40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 755 44. Interlude: Meanwhile, Solems
"I feel so sad for some people. They totally disregard our noble traditions and regard honor as nothing. They even locked a defeated general and his army in a stasis field! It is a shame for them to be called nobles. It is a shame! But don't worry. I am different from those rude people. Old Zandrick never abuses or despises prisoners. After all, failure is only part of war. Come and have a drink, young man!"

In the green light, a metal skeleton gracefully waved his right hand and nodded to a human at his table. The latter was completely indifferent and just sat in his seat, clenching his teeth.

His behavior attracted the attention of a guard behind the skeleton. From the appearance, he was much taller than the undead who called himself Zandrek. Noticing his gaze, the human finally picked up the wine glass at hand reluctantly.
However, just a few seconds later, he stared into the empty golden cup and spoke in a stiff tone.

"It's empty."

"What?" The skeleton leaned back in surprise. "This is a serious disrespect!"

He turned around and called out to his guards, "Obian! Do me a favor, please? Go to the kitchen and see what those lazy fellows are doing! How could they be so careless!"

His guards bowed slightly, then turned and walked away at a brisk pace. The skeleton who called himself Zandrek stood up with a grunt and began to pace in his banquet hall.

It was built with large areas of green and silver, and there were many huge windows on the top and sides. From every angle, they could reflect light far beyond what ordinary people could imagine.

In the center of the circular table is a huge round ball suspended, which is made up of countless precious gems roughly glued together. For those who have the ability and mentality to appreciate beauty in the traditional sense, this action is tantamount to wasting nature's resources.

At this moment, this human being sitting in this banquet hall as an alien and being treated with courtesy naturally knows nothing about beauty.

He had short hair in a military style, which was as thick and short as steel nails. Under his broad forehead were a pair of gloomy eyes, and then there was a crooked and rough nose, which was probably an irreversible sequelae of multiple injuries.

Given the above characteristics, he sat there like an angry bull, panting continuously.

The skeleton walked behind him, sighed, then raised his hands and placed them on his shoulders, patting them as if to comfort him.

"I promise you, I will find out who did this, young man, and I will give you an explanation. I can see that you are a general who never gives up, and I respect those who dare to face their failures and stand up again and again. In my opinion, such people should never be humiliated like this - now let me pour you a glass of wine, okay? Just consider it as an apology to my servants. Listen to me, wine is a soldier's medicine to relieve worries. Just take a sip and you will be full of energy again!"

He laughed like a living person, walked quickly to the edge of the long table, and reached out to pick up an exquisite wine bottle. However, when he pointed the bottle at the golden cup in the human's hand, what flowed out was not any liquid, but a pool of black dust.

The skeleton was stunned.

"Huh?" He shook the bottle in his hand in confusion. "What's going on?"

"It's empty," the human said, clenching his fists. "And you're crazy."

The skeleton slowly raised its head and looked at him.

"You're crazy," the human said. "You're absolutely fucking crazy."

The skeleton put down the wine glass in his hand thoughtfully, returned to his seat and slowly sat down, but he did not get angry. The green light in his eye sockets flickered a few times, like a living person blinking.

"It's a very vulgar term—" he began again. "—but I accept it, Captain Balboa. Well, am I right? Captain? What a strange title, so hard to pronounce."

After saying this, he started laughing to himself. Of course, he was just laughing, and his eternal face remained motionless.

Anger did not seem to exist in the undead's thought process. He just sat calmly in his chair, relaxed and at ease. Outside the window was reflected the famous planet shell of Solmus, with land, ocean, and green plants - it looked like a normal world, but these scenes were just illusions.

But the captain seemed to take his laughter as a mockery.

He sat up straight, leaned forward slightly, stared at the alien, and spoke slowly with the strongest restraint he had ever seen in his life.

"You're right. My name is Balboa, and I'm the captain of the Sixth Company of the Twenty-first Hellhound Regiment. You'd better remember me, Alien."

Xandrek imitated him, leaning forward and folding his hands elegantly on the table, and answered slowly in the same tone.

"It's not difficult for me to remember you, Captain. In fact, I already remember you, but why? Why is this matter so important to you that you need to tell me in this posture and tone?"

He tilted his head, suddenly realizing.

"Ah, I see. You are talking about your pre-war declaration, right? This makes me miss it, Captain. I haven't met anyone who does this for a long time, even among my kind."

"you--!"

The captain looked at him with his eyes wide open, and was about to say something, but was interrupted by a voice coming from behind him. The voice was full of coldness, like the cold wind in a world of ice and snow, and it was followed by a heavy sound of footsteps.

"My Lord." The departed guard emerged from the darkness and bowed once more to his master. "I checked the kitchen, everything is in order."

"What?" Zandrick suddenly asked back loudly. "What did you say? I didn't hear you clearly, old friend!"

Balboa swore he heard the alien standing behind him sigh.

The guard took another step and walked towards his master.

“Our kitchen remains the same as always”

Zandrick expressed his guess in a profound tone: "Busy, filled with the aroma of various dishes?"

The guard shook his head in a firm denial. "No, there is no food in there - just as I said, as always, my lord."

"What?! What about our cooks and servants?!"

"Ninety-two percent of them are busy trying to restart their own protocols, but I don't think they will succeed. As for the remaining eight percent, they have lost their intelligence and can only stir the air or chop the cutting board and then destroy your cutlery."

"This is really..." Zandrek, the overlord and crowned general of the Gedrim Dynasty, took a deep breath. "Unfortunate."

The guard did not express his comment on this sentence. He just returned to his master's back with the huge blade in his hand, stood like a sculpture, and disappeared into the darkness, leaving his master sitting in his seat, deep in thought, and making strange hums and mutters from time to time.

After a long while, he finally raised his head, then stood up and bowed to the captain seriously and solemnly.

"I must express my deepest apologies to you for this," he said. "It is a pity that we could not have a good party." The captain stared at him as if he had seen a ghost, and then shifted his gaze to his guard, who was completely unmoved.

"For now, Captain, excuse me, I still have things to do - Obiang, send our guests back. As for the food issue, can we sell some plates or something in exchange for some vegetables and meat? This shouldn't be difficult, right? Why don't you go find the local lord? I don't think he should have any reason to refuse this deal."

The guard nodded, walked up to the captain without saying a word, pulled him up with one hand, ignored his struggle, and dragged him away like a child.

The crowned general watched his guests and guards leave, then he put his hands behind his back and strode into the darkness of the banquet hall.

He could have relied on the phase transfer protocol to reach any corner of his warship directly, but he refused to do so.

There is a very simple logic in Zandrek's thought protocol - if I have two legs but don't use them for a long time, then what's the point of having them?

He hummed as he moved around the ship he knew so well, extending a process that took only seconds into a walk that lasted several hours, and he seemed to enjoy it very much.

He didn't stop humming the ballad until he walked into the bottom floor of the battleship and entered a secret room after passing a series of complicated security procedures.

An undead slowly raised his head in the deepest part of the secret room.

"Clayton Bart's Sixth Night Finale?" Astrologer Orikan shook his head. "Your taste is really unacceptable."

"Ha!" The crowned general chuckled happily. "The person who said this is actually imprisoned! You'd better be more respectful to your jailer and judge!"

"Okay, jailer, judge, and traitor, respected Crowned General Zandrick."

"Hey, I didn't betray you." The old general retorted unhappily. "I just reported what you and the Endless did truthfully."

"If this isn't betrayal, then what is?!" Orikan almost screamed. "Look at what you've done to me!"

He pointed at himself - the astrologer's once luxurious robes and various decorations had all disappeared. Now all that was left for him was a very simple and very rough linen robe, and it was not the style of the undead.

Apparently, this was one of the punishments the Council had meted out to the Scryer: to have him dressed in human clothing and locked in a cage.

If Orikan had been more heartless, or had been like his old friend and traitor Trazyn, this punishment would have been useless, but the astrologer had a strong sense of self-esteem, so the Council's action was tantamount to tearing off his face and throwing it on the ground, and then letting a thousand slaves trample on it.

Of course, this is just the least of the many punishments.

"But at least you didn't die." Zandrick shrugged. "From my point of view, not dying is the greatest victory."

"Do you know how many generals comforted themselves like this after being defeated and captured? They relied on the same idea to stand up again. You should learn a thing or two from them, Orikan. After all, you are now a real prisoner."

The astrologer uttered a volley of rude curses.

"That's not polite, my prisoner. You should know that the parliament has authorized me to guard you, right? As I said, I am your jailer. Others probably have no interest in coming here to interact with you. After all, they have to deal with a half-crazy old man like me before they can meet you."

Xandrek chuckled again and bowed comically to the astrologer.

"So, let's discuss the next steps, shall we?"

Orikan raised his head in anger and stomped his feet hard, but calmed down after a few seconds.

His divination and prophecy abilities have been completely blocked by the High Lords Council. Although his knowledge and experience still exist in his mind, he can no longer use them - his thought protocol has been tampered with by the Council with higher authority.

However, this did not prevent him from using his intelligence. Of course, before that, he would naturally start by making some ridicule.

"What's the follow-up plan?" Orikan sneered. "If you do what I say, we would have been able to turn half of the High Council against us! Why would we need a follow-up plan? You old bastard, you're always pretending to be crazy!"

"I'm not pretending to be crazy, Orikan. In fact, the damage caused by slumber to my mind protocol is irreversible. My personality, memory, and way of thinking have been worn away by most of the time over those tens of millions of years. I'm very lucky, as my cooks and servants did not escape this disaster."

General Dai Guan sighed rather sadly, put his hands behind his back, and began to pace back and forth like a wild beast patrolling his territory.

Whenever he entered this posture, the metal skeleton in front of Orikan would mysteriously disappear and transform into a tall, strong old man with white hair and beard and a typical face of a necrophile.

He snorted coldly, knowing that this meant that Xandrek had actually gone further than him in regaining his emotions.

"Hypocrisy," he said coldly.

"This is part of the tactics," the crowned general replied calmly. "I must first understand whether what you said is true or false before I can choose whether to stand on your side. In war, choosing sides is very important."

"And I became a prisoner!"

The Astrologer roared - he really couldn't help it. He never thought that a general who was famous among the entire undead could be so shameless.

"Don't mind it so much, at least you're not dead, Orikan." The Crowned General waved his hand nonchalantly and repeated, "And since you're not dead, it proves that what you said is true. We can start planning now."

".Layout? Layout what?"

Xandrek let out a dull chuckle.

"Of course, how to surrender, what do you think? Besides, you and I cannot stubbornly stand on the opposite side of a friendly and kind god. That would simply go against our conscience."

The astrologer was silent for a long time, and he only felt as if he saw the shadow of Trazyn. This incident made him extremely sad and angry, and he even had the urge to bang his head against the wall.

"Okay!" The old general laughed louder and slowly approached him. "Now let's discuss the formal details!"

(End of this chapter)