"I've come to ask you for this city, but not for it, because I've already taken it into my hands, and it's just a necessary step."

"By the truth and truth of the world, I have learned the ways of your hearts and the workings of your minds, and with this knowledge I will bring peace to this civilization."

"I will be the evil of the city, and it is my duty to drag them out of the barbarism."

"Peace will rule over all, just as I rule over all."

"All sins will be punished severely."

"I am the leader of civilization, carrying sin and bringing light to you."

"I'm doing something great."

"So."

"I want more."

"I want to get more, I want to get more, I want to take away the responsibility and power that belongs to me."

"I will be your king."

——————

Conrad-Coetze rises from the rubble.

He was huge, slender, revealing a long period of malnutrition, his pale skin covered with scars and bullet marks, and his long, messy black hair that had a disgusting oily color even after the most perfunctory grooming.

The black-eyed giant was dressed in a nondescript and unaesthetic dark robe, barely obscuring his body with a shroud-like tattered creation, his royal robe, which, though neither a rich garment nor a fine suit of armor, did not prevent Koz from wearing it as King of Nostramo and the Eternal Night.

After all, his kingship has never relied on heavy crowns and extravagant accessories, but on something simpler, but more effective: he knows it well, and for this reason he has become the Midnight Ghost.

Midnight Ghost.

It was the first human word Nostramo had taught him, and it was the one he liked best, and when he heard the syllables spitting out intermittently from those chapped lips that trembled or feared, he knew it was time for him to act.

All along, this alarm bell has never failed Koetze's trust, and the fear that pervades the trembling words and the stench of urine is more credible than all the life in this fallen world combined, and it will keep the Midnight Wraith on its pace over and over again, until nothing can ring it even in the darkest of nights.

That's the moment Coetz was looking forward to: he would no longer hunt, and his city would be transformed into a quiet nest, illuminated by the lights of reform and the silent order.

And it's not easy to do all this.

At least for now, he hasn't succeeded.

Midnight Wraith couldn't help but laugh at the thought of this, his snow-white teeth were more thrilling than milk-colored lips, and the jagged sharp teeth were mixed with bone chips and shredded flesh, and he skillfully cleaned his teeth with his tongue, the only way he had cleaned his mouth in more than a decade.

The bones and blood between the sharp teeth came from the disemboweled, disemboweled, wild dog at his feet, the prey he had captured with an emaciated rat like him, and he tasted the liver and thighs of the wild dog to suppress the empty stomach pouch in another protest.

In the course of such a long time, his once delicate, sometimes curled up stomach pouch had learned to submit to its master's inhibitions, it no longer roared about its thirst for food, and it had become accustomed to eating any rancid piece of meat and transforming it into energy for the midnight wraith to roam.

Even after Midnight Ghost became King of Nostramo, this custom was well preserved, and Coz never attended banquets to flatter him, never tasted the delicacies of the nobles, and he still couldn't trust everything that came from Nostramo.

The Midnight King was willing to be the worst-eaten in his kingdom, foraging in the silence of all things, tasting all the right foods he could find, no matter how bad they were, and whether they were theirs or theirs.

Yes, he had tasted the guilty whom he had convicted, and he knew that human eyeballs tasted like warm jelly, and he did it just to get enough information.

Coates laughed again, as if mocking his own hypocrisy, and the dirty nails stuck in the eyes of the terrified wild dog, and threw them into the hungry stomach of the Midnight Wraith, the strange juice satisfying his appetite, and the Midnight Wraith threw away his dinner less than a minute later.

He looked up at the night sky.

Even the most nostramo madman would not praise the night, the mud of the darkness, the silence, the endless murmur of terrible noise, the worst painter smearing the asphalt under the dome of the steel surface, strangling hope and the stars in the scrawny palms.

But Coetzes was happy.

He was full.

Contented, the King of Nostramo stepped forward, and he came to the edge of the untouched rooftop, leaning against the statue that was uglier than he was, he did not recognize what kind of creature it was inscribed on, but in the hideous face and sharp claws he found a few things in common.

Standing on one of the highest points of the city he ruled, the Midnight Wraith was an ancient building with its rumored glory days, its sharp towers piercing the sky and telling of the ambition and glory of thousands of years ago, and when Midnight Wraith paused in the ruined ruins, he always had a lingering thought.

He seemed to be standing on the edge of a lake, near a crystal clear lake, his paws were the dividing line between the two worlds, and through the non-existent lake, he could see the sparkling shadow of his imaginary self, like the miserable Narcissus praying for his lover in front of the illusory silver mirror.

Above him, the few ancient minarets jutted into the churning clouds, stirring the weak stars to hide beyond the purple-black sky, the lowest skyline in the pupils as devastated as the city's ubiquitous landmarks, like a random splatter of rough asphalt crushing countless atrium.

In this world, the Midnight Ghost had never seen the sun, and although his mind told him that he should have one, he did not: his sun had been taken away, like so many things in his life.

And beneath his feet, in the land where the Midnight Wraith had already reigned, revealed a very different dilapidation from the firmament: since Conrad pronounced his mercy to the already terrified nobles, his reign was first established in the Quintus Hive, and spread like a virus to the rest of Nostramo's industrial cities, not accompanied by military wars or peace negotiations, but by the lonely sound of the Midnight Wraith's cloak piercing the night sky again and again.

Such voices have given Nostramo unimaginable changes, in the past, the land of eternal night had been hopelessly indulged in a morbid prosperity, the glorious past and the promotion of pure gold enough to make the surviving struggle to survive on the most luxurious monuments, in the eternal darkness caused by the absence of the sun, the false warmth of monotonous neon lights, broken billboards and hundreds of thousands of lights dominated the city, and countless armored glass protected road cars sped through the wide streets of the old town, Flanked by barbed wire windows, or rickety, probing passers-by, most of them have [regular] occupations and can live on the top floors of those gleaming lights.

The roads are filled with dim alleys and fortresses of garbage, and more than ninety percent of the Nostramo people live in these stinking mounds, no one knows what they survive, like a pack of moles with degraded eyes, who can only swallow phlegm and vomit in their throats, and stuff their teeth with everything they have stolen to continue that miserable life. And the only source of light in the alleys is those gleaming billboards above their heads, filled with goods they can't afford in their lifetime.

That's what Conrad Coetz saw on the Nostramo, and that's what he's personally experienced: as he crawls out of the darkest corners of the planet, his first bite of blood is a rotting and nearly dissolved minced flesh, rightfully stained with the inky stench of the sewers.

This life-threatening environment did not affect the emperor's heirs too much, and he built a nest here, baring his fangs as a natural, top-notch predator, and his innate sense of justice was his best sense of smell, and the story of the Midnight Ghost became a nightmare on the streets of Quintus in the first year of his life, and Koz tore through the beastly world of the once mighty overlord, wandering through the ruins around his habitat to create his own kingdom.

A few years later, the kingdom hung over the head of the original ruler of Quintus, and it was only then that Midnight Ghost lamented too late: it turned out that he had never seen everything about Nostramo, that he had never known a different way of the world.

It turns out that the inexhaustible supply of pure water, the delicate and soft silk, and the food that you throw away at will and then pile up like a mountain of food in the same nest as those alleys and slums, are real realities.

Everything was so strange and fantastical that it even gave Midnight Ghost a blunt uneasiness, until he saw the same fear he smelled when blood splattered on the faces of the nobles.

In that moment, he smiled.

He understood that these nobles in front of him were actually no different from those guilty people in the alley, they were the same kind of people, and they could naturally abide by the same rules.

And so, he walked up to them, and he came to the wretched souls who were gnashing their teeth, and he slowly sat on the throne that once belonged to the Prime Minister, and counted every possibility in his vision.

For a moment, he expected a different kind of courage to appear in the barrels of the guns pointed at him, but in the end he could not wait for a reason to kill, and the fear he brought with him carried the stench of the slums, and he stepped on the carpet of the nobles with dignity, crushing their knees and dignity.

He looked at them, at these silently yielding figures, and laughed heartily, after which he made a speech in which he gave an answer, set forth a fact.

Then, he became their king.

The only king.

He finally took this step, knowing full well that time was running out for him, and he saw a fleet advancing towards Nostramo.

They're coming.

Come for him.

——————

The Midnight Ghost returned to his palace in the dead silence of the early hours of the morning.

It was a tower, the pinnacle of the entire Quintus Nest, where the first and only king of Nostramo proclaimed his reign and casually hung the last of the protesters on the rough spires of the towers, blackened by industrial exhaust, and the screams continued around the tower for thirteen days and nights.

And all that happened a few months ago, when the Nostramo people became familiar with the return of the monarchy in this short period of time, and the Midnight Wraith's expansion into other hive capitals made them abandon the mind of resistance, and those young talents who could endure the fear and the smell of blood stepped forward one after another, and entered Koz's palace, becoming another pair of claws for his rule.

And when the footsteps of the Midnight Wraith brought the last nest to its knees, the crimes that had plagued the world for generations were silenced by months of live streaming of Ling Chi and executions, and every family was forced to listen to the screams of the criminals on the communications network all night until they understood the importance of justice.

So, when Midnight Ghost returned to his capital, his own court, he was pleased to see how the kingdom of the eternal night had been guided by him, and how it had grown in absolute silence and silence.

Standing on the spire, caressing the dried human skins, Coates could clearly see the dying sun casting a weak halo, and in the light, groups of gray-faced workers poured out of their lairs with expressionless faces, the only difference between them and the walking dead was the sound of breathing that was unbelievably low, and at the very end of this tranquil current, there were processing plants and refineries rising from the horizon, and in which forged furnaces were constantly in it. The massive amount of pollution spewed out doomed every resident to be tormented by deadly chemicals for the rest of their lives.

This is the great prosperity that Coetze has created, everything he is proud of: the orders of trade with the surrounding world are growing at an unimaginable rate, the wealth of the nobility is being invested in manufacturing and mining at any cost, to satisfy the jobs that can accommodate all the people in Nostramo, stability and tranquility are the only indicators, the Midnight Ghost does not care whether the treasury of the nobility is depleted, whether the poor breathe hard, whether the granary is full of food, he is content with his reign of terror, No one has ever died from the terrible wounds of others, and no one has dared to single out his sinful thoughts again, and this is his irrefutable greatness.

He stood on the tower to ensure the survival of this feat, and the specific rules and administrations were casually thrown by him to the governors of the cities chosen from among the mortals, because he saw in them a thin possibility.

In the beginning, the Midnight Ghost had tried his best to govern his kingdom, and his desperate studies had paid off: the Night Lord had learned as quickly as possible that governing anything would be his eternal disaster, and that his claws could tear apart all evil, but he would never be able to grasp the simplest of books.

Thus the Doges stepped onto the stage, and at least for now, they were obedient, and the fear of the Midnight Wraith was still deeply imprinted in their hearts, and even though they were already the masters of their cities, all the Doges were quickly assembled on the stinking spire with the simplest order from Coetze.

Lord Balsius was the first governor to arrive, as he was the administrator of Quintus' hive, and a few months ago, his Q&A with Koz was a prelude to the Night King's accession to the throne.

The Midnight Ghost didn't look back, for he had already heard Balsius's heart beating behind him, and he knew that this mortal had courage and faith, so after he left, Balsius would be his voice in Nostramo.

"They're coming."

"My father, my brother, and their warriors."

"They came for me."

Midnight Wraith's announcement was more of an almost obsessive mutter, and while his council looked at each other at the sheer volume of the information, the Night Lord simply raised his head and immersed himself in his own world.

The bold Doge questioned, but the Night Lord did not speak, he had closed his eyes, saw another possibility, and stepped into another world.

The visions that had appeared in his dreams from time to time since he had been conscious were becoming more and more rampant, at first they were only slight tingling, occasional hallucinations, but ever since he became the true ruler of Nostramo, this uncontrolled perspective began to flood like a virus, and soon Coetze discovered that he began to dream even when he was absolutely awake.

He seemed to be transforming into something new, and with the Great Fleet that he had anticipated, the cold, merciless light was getting closer and closer to him, and the Midnight Wraith could clearly feel the transformation in himself, and he seemed to be becoming more mature, more perfect, and able to be put to better use.

At first, he only heard the last words of his governors years later, saw their faces in the future, and slowly, dreams began to invade his rest time, and he had to concentrate in order to distinguish between the present truth and the gloom of the future.

In the end, even polluting his cognition was not enough to satisfy these vicious visions, which tore through his face and began to reveal the most terrible dreams before his eyes, and they showed him the most desperate struggles, the most twisted betrayals, the longest wars, and the whole galaxy that was destined to burn out.

Perceptions from another time and place began to strike him at any time and place, and the shimmering sapphire dust began to swell enough to consume real-life scenes, enough to break his spirit, disrupt his steps, and turn his invincible rulings and judgments into a chaotic and pathetic score.

Rarely, Kotz frowned, he hated such an ability, but there was nothing he could do about it, he couldn't even choose what he could see, he couldn't find the true ending of reality in the jumble of paintings, he was always deceived, misled, trapped in an invisible cage called hesitation by paintings with slight differences.

As he gazed at the weak sun in the sky, he would see Nostramo burning, and he would see his efforts finally swallowed up by the doomed city of sin, and the angry punishment dragged along with the long flames, violently killing all the sources of evil.

And when he chose to retreat into the shadows, he saw a different and opposite situation, he saw a better Nostramo, a quiet and orderly industrial country, with bright daylight on the healthy faces of its inhabitants and the sound of recitations in the school, a future that was obviously better, but it was only a fleeting, not like the former that occupied the center of the dream.

The two dreams were equally real, as if he could already walk in opposite realms, breathing the air of destruction or hope, and he could not distinguish between the real and the false, much less the other: in other, rarer fragments, Nostramo could be a self-degraded blood country, a dead and lonely wasteland, or a lawless land where a group of barbarians roamed and went to war.

It seemed that everything was possible, as if everything was real, as if everything was a logical development under the existing conditions, waiting for him to find that true future: not only Nostramo, but so many things that happened in his mind, the illusion of the future stood in his mind like a tower, but it was often wrapped in multiple shadows that were false and real.

But there are other things that are more accurate and singular, perhaps their possibilities have not yet been discovered, or perhaps their fate has long been sealed: for example, the huge fleet, which has appeared on the edge of Nostramo, is a doomed future that will be realized anyway.

And the fact that he will leave with them cannot be changed.

Still, some worries haunted Midnight Wraith's mind, and some of the details were particularly unsettling: in the future he first could see, that huge fleet would not arrive until a decade later, and would take him away a full generation after he had ruled Nostramo, not now, not less than a year after he had just become queen.

But that worry wasn't enough to shatter Midnight Spirit's confidence, and when he saw the silent crowd beneath his feet, he was confident in the new order he had brought to the world, which he believed was good, and that he had done what needed to be done.

He left behind cities free of sin and depravity, and in the face of this, it seemed that his rule would last was not a question, and the governors behind him did not have more eloquence, but by virtue of his aftertaste, they were able to keep the king.

There is no doubt that the Night King is proud.

So he gathered his parliament, allowed men, women, and children to leave the refinery, which lasted day and night, and flocked to the oldest squares, where his guests awaited.

They are coming, coming for Him.

——————

Midnight Ghost didn't wait long.

The Emperor's fleet arrived at the middle of the day, his ship casting a great shadow over Nostramo, but no darker than the world itself, and as the Midnight Wraith looked up at the unforgettable spectacle of the Void, he clearly felt six breaths that were especially important to him.

The Lord of Humanity, his five sons, and a full two hundred and fifty thousand Astarte warriors, formed a phalanx that nearly fainted countless Nostramos, and slowly and solemnly advanced to the tower of the Midnight Wraith, a blatant invasion that stunned many of the Night King's subordinates, and the citizens who gathered in the clouds were as vulnerable as lambs to the unprecedented invader.

The great battle of black, gold, silver, purple and gray came to a halt at the same time, and the god of thunder and his five descendants slowly walked out, and the light of the five demigods could not compete with their father, for the Lord of Mankind was the legend that Nostramo feared and admired the most: he was the sun, he was the fire, he was the burning light.

Any fool who dares to look directly at the Lord of Humanity will lose their light forever, and it is with their wails that Conrad-Coetze has come to his genetic father and blood brothers, and he knows he cannot escape.

The god walked forward, and he opened his arms, ready to speak.

【Kang ......】

The first syllable from the Emperor struck the Midnight Wraith once and for all, his heart pierced, his veins steaming, his cold hands burning in the light that had been too close, smashing the most terrible future into his eyes.

No one knew what the Night Lord saw or thought at this moment, and his reaction was really worrying, and in the expressionless and slightly sad faces of several genetic primitives, the Lord of Humanity took a step forward, and his power easily dispelled the despair in the Night King's mind.

[Don't worry, Conrad Coetze, I've found you, I'm your father, I'm here to take you home.] 】

The demigods smiled with relief from the words of the Lord of Humanity only among the genetic primitives and the nearest Praetorian Army, except for a certain Lord of Avalon, whose pupils flashed a few different colors with the Emperor's soothing midnight spirit.

At the same time, the Midnight Ghost had already stood up, he did not kneel voluntarily in front of the Lord of Humanity, he was unwilling to do so.

"That is not my name, Father, my people have given me a name, and I will bear it until the day I die."

"I'm a Midnight Ghost."

"And I already know exactly what you're going to do with me."

This made at least two of the Primitives frown, but the Emperor did not seem to be at all provoked, not even stunned, as he accepted Coetze's words and treated him as an heir at this moment.

[Come and meet your blood relatives.] 】

You have been separated for too long. 】

Coates didn't reply, but he chose to do so, and the genetics took an orderly step forward and introduced their names.

The first is Dorne.

Coates looked at him and felt a myriad of fragments and possibilities bloom in his mind, all different, but mostly pointing to a burning palace, where Dorne stood, heavily armed and bleeding, desperately facing a shadow several times taller than him, seemingly inhuman.

The second is Luo Jia.

The image he brought was not complicated in the slightest, the figure in front of the idol always maintained a prostrating posture, and behind him were endless warriors, they were very similar to these Astartes in front of them, but they were much taller, more savage and cruel, more like death beasts that believed in evil gods than warriors.

The third is Ferus.

Coates saw him, in countless places and moments, chaotic, like a book that had not yet been thought of, he seemed to stand on a burning steel beast, and he seemed to be in the company of the legions of the dead, he seemed to be fighting equally in the midst of the golden palace, and like the breachers of the perfect wall, shimmering with a mixture of cold and bloodthirsty.

The fourth was Fogham, who had a real light and warmth in his eyes.

Coates couldn't see him clearly, or he couldn't see him in full, he could see a noble phoenix holding a double blade, but then he saw a tail wing dragging disgusting pus, he saw a scuffle, a rupture, and three flags raised high, but at that moment he saw each of them being torn down as a dull piece of history.

These are his four brothers, his four blood relatives, with whom he has just met and who has already seen the sad future.

Midnight Ghost looked up, ready for the next ......

I'm Morgan. 】

“！”

Koz opened his eyes, the light of the Lord of Humanity aching him, but he still forced himself to look at the source of the voice, at the shadow belatedly coming from behind the Emperor, and at the cold voice.

The ...... Sounds that shouldn't exist.

Midnight Ghost breathed deeply, and it took him about a minute to simply take a deep breath, and then he looked at the non-existent fifth blood relative with the stunned gaze of all the genetic protogens.

He saw it.

In that moment, the fiery fragments of the future poured into the Midnight Ghost's pupils like magma, relentlessly torturing his reason and persistence, wanting to scream, wanting to go crazy, wanting to do what any normal person would do.

But there was nothing he could do, because he had seen those things.

He saw, he saw countless worlds burning, he saw thousands of slaves singing and dancing on the remains of civilization, he saw the shadows like stars obscuring those unfortunate worlds, and the great iron claws tore each star to pieces.

But the next moment, he saw the dimness of the future again, he saw the end of what had already happened, and he saw what should have happened on the battlefield called Ran Dan.

He saw the lion-like giant raise his sword, piercing the snow-white neck beneath the silver hair, and around him stood silent black-armored warriors, as well as mountains of silver-white corpses, and countless burning warships and ruins.

He saw the nine most blasphemous signs flickering in the blue pupils, reflecting the only regret and mourning in the heart of the ruthless king of knights, and he saw the wolf-like savage giant, raising the point of an invincible spear, and piercing the dying heart in the same way, but already weeping.

That's the future, that's the past, that's what has happened, that's what he should see.

He should see him, see Morgan, see a brother, see a ......

Coates breathed deeply.

He stared at Morgan, with a gaze that bordered on impudence, like an ordinary human waking up to find a bunch of living dead people pulling at their windows.

It wasn't until this overly obvious gaze caught the attention of all the primordials, and attracted the pupils of the Lord of Humanity, that Midnight Ghost slowly spoke, uttering his first words with all his blood relatives.

"Morgan?"

[It's me, brother. 】

The Second Legion's smile had stiffened a little, but she kept it well.

Coetzes wasn't impressed, he just nodded indifferently, as if he heard the words of a corpse.

Then, he spoke succinctly.

"Are you really Morgan?"

[Of course.] 】

"That ......"

"Why aren't you dead yet?"

【……？ 】

(End of chapter)