40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 820, Section 17: Walking with Fire (Part 9)

The wind was howling, but perhaps not, because it far exceeded the scope of what that word could describe—screaming, yelling, a little boy shouting at the top of his lungs in the street because he couldn't see his mother.
Choose any of the above options.

Choose one, it doesn't matter, but the person who can truly hear this sound will not use any of the above descriptions to describe the sound of the wind in their ears.

A wail. That's what Khalil Lohals would say.

He looked down at his feet.

A dense, dark mass of people, like ants, blocked the white city walls.

Most of them were ants, who came with the traditions of their tribes, full of anxiety, and wanted to enter the city to save their lives.

But there are also some poisonous insects mixed in—and not the kind that will kill you with a single bite, but the kind that will slowly torment you.

Their venom can inflict hundreds of diseases that cause immediate death, yet prevent immediate demise, leaving the body languishing in agony while awaiting what's to come: abscesses, rotting skin, tooth loss, softening bones, internal organ atrophy, and excruciating pain keeping sleep impossible each night.
Sadly, this is their nature, an unassailable way of survival.

For example, a large group of rodents collectively known as rats rummage through garbage and sneak into people's homes at night, searching for food. They may not have lived this way initially, but after surviving countless centuries in the vast cities built by humans, these creatures have been transformed.

Like those poisonous insects.

Caril didn't know what to call them—he knew many things, such as the conversation taking place beneath the distant, extinct volcano, and the deaths of Rentar Sable and Serrano van der Leyef.
He knew it all, but knowing it was useless and of no benefit to him. To him, knowing these things was like stabbing him in the heart and then rubbing salt into it.

“You’re very angry right now,” Conrad Coates said thoughtfully.

“I would use the word rage, ghost,” Khalil said.

He leaped down from the wind.

Almost no one noticed his arrival, except for a few children who were too young to understand what was happening. Among them, a girl saw things most clearly. As soon as the judge landed, she looked up at him, her expression a mixture of suspicion and cunning, as if she were weighing whether to tell her father.

She is very smart, for her age.

The judge suppressed some emotions and smiled slightly at her, then raised his hand, and two knives appeared suddenly, firmly grasped by his long and strong fingers.

The girl's eyes widened. She roughly understood what was about to happen, after all, she wasn't a city dweller; she grew up in the wilderness.

Therefore, her emotion can be described as curiosity.

What happened next was almost identical to the truth revealed by the lightning bolt that flashed through her still-developing mind.

kill.

The two knives the little girl saw were of equal length, almost the same length as the judge's forearm, and incredibly sharp. They didn't even make a soft scraping sound as they cut into flesh; there was only the whoosh of the wind—and then, the head was severed from the body, flying high into the air, blood blooming like flowers.
Two knives, one in front and one behind, or one to the left and one to the right, were wielded along the judge's body.

He killed without expression, treating men, women, the elderly, and children alike, almost making one wonder if he was the kind of madman who killed everyone he saw. Fortunately, he wasn't; he was just very good at selecting and identifying targets, and too good at turning killing into a highly efficient job.

Three minutes later, amidst the remains of 2,962 people, he glanced back at the little girl and her terrified father.

Behind them, a kind of slender shadow rose up.

So the second killing began, and this time it ended even faster, taking only two minutes and twenty-two seconds.

The viscous, gelatinous body writhed on the ground. The survivors stared blankly at everything around them, bewildered, until two eerie blue flames lit up in the eyes of the man who appeared to them as no different from a ghost.

A chilling aura swept over them, and pale white psionic flames appeared out of thin air, beginning to burn the black objects.

“It’s over,” the judge said.

His voice traveled through the earpiece to the walls of Epimetheus, but the moment the cold report ended, no one responded immediately; only a heavy breathing sound was heard.

It wasn't until several seconds later that Helidok, the second company commander of the salamanders, finally responded, and his voice was still hoarse.

"Received, sir."

“These people are not contaminated, but they probably need a bowl of hot soup and a reassuring explanation. I don’t have time to do that right now, so I’ll leave it to you.”

"Understood, my lord."

"Thank you."

The judge withdrew from Epimetheus's communication channel and walked on flames to his father, who was standing there dumbfounded.

He didn't react much to his arrival, as if he was terrified, but Khalil could tell that it was just a pretense. The father was still very scared, terrified to death, but his right hand, which wasn't holding his daughter, was already secretly gripping a knife behind his back.

If he had taken one more step forward, the knife would have been at a suitable distance to slit his throat.

Khalil nodded to the man.

“Please forgive us, we can be a bit rough sometimes,” he said, then pointed to the emblem on his clothes and pulled a candy from his pocket.

It has a white paper packaging with a golden eagle printed on it, and the cursive lettering shines on its side.

The choice of loyalty! The words, though silent, shouted their own name in an exaggerated way.

He slipped the candy into the girl's hand, and a flash of blue light disappeared. As if she had known all along that he was going to do this, she laughed in her father's arms.

“This candy will help her forget what happened today,” he told his father. “Besides, your daughter is actually very talented; you could consider developing her psychic abilities after she enters school.”

After saying this, he adjusted the brim of his hat, turned around, and left.

He could have simply disappeared from the spot, but considering that these people had already been greatly stimulated, it was best not to exert another push for the time being.

The massive, hundred-meter-high city gates of the Gem City slowly opened before him, and the fire lizards and the city's guards rushed out to receive the civilians, though most of them watched him as they did so.

Khalil walked calmly, not quickening his pace, until he was completely alone before stepping into the darkness. To his surprise, someone was already waiting there.

“That ceremonial dagger has cut the curtain open again,” Conrad Coz said.

He nodded to Khalil in a businesslike manner, then shrugged with a smile.

“So it’s back again,” Kalil replied as he walked. “Foolish.” “It failed to achieve its goal, so of course it has to come back. It sent so many people just to temporarily hold you back, making you waste time going back and forth between the seven sanctuary cities, but unfortunately it didn’t succeed.”

Khalil glanced at him. "You sound like you have some sympathy for it."

“No.” The Night King shook his head. “Actually, I’m just as angry as you are, old man, but I can’t lose my temper because I have to go pick up that couple right away.”

"They haven't arrived yet?"

“They fought that thing for a while. You should have seen it; it really proved what you said last time—the ultimate hatred.” He sighed. “To die with love.”

“Go,” Khalil said.

He emerged from the darkness, reached the summit of the erupting, deadly volcano, and then plummeted downwards.

The erupting fireballs, accompanied by black smoke, filled most of the sky. Most of them shot up to a hundred meters high before hitting the ground, creating scorching craters or falling directly into another pool of lava.

It was a spectacular, almost tragic sight, but unfortunately it only distracted Khalil for less than half a second.

His eyes pierced through everything—fire and smoke—and were fixed on a man struggling to move forward.

He adjusted his posture, landed nearby, then climbed out of the lava unharmed, punched the man into the ground, and then stomped on his leg, breaking it.

Azekael Abaddon gasped for breath in the wet blood, his right hand somehow already gripping the thin, black dagger.

"Want to take a gamble?" Khalil asked, looking him straight in the eye. "To see who's the real expert with knives?"

A few seconds later, Abaddon released his grip, and the dagger slid to the side. He smiled, a forced and weak smile, but it wasn't exactly an admission of defeat.

"You are indeed incomprehensibly strong."

"Is this what you wanted to say? Common sense?"

"No, I'm just stalling for time." The thing that was wearing Abaddon's skin but didn't realize it coughed, spitting out fragments of its internal organs, and its tone slowed down.

"We'll stall for as long as we can," he added.

"What is the use?"

“Every second I delay is worthwhile for what I need to do.” He took a deep breath. “Sir, don’t you know what I want to do?”

"I know."

Abaddon, as if he hadn't heard him, continued speaking to himself: "I want him to be resurrected."

Khalil did not indicate that he was listening, but he also did not tell him to shut up directly.

His sensory network had spread out, this time especially wide, making him appear almost like a fisherman holding a net a hundred times his own size in a world beyond his perception's reach—a sight that was both laughable and terrifying.

However, there is no doubt that this fisherman possesses a power that humans cannot yet comprehend. This power led his thoughts deep into the depths of the dead volcano, where he saw Vulcan and Constantine Waldo running.

His attention lingered on the embryo in the arms of the Imperial Guard Marshal for a very long time, long enough that two seconds had passed in the real world.

Only after that did he delve into the heart of the Fire Dragon Lord.

He started listening to another conversation.

Unlike the conversation he was having, which was filled with pain.

“I want to bring him back to life,” Abaddon repeated. “I’ve spent ten thousand years working on this, first investigating everywhere, then gathering evidence, and in the process, I had to deal with the Word Bearers who had degenerated. Do you know what they look like now?”

Khalil's lips moved, and he turned to look at Abaddon.

"Not interested in."

"Yes, you're never interested in these things."

Abaddon vomited out more fragments of internal organs, and part of his face began to transform into something inhuman.

This is interesting because humans have always been fundamentally animalistic. No matter how much we claim to be civilized and advanced, we are still animals, and instinctive reactions are an inescapable part of our lives.
Abaddon at this moment was different. Khalil could see that the part of him that was changing was actually based on rationality.

The opposite, isn't it? Thinking about this, his disgust intensified.

“Horus must be resurrected,” Azekel Abaddon gasped. “The Empire scorned him, the people hated him, the Four Gods treated him like a disposable puppet, even saying he was worthless. I disagree. They are all short-sighted, completely unaware of how great my father was. But perhaps you will say I have no right to say such things, after all, I am merely a remnant, an echo, of Abaddon, the son of Horus. Ultimately, I am not human, nor are my kin. Yet I do possess Abaddon’s memories and emotions. In his final moments before death, he only wished to reunite with his brothers, only wished to speak with his father again.”

This statement finally piqued some interest.

Khalil stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded.

“The dead volcano is an altar,” he said calmly. “So that’s what you were planning.”

Abaddon remained silent, only smiling.

He waved his hand, causing the flames to burn the object to ashes.

The ground continued to tremble, and the abnormal gravity caused the remaining land to float up, with magma rising along with it. The dormant dragons, having lost their caves and refuge, crawled out from underground one after another.
And in the deepest, in a place beyond description, the World Serpent of the ancient mythology of Nocturne Star also opened its eyes.

The dead volcano is an altar, a fact unknown to the salamanders, and even to Vulcan. Yet, for all these years, their actions have been a ritual to worship what was once offered there.

The Salamanders treat the remains of their fallen comrades with utmost care. In most cases, if they die in battle elsewhere, their bodies are sent back to the depths of the Death Volcano to be baptized by the purest fire.

Meanwhile, some fire lizards that are too badly injured to fight, or those that are simply feeling lost, will embark on a 'Burning Journey'. They will travel to the Cremation Desert on foot, without any equipment, and usually none of them return. The desert is located beneath a large branch of a dead volcano.

Ritual and sacrifice. Khalil thought. And it lasted for a full ten thousand years.

As a force for resurrection, it is indeed sufficient.

He looked down at the ground, appearing as insignificant as a speck of dust amidst the devastating collapse of the world.

(End of this chapter)