26: Burned Out (End)

Fighting.

It was like a never-ending battle—the enemy was endless, surging in from both sides of the corridor, while only forty-seven War Hounds remained. Perhaps a larger force was gathering at the stern, but this was the enemy's bow, so they only had these last forty-seven men left.

Kharn had run out of bullets, but he still had his Chainaxe. The monomolecular saw blade was worn down to a bad state, and if possible, Kharn would replace it immediately, but he didn't have the opportunity or the time.

He's busy killing.

"Blood for the Blood God--!"

A crazed enemy lunged at him—enemy, yes, enemy, Kharn was unwilling to use any other word; he preferred to use this slightly inappropriate term to refer to these men in two-tone armor.

The man lunging at him had a deathly pale and twisted face, his features consumed by madness, devoid of any semblance of humanity. Kharn felt a strong urge to laugh, but he didn't. His thoughts remained calm; he attributed the incident to the burning pain.

He gripped the Chainaxe tightly.

To hell with your Khorne!

Kharn dodged the man's first swing and retaliated a split second before the man swung his arm to strike Kharn's neck with the Chainaxe.

The Chainaxe roared incessantly, it had reached its limit, but it could still kill—it cut deep into the brass and scarlet armor around the neck, and then severed a head completely.

This process had been repeated hundreds of thousands of times in Kharn's life: the serrated edges tearing through armor, flesh, bones and everything inside, and then destroying everything in sight.

It is the source of violence, and the War Hounds are its messengers, but Kharn never imagined that he would unleash this savage slaughter upon his own brothers.

But there's no time to think about that now.

As the bloodstains faded, the headless corpse clad in blue and white painted armor fell heavily to the ground. Kharn didn't look at him; he didn't want to know who he was. He turned and charged at another enemy.

Haren Kosen of the Third Company was locked in combat with the man, and the sergeant of the Third Company, whose face was half completely gone, had a strange smile on his face.

His nickname within the Third Company came from this; his brothers called him "The Laugher," which seemed to be some kind of strange neurotic disorder. Whenever Haren Kosen was fighting and his adrenaline surged, he would laugh.

He's smiling now.

On that bloodied and mangled face, the only remaining eye narrowed, the muscles in his cheeks bulged upwards, and the broken jaw and the last remaining half of his teeth exuded a bloody aura. He let out a huge and strange laugh from his throat and shoved the enemy with his shoulder, causing him to stumble.

Kharn seized the opportunity, roaring the Emperor's name as he cleaved his enemy in two at the waist with his axe.

"Well done, Kharn," Haren Kosen said, still smiling, but his eyes seemed lifeless. "Where are we in the game?"

There are three corridors remaining from the bridge.

"That's a familiar way of describing it." Haren Kosen laughed. "You Eighth Company always describe the Firm Resolve like that—"

He turned around, blood seeping from his face splattering in the air, black ash floating in the air before being stained crimson.

He raised his Chainsword, his voice suddenly turning into a roar, "--Three more corridors! War Hounds!"

A chorus of roars echoed from the surrounding darkness. They tacitly omitted the numbers of the enemy and themselves, only stating their distance from the bridge, as if reaching the bridge would guarantee victory.

Of all the barking, Baron Benson's roar was particularly fierce; he howled like a wounded beast. At the other end of the corridor, the current company commander of the First Company wielded Chainsword with unfathomable skill in his remaining hand.

He tore one of the four enemies surrounding him to pieces, then quickly dismembered the second with his sword. The third swung an axe at his head, but was decapitated halfway by a burst of explosives from another War Hounds. The fourth roared the name of their damned god and charged toward the company commander, but Baron Benson was already prepared.

He tripped him, then sawed open the enemy's chest with his Chainsword.

"Where is your so-called god?!" He straightened up, his face flushed, and roared at the darkness in the narrow corridor. "Let him out! Let him come out and face us!"

Their god did not answer, only frantic and chaotic roars. "Blood for the Blood God! Blood for the Blood God!" they kept shouting, as if they had completely lost everything, with only this phrase remaining in their souls.

Kharn saw it clearly; he felt their enemies had gone completely mad—unlike at the beginning, when they could still talk and use eerie, terrifying voices to tell lies or truths to mock the War Hounds.

They were crazy back then too, but not as crazy as they are now.

They are nothing but puppets now.

No.

They were slaves.

Kharn clenched his left fist, a burning pain surging through his heart. He gritted his teeth, resisting its force in the gaps between his runs, and then he saw it again—he saw the crimson collars around the necks of his enemies, proof of their slavery, and saw them shedding tears of blood.

"Blood for the Blood God!" they shouted, but the second half of the sentence was not uttered, presumably to be saved for when the heads of the War Hounds were chopped off.

They kept chanting that phrase, but it wasn't their own voice. Kharn's vision began to rise, the pain intensifying, almost tearing him to shreds, but he didn't stop. Burning, burning, burning.

His blood began to tremble, turning into a kind of dried ash.

Then he saw it.

He saw something in the darkness, behind the Veil; though it was only a fleeting glimpse, Kharn was certain he had seen it.

He saw a pair of scarlet, furious eyes.

He roared, the burning pain finally subsided, and he quickly returned to reality with his reason. It could no longer protect him, but Kharn had found new strength to support his heart.

Anger.

An endless rage—but not a thirst for slaughter, but a thirst for Vengeance.

"It was you! Did you do it?!" he demanded of his enemies, but the object of his questioning was not there, making him appear as if he had gone mad.

Kharn's face contorted in pain as he gripped his Chainaxe and lunged at his enemies. Haren Kosen yelled after him to come back and not to charge into the enemy's encirclement.

The War Hounds were always strictly disciplined, and the trick of luring the enemy in like the First Company was a privilege reserved for only a few. Kharn didn't have it, but he didn't listen. He pounced on them and began to kill.

He fought more frantically than his enemies and even gained the upper hand for a short time—but all madness comes at a price, and he was soon wounded when someone chopped him down from behind with an axe.

Kharn lay on the ground, looking up, but what he saw was not an enemy thirsting for his blood, but a War Hounds shedding tears of blood.

He recognized him immediately.

It was Elson from the Seventh Company, a new recruit who had served for seventeen years. The scarlet collar around his neck was so glaring, so terrifying.

Kharn saw him crying.

"Blood for the Blood God!" he roared, his soul utterly stained crimson. "Skulls for the Skull Throne!"

Kharn stared at his brother.

The War Hounds maintain strict discipline to keep each other in check during wartime. They show no mercy to the enemy, are ferocious to the point of being terrifying, and every victory is a massacre.

This was a good thing, but the heavy losses that followed made the high-ranking officers, led by Legion Commander Jill Baldwin, realize the seriousness of the problem. They then began to enforce unusually strict regulations to maintain military discipline. The first and most frequently violated regulation was that it was forbidden to leave the main force and charge into the enemy ranks.

This rule is jokingly referred to as the Death Edict within the War Hounds; anyone who touches it will die, sooner or later, among the enemies.

Kharn just touched it, and now he's going to die.

But he did not die; he saw a giant.

The giant smashed through the wall, hurtling through the broken cables and steel with an overwhelming chill. He wasn't angry; Kharn saw not a trace of anger on his face.

Only sorrow, endless sorrow.

He stood like a mountain before Kharn.

Elson of the Seventh Company was lifted up with one hand, his neck gently snapped, and then he was lowered down along the porthole, his movements as gentle as if he were a family member. The crimson filth disappeared from Elson's body, and he leaned quietly against the wall, his eyes closed, as if he were simply asleep.

The War Hounds were stunned, and so were their enemies.

Kharn didn't. He stared at the giant's back, his jaw and upper jaw stuck together, a strange gurgling coming from his throat. He lay on the ground, his face covered in black ash and dust, but his eyes remained bright, something gleaming within them.

"I am Angron of Nuceria," the giant said, his voice like the clatter of swords. "I am the Primarch of the War Hounds."

He then looked at the people clad in scarlet and brass armor, slowly raising the greatsword in his hand. The blade crackled Displacer Field, and blue light illuminated his face, making the two scarlet tear tracks incredibly clear.

"I'm here to kill you all."

The next second, the weeping mountain roared in despair, and its enemies offered no resistance whatsoever.

--

Konrad Curze Curze was dreaming; he rarely dreamed, let alone had such a bizarre dream.

There were no complete scenes in this dream, only fleeting fragments. He saw a skeleton drifting in from the darkness beyond. He also saw a planet covered in blizzard, gradually cracking open, with magma gushing from the ground and countless twisted creatures leaping out of the void.

Then he saw Karyl Lohars.

He gripped a golden sword, burning with flames, and wielded it in the darkness, battling relentlessly against four entities. A half-dead golden skeleton clung to his back, still breathing, struggling against immense pain, striving to Redemption more people.

The skeleton looked at him a fraction of a second later.

"You can't change it," he said. "They will do everything in their power to make the world this way, but you still have a chance to save more lives."

"Let them live," the skeleton said, almost pleading, a fleeting golden light flashing in its burning, empty eye sockets.

Konrad Curze Curze snapped his eyes open, a chilling aura flashing across his face. He gasped for breath as if he were drowning, but his tongue tasted the thick, metallic tang of blood.

Looking down, he saw a skeleton covered in ashes lying on the floor of his room, emitting wisps of smoke. It may have once been covered in flesh and blood, but now it was gone; everything had been burned away, leaving only pale ash.

The Night Haunter's body began to tremble.

Besides.

Ugh, I was originally planning to write an ultimate chapter, but after thinking about it, I feel like I should leave this part blank (?).

By the way, I've seen quite a few readers asking if the Horus Heresy will happen again. Guess why I titled this book 40k?

One more thing: some people are beyond saving.