40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 490 8. Walking with the Shadow

It's raining.

Tujia doesn't like rain very much, but now he can only accept it calmly.

While still on the cargo ship, before landing, he heard the crew on the cargo ship talking about Litatra. In their words, this nest that is almost included in the solar system is a world where it rains often and the rainy season is very long.

This is not a good thing for them.

Just imagine, a voyage takes at least six months. During these six months, I could only squeeze in with a dozen stinking old men. Can't sleep well, can't eat well, can't have any privacy.
Then, finally one day, the ordeal ended.

The ship docks at the port and begins trading and rest. The captain will generously provide a full month's leave. During this period, you can go to women or men at will, and you can also gamble, fight, and drink alcohol.
As long as the local laws allow it and you can guarantee your return on time, you can completely enjoy yourself. No one will say anything about it, and no more first mates or captains will beat you with a stick, tear up your home-made playing cards, take away your gambling money or cigarettes, and make you clean the toilet.

As a result, it started raining in Litatra. Cold, continuous rain. The clothes will never dry, the shoes will always stay wet, and the toes will be soaked and swollen in the boots. If you are not careful, it may even lead to amputation.

Water dripped from the ceilings of pubs and hotels, making it impossible to sleep without a blanket at night, and the raindrops hitting the windows made a disturbing noise.

Even if you go out with dark eyes the next day, you need to be careful, because there will probably be pale and bloated corpses facing down on the street. Yes, some residents always choose to live low down, or deep down - don't care about the reasons, they will die anyway, and no one will care.

"Yes, cooperation." Zell said nonchalantly. "On a larger scale, this is another collaborative effort between the Ministry of Justice and my war group. On a smaller scale, this is a small collaboration between two investigators to investigate a conspiracy."

".You often cooperate with the legal department?"

"Oh why?"

A wonderful holiday can turn into a tasteless ordeal during the rainy season.

According to the plan, Tujia raised his gun and began to aim.

Almost like a ghost. The investigator thought to himself, getting goosebumps.

Then, he discovered that Zell's eyepiece seemed not to be so bright at the moment, and another thing - he was clearly standing next to him, but Tujia still couldn't hear the slightest breath.

He was already unlucky enough tonight. If he had to wait for another ten minutes, he would still have to fight for his life in soaked clothes.
"Why don't you speak, Investigator Tujia?"

Tujia was silent for a moment, raised his head and said, "I thought I was the investigator. Do you even need to investigate such a thing, sir?"

Astartes, who called himself Zell, seemed to chuckle. Tujaa finally raised his head and looked at him, somewhat surprised that he would smile.

"Actually, the order I originally received was just to continue to protect you and give you some traces at the right time to test your alertness. But the things you discovered tonight have already involved another thing, so I must Show up.”

A voice sounded above his head. Tujia interrupted his divergent thoughts and controlled his thoughts of looking up and observing. Raindrops fell from the sky, fell on his hat and shoulders, and quickly slipped away.

Tujia said without looking up: "Because I hate rain."

"Yes." Zell nodded, but did not explain more, but left the place quietly.

The surface of this jacket, which only sells for five imperial coins, is made of a synthetic material that prevents raindrops from penetrating the surface and soaking the inside. For him, this is a good thing.

"I'm just curious. However, in essence, there is no difference between you and me now. We are both investigators, but my scope of authority is slightly larger than yours. Therefore, I don't think you need to call me sir. , we are a cooperative relationship.”

His surprise was turning into surprise.

"Cooperation?" Tujia asked.

Tujia was silent again for a few seconds. He didn't care about the second half of Zell's words, but he was particularly concerned about the first half.

"It's natural rain."

Zell spoke softly.

Two seconds later, with the sound of a gunshot, searchlights immediately lit up from the dark walls of the Moran family, shining on the place where Tujia once stood. But he had already retreated into the dark alley and gently pulled down the hammer.

At the same time, a dull sound also vaguely reached his ears, followed by a very obvious shout.

"what?!"

The light source of the searchlight quickly went away, gunshots rang out loudly, but piercing screams sounded from the city wall. The searchlights began to go out one by one, leaving only a faint moonlight.

Tujia squatted down, quickly reached the entrance of the alley, and saw several security guards with their backs to him. The guns in their hands were pointed at the sky, looking wet and dangerous in the rain.

If it weren't for the sound, they would have walked to the alley quietly and pointed their guns at Tujia. However, once some opportunities are lost, they will never be available again.

Another burst of screams sounded. The gunshots were loud, but the screams never stopped, and the muffled sound was even more continuous, and it had spread from the city wall to the blast door.

The security guards of the Moran family squeezed the triggers in fear, and the gunfire flashed, briefly revealing a tall black figure again and again.

A gunshot, a gunfire, and an approaching black shadow are simply like a natural law, a cruel and ruthless natural law that will definitely bring about killing once it appears.

The heavy armor worn by the security guards had no effect on this shadow. Their necks were broken or their spines were broken by kicks. An atmosphere of fear began to spread in the darkness. They still opened fire, but this only brought faster and more death.

Tujia looked away and slowly raised the gun.

The security guards standing not far from him had fallen into a daze. The flames erupting from the muzzle could indeed briefly illuminate one side of the black shadow, but it moved too fast, and they could only see a faint trace. film.

As a result, their one-sided exploration of the truth destroyed their sanity. They simply could not understand why their companions were completely killed by an invisible thing in just a few seconds.

Tujia actually couldn't understand it, he just knew what he should do.

He pulled the trigger.

A bullet roared out of the barrel of the gun and embedded itself deeply into the back of a security guard's head. It failed to penetrate further, and the thick helmet prevented the Catahan MK3's bullet from penetrating further.

Tujia was not surprised, it was expected. Heavy armor was expensive for a reason. The security guard who was attacked roared, turned around, and started shooting randomly. His companions followed, like animated toy soldiers, and began raining bullets into the deserted streets.

The moonlight and raindrops shone on them together, and the moist rain was mixed with the extremely strong smell of blood. Little did they know that something was watching in the darkness.

Tujia leaned against the wall of the alley and began to wait silently. About two seconds later, all gunfire suddenly stopped and the world returned to silence.

He put down the gun and walked out of the alley. A large amount of blood mixed with the rain came and slid over his boots.

Tujia raised his head and happened to see the last security guard still standing staggering down. His body was facing Tujia, but his head had been twisted behind his back.

A dark figure stood next to the bodies of him and his companions, gently waving his hands, blood spattered, and disappeared into the raindrops.

He turned around without saying a word, and the rain curtain suddenly shattered. Tujia squinted his eyes, feeling the swift and terrifying wind, and his throat rolled up and down several times uncontrollably.

The blast door lowered again.

Tujia stepped forward and bent down to pick up a shotgun from the ground. The moment he bought it, he felt lucky - fortunately, the Moran family was not rich enough to equip these security guards' weapons with biometrics, otherwise he probably wouldn't even be able to use these guns.

"How?" A voice asked in the darkness.

"What?" Tujia asked stiffly.

"From the perspective of a collaborator, do you think I'm still qualified?"

Zell's voice sounded like a smile from above his head. Tujia looked up and found that he was hanging on the edge of a searchlight and staring down. Blood began to flow down from his right hand holding the searchlight, and hit the ground together with the rain.

A chill arose in Tujia's heart. He forced to swallow the fear that he had for no apparent reason. He lowered his head and began to check the shotgun in his hand. When he spoke again, his voice had become calmer.

"With all due respect, I have never cooperated with you. I do not have a proper criterion for judging. In fact, I have never heard of any precedent of cooperation with the Astartes Chapter within the Ministry of Justice."

"This is actually a good thing for you, Investigator." Zell replied softly.

He let go of his hand, fell behind him, splashed a pool of rain, and disappeared into the darkness again.

Tujia tried to catch him in the darkness, but found nothing. He stood there and stared for half a minute, his eyes so painful that he couldn't even see a shadow. In desperation, Tujia had no choice but to step through the lowered blast door.

As soon as he entered, the raindrops disappeared in an instant, and the independent bio-dome firmly blocked them out. Tujia took off his hat and shook it, and began to look around and observe.

Under the dim light of the night light, the first thing he saw was a luxurious main road paved with marble. It was about twelve meters wide, enough to accommodate any vehicle.

The roads were lush on both sides, and the lush green dazzled his eyes. He turned around and saw that every patch of grass, fence, or tree had an independently operating cultivation system, and he couldn't even name these plants.

Their leaves were trimmed neatly, and they were staring coldly at the shabby stranger in the dark. The breeze blew by, and Tujia put on his hat silently and continued to move forward.

The hive city is like this. There are always places that are more splendid than the palace.

He had been walking along the marble road for about twenty minutes, and the sound of gunshots would always come from the front, never stopping, turning into a rhythmic percussion under the night.

One after another, heavily armored corpses fell on the road or among the green plants. The automatic turrets and watchtowers hidden among the trees had been completely destroyed. The instigators even used some means to prevent them from catching fire. .

The meadow remained just meadow and did not turn into a blazing inferno.

Tujia looked at these things in disbelief and walked stiffly to the end of the road.

At this moment, in the bright light, one luxurious mansion after another is located in an orderly manner on a man-made mountain. They have uniform white exterior walls, which are extremely clean and appear very elegant.

A suspension bridge that had not yet been lowered connected the marble highway where he was standing. There was the sound of water surging under the bridge. Tujia looked down and saw sparkling waves. He raised his head again and looked at the mansions, as if he saw a small town deliberately isolated from the world.

He narrowed his eyes and shook his head, feeling a sense of unreal absurdity.

He thought he would never get used to these luxuries and what they represented. In his opinion, these houses seemed to have a hazy halo that made people's eyes swell.
Tujia couldn't help but sigh. The lights that illuminated the town suddenly went out at this moment, and darkness fell instantly. At the same time, the suspension bridge slowly fell down.

A voice came from behind him without warning.

"Let's go."

Tujia turned his head sharply and instinctively raised the shotgun in his hand.

His movement was too fast and too hasty, and the barrel of the gun awkwardly hit a piece of hard steel. In the violent friction, sparks flew everywhere, and a tall black shadow briefly appeared for a moment.

Tujia had no time to care. He stepped back a few steps with an unstable center of gravity. When he was about to fall, a hand reached out from the darkness at the right time, pulled the handguard of the shotgun, and gently helped. He kept his balance.

The investigator gasped, wiped a trace of cold sweat from his forehead, and then spoke: "His Majesty, the God Emperor, can you not do this?"

"I didn't do anything, I just reminded you."

"I almost shot him!"

"This level of firepower cannot penetrate my power armor."

Tujia's eyes twitched, he looked down at the shotgun with a damaged barrel, pursed his lips and threw it down. Without a word he took out the revolver from his jacket, turned and walked onto the drawbridge.

"Of course, friendly fire is really annoying, no matter which side it is." Zell passed over him like a gust of wind, and dropped a sentence that seemed to be a smile but not a smile. "I'll be more careful, Investigator."

Tujia still said nothing. He held the gun tightly, sweating profusely in the comfortable constant temperature created by the biodome.

He had chosen to stop thinking.

(End of this chapter)