Chapter 539 - 57.Primal Fear (1, 7k)

Cato Sicarius fell into a sudden silence, for nothing but the bloody massacre that had suddenly appeared before his eyes.

He saw two bodies lying on the wall outside the door of his room near the porthole. Judging from the uniforms, both of them were crew members, and the blood flowed backwards from the seven orifices, but other than that, there were no more external injuries on their bodies, and even their uniforms were clean and tidy.

Sicarius froze, staring into their swollen, dead eyes, before looking away for a moment to look at the other corpses.

In the nearest place lay four men, two men and two women, whose bodies were not traumatized, but their expressions were rather hideous, judging by their uniforms, they should be maintenance workers in charge of deck maintenance.

One of the women had a tool hammer in her hand, and the towel that was supposed to be tied to her belt was somehow wrapped around the handle of the hammer, and then tied to her wrist to make a simple hand band.

This allows you to avoid losing your weapon in battle, is a fairly unpretentious combat strategy, and is very useful. Sicarius took this detail to his mind, and with the thick smell of blood, he walked away from the door of the room.

After walking eleven steps to the right, he found eight more corpses, whose deaths were far more tragic than the others.

Sicarius looked at the severed limbs and dissipated arms in the place, calmly observing the details.

He had only been in the army for three years, but he had already made the leap from scout to true Astarte with his prowess, which had to do with the rigors he had endured in his hometown of Taraza, and of course, his personality.

No matter what the training, no matter the difficulty, Sicarius always tried to do his best—including the challenges he faced in his scout career, and he overcame them all, and his blood and sweat lived up to him.

Sicarius knew that the dead could not speak, but the corpse would. He quickly came to the conclusion from his observations that the edges of the corpse pieces were very flat, meaning that they had been severed with a single blow, and he found no trace of the decomposition field.

That is, the murderer did not use a kinetic weapon or a chainsaw weapon. Under normal circumstances, a normal and strong adult male, even if he has been training in swordsmanship for many years, will not be able to split his enemy in two with a sword.

Then, the murderer is either extremely strong, or he is not an ordinary person, and he must be armed with a sharp weapon.

Astarte?

Sicarius frowned at his conjecture.

He looked back at the door of his room, a little apprehensive.

He was supposed to receive his improved MK7 power armor today, as the mechanical priests on Glory of Macurag had put them on display early in the morning.

By borrowing from the MK4's Extreme Power Armor variant, the 'Judge', the improved Aquila was able to have stronger defenses without becoming bulky and they were a newly manufactured batch.

They have no inherited honor, and this is exactly what Sicarius wants, he does not want to inherit the armor of his ancestors and heroes, he just wants to obtain a share of glory with his own hands.

Therefore, he entered meditation early last night, just to rush to the company's station in advance today, so that he could participate in the armor awarding ceremony as soon as possible.

And, just the day before yesterday, Robert Kiriman informed the crew via the ship's radio that the Glory of Makurag was heading towards Couss. Sicarius keenly smelled the scent of the honor he longed for, and was thrilled by it.

Coupled with the armor awarding ceremony, he has silently connected these two things, and sees getting a set of his own power armor as the first step to obtaining honor.

But he didn't expect that after finishing the meditation, he stepped out of the door with his front foot, and his back foot actually crashed into such a bad homicide.

With a depressive breath, Cato Sicarius solemnly clenched the grappling knife at his waist.

He had been with the knife for six years, and it had been with him until he joined the army, when it was still a big knife for him. It is a blood-drinking murder weapon, sharp and reliable, with a simple design that allows for smooth killing.

He drew his knife and walked to the end of the hallway, holding the only weapon he had now. Not a single trace of blood could be seen in the closed door, and Sicarius approached it and began to verify the iris and voiceprints.

"Fearless." He said.

There was a low, short sound of a notice from the door, the red light on the doorframe turned green, and the two closed pieces of steel slowly opened under the mechanical operation, but what followed made Sicarius's heart sink all the way to the bottom.

He didn't see half a living person, but more blood, and more corpses.

Death from nowhere quietly touched the crew and workers, who may have just finished their night shift and rushed back to their dormitories to rest, or they may have just gotten out of bed and planned to go to the cafeteria for a full meal.

And now, they were just a wet corpse lying in the light, and unlike the eight broken corpses, everyone in this corridor remained the same as before. Blood strangely poured out of the Seven Orifices, taking their lives with them.

Chaos? Demon?

The young scout took a deep breath and stepped into the hallway.

With his fighting knife in his hand, he leaned his back against the porthole side of the hallway, stepped vigilantly over the corpse, and began to walk slowly.

There were still four decks and twenty-one corridors from his destination, which in the old days was not a difficult task, and Sicarius could not even reach it in a few minutes, but now

He gritted his teeth.

Such a horrible scene

And what about his brothers? Where did the Ultramarines go? Even if they didn't happen to be doing their usual activities on the decks today, what about the Otlama auxiliaries? Where did those brave guards go?

So far, Sicarius had not seen half of the soldiers, nor had he heard half of the gunshots, everything was so silent that even the usual continuous broadcast of war reports had stopped.

The Glory of Maculag was like a dead ship, and only one living man, Cato Sicarius, was left on it.

The thought brought him to a slow halt, and just now, just a second after the idea was born, a new thought was born in Sicarius's mind.

He had reached the end of this corridor, and the bodies of all the victims were still intact, except for the eight bodies that had turned eleven steps to the right outside of his room, and they were in pieces.

Does this mean that the murderer and he went in the exact opposite direction?

The noble descendant of Talazar tensed his young cheeks and jerked back in the direction he had come. There, the automatic doors are tightly closed, waiting to be opened.

It took him two minutes, silently walked back, and again verified the iris and voiceprints. The door opened, the familiar corpse returned to his eyes, and the door to his solitary quarters was closed.

In recent years, the number of Ultramarines has been increasing, so some uninhabited rooms have been requisitioned by the warband, ready to be used temporarily by the battle brothers who have no place to live, and then recalled when the station is expanded.

Sicarius was one of the lucky ones – he himself considers himself lucky, until now.

Now, he wished he was with his brothers now, and not alone, confused, unable to hear the sirens or assemblies, nor see half of the living.

Sicarius clenched his knife and walked to the end of the hallway. And this time, under the gaze of the corpse, he did not use the iris and voiceprint verification to unlock the door, but instead adopted the manual input mode.

A long series of keys were quickly entered into it with one hand, and the door was quickly verified, and mechanical gears and the like began to hum inside the wall, but Sicarius stuck to the edge of the wall, with no intention of stepping into the world behind the door.

He didn't even observe, just held his grip on the fighting knife, holding his breath, carefully listening to the movement on the other side

As he wished, he heard some kind of soft chewing sound.

The gate waited for a few seconds, and when no one stepped inside, it began to close. Stuck at the last second, Sicarius quietly poked his head out and glanced down the hallway, but this glance made him a little stunned.

He saw a tall giant crouching among the corpses feasting, with his back to him and unclothed. The muscles in the back are unusually strong, and the arrangement of each piece is very transcendent

As if hearing the sound of the door closing, he turned his head quickly with his hands covered in blood and minced flesh, and under his short blond hair, Sicarius saw a face that made his heart stop.

The door closes, and the Scout shuddeers and falls to the ground.

The Emperor, Terra, and the Throne are on top——!

That man, that man - how could he do this?!

Sicarius' mind was in a state of confusion, but at this moment something suddenly knocked on the door. Synthetic metals, which are harder than terracotta steel, have distorted marks on them, and then more.

Someone was knocking on the door continuously, and his strength was so strong that it could even make it wail.

Sicarius should have reacted at this time, but he was so shocked that in this moment, he forgot what he had come for, his anger and worry, and even that he was still alive.

His mind now had only room for one thought, or rather, a picture.

That face.

"Bang!"

The door twisted, revealing a hole, and a hand reached out of it, tearing it down in half and throwing it behind. Sicarius instinctively looked up and saw the face again.

Robert Killiman's face.

Correction: Robert Killman's bloodstained face, his lips trembling, his teeth exposed, and the flesh that had not yet had time to swallow was stuck between his teeth. Young, immaculate, innocent, but with a deep malice that Sicarius could not yet comprehend.

It was like a greed, or a longing, and Sicarius arose a thought again, like an instinct that jumped, and lightning struck.

He wanted to eat me.

'Robert Killiman' lunged at Sicarius, and it took less than half a second to grab his left hand and pull him up from the ground, so force that Sicarius could faintly hear the displacement of his own bones.

His razor-sharp, dagger-thick nails pierced Sicarius' flesh in the process. In pain, the Scout's ability to think begins to return rapidly.

He looked at Robert Killeman again, and this time, in the midst of shock, fear, and undetectable but genuine anger, he was keenly aware of something different.

His original appearance was vicissitudes, full of gray hair, but this person was too young, full of blonde hair and even sparse, like a baby who had just been born for half a month, and his hair had just begun to grow.

And his look, Robert Killiman would never have shown such an evil look, nor would he have that terrible desire.

And, of course, the most important point.

Robert Killiman, the Emperor's Loyal thirteenth son, Ultramarine's genetic protogen, and the genetic father of Cato Sicarius, will never kill and devour those he swears to protect.

The Scout roared and swung his glaring knife, which slashed precisely through the creature's right hand, severing it from the wrist. The force exerted on Sicarius vanished, and he fell to the ground, and immediately got to his feet with a tumbling roll.

His two hearts were pounding, and adrenaline was being pumped at a rate never before.

He still had some fear in his heart, and he wouldn't tell it out, but the emperor was on top, he was really afraid that it would die because he was afraid of it, and he didn't even dare to face that thing directly, so he wanted to turn around and run away immediately.

But he didn't. Maybe it's because of the slogan – fearless.

Sicarius resolutely looked up at the creature, and saw the opposite of his fears.

He saw the thing fall to its knees, holding its own severed right hand and shoving it into its mouth, oblivious to the horrible nails that would make its own mouth bloody and bloody.

There was pain in his face, but there was also a curiosity to discover something new. He opened his mouth wide and began to crunch and chew on his own flesh, and the pain and curiosity quickly turned into a kind of greed.

The thing looked down at its right wrist, and without hesitation, it shoved it into its mouth and began to chew non-stop.

Cato Sicarius suddenly felt the urge to vomit.

Then, there is anger.

He was almost crazy about it, he had never been so angry, he didn't even know he could be so crazy. Until now, until he witnessed this monster doing such depraved and blasphemous things in the face of his genetic prototype

He howled and pounced, plunging his gladiatorial knife into the thing's chest. It didn't resist, it just fell to the ground, chewing on its limbs, oblivious to the wound on its chest.

Sicarius' anger intensified, and he took the knife in both hands, disemboweling the giant, who was far taller than him, and the steaming entrails poured out of his belly, and blood splattered out.

Sicarius drew his knife recklessly, and began to swing it nonstop. He waved until his hands stiffened, his fingers trembled, and his clothes were completely soaked with blood.

And by this time, the thing had long since lost its life. Its blue eyes stared at the ceiling in a daze, its mouth stuffed with flesh and blood, and its body covered in knife wounds.

Sicarius sat trembling on the ground, gulping down the air, bleeding but not tears.

He felt like he was going crazy – or had gone mad.

——

Robert Killiman felt like he was going crazy — or had gone crazy.

He stood in a large hall, his feet shattered bones, stained with blood, and turned a pink color that resembled flower petals in the light. Of course, there are other things. Such as internal organs, limbs, teeth, half of the body

Countless human remains are piled up here, disgusting, and the traces left on them are insane enough.

Those marks were gnawing marks, bite marks left by some creature far beyond mortal size. Judging by the marks, its teeth are very flat and it has a strong bite.

It used to stay in the same hall that was used for the public to listen to the day's Otrama news briefing, and then killed everyone.

Or eat it up.

There is no difference, there is no order for these two things, and there is a high probability that they will be carried out at the same time.

Well, this thing. What kind of monster is this thing that dares to mess with the glory of Macurag? Is it a demon? Or is it some type of alien, or is it their old adversary, the Zerg?

The answer is not any of these options, the answer is a name that should be left out, a name that is glorious, trusted and enshrined as a hero.

Robert Killman.

He looked down at his feet, over there was a puddle of steaming minced meat.

Half a minute ago, the scrap belonged to a monster with his youthful countenance. The monster used his face to gnaw his people alive into scattered bones.

Killiman killed it, but it didn't help, and the people it ate couldn't come back. One more important thing is that there is more than one such thing.

Once upon a time, there was only one Robert Killiman, but now it's different. Now, judging by numerous eyewitness reports, there are many things with his face on top of them roaming the Glory of Macurag, committing evil deeds that he could not even have imagined.

But why? Why is this happening?

To get the answer, one must use one of Killiman's principles, which he believes is that everything can be traced back to the source. It has been verified many times over the past 10,000 years.

This time, too, it played its part.

Robert Killiman's memory began to recede, until eighty-two hours ago.

It had been three and a half days earlier, and he had a conversation with the suddenly returning Carlil Lohals through the astral array in his study, during which the instructor he trusted had mentioned to him some of his discoveries in Cowe.

So, just two hours later, Kiliman gave an order. As a result of this order, many messages were delivered to his office, and by the end of the day, it formed a list.

There were six men on the list, all of whom had died in an interrogation room aboard the Glory of Maculag, killed by Kiliman's own hands. Until death, they did not answer his questions.

Twelve hours later, Killiman announced to the whole ship that they would sail for Cowes and then, now.

Killiman closed his eyes, took a deep breath, slowed his thoughts, and began to look for more from his memories that would help him find the truth.

He sniffed the scent of human blood, but suddenly the voice of Corus Corax rang in his ears.

Of course, the solemn crow didn't really exist here, he was just an illusion, a shadow that Killiman had created with his mental abilities to help him.

"You were negligent." Dressed in pitch-black robes, Koraks said mercilessly.

"It's never been easy to get involved with Erebus, and he even has the power to send people to your ship to spread this religion, and you just ordered the congregants to be taken to death and brought these so-called popes for questioning?"

"Yes, I know you've got their identification reports, which show when they boarded the ship, and biographies, every major event is firmly recorded by your officers. But have you ever thought that the most reliable and least reliable things in the world are actually human hearts? ”

Killiman replied in a low voice, "I don't believe they can penetrate under my eyelids, my eyes can now see the slightest bit of chaos pollution, and I haven't missed it in 10,000 years." ”

"And, after the incident, during the voyage, I summoned everyone involved, and I examined each and every one of them in the Great Hall, and they were fine, as I saw with my own eyes."

Corax shook his head.

"Well, Robert, your eyes have deceived you."

Killiman closed his eyes tightly and stared at his brother in fantasy, waiting for his next step.

"You can see the pollution of chaos because it carries malice, and it has been so since ancient times. Not all creatures in the High Heavens may have ill will towards humanity, but Chaos certainly will. ”

"You're stuck in a mindset where you think Chaos will continue to do things the same way they do in 10,000 years. And I ask you, Robert, what if those people weren't in contact with Chaos? ”

"What if they really believe in you with all their heart, and are deceived into thinking in ignorance that what they are doing will help you?"

"How can you perceive the malice that does not exist in a person when they trust you with all their heart?"

Kiliman was silent and did not answer.

"I'm torturing you with inferences after the fact." The Lord of the Crows said calmly. "And that's exactly what you need, isn't it, Robert?"

"Yes." The Lord of Maculag said hoarsely.

"Well, you should now know what you should do. Again, is the feeling of powerlessness wrapped in remorse the same as when you witnessed Coth bleed, Macurag destroyed, Terra shattered, and your father died? ”

"Yes."

"Are you in pain?"

"Yes, I'm miserable."

"But you can't be miserable." Colax said. "Remorse is useless, pain is useless, remember my words. The powerless will always have to resent themselves, and to turn things around, you need to do more than that. ”

His form began to dissipate until it became nothing, and then, out of Kiliman's memory, another person, an old woman in a woolen blanket for warmth.

Her hair was gray, her face was wrinkled, and her once-straight back was now bent. She looked at Robert Killiman with no due kindness on her face, only a serious one.

She didn't say anything, but it was like she said everything.

Kiriman looked at her, slowly opened his eyes in the real world, and saw two heavily armed eagle-faced warriors.

They were the victorious troops, a position that had been held since the Legion, but they still served as Robert Killiman's personal guard.

"Your Excellency."

"What, Odalus?" Kiriman asked back in a calm tone.

"Message from the Warlord Commander—" The victorious army known as Odalus paused before he could say the second half of his sentence. "More than half of our engines have failed."

Killiman bowed his head slightly, indicating that he already knew, and Odalus continued to speak.

"The Warlord has also discovered that we have lost contact with many decks, and that an emergency measure of your design has been activated to separate the decks. We can no longer probe directly into the interior, and the company commander of Thor Invictus has set out to regain our control of them. ”

"Good." Kiliman said. He didn't say a word more than that. He spun around with his dagger and walked towards the exit of the hall, the furnace in his chest boiling and roaring, cooking pain.

Everything he was going through was changing, remorse and pain merging, then self-loathing and mad rage. In the beating of the furnace, they merge into one and become something new, something that has never been seen before in the world.

Feeling it, Killiman calmly walked down the bone-strewn corridor back into his office.

The cries of the civilians lingered in his ears, and some of them looked at him differently, they were lucky enough to survive the monster attack, but something had changed in their hearts.

He knew that if he didn't respond, sooner or later, this kind of thing would turn into hatred.

He stood still and sheathed his sword. His armor was tinged with blood, which was completely out of step with the antique atmosphere of the office. It's still the same as it was 10,000 years ago, and the statues of the emperor and King Connaught still sit on top of the bookcase, one with their eyes closed and the other with their eyes open.

Robert Killeman stared at them and made up his final resolution.

He picked up his helmet from the belt around his waist, put it on, and entered the communication channel within the Glory of Macurag.

"This is Robert Killiman, and I'm speaking directly to the entire crew."

"What you see is not me, they are nothing, but just another conspiracy created by Chaos. It seeks to confuse you with my image, to make you fear me, to make me a monster. ”

"But I am not inhuman, I am the thirteenth loyal son of the Emperor, and I swear to be a loyal servant of mankind, and nothing can break this vow. I am the shield of you, the sword of you, and I will always stand before you until death. ”

"Now, I'm speaking to the Ultramarines."

"I authorize the use of lethal fire."

He finished speaking, calmly taking off his helmet, and at that moment, the light of the astral array lit up beneath his feet.

(End of chapter)