Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but Warhammer 40k

"Look, he's opened his eyes."

"Good boy."

The doctor groggily opened his eyes.

Visibility became blurred due to the swaying halo of light.

He found himself being held in a woman's arms.

The other person had their head down and was swaying their arms.

The face was shrouded in shadow, making it impossible to see clearly.

All that could be seen was a large expanse of soft, coarse white flaxen and long brown hair falling over her shoulders.

He stared blankly at the clump of hair.

My mind is still a little foggy.

Did I finally die?

It seems the mad knight's poison worked; that vengeful guy must have done it on purpose...

I'm so glad I saw him as the savior in my dream.

It's crazy.

The doctor tried to laugh it off.

A meaningless gurgling sound came from his throat.

But...where am I...?

Why is Your Majesty the Great God-Emperor a woman?

She was an old and ugly woman.

The face hidden in the shadows had a few strange spots that could be vaguely seen.

It has patches of white and black, like vitiligo.

The doctor suddenly felt a pang of nostalgia, realizing that many people in his hometown suffered from this disease.

He raised his arm, wanting to touch that face.

I don't know why, but I feel like I know her very well.

But the arms had just emerged from the swaddling clothes.

What came into view was a pitifully short arm.

Her skin was fair, with a few chubby wrinkles, like a plump lotus root.

It's not even as big as half a leaf.

  

The woman laughed.

"look."

"He's waving at us."

The wooden floorboards creaked dully.

Someone walked over.

The candlelight on the table flickered in the breeze, making the figure indistinct.

"Roman".

The woman called the man's name softly.

"Have you decided what to name this child?"

"Of course I've thought it through."

Anastasio.

He read each word slowly and deliberately, struggling to pronounce them, as he, being uneducated, was afraid of mispronouncing any syllables.

"My second sister helped me choose it."

"You know, she's been a maid in the household of a nobleman in Shangchao, so she's very knowledgeable."

"She said that in Higher Gothic, this word means resurrection."

"Noble gentlemen love these auspicious words the most."

The woman couldn't help but laugh.

"Isn't it a bit too long?"

Her calloused index finger gently traced across the baby's smooth forehead.

"What if he grows up and can't even remember his own name?"

The man scratched the back of his head and then chuckled憨厚ly.

"He will become what he aspires to be... He will become a hero..."

The dim candlelight danced on their faces.

The room was cramped and dilapidated.

A wooden bed that was about to fall apart, a wooden table with peeling paint, and a half-burnt, cheap candle.

The doctor lay in the swaddling clothes, staring blankly at everything before him.

Blood seemed to flow again in my cold limbs.

The woman began to hum an unknown ballad.

His voice was hoarse and out of tune.

But as the song played, the doctor's eyelids began to droop uncontrollably.

So tired... Actually, this isn't so bad.

Just as he was about to fall asleep.

A voice suddenly came from a great distance.

"Wake up!"

The woman continued singing, as if she hadn't heard anything.

"Wake up!"

The voice came again.

It's getting clearer and clearer.

The doctor frowned.

Who is it?

It's annoying to come at times like these.

The woman's arms continued to gently shake him.

A gentle hum echoed in the small room.

She said her child would make the world a better place.

But I don't know when.

Her hair began to curl little by little.

A tiny flame ignited at the tip of her hair.

Flames slowly spread along the strands of hair, the tongues of fire leaping and crackling.

But it was as if she had lost the ability to feel pain.

The doctor sensed something was wrong.

He struggled desperately in the swaddling clothes.

A crying sound came from her still-developing throat, as if trying to remind her.

But this young body didn't belong to him, and he didn't know how to control it.

The fire grew larger and larger, illuminating the entire room in red.

The woman's face began to develop charred cracks from the high temperature.

The skin curled up little by little, peeled off piece by piece, and turned into ashes.

Amidst the raging flames.

She maintained that same smile.

It was as if what she was holding in her arms was the only salvation in her life.

"Wake up, you bastard!"

The voice was getting closer and closer.

It's getting more and more urgent.

The woman's grip on him grew weaker and weaker.

It's as if something is slowly erasing her from this world.

The doctor struggled desperately.

He finally lifted his head from her embrace.

at last.

He turned his head with difficulty.

His gaze pierced through the leaping flames.

The image is frozen on the peeling paint wooden table in the corner of the room.

There stood a dressing mirror, about the size of a palm.

In the mottled mirror.

Against a backdrop of nothingness, a pair of pale, boneless skeletal hands, devoid of any flesh or blood.

It is offering itself up, supporting a pool of sticky, foul-smelling green rotting flesh.

That lump of rotten flesh had no arms, no legs.

It also lacks human facial features.

It was nothing more than a pure aggregate of plague, writhing in the firelight.

In the very center of the rotten flesh, a slippery crack slowly split open to both sides.

A single, bloodshot, pale green eye squeezed out from the crevice of the flesh.

It looked at the doctor through the mirror, just as Anastasius looked at it.

"Hold!"

The monster and Anastasius spoke at the same time.