If Caspius had been allowed to speak freely, and if he had been able to do so, he would probably have roared in his native dialect.

He would tell everyone in the cabin how he was feeling right now, and lash out at its oddities. He simply couldn't stand this strange feeling.

Don't get me wrong, of course he was a very receptive person to new things, but now, the scene before his eyes was beyond the limits of what the word 'new' could express.

He'd seen the spirits, with pointy ears, their dry, lanky, every one of them sounding like they were giving alms to beggars.

He'd seen demons—and even if he hadn't seen them, he'd heard of them, and how many people in this age, in this dark realm, hadn't heard of them all day long running on ships?

He's seen humans fuck too, is that part of this analogy? He is human himself!

Caspius stared at his eyes, racking his brains to find a way to keep his sanity, one that didn't have to be plausible, but that had to explain the situation.

It had to explain three issues to Caspius's already fragile mind.

First, why did his friend's corpse turn into a demon covered in scales and feathers? Second, why did those spirits kneel down to this cloaked man? Thirdly, what is this cloaked man?

The emperor is above, why is it so cold all of a sudden?

Caspius' teeth began to chatter, and after three seconds, he realized that this was not a special phenomenon that was happening to him alone.

Everyone he could see was showing similar symptoms, a cold that didn't exist and shouldn't have existed penetrated deep into each of their veins, rubbing within them like sharp knives without mercy.

Then it goes deeper, all the way down to the heart or brain, freezing everything a human has and plunging them into an eternal winter.

Five seconds later, all but the Elves fell to the ground together, falling into a beautiful sleep of deathly silence and unconsciousness.

There was no malice in this dream, no aliens, no demons, no suffering to worry about in everyday life, only moonlight draped in a veil, and darkness that brought warmth.

They will fade away from this dream, and when they wake up again, they will forget that there was an alien visit, that a demon was born, and that

Carlil raised his right hand and pressed it lightly on the top of the demon's head.

It had not yet completely shed its human skin, they hung loosely and bloodily from its scales and feathers, and its teeth circled around the beak like a necklace, in a kind of orderly madness.

The demon shuddered and felt his touch, and every detail that made up its existence was opening itself up in turn under the gaze of some power, and no secret could exist anymore.

Its name is pinnishly cut out by the blade of nothingness from the line between flesh and bone, its victims and intrigues are held out of the cracks of time, and the worlds that still exist or no longer exist scream in its shadows, confiding its evil deeds one by one.

A hand gently ripped open its chest, pulling a heart out of it. Its skin is the second thing to be taken away, and finally the bones. The pale hand stripped the things from its stolen body, turning it into a puddle of steaming rotten meat.

It cried out in despair, but could do nothing but watch as its bones were made into a scale, and its tough skin was shredded by its nails, kneaded, and made into weights. The heart was placed on the right end of the bone scale, still beating, black blood dripping from it.

"The Lord of Change. I would like to extend my best regards to you. The demon cried.

"Hmm."

The weight was tossed to the left end of the scale, and darkness surged and cries spread, evoking a tide of chaos in the dead hangar, from which the light of enlightenment could be born of madness.

The demon screamed, and what was left of its flesh began to shapeshift, and some kind of pure power from the same source as it entered its parched veins from the light.

This power is so small that it is not even enough to evoke a spirit of change, but it can cause the remaining spirit of this demon to produce strange changes. Its flesh began to harden, and its mechanical structure and straight surface gradually emerged in the light, replacing everything in flesh.

Carlil tilted his head to stare at it, looking at the small silver Rubik's Cube and frowning.

"You're still funny." He said meaningfully.

"I've always been." One of the voices in the Rubik's Cube replied, sounding unremarkable, even like the voice in a gramophone.

"But I'll tell you that this matter doesn't really have much to do with me, my dear old friend."

Carlil nodded noncommittally, "You placed a beast in the body of a captain - and that's why he died of a heart attack. ”

Gramophone responded to his question in an elegant tone.

"No, no, you're getting it wrong. He died of a heart attack first, and then my eyeliner took advantage of it. I did lose a lot of things, but I never got to that point."

"I, like you, am a person who has requirements for rituals or sacrifices. If I am a door, then the one who can open me must be thirsty for knowledge, with a thirst for the unknown. We benefit from the rules and we are bound by the rules. ”

"As you can see, I'm just a little prisoner with shackles and still dancing with difficulty, my friend. Have you seen me go to the trouble of the ignorant? ”

Carlil ignored it, he just glanced at the Rubik's Cube, and it flew into his bloody hand. His fingers meticulously groped its surface, feeling the secrets hidden behind each line, his eyes narrowing slightly.

After that, he spoke slowly. Gramophone snickered, and at the same time he made a sound.

"First of all, I'm not your friend."

"Of course, but I think I'm a friend. I saved you. Are you going to deny it, God of justice? ”

"Second, I'm not a god."

"It's the same old story again, well, yes, yes - of course you're not now. After all my efforts to stir things up, you can certainly proudly say it, Karil Lohals. But humanity is a race that never learns its lesson, and you keep repeating the same mistakes, which is why I like you so much. ”

"In the end, what exactly did you do?" Carlil asked indifferently, and the gramophone instantly became serious.

"It depends on what you're asking. Is it your resurgence, or are these stories happening in Robert Killiman's realm? ”

"The latter." Carlil said coldly.

His reply made the gramophone suddenly let out a gasp of inhalation, like a greedy insect in its head, digging deep into the powder pile with his festering nose, frantically sucking up the source of stimulation.

The gramophone laughed, and its voice became ethereal, like a roar, like an aria. It was as if he had become an experienced opera singer who was staging this last stage play at the cost of his mind and his life.

It whimpered, screamed, screamed.

Eventually, it laughed maniacally.

"Ah, I can already smell their complicated smell. Darkness, horror, beauty, hope, sinking. The choice of human nature, the eternal beauty - can't you see, my friend? Can't you smell the ignorant smell of the sheep? ”

"Bow your head and search as humbly as a mortal, Carlil. I want you to witness this heartless poem, and when you find the truth, we will meet again in a place where there is no darkness. ”

Carlil clenched his right hand, and the Rubik's Cube turned into powder in an instant. A sudden breeze blew from across the darkness, sinking the powder into his shadow. The light of psionic energy flickered and bound it firmly.

The scales, the weights, and the heart were silently in nothingness, the deck rumbling, and the moose's engines still working.

If nothing else, it should have taken the ship to the other side of the Five Hundred Worlds to sell the coal mines that were common near Anderman to the cold worlds that lacked such resources.

But now, it probably can't do that anymore.

Karil turned to look at the two eldars. His gaze wasn't very gentle, but it wasn't cold either. Unoblivious to his gaze, they were closing their eyes tightly and covering their ears with their hands.

They had done this long before the demons spoke. It seems like a child's play, but it really completely closes off the sense of sight and hearing.

Don't look at indecent things, don't listen to indecent people, right?

"It's your turn." Carlil said.

His voice pierced through their weak self-protection without hindrance, tearing them apart with ease. The truth is often so cruel that their self-preservation is useless in the face of higher powers.

The spirits obediently opened their eyes, lowered their arms, and stood up. One of them immediately sounded in High Gothic.

"Thank you for your mercy."

Its voice was respectful and beautiful enough to make it seem like a court dancer talking. The evidence of the existence of the so-called superior 'human' of the Spirit Race can be seen here.

Carlil looked at it indifferently, carefully observing its face. From human-like and more delicate facial features, to smooth and white skin.

His gaze was not aggressive, calm as a windless lake, but it suddenly made the spirit race become terrified.

It forced itself to composure and said tremblingly, "I beg you—"

Its companion picks up on its words: "—We have come with friendliness. ”

Carlil shook his head, he raised his right hand, still covered in blood, and nodded at the crowd, pointing his index finger precisely at Caspius.

"That's ridiculous, Ada. If this Caspius could have heard it, he would have laughed uncontrollably, he was a well-informed man, by any standard, but he did not become any more enlightened. ”

"On the contrary, the more he sees, the more he hates you. Many times in his life he has seen your self-deplorable fellow man, from the edge of the sea of stars to another, from planet to planet, like seeing bedbugs in your living quarters. ”

"And he's just the captain of the guard of a small merchant, and there are so many people like him in the empire that hatred is not water from nowhere, Ada. Even if you don't pursue what happened in the old night, you can't be called friendly here. ”

He smiled contemptuously, a smile so sharp that it didn't look like the one he would have.

"In other words, you're asking for me, that's why you're so friendly. So, what is your purpose? ”

——

Robert Killiman stared intently at the light curtain in front of him, focused and peaceful, as if he were reading a book.

His current warband leader, Tigris Deken, stood behind him, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword at his waist, his unsmiling face grim.

The light curtain fluctuated, and two spirits appeared on it. They stand stiff, their lips open and closed, as if they are having a conversation with someone. But there was no sound in the room, and portraits of the Emperor and King Connaught hung high over a full bookcase, staring at it all without comment.

A few minutes later, the light curtain went out, and Robert Killiman let out a long breath and stood up from behind his desk.

He agreed to Carlil's offer, but, as a very skilled politician, he was quite adept at bargaining.

After alternating between being the Lord of Maculag and then the brother of Conrad Coetze, he succeeded in getting Karil to install a hidden mechanical gadget under his cloak.

It was a success, and although Carlil turned it on a long time later and didn't turn on the recording function, it was already a measure of victory - at least it didn't give him another chance to shake hands.

He chuckled out loud at the joke, which was no joke, and Deakon looked at his original form and asked worriedly, "We can be dispatched at any time, my lord." ”

"There's no need to waste fuel by doing too much. He's got it done, and you can see it, Decen. Killiman turned his head and smiled slightly at his warband.

"He's handled it cleanly and beautifully, as he promised, and there was no bloodshed - so why rush in and waste ammunition and kill all the remaining aliens on that ship?"

Dekkon nodded silently, and Kiliman withdrew his gaze, tapped thoughtfully on the table, and said, "However, we need to prepare a cell. ”

".Primordial?"

"Didn't you read your lips? The last thing the two aliens said was, please let us help you - in other words, get my advisor to the alien, and we'll meet on deck twenty-five."

"Motarian, you've won again."

Killiman turned and strode out of his office. Tigris Deken lowered his head, pretended not to hear the muttering at the end of the original sentence, and used the ship's communication on his desk to call the third company commander, Janus Adiyas, and then quickly followed.

(End of chapter)