40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 626 9. The Past of Sovet (I. Accountability)
"That's not psychic power." Khalil said slowly.

The lion said nothing, but nodded.

Of course he knew it wasn't psychic power, if it was, he would have sensed it.

As for what exactly that thing was and why it could cause Haid to fall into a deep coma, he actually already had the answer.

The Inquisition has never been afraid to use dangerous things, such as demonic weapons, heretical knowledge, alien weapons, or ancient things from human history that have been sealed away.

What happened to Hayd must be one of these things, a special hypnotic method from the past. The initiator had implanted it deep into the mind of this retired soldier through some kind of suggestion.

Once he tells the truth about the Battle of Sovet, the mechanism will be activated and he will kill himself to prevent future troubles. The same is true for the voice, but it is just a hypnotic part.

The human vocal cords have very strong plasticity. It is not surprising that Hayd's voice is not in the low range and he has not been injured, so he speaks in a female voice under the influence of hypnotic suggestion.

The lion had thought all this through, but he was still angry. The reason he could still calmly stand in front of the thick bulletproof glass and stare at Hayd who was being examined and treated inside was only because Khalil was standing next to him.

If not, he would set out immediately, no matter what. He would find the Inquisition before it found him—

"——Lord Leon, are you looking for me?" A voice asked from more than ten meters away.

Without even turning his head, the lion replied, "Yes, Shefa, come here."

Judge Xie Fa did as he was told, walking steadily.

"Look inside, look at the man who is in a coma, and tell me what you see."

Shefa nodded, his ice-blue eyes beneath his military cap looking intently at the bulletproof glass.

A Dark Angel pharmacist was working inside, but this did not affect his observation. Soon, he came to a conclusion.

"I presume this person is a retired soldier for the following reasons"

The lion raised his right hand and swung it. There was a heavy sound of breaking through the air, and Shefa swallowed back the words he had not finished. He looked up and saw a pair of cold dark green eyes with sharp pupils, like the vertical pupils of a predator.

"What else?" the lion asked coldly.

Xie Fa was silent for a moment, then replied, "I don't know, but since you specifically called me here, I guess this person is related to the Inquisition?"

"Related." said the Lion.

Shefa tensed himself.

"His name is Haid. He is from the 23rd Company of the 77th Regiment of the Doomsday Guard. He is a corporal and was one of the survivors of the Battle of Sovet. He should have been one of the heroes, covered in honors like the others, but unfortunately that was not the case."

"What is the fact?" Xie Fa asked seriously.

"The fact is, he was stripped of his honor."

"Who did it?"

The lion's cold and almost cruel expression slowly changed, and an expression that even Shefa didn't know how to describe was born.

"What do you say?"

The Inquisitor's throat rolled up and down for several seconds. Somehow, in the face of the wrath of a Primarch, he remained eerily calm. He did not answer the Lion's question immediately, but instead looked at Khalil who was folding his hands.

The latter just shook his head in response to his inquiring gaze, indicating that the matter had nothing to do with him. Shefa pursed his lips, thought for a moment, and spoke again.

"At some point, we have to pay a price to get something done."

"And you made him one of the costs?"

"Yes." Shefa said firmly. "When necessary, anyone can become a sacrifice, even us."

"If there was a chance for me to kill a listed daemon once and for all, I would do it with my own blood. I believe the same is true of my colleagues. Every Inquisitor has sworn an oath. And as far as I know, none has broken it."

The lion continued to sneer: "I thought you would have a bottom line, just like him."

He raised his hand and pointed at Khalil.

"We have." Xie Fa argued. "But Lord Bottom Line, if you compare the life of one person with the lives of another ten million people, and put them on both ends of the scale, what will you choose? What can you choose?"

"Please don't answer me by saying I'll break the scales or kill the mastermind. I'm sure you can do it and make it the best of both worlds, but we can't."

"Every man and woman who works within the Inquisition is, at the end of the day, just a mortal. Some of us are descendants of nobles, some are children of the poor, some are descendants of soldiers. We come from all over the galaxy, just like everyone else. There is no difference."

"We will die if we are shot by a bullet, and we will bleed if we are stabbed by a knife. Therefore, most of the time, we can only answer this multiple-choice question."

The lion was silent, and in that second, he seemed to be thinking about a lot of things.

His intuition told him that Shefa was not lying, and this was indeed a helpless question - so he calmed down and said, "Well, I have something to ask you."

Shefa looked at Khalil again, and a badge slipped quietly from his right sleeve. Khalil nodded to him, then raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.

The darkness waited for a few seconds, then invaded and took Shefa from under his feet to a room he had never been to before. There were only three chairs and a round table. There were no windows, and the ground was as gray as iron, but there was no flash.

Xiefa wanted to speak, but a chill rising from the depths of his throat interrupted him, but he continued to think. For some reason, he always felt that the snap was probably just for himself, just a notification.

He took a deep breath, sat up straight, and looked at both ends of the round table. Without any surprise, he saw Lion El'Jonson and Caryl Rohals.

The badge in his cuff had disappeared and was now held between the index and middle fingers of his left hand. It was shining and the eye sockets of the skull were very deep.

This time, the person asking the question changed quietly.

Caryl Rohals, who had existed only in books, nodded to him and spoke softly.

"First question, Shefa, do you know about the Battle of Sowet?"

"I have heard about it." Xie Fa said, sitting upright. "But I have no right to access the information. I only know that this incident caused a huge uproar back then."

"You don't have the right to see it?"

"Yes, sir - please forgive me and allow me to call you that. I am a rather rigid person."

"I allow it."

Xiefa suppressed his excitement and took another deep breath: "Thank you, anyway, I really don't have the right to check. Although there is no hierarchy in the Tribunal, we are only responsible to the Seal Holder, you and Sir Luther." "After you and Sir Luther disappeared one after another, we only reported to the Seal Holder. Any detailed report on our mission will only appear in his office or database, and even the investigators of the case must ask him if they want to read it again."

Khalil nodded. "So, what did you hear about this?"

"I once heard from my mentor that four inquisitors were killed in the operation in Sovet."

Shefa answered slowly, frowning for the first time, a look of contemplation gradually spreading across his statue-like face.

"I don't know their names, but there were five inquisitors present during the operation, and only the last one survived."

"Who is she?" the lion suddenly asked.

"I do not know."

The lion narrowed his eyes. "Think carefully before answering, thank you. The Battle of Sowet cost me two companies, and eight regiments of the Doomsday Guard stayed there forever. That's eight standard regiments, a total of 24,000 people. You must be aware of the weight of your answer."

"I don't know." Inquisitor Shefa repeated without hesitation, his voice still very firm. "No matter how many times you ask, my answer is always that I don't know, because her name has been kept confidential and I have no right to know."

"But I can tell you another thing. Such a high level of confidentiality is rare within the Inquisition. Usually, only missions that may lead to the fall of an entire star region will be like this."

"You mean, the truth behind the battle between Corporal Harid and Sovet could very well lead to the deaths of innocent people in an entire sector?"

"It's very likely." Xiefa said seriously.

Under the table, the lion's hands were clasped together.

He knew rationally that there could be no falsehood or concealment in Xiefa's words. He also knew that the seemingly alarmist conclusion did not contain any exaggeration or fabrication.

How can a matter that is related to the Inquisition and in which four inquisitors died be considered a trivial matter?
Shefa was right. They were mortals, that was true, but their selection method was even stricter than that of the Astartes - otherwise, how would a group of mortals face those horrors that were far beyond their imagination?
But, based on emotion
The lion's fingers slowly clenched.

He would not lie, and if someone asked him, he would directly admit that the reason why he was so concerned about this matter, besides the fact that he did not want to see the soldiers being deprived of their honor, was also because of an old incident from ten thousand years ago.

The chain reaction of that incident directly led to the civil strife in Caliban. During these long one hundred centuries, the lion thought more than once about what the outcome would be if he had been more patient.
If Luther had not had his arm cut off by him and been expelled from the Knights, would those damn political turmoil and the inner circle organizations that were linked one after another have not caused such a great disaster?

If he had not been blinded by anger at the time, would he have understood why Luthor took the blame on him?
He was thinking, so many old things came to his mind, but not even a second had passed in the material world. For the first time, he hated his superhuman physique. He wanted to end this memory, but he couldn't do it. He needed someone to help him.

Caryl Rohals held out his hand again.

"Leon."

The lion restrained himself and raised his head slowly.

"Do you have any survivors of the Battle of Sowet?"

"No more." The knight of Caliban replied hoarsely. "Harel and his brothers kept their promise and left their lives on Sovet, along with the Doomguard."

Khalil nodded in understanding and turned to the Inquisitor.

He placed the badge back on the round table and gave it a light push. It slid up and flew. Two silver chains swayed out from behind the skull, crossed abruptly, and wrapped around Shefa's neck, spontaneously turning into a small pendant.

In the surprise of the Inquisitor, Khalil smiled sincerely: "Thank you for your help, Xiefa, go and do your work, sorry for taking up your time."

Shefa tightened his face in silence, stood up and left. The door opened and closed again. Khalil continued, "Leon, maybe you have heard Conrad or Corax mention that I have a special ability."

"What kind?"

"The kind that is particularly useful for our current situation." Khalil said. "To put it bluntly, I can find some wronged souls and let them tell the truth themselves. However, this ability must meet one of two requirements before it can be used."

The lion stared at him intently, and Khalil continued his story at a leisurely pace with a calm expression.

"First, there really is such an innocent soul in the warp. Second, we saw the perpetrator or murderer first, and their hands were stained with sin and blood, so the innocent soul will be entangled forever until the day they die, bringing them the ultimate judgment."

"And you can't find it?" the lion continued to ask. "That war -"

He stood up.

“——So many people——”

His eyes almost sparkled.

"—and you couldn't find any?"

"Yes," Khalil said calmly. "Have you forgotten, Leon, that human souls never belong to themselves?"

He also stood up and looked directly into the lion's eyes without any hesitation.

"How long is twenty years in the Warp? Do you have an answer? You don't, and neither do I. It could be a moment, it could be forever, but whether it is a moment or forever, their souls will be contested the moment their bodies die."

"There is a war going on in the warp. It has been going on for many years and will continue in the future. The essence of that war is nothing more than countless demons and other things under the command of six gods fighting for the souls of the galaxy. This is the truth, Lion. Whether it is your father or me, we are all part of it."

The lion was silent, breathing, breathing. He quickly digested the horrible truth revealed by Khalil. His expression was still tense, with his hands on the table.

After a moment, he said hoarsely: "Then I can go to my father for help."

Khalil smiled.

"Go ahead and try. There are many souls sleeping beneath His throne, but if they were the ones we need, this room would have been ablaze with gold long ago."

The lion roared: "I don't believe——"

Khalil sighed softly.

"——Please calm down, Leon. This is the Obscure Star Region, and the light of the Astronomican is still shining here, so your father can see us. He has been watching us, but he can't speak. However, he will provide any form of help as long as he can help."

The lion lowered his head with shaking hands. Khalil stepped away from the round table, walked past him, and left a word.

"No matter how hard you try to make amends, the inevitable outcome will not change, so why not focus on the future, Leon? Also, although we have no souls to use, Haid is still alive. Come with me."

"what are you up to?"

"Access his memories," Khalil said, turning and winking at him. "It's not hard, trust me."

The lion immediately followed him.

(End of this chapter)