40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 674 56. Interlude: Overcoming Yourself (Part )
If one day you are old, tired, and unarmed, how can you defeat a beast that is in its prime and full of ambition?
Lion El'Jonson is trying to find out.

A huge force came towards him and knocked him to the ground easily. The lion rolled over in a panic and tried to stand up again, but was kicked hard again and fell straight down the sand dune.

The hot sand stuck to his skin due to sweat and blood, and the already glaring sunlight made his eyes even more dizzy. The lion silently propped himself up with his elbows and climbed up little by little.

As for his enemy, he did not pursue his victory, but just stood there arrogantly.

"What are you going to fight me with, old man?" he said slowly. "Just this broken stick?"

He raised his hand, held the muddy stick in front of his eyes, observed it for a moment, then threw it casually, and it pierced the lion's feet accurately.

"To be honest, I feel a little sorry for you. Look at yourself. Even the most unsuccessful among us would not be like you—"

As he spoke, his expression suddenly turned into disgust, and then he paused for a few seconds before uttering a word.

"--fail."

Failed?
The lion lowered his head, swallowed the blood that had surged from the kick, and pulled out the stick in front of him. Ignoring the dizziness that kept coming, he grabbed it with both hands and held it across his face like a sword.

His enemy did not laugh at him anymore. Instead, he stopped smiling and drew the long sword hanging at his waist with a serious face.

This sword was not as long as the lion sword, and its lines were very elegant, with a touch of elegant purple swaying at the end of the guard. He held the sword in one hand, jumped off the sand dune, stopped five feet away from the lion, raised the sword, and spoke solemnly.

"Now you look like one of us."

The lion ignored this remark and just stared at the one-handed sword in his hand: "Whose weapon is this?"

"mine."

"No," said the Lion. "Fulgrim's personal sigil is upon it, as well as the emblem of his Legion."

"At least it belongs to me now, old man. Stop gossiping and get it over with as soon as possible. I have given you my utmost respect - now, come and die."

As soon as he finished speaking, dust rose up, and before the sound of his footsteps could really reach the lion's ears, a sword light suddenly attacked.

The lion subconsciously raised his sword—or rather, his stick—to block the attack, but his hands did not feel any pressure. Instead, he felt a piercing pain in the side of his abdomen. It was obvious that his enemy was faster than him in both reaction and speed.

The combination of various factors made this simple slash-turned-stab move achieve a terrifying result.
The lion retreated quickly, as if it felt no pain, but that was not the case.

Those who have no concrete knowledge of combat and only have romantic imaginations may think that being hit once or twice in a sword fight is no big deal, but the fact is that in an unarmored battle, any injury is extremely fatal, not to mention the lion's current injury.

His left abdomen was pierced, and the murderer dragged the sword for a distance after succeeding, so the amount of bleeding was extremely large, leaving a large area of ​​red on his retreat path, and also staining the place where he was standing at the moment with blood. In addition, several sections of severed intestines and rib fragments were hanging on the edge of the wound, dangling.

The lion put his hand over the wound.

Thanks to the Primarch's physique, he was able to stand for the time being, but he couldn't hold on for much longer. Thinking about it carefully, this seemed to be the most serious injury he had ever suffered in battle. Looking back, no enemy had ever made him feel such pain.

The lion looked at his enemy, and his enemy also stared at him.

One face is young, the other is old, similar yet different. The young one is confident, arrogant, and full of strong vitality. The old one is weathered, with frowning eyebrows, tightly pursed lips, pale face, and looks particularly weak.

Being hurt by myself is exactly what I want.

The lion took a deep breath, groaned suddenly, and dropped his left hand. He was still bleeding, but the wound was a mess, and the bones and internal organs were pressed back.

He got into position again, but his enemy narrowed his eyes and looked very displeased when he saw this.

"Do you really think—"

His words were interrupted by a slow but determined charge. The lion dragged its useless body and rushed towards him with sword raised, leaving more scarlet traces in the yellow sand like raindrops.

As expected, his attack missed, and his enemy showed no mercy. After dodging the fearless stab aimed at the throat, he turned around and punched the lion to the ground.

The punch was so fast and fierce that the lion's eyes went dark and he almost fainted on the spot. It took him several seconds to calm down before he realized the discomfort in his mouth. He rolled his tongue and spat out a few teeth. At the same time, the pain in his cheek told him that his cheekbone was probably broken.

A voice came from above his head: "Lie down and don't get up."

The lion said no with his actions.

He propped himself up and stood up shakily. His enemy frowned and looked at him, the two of them almost face to face. The lion could even see his own reflection in those emerald eyes - how embarrassed he was, the great Lord of the First Army?
His face was covered in blood, his cheeks were swollen, and he could hardly stand.
Never mind, the plan is already halfway accomplished.

The lion swung his right fist and miraculously hit the target. His enemy stood there expressionless, his head not even shaking from the blow. He just stood there, then swung his arm slightly, and the blade pierced through the lion's body.

The lion's body froze for a moment. His enemy sighed, let go of the sword, raised his hand to hold the lion's shoulder and lowered his head. He seemed to want to say something, but was sprayed in the face by a mouthful of blood.

Before he could act, he felt the old lion in his arms suddenly burst out with a shocking power, followed by a pain in the eye that was like being hit by a bomb.

Before he realized what was happening, he immediately tried to fight back, but his punches and kicks all fell into the air - where did that old man get the strength from? He was obviously almost dead!

This thought flashed through his mind, and almost in the next moment, his right knee joint was hit hard, causing him to fall to the ground uncontrollably.
There was darkness before his eyes, and he reached out to touch his eyeballs, but could only feel sticky emptiness. A terrible guess came to his mind, causing him to tremble all over and become so angry that he could hardly control himself.

He roared and barely stood up, dragging his broken leg and punching randomly, sniffing the air constantly, trying to find the enemy. But there was a smell of blood everywhere, mixed with his own blood, and there was no difference between the two. He couldn't find the old man at all.
In the darkness, he could only hear the slow sound of swords being drawn, and the sound of metal rubbing against flesh and bones, which had been so pleasant to the ear in the past, but now sounded like a death note.

"Asshole. Despicable bastard!"

He roared angrily, trying to entice his enemy to speak with this reckless performance, but his enemy said nothing or even did anything.

For the next three minutes, the surroundings were terribly quiet, with only his own panting, heartbeat, and the hissing sound of blood being burned by the sand. He even wondered if the old man was dead. However, he knew very well that this was impossible. After another three minutes, he was panting and moving around, trying to avoid possible harm, but he heard a whistling sound in his ears. He immediately leaned over to avoid it, but the hot and scattered sound that brushed past his ears told him that the sound was just a ball of sand being thrown at him.

So, where is the real enemy? In front? Or somewhere else? He roared and mobilized his muscles, as if he had really become a lion, and pounced forward with his hands and feet - of course, this time, he still didn't touch anything.

At this time, his enemy finally spoke.

"How did you get this sword?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a piercing pain came from behind him.

This seemed to be more than just a simple stab, because he immediately discovered that there was something wrong with his perception of his entire body - the pain that had been coming from his right leg disappeared, as if he had not been injured, but it was not just that, it was not as simple as not being able to feel the pain, he could not even perceive his entire right leg.

And the left leg, and the waist.
"I am going to kill you!"

He roared, but his enemy simply stepped on his back and thrust his sword in at another angle. In less than half a second, he stopped struggling in despair. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but he couldn't, and his hands had lost feeling.

"What have you done?" his enemy asked in his ear, his voice calm, but filled with a rage that was completely undisguised.

"Is that all you want to ask? I killed—"

With a thud, the sword pierced into his body, penetrating deeply into the top of his head and exiting from his jaw, nailing his anger, shame, fear, and desire to die to the hot yellow sand.

Blood gushed out.

The lion fell slowly to the ground.

He was very tired, and he had never been so tired before, but fortunately the plan was successful. Showing weakness to the enemy was a tried and tested tactic that could be used against any arrogant opponent. However, the price he paid was still too great.
Lion El'Jonson lowered his head and touched the wound on his chest. His heart was beating very slowly, a speed never seen before. There were probably two reasons for this: one was that he was deliberately controlling it, and the other was that he had almost no blood left to bleed.

He raised his head and looked at the corpse. At this critical moment of life and death, he suddenly thought of another completely unrelated thing for no reason.

It was the second century after the Battle of Terra, when he launched an expedition to the far end of the Obscure Segmentum, intending to explore whether there were any orcs roaming around. Since the day it was named "Obscure", this star region has never been far away from the threat of orcs.

This group of abominable aliens always grows wildly in some corners and corners. By the time the empire discovers them, their scale is often so large that they need to be hit hard.
In order to avoid similar situations from happening again and also to leave a contactable monitoring station, the lion launched this expedition.

Interestingly, he never fought a single battle along the way, but he could always see large numbers of Ork warships that had been destroyed into space junk. Finally, at the end of the expedition, he met Ferrus Manus, who had set out before him.

The atmosphere was naturally not very pleasant. The lion wanted to question his brother why he did not inform him of this military operation, but the wild wolf living in the Spear of Dionysus laughed at him viciously.

"You don't plan to discuss it with him, Leon? You two act like you've seen a ghost sometimes, which really makes me want to bite you. I think the old man put you together not just because you live close to each other."

This statement made the Lion very angry, but it also made him swallow the accusations that he was about to say. Since then, the two Primarchs and their descendants have truly cooperated in the Misty Star Region, instead of just pretending as before.

Perhaps I should have informed Ferrus before leaving.

The lion thought about this and felt an urge to laugh: If I die like this, he will probably tear apart my coffin at the funeral and scold me for not keeping my word.
And that damn wolf. What is he going to do? Pour me a drink from the spear?
Lion El'Jonson sighed, bent down, and began to crawl in the opposite direction of the corpse. He had no strength left, but he still didn't intend to stay here.

He doesn't give in.
-
at last.

Zabril had lost count of how many steps he had climbed - but he finally reached the top of the stairs, and the emblem was firmly in his hand.

Serafax had taken the trump card from his belt, but somehow had it returned. The Dark Angel did not want to know why, he simply pulled open his Primarch's bloody right hand and placed the emblem inside.

However, nothing happened.

Zabril stared at the emblem, his breath stagnating. It was not until several seconds later that he realized that he was clasping the lion's fingers together, then holding the hand and began to pray.

This was still strange to him. Zabril was not a believer, never had been, he was loyal to the Emperor, but he had never thought of worshipping him as a god - but now it seemed that there was no other choice.

The Dark Angel gritted his teeth and trembled as he imitated the priests he had seen in the past.

He silently prayed: Emperor, please give your son some strength. He is at the end of his road and he needs your glory.

no response.

He said to himself: Emperor, please take a moment to look here, your son needs you, Lion El'Jonson needs you.

no response.

He silently said: Emperor.
no response.

He was stuck. He didn't know what to say. He only knew that the muscles in his throat were spasming and his eyes were extremely sore.

As a Dark Angel, how could Zabril not sense the abnormal coldness of his Primarch's skin? And the stopped heartbeat and breathing, and the lifeless face.
Tears of blood rolled down his cheeks, and Zabril looked at his father - never before had his eyes been so sad.

"Save him," a man murmured. "I would give my life to save him."

Nothing responded to him, only darkness and silence. Zabril looked around and saw many similar faces. These people wrapped in roots looked almost exactly like his original body, but they were different.

Looking at them, Zabril suddenly felt a hatred in his heart. He didn't know where it came from, but it was as strong as his love for his genetic father.

Love and hate are two sides of the same coin.

The darkness around them began to surge, or more accurately, to flee. They had no life, but they still showed the emotion of "fear". It was as if something darker than them was approaching.

(End of this chapter)