Shen leaned against the cold wall, carefully wrapping the bandages around his fingers.

Casati Nuang, one of the members of his team, sat beside him. The injuries weren't serious, but the Kasati was different. He fought with an Imperial Fist with extremely bloody naked fists until the last moment, and won a resounding victory.

At this moment, he had just woken up from his coma. The cracked wounds on his forehead were still dripping blood, and he didn't seem to have any intention of treating himself, he kept licking his lips and the blood that flowed down his sleeve with his tongue.

Shen had no intention of commenting on his brother's behavior and preferences, however, others disagreed.

"Are you finished?" Karen Orfion—a member from Team 1 asked impatiently.

"Did I affect you?" Kasati smiled contemptuously. "The slightest smell of blood makes you nervous? It's funny, dear Karen, for sometimes she behaves reminding me of a kid who wants to show off with a deliberate maturity. ”

Karen Orfion grinned and slowly stood up. His chest was covered in bruises, and his left hand hung crookedly from his wrist to his side.

"You can choose to shut yourself up, or I'll shut you up, Kasati."

"Come on." Casati dipped his fingers in a handful of blood, shoved it into his mouth, and slurred a slurred answer to Karen Orfion. "Try it, dear Karen."

"Don't go overboard." In the corner of the room, a somber voice belonging to Yago Sevitaleon came from there.

"You seem to have a lot of strength to do, but if that's the case, why are you playing so hard when you're in the cage?" He asked reproachfully.

Shen raised his head and glanced at the First Reserve, whose expression made him slightly surprised. The expression on that pale ghostly face was now called serious, and it was an expression that Yago Sevitaleon basically never used.

The flirtatious smile in his eyes was gone, and only an unsettling coldness remained. For some reason, Shen felt as if something had changed in him.

"That guy didn't win me." Karen Orfion turned his head and replied to his captain.

His voice was low, and he had already expressed surrender and retreat to some extent—it seemed a little inappropriate to say, but a new order was spreading within the Nightblades' recruits.

Unlike the Terra, who don't pay much attention to rank, it's a beastly habit of distinguishing status by strength, and the strange thing is that it doesn't affect the feelings of the recruits.

Sevita looked coldly at his teammates, and after the familiar gaze of the others lasted for a full five seconds, Orfeon lowered his head deeply.

Sevita slowly pulled her lips open, exposing his white teeth to the air: "What's the difference between not winning and losing?" Orfion? ”

"Nope."

"That's right, so why are you acting like a winner?" The First Reserve sneered. "And you-"

He turned his head to look at the other eight members of the team who belonged to him, and his expression could no longer be described as gloomy, this word was far from enough.

He now looked almost like a dead man who had just crawled out of the graveyard, full of anger and resentment. His voice echoed through the room, like the howling of a cold wind blowing past a tombstone at midnight.

"—Are you gloating? Although Orfion didn't win, he at least didn't lose. What about you, Valtek? ”

He walked up to a man with no hair on his head and forced him to look at him.

"Did you win?"

"No, Captain." Valtek said.

"You've been beaten like a rat in the gutter with an axe from that guy, don't quibble, Valtek, I saw it all."

Valtek's face quickly changed from pale to another weak and haggard pale - he lowered his head and clenched his fists. Sevita didn't push him anymore, but turned to look at Shen's side.

He was laughing, though there was no smile in his eyes. Shen stared at him, silently raising his vigilance. In battle and in life, Yago Sevitaleone is not an easy person to deal with.

"Congratulations, Shen." The first reserve said with his head held high. "You won, and if Sommers, who walked in a few minutes later, didn't win, then you'd be one of the few winners we have here. You played very well, you played wonderfully, and I have to show you my respects. ”

"Then I'm really flattered." Shen said. "But you seem to have something to say, don't you?"

"Don't call me that monosyllable, that's the prerogative of the primitives." Sevita replied with bared teeth. "Still, you guessed it, I do have something to say. Actually, I'm worried about one thing. ”

"What?"

"What the fuck could it be?" Sevita smiled, wiggling her neck slightly nervously. "Our name, ——!"

His eyes widened.

"Forgot the name of the squad? This mission was supposed to be our chance to get a name. We had followed the Primordial and the Instructor to Holy Terra, and what a shame would it be if we didn't get the name? ”

"I don't think the instructors and the original would care about this." Shen replied calmly.

"Yes, they don't. But those bastards will, they're going to go over and over again—"

Sevita's smile widened.

"—Maybe Captain Van Cleeff won't, maybe not the think tanks. But what about the others? Think about it, Chief Medical Officer! Yes, he will surely laugh at us. And Siani, he's sure to bring it up endlessly when he trains with us on the training ground. We risk being ridiculed by everyone. ”

He looked at the door, staring at the black iron door and shaking his head slowly.

"If Sommers doesn't win, we're less than half the chance of winning, so how are we going to get the name?"

"You don't know what you say, Sevita."

Shen still maintained his composure, but his eyes narrowed slightly.

"You just said that there is no difference between not winning and losing. So, even if Sommers wins, what about ten of our twenty winners? There is no difference between a tie and a fiasco. ”

"Of course I know that." Sevita looked away, tilted her head and closed her eyes.

"I just wanted to tell you that it's best to call yourself a loser from now on. Throw away the pride of being chosen by the original body and the instructor, we are nothing. ”

Shen pursed his lips.

"Perhaps some of you have begun to contradict me in your heart by now, thinking that this is a good result. Yes, it is really good for those mediocre and mediocre Astartes. But we're Midnight Blades, and we've all sworn by them."

Sevita finally opened her eyes, and raised her right fist with a hideous expression: "And for this vow, any little self-satisfaction of self-depravity is shameful!" ”

Shen applauded silently.

The First Reserve was stunned, and after a few seconds, his pale cheeks quickly turned red—

"Are you laughing at me, Shen?"

He asked in a very soft tone.

"Nope." Shen replied solemnly. "I'm just agreeing, and you're right."

Sevita took a deep breath, and the solemn atmosphere was ruined. He tilted his head and seemed to say something, but was unsuccessful.

The black iron door was pushed open, and Conrad Coates and Karil Lohals walked in with a bruised and swollen Sommers. Sommers was stiff and walked in a very different way from his usual swaggering posture.

"Go in and show them off, Sommers." With a smile, Conrad Coetz whispered.

"Primordial ——!"

"Instructor!"

Conrad Coetzes grinned toothily and looked satisfied, pushing Sommers back to his brothers.

Carlil nodded silently. He stood behind the primordial, clasping his hands, silent as a ghost.

However, because of their arrival, the atmosphere of the room has changed a little. Shen, who had remained calm before, was constantly taking deep breaths at the moment, and Sevita's eyes were simply wandering.

"Why are you all looking so depressed?" Coates asked with a smile. "Don't you feel like you're not doing enough to earn a name for your squad?"

He easily guessed what the recruits were thinking, but the atmosphere did not improve, but became more somber.

The reservists couldn't figure out what their original was thinking at the moment, a mystery that came from the polite smile that Conrad Coetzes often wore on his face, which had become almost his usual expression.

While he seems to be full of kindness, it also forms a contrast between his soft tone and unique tone. In other words, if he feels unhappy or has other emotions, the recruits will hardly be able to see it.

Unless you are particularly familiar with him.

"Why didn't anyone speak?" Conrad Coates raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Shen. The latter shuddered and immediately straightened his back. "Shen, would you mind explaining to Carlil and me why you're so upset?"

"We—" Shen took a deep breath. "—we're really worried about earning a name, as you say."

"Is that all there is to it?" The Lord of Midnight couldn't help but shake his head. "Just because of this, they all cry and mourn? Don't think too much of yourself, reservists. Ten out of twenty have won, and four have drawn with their opponents, so what's wrong with such a result? ”

"We." Shen blinked, revealing a rare hesitation. "But, Original, is it also worth being proud of such an achievement?"

"For me, yes." Conrad Coetzes said softly. "For me, it's enough to be proud that you recruits who have just been in the army for two or three years can achieve such results in communicating with the Fist of the Empire."

"But—" Sevita said anxiously. "—We. We"

"What's wrong with you?" Coates frowned and looked at his first reserve. "Sai, why did you stutter all of a sudden? The battle with Sigismund damaged your language module as well? ”

"What? No, of course not! ”

"And what's wrong with you?"

"I'm just," Sevita gritted her teeth. "I just don't think we're doing enough like this, maybe it's good, but it's still not what we thought we were."

Conrad Coetzes frowned and scanned the room. The gloomy atmosphere and the twenty pairs of eyes that did not dare to make contact with him made his mood a little annoyed, and he narrowed his eyes and simply sneered.

"Look at you guys who don't even dare to look at people in the eye," he sneered and clasped his hands, his posture suddenly the same as that of someone behind him.

"Shame on you? Is it hard to accept? Find out, you're fighting the Fist of the Empire! They are a legion of many glories, and their original form is Roger Dorn! Moreover, how could they not send an elite to respond to the contest proposed by another legion? ”

"Or was it my mistake? Ah, maybe yes. I shouldn't have expected you intellectually, it's a desperate thing for me. The twenty reservists I personally selected and brought were all brainless fools——! ”

Sevita mouthlessly opened and looked at Carlil with a pleading look, but all he got was a slight shrug.

And Conrad Coetzes is still going on.

At first, maybe he just wanted to try to use the Agitation method. It worked for the reservists, but it also worked for himself—he was really angry that no one dared to heed him.

"Isn't anyone talking? No one is going to contradict me? He looked around, his eyes gradually turning contemptuous.

He nodded knowingly. His eyes, completely dark, reflected the light in the room, and a few strands of hair on his forehead began to shake with his movements.

"Good, I apologize for my inappropriate use of words. You're not a brainless fool, you're not stupid, you're just a mere limited intellect and understanding. A brain-damaged O'Greene may be more sensible than you, and O'Green understands that there's no shame in retreating if he can't beat him, and you-"

He sneered again, this time with a great amplitude, and his white and sharp teeth snapped together neatly, and the canines glittered, and the sharp arc was terrifying.

"-Forget it."

He stopped talking abruptly, turned and walked away, leaving only one sentence.

"I forgive."

He walked away without hesitation, without even looking back. But Carlil didn't, and the eyes of the reservists fell on him in unison.

"What do you see me doing?" Carlil smiled. "Rest assured, he's not really angry."

"However, we've never seen such a fire from the Primordial." Sommers whispered. "Are you sure?"

As soon as he said this, Casati Nuang on the side pulled him with his hand, and his eyes almost collapsed.

"Of course I'm sure." Carlil nodded and replied softly. "Like he said, he's happy with your results. The reason he was angry was not because you didn't fight the battle well, but because you didn't show opposition to his deliberate insults. ”

Twenty people looked at him stunned.

Carlil's eyes narrowed.

"Okay." He said. In fact, this question can be condensed into one sentence. What is the name of our legion, Sevita? ”

"Midnight Blade." Yago Sevitaleone whispered, hissed.

"Yes, we are sharp blades, sharp blades that are held in the hands of men. But the one who holds the sword will also be you. ”

Carlil turned around and walked smoothly out of the room, his last words, transcending the limits of distance, ringing clearly in the ears of everyone in the room.

"In other words, he wants to hold the sword with people, not ruthless machines or something worse."

I had a fever in the afternoon, and I didn't wake up until ten o'clock, and I was sorry for the late shift. This chapter is 4.5k, I'll write another chapter of 5.5k.

(End of chapter)