40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 599 117. Dark Crusade (Thirty-Eight, Death of Calistarius)
"Where is this?" asked Calistarius.

"The cemetery," said Conrad Curz.

His tone was normal, as if the word was referring to just an ordinary cemetery. Calistarius tried to remain calm, clear his mind, and focus on the current problem.
It is really not easy to do this. He now has at least hundreds of questions he wants to ask, but the young think tank knows that knowing the answers to these questions is of no use to him at the moment.

There is only one thing that he really cares about and must care about.

"How do I leave?"

Curze stopped, and the tall, thin, and glowing Night King turned his head with a half-smile and repeated the key points of Calistarius' words.

"leave?"

He turned his head and raised his right hand naturally, making a gesture as exaggerated but elegant as an opera actor. Calistarius's eyes followed the hand closely and found that it finally settled into a skillful fist.

No, not a fist, but a sword
A burst of dancing flames surged out of thin air the next second, forming a flaming sword in his hand. The Night King grasped it tightly, weighed it, and then made a sword flower, lightly pointing the tip of the sword at Calistarius.

In front of the horrified gaze of the Blood Angel, he turned around and swiftly thrust the sword into his chest.

The Blood Angel almost roared: "You——!"

He stopped talking abruptly.

No pain
Being pierced through the chest, even as an Astartes, he should have felt considerable pain, but at this moment he felt nothing, as if the sword still in his chest did not exist at all, but was just an illusion.

He looked down at himself in confusion and tried to draw the sword, but he managed to pull it out easily. His chest still felt empty. Then, the sword suddenly shattered and turned into nothingness.

He looked up at the Night King, whose face remained normal and the crown on his head was still bright, as if nothing had happened.

He leaned forward slightly, grinned, and then said something that made Calistarius purse his lips.

"See? I'm so sorry, kid."

"But I. I have things to do, sir."

The Night King shook his head slowly but forcefully.

"Who doesn't?"

He seemed to sigh and then raised his hands. Suddenly, a heavy vibration sound came from the darkness, as if the curtain was about to fall and hit the wooden floor heavily in the hands of a third-rate stage manager.
Calistarius suddenly felt a chill in his heart. He instinctively looked towards the darkness behind the Primarch of the Eighth Legion, but saw nothing.

"You'd better not peek into the darkness rashly. Something might be hidden in there." Koz reminded kindly, but his voice was gloomy.

The young think tank took a deep breath and firmly stated his request again: "I must leave, my lord. I can't remember it, but I do have something to do, something very important."

Curze smiled, as if he had known he would say that. He turned around and strode to the other end of the cemetery—at least from Calistarius's point of view, it was indeed the other end.

He felt that he had been here for some time, but he still couldn't tell the specific direction. He could only rely on vague intuition to judge which side he was going.

This situation was very dangerous, and if he didn't get help from Conrad Coates, he would be very likely to get lost here.
But why is Conrad Kurtz here?

The Blood Angel frowned again, pushed the question out of his mind, and quickly caught up with the Night King, whose footsteps were completely silent.

The texture of his long black robe was unclear, like silk, or pure darkness. The edges and hem of the robe were naturally worn out, and the sharp and rough edges were dancing like burning flames.
After an unknown amount of time, they arrived in front of a stone coffin. It was completely empty, even the lid was gone. The Night King turned around and calmly sat on the rough edge of the coffin, as if he had done this thousands of times before.

Calistarius looked at him in confusion, not knowing what this meant, but he was good at waiting. He knew that Konrad Curze must have something to say.

This is indeed the case.

"Leaving is a special concept, kid." Coze looked at him gently and spoke slowly. "At least it's special here, because no one who comes here wants to leave."

"This cemetery belongs only to those who have done everything, or those who have nothing left to cling to."

“No matter what their status or achievements were in their lifetime, they are all welcomed here equally. No matter how much suffering they have experienced or how cruelly they have been oppressed, there will be a place for them here.”

"There is no suffering, no blood, no fighting, only quiet sleep and this peaceful evening breeze."

He smiled again and raised his right hand, spreading his five fingers, feeling the wind blowing past him.

"So there are no tombstones here because they no longer need an identity or a name, they just need to rest in peace, that's all"

The young think tank looked at him in disbelief.

"But I--but, I. This is impossible, sir, I."

Curze interrupted his incoherent speech with a smile, and then patted the side of the sarcophagus. The force was gentle, but dust fell, and it took Calistarius a moment to realize that it was an invitation - an invitation to sit with him.

He took another deep breath with an unspeakable pain in his voice, and had no choice but to sit on the edge of the sarcophagus.

For a moment, no one spoke here, only silence and the faint sound of the wind. Listening to it, the think tank's restless heart slowly calmed down, and an indescribable power flowed along with it, entering his blood vessels along with his breathing.

The wind still roared, but Calistarius had returned to peace.

After a few minutes, he spoke in a low voice.

"Am I already dead?"

"Not yet." Coze said without turning his head, his voice still very gentle. "Your body is still a while away from death, but its condition is indeed very bad."

"Your organs are damaged in many places, and you have lost too much blood. Your life is in danger. In addition, due to the error in the psychic ritual, your soul has also left your body. The soul and the body complement each other and are indispensable. Your complete departure has caused your brain to lose its active response."

"As early as four Terran hours ago, your pharmacist announced that you would become a living dead. The three Librarians who presided over the ceremony with you were willing to be punished for this, but they had to embark on a war before the punishment came."

"War?" Calistarius repeated his words, his mind blank.

"Yeah, War. Remember that mysterious psychic signal, kid?"

"Is it what caused the war?"

Curze finally lowered his head, looked into Calistarius's deep blue eyes, which were almost identical to his father's, and nodded seriously.

"That spiritual energy came from a monster. It devoured too many creatures, thus obtaining a huge matrix. Coupled with its inherently evil nature, its power was able to surpass the caution of you think tanks."

"You thought it was a signal, but it was not. It was a beacon used to release power. In the first second after the ritual began, it tore off the disguise, drove away your soul, seized the dominant position, and rushed into the warp." "And the ritual materials you used are too precious. A drop of Sanguinius' blood can evoke indescribable ghosts in the warp. Eight hours after the ritual began, several doors opened by this force were quietly born in your fleet."

Calistarius looked at him with a pale face, and after a long while he finally grasped a life-saving straw in the dizziness and near-drowning experience.

"We have the Primarch here."

“And they are endless.”

The think tank was silent. His hands, which were originally placed on his knees, began to tremble. From the fingertips to the wrists, every inch of muscle was suffering from spasm-like torture, and then quickly spread to the whole body. But he still did not give up thinking, and just like that, he grabbed a new straw.

"grown ups!"

"Ok?"

"You know these things." Calistarius took a deep breath, and for some reason, sweat was dripping down his face. "You, you know all of this, does this mean--"

"—I'm dead, child."

Calistarius was stunned.

"I'm dead." Curze whispered, then patted him on the back. "The dead will never rashly touch the world of the living, even if it's just a prophecy. Do you think I know these things using my talent?"

"No, I saw everything from your impending death. I can see the past and cause of death of every soul that comes here, even those parts that they are not aware of."

"Those who still have hatred can wait for the right time to take revenge. Those who have no more attachment will be buried in the cemetery and rest in peace in the coffin. Therefore, I regret that I could not warn your father in advance to avoid this disaster."

"In fact, if I had done that, you wouldn't be meeting me today and this conversation wouldn't be happening at all."

Calistarius could no longer say anything. Countless terrible thoughts roared in his mind, followed by countless complex emotions.
Guilt, remorse, anger, sadness - he was almost going crazy. How could this happen? He had clearly checked the psychic signal thoroughly and invited three experienced think tank directors to assist in the ritual.
"No matter how prepared you are, they will always find a way to get in."

Calistarius raised his head drowsily and looked at the person who spoke. He thought he would see the face of the Night King, but he was wrong. He saw a beam of gentle moonlight and a scene projected in it.

In a ruin surrounded by flames, a man with his eyes closed and covered in blood lay there, and it was unknown whether he was dead or alive.

His face looked very familiar to Calistarius, and it took him a few seconds to realize who it belonged to.

"You're dying."

A hand was placed on his shoulder, cold and chilly. Conrad Curz's voice sounded from above his head, creating ripples in the moonlight.

"You have five minutes left to live, Calistarius. Five minutes in the material world, a moment here or an eternity. It will pass, and you will die."

The hand grabbed him and forced his eyes away from the moonlight and turned to a pale face.

"Do you want to die?" Conrad Kurtz asked.

The Blood Angel did not answer, as if he had become dazed.

"If you don't want to, try to reject it, Calistarius. Abandon your old ideas and try to accept this new one: reject death. You must do this, otherwise you will die."

Calistarius finally roared.

"How am I going to do this?!" He shouted in anger, almost in grievance.

"Willpower," Curze said.

His tone was extremely ruthless at this moment, and so was his face, handsome and cruel together occupying a place on the pale canvas, adding an inexplicable horrible persuasiveness to what he said next.

"My brother Rogal Dorn once had a theory that a person could do anything as long as he had enough willpower. This theory was proven to be true thirteen years after its birth. On Terra, we proved its truth with our lives."

"But this is a prerequisite. The prerequisite is that you must be in the subspace, or a place that is disordered enough to be temporarily called the subspace."

"And you, Calistarius, as a think tank, should know a basic principle: there is no logic in the subspace. It is an idealistic world."

He put down his hand, took two steps back, grabbed the sarcophagus, and put it down heavily. Pale ashes splashed high, and an empty sarcophagus stood in front of Calistarius.

"This is the last chance I can give you, kid. Refuse to die, or refuse to abandon the past. Choose one."

He patted the sarcophagus, turned around and left. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared without a trace.

The moonlight faded, darkness remained, and the young think tank, the Blood Angel Calistarius, who was identified as having great potential to become the head of the think tank, clenched his fists in silence.

Until this moment, he didn't understand why things suddenly turned out like this.

His heart was filled with anger and hatred for the culprit. He didn't dare to think about how many brothers died for this, nor did he dare to speculate about the safety of the Primarch. At this moment, only Konrad Curze's voice echoed in his mind.

"Willpower," he said. "Refusing to die."

Calistarius strode into the sarcophagus.
-
Robert Guilliman smiled and picked up a piece of meat with a knife and fork and put it into his mouth. He was sitting at the head of a long table, with dim light cast around him by the pure gold chandelier.

A Governor's mansion on orbit should have a banquet hall that's this luxurious, right? He looked down at the head on the plate, flicked his bright red lips with his fingers, and then smiled again.

"You taste good," he said. "But not as good as them."

They? Who were they? Was it the group of mortals who were in fear at the end of the banquet hall filled with blood and corpses, or the group of Astartes who, most of them had lost their limbs, still stood in front of the mortals and became their shields?
Roboute Guilliman looked up at one of them who had lost his left hand, and shook a finger.

"My son." He smiled as they roared. "Come here."

Half a minute later, he put a still warm corpse on the table and devoured it. However, a black bird landed on his shoulder, which was extremely counterintuitive. Then, it spoke in human language.

"The plan was successful and you should set off."

Roboute Guilliman ignored it, just shook his shoulders and let it go. His face, hands and clothes were covered with blood, and broken flesh and bones were stuck in his teeth. Ten minutes later, he sat back in his chair with satisfaction.

"A delicacy," he said. "As expected of one of my captains."

Then he looked at the black bird circling overhead with a very intriguing look in his eyes.

(End of this chapter)