Legion: they appear in various forms, such as murder weapons, food ingredients, tableware, daytime training supplies, nighttime decompression supplies, gambling props, and general equivalents.

Conrad brought back a trainload of treasures like these.

When the Midnight Haunter, wearing a spiked straw hat and a barking toad necklace around his neck, entered the room and began distributing the bluish-brown Catachan devil meat burgers in his hand all over the room, not to mention Morgan who was already looking uneasy, even Guilliman who had just arrived, and Vulkan who was playing with the Spider Queen's collection of Dark Eldar bone sculptures, became a little nervous.

"Eat whatever you want."

Conrad enthusiastically picked out the largest demon meat burger and happily stuffed it into the Macragge's hand: Guilliman looked at the glaring poison hook in the burger meat and fell into a rare silence. His Nostramo brother was still standing beside him, and did not forget to pat his shoulder generously.

“This stuff tastes good.”

"Eat as much as you want. If you think it's not enough, I can kill and cook it right here."

"what?"

"Don't worry, I caught a nest of Catachan demons from next to my holiday villa. The largest one is about the size of a train. I raised them on the Nightfall, so the meat of these burgers is absolutely fresh. If you think it's not enough, I'll go back and kill two more, which will be a good opportunity to choose a few lucky keepers for them."

"I tell you, Guilliman."

"It would be much more useful to have them as keepers of these little fellows than any red gloves."

"...Conrad?"

"what happened?"

"Have your scion and crew done anything to disappoint you recently?"

"Not really: but they will disappoint me terribly some day in the future."

"Why... do you think so?"

Guilliman frowned, unable to understand his brother's words: although, this was not the first time he could not understand some of Conrad's weird words, and this disagreement did not affect his friendship with Midnight Haunter, but this time, the Macragge man felt that he still needed to dig deeper.

Is the Primarch disappointed with his offspring?
Come on: this is serious.

The worry that shone from the Macragge's stupid eyes was so strong that even Conrad, who had sunbathed on the cliffs of Catachan, felt a little overwhelmed: Fortunately, before that, the frowning Spider Queen rescued her brother with a short cough.

【enough! 】

[Conrad, stop messing around! ]

Morgan rubbed her temple, her brows slightly darkened, holding a contact letter engraved with the World Eaters logo in her hand. The slightly rubbed edges proved that it would definitely not be good news: when all these elements surrounded the Spider Queen who had been working for a few days, even Guilliman, who wanted to get to the bottom of the matter, shut his mouth obediently.

After all, he also had some credit for Morgan's dark circles.

The Macragge blinked.

#innocent#
"With pleasure, my dear sister!"

The gene-father of the Eighth Legion jumped to his seat like a happy fruit bat, his wooden slippers making a clacking sound on the stone slabs, mixed with the sound of ordering food.

Opposite Conrad, Vulkan, who had remained silent all the time, reluctantly put down the Eldar bone sculpture in his hand. His huge body still maintained a restrained silence: the Lord of Fire Dragons has never been good at or liked to talk in such brotherly gatherings. The only action he made was a gentle smile.

But as luck would have it, the other three people present seemed to need this thing very much.

Guilliman responded to the Fire Lord's nod with a proper, formulaic smile, and then glanced past Conrad to focus on the letter in Morgan's hand: from his position he could only see fragments of it, but the Macragge man deduced the full text from them.

"Angron still can't come back?"

[He is tracking a powerful pirate group, whose leader is an alien wizard who only Angron can deal with. If we evacuate at this time, all our efforts will be wasted, and several star regions will be threatened again: He told us that if it is too late, we don’t need to wait for him, he will go to Ullanor on his own.]

"Isn't this not good?"

Guilliman ran his fingers over the soft, light moustache at the corners of his lips.

"But there's nothing I can do about it."

Halfway through his words, the Lord of Five Hundred Worlds suddenly shook his head and smiled helplessly. He realized that he actually had no reason to blame Angron: in the past two months, each Primarch was doing his own thing, like a pile of loose sand.

Angron was off chasing a group of slave pirates, Konrad was on a literal vacation on Catachan, Guilliman was spending time in his enclave, and Vulkan and his legion were on a planet that had just suffered a severe geological disaster.

As for Morgan?
Morgan was responsible for bringing together these street urchins who were all doing their own things.

"Like a slave to darkness."

The Midnight Haunter sitting next to the Macragge seemed to be able to read his thoughts and interrupted him for no reason, a gloomy smile appearing on his narrow face: Guilliman instinctively realized that this sentence had a hidden meaning, but he really didn't understand what the Dark Slaves were.

"Nothing important, bro."

Conrad continued to smile, but his tanned face was not as attractive as before. "You are becoming a little paranoid: maybe you should take a vacation like me."

"I'm afraid not, Conrad."

Guilliman immediately shook his head.

"Two months is enough time for me to plan the future of three star regions, or complete a small-scale expedition. I have no intention of criticizing your outlook on life, but I really don't understand why you would go on a vacation that is basically useless during the Great Crusade."

Halfway through his speech, the Macragge paused for a moment, and then simply blurted out the questions in his mind: This somewhat straightforward, even accusatory inquiry made Vulkan, who was sitting next to him, frown. He first glanced at Morgan, who was still reviewing the documents without moving a muscle, and then looked at See.

Midnight Haunter was not angry at all, he had long been accustomed to Guilliman's condemnation, just as he would occasionally grab Guilliman's pigtails and make sarcastic remarks: this was the way the two of them got along, and their friendship did not fade because of this quarrel.

So, Midnight Haunter answered his brother in a fairly serious manner.

"Guilliman, what makes you think my vacation life is meaningless? Whether it is in the Far Eastern Frontier or in the Five Hundred Worlds, whether it is the Astartes under our command or the mortals, don't they all have their own rest time? Even my Legion is the same."

"I will let them take turns to rest and go to the resort worlds in the Far East to recuperate. This is what I learned from Morgan. Didn't you follow Morgan's footsteps decades ago and promote this reform on the Five Hundred Worlds? Why are you blaming me now? Don't we Primarchs need rest?"

Not to mention Guilliman's reaction to Konrad's words, Vulkan, who was sitting in the corner, pricked up his ears with his pupils slightly shining: rotating rest and vacation world, these two words seemed a little unfamiliar to the Lord of Fire Dragon, but judging from the tone of Konrad and Guilliman, the implementation of this system should be able to bring benefits, right?
The Fire Dragon Lord wondered whether he should give it a try in the future, but he had no plans to create any vacation world: the Salamanders would return to the rural communes of Nocturne in their spare time to help out, and it would be enough for the Primarch to formally establish this public custom in the Legion, and it could even be gradually extended to every world he would protect in the future.

The Fire Dragon Lord nodded secretly, while Guilliman next to him shook his head in annoyance, tapping the table lightly with his bent fingers to avoid disturbing Morgan who was still correcting documents: his voice was low and quick, and unwavering.

"This is different, bro."

"Our soldiers need a long rest period to relieve the pain caused by war or long hours of work, but we don't need it: I have personally tested it and found that only five minutes of deep sleep can support seven days of continuous high-intensity work. Moreover, the current environment does not allow us, the Primarchs, to be so lazy."

"It is not time for us to rest yet. We are in the prime of life, and we are in the long stage of life when we need to work hard. My dear brother Conrad, when we are old and have completed our work, we can find a place to enjoy our rest time, not now."

These words made the ghost frown.

"Guilliman? What makes you think we need to work now?"

"You need to work when you are young, and you only need to rest when you are old, isn't that right?"

Guilliman was shocked, as if all truth in the world was being questioned.

"How can you be sure that we are not in the last moments of our lives?"

Conrad tilted his head, his snake-like black hair coiled around his broad shoulders: Midnight Haunter's easy words startled the already sensitive and thoughtful Guilliman. By the time the Macragge man reacted, he found that cold sweat had already seeped out of the back of his neck.

"What do you mean, Conrad!"

"Nothing, bro: don't be nervous."

The Primarch winked.

"I'm just reminding you, don't think that if you finish all the hard work now, you will be able to enjoy peace and happiness in the future. Hardships will only lead to happiness in storybooks. No one can accurately plan their life. Sometimes, you have to learn to be short-sighted."

"Life is short, Guilliman: do whatever you want now."

"Maybe there won't be another chance in the future."

"you……"

The Macragge opened his mouth.

"What kind of prophecy is this?"

"Prophecy? Of course not."

"I'm just giving you a heads up."

Conrad blinked again, making it difficult for Guilliman to figure out his thoughts.

"My ability to predict the future has been in a state of collapse and decline for more than a decade. Sometimes I even wonder if this ability of predicting the future is born to torture me. When I can no longer get pain from it, then there is no need for this ability to exist."

"So don't worry, Guilliman: I just want you to be more open-minded."

“Who knows what the future will bring?”

"You're right, right Morgan?"

While saying this, Midnight Haunter's eyes turned to his sister: Morgan had already reviewed the last document. She glanced at everyone present and stopped Guilliman and Conrad from continuing their conversation with her eyes: The Three Kings of the Far East have cultivated a deep friendship during their long period of cooperation, which is inseparable from the various tacit understandings and treaties they have already reached with each other.

The most important point is that although there is no distinction between the three, there are leaders in each specific field: generally speaking, the words of whoever is in the territory will be respected by the other two, and when facing the problem of Terra, Guilliman and Conrad will tend to agree with Morgan's ideas.

As for the conflicts of interest between them?
Even brothers have to settle accounts clearly.

[And now, it’s time for us brothers to settle accounts. ]

The Primarch waved her hand, ending the quarrel between Guilliman and Konrad. She invited Vulkan to join with a smile, then waved to her Virgo, and the star map of the Maelstrom region was spread out on the table.

[Give the order, everyone. We will set off towards Ullanor immediately.]

【While navigating the warp, we will finalize our agreement with each other.】

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This one was originally going to be 6,000 words, but my phone had some problems today, so I couldn't finish revising the remaining 2,000 words in time (I should have said before that I was typing on my phone). Let me see how I should deal with these 2,000 words.

But there will be no update tonight: I have been so sleepy these two days because of the scraping to remove heat and toxins.

(End of this chapter)