Because they say that Nostramo needs light.

Because they say that Nostramo longs for light.

Because they say that Nostramo, once had a light of its own.

They used to have.

It was a gift from the King of Midnight.

That king, the first, the only, and hopefully the last king in the whole history of Nostramo, the first to be able to hold in his hands five nests of mobs, a thug of the mob: he completed his enthronement in the savage manner of Nostramo, and branded the crown of mercylessness in a land full of sin.

In front of all the Nostramos, the unprecedented Monarch of the Eternal Night, gushing about the legitimacy of his throne, proclaimed justice, law, order, the sacrifice necessary for humanity to evolve into a civilized society, allowing him to ascend to the throne of this world.

But he's probably never going to think of a single thing.

Nostramo, don't care about that.

They don't care about justice, they don't care about the law, they don't care about the so-called dawn of order and civilization: the world has long since reshaped its own aesthetics after countless millennials of murder and depravity, and the dregs struggling in pain have spurned the beauty of hope, and will never bow down to a ridiculous king because of these whimsical words.

There is only one reason why Lord Midnight can reign in this world: because he is the embodiment of Nostramo, because he is the earthly projection of the endless suffering, sin, madness, and self-torture of this world.

Because he is every Nostramo man: whether it is a warlord who is desperate for luxury or a poor man who has no food to eat, whether he is a scheming old ghost or a reckless and restless villain, he dreams of what he is, the essence of absolute power and brutality, and only these purest forms of violence are the hard currency of Nostramo.

When the Midnight Wraith dragged his blood-stained scarlet cloak and held the heads of all those who dared to resist, trampled the uncrowned kings of the five hives to the soles of his feet, extracted their eyeballs and spine, and made a throne of his own: whatever he had to say, he would be greeted with the lifeless allegiance of the entire Nightstar.

But he didn't understand this, and he naively thought that it was his claws that had infiltrated the so-called justice and order in his mouth, into the bones of every Nostramo person: anyone born into this star of the eternal night knew that it was nothing more than delusion.

The Nostramos have merely submitted to their king, and since the Midnight Wraith has conquered them with sheer violence, he can do whatever he wants from the world: just as the iron-fisted tyrants of history have squandered the lives and wealth of their people to build their extravagant palaces.

For the vast majority of Nostramos, justice and order are just another tyranny imposed by a great tyrant called the Midnight Ghost, but it sounds a little funny and new.

If some tyrants like to kill and take pleasure in human life, and some tyrants like to spend money and scrape the people's fat, isn't it normal that there are also tyrants like Midnight Ghost who like to instill the so-called ideas of justice and order in his people?

In any case, since he had conquered the land, since he had proved that his power was invincible, all the Nostramos had to do was obedience: they did not have to struggle to understand what justice and order were, they only had to bow their heads and obey orders, and the king of midnight would be happy.

So, the Silent Order that makes Midnight Wraith complacent in front of his blood relatives is not because his people have learned the value of justice and order: it is merely the Nightstar's way of satisfying the tyrant who has conquered it, the way the ruled Nostramo people use to please the powerful king.

They know that the Midnight Ghost conquered Nostramo: with his violence.

But they also believe that Nostramo assimilated the Midnight Ghost: with its logic.

And Midnight Ghost really thinks that it is the ideas he promotes that have changed the world: this idea seems too ridiculous.

Therefore, the people of Nostramo despise their king, but this does not prevent them from worshipping him from the bottom of their hearts: this fundamental contradiction is the greatest aesthetic art of Nostramo.

Their hatred is universal, but their love is pure, and though they despise the innocence of the Midnight Ghost, they also regard him from the bottom of their hearts as the only monarch: when he hangs above midnight, people hate the deathly silence he brings, but now that he has left this world, countless people will whisper his name in the middle of the night, remembering all that he has brought them.

Death, punishment, silence, crowns, and the greatest art of killing, the most brutal bloody punishment, the harshest and most efficient quiet years, and ......

Light.

……

Even if it's light.

Even light.

……

The Nostramo people hate the light.

For it was the Light that took away their king: in the years when they were ruled by the Midnight Spirit, the Light never came into the world, and when the legendary emperor, harnessing the blinding light of the sun, made countless Nostramos blind and took away another of his offspring, the Star of the Night was abandoned and became a world abandoned by his own king.

With the departure of the king, the tyranny of justice and order was soon shaken radically: countless careerists spurned the departure of the Midnight Ghost, robbed him of the wealth he left behind, feared his possible return, but in their hearts, they could not help but miss his purely violent figure.

They have been conquered by the omnipotent Midnight Ghost in their hearts, like Nostramo, who spit on and miss their only king with the most extreme twisted emotions in the galaxy, and this love-hate affair spreads to other things: the light that takes away the Midnight Spirit, for example.

They hated the light because it took away their only king, but they longed for it because they believed that the next light would return with their king: no one cared if the tyranny of the righteous order would come back to the world with the Midnight Spirit.

As long as the king ascends to the throne, everyone else simply obeys.

And in the days of the king's absence, the people of Nostramo took it for granted, returning the world to its original state, allowing crime, violence and vendetta to be unimpeded again, and everyone was unscrupulously releasing the long-pent-up darkness in their hearts while looking forward to the arrival of the next light.

for they knew that sooner or later their king would return.

Because they know that the world still needs its savior.

For they know all the desires and fantasies they have in their hearts, all the ideas and laws they practice at the moment, and all the awe and love for the Midnight Ghost in their souls......

……

……

——————

"It's all fart."

"It's all self-deception."

The boy muttered angrily, his mouth slurred as the smell of blood, snot and vomit mixed in his teeth, the result of a terrible brawl that had knocked down countless opponents and taken several heavy punches.

Pain, soreness, exhaustion, hunger in his stomach and anger in his head: none of this slowed the boy's movements, and he was like a shadow that had disappeared for ten years, crawling through the foul-smelling ditch to his destination.

Then, he spat on the ground, licked his teeth with his tongue, and only after confirming that his mouth was barely clean, did he take one last look around, and silently grasped the creaking escalator in front of him.

It is an old building, located in an abandoned ghost town, a masterpiece of two or even three centuries ago, surrounded by falling walls and human-high barren grass telling its desolation, and the nearest voices are miles away.

The grave is a mound, but it is the boy's home, his final destination in this world: at least, from this evening, that is it.

For the boy had been expelled by the gang to which he had been: not so much, but only a bloody brawl that lasted for half an afternoon, almost like a civil war, after an irreconcilable quarrel.

The good news is that the boy defeats everyone who disagrees with him, and the bad news is that all those who disagree with him are all members of his gang, including his nominal protectors in the gang and distant cousins with whom he is slightly related.

As for his parents, or any of his direct blood relatives?

Ha!

They should ...... Does it exist?

But who cares: he killed three of his cousins with his own hands.

So, though he won the pragmatist debate, he could only be an expellee in the face of countless guns and rage: and given that his gang had become so powerful and domineering with his great help, there was probably no place for boys in the dozens of neighborhoods.

Although the boy doesn't care about any of that either.

The escalator crumbles, but it still sends him to the terrace at the top of the building, a hiding place made of bluestone, with a tent, a few water drawers, and food that he has quietly hidden here, which will give him peace for the long night ahead.

As far as "home" is concerned, it can even be called luxurious.

Because here, the boy not only has a place to shelter from the wind, he has food and drink, and even, he has a group of friends: originally the word would have been on Nostramo, which was a ridiculous joke, but the boy was always the special one.

He was always special: even he himself noticed this.

He knew that he was born stronger than others, faster than others, better endurance than others, better suited than others to kill those opponents who did not have long eyes, and when his peers were still in the filthy ditch, fighting to the death with wild dogs that preded on him, the boy was already one of the best killers in his gang.

In a world where death is commonplace, he is perhaps one of the lucky few who has never experienced a life-and-death crisis: and in those few moments, the boy even learns new abilities.

It was this new ability, the power known as psionic power, that brought the boy unexpected friends: now, they came to celebrate his housewarming.

The boy was sitting in the tent when he heard a noise in the sky: it was the sound of a flock of crows flapping their wings.

His friends came.

"Food, food."

They called out to the boy.

“……”

The boy took a deep breath, and finally adjusted his breathing, and he fled all the way here, with the help and protection of the crows, from the pursuit of the gang, and did not even have time to rest: but after half an afternoon of brawl and this battle royale, the boy still did not feel tired, but only breathless.

The boy stood, and he got out of the tent where he was hiding, and picked up the best food he had at hand: just some rotten crumbs of bread as hard as stone, and walked over to the flocks of ravens on the rooftop.

The ravens are frighteningly large and athletic: in Nostramo, these already intelligent birds certainly don't mind using humans as their food, but boys are different, they are their friends, friends who can bring them food.

"Food, food."

The crows urged.

"Okay."

The boy responded, his voice hoarse as it should not exist for his age, and then he tossed the crumbs in his hand to his friends, but the hard-as-a-stone dinner apparently displeased the crows, and some ravens came to the boy's shoulders and overhead, pecking at him as if they were complaining, not painful, but making the boy smile.

"Flesh, flesh."

The crows complained, and to others it seemed to be just an incomprehensible chirp, but the boy understood what it meant, and with a wave of his hand, he dispersed the crows on his body, leaning against the wall on one side, and continuing to adjust his breathing.

The ravens did not pester him any longer, but scrambled for the crumbs on the ground, and taking advantage of the free time, the boy raised his head and began to look into the distance: there was a noise louder than the shrill chirping of the crows, which almost enveloped the entire nest, and no one could ignore the sounds.

It was the sound of gunfire, the sound of cannons, the clarion call of war, the earth-shattering cry of thousands of soldiers and thugs fighting each other: in those opulent, neon-lit areas of the center of the nest, the clamor of war had been going on for years, and the heart of the nest seemed to have been fighting for the day the boy had his own consciousness.

Even this morning, the long-lost small meteor shower did not interrupt this war.

But then again: when did Nostramo have a meteor shower?

The last time, it seems, was the time when the Midnight Ghost came.

……

But that has nothing to do with them: it's not as important as the current war.

The boy knew that it was a protracted war, and that it was said that the two sides were fought between the old nobles of the Hive and the last governor left behind by the Midnight Ghost: although they still did not tear their faces on the surface, proxy wars like this were still in full swing.

The boy also knew that, though the war had been going on for many years, the sound of artillery fire on the Governor's side seemed to be waning in recent days, and that there were more and more gangs and clans in his sordid neighborhood, constantly clamoring to join the side of the Hive nobility: the outcome seemed to be determined soon.

It is said that the governor has been confined to his governor's palace, and even the safety of travel is not guaranteed: in these most remote and sensitive backward neighborhoods, the gangs that have been secured by the nobility cannot wait to drag everything back to the way it was decades ago.

Drag back to ......

In those days when there were no midnight ghosts.

“……”

They are going to live up to the Midnight Ghost.

Fail to live up to all that he has brought.

Thinking of this, the boy couldn't help but purse the corners of his mouth, his eyebrows and eyes finally had a touch, lowered his head, the boy ignored the noise of the crows and the distant sound of artillery fire, just picked up a charcoal pen on the ground, and began to paint a crooked painting at random.

He painted the Midnight Ghost.

Long black hair, hideous claws, blood-colored cloaks, and sharp riding boots, full of heads of criminals and blasphemers, they were piled up to form a throne on a hill where the Midnight Wraith ruled over all of Nostramo.

“……”

The legend goes, and the boy can only come according to the legend: after all, the Midnight Ghost left his kingdom long before he was born, but at that time, his legacy still cares for the boy's generation.

In the first years of the boy's life, the Governors left behind by the Midnight Ghost had not disappeared one by one, and all the nests and streets were still peaceful, dead and orderly: the boy spent his childhood in this quiet, which was tedious but also nostalgic.

But in recent years, as the Midnight Ghost has moved farther and farther away, everything has changed: there is only one Governor left, violence and crime have begun to surface, and the former tranquility has long been torn apart.

But only the boy still remembered all that had happened in his childhood, and silently remembered in his heart the Midnight Ghost who had brought it all about, and the gift that the Midnight Ghost had left behind: for this reason, when the boy's gang preached that they were going to join the banner of the nobles, could not tolerate this betrayal of the Midnight Ghost, and the boy began his war this afternoon.

It was a war of common sense, and he fought for true faith.

He's fighting for the Midnight Wanderer.

The boy was well aware of this.

Flocks of crows still wreaked around him, and the distant sound of artillery fire rumbled, telling of the unbroken war: originally, it was all the sounds of midnight.

But just as the boy finished his portrait and was about to close his eyes and continue to rest, he heard something new.

It was the crying and crying of a woman for help, and the wanton lewd laughter of crime in the night sky.

“……”

Originally, the boy didn't really want to deal with all this, he just wanted to continue his rest, he didn't care about these so-called calls for help or the development of crimes: but soon he noticed that the voice seemed to be getting closer and closer to him.

“……”

As the sound drew closer to the corner of the building, the boy finally opened his eyes, and he found the ravens looking at him expectantly.

“……”

The boy didn't say anything and rolled over and went downstairs.

……

When the boy returned, he dragged a man more than two meters tall: the man was already a dead body, and the boy had some abrasions on his body, and his arm felt sore, but there were not even any wounds.

Around the corner, the woman who had been bullied was still crying weakly, and if she didn't have the help of others, she might have attracted a new bully, or she might not have survived the night at all: but the boy didn't care.

He even wondered: Why did the man only cry?

And right now, he has more important things to do.

"Leave me some."

The boy told the crows, and threw the corpse at them: the Nostramo people were never afraid to feed on their own kind, and the boy was at least a little more bottom-up than his cousins, he only ate meat that did not look like human parts, and as for those with obvious characteristics, it was naturally left to his flying friends to solve.

The boy's Blackwing friends cheered and began to enjoy the fresh meal, while the boy continued to lean against the wall, wanting to rest.

But in the next second, his brain seemed to sense something.

“！”

The boy leapt to his feet, clutching a rusty blade in his hand.

"Who?!"

“！！！”

The boy's raven friends seemed to be frightened by his movements, and instinctively began to fly wildly, but in the noise of constant flapping of wings, the boy concentrated his attention and fixed his attention on a dark spot on the terrace.

“……”

As far as his gaze could see. In addition to the panicked black wings, there seemed to be only the constant sound of the wind at night, and in the distance, the sound of continued artillery fire.

Farther away, the woman's sobs continued, fading away.

“……”

The boy's eyes narrowed.

Like a nostramo lion preparing to hunt, he bent his waist, clutched his blade, and approached the place that made him suspicious: he did not intend to flee directly, for he was sure that he would not be able to escape far if the enemy he had guessed really existed.

Not to mention......

He has never lost to anyone.

“……”

The boy held his breath as much as he could, he didn't want to reveal his position more in the darkness, and the extremely dim light of Nostramo's night undoubtedly provided him with cover, allowing him to calm down and feel the breath of the enemy: he felt the presence of at least one enemy, an opponent so strong that his back began to sweat.

He smelled the air, a smell that reminded him of years ago when he had hid in the wilderness outside the hive. The night he confronted the most terrifying beast in the wasteland, the Nostramo Lion, but even the fierce aura of the king beast was far from what he had smelled in the wind just now.

Who is it......

The boy was sweating on his forehead, but his pupils were flickering, and his tongue couldn't help but lick his lips, and he couldn't hide the anticipation in his heart: he didn't think that the opponents in the dark would be the gang members who were chasing him, the waste was not so strong, and he didn't think that it would be the subordinates of the nobles of the nest, because this was not the range of those doglegs.

“……”

And so, as the breath became clearer, a strange but crazy thought began to appear in the boy's mind, and his heart, which had never burned, felt extremely hot because of it, like the legendary sun.

The wind extinguished, but it only made him more eager to try.

And it was also in the midst of this raging wind that he seemed to smell something.

“！！！”

The boy's pupils dilated in a full circle in his instincts, and without the slightest hesitation, he quickly turned around, and the blade in his hand made an arc of light in the night, and quickly stabbed in a direction behind his left: he was sure that there was a man standing there, someone who could be so close to him silently.

Someone so dangerous that it almost made him tremble.

"Ping-"

Everything was as the boy thought.

Behind him, there, indeed, stood a man.

The boy's attack was blocked: the blade was shattered, and his entire arm was tightly grasped by a large hand wrapped in steel, and the boy looked up at the traces of the big hand, only to realize that his opponent was really ridiculously tall and amazingly strong.

In the brief glow provided by the continuous artillery fire in the distance, the boy could barely make out the face of his opponent: he was about two meters tall, a complete giant, and his body was wrapped in a dark blue armor full of carvings of lightning and skeletons.

The giant's head is the most impressive: he uses a whole skull as his helmet, and the wings are erected and decorated with scarlet like bat wings.

The giant was gripping a weapon that the boy didn't recognize in one hand, and the other was clutching the boy's arm, hiding his face behind the helmet, but the boy could hear it clearly.

He was laughing.

It was a mockery: but not a malicious mockery.

"A great boy."

In the midst of the laughter, the boy could hear the slightest muttering, a word distinct from Nostramo's words, but barely recognizable, and then he noticed that the giant had raised his head and said something behind the boy.

"Hey."

"That's a good seedling."

“……”

"Indeed."

The boy blinked, and before he could react, he felt another large hand tapping his shoulder: it was another man from behind him, another giant.

"It's been a long time since I've seen a good seedling like this, Barbatos."

The giant behind the boy was also responding to his companion's words in vague words, and they seemed to be joking with each other, but the boy couldn't understand any more, he just raised his head, with a dazed and excited look like he had never seen before, and stared at the two giants wrapped in dark blue armor.

For the first time, his ears fell into such a quiet atmosphere: whether it was the rumbling of artillery fire, the manic hurricane, or the cries of women far away, they had all disappeared at this moment, and the boy just stared blankly at the two giants, and he almost muttered to himself, and asked a question.

"You ......"

The giants looked at him, and the boy swallowed.

"Are you the companions of the Midnight Spirits?"

The boy looked at the giants expectantly, longing for an affirmative answer: he knew very well that it was probably just his delusion, but he couldn't help but ask.

“……”

The giants were stunned for a moment by the boy's question, then looked up and looked at each other: and then laughed.

"Sort of."

In the midst of laughter, the giant who had been attacked by the boy nodded at him: the boy who nodded almost into a kind of ecstasy.

"Is the Midnight Ghost coming back?"

“……”

Faced with the boy's eagerness, the giant just tilted his head.

"I can't answer that question."

Then, he leaned down and carefully examined the boy's body from side to side, just as the nobles of the Hive City had chosen the dead, and the giant's gaze kept going back and forth on the boy's arms and chest, not forgetting to throw some new questions at him.

"Seriously, I really didn't expect that I could be discovered by you, even though it was so close, but after all, you are just a mortal, and you are still a hairy boy: this kind of observation ability is too scary."

"Don't brag about it here, Barbatos."

Before the boy could answer the question of the giant in front of him, the giant standing behind him began to taunt his companion loudly.

"Maybe it's just that your stealth skills aren't as beautiful as you boast, and even a little creature like this can spot your whereabouts: am I right, little one, you discovered his three-legged cat kung fu from the beginning?"

“……”

With this question, the eyes of the two giants focused on the boy, and the boy's eyes shuttled back and forth between them for a moment before pursing his lips and reaching out to point his head.

"At the very beginning......

He said.

"I just felt it, someone was snooping on me with psionic powers."

“……”

The giants were silent.

“……”

“……”

In the next moment, Enric Barbatos, a veteran of the Eighth Legion of Terra descent and a famous stealth master, turned to look at his own comrade-in-arms, Fell-Zaroste, the most prominent elite think tank of the Eighth Legion: the three-legged cat whose psionic traces had been discovered.

At this moment, the ridicule and embarrassment still corresponded to each other, but they quietly switched places: Barbatos, who had just been taunted, began to laugh mercilessly, clenching his fists and smacking the chest of his think-tank companion.

"Seriously, Zarost."

"You can't pass the Psionic Scripture exam by cheating, right?"

“……”

"Shut up!"

The two giants joked with each other without seriousness, and it was not until a few seconds later that the situation stopped, and they once again focused their eyes on the boy, who was clearly a gifted seedling, whom they had already regarded as the possession of the Eighth Legion.

"Originally, we were just ordered by the Father of Genes to step on it."

Because the giant of Barbatos shook his head there, and sighed constantly.

"I didn't expect that there would be an unexpected surprise: it was in vain that we traveled around for a day, and we observed you for half an afternoon, you are really a surprise."

"Father of Genes......

The never-before-heard word immediately caught the boy's attention, and the giant in front of him simply patted him on the shoulder, as if he had already taken him as a member.

"A word you won't know right now, little one: don't worry, though, you'll soon know what it means, it won't be long, and it won't be long before the world will usher in some big changes."

“……”

The boy licked his lips, his sharp mind aware of the meaning of the words.

"You ...... Is it for the sake of this world? ”

"Sort of."

The giant nodded.

"But you can think too."

"We're here for you, boy."

He seemed to laugh.

"Now, wouldn't you mind telling me what your name is?"

“……”

The boy blinked, and he stood in front of the two giants with his chest puffed up without fear: when he said his name, suddenly the giants seemed to see souls worthy of respect.

"My name is Yago."

"Yago-Sevitalyon."

(End of chapter)