How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 287 Sometimes the other person overturns before you even realize it

There were no problems with the air circulation and purification system, but the bridge of the Shadow Hammer still felt stuffy. Even if the two inquisitors only engage in a verbal confrontation, it will make the surrounding apprentices and servants tremble.

"I've warned you a long time ago not to get involved with Fujimaru Ritsuka - don't even try!" Hastings tried to lower his voice, but his emotions, which were gradually approaching his limit, made this effort ineffective. " You didn't listen to my advice, and then the spies you sent out were caught; and I spent hours here trying to resolve this matter without bloodshed, and you didn't listen to my advice— Well, you are asking for death!"

"I will not listen to your baseless alarmism." Wilchak's attitude also became extremely sharp. Apparently, she also decided to completely tear off the useless social mask after these few hours of negotiations. "If I hand over a respectable subordinate who risked his life to work for me just because of someone else's reprimand, how can I still sit firmly in this position? What will other people who work for me think of me?"

"At least if you do this, they will still be able to see you in the future." Hastings almost laughed out loud, "And don't worry, can your mechanical heart still pump like this?" You should really think of another reason that won’t be revealed the moment you say it.”

"Should I take this as a threat?" Wilczak lowered her voice. No matter what Hastings was thinking when she said this, at least now, she did want to express her threat. "It's unbelievable. Are you so scared by a little girl who is not even an adult that you start working for her diligently?"

Hastings had already told her what needed to be said, more than once. So now, he just gave up and smiled: "Okay, if you insist on moving forward with your eyes closed based on your past experience, I won't stop you. I guess everyone has the freedom to seek death. I just ask You, what are you trying to hide in this matter?"

Wilchak snorted coldly: "Why do you think that I am 'hiding something' by making this decision? In other words, what does what I am hiding have to do with you, Sibylla Hastings?"

"Because this is the Shadow Hammer." Hastings declared as if he was speaking a well-known axiom. "From my own standpoint, no matter what you are hiding, I have to ensure that you Don’t let the blood spilled when you seek death spill on me.”

"What a pity. When we first met, I thought I could reach an agreement with you."

There was no need to ask the Emperor's Tarot for divination, Hastings could be sure that Wilchak would soon be killed by his own arrogance - either today or tomorrow. To be honest, he didn't understand why the other party could turn a blind eye to the fact that "The Emperor's Dream is Fujimaru Ritsuka's ship" was already right under her nose. He also insisted that Hastings was not convinced by some of the things she mentioned. The examples of what happened on Parmenio are all fabrications. Or perhaps, she did have some awareness of the energy that Fujimaru Ritsuka could mobilize, but she refused to think that the other party could use these energies at will.

"Does this matter still need prediction? This is just a reasonable inference based on facts. Anyone with normal thinking ability can easily come to such a result." Hastings sneered, "I suggest you From now on, pray to the God-Emperor that the day you will be killed by yourself will not be today.”

"Out of the almost non-existent friendship in the past, I would like to remind you one last thing: I am the one who comes here to negotiate on this matter today because my work happens to be relatively free." Hastings finally said. , "The Imperial Guards team was split into three parts today, and they are conducting negotiations with the State Church, the Mechanicus, and Baal's internal affairs agencies. Fujimaru Ritsuka did not send the Imperial Guards to come, just because she felt that we might be able to talk better between you and me. - Of course, she has now been proven wrong - and in her mind, the mission the Imperial Guard has received is obviously much more important than this matter. It is not because she thinks that the Imperial Guard will refute her, as you call it. Unreasonable'.

"That was really surprising because I didn't see it at all."

Hastings suddenly felt a strong sense of exhaustion. Out of responsibility, he felt that he should reiterate the argument he had repeated many times, but he knew that this would not be effective-if the person involved plugged his own ears, how could you force the other person to understand you? What about?
"Whatever you think." He just said this in the end. "If you firmly believe that Fujimaru Ritsuka is just a mascot set up by the imperial army, that is your freedom."

"A very surprising fact is that, up to ten minutes ago, I was actually trying to be on the same side as you."

"Ha," Wilchak raised his eyebrows dramatically, "Is that a prophecy?"

"After all, our respected Lord Commander has never deigned to open her theoretically usable eyes. Ms. Wilchak, I have said long ago that you will be killed by your own arrogance sooner or later."

She is a Lord Inquisitor, she is noble, and she is always right. Hastings already firmly believed this when she first met Wilchak. Hastings had tried to correct this during the previous hours of negotiations. It didn't work out - but as far as their superficial friendship was concerned, Hastings at least made an effort, and he had done his best.

Wilchak showed a strange kind of confidence throughout this negotiation, as if he firmly believed that all the people surrounding Fujimaru Ritsuka to build momentum for her were deceived, and only she saw through the inside story of everything, and then borrowed the opportunity. This arrogant insistence on trivial details is annoying, as if that is what is truly beneficial to the empire.

After saying these words, Wilchak really laughed out loud: "Do you really think that little girl who was put in the position of 'saint' can execute me for such a trivial matter? A woman who has served in the Inquisition for four hundred years A lord judge who is over 20 years old?”

It would be better to say that if the Forbidden Forces were here, based on the resistance Wilchak showed in the negotiation just now, she might have died ten times now. Hastings thought so, but he was too lazy to continue to spend energy explaining to the other party in detail. He put on a "that's all" attitude and turned around to leave the bridge. Wilchak followed him relentlessly and asked, "Where are you going?"

"Go where an Inquisitor would go after negotiations break down." Hastings replied coldly.

Perhaps generally speaking, this sentence would be understood as "I'm going home", but after going through the previous negotiation process, Wilchak would not just make this level of understanding:
"What does this mean?" Her tone became obviously tense, "Elud, stop -" Before the Lord Inquisitor could finish his words, Hastings had already swung out the force field sword at his waist. Almost at the same time as the ghostly blue light of psychic energy lit up, the mechanical right hand of the acolyte that Wilchak relied on fell to the ground just before pulling out the gun.

"Are you serious?" Hastings asked with a smile, "Do you think you can stop a psychic prophet?"

"Do you think you can run amok on 'my ship'?" Wilchak jumped to interpret the previous statement as "Hastings is ready to launch an investigation into her unreasonable refusal to hand over Mita. What is Ashne hiding?" and became extremely angry because of this. "What makes you think you have the ability to initiate an investigation on 'my ship'?"

Unfortunately, this leap of understanding is correct. The surrounding temperature was slowly dropping due to the active psychic power. Hastings shrugged indifferently: "Maybe because, if 'that thing' a hundred years ago had landed smoothly, then this should have been.' My boat' is the right one."

About a hundred years ago, the Shadow Hammer was a black ship of the Inquisition belonging to the Order of the Hammer. At that time, the ship served a master named Horace Scripps - the inquisitor mentor of Sibylla Hastings.

"My original plan was to do a 'spring clean' of the entire ship after the dust settled, but you picked her up and I didn't have time to do that." Hastings He said calmly, but there seemed to be a little frustration hidden in his tone, "Looking back now, maybe I should have been tougher at that time, so that you would not be able to get any forbidden knowledge from this ship, and what would arise from it I shouldn’t have any thoughts.”

This is clearly a clear provocation. Wilchak's brows furrowed viciously.
-
The corridor leading to the stern grew colder and narrower, and the atmosphere became increasingly unsettling.

This is a location far away from any important structures on the ship. From a design and security perspective, it is certainly a right decision to place a dangerous psychic prison here, but from a user experience point of view, this The setting just feels so bad. Sahar kept mumbling something on the way here, and as they got closer and closer to their destination, he seemed to be infected by the depressing atmosphere and gradually became quiet.

Fujimaru Ritsuka and Sahar, who simply stopped acting, rushed all the way. They made no secret of it, leaving the frightened staff on the black ship behind, and prepared themselves for a bloody welcome ceremony with the standard of "alarms blaring all the way". But for some reason, until they approached the corridor outside the psychic prison, there were still no guards or defense systems to stop them.

Looking at it from another perspective, this matter is actually a bit darkly humorous: the rigidity and redundancy of the imperial bureaucracy is not completely reflected in a black ship of the Inquisition. Most of the mortal staff who witnessed the two men running wildly down the corridor didn't actually realize what they were seeing. A Deathwatch Astartes racing down the corridors chasing something? It was certainly a bit unusual and scary (who knows if they hit something), and worthy of some complaining, but not serious enough to warrant sounding the alarm.

All in all, Sahar and Fujimaru Ritsuka's little adventure will not be called out until the staff who have decided to complain about this matter have written letters of protest and put them in the suggestion box, and someone has actually checked the letters in the suggestion box. The people on the ship who really make the decisions know who they are - unless those people have other reliable sources of information. Therefore, Fujimaru Ritsuka was able to stand calmly in front of the heavy door, complete all identity verifications with the Sky Eagle Scepter, and wait for this huge piece of fine gold that would take at least ten minutes to burn through with hot melt. It was slowly lifted on hinges in front of her.

The slight difference in air pressure allows the air to naturally communicate with the inside and outside, and the wind blowing from the inside seems to be colder than the outside.

There is no doubt that this is a psychic prison - Sahar already knew this in advance from Fujimaru Ritsuka, but he did not expect that this was a description that could be easily seen intuitively from the interior decoration. The moment the air began to circulate, he smelled the rotten smell of dried blood. But what currently reveals the lineup is just a mezzanine: in front of them is another tightly sealed door, and on the side is a staircase leading to the upper observation room.

Given what was held inside, it was clear that a more common use for this cell would be for interrogators to ascend the stairs and question the prisoners from the safety of the observation room. But Fujimaru Ritsuka and Sahar are not here to interrogate a demonic host. The gem scepter brought from the secret vault needs to be used on the inner door. A special identification authentication that is independent of most of the empire's security systems is activated. After confirming the "key" After checking the correctness, he reluctantly let the two people waiting outside in.

The rotten bloody smell became even stronger. Sahar followed Fujimaru Ritsuka into the small room inside - it was really small, a small space only five meters square. Even though the stand is very high, standing in it gives people a strong sense of oppression. Sahar and Fujimaru Ritsuka barely squeezed into the outer side of the room, allowing the door to close smoothly behind them. That sense of oppression seemed to become stronger as the space became closed again. Sahar did not have the corresponding knowledge reserves, but if he was told that this was a sense of oppression originating from the supernatural, he would not be right even if he thought about it. This was not surprising at all.

There was nothing in the cell, and the strip-shaped lumen lamp only cast a weak cold light on the six-meter-high wall. It can be said that there is almost no lighting here, but that does not prevent Sahar's eyes, which are familiar with darkness, from looking around. He could see the details clearly. The walls and floors in the room were densely engraved with some kind of mantra or scripture that he didn't understand. Traces of dried liquid were everywhere, and the colored sediment left behind was naturally embedded in the Among the engraved scriptures.

Sahar had no doubt that this was blood, and was a little embarrassed - even if he was a Night Lord, he was a Night Lord from the Great Crusade. The blood flowing everywhere and being dried up was not a problem for him, but with the addition of magic or religion, cultural symbols that he originally scorned, but recently realized that they were indeed effective, the sight became horrifying to him.

He didn't get to do more research on it, and he didn't have time to ask questions like "Where is Mitta?" again. Because Fujimaru Ritsuka, who turned a blind eye to the scene in front of him, had already given the order in a loud voice: "Ask the prisoner."

The floor of the empty cell vibrated slightly due to the mechanical operation. After a heart-wrenching sound of metal friction, a cage spun up on the floor of the cell in front of them - almost just an airtight jar with a shell. Unsurprisingly, it was stained with dried blood and bore numerous marks of purity. It raised itself to the appropriate height step by step, and aimed at a certain angle in the direction of Fujimaru Ritsuka who issued the order. The metal surveillance window with black stains fell down amid another smaller burst of sound, revealing the almost humanoid "Mita Ashen" inside.

"I've been waiting for you for a long time -" The triumphant look on the thing's "face" only lasted for half a second. After it saw the scene in front of its "eyes" clearly, it immediately turned into horror: "No, no ! This is not right! You should wait quietly on your ship! The first person to come here should be Sibylla Hastings! "

"What am I talking about?" Fujimaru Ritsuka sneered and complained to Savita on the other end of the communicator, "I always feel that there is a smell of Tzeentch demon in this matter."

(End of this chapter)