Casidorius woke up from his slumber with a splitting headache and a strange smell on his tongue.

He staggered to his feet, his eyes blackened. Of course, this was not a normal phenomenon, but he was in no mood to pay attention to it, and just dragged his tired body to sit by the fire.

Van Cleef looked up from his contemplation, glanced at him, and said no more.

The first company commander was always like this, and he hardly spoke unless necessary. He seems to believe that silence is golden, or he simply thinks that doing is more important than talking.

Cassitorius sighed and turned back to take his gun from the rock wall. He was numb and dizzy, and even as he sat by the fire, the phenomenon did not get any better.

That's why he chose to pick up the gun.

He knows what the signs are. Or rather, he knew it was a precursor to something to come.

The cold wind outside the cave was whistling and tearing at his hearing. From time to time, snowflakes fly into it, but they melt quickly. It once belonged to a hibernating bear, but now, it's just a temporary resting place for two travelers.

After a few moments, Casidorius stood up and walked to the front of the cavern, the ground was cold and wet because it was uncovered, and the melting snow stained his steel boots.

He looked down at his boots and saw that their surfaces had become mottled. The journey they went through had a chaotic time, but a chaotic time was also time, and it still left a mark on the ingenuity of this set of mechanical cults.

Cassitorius didn't know how long it would last, but the priest named Kaul who was connected to him said it could run for 8,300 years without maintenance or major damage.

This statement is very strange, 8,300 years, is neither a general number of 10,000 years nor a few thousand years, but a specific number.

It's as if the priest had done an experiment.

An experiment that lasted for 8,000 years?

Casidorius held out his hands outside the cave, and in a few moments, he caught a handful of snowflakes. He shoved them haphazardly into his mouth and began to chew.

The temperature in his mouth didn't melt the snowflakes quickly, in fact, on the contrary, his mouth was the one that was quickly changed.

The temperature faded quickly and became numb, and he spat out the snow and saw a little blood. He probably had a cut somewhere in his mouth, or was frostbitten

Casidorius frowned.

Winter forests are not a great place to live, and it is still snowing heavily. Even predators who are not prepared for hibernation do not come out in such weather, looking for prey that simply cannot exist.

Outside the cavern, however, he heard a soft, thin sound of snow treading, and he looked into the darkness, trying to see a silhouette within it.

He was now an experienced hunter, and he was well versed in the habits of various animals from the Gutera period. The interesting thing is that this knowledge is usually completely different from what he learned from books.

He stared at the darkness, silent and speechless.

What's stepping on the snow?

The cold wind howled, the snowflakes fluttered, turning into sharp knives that could cut the cheek in the wind, but there was a continuous sound of fine sound in the darkness around them.

Something is peeping.

Is it a hungry predator? Or those evil monsters from the ancient legends of Terra?

Neither, but something else, something more evil than they all put together.

Casidorius slowly raised his gun.

In addition to the beasts, he has also killed many monsters, the Wendigo, the man-eating beast under the moonlit night, and the xenomonster that only exists underground. If it weren't for seeing is believing, he really couldn't believe that there were so many monsters on Terra that shouldn't exist.

Casidorius pointed his gun at the darkness, slowed his breathing little by little, patiently and meticulously, began to wait, and even began to empty his mind. He is very experienced, he knows what to do now.

After a few more moments, the voices in the darkness finally stopped, followed by a pair of slender, thin, frostbite-infused hands. It poked out of the darkness and clung to the muzzle of Cassitorius' gun.

"Hello, hello, Lost Traveler," the thing began to speak in the snow, spitting out bursts of wet, stinking whispers. "Can you give me some water?"

Casidorius let go of his hand and let the thing take the gun away. The sound of stomping on the snow sounded again, and a strange swallowing and crying sound could be heard in the darkness.

"How can you do that? I asked you for water, but you gave me a weapon of destruction. ”

The 'Know-it-all' pulled out a short knife of animal bones from his belt, and he held it as he walked slowly.

The sky was dark and dark, and not half of the stars could be seen. Snowflakes fall overhead, bringing a moist chill, and the cold wind continues to blow. The thing's voice suddenly sounded from behind him, soft, thin, fragile, each syllable sounding like glass being trampled on.

"What year is it, what year is it?" It started chattering. "What era is it now, what era is it? How long can you hold out, lost one? ”

"How long can you still travel long distances? Look back, your boots are covered in blood. Look back, traveler, you are in a labyrinth of mirrors, and all you will face and see and kill is your own reflection. You think you're doing something great? No, you are slowly killing yourself. At the end of your journey, your life will come to an end."

Casidorius turned, plunging the bone knife into the chest of a torso. It had a pale face, and it couldn't be said to be handsome, at most it could only be said to have a human appearance.

His eye sockets were sunken deeply, and the eyes that were sunken inside were bloodshot and dark spots. There were two lines of blood hanging from under his nose, running down his jet-black lips. His face was covered with swollen wounds, and he was filled with a look of extreme panic and uneasiness.

Casidorius was familiar with the face.

He drew his knife, and it fell to the ground screaming, its eyes were two yellow lanterns.

The screams began to echo through the woods, and Casidorius closed his eyes and staggered and fell into the snow.

——

Probably again. Seven hundred years.

Maybe it's seven hundred years, maybe it's eight hundred years, and time has lost its meaning. Walking in a history of reincarnation repeatedly, so that everything is meaningless, everything is just nothingness. Don't communicate with people, don't communicate with people, don't stop, only move forward - never end, never end.

Casidorius looked at the river and was silent. There was a scream behind him, and a chainsaw sword was stuck in a shell, creating shattered flesh.

The thing didn't resist, just kept shouting Cassitorius' name, as if they knew each other well. It's a friend, it's family, it's a close lover, it's a like-minded partner.

Its screams were uninterrupted, and neither was the motor roar of the chainsaw sword.

Until it stops screaming.

"You're still crazy." Van Cleef walked over slowly, asking. "How long has it been?"

Casidorius remained silent.

"How many times has it been here?" Van Cleef continued to ask. "I haven't counted, Casidorius, but you should have counted. You also instinctively remember these things when you're crazy, and you're a natural recorder. Perhaps you should have been born in the era of the Great Expedition, and my legion would welcome people like you. ”

He sat down slowly, scooped up a handful of water by the riverbank, and began to wash the blood from the surface of his power armor. They scatter into the river, attracting a school of greedy fish.

Van Cleef let the fish lick up the blood, and did not react, it was an illusory thing, its blood was no different from the water of a river.

He began to wait, but unfortunately, until ten minutes later, Casidorius still did not choose to speak, so Van Cleef looked down at the water curtain, and sank into the memory little by little.

"The Great Expedition wasn't a great time. I'm serious, know-it-all, it's not a good time. ”

Casidorius still refused to speak.

His lips quivered, and he watched the water flow by. His face was a figuration of sluggishness and idiocy, and he hadn't been awake for a long time.

"All of our achievements are in fact trampled on the bones, and each of us is a glorious executioner, a glorified butcher. It's so ridiculous that I didn't realize it until many years later. ”

Van Cleeff said, narrowing his eyes, his face looking like a ceramic toy that had been broken once, full of cracks, fine ash hanging upside down from the cracks.

I don't know where they're going.

"But both humanity and empire need our evil deeds." He said slowly. "Yes, we are the necessary evil, and without us, humanity would not have been united so quickly - and of course, you know the end result."

"Everything was burned, all the deeds, all the hopes, and all the hopes of being cleared of sins were reduced to ashes in the shattering of Terra."

He shook his head, a meaner sneer on his face.

"Imperial Truth." He suddenly brought up the term. "You've probably heard of it, haven't you? I don't know if the Palm Sealer still preaches about it, but I guess it doesn't. ”

Casidorius suddenly closed his eyes.

In short, Imperial Truth is a lie that teaches people how to look at everything dialectically with reason, but it is also a fragile protective shield. However, I don't think anything like reason will protect you in 10,000 years. I also don't believe that light can triumph over darkness, I'm pessimistic, I think"

He stood up, turned, walked over to a corpse, stared into its yellow eyes, and spat out the last words.

Actually, in the end, it's just the darkness that swallows the darkness."

Two dim red lights lit up in his eyes, and he pulled the chainsaw sword from its shell, swinging it to dismember. The flesh twisted on the grass, covered in flames, and turned to ashes little by little.

One thing is interesting – Van Cleef never continues to be silent when Casidorius is not speaking.

——

"Faith came first, and the gods were only a by-product of faith, and of course, there were all these nonsense words about salvation, well-being, and eternal life after death," Casidorius said to the blind prophet with his hands outstretched. "I tell you, prophet, there is only one God in this world."

The blind prophet shook his head, but was not angry at his disrespect: "How do you know? Did a god come down from heaven to tell you this? ”

"Not really, the God said there is no God in the world." Casidorius said. "And He told me not to trust Him."

"Which god?" The blind prophet asked in amazement. "It's too"

"Neither, old prophet." Casidorius shook his head. "This God was once a man, but now He has ascended into the temple of God for eternity, and is tormented for eternity, are you breathing, old prophet?"

"Of course."

"So, based on the time you take a breath, that's called a second, you know?"

Casidorius patted him on the shoulder, pulled the old prophet to his seat, and sat down on the floor. Van Cleef swung his sword behind them, fighting a monster.

"Put sixty one-second together, that's one minute. Put sixty minutes together, and it becomes an hour. Twenty-four hours is a day, a full day. And he is going through eternal torment, do you know what eternity is? ”

"I don't know." The blind man answered sincerely. "Who dares to speak of eternity?"

"Stretch one second, stretch it to five hundred days, five hundred years, five million years, five million years plus another five hundred five million years. This is the moment of eternity, and if you extend this moment to the number of extremes you can't imagine, then the eternity will pass for a minute. He is in eternal suffering, He could not have been, but He is willing to endure this pain for our sake. ”

"We?" The Prophet asked, confused.

"We." Casidorius repeated. "Humans."

He changed his posture, touched his knees to the ground, and knelt before the old prophet. He took the withered hands with both hands, felt the roughness of them, and then he lowered his head and began to whisper in a voice as thin as a mosquito.

"What are we supposed to do?"

He let go of his mind, and after a short moment, something slowly entered his mind. The power was restrained and cautious, and it flickered in his brain.

The old man suddenly clenched his hand.

"What shall we do, Prophet?" Casidorius looked up at the golden eyes. "We can't find our way, we're lost, how long will we have to walk to get to the end?"

The old man shook his head slowly, reaching out and pulling up a gem he had hung on his chest. It lay quietly in the old man's hand, without glowing or trembling. Casidorius, however, stared at it as if he were staring into a mirror.

In the mirror he saw another messenger, the same long journey, the same bruised and suffering.

"As you say, there is no god in this world, Cassidonus." The old man said. "Faith can't help you, gods can't help you, nothing can help you. There is only one force in the world that can allow you to traverse this dark firmament. ”

He let go of his hand and let the gem return to his chest.

(End of chapter)