40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 159 20. The Difference of Conquest
It was fun to realize it—something that was crazy, something Kahn himself didn't quite want to believe.

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

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

The corpses caused by the massacre and bombing were run over by the tanks of the war dogs and turned into bloody mud.The air was filled with dust, black smoke rose silently, and planes whizzed past in the sky, heading to another part of the city to search.

The war starts, it ends, they win.

To a man who had never seen war with his own eyes, these things were undoubtedly horrific, but their primarchs quickly accepted it all.

Karn had worried that the Primarch would be disturbed by their bloodlust in battle - the War Hounds - but Angron said nothing about it.

First Captain Baron Benson posted his thoughts on the incident on the comm channel, saying it was nothing to the Primarch because "he's seen far worse," Kahn agreed. This sentence.

We've all seen it.

The young Eighth Company Commander thought to himself—we've all seen scarier things.

He turned, looked down, and saw a man approaching with a spear.He wore two mortal-sized short-cut bolters on his belt, and his blue-and-white carapace looked simple, save for a warhound emblem on his right shoulder.A small part of it was covered with blood, and it looked hideous.

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

"I'm not your officer," Kahn said. "I am not responsible for the auxiliary army."

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

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

There was a slight problem with the temperature regulation system in his helmet. Although he could tolerate worse temperatures, if given the choice, who wouldn't want to temporarily experience the feeling of being blown across the cheek by the breeze?

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

The gladiator grinned, shook his head, and put the spear in his hand behind his back.He adapted quickly to the carapace, and he was even able to make the weapon stick to the magnetic hook on the back with just a touch.

"I really didn't expect there to be such an ugly thing in the world." He pouted, and Kahn turned his head and saw an alien being overwhelmed by the ruins.

"How did they get to look like this?"

"This is already considered a relatively normal appearance." Kahn said. "At least they don't have an exoskeleton, fangs and claws and eight legs that can stab you right through."

The gladiator raised an eyebrow.

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

"Okay, I believe you." The gladiator who had been promoted to sergeant nodded. "You guys know a lot more than us Nucerian bumpkins."

Kahn smiled—that's why he liked chatting with gladiators. Their language was sharp, and the jokes sounded like sarcasm, but that was it.

That's what it's going to be.

"So, what do you want me to do?"

"What manual is that—"

The gladiator spoke in High Gothic with a strong accent.

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

"So, what's the matter?" Kahn asked, the smile gradually fading, and he had realized something.

"Things that can speak human language." Karelian turned his head and spat bloody saliva at the dead alien. "Looks the same thing as them, but with a bit of a human face."

Kahn frowned sharply.

Thirteen minutes later, he and Karelian arrived at the underground laboratory.The gladiators from Nuceria surrounded the place layer by layer, and many of them had extremely ugly expressions, as if they had just experienced an earthquake.

"It's all about that stuff," Karelian said. "We were going to kill them, but Kleist thought it best to report it. So I went all the way for you."

Kleist—a wild face appeared in Kahn's mind, a female gladiator who liked to use spears as weapons, and performed well in training. Like Karelian, she could directly call their Primarch name.

"Where are they?" asked the eighth company commander of the War Hounds.

"Inside, follow me."

They walked through some huge gaps blasted by grenades, then some exposed cables and pools of blood, and finally, after three minutes of bending over, Kahn saw the things.

His cheeks began to twitch.

"By Terra," he whispered, the gladiator sighed, and patted the Warhound's waist empathetically.

The emergency lights in this research institute illuminated the darkness, and Kahn clearly saw the shivering creatures hiding in the corner.They are neither human nor alien, they are creatures between human and alien.

Some of them seem to temporarily retain their human appearance, but the skulls have begun to change shape, and many densely packed holes have also begun to appear on their foreheads, and some pink granules are wriggling in them.

Others have almost no human form, their faces look no different from those of the aliens, but their limbs still barely retain the shape of a human.Karn's fingers were already on the bolters on his belt belt, and he wanted to kill them instinctively, but he didn't.

He still has his sanity.

"How is it, sir?" Carelian returned to the gruff tone. "How to deal with it?"

good question.

Kahn took a deep breath—what else could be done?
Angron arrived here 15 minutes later.
-
"A wise choice," said Robert Guilliman. "I'm glad you made this choice, Mr. Domingo."

The stooped man smiled tremblingly, the gray uniform on his body was completely covered by the black dust, his forehead was smashed, and there was still blood on it.

Under the signal of the two ever-victorious soldiers, he quickly left the temporary room. Robert Guilliman watched him go away, looked down at the surrender agreement on the table, and could not help but smiled.

Harkosus III has a complete natural environment. It is undoubtedly a good thing to take this planet without destroying them and make it submit to the empire.At least this planet can rely on tourism to boost the local people's livelihood in the future, so that the civilians here have an additional welfare subsidy.

Guilliman stood up emotionally but relievedly, walked out of the room, and came to the communication position.Dozens of instruments were carefully placed here, as men and women from Ultramar busily established a vital link in the basic communications of the Ultramarines on Harkosus III.

"Send a message to the Glory of Macragge," Guilliman told them, smiling. "Have them contact the Nightfall and the Resolute by shipcom or astropath. I want to know how my brothers are doing."

The Emperor's words flashed in his mind, and the smile on Robert Guilliman's face became even brighter.

He would not comment on the means by which the Eighth Legion and the War Dogs conquered the planets they were responsible for, but he hoped that they would be safe while still being efficient.

The communication position quickly transmitted the Primarch's request back to the Glory of Macragge, and Guilliman walked out of the position, he did not intend to wait here.He chose to stand side by side with his First Chapter Master at the front of the position, staring together at the city they had 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 mild. "If my memory serves me well, we've broken the record today."

Marius Gage nodded: "But it's internal records, Primarch. The record for fastest conquest is held by the Eighth Legion, who previously reclaimed that planet in just two hours and 21 minutes in a counter-insurgency." come back."

Guilliman raised his eyebrows in surprise—he was genuinely surprised that these records were not circulated or had any written records.Two hours and 21 minutes of conquest is unimaginable to anyone, especially when you know the size of the Eighth Legion.

"They're very efficient at that," Marius said. "As has always been the case, the tactics of the Eighth Army have been almost devastating to the sanity of the local rulers."

Robert Guilliman couldn't help but laugh. 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 side of the city, and began to think about the future of Harkosus III. Since this place is close to Nostramo, can he open up a new tourist route in Macragge's trading route? ?
Passing through Nostramo and reaching the primeval forest of Harkosus III sounds pretty good.

Robert Guilliman was thinking as a politician, but after just half a minute, his warrior instincts tore it all apart and started screaming in his mind.

"Enemy attack!" Half a minute later, amidst the huge tremors on the ground, Marius Gage roared in the communication channel of the Ultramarines without warning.

　I'm stuck, and I stayed up late today to write.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)