40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 166 27. One Day War ([-])
Robert Guilliman burst into the consul's palace, fury rolling like a swarm of ravenous worms from dark corners he could not see.

They climbed up to his heart and began to eat away at what little sanity remained.Guilliman knew nothing about it, he just kept running.

He didn't notice that he was wearing a completely unfamiliar armor, nor did he notice that the grounds of the palace had changed.

The floor tiles of the Consul's Palace have been carefully designed by many artists, and they carry history. You could even say that they are, to some extent, the history of Macragge itself.

Now, however, what he was treading was not the history of Macragge, but vast expanses of rough, dirty stone, covered with blood and the smashed corpses of xenos.

He ran over them, with the highest degree of disdain and hatred for what he saw as the remnants of the rebels.He is still restraining himself, trying to shut down his anger with reason, otherwise it won't be just like this now.

Guilliman knew that enough people had died in Macragge today, and Connor had warned him that peace should be won by better means than through violence and blood.Peace achieved in that way will not last.

So he waved his arms and shouted at the rebels hiding behind the bunker: "Surrender!"

His voice echoed from wall to wall, splitting, stretching -- frantically leading into the darkest depths.The insurgents emerged from behind their bunkers dully, unarmed.

Guilliman rushed towards them, grabbed the tallest of them, and yelled at him: "You betrayed Macragge, why did you do it, and who ordered you to do it?!"

The man didn't answer, a kind of dullness appeared on his pale face - for a moment, he was no longer him, but 'it'.Guilliman saw its face clearly, the pale blue skin and eighteen rapidly blinking eyes.

Huge panic surged up instinctively from the bottom of his heart. Robert Guilliman didn't understand what happened, but he was very clear that this was definitely not the appearance that human beings should have.

Guilliman clenched his hands in shock, and in the next second, with blood splattering from it, 'he' came back again.

Now, standing in front of Guilliman was a howling man with a typical Macragge face, with sunken eye sockets, a straight nose, and pale complexion.With short blond hair and a strong jaw.

He looks familiar.

Guilliman frowned, not delving into the familiarity.Right now, his main concern is something else—he's just lost control.

Remorse ensued, and he began to say a prayer.

It had been given to him by Tarasa Eudon, who had taught it to him when he was still a child.If you sense you're going to lose control, read it, says Euton -- and Robert Guilliman does as he says.

As he chanted, his mood gradually returned to calm.He calmed down, but also forgot or ignored some things.For example, why Captain Melotus and the guards did not follow him, for example, why none of the rebels were armed.
All kinds of doubts are linked together, so obvious, so suspicious, but Robert Guilliman didn't respond at all.A fool could ignore this, of course, but could Robert Guilliman?

Nobody knows the answer.

The Macragge muttered a prayer and let go with a grunt, letting the man fall to the ground, feeling his head spin.He had calmed down, but he felt the urge to throw up.

This impulse came from his nasal cavity. He just smelled an extremely terrible smell, not chemicals, but the smell of thousands of corpses.These corpses were thrown into the thick pile of fallen leaves and damp soil, the flesh and blood disappeared, and the bones rotted.

Robert Guilliman watched all this dully, still reciting his prayers, trying to calm down.

—but it was not the prayers that Tarasa Euton had taught him that he was saying now.

The aliens looked at the giant standing in front of them, looked at his face, and remained silent.The alien, which was almost killed a few seconds ago, opened the tentacles on its lower jaw, and let out a strange grunt from its throat.

They stepped forward and began to surround Robert Guilliman.

They do not have the mark of the fire god on their jaws.

They are not his followers.

Harkosus has three planets.

Three.

"Who sent you here?" Guilliman stared at the rebel and snapped.

"Do you know what you have done? You started a rebellion in Macragge! Many innocent people died today, and their deaths will be blamed on you! So tell me, yes Who sent you here?!"

The man didn't answer, he was tall, his haggard eyes under his short blond hair blinked weakly, and then, he let out a strange grunt from his throat.Dense, continuous, dense - stench.

"Say!" Guilliman growled at him. "You have no choice, who did it? Who ordered all this?!"

The man stared at him, still silent—at this moment, in this short moment, a picture flashed before Robert Guilliman's eyes.

He saw the gloomy grotto, the pale blue-skinned monsters that surrounded him, and he saw their blinking, dense eyes—and then everything returned to nothingness.

The silent man reappeared, haggard and paler, his blond hair dead, his lips an eerie green.He kept his mouth shut and never spoke.

Guilliman cursed under his breath, angry at the man's stubbornness.He began to say the prayer again, and talked himself out of being so angry.He said the prayers, calmed down more than ever.

It was a real peace, like lying in the forest, lying on the wet earth and letting reptiles pass through the nostrils and lips, and thick dead leaves fell from the sky, bringing the smell of corruption, and buried him deep.
Guilliman opened his eyes in bewilderment—he heard the man finally speak.

"Wake up," the man said weakly. "Wake up, please, wake up"

"What?" Guilliman frowned suspiciously. "what are you saying?"

There was no answer, and the man shut his mouth tightly.His face began to change, flesh turned, like an ocean or a wave.

Eighteen eyes and light blue skin were replaced with flesh and blood. Guilliman looked at the creature in bewilderment, and even put his hand on the side of its cheek to feel its warmth.

"You don't have a fever," he said. "That means you're sane. Now tell me the truth, soldier. As you can see, you've lost your chance."

He paused for a moment, and pointed to the corpses everywhere in the palace behind him—the corpses with slender limbs, which had been turned into blood and flesh, but which were slowly rotting at the moment.Guilliman's face remained unchanged, as if he was really in the consul's palace, and then he continued to speak.

"You don't understand it yet, but you will, soldier. You have been lied to, and whatever that man promises you is not the truth. Conor Guilliman is the most eminent ruler Macragge has ever seen Officer, don’t you understand? He improved the water conservancy project and developed a new farming method. Everyone can afford food. Go and see the farmers outside the city, soldier.”

Guilliman began to persuade sincerely.

"We are all farmers' children, you, me, Conor Guilliman - we all grew up eating crops, do you believe that the Conor Consul is a villain? Tell me, soldier, who told you Instilled these terrible lies? And where did that man take my father—”

He stopped talking, his brows furrowed together in disbelief.

Father?

who?Who exactly?

A light appeared before his eyes.

He saw an old man who was so ordinary that he was even a little short. The old man was standing on the side of his memory and smiling at him, his smile was full of worry: "Robert, you only have this one chance."

What?No, wait, who are you?

"He's your adoptive father."

said a voice.Guilliman turned his head and saw a man, a man with a tired face and unwrinkled skin that was still as old as a scroll of parchment—the man turned his head and looked at him too, with a sad expression on his face.

"And you're forgetting him."

what?
"You are forgetting us," said the little old man.

"Look back, Robert. You never spoke to the rebels at the time. You killed them all. I was lying in the study and heard you roaring from downstairs. I knew you were angry then, You were intimidating when you got angry as a kid, let alone you on that day."

Guilliman covered his forehead in bewilderment, his eyes were sore - he seemed to be crying, but, why?
"do you remember?"

The old man looked at him sadly.

"Remember, Robert, you must remember that you saw me dying in the study, howling like a beast. I was poisoned, an airborne toxin. I pointed a gun at you , let you back"

"You're crying, Robert, I'm dying, but I want to say something to you, but I can't, so I give you the coin."

The old man lowered his head and stretched out his right hand as if offering a treasure——

A coin, just lying in his old palm.Guilliman stared at it, bewildered.He grunted from his throat, and he stepped forward—

He tried to reach out and take it, but he was too weak, too weak to even hold the coin.It fell to the ground, collided with the ground, knocked out ripples, and quickly disappeared.

The light disappeared in an instant.

Robert Guilliman recited the prayer and returned to reality.His face was haggard, and the pain had turned his face into a pale and withered yellow color.He said the prayer without stopping.

　and also.

　　A little stuck today.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)