40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 162 23. One-Day War ([-])

"I'm from Nostramo, Enric." Khalil said in a low voice. "A rotting star, a planet drenched in the blood of innocents. You've seen it, Captain. What's your impression of it?"

Anrik Barbatos was silent for a long time before giving an answer amidst the tremors on the ground.

Before that, he just held the helmet in his arms, unable to take his eyes off Khalil Rohars's body - the black and white armor intertwined with each other, the cloak like a living thing and like a shadow, the cold light of forest blue .
He stared at these details, feeling that his teeth and tongue were glued together, with a fishy sweetness like blood.Opening your mouth to speak is a painful torture.

Enric survived the ordeal.

"...it should be baptized by fire."

"Yes."

The skeleton nodded slowly.

"It should have been burned, reduced to rotten dust, and destroyed by the battleships. Nostramo changed me and your Primarch forever. It taught me many things, and I will never because These things are grateful for it."

Enric heard a cold chuckle—he had never heard an instructor of the Eighth Army laugh with such a terrible voice.

In fact, in his or their perception, Khalil Rohars is not only gentle, but even full of responsibility.No matter how you look at it, he doesn't look like someone who should be in the Eighth Army.

However, at this moment, Enric Barbatos suddenly realized one thing.

Before that?
Before they knew him, before Khalil Rohars was an instructor in the Eighth Regiment?Who is he?

More details swept in, turned into roaring waves, and began to wreak havoc in Enrique's mind.He opened his mouth blankly, took a big mouthful of air, and tasted the extremely strong smell of blood with the tip of his tongue.

The darkness continued to gather, and they became heavy and oppressive.There was a thunderous sound like a beating heart coming from all directions, and the long dead began to howl, scream, and curse.

Enrique clenched his hands, his teeth clenched and rattled, and he stood trembling on the edge of the darkness, waiting for the verdict of the one who called them.

or answer.

After five seconds of silence, Enrique got his answer.

"It takes nine seconds to drain a man's blood, Enrik. I learned this from a nobleman who proudly wrote these figures in his notebook with a blood-stained quill."

"He murdered 470 people to get this statistic. I killed him and he didn't regret it, he was just confused—confused that I would kill him because of it."

"Similarly, I was also puzzled. I was puzzled as to why he could regard such a cruel massacre as a kind of entertainment, a feat that could be used to boast at dinner tables and dances. Later, I understood the reason. And now ,I would like to know"

"How long does it take to drain the blood of a civilization?"

Enrique looked helplessly at the skull's eye sockets burning with black and angry flames, and said hoarsely: "I——I don't know, instructor."

"I don't know," Khalil said quietly. "But we'll find out later."

Khalil opened his hands slowly, but Enrique's two hearts began to beat wildly.A new kind of fear rose in him, and he realized something, and it was definitely not a good thing for him to realize.

A hoarse and broken sound emerged rhythmically from the deeper darkness. Following the tremor of the ground, the spire itself began to tremble.

At this moment, the characters engraved by the Harkosus wriggling between the metal floor and the wall began to shine brightly, and then they began to melt, and the voices began to become more and more clear, until they completely resounded throughout the world. In Anrik's ear.

After listening in silence for a while, Enric finally realized what the voices were doing.

They were singing, singing a carol.It's about hatred, about vengeance, about the obsession that the dead can't let go—it's about a name.

Enrique bent down, feeling a burning sensation rising from his body.The pain of burning all five inside came immediately, and he slowly supported the ground with his hands, and the names of the dead swept across.In the boundary between fantasy and reality, Enrique Barbatos raised his head and asked with all his strength.

"...What price will you pay this time, instructor?"

"Good question," Khalil said.

He didn't answer.
-
Konrad Curz strangled the last alien with his hands, dropped the corpse, and stood up calmly.He began to walk forward softly, like a floating ghost rather than a human being with actual weight.

VanCleef followed closely behind him, almost inseparable - the First Captain had made up his mind to create a separate Guard post for the Primarch after this battle.

Konrad Curze almost never acted with his legion, he always led the way, jumping into the crowd to kill.This incident quite challenged the hearts of the members of the Eighth Army. After all, it is difficult for you to see where Curz is.

Once on the kill, he's like an erratic cloud that descends on any foe.But, until then, you'll never know when he's coming.

No one -- or living thing -- can look up to the sky all the time.

"The wind has changed."

Conrad Koz spoke suddenly. He stood in the middle of the battlefield, the sky was scarlet, like the bloodshot eyes of a dying person.He lowered his head and muttered to a strange corpse, as if speaking to it.But Van Cleef heard his name from the Primarch's mouth.

"Did you feel it, VanCleef? The wind has changed."

The first company commander looked at Curz blankly—he tried to answer, but his heart pulled him into a frantic scene in the next second.

The rain of corpses fell from the scarlet sky and spread wildly. A strange green color swept across the starry sky, but was firmly blocked by the burning black flames.The image only appeared for a split second, but Van Cleef knew he wasn't hallucinating.

He is wide awake.

"The direction of the wind has changed." Konrad Curz turned his head and looked at his first company commander with thoughtful eyes. The gaze seemed to have magical power, and it was two black vortexes that were constantly rotating.He stood there, pondered for a moment, then suddenly turned and left, leaving only one order.

"Ready to contact Nightfall, Van Cleef. The second phase has begun."

The first company commander watched his primarch leave with a complicated expression, and heaved a heavy sigh.

　started to speed up
　　
　
(End of this chapter)