40K: When evil spirits appear

There is no doubt that this city is full of life.

The streets are paved with neatly cut white flagstones, each meticulously polished and engraved with patterns. Towering buildings are connected by arched bridges, beneath which flow clear waterways reflecting the azure sky. Vendors call out their wares, pedestrians chat, and children play and run through the alleyways...

What a lively scene! Logan Grimner, however, didn't want to take a closer look.

He didn't want to think about why the merchants' goods were suspended in mid-air, why the pedestrians' luxurious robes were so far away and never touched the ground, or what the pale silver ball toys that the children were holding were that constantly emitted blue light. But he couldn't completely ignore it; he was already in this ancient city.

So he asked a question.

What are the children holding in their hands?

Old didn't answer immediately, but slowly removed the wolf skin from his shoulder, folded it, and hung it in the crook of his arm. His tattered shroud was made of the same material as people's robes—neither cloth nor leather, its edges embroidered with pale gold thread. It was a pity that his clothes had been worn down to a state worse than a beggar's, while people's remained as good as new.

He slowly sat down on the ground, looked up at the blazing sun in the sky, and spoke.

"It's an Oca, a toy used for training. It teaches them how to control their power, and the most gifted children are sent to academies to learn many things about using their talents to benefit our civilization. Then, they are assigned jobs and positions based on their performance."

The alpha wolf took the giant axe from its back and sat cross-legged in his manner, looking as if it were suppressing some kind of impulse.

A few seconds later, he couldn't help but ask, "So, you've been using psionic powers since birth?"

"Psionic power?" Ald tilted his head slightly, his eyes still bright despite the blazing sunlight. "An interesting description. We don't have a similar term; we consider it an innate talent... like coming home, all you have to do is turn the handle and push the door open."

Logan had tried his best to restrain himself from showing a cold smile, but he still failed.

"This is tantamount to suicide!" he almost roared. "How dare you do this?"

Old nodded slightly: "We understood it later, but it came a little too late."

"Too late?" Logan took a deep breath. "You should have known from the beginning that nothing in this world comes for free, especially not innate talent... Didn't any of you raise any objections? Did you think that such irrational power shouldn't exist in a normal world?"

Old shook his head sadly.

"If only ten people use it, it is evil. But what if the number becomes ten thousand? Then it becomes a force that cannot be ignored, even refused. And since we are all using it, who would object? It's like advocating against drinking water; who would say such a thing? And even if they did, who would listen?"

As if in response to his words, the sky suddenly darkened.

Logan looked up and saw a long, enormous crack appear in the clear sky, beyond which lay pure darkness. These cracks surged forth like living things, engulfing the city. Beauty vanished in an instant, flames erupted, and screams and cries followed. Blood splattered, the bodies of children floated in pools of water, his mother was torn to pieces nearby, and his playmate was swallowed whole by a skinless beast, its grotesque outline skeletal...

The alpha wolf heard his teeth grinding. He looked down and realized that he had somehow managed to grip the Mokai Axe firmly in his hand.

"So all of this came to be," Old said. "Everything I knew crumbled at this moment."

He stood up and walked slowly forward amidst the burning and destruction.

"We tried to resist, we tried to fight, but our own power was the most corrosive poison, and it attracted evil food. Only now have we realized what our power and the talent we once proudly regarded as the future direction of human evolution really meant—we ignorantly summoned these man-eating beasts. Millions of years ago, when we were still shouting and yelling at each other in the caves of our home planet, they were probably already watching us from the sidelines. They have waited so long, they have been hungry for so long, there is no way they would be satisfied after devouring us."

Logan got up, picked up his axe, and followed him.

Olde's voice gradually became softer and softer, as if he were talking to himself.

"We can accept our annihilation, which we brought upon ourselves, but we cannot accept these heartless beasts reveling throughout the galaxy. No matter how advanced we think we are, we are still human, descendants of the explorers who left Terra... And so, the few of us who remain have gathered together."

Suddenly, everything around them froze. The blood leaving the veins ceased to flow, the corpses hanging upside down atop the statues remained still, the demon's laughter abruptly stopped after a single syllable, the city itself stood frozen, then faded, weathered away, vanishing like sandcastles... Gradually, a towering altar atop the mountains took its place. It wasn't ancient; in fact, it appeared newly built, the edges of its stones unpolished. Countless people stood silently beneath it, waiting.

Olde stepped forward, onto the stone platform, and reached out to gently run his hand over its edge. His expression was a mixture of confusion and pain.

"And then?" Logan asked, feigning ignorance, even though he didn't want to. "And then what happened?"

"We need a warrior," Ald said. "Therefore, I was chosen."

He turned and pointed to a corner of the crowd. There, a younger man named Old stood, wearing a robe, looking rather unresolute, even showing signs of fear.

"You?" Logan looked at the young man. "Why you?"

Suddenly, Old smiled—the first time Logan had ever seen him smile, and the smile was incredibly complex. His relaxed brows couldn't hide the pain in his eyes, and his lips were tightly pressed together, as if he were enduring something. After a while, he answered Logan's question.

"Because no one is willing to take on this responsibility. People accept death, even the sacrifice of everything, including their own souls, but they all refuse to be the ones who survive. The wise say he will soon go mad, the brave tell us with tears in their eyes that they cannot bear the future of their loved ones dying, and even nobles and ministers do not want to uphold the honor of their ancestors. They say it is too difficult, they would rather die in humiliation..."

The soldier smiled and shook his head.

"There's no one else, so it's just me."

"Did they force you?"

"No, I volunteered," the soldier denied. "After all, someone has to do this."

A gentle mountain breeze stirred his loose hair, and Logan noticed that he was clenching his fist, looking exactly like the one depicted on the stone slab.

The alpha wolf was silent for a moment, then asked, "So, they sacrificed themselves... to turn you into a warrior?"

"Perhaps. I don't know the principle. My talent was abandoned when I became a warrior, just like my name and my past life. But I have indeed thought about this issue. We started studying the psionic energy you mentioned a long time ago. It was proven by our scholars many years ago to be an idealistic power. Individual talent does have its limits, just as people's houses vary in size. But what about a group? Led by the strong—"

He raised his hand, pointing to an aged face in the crowd, and then to a younger one standing beside him.

"—Guided by experienced individuals—"

Finally, he pointed to himself in the crowd.

"—Mediocrity provides the energy. If we do this, the world behind the door we can push open will be vast and boundless."

Logan squinted, scrutinizing him closely from head to toe for a while, sniffing the air constantly. Finally, he shook his head decisively.

"Impossible, there's not a trace of psionic energy on you."

"That's because I've given up my talent."

"But you yourself said that you were transformed from a collective psionic sacrifice, so the foundation of your power should be it. How could you not have its scent on you?"

"Perhaps it's because..." The warrior looked up thoughtfully. "We've begun to hate psionic energy, and it's idealistic; it responds to any expectation we have. I am entirely flesh and blood; my power originates from within my body. Whatever it was before, it is no longer."

Logan reluctantly accepted this explanation, and then looked up at the sky.

"And then?" he asked again. "What happened next?"

The warrior stared blankly at the sky for a long while before answering, "...After that, I fought them."

A voice came from behind them.

"And we chose to turn a blind eye."

The alpha wolf turned around, axe in hand, and unsurprisingly saw the ghost that had appeared in the underground city. She still looked the same, her face pure white.

He bared his teeth at her in disgust.

The ghost paid no attention to this, but spoke to the warrior in an extremely heavy tone: "We abandoned you. We didn't dare to come out of the underground until long after you finished fighting."

The world around him shifted once more. The battlefield Logan had seen on the stone slab returned, but the battle seemed to have ended long ago; warriors lay fallen in a sea of ​​blood. A few people cautiously approached from the edge of the battlefield and quickly found him. Logan noticed that several of these people had stood on the edge of the stone platform, their faces filled with regret and fear.

"Coward," the alpha wolf coldly uttered a contemptuous remark.

The Fenris people despise such people the most; when faced with death, they will only rush towards it, not cling to life, and they even fear it.

The ghost did not refute him, but only nodded sadly in agreement.

"Yes, we are cowards and traitors... We dare not sacrifice ourselves, nor dare we fight them. All we can do is dig their graves after the battle is over."

The warrior was buried in a sarcophagus, and the earth was laid to rest, as if he were dead. Some of them swore never to use their talents again, determined to live on in another way and rebuild civilization, while others were unwilling to let their life's efforts go to waste. So, decades after the war ended, the demons returned.

Thus the soldiers recovered, as if it were only natural.

This war seemed like a replay of the previous one, only this time, the alpha wolf was astonished to find that the descendants of those cowards and traitors hadn't fled. Wielding technologically advanced weapons and clad in alloy armor, they fought alongside the warriors until the last demon was slain. After the war, the warriors, succumbing to their wounds, fell into a deep sleep once more. Some of the exhausted people built spaceships, determined to leave their homeland, to live in other worlds, and to take their traditions with them.

However, a small number of people stayed.

None of these people ever used their talents again, and they continued to live around the warriors' graves.

As time passed, they experienced several natural disasters, and their technology was unfortunately damaged and largely lost. Their once magnificent robes gradually turned into simple cloth, and finally into animal skins. In the end, they even forgot the language passed down through generations and began to use a simpler one.

Even so, they still remembered the legends of the warriors. Before they died, they would visit the warriors' graves, bringing gifts and offerings—a polished stone, a bouquet of dried flowers—and then sweep the dust, mend the steps, and whisper the stories passed down through generations, even if they didn't truly understand them...

They did not know what they were doing, but their ancestors, now skeletons, knew: atonement.

Moreover, it is the clumsiest, longest, and most hopeless way.

The world trembled, and the underground city returned in the blink of an eye. Only now, the long river that had surged backward still roared on. The alpha wolf noticed that the faces among them were no longer limited to those of noble bearing and long robes; there were also those wrapped in cloth and animal skins, some even merely painted with grayish-white paint…

The ghost came to the warrior.

Behind her followed many people, some her descendants, some her ancestors. Their voices rose in unison, their language ancient and elegant, their intonations complex like a song, ultimately converging into a vast lament. The alpha wolf did not understand its meaning, but it could hear the plea within it.

Therefore, he guessed that they were asking for forgiveness.

-----------------

Several Terra hours later, as dusk approached, they returned to Et.

The alpha wolf chose this moment to ask Ald.

"What does that song mean? Is it asking you to forgive them?"

Ald stopped and shook his head.

"No, it's not just that."

"Then what else is there to mean?" Logan asked, half-jokingly.

"They are still calling for me."

"I'm calling you?"

“Yes,” he said, then smiled again. “They told me to stand up and begged me to exterminate all evil in the world… You should be able to tell, their voices were mournful and angry, and full of pain.”

The alpha wolf remained silent for a moment, then solemnly replied, "I will correct my mistakes."