40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 767 56. Regaining Hope (Thirteen, 7K)

There was a violent hissing sound of electricity.

“Analysis,” said Roboute Guilliman.

He had given this order with a clear mind and a lucid heart, and the crew members working on the main bridge of Macragge's Glory had worked with him for at least three years, and the tacit understanding between them was unparalleled.

It has been proven that anyone can become part of an extremely efficient system under his leadership.

However, two seconds after the word "analysis" slowly fell from his mouth, the bridge was dead silent. This efficient system suddenly went wrong and no one executed his order.

"Sir?" Finally, an official spoke cautiously. "Are you sure?"

"Analysis."

Guilliman repeated this over and over again, his eyes now blazing white, so bright that one dared not look him in the eye, as if one was looking directly into the sun.

This time, his order was fully and resolutely executed, and some parts of the ancient Glorious Queen battleship began to work at their best. Their voices came from a very far distance, echoing in the blood vessels of the battleship, and finally formed lines of complex and indescribable data codes, which came to the data processors.

The analysis began, and the Thinker hummed.

The Lord of Five Hundred Worlds held the sword with one hand, turned around, and in three or two steps reached a small room on the side of the bridge.

Of course, it couldn't be that small for the Primarch to walk in. Under its white dome, his brother, the angel from Baal, was praying with his eyes closed.

He was dressed in golden armor, with his head bowed beneath a statue of an emperor holding a sword, but he did not make gestures like a normal praying person. Instead, he held the sword with one hand, just like the Lord of Five Hundred Worlds.

Such details naturally did not escape Guilliman's eyes, but he did not comment on it, just looked up at the statue.

This chapel was completed seven and a half centuries ago aboard the Macragge's Glory and named after an Anglican priest.

She was of Terran descent, had a very good resume and a deep background, and could have served as a parish priest in the solar system, starting from the middle level and rising step by step. However, in her best years, she chose to travel far into the void, spent half her life to reach the Ultramarine, and died in the sixth year.

That year, she exiled a Secret Keeper during a war.

Her actions directly saved millions of lives, and indirectly affected the battle lines that were being stretched too far across the astral sea by the daemonic forces at the time - her self-sacrifice caused indelible damage to the Keeper of Secrets, but to the daemons of Slaanesh, pain is pleasure.

The scream of the Secret Keeper when he was exiled echoed in the ears of all the Slaanesh demons in the world through the omnipresent power of Chaos at that time, making them feel the same pain.
It can be said that if it weren't for it, the Ultramarines would never have been the winners of that war. Even the current situation in the Five Hundred Worlds would probably have undergone major changes.

We always remember our dead in this way, but with what do we honor them?

As if he had heard Guilliman's inner voice, Sanguinius ended his prayer. He turned around with a serious expression.

The two brothers looked at each other and understood each other's meaning without saying a word.

"Did that alien really send a declaration of war?"

"Yes," said Guilliman, with something odd in his voice. "While the signal is still being deciphered, I believe it is a declaration of war."

"And what of the contents? Do you think it will really demand a fair fight, as our prisoner supposes?"

Guilliman shook his head.

"Rules are used to restrain oneself." He said softly. "I don't know this alien, but if it really has a strong sense of honor and a passion for war as the Endless Ones say, then it is more likely that it will just write a letter as a matter of routine and then start a formal attack."

Sanguinius couldn't help but laugh.

"It sounds a lot like the wars of the Cold Weapon Age in ancient Terran history, Robert. Two armies facing each other, challenging each other, and then turning generals against soldiers? Bar, I thought aliens had no sense of humor."

Guilliman was silent for a while, then suddenly said, "Even Perturabo has one now."

The archangel was slightly stunned, and his expression changed rapidly.

At first, he did want to laugh, but soon he forced himself to straighten his face because he was concerned about something. Of course, he still laughed in the end.

"You..." Sanguinius took a deep breath, straightened his expression, and pointed at Guilliman. "I will tell him about this when I return."

"I suggest you tell Dorn first," Guilliman said, turning and pushing open the door of the cathedral.

Sanguinius hurried after them, and as the sound of hinges and gears turned, he gave the ever-victorious army outside the door an impeccable smile, while also asking Guilliman in a low voice.

"Why?"

"Because it would be funnier that way." The Lord of Five Hundred Worlds said without looking away. "Besides, Rogge will be his main target. Don't rush to condemn me. This is called establishing a tactical advantage in advance."

One after another, they returned to the long tactical table that carried countless glories, and let the floating projections dye their faces a dark blue. They were like two giant statues, whose faces were the ocean before the storm. Just a thought, a glance, and this calm sea would be stirred up by huge waves.

At least, that's what the servants who were standing by looked like.

They looked at the Emperor's sons in adoration, as if they were gods, completely unaware that the two men had actually just played a very naughty joke.

Guilliman gestured to them to withdraw for the moment before speaking.

"The analysis is almost complete. But look here, brother."

He raised his hand and pointed to a corner of the projection, where a large area of ​​dark green light was moving at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The Necrons had enough military might on Solomus to strike fear into the heart of any experienced Imperial general, but they did not include many warships.

Perhaps the lords thought that this was just a long journey and there was no need to arrange an invincible fleet, or perhaps they were simply lazy.
However, at this moment, there was only one fleet standing between Sollems and the Imperial Combined Fleet.

Not many, just a hundred ships.

"By the Emperor," Sanguinius whispered. "I now hope that its sense of honor will be strong enough to outweigh its obsession with war."

Guilliman did not reply.

He naturally understood the implication of Sanguinius' words - he did not think that the combined fleet of more than 300 warships could defeat the only 100 warships of the Undead that were currently undergoing strategic deployment, even if their size was three times that of the enemy.

Frankly, he agreed with Sanguinius.

In the final analysis, the technological gap between the Empire and the Necrons is so great that it is beyond description. Without talking about the various exaggerated weapons they possess, just comparing the most basic ship engines, the human race is completely defeated.

When there is a significant difference in power, is there really any need to compare other aspects? Admittedly, a concentrated salvo may destroy some of them, but the Necromancer's warships are not wooden stakes that will not fight back.

A soft sound came from the end of the tactical table, and Guilliman waved his hand without even looking up, dragging the pop-up analysis box in front of him and Sanguinius.

At this moment, those lines of dense data codes have turned into a concise letter, but it is not a declaration of war as he and Sanguinius imagined.

【Hello, my enemies whom I have never met. 】

[My name is Zandrek, and I am the crowned general personally appointed by Imotek, the Storm King, the overlord of the Gedrem Dynasty and the emperor of the Sotek Dynasty.]

[I was ordered by him to garrison the now ownerless Sollems. In theory and in practice, all the Necrontyr armies in this world are under my jurisdiction and command.]

[You have come from afar, but you are accompanied by elite soldiers and warships, and have already deployed slowly in a battle formation - Therefore, I think you are bad guests, and you probably came here for war. ]

[That's good. Although I think war is the last resort, the gentleman who is reading this letter or many gentlemen and ladies are all soldiers like me. This is an ancient profession with an ancient creed. We all understand that the duty of a soldier is to obey orders and to participate in war.]

[Therefore, on behalf of all the lords, nobles, and soldiers on Sollems, I accept your challenge.]

[I have sent a messenger to your camp. If everything goes well, he should arrive by the time you finish reading the letter.]

Please listen to his words, just as you are reading my letters now, because his lips are my will.

[Let the war begin, everyone. May we all enjoy the battle, and may the victor be filled with glory.]

Roboute Guilliman looked up at a flurry of warnings.

How long did it take him to finish reading the letter? It is hard to say, because the time was so short that it was difficult to calculate. Even if the time spent thinking about the meaning of the letter was included, the total was only a few seconds.

But within a few seconds, the radar of Macragge's Glory suddenly sounded an alarm. Not only that, but even a riot broke out among the crew.

He quickly left the tactical table and walked to the front of the Thinker array, bending down to observe the readings on it.

As the data processor stammered his explanation, he frowned, patted the processor's shoulder gently, told him not to say more, it was not his problem, and then quickly returned to the tactical table and threw a few words to Sanguinius, who also had a frown on his face.

"It did not lie, its messenger has indeed arrived." Guilliman said with a sullen face. "During its routine scan every five seconds, the radar of Macragge's Glory detected a strange ship that suddenly appeared below us. It was in the shape of a waning moon and was not very large. It could be compared to the Elegy-class attack ship mentioned in the information provided by the Infinite."

Sanguinius suddenly clenched his fist.

"There was no sign of its appearance?" he asked seriously.

"No."

"Before that—"

"-Yes, no one had noticed its arrival before." Guilliman smiled. "Zero Inertia Engine, remember? When the Endless described it, I thought he was habitually exaggerating. Now it seems that I am afraid I am narrow-minded."

"My Lord!" the voice from the bridge shouted again. "That ship is sending us a signal!"

"You want to board the ship, right?" Guilliman said without turning his head. "Agreed, let the fifth hangar prepare, and pass on my order, no one should act rashly unless they get my permission to open fire."

He exhaled a breath, put his left hand on the dagger at his waist again, and suddenly smiled at Sanguinius.

"Let's go," he said. "Let's go and see the messenger sent by the crowned general." The archangel said nothing, but murderous intent gradually grew in his eyes.
-
Orikan never imagined that he would fall to such a state.

A great astrologer, an outstanding scholar - forget it, he was too lazy to list his titles. As long as he looked down and saw his miserable body at this moment, Orikan would feel a great anger.

At this moment, if he were to repeat those proud titles, he would probably go crazy in advance.
He clenched his teeth, or rather rubbed his jaws to make the metal creak, to slowly release the pressure while swimming awkwardly.

It was pitch black all around him, without any light at all. Fortunately, there was no problem with his eye visual array, and the two very basic functions, night vision and scanning, were still running stably. Therefore, he knew that he was now floating on a vast ocean.

This is what happened when the foolish guard released him on the orders of his equally foolish master!

After being imprisoned for so many days, Orikan was very excited to be free again. However, the damn royal guard used the phase shift protocol to leave after opening the prison door with the secret key! Instead, he stayed where he was, facing the dimensional barriers that were fighting against each other.
In the past few hours, Orikan had experienced a variety of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and avalanches. He also fell from a height of 10,000 meters, and was entangled by a group of terrible plants that Trazyn had found from some unknown world. He was even nearly melted in a volcano.
If he had not been able to use his knowledge to determine where the fusion had been completed, he would probably have died by now.

He is not the shameless bastard Trazyn, who would prepare so many spare bodies ready for replacement at any time. He is himself, the unique Orikan, who will never...
Why did I start again?!
The astrologer opened his mouth like crazy and 'swallowed' a large amount of sea water. Suddenly, he clenched his fists and slapped the sea surface, causing waves.

This brief burst of venting soon ended, and he began to swim again, relying on the most basic high-output power of this metal body to barely move forward and avoid sinking to the bottom of the sea.

However, this was something he had never experienced before. He had never swum before, either during his Necrontyr days or after his rebirth as a Necromancer.
So he had to be very careful now, otherwise he would lose his balance.

Yes, be careful. Orikan adjusted his posture little by little, and soon, relying on his intelligence, he learned a swimming posture that could increase his efficiency several times.

And it was such a tiny thing, which could not be any smaller, that actually brought him a little comfort at this moment.

I am not crazy yet, the astrologer thought in the dark sea. My thought process can still learn new things.

For some reason, after thinking of this sentence, several words related to crying flashed through his perception simulation protocol.
Orikan pretended not to see them and ignored them, reminding himself that now was not the time to think about other things. He must focus on the matter at hand so as not to fail to achieve even the most basic survival.

At the moment, the sea area where he is has not shown any signs of fusion, but he has no way of predicting what will happen in the future. He is no longer a prophet.

Now, he had to rely on his own hands to get out of the predicament - at least he had to find a weapon. God knew how many dangerous collections that damn bastard Trazyn had placed in his museum?

After numbing himself with these common-sense things, Orikan focused all his attention on perfecting his swimming skills. It didn't take him long to realize that he didn't actually need to raise his head above water - he didn't need to breathe!
The power of swinging his arms and pushing backwards under the water was more than ten times greater than his previous slow paddling.
The astrologer was so happy that he almost laughed. Granted, he himself thought it was a little funny to laugh at this, but he didn't care anymore.

Twenty-seven minutes and forty-three seconds later, he reached land.

With the sound of splashing water, Orikan carefully pulled himself ashore, but did not stand up, but remained lying on the ground.

He picked up a handful of dirt with his fingers, and before he had time to observe, he saw several very conspicuous bullet casings.

Explosive bomb.

Orrickan racked his brains to come up with this term, and then thought hard, and finally remembered what it was in the corner of his memory - he had read two books by Trazyn, although he did not get permission. One of the books mentioned this kind of bullet.

In the Imperium of Man's system, weapons capable of firing this bullet appear to be reserved for elite mortal warriors and Astartes.

Orikan's heart sank.

Whether it was the former or the latter, given that he was now unarmed and even his divination and prophecy abilities were blocked, I'm afraid they could kill him easily.

Moreover, they would never show mercy. Why would they show mercy? It's just a damn alien!

Wait, if I move that person out, will things be different?

Orikan's eyes lit up - a real light - and he immediately began to think about the feasibility of doing so, but he obviously forgot one thing: although it was still pitch black around him, he was the only source of light.
"boom!"

Was it thunder, or something else? Orikan didn't even have time to think about this question before he was shaken by a sudden impact.

Something was stuck in his left forearm. He looked down subconsciously and saw a smoking, twisted and deformed bullet.

I was attacked?
This thought was fleeting, because the surroundings suddenly lit up, and several huge figures were running towards him at a very fast speed.

For a moment, Orikan even forgot that he could no longer control time as he did in the past. He instinctively gave the order to turn back time to half a minute ago, but found that it was useless.

I remember now - he sighed belatedly.

I am a traitor now, and the council has taken everything from me.
A huge force came and dragged him up from the ground. And this was just the beginning. The attacker swung his sword without hesitation to cut off his lower body, and then lifted his left and right hands upside down, forcing the joints to twist.

Liquid carrying the energy from the reactor gushed out from the delivery pipe under the ribs. In a trance, Orikan even felt pain, even though he didn't have a similar module at all.

A terrifying face appeared in front of him, the pitch-black metal outlining a murderous shape.

Then, Orikan heard him speak a sentence in the official language of the Human Empire in a very obvious synthetic voice.

"This doesn't seem to be a low-level undead. Its body structure is different from those we encountered before."

"It doesn't matter, take it back, Sage Kaplan will need it." Another voice replied.

Sage? It doesn't sound like a combat unit, Orikan speculated secretly.

He originally planned to just throw out the human's name, but at the moment when he was hit hard, this didn't seem to be a good option.

He pondered for a few seconds, decided to pretend that he understood nothing, then shouted out and began to curse in the language of the Deathly Haunted.

The tall shadows ignored him completely and did not even choose to stop him, and Orikan soon got tired of cursing, but he felt that he had to do the whole show, so he turned to curse Trazyn. This time it was really smooth, without any obstacles, and the curses that came out of his mouth were so elegant that they could be written into a long poem.

The journey from the beach to a small human camp took no more than twelve minutes, but he did not stop for a moment until he was thrown at the feet of a strange figure in a red robe.

"It was very noisy along the way." A shadow that brought him here said in annoyance. "You'd better be careful, sage, this alien seems different."

The red-robed man called the Sage nodded and spoke slowly in a synthesized voice that sounded more like that of the Necrons: "Thanks for the reminder, Sergeant. May the God of All Machines bless you and me."

As soon as he finished speaking, the shadow called the sergeant walked away quickly. The sage lowered his head, and Orikan saw a face completely occupied by machines, without even a trace of flesh and blood.

The creature used its glowing artificial eye to carefully observe Orikan, and then suddenly let out a low hum.

"Ok?"

He bent down in confusion, and a tentacle emerged from behind him, pulled Orikan up, brought him close to look at him carefully, and then suddenly his body shook.

"Astrologist Orikan?!"

Orikan was also shocked, and was so surprised that he immediately asked in High Gothic: "Do you know me?!"

The sage stood up, and the tentacles behind him carried Orikan, who only had half of his body left, away from the ground.

He nodded slightly and replied, "Of course I know you. Over the years, when I was thinking about many academic issues in the display case of the Endless, I was interrupted by your visit more than once. I witnessed the fight between you and him eight times. So, from this point of view, I do know you, Astrologer."

"You..." Orikan took a deep breath and carefully considered his words, but his words were still very direct. "Are you one of his collections?"

"That's right." The sage answered calmly and even peacefully, not being annoyed at all by Orikan's straightforward words.

"To be precise, I volunteered to be his collection. I was tired of the day-to-day academic struggles of my colleagues, and I wanted to truly serve the Pandora's Box. I met him during an expedition. As an alien, he has a sense of humor that is close to that of humans, so we got along very well."

"After several more private encounters, I exchanged myself for the knowledge of manufacturing five lost STC templates, and entered his museum with all my research topics. He preserved my thinking ability, so that I can conduct research in almost unlimited time."

After listening to this, Orikan was silent for a long time before he slowly spoke: "Have you ever thought about how to leave? I mean, even if you can make further progress in your research--"

The sage interrupted him predictably: "--Of course I have thought about it."

He was silent for a moment, and just let the topic go. Even if Orikan wanted to ask more questions, he knew that the other party would not answer.
So he immediately talked about another matter.

"Listen." The astrologer spoke impatiently. "Sage Kaplan, huh? Do you know what my title means?"

The sage nodded slightly: "I know a thing or two."

"very good"

Orikan almost wanted to smile.

"Like you, I am also a scholar. Although we are proficient in different areas, you must understand that knowledge can be equated with life in most cases, right? Well, Sage Kaplan, I will not keep you in suspense - I, the Astrologer Orikan, would like to offer you a deal."

"What deal?" the sage asked with unusual calmness.

"I will guide you until you can leave Solemus." Orikan said word by word. "In return, you must ensure my safety."

At this moment, even though Sage Kaplan's face was completely devoid of any flesh and blood, Orikan could still see some doubt in it.

He sighed and smiled sadly: "I am now on the same side as you, at least for the time being, sage. My compatriots regard me as a traitor."

"Interesting." The sage said calmly. "I agree with your proposal - but it's not enough to just get my agreement, you have to get it from another person."

"Who?"

"I will take you to see him. Please note that he has a bad temper, so you'd better be careful. Astrologer, this is my advice. His name is Luft Huron, and he is the adjutant of the third company of the Star Claws."

"Astartes?"

"That's right," Kaplan said. "By the way, the people who captured you were one of his men."

He slowly turned around and led Orikan to the other side of the camp.

(End of this chapter)