40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 778 66. Regaining Hope (Twenty-three)

With his gun in his pocket, Balboa jumped out of a troop carrier to which he and his company had been assigned.

The oncoming heat wave rushed straight into his eyes, and for just a moment he couldn't help but squint his eyes.

He looked up at the sky and found that the sky in this pocket dimension was astonishingly blue, and the sun was an incomparably scorching sun. The temperature it emitted almost made him feel that his hair was burnt - and this was not actually an illusion. He raised his hand and touched the top of his head, and his palms were burning hot.

It took only a few seconds from jumping out of the troop carrier to standing firm. The sun had already done such a cruel thing to his hair.
The captain of the hellhound grinned and took off his helmet from behind his waist and put it on his head. He knew what would happen next, but he had no other choice now.

The communicator rang at the right moment, conveying a new order to his ears: Explore to the east.

East?
Balboa turned his head to look to that side - the huge waves that had rolled down before seemed to be still in front of him, but they had changed color and turned into a vast expanse of yellow sand sea.

The lifeless yellow color made him subconsciously alert.

He has been to the death world for many years. Those places are just like the desert in front of him and have the same feeling.

The captain licked his wrinkled lips, turned around, counted the number of people, repeated the mission, and led his company away from the camp under construction.

Marching in the desert is undoubtedly a hard job, especially in the daytime when the sun is blazing. The surging heat is secondary, and the most unbearable fact has changed from the temperature to the soft sand underfoot.

Wearing a helmet, armor, carrying a musket, and carrying supplies - in this situation, how to maintain balance becomes a problem that every hound must deal with.

But they were lucky, or unlucky after all. Forty-six minutes after the march began, a message came back from the front of the team.

traitor.

Balboa frowned and scratched his cheek.

His adjutant promptly took out a cigarette, lit it and passed it to him, but he did not appreciate it and glared at the adjutant instead.

"What do you mean?"

"Go ahead, Captain," the young adjutant said expressionlessly. "We all know you like to have a few puffs at times like this."

"Fuck you"

Balboa cursed with a smile, but still took the cigarette and took a deep puff.

The familiar smell of tobacco with a hint of bitterness quickly occupied his every sense. This junk cigarette that almost represented poor quality and cheap still completed its task well.

Balboa took another deep breath, then put out the last third of the cigarette and stuffed it into his breast pocket.

He silently asked his adjutant for a tactical telescope and looked back and forth at the camp in the desert three times. Only when he was sure that he could not make any new discoveries did he begin to formulate tactics.

Ten minutes later, the 6th Company of the 21st Hellhound Regiment, which had split into four forces, calculated the timing precisely and suddenly launched an attack on the camp together.

In the first two minutes of the battle, the enemy vehicles and their crude fire positions were blown up by the well-trained hounds using two of the simplest and easiest-to-use Zar I mortars. Then they charged and used various grenades to clear the way. Explosives were thrown from the hounds to the feet of the traitors who had not yet recovered from their shock.
It was not until five minutes later that the traitors, who were neither standing guard nor keeping watch on the surroundings but were squatting in groups of three or four playing cards, smoking or resting, realized what had happened.

Some of them wanted to resist, so the hounds used flamethrowers to give them thoughtful advice. Of course, more people wanted to escape, and for these people, the hounds responded with one shot after another of precise lasers.
In the twelfth minute, the battle was officially declared over. No one in the entire Sixth Company was killed, and only twelve were slightly injured.

Balboa sneered and walked up to a woman lying on the ground with her hands tied behind her back. Before he spoke, he first gave her a kick and then started asking questions.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Balboa asked - but for some reason, his tone sounded very uninterested, like a teacher reading from a textbook.

"Fuck you, Imperial pig!"

The woman cursed loudly, her bruised face full of anger.

Balboa raised his eyebrows in surprise, looked back at his adjutant and made a gesture.

The latter nodded, took a step forward, lifted the woman up with one hand, then swung his fist and smashed three of her front teeth with one punch.

He looked back at Balboa.

"One more blow, John, my good fellow--" Balboa grinned. "--knock out the few remaining front teeth she has."

The young man with a simple name like John immediately did as he was told. After the second punch, he loosened his hand and the woman fell to the ground like a puddle of mud.

She buried her head silently and covered the back of her head with her hands, as if giving up resistance. However, a string of bone-white ornaments tied on her right hand caught Balboa's attention.

He suddenly squatted down, grabbed the woman's wrist, looked at the bracelet carefully for a few seconds, then suddenly stood up and kicked the woman several meters away.

"Damn bastard!" The former death row inmate pulled out his combat dagger with a distorted look on his face. "I'm going to kill you!"

The adjutant immediately grabbed him.

"Don't stop me!" Balboa yelled at him. "I don't believe you didn't see what the fuck that bitch was wearing!"

"I saw her, Captain, but she's the only officer alive" John lowered his voice. "We better ask questions first."

"Do you think she'll tell you?" Balboa sneered suddenly, his voice still undiminished and still irritable. "Just kill her and be done with it. What truth can a traitor like her tell?!"

He exerted force suddenly, broke free from John's restraints, then walked towards the woman with a sullen face and a sharp knife in his hand.

The traitor screamed subconsciously and struggled in the blood-stained sand like a worm, trying to escape.

However, looking around, she could only see expressionless faces in the flames. These people were very young, both men and women, with different looks, and the reflection of the flames was swirling in the depths of their eyes.

In a trance, the woman almost had an illusion that she was surrounded by reefs in the sea of ​​fire, and each of these reefs wanted to hit her small boat and make it run aground and sink to the bottom.
Balboa knelt down, pressed her back, pulled up her head, raised his right hand, and put the dagger across her neck. The real killing intent and strength almost made her lose control of her bladder, and also made her scream suddenly.

"What do you want to ask?!" she screamed with tears streaming down her face. "You ask me!"

"If I ask you, you will tell me? You will tell the truth? Oh, you may fool others, but you can't fool me, traitor!"

Balboa grinned grimly and was about to attack, but the woman rolled her eyes and fainted from fright - and he did not continue. Instead, he stood up with a snort and made way to give their doctor plenty of space and sunlight.

"You know what, Captain?" the doctor said without looking up as he injected the woman with the drug. "We could have just knocked her out instead of putting on this show."

"What? You have a problem?" Balboa spat. "I'm just going to beat her half to death first, what's wrong with that? Traitors deserve death!"

"I agree with that statement. However, I think it is more efficient to just stun them directly."

The doctor said, then he helped the woman up and opened her eyelids. After a careful observation, he nodded.

"Okay, we're done. Do you want to wake her up now?"

"What else? Let her have a good sleep? Let her sleep until she wakes up naturally? Are you crazy? How can you ask such a question?" Balboa glared at him and yelled.

The doctor sighed helplessly, but his hands did not slow down at all. He took out a small silver bottle from his arms, unscrewed the cap, and held it under the woman's nose.

In just a breath, she suddenly woke up, but her expression was extremely dull, and she had no intention of standing up or continuing to struggle. Instead, she lay there like a dead person.

Balboa approached her with disdain and asked coldly: "Which unit were you from before?"

The woman opened her mouth and murmured a name he had never heard of.

This is normal. The galaxy is vast, and only the truly elite troops can have a widespread reputation, such as the Cadian Shock Troopers or the Mordian Guard.
Moreover, in a legion like this with a glorious tradition, there would be almost no traitors.

Thinking of this, Balboa shook his head and asked the next question directly: "What are you doing here?"

"Sacrifice." The woman said dully.

Balboa took a deep breath of hot air that felt like a toothache and shook his head.

"Who are you sacrificing to? Where are you sacrificing to? For whom are you sacrificing to? Who are you working for?"

The woman did not answer immediately, but muttered for a while, and sticky blood flowed out of her nostrils and eyes, gradually submerging her entire face.

The doctor at the side silently gestured to Balboa, indicating that he had at most two minutes.

The captain nodded seriously, squatted down, pulled the woman up, and repeated his question.

This time, she answered all the questions truthfully.

A few minutes later, a piece of information was delivered back to the camp from the east where the hellhounds were. After being passed through the hands of several people, it was finally delivered to Caryl Rohals.

He took the intelligence and took a look at it, then extracted the key information from it - the traitors were once the garrison of a remote mining world, and now they work for a Chaos wizard. They were sent by the wizard as a whole group, with the mission of sacrificing all the people in this desert.
Regardless of whether the wizard who was not captured was still alive after being collected by Trazyn for so long, or how deeply the legion was corrupted, Trazyn must have been full of expectations just from the breadth of this exhibition hall.

Taking this into consideration, the last dimension between them and the real universe became quite tricky - Khalil frowned, he didn't want the 'collections' that had finally escaped to confront an entire rebellious legion.

What was just destroyed by the hellhounds was just a camp. The intelligence they sent back clearly stated the number of enemies: a full 120,000.

This is a huge force from any perspective, and they have now turned to Chaos.
Therefore, once the war really breaks out, no one can predict what will happen.

Khalil looked up at the sky.

After a few seconds of observation, he overturned his previous statement of "full of expectations"
He thought that Trazyn probably really liked this exhibition stand. Moreover, as an archaeologist, his pursuit of "restoration" was probably unmatched.

There would probably never be another person in this galaxy as crazy as he was, crazy enough to actually capture a sun, and then somehow shrink it and place it high in the sky.

In the stagnant time, this star from the edge of the Milky Way radiates its heat unscrupulously, ruthlessly destroying the protective membrane that Trazyn set up for the booth here.

Its pride was enough to make even Khalil uncomfortable.
That's fine, though.

The Commissioner quickly left the carriage, and Mechanical Sage Kaplan came up with two data tablets in his hands, as if he wanted to report something to him, but Kalil did not have time to deal with this matter for the time being.

He made a simple but firm gesture, and the sage stopped where he was. After a brief thought, the red-robed man turned around and gave orders to the two priests accompanying him and the surrounding armed servants, asking them to clear the surrounding area.

He had no idea what Khalil was going to do, but he had remembered the strength the Commissioner had shown during the Dark Eldar attack.
Therefore, no matter what the Commissioner is going to do later, it is always right to clear the area first.

Unfortunately, he overlooked the existence of Rudolph Huron.

"What's going on?" Star Claw hurried over and asked. There was even a lot of yellow sand on his hand nails, which was the evidence that he had just carried a heavy object.

"I don't know, Lieutenant Huron," the wise man replied with great caution. "But I think we'd better wait and see."

Huron looked over with frowning brows, only to find that the commissioner who had saved them from danger had already arrived at the edge of the camp.

He stood alone in the sand dunes, looking like a ghost who had lost his grave. The hot wind blew slowly, blowing his shirt into a flutter.
For no apparent reason, Huron's two hearts suddenly stopped beating in unison.

What happened? He asked himself, but not only did he not get any answer, he even missed the Commissioner's shadow - he did not look away, but the man disappeared suddenly, and there was no trace of him at all.

This happened not long ago, and the situation at that time
Huron immediately became alert and even turned around and rushed to the temporary maintenance area that had just been built. His power claw and bolter were being maintained there by the technical sergeant. If something really wanted to attack them, Huron hoped that he could join the battle as soon as possible.

Of course, he was wrong again.

Nothing was coming to attack them—the warship that suddenly appeared above their heads was definitely not coming to attack them, even though it was so big that it blocked out the sky and was golden and magnificent all over.

They don't know yet that it is called the Emperor's Dream.
-
"You're crazy," Khalil said accusingly.

"Is it so?" the accused replied. "Am I mad, or are you mad, calling me through a star?"

He was wearing a simple white robe, his wheat-colored skin was roughly outlined with simple lines, and under his tied-up black hair was a calm face.

The King of Kings, the Supreme God, appeared before Khalil in such an ordinary and simple image.

What is particularly strange is that there is no memorable point on his body.

Even if someone could observe Him face to face ten million times, this would not change at all, and would even blur the original cognition - Is He male? Or female? Young or old? Tired or determined?
No one knows.

Everything that once belonged to him is now silent. His name, his appearance, the ornaments given by believers. All of these have disappeared.

This is one of the costs.

"I called you because I knew you had the ability to solve this matter." Khalil frowned and replied, "But I didn't expect you to solve it this way."

"Wouldn't it be simpler and more efficient to just tear open a hole to the outside world so that we can leave? Why did you have to borrow this sun to send your ship here?"

He seemed to smile, and this smile was undoubtedly conveyed to Khalil, so he knew that the other party was going to start a roundabout tactic.

As expected, He slowly opened His mouth.

"I have always admired your attitude of always considering efficiency, my friend, but I have other ideas about this war. As I told you when we set out, the biggest purpose of our trip is to send a signal, a sign, to the entire galaxy."

"Once successful, it will increase my power again. For this reason, I sent Celestine so that she can act as an insurance and carry out some religious affairs after the war. The same is true for sending the warship here."

"These honorable people need something to boost their morale and spirit, as well as to ensure their personal safety. Moreover, the worlds on your return journey would probably be very happy if they could see it. This is a good thing that kills two birds with one stone, so why not do it?"

Khalil folded his hands and looked at Him coldly. He didn't seem convinced at all, and he wasn't even the slightest bit shaken.

He silently endured this familiar cold gaze, and as if he had given his friend permission ten thousand years ago, allowing him to briefly touch upon His thoughts.
Then Khalil clenched his fists.

"Wait." He said this with what could almost be described as calm grit of teeth. "Malcador will be whispering about this in your ear for centuries when he finds out."

"worth."

"Really? How about adding Rogue, Perturabo, and Sanguinius?"

"."

"And me, father." A voice suddenly sounded. "I have a part, too."

A flash of moonlight passed by, and a tall shadow appeared between them.

Conrad Curze took off the crown from his head with a smile on his face, bowed deeply to his father - his blood father - and then sighed very, very, very hard.

"What are you thinking?" Curze asked, holding the crown and blinking his eyes. "After using your power at such a high cost this time, will it take you hundreds of years to form an image to communicate with us again?"

He does not speak.

Khalil sneered and turned away.

"Let's go, Ghost," he said without turning his head. "Your father always likes to lead by example - so let's go about our business first."

"Hundreds of years, father?" Conrad Curze demanded. "Or a thousand years?"

"I don't know," He said. "Hopefully, it won't take too long."

The image of the god disappeared, and the Night King sighed again and returned to the shadow of someone, who was now striding towards the main bridge of the Emperor's Dream.

The ship used to be packed with people, but now it is different. Various automatic machines have replaced the crew and servitors. Even the Custodians have not escaped this. Their security work has now been taken over by the Emperor's Vision itself.

The Battle of Terra changed things forever, and this ship was certainly one of them.

It had long been imbued with the Emperor's psychic energy, and later connected with the divine power within the Astronomican. All these things miraculously gave birth to its own consciousness.

This consciousness is different from the machine souls of the ancient warships of the Eighth Legion or other Glorious Queen-class ships. It is a pure, firm, and fanatical consciousness without any impurities and is incredibly powerful.
Moreover, his temper is surprisingly strange.

For example, now, Khalil had to explain to it over and over again that he really didn't need to teleport back to the room that belonged to him, but to go to the main bridge to observe the ground-

"--What?" He stopped. "You've got them all up here? How?"

Pure consciousness gave him a wave of joy and satisfaction in return: teleportation.

Khalil took a deep breath.

He got feedback again, with surprise and some caution: You don’t agree?

"No, I'm just thinking about how to explain to them later that they are on board the Emperor's Dream."

Why explain? They will understand. I will show them.

Khalil frowned: What are you looking at?
Five minutes later, he understood the unfinished words of the Emperor's Fantasy with an expressionless face in front of an extremely gorgeous porthole - endless flames were released from the wide lines under the porthole that undulated like golden mountains, and in an instant, Sollems was plunged into a sea of ​​fire.
Khalil covered his forehead with his hands in a headache and could not help but sigh: Fortunately, the human forces on Sollems had been withdrawn, and the remaining undead could also return through their rebirth agreement, otherwise his plan would probably be completely disrupted.
As he was sighing, a ray of light suddenly flashed by his side. The astrologer Orikan, whose body had been restored, rolled out in pieces, and every part of his body was separated from each other, but he was not dead. A golden light connected them together, allowing him to remain alive while feeling endless pain.

The Emperor's Vision proudly told Khalil: I caught an alien.

".Are you okay, Astrologer?" Khalil asked cautiously.

The astrologer didn't answer, he just screamed.

(End of this chapter)