40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 27 27. The Long Night (End)
fire.

Agni.

Coming from the other side of the curtain, engulfed in boundless fury.Lights up the darkness, but brings deeper horrors.

Khalil fell to his knees, strangling himself, trying to refuse to breathe.The increasingly intense smell of blood is frantically provoking his sanity.Veins popped up on his neck, and boundless resentment began to roll in his heart.

No, that's not my anger.he thinks.

I can still hold on, I must hold on.

He thought so, and the voice continued.

Armored with blades, tear the ugly faces of these self-righteous people.

Hang them, decapitate their heads, turn their pathetic flesh, clothed in soft gauze, into dry bones.
make them pay.

You think so, don't you?You want the world to burn, you want everything to be consumed by fire.I can hear you thinking, come out, don't hide anymore
I will give you everything.

And I don't want anything.

Khalil shuddered and closed his eyes.

He didn't know who the voice was speaking, or what it was.But he didn't care either - the voice lingered in the dark, trying to get him to 'come out'.

Between these few words, enough information has been revealed.

The situation is the same as before.

As long as he is silent, they cannot see him.This is how he peeped at the shadows behind the curtain in those wandering years.

Now, he just needs a little time.

yes a little time
When alone, he always has time.

Khalil closed his eyes, letting his thoughts sink into a gloomy, rainy night.
-
Gloomy rainy night, empty ruins.

There was silence all around, and countless shadows stood silently in the darkness, densely packed, looking terrifying.

"Revenge for us?" asked a child who lost his skin standing on the edge of the ruins.

"I will." Ghost pursed his lips and replied.

"Avenge us." A crippled worker who was crushed under the rubble said, coughing blood.

"I will." The ghost knelt down, nodded to him, and then straightened up and walked over.

"You don't have to do that."

Said a woman in shabby clothes who was hanging from a telephone pole by the side of the road and drifted in the wind. "You don't belong to Nostramo."

"But I saw everything."

The ghost stopped and told her. "I can't stand it."

"You don't belong here."

The woman repeated, her pale face was covered in bruises, her eyeballs were swollen, and her appearance was terrifying.She was hanged for resisting a robbery by a gang member.

"You are a ghost, you don't need to suffer for someone you never know."

"Perhaps." The ghost nodded and continued to move forward.

"You don't have to do this." The woman's voice sounded behind the ghost, and she repeated again.

In the rainy night, countless dead people like her were staring at this scene without exception.

"No, there are." The ghost said firmly.

"But what about the child?" the woman asked. "What is he going to do?"

"...he'll find his way."

"You gave him the light."

A man's head murmured in the midst of the ruined pavement. "And now you want to take this light away with your own hands, even if you ignite a flame, will this fire really be able to cleanse the darkness of Nostramo?"

"What I gave him was false light," the ghost also responded in a low voice. "It's not noble."

He looked at the head, whose eye sockets were empty.

The head belonged to the leader of a workers' uprising that failed and was executed by the nobles.

"False light?" asked the head.

"Yes."

said the ghost. "I would not have brought him back from the mine if he had no help in my plans. If he had no strength, I would not have taught him how to kill, how to judge evil fairly. I was just using him .”

"Liar. In the mines, he was just a beast that would frighten at a light source. How can he help your plan?"

The head retorted coldly, and the empty eye sockets were completely dark. "Also, even if what you said is true, in a world like Nostramo, where there is no light at all, is the false light worse than the real light?"

The ghost didn't answer any more, he was just silent.After a moment, he said, "I'm not here to argue with you."

"I know, you've always been very purposeful. You don't do unnecessary things—you want to set yourself on fire, don't you?" the head asked calmly.

"Yes."

"Then you will die."

"Yes."

"We are just memories, ghosts. We have no name, no past, no life, we have nothing but pain, we are nothingness."

The head stared at him, and said softly: "But you are different, you still have hope, you have a chance, you should make good use of it."

"No more." Ghost shook his head. "I made a mistake and my prudence left me. It made one of them find me."

"."

The head fell silent, then sighed.

"You are such a stupid person, ghost. I don't understand why you have to step into this cruel world yourself. You have been wandering for a long time, and you have seen the horrors of human beings. Why do you insist on changing everything by yourself?"

"They are not human beings," replied the ghost. "Is that reason enough?"

"not enough."

"How can I convince you?"

"You can't convince me," said the head. "You don't need to convince me, you don't need our permission to use power."

"I'm long dead, I'm just a painful memory. I can talk to you because you came. If you go, we all stop thinking. You're talking to an echo, ghost. You can't convince a dead people."

"But I need your help," whispered the ghost. "I need...a flint and steel."

"You don't need it." The head said calmly. "The dead can't help you, see the truth, ghost."

".What truth?"

"The truth of your power," said the head.

"We never gave you any power. It belongs to you. It is not the so-called 'soul of the victims' in your imagination, or the crystallization of our pain. No, it is not. It is something else."

A chilly blue light slowly lit up in the empty eye sockets of the head. The rain was still falling, and there were millions of points of blue light shining in the gloomy ruins around.

The ghost lowered its head.

"I see." After a long time, he said. "So that's how it is."
-
Khalil opened his eyes.

The smell of blood is still strong, dispersing in the hall.The body of the Countess was already icy cold, and her figure was now in a mess, so terrifying that it was almost impossible to look directly at her.The cold blue light still remained in the dark eyes.

The sound continued.

Khalil could vaguely see a little bit of its shape, huge and full of deep anger.There is no doubt that this is not something that should appear in the normal world.

In silence, Khalil slowly raised his right hand.

— Countdown.

For no reason, he remembered the description he had given to Ghost himself.

He once said that he is a ticking time bomb with an invisible countdown.Now it seems that this statement is half true and half wrong.In fact, the countdown can always be seen, and the detonation button is even held in his own hands.

It's ridiculous.Khalil thought.Because of your stupidity, an innocent child will spend his short life bearing the burden of your mistakes, and possibly even some unnecessary guilt.

And, after that, how will he live?Will he be aware of his physical problems?
Also, what will happen to Nostramo in the future?
Can the sun come out of the clouds?Will the pollution be cleaned up?Will the beasts outside the city be driven away?Corruption, will life be good for gang workers?
He has no answer.His thoughts were now frighteningly complex.A term that has not been mentioned for a long time rose from his heart at this moment.

Two words, two syllables, blue.It's not perfect, but it's much better than Nostramo.

It's a thousand times better.

Khalil closed his eyes, then opened them again.

In the next moment, a cold light suddenly lit up in his eyes.They have never been so intense, shining like a blue sun in the room.

Terrible pain followed, and Khalil could feel that the organs in his body were shattering—that kind of force crushed everything in this body reluctantly under the master's will.

Liver, lungs, heart and all the way up, the blue light swept through the body like a flame, destroying everything, burning everything.Eventually, they reach the brain within a thousandth of a second.

"Goodbye," Khalil said into the darkness.

At this moment, he didn't feel any pain, just worried.

Do not!
A voice in the darkness shouted furiously, and the scarlet flames burst out suddenly at this moment, trying to wrap him directly, but limited by the curtain, he couldn't make an inch of progress.

It could only watch helplessly as the sacrifice it had chosen became a corpse without any life.

Do not!Do not!Do not!
Anger washed away in the room, and a terrible howling sound came from the other side of the curtain.A huge pressure that had nothing to do with the real world descended suddenly, shaking the solid room, but it dissipated in the next instant without warning.

The darkness receded along with it.

The candles flickered, and the room was peaceful.

Outside the door, footsteps sounded.A shadow staggered in, rushing in the first moment it saw the corpse.

He lifted the corpse up carefully, blinked quickly, the tips of his fingers were trembling, after a while, the ghost opened its mouth, and let out an inaudible whimper from the depths of its throat.

"."

He wanted to speak, but he couldn't speak.

The body trembled, the teeth chattered, the muscles twitched—then, a surge of emotion that almost completely destroyed the reason, broke this unworldly heart.

"Ah, ah" he whispered, holding the corpse, shaking his head

He was obviously expressionless, but his movements were so gentle.On the dirty face, raindrops slid down.

It didn't rain in Nostramo tonight.

After a while, the ghost let go of the corpse.He put him on the ground and turned around, his shoulders and neck trembling.He didn't speak, just kept making an eerie, broken tone.

Be calm, ghost—he said so.

The ghost said to itself, imitating Khalil's voice.

However, this doesn't work.There is great sadness rolling in.

He stood in ragged clothes in the resplendent and golden room, looking broken and lonely—and at the next moment, a voice came from the other side of the curtain.With the sadness of the ghost, it touched his heart.

+ Hold his hand. +
said the voice.

What?who?
+ You'll soon know who I am, but, for now, Conrad Koz takes his hand. +
Who are you?Who is Conrad Koz?

+ Do you want to save him? +
The voice didn't answer directly, but turned to mention another matter.He called Wraith by an unfamiliar name, but, for some reason, his toneless voice felt familiar to Wraith.

An eerie familiarity.

I think.

+ Then hold his hand. +
After a moment of silence, Ghost clenched his teeth and followed his advice.Trembling, he walked forward and held the corpse's right hand.

+Very well don't move now. +
The voice rushed from the other side of the curtain with a pity almost like a sigh, and in a trance, the ghost seemed to see a golden light.

In the next instant, he leaned back as if struck by lightning, and a dazzling light shone in his dark eyes.

(End of this chapter)