StarCraft: Tyranid Empire

Chapter 311 Haji
Strong winds blew nonstop at the Tosh family's small shack, rattling the Hagie's reindeer moss and fluffy hay that kept them warm.

Sitting on a bench with a missing leg in front of the shed, Gabriel Tosh stared out at the rolling waves, watching one wave after another break apart as it hit the shore.

Haiji's ocean is ice blue, and the warm sunlight in early winter is like a wet gradation layer on an oil painting, with various spots and stains on it, which are the muddy sewage discharged by the city and the heavy metal smelting factories along the coast.

Old diesel fishing boats with rattling motors are at the same dilapidated little pier along the coast, the blue-green flag fluttering in the wind at the stern like rags struggling in the wind.

The fishermen of Geladi always go out to sea day after day in their small fishing boats that seem to come from centuries ago. This is the only chance they have to get some money or even identification. But no one has ever succeeded.

This ocean used to be rich in abundant aquatic products and was picturesque, but now it is on the verge of death due to the glories of human civilization here.People here always see no hope, but in this poor and backward world, tomorrow will never be worse than today.

The clouds in the sky are loose, and the strong wind is blowing them around, as if it is a lens replayed ten times and a hundred times faster.Sometimes Tosh would try to figure out what was on the other side of the ocean, and then he realized that going forward, the sea was still the sea, and on the other side was a wilderness that was wider than this ocean.

When Tosh realized that his increasingly elderly grandmother was calling him, he stood up and looked back from the roof of his shack, more dilapidated houses and shacks made of brick and stone, rotten wood and scrap metal. There is no end in sight.

Every few hundred feet there is a wind turbine, the huge blades of which rotate with the wind that sweeps through the slums, bringing precious electricity to the poor.This is also the cheapest resource available in Haiji, a moon world that is full of hurricanes and tornadoes all the time.

The noise of the wind wheel and the sound of the wind are the never-fading sounds of the world, better than the chirping of birds and beasts. Only the restless heavy metal rock music can bring a touch of ups and downs and passion to the pale, depressing and depressing life here.

At the end of the slum area, on the other side of this inlet, is the city of Grande, full of high-rise buildings, brightly lit, with factories, goods, and clean streets.The slums and the bustling city are so close to the people here that they can walk across this distance in less than four or ten minutes on foot.

Tosh had never been to Grande City, and as long as he could remember, he had been in this slum where there was no hope.Like the people in this slum, Tosh couldn't go to school, or even the simplest education.

People in the slums of the slums can always look up and see the splendid city that seems to stand in the sky, but no one has ever been able to step into it.In a corner on the edge of the city, the filth, stench, poverty, hunger and disease that cannot be dispelled even by strong winds are still destroying the lives of everyone here, causing them to age prematurely.

This place is also a place of filth, a place where gray interests and gangs run rampant. The Grand Slums that have accompanied Grand City since its establishment are the dark side of the entire city.

"Little Gabriel, go back to the house." Tosh's grandmother was still calling to him.

"Manan Thures told me that a mighty storm is coming. She will destroy everything and the walls will come down."

Tosh's grandmother was terribly old, her dark brown skin was wrinkled and blotchy, and she was as thin as a bone.

Grandmother had always been a powerful family patriarch, the leader of the small tribe, and she was wrapped in the high priestess robes of Haji's voodoo sect.It was a dark linen robe, on which twisted and absurd totems were painted with blood-like bright red paint, and the most striking VEVE logo symbolized Haji's death goddess, Manan Thresher.

Hearing what his grandmother said, Tosh turned and returned to his little shack that seemed to be crumbling.

His grandmother had always believed that she was blessed by Manan Thresher, and red was the representative color of the goddess of death.Followers of the Haji Voodoo sect believe that the Goddess of Death is real, and that totems and ornaments symbolizing Mana Thrace bring them protection and strength.

Undereducation, superstition, and ignorance regressed after a dozen generations into chaotic structures of gangs, families, and tribes in the slums of Grande, while in those more remote corners, nomadic tribes outside civilization A major worshiper of the popular voodoo sect.

Tosh's small shack was built with a few suspended car frames and a rain canopy, and it wouldn't last long in a hurricane.But it's the same with stone houses. After hurricanes destroy everything, people always have to rebuild their homes, day after day, year after year.

In the shack was a five-foot bed, Tosh's most precious possession.The rest were bottles, animal skins, or other things Tosh picked up from the trash, expired food, or rotten apples.

"Take it, and kill it. Mana Thres needs blood to sacrifice." Grandma lifted back the blue gauze door curtain that kept the hut from mosquitoes and thieves from prying eyes, and handed Tosh a sharpened Screaming grandy blue-eyed mouse.

Hagee was originally mouse-free, just like flies and mosquitoes, they all followed the footsteps of Tyranid human colonists to this remote lunar planet.These cunning rodent creatures are perfectly adapted to the environment here, and the population is far more prosperous than humans.

Tosh held the screeching mouse by its tail to keep it from biting his fingers.

Then, Tosh pulled out a sharp triangular dagger from the trash pile of bottles and cans nearby, inserted it into the mouse's brain and nailed it to the ground.Then Tosh slit the rat's throat with another knife and drained the blood, then peeled off the hide neatly.

"You've done well, Gabriel, boy, the angel that Manan Thresher sent me." The grandmother squatted down in front of the small pool of rat blood.

"An angel who proclaims the will of God and announces the time of death."

"But remember, before peeling its skin next time." She took the mouse's blood and wrote the VEVE logo while kindly telling Tosh: "Let it live."

"Manan Thrace will tell you what is the right time to sacrifice at the right time. Blood, killing and death will be exchanged for the favor of the Goddess of Death."

"But why, we have been offering sacrifices to the goddess of death, but she has never responded to me?" Tosh asked his grandmother.

"It's not yet the time for fate." Grandma showed an angry expression for a moment, which once made Tosh feel afraid, but fortunately her anger disappeared quickly.

"Manan Thures is deep in the soul world, in yours, and in ours." Grandma has always been kind to Tosh—even though she is a powerful figure that everyone fears.

Grandma is a loyal follower of the goddess of death, Manan Thresher. She is eccentric and mysterious, and a fatalist. Even Tosh, who can read other people's minds, can't see through her.

"Is it because I didn't do enough?" Tosh's black eyes had a milky white luster, and a red light lingered on the surface of his body.

"Oh—she's looking at you." The creases of Grandma's face gathered together with joy: "That's witchcraft, but don't show it in front of other people. Except voodoo people. Fate will guide you, it will never turn its back on you."

"Witchcraft." Tosh concentrated his mind and released a powerful spiritual force, and everything in this shack flew off the ground and floated in mid-air.He knew he could crush them as easily as he could crush the soft tissue in a brain or a larynx.

However, Tosh couldn't show his strength, because that would provoke the police or people from other departments of the Tyrann Federation.Nothing good ever happens when the Federals come here, they're more to be feared than murderers, a synonym for trouble.

That would invite misfortune.

Tosh once displayed his "witchcraft" when he was a child, which caused a terrible supernatural phenomenon.Those around were terrified of Tosh's power and drove his family to the fringes of the slums, which is why the shack is so close to the sea.

For a long time, Tosh believed in his grandmother's words, and his grandmother's words were authority and all facts.His power was of course a witchcraft, given to him by the goddess of death, and it was his mission to bring her blood.

"When you are ready, you can bring some more advanced sacrifices to Mana Thres." The grandmother picked up the skinned and boned mouse, sucked the blood from her finger and said, " She said that water is what makes up everything in the world, and people are a part of water."

"I don't like to kill. I don't like to do that, Grandma." Tosh rejected his majestic grandmother again: "Forgive me, I can't kill. No. I can't hurt innocent people."

"I only hear the souls of the dead crying, but Manan Thrace has always remained silent." He said: "If possible, I hope I can kill some heinous people instead of homeless people on the streets and Those who are homeless."

"You're so kind beneath your face that scares those people." The grandmother didn't show any anger: "Then who's going to define the measure of crime. Hagie is a place of lawlessness."

"It's up to me, Grandma," Tosh said.

"You will be a leader with honor, and one day you will rule the world." Grandma laughed, but the laughter was as sharp as glass scraping against a concrete wall.

"Gabriel, you are Haji's savior, the gospel of this world." She said with a smile: "You will save others and declare the death of the enemy for Mana Thres."

"Praise be to Mana Thrace and her gift, she made you unique, you are destined to be the leader and master of the world."

As the grandmother spoke, she took out several strings of beads strung together from her long priestly robes, and put them around Tosh's neck one by one.Finally, she took out a necklace with a small doll and put it on Tosh, watching her grandson smile.

It was a cloth-and-button doll, no more than a few inches in size, that had two faces, one happy and the other sad.

An ancient spell doll.

"If you encounter an enemy you cannot defeat." Grandma said slowly.

"Just nail it," Tosh replied.

"Lots of roots."

At this time, the howling wind outside suddenly increased many times, it was roaring like a mountain roaring and a tsunami, as if a god was roaring.This time the hurricane was far stronger than before, and the shack was shaking violently, and it would leave them soon.

Tosh felt a sudden unease as he saw a gloomy, cloud-covered sky from behind the blown door curtain.A tornado is forming across the ocean that will bring terrible disaster and death.

The sky dimmed in an instant, as if it had entered the night.The small-tonnage fishing boats that are too late to enter the port are one of the few lights left on the ocean. They are racing against time, and if they slow down, they will be swallowed by the tornado behind them.

The rain poured down, soaking the waterproof canopy above Tosh's head in a few seconds.

The city of Grande in the distance is still brightly lit, and the light of neon lights becomes even brighter at this moment.The city stretches out in colorful lights, such as countless Christmas trees hanging with colorful lights or a beetle with a firefly on its back.

The creaking and creaking of the shack became more intense, but Tosh heard some different sounds from it.

"There's a monster coming," Tosh said to his grandmother.

"The monsters may be the emissaries of Mana Thres, where are they?" asked the grandmother.

"In the sky," Tosh replied, standing up.

At the same time, the heart-piercing air defense sirens sounded in the distant city of Grande.Storms are a common occurrence in Hagie, and sirens sound in the city when they come, but that's not how it should sound.

Several old-fashioned Avenger fighter planes flew over the slums at high speed, and the lights on the tail of the planes flew above the dark clouds against the heavy rain.

The accumulated cumulus clouds caused a thunderstorm at this time, and in a flash of lightning, Tosh saw hundreds of black spots in the sky falling from the gaps in the clouds.

In an instant, the face of a howling monster suddenly appeared in Tosh's mind. It was a creature with a dragon-like head, a bat's membranous wings and a worm's body.In another flash of lightning, huge, flying beetle-like creatures fell from the sky like debris from gaps in the clouds.

Several bright orange explosion flashes appeared in the sky, which was the final fate of those brave Avenger fighter pilots.

"Run!" Tosh suddenly rushed out of the shack and ran wildly in the slums.

"Run!"

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(End of this chapter)