40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 669 51. Belated Judgment (Twenty, 8K)

Lion El'Jonson asked himself - Have I ever thought about this?

This kind of thing? What kind? Oh, excuse me, great Lord of the First Army, are you referring to your talent? You think you have a unique talent, the only one in the galaxy?

In the past ten thousand years, you have played with it to great effect. You have led countless armies and countless people into that seemingly silent forest, and then left from the other side.

The other side—no humidity, no chill, no fog that hung over every treetop like a hungry beast. Somewhere safe, somewhere peaceful. Like behind a safe fortification, like on the deck of a battleship.
But you're wrong. It doesn't belong to you alone.

I was wrong?
Somehow, this did not surprise Lion El'Jonson. As the pain rushed into his nerves after the blade left him, only one thought came to the old lion's mind.

What did he pay for it?
The lion took a step back, stopped, and stood calmly, looking into the young man's eyes.

They were already glittering, and now they were even brighter than words could describe. The lion looked at them, and even though he was bleeding, the hostility in his eyes temporarily disappeared.

The young man did not press on to pursue the victory. He stood where he was, his face still ferocious and angry.

The lion could see that the fuel for this fire was not only the insults he had personally inflicted, but also another kind of anger towards himself - he seemed to be asking himself: Did I break fairness?
The lion smiled faintly, then walked aside without hesitation, bent down and picked up the long sword he had thrown away. During the whole process, the broad-shouldered young man just stared at him coldly, without saying a word or moving.

"It is difficult to achieve this level of proficiency. It requires a great deal of practice. Tell me, boy, have you ever meditated on this?"

"Don't call me that!" the young man snapped. "Now is not the time for idle chat!"

The lion raised his sword, ignoring the pain in his right arm. He made a sword flower lightly and performed a swordsman's salute again with extraordinary grace.

So the battle began again, and this time it was far more brutal than the last time.

The lion did not hold back, he took the initiative to attack. Every seemingly ordinary strike gave the young man the greatest challenge, from skills, psychology to physiology, all of which were subjected to severe tests.

If he takes one wrong step or is even a little careless, he will pay the price with blood or even his life.

The cold killing intent filled the forest. The young man swung his sword with sweat on his forehead, but his expression became more and more focused. He had temporarily put aside other things and put everything he had into this battle - he had no way to resist the sincere invitation from the lion himself.
However, the inviters are not always as sincere as they seem. Soon, in the seventeenth round of the second sword fight, the young man who had lasted longer than the last time was defeated again.

Did he do something wrong? Probably not. He was wary of the lion's skills and didn't intend to suffer another loss, but the lion still found a flaw in the series of sword flashes, which was actually not a flaw at all.
The old swordsman immediately took advantage of it, interrupting the original sword path, and suddenly thrust out a sword, and rushed forward with continuous footsteps. The young man immediately realized that he could neither retreat nor block.

He couldn't retreat, the sword was much faster than him and could easily catch up with him. He also couldn't block, because he would be tripped by the lion rushing forward, and then lose his balance and fall to the ground.

What is the difference between falling down in a sword fight and dying?

The young man had no choice but to grit his teeth and hold on. The price he paid in the end was a stab in the wrist of his right hand. He retreated with a muffled groan. The lion succeeded in striking him, but did not pursue him. He remained standing where he was.

His wounds had long since stopped bleeding, and even though the intensity of the battle just now was incredibly high, it did not prevent his physique from healing itself. At this moment, apart from the damaged armor, he looked completely uninjured.

The young man looked very miserable. The wound on his shoulder was far from healed, and there was another hideous wound on his wrist, which was definitely not caused by a simple stab wound.
For a male lion, rotating his wrist after a successful strike has become instinctive. In the fight just now, he did not suppress his instinct, so the young man actually lost a usable hand.

Even if he could still swing the sword with his right hand, he would never be as flexible as before.

"I've never really liked meditation," the lion said slowly. "It requires the meditator to subdue all senses and temporarily sink into a peaceful place in the mind."

"Unfortunately, in the first few decades of my life, I never even experienced the feeling that this word represents, let alone a peaceful place. Moreover, for someone like me, retracting all senses is tantamount to making ordinary people blind and deaf."

"It took me a long time to learn how to meditate properly. How long did it take you, kid?"

The young man panted heavily, his expression seemed unwilling, but also helpless. So, he responded with a Caliban curse: "Old man, what on earth are you doing here?"

The lion just laughed it off.

"I just wanted to illustrate how much effort it took me to master the ability you just demonstrated."

"Ability?" the young man repeated in a contemptuous tone and shook his head. "It is a gift from my father, my honor."

His answer made the lion frown, but he remained patient.

"Even if it comes from the hand of the Emperor, it is not a gift. No matter how you look at it, it cannot hide the fact that its essence actually comes from the gathering place of nightmares in this world. It is also part of the nightmare, and it is our essence. If we are the oil painting, it is the background. You must remain in awe of it, child."

However, upon hearing this, the young man immediately became angry, switched the sword to his equally injured left arm, and raised the sword towards the lion.

"I'm tired of your chattering. You're just like an old woman complaining about everything! I shouldn't waste my words on you here, but, nightmare? What do you know?!"

"It arrived when I needed it most. It helped me kill all those traitors. If it weren't for it, I would never have survived the attack of those traitors! It is the Emperor's affirmation and praise of me! It is a symbol of justice and glory for me and my Legion!"

traitor?

The lion narrowed his eyes, looked at him, and examined him carefully for a few seconds, his expression suddenly becoming cold.

"Traitor?" He uttered the unpleasant word softly.

"Yes..." The young man nodded with a sneer. "——Konrad Curze, Fulgrim, Angron, and..."

He didn't get to finish his words, as an old but furious lion threw him deep into the forest, and then struck him with a series of brutal blows. The steel sword pierced deep into the young man's abdomen, causing blood to flow and his intestines and liver to be crushed.

The young man roared in pain and launched a counterattack, giving the attacker several deep and vicious blows. The weighted ball on the hilt of the sword became another weapon, smashing the attacker's head and causing blood to flow.

The attacker could have actually dodged these counterattacks, but he didn't. Instead, he chose to continue his work with an expressionless face - with one hand, he tightly grasped two-thirds of the longsword's blade and used the remaining part as a dagger.

Before the sword broke due to excessive violence, the young man's abdomen had been completely cut open, his ribs and internal organs were all exposed, and sticky blood like meat pulp splattered all over the ground.
At this moment, when the sword in the lion's hand broke, the attack had only just happened two seconds ago.

The young man roared and pushed him away, staggering to his feet while holding his wounded abdomen. He didn't even look at the wound, but stuffed the contents back in, pressed the torn flesh together, and immediately returned to the battle.

Now, he had the advantage of weapons, his sharp canines flashed angrily behind his bloody lips - if possible, he would probably bite the lion's neck hard.
But Lion El'Jonson would do it before him.

He dodged with a calm expression, looking for an opportunity, waiting for an opportunity, without any hurry, even though the young man's attack was extremely fierce, always creating new wounds on his armor or cheeks.

The calm he displayed at this moment was completely different from what he had displayed before. This emotion did not actually come from any real peace. On the contrary, it was a disguise for the exact opposite emotion - violence.

Lion El'Jonson wanted to kill him, completely.

but why?
The young man was equally puzzled by this, but don't get me wrong, he was only puzzled as to why the lion had not mentioned the true killing intention until this moment - so, while chasing, he packaged the question and asked it in a provocative way.

"I'm really curious why you haven't taken any real action until now. Is it because you are a traitor like them? If not, why can just a few names provoke you like this?"

He smiled very competitively, acting like a swaggering knight, the kind of knight who stands in the center of every painting with his banner or sword held high.
But his eyes remained icy cold, in contrast to the lion's face, which showed no emotion at all due to these words, and was as stiff as a sculpture.

But he still answered.

"Gifts, honors, rewards—are these the only things you cling to?"

"I am a knight!"

The young man roared and quickly caught up with him, and in a few strokes, he cut off the shoulder armor on the lion's left shoulder. The complex components underneath were immediately exposed, and the servo components and artificial muscles were shining with a cold luster. Before he could catch his breath, he was hit by another sword.

The heat and electric current brought by the destruction passed through the lion's body, but he held on like steel and even had enough strength to dodge the subsequent stabs.

"Foolish," the lion said coldly. "Knight is just a dead title. Anyone - even a morally corrupt scum can become a knight - didn't you learn this in the monastery? Compared with true virtue and justice, honor is just a wisp of smoke."

"Honor is the foundation of the Grand Knights!" the young man retorted sharply. "Without its guidance, how can an ordinary person develop a heart of goodness in just a few years of training? How many people can understand the true virtues you speak of in the first ten years of their lives? Pursue honor, stick to honor, and defend honor, and only in this way can you see a true hero!"

"A deformed tree may occasionally bear the right fruit, but that is only accidental. Moreover, with a leader like you around—"

The lion smiled in a complicated way, and whispered something that was far more powerful than any words cut by a knife or an axe: "-I believe most of them have fallen?"

The young man's face turned gloomy at a speed visible to the naked eye, just like the lion's.

He stopped, took a deep breath, raised his sword, gritted his teeth and replied: "Traitors will die."

The lion smiled, but even though it was a smile, there was no warmth in it.

"How does it feel to kill your brother and son? I bet you must be very proud."

"They deserve to die!"

The young man gritted his teeth and his emerald eyes gradually became bloodshot.

"Do you know how many people and worlds Konrad Curze has slaughtered? Do you know the evil deeds committed by Fulgrim and his legions? And Angron, the mindless butcher's nail puppet? How dare you speak for them? You do not deserve your name!"

The lion clenched his fists and resisted the urge to say anything more, so as not to let the young man see something. He didn't want him to gain an advantage, even if there was only a slight possibility.
But at that moment, a sharp pain that he didn't even know how to describe wiped out the shock of hearing those words.

It seemed to surge from the depths of his mind, but perhaps not. He didn't know how to describe the feeling. He just wanted to try his best to capture it and adapt to it, just like he adapted to the forest - but the pain was fleeting, replaced by a strange tingling.

He clenched his teeth tightly and tried to continue to endure, but the feeling as if thousands of fingers were scratching the surface of his brain was far greater than the willpower he could summon at the moment.

A short, muffled groan was faintly heard from his throat, followed by a large amount of blood spurting out of his nose and eyes.

The young man was still angry, but he also looked shocked at this moment.

He seemed to say something, but the lion could no longer hear clearly, his ears were filled with another sound.

It was a furtive, crackling sound, like a skilled thief trying to pry open the skull of a lion with the lightest feather in the world.
No, not trying, he had succeeded.

The lion felt a burning sensation, and then his eyes began to spin. His perception began to go wrong, and all the senses that could be used to confirm the surrounding environment began to become disordered, with his vision being the first to be affected.

In his eyes, the young man was standing not far away, and then he didn't exist at all. Then his other senses went wrong, not one after another, but all at once.

He smelled the unique moisture of the forest, and then felt the air was extremely dry. For a few seconds, he even thought he was in the middle of a killing field, and his enemies were the Dark Eldar. The air was filled with the unique dusty smell of the flesh and blood of these filthy evil creatures.

Different from the real decay, it is covered by various drugs and blasphemous techniques to produce a flashy pleasure, but it still cannot avoid the stench of long-overdue death.
Where am I? Who am I fighting? Lion El'Jonson asked himself angrily.

His senses were completely confused, and all the cruel scenes he had experienced in his memory came back one by one. The undead who fell at his hands took revenge on him in a strange way. They scattered his few clear minds one after another, pulling and dragging him. The lion felt that he was trapped in a quagmire of rotting corpses, and that he was just a little bit away from drowning his mouth and nose.
But no.

No.

He had to get out.

——"You have taken on too much, Primarch. So many branches have been cut out of our past, so many First Primarchs, and you are the only one so exhausted. You even have to manage two legions, but those unbridled wolves are not your responsibility at all."

——"Ten thousand years have passed. Have you ever been able to sleep peacefully? Have you ever been able to unload this heavy burden? Just like our master, the Emperor of Mankind, neither you nor he should have suffered this misfortune."

Shut up. The lion tried to shout, but no sound came out, not even a single sound.

The world before his eyes became a whirlpool, and everything was absorbed into it. His past, his sword, his legion emblem, his memory, his pride, and his honor that was neither recognized nor needed to be recognized.
All of this began to rotate, then twist, and gradually became a pale, gloomy, hateful face.

The lion suddenly heard a sharp sound, not the sound of a sword, but another kind of weapon. Before he could remember what the weapon was, his body raised his hands first.

The long-lost Lion Sword somehow appeared in his hand again at this moment and blocked a pair of brutal claws.

Electric arcs wrapped around it, crackling, the claw blades and the sword blades collided with each other, and the huge light generated by the decomposition force field cruelly illuminated the attacker in the dark.

He had black hair and dark eyes, deep eye sockets, and cheeks so thin that not a single piece of flesh could be attached to them. He was a tall, armored, but still extremely thin Nostramo.

The lion instinctively called out, "Conrad?"

The Night Haunter laughed out loud.

"That's so intimate, brother--" He winked at the lion. "--I've never heard you call me that before, but it doesn't matter, because I don't like it."

He smiled maliciously, and his figure suddenly disappeared from the spot. When he reappeared, the two sharp claws had already attacked the lion's back from an angle that was impossible to defend against.

However, just when he was about to succeed, he suddenly stopped attacking and stepped into the darkness again. It was not until this moment that the lion realized something as if he had just woken up from a dream.

Some unfamiliar memories took this opportunity to rush into his brain, filling it with nightmarish things.

His head was splitting, but his Primarch-level thinking ability still allowed him to quickly extract a few key words. Some of them were very familiar to him, such as the Horus Heresy; some were also very unfamiliar to him, such as.
Conrad Kurtz, traitor?

More things came roaring towards us, biting the tail of the word "traitor".

Skinning, brutality, terror, cannibalism, unnecessary violence, insane lunatic, needs correction, dirty wretch
Countless names and one-sided flashbacks all entered his mind one by one. The lion gritted his teeth and let out a low growl, which was met with a suspicious laugh.

"What on earth are you playing at, eh, Leo?" the sinister voice came from behind him. "I've never seen you with your back to me before - when did you learn Vulcan's tactics?"

The lion turned his head sharply.

"Shut up! Shut up!" he roared, his eyes searching the darkness frantically. "You are not my brother!"

"what!"

The Midnight Ghost laughed again, and the sound echoed around, making this deserted ruin even more terrifying. The laughter continued to echo, and the lion stood in the same place, pacing back and forth, and the lion sword in his hand turned restlessly.

He was already a little confused about whether this was an illusion or reality, but Koze had always been a troublemaker. His voice came from the lion's ear, interrupting his thoughts at the right time.

"Are you finally willing to admit this?"

The lion subconsciously thrust out a sword, sparks of fire burst out, and two sharp claws blocked the blade. A black shadow flashed by, and the light that had not yet completely extinguished flew across his face, illuminating his fangs and paleness, giving him an extremely mean look.
"We were never supposed to be brothers!" said Midnight Haunter, rushing toward him madly.

The posture was barbaric, and his face was indescribable. The lion finally had time to observe him, but he felt extremely regretful - how could this be the Conrad Curze in his memory? This was simply a ghost from a nightmare!

"You are not him."

The lion panted, enduring the severe pain in his mind and the pervasive sense of unreality, while swinging his sword to block, using his intuition to ensure that he was not killed on the spot by the sudden attack.

But he was not at his peak strength after all, and faced with this crazy attack, his armor was cut open with several gaps. Metal fragments flew everywhere, and Midnight Ghost's black hair was torn and flew in the strong wind.

He was still laughing, completely oblivious to himself, and every attack was filled with absolute killing intent. The lion was getting harder and harder to block, and in addition to dealing with this monster that was getting more and more excited as he fought, he also had to deal with the pain in his head.

Worse still, just seeing this nightmare intensified his pain—ultimately, it was a shock between what he saw and the familiar appearance in his memory. He had never seen Conrad Curze so thin and so ghostly.

Not to mention the blasphemous and depraved armor decorations such as human skin, flayed skulls, and broken bones. In a trance of half sleep and half wakefulness, the lion suddenly had an illogical question.

He wondered, if Caryl Rohals saw this scene, would his first reaction be anger or laughter?
His question was interrupted by the hissing sound of claws cutting through the air, and the pain in the flesh came from below his left ribs.

The lion snorted, his eyes instinctively flashing with ferocity. He punched the nightmare several meters away, then chased him forward and launched a series of counterattacks with swordplay without hesitation.

"Yes, that's it, Leon!" The monster, whose form had been stained by madness and was no longer human, laughed wildly and saluted him while dodging. "We should fight each other! How can this galaxy accommodate so many horrible monsters?"

This time, the lion ignored him. He forced himself to focus all his attention on attacking, but the result was the opposite of what he had hoped for. Not only did he fail to do this, he was distracted by the pain and even let the enemy find a flaw.

The two bloody claws plunged into the sword light, cruelly but accurately piercing into his breastplate, cutting the emblem of the First Legion into pieces. Moreover, after a successful strike, the Midnight Haunter once again disappeared into the darkness, leaving only the sound.

"That's weird, Leon. I smell weakness. Were you distracted from the fight? That's not like you."

The lion lowered his head, his senses still not coming back from the chaos. Moreover, even if they were fully awake, it would be difficult to track the monster with the constant pain in his mind. He simply closed his eyes, felt his rapid heartbeat, and held the sword across his chest.

“Decided to stand and wait to die?” asked the Night Haunter.

He was provoking, and the voice brushed past the lion's ears and quietly fell into the darkness, like a naughty child. But the lion remained unmoved, breathing regularly and ignoring the ghost's words.

He angered him, and the monster roared out of the darkness, bringing with it a whirlwind of extreme cold that stung the lion's skin.

Two sharp claws lightly brushed his nose one thousandth of a second later. The lion opened his eyes at the right time and saw an indescribable face. Time seemed to stand still at this moment.

The attack failed, and the midnight ghost tried to escape into the darkness again. The lion with an expressionless face but extremely complicated eyes and his hands that had been slowly clenched
A roar sounded, blood splattered, and the Night Haunter began to bleed.

"Amazing." He said in amazement, ignoring his injuries. The wisdom in his voice was completely different from the beast-like roar he emitted when he was injured.

"That's really impressive. How did you do it, Leon?"

He sounded confused, and the emotion was so real that the lion felt confused again.

He endured it again, wanting to wait for an opportunity to break through the illusion set by Serafax in one fell swoop, but the monster in the dark spoke again, and stole his attention with the unique cruel and elegant tone of the Nostramo people.

Hissing bastard, the lion thought angrily.

"You have become silent—what? Are you tired of the exchange of words? Well, well, how about I tell you a secret, Leon? They don't know this secret, but you can know it."

A face emerged from the darkness, a pale ghost walked out with a smile, raising his hands in a funny way, a series of skulls on his waist collided with each other, making a dull bang. He bowed, then stood up and bowed in a funny way, and then spoke, his voice still soft.

"You asked me before, why did you betray me?" Midnight Haunter's eyes widened, and there was a frenzy in his dark eyes. "The answer is actually very simple, Leon, why not?"

The lion clearly heard the sound of one of his nerves being stretched to its limit and then breaking. Bang, just like that, it broke, causing no pain, only indescribable anger.

"Shut your stinky mouth!" Leon roared angrily. "You don't have the right to say such things with your face, you don't have the right!"

After he finished speaking, he actually paced back and forth, his entire face twitching nervously. This behavior even made Midnight Haunter a little overwhelmed at first. He had originally tensed his body, ready to face the foreseeable attack, but -

"--Conrad Kurtz will not betray." Suddenly, the lion spoke to him in a sonorous and powerful voice, but his eyes were numb like a drug addict who was taking chemical drugs.

The Night Haunter looked at him in confusion.

“They said I was crazy.”

He shrugged his shoulders, raised his paws, and walked towards the lion, who was still convulsing in the same place, as if playing, with a strange smile on his face.
-
The young man looked at his opponent, the old man, in confusion. He didn't understand what had happened, but he knew that he was probably seriously injured and was lying on the ground, twitching constantly.

Blood was already gushing out from the inside of the armor, staining the ground red. This sight even extinguished his will to fight. After all, no matter how you look at it, attacking a person who has lost the ability to resist can hardly be called the act of a knight.

"Sometimes you must learn to put your honor aside, Primarch. He is powerless now. His spirit is fighting other enemies in the past. You only need to swing your sword once." A voice said to him.

The young man shook his head without looking back. "No, Serafax. Although I promised to fight him, it was based on fairness."

"If you kill him now, we will have less trouble." The voice in the forest advised patiently. "We only have this last bit of effort left to turn everything around. We must not relax at this moment, my Lord."

The young man frowned, looking somewhat reluctant. He refused again. "You have described his life story, and frankly, I saw a flawed hero. You once taught me that a hero should not be disgraced. Have you forgotten, Serafax?"

The voice in the forest sighed.

"Perhaps I have taught you to be a little too stubborn," he said, his voice becoming calm.

The young man suddenly realized something was wrong, and his instinct was warning him. However, he was unwilling to believe the conclusion of this warning - this was the first time he went against his intuition, and it would also be the last time.

A charred, withered hand pierced through his chest, pulled out his heart, and crushed it. The young man only had time to look back before his consciousness completely fell into darkness.

His body fell to the ground with a thud, and Serafax shook his right hand. Without any other movement from him, the sky suddenly darkened. The ground shook, and two thick roots broke through the ground, dragging the bodies of the lion and the young man underground. Serafax looked down, and his vision was unobstructed, seeing through all obstacles.
He can only see the truth.

The truth is, there is nothing underground, no soil, only endless roots. They are united into one, as huge as a continental plate. And inside them, there are many corpses. Some are young, some are old, some have been dead for a long time, and some have ruddy faces, as if they are still alive.
There were only three exceptions. One was an old lion, with white hair and beard, the only one of his kind. The second was Zabril, with his eyes closed, already dying. The third was a young child.

Serafax gave him a long look.

The last hope. No sin, no past, no chains.
When he has done all this and learned from his experience and lessons, the ideal Knight King will be born. He will surpass all the Primarchs and become the only one.
The charred corpse took a deep breath and disappeared from the spot.

It's not done yet, he told himself. He had to stay calm.

And so he walked towards the lion's past.

(End of this chapter)