"Take the mask off." Konrad Coetzes said. "I want to see my father's face."

Carlil didn't speak, just shook his head. Seconds later, he gave a rhetorical question that should not have been said at this moment.

"Which one?" He asked, standing in a calm posture.

Coetzes was slightly stunned, then burst out laughing, but his stance changed. With the knife hand behind the back and the left hand on the chest, it looks almost like a bow or a salute.

"You've just killed a lot of people, Conrad." Carlil continued. "But the smell of blood is so strong that you even have minced meat on your hands. What did you just do? ”

"I have to protect Nostramo, and I'll do anything for that, father."

Coates replied softly, his left index finger tapping his breastplate, blood streaming down the golden lines. He narrowed his eyes, lowered his left hand, and naturally clenched his claws, looking like a dangerous predator who had not yet had a full stomach.

This flesh and blood could not satisfy him, and he needed more.

"Yes, you protected it." Carlil nodded. "But what did you just do?"

Conrad Coetzes sighed.

"Do you have to ask?"

"Do you have to talk about him left and right?"

"I learned it from you." Coetzes smiled wickedly, his right hand still behind his back. "Politely and seriously changing the subject when faced with a question you don't want to answer – isn't that your most common trick?"

For a moment, none of them said anything more.

No one changed the subject anymore, but no one spoke again. Silence always comes inadvertently, and some people are afraid of it and are unwilling to bear the price behind silence, but they are different. They have always been good at silence.

Then the wind howled and blew through the Temple of Bones called the Altar of Ending behind Carlil, and through it, to the plain covered with thick ashes behind Conrad Coetzes.

Once littered with the dead, it is now empty, with only bones remaining.

The sky was still scarlet, and the winds raged through the mountains and cities in the distance, and the mere presence of them made people feel a stinging in their skin—not even Conrad Coetzes could escape the sting.

In fact, things are even worse for this. The voices of the dead were clearly visible in the whining of the wind, which was no secret to him.

Whether he wanted to think or not, whatever the situation was, he was charismatic, so he heard it all.

For example, a woman tells how she was skinned by the Whisperers, a father tells how he witnessed his family being devoured by demons, or a babbling child clumsily calling out to his parents

He heard these words clearly.

He finally spoke.

"Have you been listening to these voices, father?"

Carlil nodded slowly.

"I have to listen." He said. "I'm willing to listen, at least, for a while. He won't listen, He will just hand them the blade. The Avengers are endless, Conrad, but the avenger is rare in the world. ”

The Night Lord blinked, and he seemed to have a lot to say, but he couldn't. At the end of such a long and awkward silence, all he could breathe out was a long, trembling sigh.

"A few years ago—" Then, suddenly, he spoke. "—I've heard some denunciations coming from Terra."

"Who?"

Coetzes laughed and didn't answer the question, just continued.

"There are those who accuse us of violating the truth of the Empire, that we are playing with the dead, and that we are being accused of a complex set of crimes. I didn't understand this, so I started trying to get to the bottom of it. The pursuit took months of investigation that I personally did. ”

He paused, deliberately giving a blank space. Carlile naturally knew what he wanted to hear, so he asked, "What did you find?" ”

"There's no source, it's just a lot of money." Coetzes said. "That's the way it is, and although I don't care what people think of us, I'm still surprised that this matter can cause the Ministry of Military Affairs and the Ministry of Justice to be held accountable."

He paused again, and when he spoke again, his voice already muffled.

"The officer in charge of this investigation wrote me a personal letter in which he earnestly quoted an old saying: The living should not call out to the dead unless you want an answer."

"Now I don't understand even more, an officer who can be an investigator can also be confused by those rumors? So I reopened the investigation once again, only this time inside the Legion. I wonder if there are people who use some special abilities in front of the public."

"The first person I checked was Sevita."

He laughed, and the skeleton remained unmoved. There were no emotional fluctuations on his pale bones, only the black fire burning in his eyes was extinguished for a moment, as if in response to Conrad Coetze's laughter.

"Yes, but it turned out that it wasn't him, and in fact, not anyone in our legion. Do you know who the source is? It was Mr. Bellos von Sharp. ”

Conrad Coetzes shrugged, and the skeleton tilted its head in a slightly surprised way.

If he could take off his mask, maybe he wouldn't have to struggle so hard to express his emotions. Or, he could be indifferent to Conrad Coetze's words – but herein lies the problem.

Neither was in his range of options, so he had to act so comically as a surprised look.

He had to respond.

Coates took in the whole thing, and he shook his head sadly, his black hair falling apart, cutting his dark eyes into pieces of various sizes, and a boiling emotion quietly spread through them.

He began to speak.

"The old narrator wrote his book with a lot of narration, and he was clearly as bad at writing as he said. In his book, Yago Sevitalyon and his squad members, as well as us."

He sighed.

"You can almost always talk to the deceased directly, of course, that's not his intention, it's just that the way he portrays it isn't quite right."

"For example, he documented a corrupt judge that we found. Then, in the course of the interrogation, he spent three pages describing how Sevita stared at the judge with a 'psychic' eye, and how he used the 'soft-spoken voice of the dead' to get the judge to confess his guilt. ”

"His work sells very well within the empire, and I think it's because he inadvertently fulfills people's wishes."

Kotz shook his head, his expression slightly helpless.

"We are a mysterious legion, and almost no one has seen us directly in these years, and he has unveiled this mystery, plus his identity as a narrator"

"So things fell into place." Carlil took the call. "Interesting, unintentional – no wonder the narrator always complains that critics are unkind to his work."

"Nope."

"What?"

"Nope." Coetzes denied it. "The real reason is because he's described in too much detail, father."

Again, Conrad Coetzes paused deliberately, and silence fell all around, the howling wind, and the Plains of Bones was silent.

"He likes to expand a sentence into a thousand words, and he likes to speculate about the mental activity of Sevitalyon, and the mental activity of everyone—do you know where the worst thing is? He usually guesses correctly and almost never makes mistakes. ”

Carlil nodded.

Coates grinned, and his white canines grinned at his lips, unexpectedly looking a little happy.

"You're laughing?" Carlil asked.

"Of course, I don't think you'll lose your sight, father?" Coates raised an eyebrow and asked rhetorically. "You're just a god—what god is going to be blind?"

"Myths and legends are not without blind gods"

"They didn't really exist!"

"I can't say for sure."

Carlil clasped his hands together and nodded thoughtfully. Even if he was wearing a mask, it didn't affect his relaxed mood at the moment.

"Who knows, Conrad? There is so much to tell about the events of the Wild Age. ”

"For example?"

"For example, there used to be oceans on Terra, and there were many oceans. And the river, the waterfall."

"I know that."

"Forest."

"I know that too."

"So, why ask, Conrad?" Carlil looked at him inquiringly. "You're trying to prolong this conversation, I can see you're trying, but I don't have anything more to teach you."

"No, it's not." Konrad Coetzes said.

He denied, shook his head, and repeated—"No, it's not like that, Father. ”

"But I've done what I have to say, and so have I done what I have to do." Karil gently persuaded. "We've come to the last minute, and it's a matter of right or wrong."

"I also know that you have also done a lot of hard work in the dark over the years, such as your talent, and you have put it to good use. You warned a lot of people in advance, and they survived – and if they didn't die, then there were more people they could save. ”

"You've become a hero, Conrad, don't hesitate at this time, don't give up. What more could you want? ”

Conrad Coetze did not answer this question.

He closed his mouth tightly, as if to prevent himself from saying the answer. His right hand behind his back tightly grasped the long, narrow blade that escaped like shadows, and his claws rested on the grip, looking tight, as if he was grasping the life and death of a world.

Or, many worlds.

So Carlil didn't press again.

They have a tacit understanding, and this kind of silence has been rehearsed between them countless times.

And if someone could turn the hands of the clocks and turn them all back, so that time could be turned back many years, they would be able to see when Conrad Coetze had learned to adapt to this silence.

At that time, he only had a name, and his only companions were a group of gargoyles - back then, he understood that there were things that Carlil didn't want to explain, or that he didn't bother to speak, just because he wanted to say too much, and that was it.

Carlil never lied to him, and in his words, it was 'the honesty that is rightfully deserved between partners'.

Well, if he doesn't want to lie about these things, and he doesn't know how to explain them all. At the end of the day, there's only one option left.

Silence, that's all.

Like the Midnight Ghost now, he didn't answer that question for a simple reason.

For one, he didn't want to lie. Second, he didn't know how to explain things clearly. So he was silent, he could only be silent, as if to fight against time that didn't exist here.

It's an unwinnable matchup, he can't win because he can't be selfish.

He was taught too well by Carlil.

He knows what is right and what is wrong. He knows the cost of staying on the right path, and he has the courage to bear that price – not courage, to be precise, but the necessity of understanding it.

It has to be so, it can only be so, or else we will sit back and watch the world burn, destroy, and chaos laugh wildly and achieve the ultimate victory.

So, he hissed and opened his mouth.

"Stick to your principles." Midnight Ghost said quietly. "You've taught me a lot of things, how to kill, how to move in the dark, how to make sense of the world. That's the most important thing you've ever taught me, Father. ”

"Yes." Carlil said.

He seemed to be trembling.

"So, I should stick to my principles, and I should be—"

The ghost stretched out its right hand, and the shadow blade that surged like darkness immediately came to life. It had never rebelled against Conrad Coetze's grip, but now it was beating in his hands.

"—it's handed back to you."

"That's true."

"Is this the right thing to do?"

I'm not sure." Carlil said.

His answers, always firm or swift, seemed hesitant at the moment.

He looked at Midnight Ghost, who looked back. Between their gazes, the ghost understood what he had not said with extraordinary understanding.

These words had been hidden in Carlil Lohals's mind for a long time, and once, when he still had eyes, the ghost did not notice it. And now, he saw everything in those swarthy eyes.

It's painful to realize this irony.

The voice in the ghost's ears faded suddenly, leaving only the whirring wind, the smell of burning, and a false perception that was rapidly blurring his vision.

He didn't want to admit it, so he lowered his head and shook it like a buggy machine. The noble demigod in blue-gold armor involuntarily bent down and whispered in the wind.

Actually, it was more of a whimper.

"You can't see the future, you're not like me, you're not like a god." The ghost whispered. "It's always been like this, you don't know what's going to happen in the future – so you're just betting, Dad, you've been gambling all along."

After a few seconds, he looked up and glared at his father.

"Why do you think I can always make the right decisions?!" He inquired hoarsely, waving his right hand endlessly, the trembling of the blade becoming more and more pronounced. "Why do you believe in yourself like that?!"

"I don't believe in myself." Carlil said. "Never, I'm a pessimist, Conrad. Remember? But, because of you, I'm willing to be optimistic. ”

He raised his right hand and grabbed the edge of the mask, and then he began to exert force.

White ashes hung upside down from beneath the mask, and the sound of bones shattering began to reverberate. One after the other, it was tooth-aching, but the hand never wavered.

Little by little, he exerted his strength, and suddenly dark clouds appeared in the air, obscuring the scarlet and plunging everything into darkness. Thunder and lightning kept falling and striking around them. The ashes kept splashing, and the stench of burnt stench came one after another.

The dark red broken crown above Carlil's head began to tremble, humming and spinning, and the Temple of Bones suddenly rose from the ground, and an infinite number of unjust spirits roared from time immemorial.

The mask fell to the ground, the crown covered it, and the souls sang in unison.

"Recite a song for me." He said. "Always."

Conrad Coetzes looked at him in amazement.

There is no change in the face under the mask.

A pale face, with eyes as dark as dim stars, resting quietly above the cheekbones. The bridge of the nose is high, and the lips are shallow, which are drawn into a line, like a sculpture.

The only difference was the crown, the broken crown—the distance between the fragments was gluing, getting closer, and the singing of the dead was beginning to grow weaker, at first high, but now almost like the murmur of sleep.

Conrad Coetzes suddenly realized something.

He sped away, almost close to the ground. He shoved the knife into Carlil's hand, and the force of the movement was too great to be there - he was a deadly killer, and his mastery of power should have been at its peak

Except now. Now, he's not a killer.

"Father."

He called, bowed his head to wipe away his tears, and took a few steps back. He raised his head and stared into those dark eyes, and after a few seconds, the Lord of the Blades spoke in a loud voice, a tone that seemed like a proclamation.

yes, there's nothing more to say.

"Be triumphant."

"I'll do my best."

Carlil replied with a smile, without running away, without changing the subject. Again, he wasn't lying. Continue.

He clenched his right hand.

For the first time in his life, and for the first time after a long absence, he really held the knife tightly. This time, he didn't refuse it.

Fearful and excited.

The wind struck, and the ashes turned into a terrifying storm that obscured all that Conrad Coetz could see. Even if he is the original body, he must raise his hand to cover it. The wind seemed to never stop, but a heavy object fell into his hand with a flash of golden light.

It was a mask, forged from bones, with eyes deep like the eternal night of Nostramo. Golden lines glittered on the top of his forehead, as noble as a crown.

The Lord of the Blades smiled suddenly.

"So, what about you?" He asked.

Neos stepped behind him, a proud smile on his face. This was the only thing in this matter, and he had never shown such an expression.

"We're going to win, Conrad." He said slowly. "We have no reason to lose."

It's finally finished!

If you don't cut it, you won't cut it, isn't it very warm?

(End of chapter)