The Last Moon Wolf

"Leman Russ, you bastard!"

Monger cursed at Zhou Yun, who stood outside the entrance to the Corpse Guild:

"We were still inside, and you sprayed the place with laser rifles?"

A brilliant smile appeared at the corner of Zhou Yun's mouth. "How could I have known it would be such a coincidence, that you two would be here as well?"

Malkit picked up the rusted, decayed triangular sword from the ground and tucked it into his clothes.

He looked at Zhou Yun somewhat speechlessly. This guy had indeed known that he and Monger were inside the Corpse Guild.

Malkit and Monger had both kept their faces covered before this,

yet Zhou Yun had recognized them at a glance and had not been surprised in the slightest that they were mutants,

which meant that Zhou Yun had been watching nearby when Malkit and Monger removed their hoods and entered the Corpse Guild.

Malkit could not help shaking his head.

Monger seemed not to have realized this. He merely muttered a few curses about Zhou Yun being disloyal.

Meanwhile, Zhou Yun's brilliant smile never left his lips, making Malkit feel a chill run down his spine.

"Although I nearly hurt you by mistake, I did save both your lives."

Standing two or three meters from the entrance to the Corpse Guild, Zhou Yun said to them:

"And the two of you are mutants. That isn't very good."

Twelve laser rifles suddenly rose behind Zhou Yun, aiming at Monger and Malkit.

Monger froze on the spot, while Malkit's body stiffened slightly as well.

"Leman Russ, although the two of us are mutants, we are not evildoers."

Malkit slowly raised his hands and shook his head.

"There was not a single falsehood in what I said before. We truly came to save Asford."

"We... we were guided by an 'angel.'"

"An angel?" Zhou Yun was clearly taken aback.

"Yes, an angel." Malkit nodded heavily.

"Which angel?" An amused smile curved Zhou Yun's lips.

"Who else could it be?" Malkit shook his head.

"Oh, what a coincidence. Actually, I was guided by an angel as well." Zhou Yun smiled and nodded.

This time, Malkit was the one taken aback. He looked Zhou Yun up and down.

"Doesn't look like it," Malkit murmured involuntarily.

"I don't think so either." Zhou Yun nodded in agreement.

Then, he looked toward the Corpse Guild behind Monger and Malkit.

"Since I saved your lives, and we were all guided here by an angel..."

"Could you do me a favor?"

Zhou Yun said with a light laugh:

"There's a safe fitted with a small Stasis Field. Did you see it? Help me carry it out."

Upon hearing this, both Monger and Malkit froze.

Malkit looked at Zhou Yun, who stood a full two or three meters from the Corpse Guild entrance with his arms folded and twelve laser rifles floating behind him, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

By the look of it, Zhou Yun had no intention of taking even a single step into the Corpse Guild.

"It's fucking heavy," Monger complained.

He and Malkit dragged and carried the ceramite safe, which was as tall as a person, out of the Corpse Guild.

Zhou Yun reached out and gently stroked the safe's ceramite shell.

The safe's true value did not lie in its heavy casing, but in the small Stasis Field installed within it.

It was a remnant of humanity's Golden Age research into temporal technology, capable of creating an area where time nearly came to a standstill.

Aside from force fields, this technology had also once been made into weapons known as "stasis bombs."

Lucas, the great bluffer of the Space Wolves, had replaced one of his hearts with a stasis bomb.

If some unlucky fool killed him, the bomb would detonate, ensuring that he and the enemy who killed him would be frozen together in suspended time.

According to the intelligence Old One-Eye had provided, the Stasis Field in this safe was an inferior version that could only slow the flow of time to a limited extent.

But it was more than enough to preserve a notebook.

He took the Ring of Passage from the Fourth-Dimensional Pocket and fastened it onto the safe.

Through the circular opening created by the Ring of Passage, Zhou Yun saw what was stored inside the safe.

It was a notebook bound in thick cream-colored paper, wrapped in a soft black lambskin cover and fitted with an elastic band.

A Bonzman No. 7 Notebook, custom-made by Ignace Karkasy in a hive city in Terra's polar region, one of only two hundred.

Zhou Yun slowly used telekinesis to take the notebook out of the safe.

Though it had endured more than ten thousand long years, the notebook had clearly been properly preserved.

"What is that notebook?" Monger looked over curiously.

He had presumably become interested in a notebook that actually required a Stasis Field for preservation,

especially since it had been kept in the office of that Corpse Guild branch director.

"Most likely just a collection of poems." Zhou Yun shook the notebook in his hand.

After glancing at it and seeing that it did not appear to be a manuscript recording some ancient blasphemous sorcery, Monger lost interest.

Holding the notebook, Zhou Yun began recalling the works of this poet from ten thousand years ago.

In Praise of Unity, The Imperial Epic, The Ocean Poems, Introspection and Hymns,

and We Only Seek Truth, the work that had gotten him killed.

He wondered which one was in this notebook.

Zhou Yun opened the notebook, only to find a slip of paper tucked between its front pages, clearly torn from the notebook itself.

Written upon it in thick, bold strokes, the handwriting possessed a force that seemed too powerful to have come from mortal hands.

A soft sigh came from the winged figure in the white light at the corner of Zhou Yun's eye.

"It's Captain Loken's handwriting," he said quietly.

Captain Loken, commander of the Sons of Horus's Tenth Company, member of Horus's Council of Four Kings, had once stood beside the Warmaster alongside Abaddon.

He was a loyalist Son of Horus, the last Moon Wolf in the graveyard of Istvaan III.

This sheet was a pre-battle declaration, an oath Astartes usually swore before combat.

Yet this oath had been written by Captain Loken for the mortal Ignace Karkasy, demanding that he keep a secret.

"I swear to Captain Garviel Loken, in the name of Terra and the Emperor, that I shall strictly keep secret everything that happened tonight and reveal it to no one."

Zhou Yun read the words on the note in a low voice.

Then he opened the notebook:

"Captain Loken asked me to keep a secret, but First Captain Abaddon nearly twisted my neck off. I need to vent the fear in my heart."

"This is my private diary. Writing down what just happened here should not count as breaking my oath, should it?"

"As I told Captain Loken: 'Even the most gifted actor could hardly match Erebus's magnificent performance today.'"

"Erebus said Governor Temba had betrayed Horus, not the Emperor. He turned the matter into a personal grudge. He is misleading and deceiving the Warmaster."

"This cannot be a good thing. First Captain Abaddon may have been involved as well."

"I saw him hand a silver coin to Erebus with my own eyes. It may have been a token from some warrior brotherhood."