40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 610 127. Dark Expedition (End, the Real Winner)

With a loud bang, a tall humanoid figure filled with golden light smashed through the hard outer deck. The steel twisted, the light splashed, smoke rose, and flames like liquid gold burned.

The ship's preset alarms began to sound at the highest level, the armored doors rumbled down, the portholes closed, and a sharp and piercing buzzing sound, along with the recordings of the Ultramarines, began to resound at the place where Sanguinius boarded the ship.

"You have been targeted with deadly force. Surrender immediately."

What else can I say? Classic Ultramarines style.

But Sanguinius believed that if the aliens or demons were on board, this type of alarm would not sound. The Ultramarines like to design a plan for any situation in advance, and they are not rigid and will learn from failures at any time.

He turned around, and the mirror-like blade of the sword in his hand reflected the dense black gun barrels. The automatic turrets rising from under the armor plate were trembling dangerously, ready to fire at any time.

The hose carrying the coolant was wrapped around the right side of the muzzle in a way that Sanguinius had never seen before, which meant that this weapon was a new style that he had never seen before.

And they have locked onto him, and if he makes any unusual movement, these programmed killing machines will open fire without hesitation.

Sanguinius ignored them and simply turned away.

As expected, the turret opened fire immediately afterwards, and plasma streams, heavy bombs and several huge alloy capture nets flew towards him, but they melted instantly the moment they left the barrel and turned into nothingness in the dazzling golden light.

The angel slowly raised its wings as it walked, and light flowed down from between its broken wings like a golden waterfall, turning into flames and beginning to burn the thick deck.

They posed no threat to the deck itself, but they blinded something hiding in the darkness.

They screamed out of the darkness, chirping in unison, flying and crashing around in the golden light. The warning lights were pecked to pieces by their sharp beaks, and the cables neatly placed on the edges of the metal joints were stained with blood.

The feathers, which looked pitch black but were actually extremely gorgeous, fell along with the flesh and blood, and melted in the golden flames, turning into tiny pieces of glass, which were crushed into powder by the angel's footsteps, making a crackling sound.

The angels do not stop.

It's not time yet, there are still monsters waiting to be slaughtered.

The anger in his heart has not yet subsided.

"Is that all?" he asked, his voice echoing in the flames.

At this moment, he sounded like millions of people speaking in unison, with an incomprehensible power flowing through them, which was as shocking as the collapse of mountains or the rise of huge waves at the far end of the sea.

As expected, he did not get an answer. Perhaps it was because the instigator was not here, or perhaps it was because he simply did not dare to answer.

The angel accepted it either way, he didn't care, he was here just to win.

In other words, killing.

Kill the unclean, the evil, the dark things that bring madness and pain. He will kill them all without leaving a single one, and not expel them, never.

In the past, except for a few special methods, killing demons only destroyed their physical bodies.

After that, exorcists or agents of the Inquisition, or anyone skilled in that art, can only watch in dismay as their essence returns to the Warp.

They know that these things—no matter what shape, color, or desire—will always come back.

Therefore, the process of killing them is actually called expulsion in written language and common sense. Although soldiers use the word "killing", many people actually know the truth.

And now, Sanguinius refused to accept this frustrating thing any longer.

He has a new way to end it all, a way that will start a war now and spread to every corner of the galaxy.

He is a war machine, and this is what he should do most. He will spread the light he is bathing in at this moment to the whole galaxy, making darkness invisible and letting the demons taste the taste of death.
They can no longer escape judgment.

And sooner or later, they will no longer be able to harm anyone.

There was a merciless light flashing in the angel's golden eyes. He raised his sword, and the flames flowing on it suddenly rose higher at this moment. At this moment, he looked as if he was holding a blazing torch, but the flame of this torch was not ordinary.

“I have come to you,” Sanguinius said, twisting his wrist.

The blade touched the ground without making any sound. At this moment, or the next moment, everyone in the Red Tear Fleet who still had eyes and vision to observe this place saw a miracle that they could not even describe.

If one must use the most intuitive and concise words to describe it, then one can roughly describe what they saw in this cold void like this: about half a minute after the angel crashed into the flagship, it was completely engulfed in golden flames.

A battleship that was six kilometers long was burning in flames. They only found out afterwards that the ship had not suffered any serious damage.

The word really should be used to describe something else, something that has had its face peeled off and its limbs cut off.

Sanguinius drew his sword, and the flames engulfed the metal, causing it to wail and open spontaneously beneath his feet, twisting like a living thing to make way.

Layer by layer, the thick decks and the various machines buried underneath all gave way in a supernatural way, until finally, in the bottomless pit, a bloody stench hit the face.

Sanguinius gave him a cold gaze, and then, at some point, the coldness changed into a burning indignation born of empathy.

A hall appeared before him, a ballroom. If you ignore the piles of human remains, it looks like the ballroom on any of Roboute Guilliman's sons' warships.

Tapestries, chandeliers, long tables, blue and gold, the Emperor's portrait stood at the top of the hall, looking up at everyone. But how could one ignore the corpses?

Sanguinius stared at them from a distance, his eyes sweeping over every gnaw mark on the corpses, as well as some empty heads that seemed to have been thrown aside casually because they had no interest.

The brain is gone, but the face remains. Fear, despair, and the bone-destroying pain of betrayal.

The angel grasped the sword tightly and jumped down at a speed so fast that it was frightening - a being like him, a god with golden light, was moving at such a fast speed at this moment, holding a sword
So, what is he going to do?
A burst of explosive bombs flying upstream threw a cold answer to the non-existent questioner. Although they were captured by the golden light and turned into ashes the moment they flew out of the gun barrel, the people who pulled the trigger and shot them at Sanguinius did not give up resistance.

This group of silent beings in blue armor quickly drew out another weapon from their waists, either a chainsword or a power weapon. The honor passed down from generation to generation by the Ultramarines shone on the handles of each of these weapons.

Sometimes it was a name, sometimes a nickname, sometimes a battle. And now, they were held in the hands of a group of people who looked like Ultramarines, pointing them at Sanguinius.

The angel landed and swung his sword. He had obviously suppressed his anger, because the flames on the sword did not splash, but thirteen impostors were still cut in half at this moment.

Sanguinius should have continued to pursue, and in fact, his left foot took a step forward, which revealed his original intention. However, when the smell of blood rushed into his nose, the angel stood still.

Under the helmet, his expression turned to shock, then solemnity and a terrible anger that was almost indescribable.
Then, the sword was raised again, killing the remaining things together, but it was no longer cut in half, but pierced through the heart or brain, cleanly and efficiently, leaving the body intact.

Standing in the hell created by new corpses and old debris, Sanguinius sighed very visibly, a sigh that sounded very strange.

Sadness and anger were stuck in his throat like a stone.

He turned his head, and his bright golden eyes penetrated the obstruction of the deck, allowing him to see clearly and unobstructed further down the banquet hall.

On a helipad on the side of the 27th deck of the battleship, a tall giant in a white robe was running and roaring loudly at a black bird on his shoulder, as if to call it to account.

Sanguinius pulled off his helmet and put it back in place. The next moment, his voice, with endless echoes, hit the giant's eardrum like a sledgehammer.

"It's you."

The man stopped walking, his face full of doubt and uncertainty, but the black bird on his shoulder suddenly flapped its wings and flew up, screaming loudly. Then, the ceiling above their heads collapsed with a loud bang.

Cables, lighting fixtures, and heavy machinery like mobile cranes fell first, followed by the entire ceiling and an entire deck connected to it, all falling with a loud noise as if the world was being destroyed.

It was unknown whether the giant was dead or alive, but Blackbird dodged every piece of flying steel, and even had enough energy to quietly use the evil magic from the warp in the flying dust.

Until a sword pierced it.

Feathers scattered, dirty and smelly blood splattered everywhere, and golden flames ignited, burning them completely into nothingness.

"you."

The angel standing on the ruins pierced it with his sword, the golden light in his eyes was as bright as substance, and unparalleled righteous indignation burned violently.

Blackbird screams.

It had sensed the impending disaster several minutes ago, but it was unwilling to believe that things would suddenly turn so bad.

Moreover, it was even more unwilling to believe that the corpse sitting on the throne had recovered so much power that it could even help one of his tools to temporarily possess the power to transcend everything from such a long distance in the material world.
It didn't believe it, so it was picked up by the sword and accepted the burning and judgment of another power. At the same time, its past memories were also picked out, and the sins it had committed against the human race began to bombard the angel's mind continuously, making him grit his teeth.

In a place where time does not exist, he flipped through them one by one, examining them carefully: conspiracy, trickery, frame-up, betrayal. All these things together constitute the real name of the black bird before him, a forbidden name, which the angel did not pronounce.

The black bird continued to scream and hiss, struggling like a real bird. At the same time, its original body began to twist rapidly, but in an extremely horrible way, as if something inside that small shell was trying to break out.

Soon, it changed from a small black bird to a beast that should not exist in this world. It looked like a huge monster with wings, bird claws and a humanoid body, but in fact, even between each feather there was a wailing soul.

Sanguinius stared at it, and soon saw in its screams the starting point of the conspiracy.

Born out of a conspiracy long abandoned by Erebus, it quickly expanded and, under the careful manipulation of the beast, spread over the centuries into a bottle of terrible poison capable of poisoning the entire Five Hundred Worlds.

Its target was not Roboute Guilliman, at least not its primary target. The beast and its master had little interest in the Lord of Macragge, only in the loss of the Imperium to the vast territory of the Five Hundred Worlds.
And, if possible, it would be best to inflict severe damage to Robert Guilliman.

Sanguinius even heard some of its thoughts on the matter: The War Child has become a furnace, and his pain and self-torture are not the food I crave, but it would be okay to spend a little time playing with the legacy of the so-called hand of fate.

The angel frowned.

Legacy? Did someone kill Erebus?
He ignored it for the time being, and just raised the flaming sword in his hand, and cut the demon in half amidst the demon's desperate gaze and the faint laughter in the chaos. From beginning to end, it was clean and neat.

The smelly and useless internal organs gushed out along with some glowing blue essences. The High Heaven opened its doors and wanted to absorb the essences back, but the angel grabbed them and slowly crushed them.

"Don't try to run," he said in a low voice.

Golden flames suddenly ignited on the demon's body, and more light points hidden in its body were completely reduced to ashes. In the end, the only thing left in the world by this demon was a fleeting scream.

"And you."

The angel turned around with his sword in hand and walked towards a familiar face. The man had just crawled out of the twisted steel and was in a miserable condition. One of his hands was broken and two broken steel bars were stuck in his chest, with blood constantly gushing out of them.

Sanguinius sniffed it gently, his disgust growing stronger. He had already seen the horrific deeds of this creature from the demon's memory, but facts were always more convincing than those images.

"How can you be real? It didn't even try to lie to me again?" Sanguinius heard the fake creature whispering like this, its voice full of unwillingness and disbelief.

"I am standing here in all truth, and you—"

The angel threw the sword in his hand, and just as the throwing action took place, it flew away and nailed the fake object to the ground.

The pain made him roar suddenly, and then psychic power lit up in his eyes, controlling the surrounding steel to attack Sanguinius.

The angel raised his right fist and knocked these things away one by one without even looking. Dull sounds continued to ring out above the ruins, and he slowly walked to the fake object and reached out to grasp the hilt of the sword.

"I don't believe it!" The fake creature roared with a ferocious face. "I have clearly calculated everything. You were taken away by Kabanha, and I devoured your fleet. From now on, I will start to counterattack you ignorant old humans. I will kill you-"

His words came to an abrupt end with the sound of a sharp blade cutting through the air, because a bloody jaw, most of his face, his entire tongue, and his vocal cords were cut off from his throat by the blade.

The angel looked at him calmly, not even bothering to comment on this thing's fantasy, and turned and walked away, its wings gently flapping behind it.

The golden flame surged and formed a prison, burning his limbs to ashes. At the same time, it firmly imprisoned his psychic power, making him unable to move and could only stay in place like a maggot.

He was stunned by the sudden reversal of defeat and the huge difference in treatment between now and before, but what really made it difficult for him to accept was the angel's contempt.

How could you, Sanguinius? I am a facet of your brother, a possible offshoot, and you won't even talk to me?
He wanted to grit his teeth and yell, but unfortunately, he couldn't do either of those things now. But this wasn't the end, even if the angel was leaving, it wasn't the end
The fake creature suddenly saw that under the golden and white wings of Sanguinius, there was an old man. His hair and beard were all white, his face was full of wrinkles, and he was wearing linen clothes. The angel seemed to know nothing about his existence, but the fake creature suddenly became extremely panicked.

He looked at him, his eyes empty, and then walked towards him, his steps neither fast nor slow, as if he was really just an old man with limited mobility.

The fake creature was even more terrified by this, and he wanted to run away, but he couldn't even do that. He couldn't make a sound, and could only make a hoarse sound. He couldn't move, and could only use his torso to crawl on the ruins, bleeding profusely.
But, in the end, when the old man came to him, the expected pain did not come. The old man did not even look at him anymore, but just looked up at his back with an indifferent expression.

no, wrong
The fake suddenly realized that he had not looked at him from the beginning.

Then
He turned over with all his strength and lay on his back, and finally saw what the old man was staring at.

He saw a huge monster made up of countless dead bodies, covered in blood, and covered with stitched screaming human skin. Feathers woven from hair were inserted between the so-called "pores" that were deliberately left, shining with blood.

It had eyes, densely packed with eyes among its flesh and blood, staring at him without blinking. It even had hands, a hand that was somehow reduced to bones, tightly grasping a sticky umbilical cord.
The fake looked down and saw a flesh collar wrapped around his neck. He looked up again and saw the thing grinning at him, with each tooth in its mouth looking like a bent thigh.

At this moment, his already fragile mind completely collapsed, and he truly became a mindless beast, lying on the steel, constantly making breathing sounds, not understanding where his pain came from.

But the old man was completely different from what he saw. What his empty eye sockets captured was just a blue bird standing on a dead branch.

"You are so shameless." He laughed and opened his beak, condemning. "How could you prepare in advance and let me fall into the trap?"

"But——"

He spread his wings and joyfully began to jump on the branches.

"--Ah, I really have to admit that you did a great job, old man. But I just want to know, did all those who died for this go under your throne?"

The old man nodded calmly.

"So, did they say anything to you?" He asked maliciously.

This time, the old man did not answer, but his form began to change. After a few seconds, the being standing in front of the blue bird had transformed from an old man into a tall guard.

Wearing bronze armor, holding a torch in one hand and a round shield in the other, his bronze face is inlaid with a pair of determined eyes. However, the details are blurred, like a statue created by a bad artist.

The guard finally spoke.

"Whatever they say, I accept. But you, Tzeentch, your destruction begins today."

The Lord of Change laughed without a care in the world.

"Let's talk about it when you can do it, old friend! The trump card you have been accumulating for ten thousand years has appeared in front of me. It is the stars condensed from the hope you have retrieved from human history? Ha! Just based on this, you think you can win?"

"Yes, yes, you can save your son's so-called five hundred worlds from darkness. You can let the light of the Astronomican continue to flow into the souls of mortals through the power of your glorious idol. But how will you win?"

The guard shook his head.

"I don't need to win," he said, and turned away.

"You need it!" The Lord of Change roared. "Someone has to win, either you or me! If you don't need it, then who will win?!"

Sanguinius, who was about to leave, suddenly stopped. He seemed to hear a voice in the dark, a voice that he was very familiar with.

The voice whispered a single word.

"Humanity."

He turned around and looked back, but didn't see anyone. The angel frowned silently and tried to call his father's name in his mind. He tried many times in a row, and just when he began to laugh at his own behavior, a voice really sounded in his ear.

"Sanguinius."

Father?

"You did very well."

I.
“Stop questioning yourself, you don’t need to. It’s normal for people to look up to you, worship you, deify you, and even regard your arrival as the most important thing in their lives. You can’t adapt to these things, you can only learn to accept them.”

accept?

"Yes, accept yourself. Accept the fact that you will become a tyrannical leader, accept that you will become some kind of idol, giving inspiration and great courage to everyone. Accept these things, and then you will understand why Calistarius paid such a terrible price."

Sanguinius took a deep breath.

I'll try, Father, he muttered to himself.

(End of this chapter)