Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 959, 08.958: "Death Knows No Bounds Between the Rich and the Poor"

The red light in the servo skull's eye sockets flickered, then a steady and clear beam of light was projected from between its metallic jawbones.

Light penetrated the slightly dusty air, projecting the stored images onto a temporary white screen.

Horatio and the other jurors' eyes all swept over the flickering screen.

The camera angle is somewhat low and slightly shaky, indicating that the wearer is moving.

In the footage, he is seen diligently standing guard on the perimeter outside the barracks.

The occasional glimpses of his arms reveal that his uniform is still quite new, but it doesn't fit well and appears somewhat oversized.

Through the audio receiver of the recorder, his slightly nervous breathing could be heard.

Suddenly, a group of figures staggered into the frame.

They stood arm in arm, their once-glorious military uniforms disheveled, holding bottles of liquor and uttering incoherent profanities.

The group of stragglers, shoving and jostling each other, staggered drunkenly toward the sentry post.

"Gentlemen, this is the garrison of the Second Battalion of the New Land Dragoons. You've come to the wrong place," said Matthew Antoine, the young man wearing the recorder, mustering his courage.

His voice was immature and carried a hint of barely concealed timidity.

Horatio could tell that this timidity stemmed from the deep-seated fear of the aristocracy among third-class citizens.

Even when fulfilling his sacred duty, this young soldier dared not speak righteously and sternly to these spoiled brats.

Even such respectful advice still displeased and offended the group of nobles who were intoxicated by alcohol.

They were already used to being unscrupulous and domineering, and now they were approaching the sentry with even greater ferocity.

The young man in the picture seemed a little flustered and subconsciously took a half step back.

"This is a military restricted area, the location of other military units. Your camps are across the street, gentlemen. Please..."

Ping! Crash!

Before the words were finished, a crisp sound of a wine bottle shattering suddenly rang out.

The dashcam lens was instantly covered in a layer of scarlet, blurring the image.

But you could still clearly hear the sentry covering his face, gasping for breath through his teeth, a sound that made every viewer feel the pain.

Immediately afterwards, this fear surged into an uncontrollable anger within him.

Before the sentry could recover from the sudden attack, several drunkards rushed at him and kicked him to the ground.

What followed was a barrage of punches and kicks, which then evolved into beatings with gun butts.

The recorder was smashed onto the sand by the butt of a gun as its owner fell to the ground, and then kicked away by a military boot.

After a dizzying moment, the camera moved away, capturing the full extent of the brutal violence.

From being ambushed with a bottle to being brutally beaten, the poor young man didn't even have time to let out a scream or groan, only a few weak sobs.

Until those vile insults were heard by other patrolling sentries.

"Stop! What are you doing!"

"Attack! Sentry under attack!!"

A piercing scream tore through the night sky.

The next moment, the entire camp was instantly brightly lit.

More and more dragoons rushed out of the tents.

Horatio saw in the footage that Battalion Commander Poniatovsky was the first to rush out after hearing the alarm.

He didn't know what had happened, but upon hearing "the sentry was attacked," he was the first to draw his saber without hesitation, activate the disintegration field, and roar as he charged forward, slashing fiercely at the arm of one of the men.

"Ah!!! My arm! My arm is broken!"

Amidst heart-wrenching screams, the perpetrators snapped out of their daze and fled in disarray with their wounded companions.

Other soldiers who arrived at the scene performed emergency resuscitation on the sentry who had been shot unconscious, but the poor young man's heart stopped beating shortly afterward.

The scene ends here, leaving only darkness on the screen.

The dragon riders present gritted their teeth as they watched everything being recorded.

Some people, who had never shed a tear while seriously wounded on the battlefield, couldn't help but shed tears of indignation as they watched their comrades being brutally beaten to death by these nobles.

The place fell into a terrifying silence.

No one spoke; only the sturdy soldiers, chests out and gripping their laser guns, stood in solemn formation, trying to suppress their grief, yet unable to hold back their low sobs.

"This is the list of deserters we compiled after Navy Commander Horatio Cochrane took over combat command."

Military commissar Farida pressed down her peaked cap, stood up from her chair, and handed a data sheet to the military police.

The military police took it from her and presented it to General Nansutti.

"Our military oversight committee can confirm that these people failed in their duties during the battle, choosing to live for themselves and bringing shame upon the Emperor's will. It is a truly disgraceful disgrace!"

Horatio leaned back on the bench, arms crossed. His gaze, hidden beneath his bicorn hat, was like two cold, piercing beams, fixed intently on the flintlock pistols in the dock.

It was just a glance, but the flintlock musketeers who were swept by that cold glint felt as if their souls had been ripped from their bodies.

Their legs trembled uncontrollably. The flintlock pistolman who had first swung the bottle suddenly felt a heat in his lower body.

He blankly looked down and saw a dark patch on his crotch, accompanied by a warm current slowly spreading down his trouser leg.

General Nansuti took a deep breath, and as the presiding judge, he slowly stood up and read out his verdict in a voice as loud as thunder.

"The evidence is conclusive! The facts are clear! During his service, he drank heavily, murdered his comrades while drunk, deserted his post during wartime, and evaded his duties... The defendant has committed unforgivable crimes, too numerous to count! Your families will be ashamed of you!" The old general's furious, booming voice echoed in everyone's ears.

"In the name of the Divine Emperor, the defendants are found guilty of murder, evasion of national defense obligations, and dereliction of duty. For all these crimes, the defendants listed below are sentenced to death! Execution immediately!"

"Distinguished jurors, please proceed with the public trial vote." Brigadier General Jean Lannes immediately rose to organize the vote.

“Shameless! Only after traversing the stars did I realize how vast the difference is between humans and other humanoids.” They cast her vote of approval angrily, looking at Horatio who had cast his vote of approval alongside her.

“If it were me, these people wouldn’t even be worthy of being a God-Emperor’s blood coin. They don’t deserve it!” Horatio said coldly, throwing his vote of approval into the ballot box.

boom boom boom boom—

The grenadier drummers stood in a row and beat out a dense drumbeat.

Boom!
The drumbeats ended abruptly with a heavy thud.

The cold shackles clicked onto the criminal's hands.

Sizzle! —

The bailiffs from the Ministry of Justice walked forward expressionlessly and roughly tore the uniforms of these perpetrators to shreds.

From that moment on, they lost the honor of wearing military uniforms.

The magnificent wool coat was torn to shreds and trampled under heavy iron boots.

The cuirassiers and carbine riders, arranged in a hollow square formation, looked down coldly from their high horses at these shameless sinners and disgraceful deserters. Even the snorts of their warhorses seemed to sneer at these spoiled scum.

These criminals sentenced to death were still in a daze, as if they had no idea what was about to happen.

"No...no...no..."

"Get up there!" A high-ranking law enforcement officer shoved the first criminal—the attacker who had smashed the bottle at the young sentry—forward.

He stumbled, his already weak legs giving way, and he collapsed to the ground, then was dragged toward the high platform.

Crunch...crunch...

The guillotine's winch was pulled to the top by the strong law enforcement officer and locked into the mechanism.

The first criminal had disheveled hair, a layer of dust covering his ashen face, and dry, cracked lips.

At this moment, he looked more like a dirty beggar than a nobleman.

He stood helplessly before the guillotine, his body trembling slightly.

The next moment, he was lifted up by two burly law enforcement officers and pressed onto the retractable frame in front of the guillotine, his hands and feet firmly bound with tough leather straps.

He began to struggle, but his strength seemed so weak in the face of the Imperial Marshals.

He tried to scream, but due to overwhelming fear, he opened his mouth wide but couldn't make a sound.

He was ultimately shoved violently under the gates of the guillotine by two officers.

The two heavy wooden yokes slammed shut with a loud bang, clamping tightly around his neck.

"No... I am a nobleman... You cannot execute me based on a judgment outside of the noble court..." He stared at the basket in front of him, which was about to receive his head, and screamed as if waking from a dream.

boom boom boom boom—

The intense drumbeats resumed, drowning out his desperate cries.

"You can't execute me! I am your nobleman—"

Whoosh! Thump!
The screams stopped abruptly when the mechanism was pulled down.

The two law enforcement officers, expressionless, untied the leather straps, grabbed the still convulsing headless corpse one after the other, and tossed it into the hearse that was already parked below the stage, like throwing away a bag of garbage.

The officer in charge of pulling down the guillotine picked up the bloody head from the blood-stained basket, coldly raised it high, and displayed it to all the soldiers and officers present.

A look of terror still lingered on that messy head with its whites rolled back.

Death is the fairest thing in the world; it never distinguishes between the rich and the poor, the noble and the lowly.

The deserter nobleman who committed the violence met the same fate as the "troublemaker" he had beaten to death, but with even greater shame.

"Long live the citizens! Long live the Republic!"

In the crowd, someone started it, and then a roar like a tsunami echoed throughout the ruins.

"Long live the citizens!!! Long live the republic!!!"

(End of this chapter)