40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 660 42. Belated Judgment (XV)

Holding his helmet in his arms, Zabril slowly sat down. The breeze of the early morning blew in his face, conveying some information that ordinary people could not notice. From it, he knew that the forest was reviving.
It would be rather odd to use this expression elsewhere to describe the forest in the early morning; nocturnal animals and plants that do not distinguish between day and night do not live by the human concept of time.

But that's how Caliban is. Once night falls, even the best hunters will choose to retreat to their hiding places and wait for dawn.

Zabril found a small peace in imagining the dew sliding down the leaves. He lowered his head, placed his helmet on a boulder that served as a temporary chair, and began to look into the distance.

At this time, he had come to the top of a cliff. The endless green forest spreading out from his feet was slightly undulating like the ocean. The trees and their leaves robbed all the light, crowding every inch of space. Only a few areas could still enjoy direct sunlight.

The Dark Angel stared at this completely unfamiliar world and couldn't help feeling a little horrified.

Yes, he knew this was Caliban, but...
He unconsciously looked down at the palm of his right hand, where a Sky Eagle emblem was being inspected by him.

The material that made up the bulk of it was a mixed metal, not a particularly good material, and the edges had faded in several places, making the eagle's wings look almost like they were stained with blood.

Zabril stared at it for a long time before looking away. After a brief fight with Serafax, the found eagle emblem projected another golden door and led him into it.

He was a little worried about this. The task given to him by the old knight came to his mind word by word. The dark angel frowned, thinking about what was hidden in those words that still seemed like riddles.
He soon realized that he would have to travel through time again soon, and inevitably became worried about it.

Zabril hated Serafax, but he had to admit that the fallen traitor was right about one thing: he should not have such power, nor should he be able to travel through time so freely.

What consequences will this bring? Will the future he is in, his 'present', change because of his actions?
For a moment, the Dark Angel inevitably felt a little shaken. It was very slight, but it was real. Some impulsive thoughts flowed into his mind along with this shake, and many voices began to whisper to him.

Zabril was completely unaware of the danger and just listened to their stories in a daze. It was not until everything was silent and a whistling wind rushed into his eardrums that the Dark Angel realized with horror that those voices sounded exactly the same as Serafax's.

They say: You can change everything.

Zabril clenched his fists instinctively, and a gust of wind passed over his head, accompanied by a roar that made him feel instinctively familiar. Without any hesitation, his body took action before his brain could react.

He stepped back to the stone, picked up his helmet and put it on, then jumped back into the dense green. The sky cut by the trees on the cliff came into his sight, and dozens of powerful gunboats passed lightly through it.
Behind the helmet, Zabril's eyes widened instantly, and he saw the golden eagle emblem and lightning on the fuselage of these gunships very clearly.

He immediately shut down all the tactical systems built into the power armor through the neural connection, leaving only the most basic auxiliary operation. Even if there was only a slight possibility, Zabril was unwilling to take the risk. He didn't dare to gamble on what would happen if he was discovered.

Then the sky darkened, the sun was blocked, and an indescribable wind, a thousand times stronger than the previous one, descended from overhead. Fire, light, a kind of ecstatic splendor.
A floating city descended from above his head, floated away.

Zabril stopped breathing.

For the second time in his life, he saw the Emperor's Vision.

The Emperor has arrived, and he has come for a meeting with his son, Lion El'Jonson.

This means that Zabril's time has been pushed back several decades again, and it also means that the assassination that the old knight told him about is about to happen simultaneously.
Before Luthor disappeared, he told him that he had taken care of everything. Zabril was skeptical of this statement. The messed up timeline may have made Luthor's efforts come to naught. Moreover, he was not the only one in this messed up timeline.

Although Serafax could never pose any threat to the Emperor, the same thing applies - Zabril did not dare to take the risk, nor could he sit idly by and watch an assassination attempt on the Emperor.

Before becoming a Dark Angel, he was an Angel of Death serving directly under the Emperor.

Zabril took a deep breath and made a decision.
-
People are partying.

Endless wine, plate after plate of food served on the table, songs coming from nowhere. The flames shot up into the sky, illuminating half of the night sky as if it were daytime. The Oduruk Fortress Monastery was wrapped in this light as if it was suspended in the sky, but the densely packed crowds pulled it back to reality. A kind of ecstasy was spreading among them.

The Calibans already knew what the Emperor had done, the preachers from Terra had already done their work these days. Glorious Terra, great Emperor. Although they had not experienced it, the Calibans were proud of it.

Many of them have equated the Emperor with a native Caliban god they once believed in, believing that he is a god walking on earth who can free them from suffering and allow them to live in eternal happiness.

This endless banquet was one of the omens. The peddlers sat at the table and laughed heartily. They no longer fantasized about the future as cautiously as before, but expressed their imaginations openly, without caring about the expressions of the knights sitting at another table not far away.

As for the civilians, they already have new protectors.

Some people were unhappy about this, and Zabril saw it all too clearly in the darkness.

He had been hiding in the forest four kilometers away from the Fortress Knights for a whole day, and the engineering machinery had not yet started to attack him. They had already cleared enough space to prepare for tomorrow.

The Emperor has arrived, and there are only a dozen hours left before he will officially meet with the Calibans. At this critical juncture, it is obviously not a wise move to continue letting these machines work.

Zabril used the eyepiece to observe the entire fortress monastery motionlessly, breathing very softly. Although he had explored and found no trace of the guard troops nearby, this was probably only temporary.

Not long ago, he had seen some vague shadows flashing across the northern cliffs in the night.
The Dark Angel smiled bitterly to himself, realizing that what he was doing now was more like an assassin.

Three hours later, the lively atmosphere of the banquet gradually faded. Most of the people who had been partying all day chose to leave. They had many tents in the open space not far away for rest. Many knights also left the table and returned to the monastery in groups of three or four. They would most likely choose to meditate tonight.

Zabril looked into the distance and saw a huge, vague shape, rising and falling like a mountain. He knew that it was the Emperor's Dream. The Emperor himself was on it, waiting for tomorrow with his guards.

Zabril didn't know exactly how many people there were in the guards, but it must be quite a lot. However, this was not a problem he needed to consider. He only needed to enter the Oduruk Monastery, where the assassin must be.

Zabril still remembered the faces he had seen when he was talking to Luther and following his instructions to look at the walls of Oduruk. These people did not attend the banquet, which was probably normal. After all, this was the last day, and they naturally had to seize this time to confirm whether every link was appropriate.
Zabril stood up and ran out of the forest silently towards the monastery. A distance of four thousand meters was only a matter of a few minutes for a Terran veteran, even if he used stealth technology throughout the whole process.

It didn't take him much effort to bypass the spies and walk into the crowd, which was no longer crowded.

His MK2, which had been through many hardships but had been carefully repaired and maintained at the last moment before being scrapped, did not look out of place in this era, and even the cloak would not attract too much attention - after all, it was the early days of the th millennium, and it was common for Astartes to carve patterns and add various decorations to armor.

The Calibans along the way looked at him in awe and spontaneously made way for him, and no one tried to approach him to talk to him, as if he were a living statue or something similar.
This reminded Zabril of some of the comments he had heard when he first arrived on Caliban with the Legion.

Many of the older Calibans felt that the Astartes were not of the same species as themselves, and in the local newspapers these men engaged in passionate debates with opponents, in which their views were very clear.

Of course, this idea did not last long. When the lion led them to truly integrate into Caliban and recruited children of school age, this prejudice was quickly eliminated.

"—Sir?"

Zabril looked down and saw a young man. He was wearing the robes of an apprentice of the Order Knights, had a shaved head, and his expression was stuck between uneasiness and determination. It is worth mentioning that he had his hands behind his back.

"What's the matter?" Zabril asked knowingly. He had the advantage of height, so he could see clearly what the child was hiding.

The boy reached out from behind, shaking a heavy wooden wine glass in his hand, and the wine in the glass seeped down the wall of the glass. Zabril did not reach out to take it, but turned his head to look to the other side first.

Not far away was a long table filled with men in knight robes. A man with black hair and a black beard was raising his glass to him with a big smile on his face.

Zabril knew this man, but he felt only annoyed - he could not help it, because this man was Luther.

This is a damn timeline.
The Dark Angel cursed inwardly, took off his helmet with his backhand, took the wine glass specially made for people of their size from the boy with his right hand, turned around and raised the glass to Luther.

Out of politeness, he whispered to the boy before drinking: "What's your name, kid?"

The young man puffed out his chest excitedly: "My name is Coswayn, sir!"

"."

Zabril raised his head without saying a word and drank the beer in his glass. It was a local craft beer, nothing special.

He nodded to the boy, handed the wine glass back to him, nodded to Luther again, put on his helmet, and walked into the monastery of the Oduruk Fortress without any abnormality.

This place is no longer just for the knights, but also for the pioneers of the First Legion. They are few in number, and the main forces are still fighting in various parts of the galaxy and have not yet arrived.

Zabril was quite familiar with this period of history, as he was busy fighting a group of difficult aliens in the Oort Nebula at the time. It was only a year after the war that he learned of the return of the Primarch.
Thinking of this, Zabril's mood became somewhat complicated. These things themselves had provided him with precious strength during the years of escape. Although they also brought pain, they always reminded him of his oath to the Emperor and mankind.

But now, he has truly returned to the past and is on the same planet with the Emperor and the Primarch. What would happen if he revealed a little bit of what he had experienced to them?
Zabril tried to restrain himself, admonish and warn himself not to do such a stupid and crazy thing. However, his self-control suddenly lost its effect for some reason, and the saying "it can change everything" came back.

During the day it sounded like a mere whisper, but now it was as deafening as if someone was shouting at the top of their lungs in your ear.

Zabriel stopped silently and stood in the hall on the first floor of the Oduruk Monastery, his feet seemed to have taken root.

"You could have changed everything," the voice said. "Just think, Zabril, how much you could have done for the Emperor and for Mankind with your memories? Even at the cost of your life, if the Heresy had not happened."
There was a sound of footsteps coming from in front of him. Zabril raised his eyes and his pupils suddenly shrank to the size of a needle tip.

The person walking towards him was someone he was very familiar with.

This man had blond hair that fell to his shoulders. His skin was too pale to be that of a warrior, and his eyes were like green gemstones, appearing very deep in the light at that moment. He was wearing a white robe, simple in style, with the emblem of the First Legion on his chest.

An Astartes followed behind him, speaking to him, and Zabril recognized him instantly - Midris, the first of the Legion to fall to Caliban, and the first to communicate with the Primarch.

"In any case, my lord, we will see the outcome tomorrow." Midris said respectfully.

Lion El'Jonson nodded at him, and suddenly his eyes turned to Zabril.

"Who are you?" he asked calmly.

(End of this chapter)