Something is burning.

And Sevita can hear it clearly.

There was no silence around him, it could even be described as noisy—the whispers that came from all directions were unbearable like a storm of hammering tin sheets, and a cursory second of listening to them would make you distracted.

The boy took a deep breath, then a second, and a third, and again, and again, and he craved like some kind of air-hungry beast, unsatisfied, and forever greedy.

But it wasn't out of some desire, but out of his desperate desire to calm down.

- He must calm down.

Yago Sevitaleon didn't understand where he was, he didn't know where the so-called City of the Dead was, and he didn't understand what the Altar of the End was. At this moment, there was only one thing he knew, understood, clear, and understood.

He has to calm down, or he'll go crazy.

There is no other reason for those voices. For the first time in his life, the voices of the ghosts were heard by him clearly, and he could hear them clearly.

Take, for example, the voice closest to him, which undoubtedly belonged to a woman, and carried a strong breath in between the words. She was speaking to Sevita in a chat-like tone, hissing at an extremely fast pace.

"Why am I dying? Why don't those who kill people everywhere die? ”

How would I know?

Sevita resisted the urge to go back and began to force herself to continue to take deep breaths. But he couldn't do it, because more voices were coming, like a storm. A storm for the dead alone.

"I just want to go home, why are they holding me around the neck with a chain and pulling me around the city on a motorcycle? My back is worn out, it hurts."

"Why did that man stab me with a knife? I don't know him, why would he do it? Yes. I seem to be bleeding? ”

"Don't skin me anymore, my lord, it's okay, please, kill me."

"They're going to eat me!"

"I'm hungry. Why hasn't Mom come back yet? ”

Sevita shuddered and closed her eyes and covered her ears, trying to isolate the cruel and twisted words, which he had not succeeded. The dead did not let him go like this, and more images rushed straight in.

These images are even more unbearable than mere pre-death whispers.

He saw people who had been hanged, people who had been chopped alive on the wooden planks of butcher shops, orphans who had starved to death in their homes, workers who had been inexplicably beaten to death in the streets

Shouting, wailing, asking.

Why? They silently asked, "Why are we in this situation?"

Sevita's eyes snapped open, blood spilling from between his lips and teeth.

He had just bitten the tip of his tongue, his flesh swollen in his mouth, blood flowing, but Sevita was still crushing the torn mass with her teeth.

The corners of his mouth twitched with pain, but that didn't stop him from moving on. The dark ruins were deserted, and the only source of light was a few flickering street lamps. The pain was still around, but Sevita had maintained a certain level of sobriety and sanity.

Don't ask me. He said to the darkness. I don't know the answer either.

He just kept going. The farther he went, the more pronounced the burning smell became, blowing in the howling wind and entering Sevita's nostrils with sheer violence.

The smell was terrible, bad enough for Sevita to ignore the shadows that loomed in the darkness. Skinned corpses, children covered in blood, women who have lost their hands and feet, men with empty eye sockets

The sight of these things made Sevita feel a lot of pain, not the numbness that was spreading in his mouth at the moment, but a different form of pain. It was teasing, gently caressing his eyeballs, making the nerves twitch.

Sevita kept blinking, trying to make the pain go away, but he couldn't succeed because he couldn't close his eyes anymore.

In other words, he could see it all even with his eyes closed. He is in a place that does not require vision.

He walked silently in the darkness, his limbs numb, the cold weighing heavily on what he had.

The white robes couldn't withstand the cold, and neither could his body temperature. At this moment, there was only one place left in his body that still had temperature—that is, his chest.

The parchment roll was on the chest.

It was piping hot, but it gave Sevita the only comfort left. He stopped where he was, took out the parchment scroll, and began to read it again.

"Congratulations, Reserve Yago Sevitalyon. You have successfully crossed the White Mountain and reached the City of the Dead. Next, you'll need to make your way through the city to the Altar of the End. There, you will witness everything. ”

The White Mountain

Amid the whispers of the dead, Sevita silently approached where the next street lamp was. With his head bowed, he stepped into the faint light and continued to read the parchment scroll in his hand.

City of the Dead. So, the city is full of dead people? Sevita gasped as if asthma, and he looked up and looked around. The shadowy shadows and the ruins made him feel a little amused, and he really laughed - "City? ”

His voice began to echo through the darkness.

"Is this a city too?" He slurred his own blood. "Stop humming, you dead people go to the people who killed you? Go find them! ”

He gasped and clenched the parchment roll in his hand. It began to continue to heat and the temperature became high, making his skin hiss and white smoke came out. But the boy was completely indifferent.

He acted as calm, indifferent — and insane — as if he didn't feel pain at all.

In fact, madness is the main thing.

"Go find the people who killed you!" He shouted muttered. "You've all become ghosts, what are you afraid of? You can hang those bastards up and eat them like they eat you! ”

Sevita smiled without a hint of a smile.

"Don't bother me any more, you incompetent cowards go find them, go for revenge!"

His rage and madness seemed to terrify the ghosts for a moment—in short, for a long time, there was no sound in the darkness.

Sevita fell to his knees, his heart and muscles beating at the same rate, every nerve tensed, and he bit his tattered tongue, feeling calmer than ever.

Until a voice rang out.

"Because we're dead." A man said softly. "There is no way for a dead man to leave, unless he is allowed to."

"Allowed? Fuck, are you telling me a joke? Sevita shook her fist and yelled at him. You're all dead, who else are you going to listen to? You idiot, come here! ”

The dead man did as he was told, and Sevita had no idea why he had suddenly 'come over', his sanity seemed to have broken the thread, or madness had taken over.

In short, the boy now knows that he is not in a normal state, but he needs this abnormality.

He had to let his sanity get out of the way for a while.

Sevita began to observe the ghost that had emerged from the darkness, and the latter's face was extremely hideous.

He had no eyes, no tongue, no jaw, and the last half of his face looked like he had been thrown into some kind of machine and stirred for a long time. He stood crookedly, chains wrapped around him, digging deep into the flesh.

"You said you were dead?" Sevita glared at him. "What dead person can shed blood?"

"This is the city of the dead, child." The man replied hollowly, which sounded like an explanation, but it didn't solve anything at all.

Sevita stuck out her tongue, exposing the almost completely bitten tip to the air: "Don't call me child, do you know who I am?" ”

"I don't know."

"I'm Yago Sevitalyon." The boy raised his chin and smiled haughtily and comically. "I'm a reserve for the Midnight Blade of the Emperor's Eighth Legion, one of the Astartes under Conrad Coetzes, you're in trouble, understand?"

"I don't understand." The ghost looked at him blankly, his figure wandering.

"That's right, you're dead after all." Sevita shrugged generously. "But I can forgive you, after all, I'm already a reservist, so why bother you dead people? So stop talking to me fucking all the time. ”

He stood up and pointed to his eyes, "See?" I'm driven crazy by you, and my eyes are dying of pain from watching you die. And my ears too, why do you talk so much? Do all dead people talk so much? ”

The ghost nodded silently at him, opening its mouth, its rotten and dark teeth looming: "Hate. Drives us to do this. ”

"Then go for revenge!" Sevita roared.

"Nope." The ghost said. "Grievances have been washed away, hatred has been wiped out in blood, but we need more."

He reached out a hand and grabbed Sevita's right hand firmly. Coming into contact with a ghost was almost the equivalent of being sliced into her body with a blade, and Sevita bared her teeth with a hideous face, feeling someone stab her right forearm with a knife, and it was still stirring.

"We need more." The ghost whispered, and pulled Sevita out of the light. "We're dead, they're dead, but there are still many nobles and gangs in this world who aren't dead."

"There are no more nobles and gangs on Nostramo!" Sevita yelled at him.

"There are other places." The ghost said. He turned to his side, and another dead man stepped out. He had gray hair, a muscular body, and black and white eyes, and had nothing in common with the Nostramos.

"Like where he came from." The ghost grabbed Sevita and pulled him up from the ground. The pain in his right hand became more intense and more pronounced.

"Everywhere he came was a slave owner, Yago Sevitalyon of the Midnight Blade. The slave owners killed him and turned his children into monsters. Do you understand, Yago Sevitaleon? There are many worlds, and there are many nobles, gangs, slave owners."

"And none of them died, unlike us, none of them died. Why do they live and why don't they die? ”

"How the do I know?" Sevita smiled numbly. "What's the use of you telling me this?"

"Useful, Yago Sevitalyon from the Midnight Blade."

The ghost let go of his hand.

"You can avenge us."

"To whom do you take revenge?"

"Those people." With a monstrous hatred, the ghost replied. His voice began to blur and change, and became the voice of ten million people speaking together, like thunder, shaking endlessly.

"Those who create more ghosts, those who kill others for fun, those who force people to be separated from their wives and their families. You can avenge us, Yago Sevitalyon. ”

"What's in it for me?" Sevita struggled to take a breath of cold air, his voice hollow, nothing in his eyes. "Let's talk about this first, what's in it for me to avenge you? You can't let me do a day job. ”

The boy finally felt a little relieved in his heart.

What a joke - if that kind of people really exist, then they shouldn't be alive in the first place. Even if the ghosts didn't ask for it, he would do it when he joined the Legion. In fact, he decided to join the Legion when he heard that he could do so.

It was a sloppy decision, or it could have been terrible, and Sevita couldn't find a single explanation for it. He didn't know why he had agreed to join, but he understood now.

Some things don't need a reason at all.

What's the fucking reason for that? Those people just deserve to die.

They just deserve to die.

But he had to go to the Altar of the End, and if he didn't get there, he wouldn't be able to complete this 'twentieth operation', and he wouldn't be able to join the Legion."

So, as always, Yago Sevitaleone played with his little street cunning.

However, the ghost did not promise him anything.

"There is no reward." He said that there was nothing in his eye sockets. "We are dead, and we cannot promise you anything, Yago Sevitaleon. And you don't really need any reward. ”

Sevita was almost amused - "What rotten jokes are you talking about?" Of course I need a reward or a reward, I'm going to the altar of the end! ”

"You're already there." The ghost replied in a low voice.

In the next second, the wind howled, the thunder made the dark sky as bright as day, and the burning smell finally reached its peak, rushing to the face, filling the lips, tongue, nose and ears. Sevita's eyes widened as she noticed that everything was gradually disappearing.

Invisible to the ruins and ghosts vanished, replaced by a barren and muddy land, and Sevita looked up to see five gnarled and massive stone pillars. They had erected a palace in which there was no light, but the smell of burning came from within.

He lowered his head and looked at his right hand, and the parchment roll was now spreading out on its own. Hot as lava, black flames dancing wildly on it.

"Get ready, you will face the truth, Yago Sevitalyon."

Yes, yards

Rewritten three times, finally kicked out.

(End of chapter)