40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 758 47. Regaining Hope (V)

Facing the gaze of the person in front of him, Mephisto slowly stood up, but did not raise the sword. The long sword he had found temporarily was hanging on the ground at a harmless angle, and its blade was even facing his own body.

"Sir." Mephisto said after careful consideration. "Are you sure?"

"What are you sure about?" Khalil asked.

He stood in the duel pit with empty hands, his coat and shirt were gone, and his naked upper body looked like a cold stone without words in a cemetery. At first glance, he was just an ordinary person who was a little thin.

But now Mephisto can always see more things and feel more than before.

He felt like Caryl Rohals was dissecting him, just with his eyes.

And this was not an illusion, he really felt the pain.

He felt a feather-light blade moving up along the end of his knife-holding hand, starting from the little finger, drawing a beautiful, neat line.

It spread all the way to the shoulder, then back down below it, repeating the process four times. Then, the skin slipped away quietly, revealing the throbbing flesh inside.

And this wasn't even the beginning, Mephisto knew it, so he endured and waited.

He kept waiting, waiting until the sharp blade turned his flesh and blood into blooming petals bit by bit, until the fascia and nerves on his arm bones became the discrete leaves of this "flower". Only until this moment did the so-called beginning truly come.

A slight sound came from under his feet. Mephisto lowered his head and found that the long sword in his hand had slipped out of his hand.

His opponent walked towards him, reached out and grabbed his right forearm, and his five fingers dug into it like a knife, piercing the skin and flesh in the blink of an eye, reaching the surface of the bone and gently scraping it - but Mephisto didn't feel any reality at all.

Yes, he could resist the pain, but the premise of "resistance" was "feeling", and he had no real feeling at the moment. It was not until the sharp blade that existed only in the world of "feeling" returned again and hit the bone violently that Mephisto really bent down.

Sweat began to roll down from his forehead, soaking his entire face in just a few seconds, and continued to flow down until it dripped onto the red sand, forming one black pit after another.

"How long has this been going on?" Mephisto heard his opponent ask sternly.

"Always," he panted. "Since my return, my lord."

"And you didn't ask for help? You kept waiting until now?"

“I tried to solve the problem myself”

"Can you handle it?" Khalil asked calmly, his tone soft and almost whispering.

His voice was not loud, but it completely killed the boiling discussions in the surrounding stands. They still existed, but Mephisto could no longer hear them. The world in his ears was quiet, with only the gentle breathing and soft voice of the person in front of him. Then, there was light, and the light also dissipated.

His senses suddenly whispered--Fear! It said. The light feared him.

But so is darkness, Mephisto thought. Darkness fears him, sees him as a god, but also sees him as the most terrifying monster.

"Indeed I do," said the monster.

Mephisto looked at him and saw pure nothingness. No light, no darkness, no feeling, no joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness. Even existence itself had disappeared.

He didn't know how he 'saw' this scene, wasn't this a paradox? If a place didn't exist, how could it enter his mind?

"Because you are standing in front of the door here." The monster in the void said. "If you continue like this, you will push open this door and go to a place where there is nothing but you. You can't escape, because even this concept does not exist. In fact, the so-called door is just a figment of my imagination. I have been here for a while, Calistarius, and you..."

Boom——!
Thunder roared, and pale lightning illuminated Mephisto's eyes, allowing him to see a door, a door that should have been ancient, but was only created because of those words.

It was black, rough, covered with crazy scratches and fingerprints, and the holes and marks were filled with dried blood. There was an opening at the top, blocked by iron bars, no more, no less, just five, and a pair of eyes stared at him from behind.

Mephisto suddenly understood what he had not finished saying - I was here for a while, and you are here now.

The person behind the door spoke slowly.

"The price of saving your Primarch is to be confined here. You should have been the second prisoner to come here besides me. Although you have been taken away, the price still remains."

"If you eat food, it will be digested. If you swing a sword at someone, that person will bleed. The price will not disappear. Even if you can escape for a short time, it will be completely useless."

"It is an uninvited evil guest, something that everyone tries their best to avoid in life, even at the cost of death to fight against it."

The eyes behind the door disappeared, but a voice came from behind Mephisto.

"And it's here, and so are you."

A hand was placed on his shoulder, but he didn't dare look back - his remaining sanity was persuading him not to look back. Although the man didn't want to hurt him, the decision on this matter was not up to them.

"You never left," Caril Rohals said. "That is the problem, Mephisto, and we must solve it now."
-

"What are they doing?" Sanguinius asked, frowning.

Guilliman wanted to answer him, but he didn't have the luxury of doing so. He had sat up straight, his eyes fixed on the screen, without blinking. However, the image on the screen was completely different from the "battle" that was supposed to appear in the duel pit.

First, the two men were not equal, and second, they did not do anything that could be called hostile. Moreover, from the beginning to the end, from the moment Caril Rohals jumped into the duel pit to the moment Mephisto's knife fell to the ground, only three seconds had passed.

After the fourth second, Guilliman had a feeling in his heart, so he began to wait for the fifth second.
Of course the fifth second arrived as promised. In the sand pit, Khalil moved. He walked towards Mephisto, who had no reaction at all and allowed him to approach and be grabbed by his right forearm.

From beginning to end, Mephisto showed no intention of resistance.

"Wrestling?" Sanguinius continued to speculate.

"No"

Guilliman answered in a low voice, then stood up, opened the door and walked out of the box. As the commander-in-chief, he ordered that everyone must leave immediately, regardless of which chapter or unit they belonged to. His voice echoed in the field, which could not be considered a roar, but it clearly echoed in everyone's ears.

The Ever-Victorious Army looked at their Primarch in confusion, but what they got was not an explanation, but a series of powerful hand gestures - bring the pharmacist here and wait for my orders outside the venue.

They hurried away, and Sanguinius was equally hasty. He saw something in his brother's reaction.

He almost flew out of the box and came in front of Guilliman.

"What's going on, Robert? What happened?"

"I don't know, but we'd better be fully prepared. Let your Holy Blood Guard leave as well and go find the pharmacist, but don't bring him in directly. Let them wait outside for our news."

After saying this, he turned around, stared at his brother, and uttered the last sentence: "This is purely my experience."

Sanguinius frowned, but still did as he was told. Under his order, the Holy Blood Guard quickly left. However, within a few tens of seconds, only the two of them were left in the huge arena, along with Khalil and Mephisto who were still stiff in the sand pit.
The silence was not broken until five minutes later - Khalil loosened his hand, and Mephisto fell to the ground, blood oozing from every pore of his body, dyeing the sand dunes red in an instant, and he was still bleeding.

Sanguinius saw that he had closed his eyes.

The angel no longer hesitated, and immediately jumped down from the box, swooped over, and regardless of the blood, carefully carried his offspring out of the pit.

He half-knelt on the ground, holding Mephisto's gradually stiffening and cold body in his arms, his hands trembling unconsciously for a moment. However, when Khalil also walked out of the pit and walked towards him, there was no anger on the angel's face.

"What happened?" he simply asked.

Khalil was slightly startled, then sighed: "He even hid it from you."

He didn't finish his words, as a blinding light suddenly lit up from behind Mephisto's tightly closed eyes. Blood dyed everything about him red, and the blood began to burn.

Brutal psychic energy surged in it, causing the illusory fire to rush to the top of the arena in just two seconds. The metal melted, the wood turned into ashes, and everything that made up the place began to wail. However, Mephisto's body was not affected at all, only the light became brighter and brighter.

Like a living thing, it began to surge beneath Mephisto's skin, creating one horrifying bulge after another, pushing up his flesh and causing his bones to creak - Robert Guilliman, who was walking quickly, immediately felt an indescribable boiling rage that caused his steps to pause slightly, and the forge in his chest suddenly roared.

The same thing happened to the two people on the field, both of them were enveloped by this anger.

The difference was that Khalil merely frowned, but Sanguinius's face instantly became filled with grief.

Not only did he not leave Mephisto, but he hugged him tighter and tighter, his voice gradually becoming choked: "He lied to me."

He had uncovered the truth.

"No," Khalil said. "He just didn't know what he was doing. He was just a young man at the end of the day."

He reached out and pulled Mephisto from the angel's arms. The force was not strong, but it was firm enough that Sanguinius could not resist.

And what about Mephisto? He still had his eyes tightly closed and was not breathing, as if he was really dead. The worse his condition became, the brighter the light that was struggling in his body became.

It roared, silently but violently, with no reason, no pursuit, just pure rage and a desire to kill.

The more it struggled, the stronger the blood flames grew, and the raging fire surrounded and engulfed them until the world around them seemed to have been burned to ashes, with only this piece of sand remaining.

Roboute Guilliman stepped in, his left hand on his sword, and walked cautiously, but his expression was also sad.

He knew what the son of an angel had done for his father. Sanguinius had confided in him and told him exactly what he had been through, what curse he had been under, and what terrible desires he had.
He said this without emotion then, but Guilliman knew all the same that he was seeking a rebuke. In other words, he was seeking comfort.

Humans are like this, always wanting peace of mind.

A dictator who was as hard-hearted as an iron man in his youth would also use something to numb himself when he was alone in a room. A murderer who thought he had no humanity would also use some method to persuade himself and tell himself that what he did was right.
Regardless of how they deceived themselves, Sanguinius was not in the habit of doing so. He laid his own mistakes before his eyes.

He does not escape, cover up, or forget, so he is tortured all the time.

He could never forgive himself.

It was I who made Calistarius bear this responsibility, it was I who made him Mephisto, it was I who brought this curse upon him.

He imprisoned the two beasts that were born because of me for me, and was willing to fall so that his brother could be pure, but what can I do for him now?
The angel clenched his fists and suddenly glared at the light that was raging in Mephisto's body.

"You should not have been born!" he cursed. "You, this collection of filth, should live in the abyss, not in the human world!"

The more he talked, the more emotional he became, but he didn't seem to be just talking about anger.
"Calm down, brother." Guilliman immediately walked over to his brother, his face worried. "You need to calm down, okay?"

"but I--"

"—You did not ask him what he wanted, Sanguinius," Khalil interrupted calmly. "You felt sorry for what happened to Calistarius, but you forgot about it."

"It's true that no one should stay with those two beasts. But what if this is his own choice? What if he insists on doing this and makes a great effort? He doesn't just choose to endure this out of love for you. To do this, love alone is not enough."

"He must understand what he is about to take on. Only under this premise will your father help him."

Khalil put Mephisto down and snapped his fingers. A vicious beast tore through the blood flames and rushed over. In its mouth were five rusted or damaged short knives. They might have been very sharp in the past, but now they were useless.
However, when he held them between his fingers and in his palms, things were very different.

"Your father's work is done, Sanguinius."

Khalil stood up straight and slowly raised the knife.

"And now it's my turn."

(End of this chapter)