Karn could feel a deep chill spread from deep down his spine to his viscera. There was no reason to say that they were pouring into his body quickly, turning the blood into frozen ice slag.

And he knew it wasn't fear.

That's something else. Something older, older, and more terrifying. He didn't know what it was, and if he did, he wouldn't be him anymore.

As for now, he didn't have the time or the right to think about these things, and Jeger was slamming his armor with his axe, and very deliberately chose those places that were still well protected, as if he was venting.

He roared furiously, his face turning into a twisted whirlpool. After staring at the vortex for more than two seconds, Karn finally escaped Jagger's attack with a tumble and climbed to his feet—the latter was not surprised by this, but smiled lowly.

"Why are you still wearing that armor, Karn?" The commander of the fourth company asked hoarsely.

At this moment, his voice now sounded completely different from Karn's impression.

The voice was not rational or calm, and it sounded like the sound of a tank's tracks crashing through the rubble. Broken and terrible, like a roar, like a wail.

Karn didn't answer his words, he just grabbed the chainsaw axe, activated it, and lunged at Jager. Axes collide with each other, and the monomolecular saw blades destroy each other in rapid rotation.

Jagger smiled nonchalantly, his face still shaking for some reason.

Karn stared into his eyes tightly, and only a few moments before his gaze moved to Jagger's forehead, his gaze continued upwards, and then he would discover the truth, if he refused to make eye contact with Jagger.

But he didn't.

He could not refuse, and making eye contact with the enemy was one of Karn's habits, one of which he had cultivated over the years of war.

He must stare into his opponent's eyes. He needed to use this to determine more things.

So he misses the truth, and what he gets is two emotions from Jagger's eyes—anger and hatred.

Jagger grinned and looked at him through the eyepieces, the thick smell of blood waving between his lips and teeth, "I'm glad to see that you still have old habits." But it's stupid for you to wear it, Karn. ”

Karn's eyes narrowed, blood smearing between his eyes and face, and he didn't care now.

He didn't let anger tame his sanity because of Jagger's insults. In the same way, he did not continue this dangerous wrestling.

He didn't know if he would be able to outdo Jagger in sheer strength, but he wouldn't try it with the only weapon he had right now, it didn't make sense. Karn could see another chainsaw sword hanging from Jagger's belt.

He took a sharp step back and moved to the left with a nimble pace, his axe spinning in a deadly arc and slashing at Jagger's arm. The latter snorted, did not dodge or dodge, and fended off the attack with his shoulder armor.

Karn immediately frowned.

He immediately realized the seriousness of the problem - he struck Jagger in the shoulder armor, and it was true. However, the chainsaw axe doesn't feel like cutting into armor, it's like you're stuck in a quagmire.

Karn looked at the armor in shock, and saw blood pouring from the metal. Instinctively, he continued to tug at his arm, trying to pull his weapon out of it, but Jerger didn't give him the chance.

The Commander of the Fourth Company brought him down again with a ferocious slash, as easy and casual as a skilled lumberjack would do with a tree.

He kept sneering and began to pace around Karn, not in a hurry to kill him, his eyes inadvertently turning red: "Ten thousand years have passed, Karn, ten thousand years. ”

He growled.

"And you dare to wear it? Why? Does the emblem and the color give you some kind of twisted pleasure? ”

"This is the glorious symbol of my legion." Karn gasped and got up from the ground again. "It's not the twisted pleasure you call it, Jegger, you're crazy."

"I ——?"

Jagger looked at him and laughed furiously, his voice curling in his throat like some kind of hoarse scream. "How dare you call me crazy?!"

"Or else?" Karn asked calmly, wondering how to knock him down—or simply evacuate and find another way to figure out what was going on.

"You're wearing the armor of 10,000 years ago, Karn, and you say I'm crazy? You dressed yourself up like a loyal dog of the Puppet Emperor, and even had his lightning bolt on your armor, and then you said I was crazy?! ”

Karn was silent for a moment.

Then throw away the second option.

"What did you just say?" He asked. "What did you just say, Jageh?"

Jagger didn't answer anymore, just howled and rushed at him.

Karn's fingers began to tremble, and an irrepressible fury welled in him, almost breaking the boundaries he had set for himself—the word Jagger had uttered, and he felt a wave of intense anger.

He howled as well and lunged at Jagger. The axes collided with the axes again, and the ferocity of the war hounds alone surged through their veins. In the midst of a furious battle, Karn realized that Jagger wanted to kill him.

But so is he.

It took less than half a second for this to rise from his mind to be realized.

I want to kill him.

I want to kill my brother.

Why?

There is no time to think, the blades of the axes are intersecting more and more often, and the intervals are getting shorter and shorter. The process of violence was slowly taking over Karn's mind, leaving him no time to think more.

His concentration earned him a fleeting opportunity, and Karn didn't let it slip away, roaring and grabbing Jager's weapon-holding hand, before smashing his axe away with a single swing.

Immediately afterward, he used his free left hand to beat Jagger in the face. He knocked him to the ground, but his anger never stopped, because Jagger kept laughing in the process.

He's been laughing maniacally.

"What's so funny, Company Commander Jagele?!" Karn asked with a low growl, grabbed Jager, and slammed him to the ground. He could hear his own voice echoing around him. "What's so funny?!"

Jagger didn't answer, just continued to laugh maniacally, his voice so broken. Karn gasped and took a step back, unable to kill his brother.

He didn't allow himself to do that. He stared at Jagger's face, seeing a blur of flesh and white stubble.

Karn's armor helped him do this, and Jagger's nose and brow bones were completely destroyed, and one of his eyes was gone, something like mud stuck in his sockets, and he trembled with his master's laughter.

His mouth was open, blood glittering vaguely between his teeth. Karn felt a sudden and intense wave of fear, but he didn't understand where it was coming from.

"I'm laughing at you." Jagger said in his broken voice. "You don't even dare kill me, Karn, what the hell are you thinking?"

"Enough!"

Karn let out a low roar, and with a stomp jaeger stopped Jagger's words. His brother fainted, and finally shut his mouth, but his face was still shaking. Karn looked at him angrily and suspiciously, wondering why Jagger had become like this.

He still didn't look above Jagger's forehead.

"Enough, enough."

He gasped and hung the chainsaw axe back on his belt. Determined to get out of here, he had to find his company commander, or corps commander—or whoever else could share the matter, and he had to report it back to them.

The madness of a company commander is not a trivial matter, and there is that word, how dare he shout that terrible made-up word?

Karn's teeth chattered, and his brain was in disarray. He didn't know where he was, he didn't know what had happened, or why Jagger had become the way he was. He quickly left the place and went into the darkness alone.

And behind him, Jager's body began to flicker, flickering incessantly.

Blood and flesh began to peel away, screaming souls poured out of the armor, and for a moment, Jager's armor returned to the color of a war dog, and his face returned to normal in that instant, and the Butcher's Nail did not sway behind his head and torment him.

He was normal - screaming in fear, hoping Karn would come back and kill him, and stay away from them to report what had happened to the Primordial and what had happened to them in the subspace.

But Karn didn't, he didn't remember.

And so it all came back, and the blood spread again.

——

Standing at the end of the plain and staring at the rolling hills below, you can't tell what he's thinking at the moment from the look on his face alone, but you can still get a glimpse of what he's staring at in the reflection in those dark eyes.

It was a huge, burning, twisted metal wreckage that covered the entire earth.

Half an hour ago, the farmland and rivers had been liberated, and the freed people were toiling between the fields that belonged to them for the first time. The Ultramarines would greet each other in Nukerian as they passed by, and some children would even run after the car, shouting for a gift of simple produce.

But now, there is nothing.

There is only ruins.

Carlil clenched his hands slowly, his thumb, index and middle fingers rubbing against each other quickly.

He looked at the ruins again, his eyes tingling, and a foul stench hit his face, reaching his nostrils across a distance of thousands of meters. Not the smell of the world of the living, but something that comes from the world of darkness without light.

Are they coming?

But, how is that possible? How could they possibly cross the veil?

Between cold thoughts, he exhaled a slow breath of air, which quickly froze and turned into dust in the air. The world collapsed in an instant, the flames of blood ignited, turning everything into corpses in a river of blood, and then a voice erupted in fury between the illusions.

"You can't escape!" Something behind the curtain yelled at him in a rage like never before. "And so do they!"

Carlil narrowed his eyes and stared at the burning scarlet flames, not saying a word. He could smell blood, not the usual smell of blood. A thought crossed his mind.

He was wounded.

So, here's why? The Veil has never been able to stop them, as long as they are willing to pay?

No.

He snapped his thoughts away, and then sprinted down the slope.

Ten thousand today, with two more chapters.

(End of chapter)