40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 534 52. Records of the Chapter Era (Thirteen, Trash Cleaning and Anti-Stealth Assessment)

Zell gently loosened his fingers and let the combat dagger slide to the ground.

It would have come off, if he hadn't caught the gauntlet with his fingers. Then he turned the hilt and grasped it again. In this way, his index finger and middle finger were tightly attached to the two ends of the knife surface, and the remaining three fingers were holding the handle of the knife.

This way of holding the sword is contrary to its structural form, and it is not a very good fighting posture, but Zell has become accustomed to this way of holding it.

He held the knife and quietly walked out of the darkness.

After leaving the lift platform, they marched through the radiation dust of Calth for another seventeen minutes before reaching their destination, Fortress No. 6.

In appearance, the fortress was unlike anything Zell had seen before. It was completely pitch black, and although it also had the emblems of the Aquila and Ultramar hanging on it, its grim shape and the absence of any observation holes or walls still made it a little weird.

Zell didn't understand why the people who designed it would abandon these two useful fortifications, but he didn't bother to guess.

He slowly raised the blade in his hand and stabbed the blade forcefully into the back of a barbarian at a gentle speed.

The man didn't even notice the pain at first. His rough and cancerous skin made it difficult for him to detect the sudden attack. When he really realized it, it was already too late.

He turned and started walking toward the passage, Zell behind him, bolter already in hand. Although he followed, he still had some doubts and did not hide it from Scaradrick.

It was no longer a smell that could be described by a simple odor. The breathing grill built into Zell's helmet couldn't even completely filter out this compound smell that was like a biochemical attack.

The carving technique and the incomplete and weird image of this statue were not enough to make him feel this way. What really made him feel the sense of oppression was the eyes of the statue.

The Lord snorted coldly without looking back.

The fortress that the people of Calth had spent countless years and blood building layer by layer has now been completely contaminated by the descendants of the traitors with their own blood and feces. Zell even needs to avoid the filth when walking to avoid They stain their armor.

Zell didn't hide anything and told Scarardrick everything he had learned so far. Because of the helmet, Zell couldn't see his expression, but it probably wasn't too good.

This fortress has been occupied by mutants for eleven years, and the power system has been completely destroyed. Although it is a behemoth about three hundred meters high, there is no light inside.

Yes, he has killed many people here.

Perhaps because of a genetic mutation, they can't smell the smell of blood at all. From this point of view, this can also explain why they can tolerate the extremely bad smell on their bodies.

Zell shook his hand to shake off the blood, then sheathed the knife and walked towards the other end of the fortress.

He continued forward, the steel boots rising and falling silently, repeated over and over without making any sound.

He had no doubt that ordinary people would have vomiting and other adverse reactions the first second they smelled their scent.

The combat dagger pierced his heart from behind. At the end of his life, the mutant tried his best and could only let out a short muffled groan without attracting any attention.

No wonder I was able to fight back and forth with the Kaos people. It was just the smell, but what about other aspects?

These mutants are different. They are even resisting the weapons of the Calthians and the civilization they established.

Three minutes later, he received an unexpected support target, the Lord of the Crimson Claw, Scarardrick. There was still a strong smell of blood on the latter's claws, and it was obvious that he had just finished a killing.

This made Zell uncontrollably feel a sense of absurdity. He had never dealt with such an enemy before. Even the natives of the wild world could quickly evolve in war and learn how to use light guns or chain swords.

This vigilance saved his life.

This place was originally used as an armory. Of course, Zell didn't see any solemnity belonging to the armory along the way.

Especially those so-called 'flesh', they are all mutants who have lost their human form, their dirty and ferocious faces are filled with a wonderful sense of peace, as if they can enjoy themselves without pain as long as they cling to this statue. Everything is beautiful in the world.
But what about the image of that statue?
Zell found in disbelief that he could not remember its specific appearance at all - he no longer hesitated and immediately started calling for backup.

The "meat" that has completely lost its human form is surging hard on the floor tiles, with a big mouth, swallowing other "meat" into its mouth. The sound of swallowing was endless, but the 'meat' covering the entire hall did not decrease at all, but seemed to become more and more.

He stared at the chaotic scene in front of him and remained silent.

Therefore, at this moment, even if the enemies he faced were these things that had degenerated into primitive humans, he was still wary.

"What's going on?" he asked bluntly.

Zell kept breathing silently, and calmly reached for the bolter on his waist with his right hand.
At the same time, his newly-installed Terminator armor suddenly popped up an error message, and the output of the servo motor malfunctioned, forcing the artificial muscle bundle in his right hand to explode to its maximum output at this moment, locking it completely stiffly. In place.

Of course he has experienced worse environments than this, but psychological disgust is difficult to get rid of.
What's more, the current situation is not that bad yet.

Its eyes penetrated the darkness, and with the 'flesh' surging around it, it reached Zell's eyes accurately.

"You are a veteran, Zell. And I am a Chapter Master, so if there is anything that threatens you and me, I am afraid I can only ask Yago Severtarion and our instructors to deal with it personally. And I don’t want them to deal with it for us, not any of them.”

Zell finally stopped.

According to the map, he is currently on the fourth floor of the fortress.

After leaving the long passage, what appeared in front of him was a deep and dark hall. Burning torches made of human fat were tied to the wall with hair, illuminating the ghosts and monsters underneath.

He only saw dried blood, countless skeletons that were hung upside down, and excrement that was carelessly thrown on the roadside with the missing body parts that had been chewed into it.
The armory door that was supposed to be opened did not move at all and remained closed. The mutants didn't seem to be interested in them either, and they did nothing except leave 'traces' on them.

Stealth is the first lesson for any Nightborne. Zell had always used this technique very well, simply because of his caution. The Astartes were somewhat arrogant, but he was not. His arrogance had completely disappeared not long ago.

"A statue that can also have an impact on you." The monarch pondered gloomily for a few seconds before spitting out a sentence. "Looks like we caught the big fish, Zell of the Shadow Knight."

It's almost like going against civilization. Zell thought with a frown.

Zell suddenly began to retreat, and he retreated until he reached the end of the passage. The motor error had just returned to normal, but the shape of the statue and the flesh still remained in the depths of his eyes.

Logically speaking, he should have moved his position long ago. He could hide the body and his whereabouts, but he could not hide the smell of blood, but this group of mutants who occupied the fortress obviously lacked the sense of smell.

As he walked, he gave commands to the servo built into the power armor through the neural connection, and a map provided by the Sons of Calth appeared on his eyepiece.

"Maybe we should wait for backup," Zell said. "If you proceed so rashly, you may encounter danger."

Zell reached out and pulled him back into the darkness, piling the body on top of more dead people who had died in the same condition as him.

There was a crude stone statue standing in the center of the hall. Zell intercepted its image with his own eyepiece and planned to analyze it, but his heart suddenly sank at this moment and he felt a sense of oppression for no reason.

Zell fell into silence briefly because of his words. He understood what Scaradrick meant, but his reason finally prevailed.

"If that's the case, we should call them," he whispered. "It is a good thing to be brave and heroic, Lord Scaladric. However, facing an enemy who does not know his true identity and going into danger alone can only be regarded as stupidity."

Scaradrick stopped slowly, turned his head, and glanced sideways at Zell without saying a word.

The paladin kept his wits about him and looked at him without showing any signs of flinching. Of course he knew that the blood relatives of the Crimson Claws were all cruel in nature, but wasn't he himself a stubborn person?

Just as Scaladrick was hell-bent on regaining his honor, Zell had his own principles to uphold.

"We should call them," he repeated. "And it's better to call now, for these savage bastards will never carry just a statue if they have faith."

His words attracted a voice, which came from above them, expressing his approval of Zell in a low and appreciative voice.

"Well said, Zell."

The king and the paladin suddenly raised their heads and saw a man standing upside down on the ceiling.

"However, you two failed the anti-stealth assessment." Khalil Lohars declared expressionlessly. "You still need to exercise more on weekdays, do you understand?"

He landed lightly without making any sound. Two pale hands protruded from the wide cuffs of the black robe, holding two combat daggers that came from unknown sources.

Judging from the painting and the emblem on the handle, they clearly do not belong to him.
Zell looked down and realized that the short knife at his waist had disappeared. Coincidentally, the same goes for the knife on Scaradrick's waist.

Why doesn't the power armor itself have a warning? ! Zell thought with an ugly face.

Khalil reached out, threw the knife, and gave it back to them.

"You can come and go freely in the darkness, but that doesn't mean it welcomes you. The darkness is full of dangers. You are just one of the monsters. There are many more lurking in the depths. Don't let your guard down, or you will surely suffer the consequences." As soon as he finished speaking, he walked past them and began to move towards the depths of the passage.

Scarardrick and Zell looked at each other, then sheathed their swords silently and followed him.

What the two of them are thinking now, I am afraid only they know everything. Khalil was able to guess some, so he began to explain.

"I did not use psychic powers or other powers to cover my tracks. Except when I was holding a knife, I only used some stealth skills from the legion period."

"Honestly, you should also understand them. It's just adjusting the frequency of breathing and heartbeat, entering the blind area of ​​vision. At best, I have a little more patience, but you guys didn't notice anything until I took away the dagger."

"And this has nothing to do with my system of using psychic power to distort the power armor. At such a close distance, even if it were not me but another enemy who was proficient in stealth or equipped with an invisibility device, you would probably be dead. "

"So—" He sighed visibly. "——The training we did during the legion days, no one does it anymore?"

"No more, instructor." Scarardrick replied in a deep voice, his tone full of annoyance at himself.

"I won't look for excuses to say things like the lack of inheritance. The facts are the facts. We really haven't done any more anti-stealth training."

"So are we." Zell said through gritted teeth.

"Why? Because you don't think it's needed?" Khalil asked without looking back.

He pointed out the crux of the problem sharply, and a chapter leader and a veteran of hundreds of battles fell silent, but Khalil did not stop there.

He continued: "Although I don't know much about war, I feel that there should be absolutely no 'unusable' things in war. At the last moment, even a stone can be used as a weapon, not to mention Is this the most basic technique?"

"It's just an attitude problem but not serious. I understand. After all, ten thousand years have passed. In short, don't take this assessment too seriously. By the time today's event is over, if any of you feel that anti-stealth is also important If so, you can come to me.”

He stopped speaking and maintained absolute silence, wandering like a ghost. It didn't take long for them to see the hall that Zell was talking about.

Scaladrick frowned unbearably. The moment he saw those entangled pieces of flesh, he had the urge to throw an incendiary bomb inside.

Zell was quite calm. He stood there with his gun raised, waiting for the instructor's order, but Khalil said nothing and just walked forward.

The fleshmen were unaware of his arrival, and even the statue that had made Zell feel oppressive did not even move. It stood quietly in place, and nothing strange happened again.

Zell frowned and began to look at it carefully again. This time, he successfully analyzed the specific shape of the statue, but he would rather forget it all.

"Eternal Night." Scaradrick growled beside him. "How dare they do such a thing?!"

What kind of thing?
Okay, that kind of thing.

That statue is Robert Guilliman.

To be precise, it was a mutilated Robert Guilliman carved out of stone, missing his armor and legs.

Whatever the sculptor used to smash the stone into this shape, he had no skill at all. The strange thing is that in those clumsy smash marks, Zell saw a piece of pure sincerity
He almost vomited when he realized this, for no other reason than that the sculptor believed in Robert Guilliman with all his heart.

If it were not for faith, it would have been impossible to adjust the angle and intensity of the impact again and again in order to present a better statue that was more similar to the person himself. Those traces can completely tell the sincerity of the sculptor.

Because of this, Zell couldn't bear it at all.

Khalil stopped in front of it, expressionless, hands clasped.

He stepped on the squirming pieces of flesh with his feet, but they still paid no attention to him and were busy devouring each other.

The digestive system and most of the internal organs have disappeared in these extremely degraded creatures. They have no eyes, hands, feet, or organs other than the heart. Even their teeth and spine are gone. At least Khalil did not sense anything from them. bones.

They are like extremely large, soft bugs covered in human skin, forever busy devouring each other and then rebirthing their own kind from behind.
Disgusting? It's really disgusting.

Even Khalil had to admit the sacrilege of the sight, but he saw something else besides disgust.

These things are changing, and they are changing towards the form of Robert Guilliman. There are at least thousands of these pieces of flesh in the entire hall, and they are endlessly repeating the process of devouring and being reborn.

They are nothing now, but their bodies have become very large, and their faces are changing.

At least this is the case for the pieces of flesh at Khalil's feet. Their faces are even 45% similar to the Lord of Macragge. Their eyes are still closed, but who can guarantee that they will not open one day? ?
If they continue like this, will they really become like him?

Or become his opposite, his defective product?

Khalil narrowed his eyes, stretched out his hand to hold the statue, and then began to exert force.

He is no longer considered a god, and the reasons why are still a mystery, but the facts are the facts. He is no longer a god, and although his power can no longer be compared to when he killed the counterfeit, he can still completely destroy the statue from its roots.

It cannot defy him, either in a secular sense or in an occult sense.

The statue was easily crushed into powder by five fingers. The meat suddenly stopped devouring, and then began to twitch, beating and trembling as if it had been dropped into a frying pan.

They even began to scream loudly and called Robert Guilliman's name in standard Gothic.
It was almost like asking him for help.

"Instructor!" Scarardrick roared, having already pulled out the two power axes hanging from the belt on his waist. "I'll cover you!"

"No need," Khalil replied softly.

He turned around, stared thoughtfully at the wisp of dust in his hand, and walked back empty-handed.

The bodies of the flesh began to disintegrate, from barely having a shape to a complete pulp, exuding a pungent stench, but their skins still remained.

Thousands of Robert Guilliman's faces, like inferior imitations, kept wailing in the flesh, looking extremely terrifying.

Khalil glanced back and clenched his right hand. When he let go again, the wisp of dust had turned into a small gray stone.

"What's going on, instructor?" Zell asked in an indescribable voice.

"It's just a conspiracy of chaos." Khalil said calmly. "From an evil thing that is dead but still suffering. Did you know that Erebus once took a wisp of dust from Macragge?"

He lowered his head, gently threw up the stone in his hand, then held it accurately between two fingers, and then raised his hand so that Scaradrick and Zell could observe more carefully.

"Is this the wisp of dust?" Scaradrick asked.

"Just one of them," Khalil replied, narrowing his eyes.

He even admires Erebus a little now. Even the demon of Tzeentch may not be able to mess up the material world in such a mess like him.

Anything he has done in these ten thousand years can make a cultist upgrade on the spot, let alone this kind of thing.
Ten thousand years ago, the religion founded by Lorgar Aurelion regarded the Emperor as a god, and the Primarchs were his sons, demigods who walked the world.

This title seemed biased at the time, and even considered a contemptuous name to some people, but now it seems that Luo Jia was right. He got to the point and pointed out the true nature of the Primarchs.

These transcendent beings are not human beings at all. They are the embodiment of a certain power snatched back from the subspace by a barbarian from the Eurasian continent.

And this means that they are really demigods, and they are demigods who can become gods, as long as they awaken to their own essence
As luck would have it, Robert Guilliman awakened to his true nature.

What Erebus did was actually very simple. He stole the ashes of the demigod's hometown that was very closely connected to mysticism, then fabricated his image and made him the Word Bearer again. What they do best.

He compiled a story about a god.

At some point, he came to Calth and spread the gospel of Robert Guilliman to the mutants.

Here he founded a religion belonging to the Lord of Macragge, and then left quietly, as if he was just planting flowers without intention, just waiting for it to suddenly bloom and bear fruit one day.

It's really annoying. Khalil thought with a deadpan expression.

+It's okay, dad. There are many, many people who want to settle accounts with him. +
+ No matter how many times he dies, it can never make up for what he has done. +
Khalil exhaled a calm breath and put the stone back into the pocket of his robe.

He was vaguely aware that a storm was coming. Within the tide of chaos, something is waiting.

(End of this chapter)