10 Swearing an Oath (2)

Something is burning.

But Sevatar could smell it clearly.

It was not quiet around him; in fact, it was quite noisy—the whispers coming from all directions were as unbearable as a sudden downpour of tin cannons, and just listening for a few seconds was enough to make one feel irritated.

The boy took a deep breath, then a second, then a third, and so on, like some kind of wild beast craving air, insatiable and eternally greedy.

But this wasn't out of any desire, but rather out of his urgent desire to calm himself down.

He needs to calm down.

Jago Sevatarion did not understand his current situation. He did not know what the so-called City of the Dead was, nor did he understand what the Terminus Altar was. At this moment, there was only one thing he knew, understood, and was clear about.

He needs to calm down, or he'll go crazy.

The reason was simple: those voices. For the first time in his life, he heard those Ghost clearly, and with perfect clarity.

Take, for example, the voice closest to him. It was undoubtedly a woman's voice, punctuated by strong breaths. She was speaking to Sevatar in a conversational tone, extremely fast, with a hissing sound.

"Why am I the one who has to die? Why don't those who kill indiscriminately die?"

How would I know?

Sevatar resisted the urge to retaliate with insults and began to force himself to take deep breaths. But he couldn't do it, because more voices were pressing in, like a storm. A storm that belonged only to the dead.

"I just wanted to go home. Why did they chain me by the neck and pull me around the city on a motorcycle? My back is chafed raw, it hurts so much!"

Why did that person stab me? I don't know him, why did he do that? Ah, I think I'm bleeding?

"Stop skinning me, sir! Please, have mercy and kill me!"

"They're going to eat me!"

"I'm so hungry. Why isn't Mom back yet?"

Sevatar trembled and closed his eyes, covering his ears in an attempt to block out the cruel and distorted words, but he failed. The dead did not let him go so easily; more images rushed at him.

These images are far more unbearable than mere deathbed ramblings.

He saw people hanged, people being slowly skinned alive on wooden planks in butcher shops, orphans starving to death at home, and workers being inexplicably beaten to death in the street.

Shouts, wails, inquiries.

Why? They asked silently, why did this happen to us?

Sevatar suddenly opened his eyes, and blood oozed from between his lips and teeth.

He had just bitten his tongue raw; his own flesh was swollen and bleeding profusely in his mouth, but Sevatar continued to grind the torn flesh with his teeth.

His lips twitched from the pain, but that didn't stop him from moving forward. The dark ruins were deserted, the only light source being a few streetlights that flickered on and off. The pain was still ever-present, but Sevatar had maintained a certain level of clarity and rationality.

"Don't ask me," he said to the darkness. "I don't know the answer either."

He simply continued forward. The further he went, the stronger the burning smell became, carried by the howling wind, and violently entered Sevatar's nostrils.

The smell was unbearable, so unbearable that Sevatar ignored the shadowy Shadow flickering in the darkness: skinned corpses, children covered in blood, women missing limbs, and men with empty eye sockets.

Seeing these things caused Sevatar excruciating pain, a pain unlike the numbness spreading through his mouth; it was a different kind of pain. It was provocative, gently caressing his eyeballs, causing his nerves to twitch.

Sevatar blinked repeatedly, trying to ease the pain, but he couldn't succeed because he could no longer close his eyes.

In other words, he could see all of this even with his eyes closed. His location didn't require sight.

He walked silently in the darkness, his limbs numb, a deep, oppressive chill pressing down on everything he possessed.

The white robe offered no protection from the cold, nor did his body temperature. At this moment, only one part of his body still retained warmth—his chest.

The parchment scroll was located on the chest.

It became scalding hot, yet it brought Sevatar a sliver of solace. He stopped, took out the parchment scroll, and began to read the words on it once more.

"Congratulations, Reserve Jago Sevatarion. You have successfully crossed the Pallid Mountain and arrived at the City of the Dead. Next, you need to traverse this city to reach the Terminus Altar. There, you will witness everything."

Pallid Mountain

Amidst the murmurs of the dead, Sevatar silently approached the next lamppost. Head bowed, he stepped into the dim light, continuing to read the parchment scroll in his hands.

The City of the Dead. So, this city is full of dead people? Sevatar gasped for breath, looking up and glancing around. The shadowy figures and ruins amused him, and he actually laughed—"A city?"

His voice began to echo in the darkness.

"Is this even considered a city?" He swallowed his own blood, his words slurred. "Stop buzzing! You dead people, go find the people who killed you! Go find them!"

He was panting heavily, clutching the parchment scroll tightly in his hand. It continued to heat up, the temperature rising so high that it hissed against his skin and white smoke billowed out. But the boy remained completely unmoved.

He acted as if he were completely oblivious to pain—calm, indifferent, and even manic.

In reality, madness is the most important thing.

"Go find those who killed you!" he mumbled. "You're all Ghost now, what are you afraid of? You can hang those bastards up and eat them, just like they ate you!"

Sevatar smiled without a trace of amusement.

"Stop bothering me! You bunch of incompetent cowards, go find them and get your Vengeance!"

His rage and madness seemed to instill a brief sense of fear in the Ghost —in short, for a long time, no sound was heard in the darkness.

Sevatar knelt on the ground, his heart and muscles pounding at the same pace, every nerve taut, biting his broken tongue, yet feeling an unprecedented peace within.

Until a voice rang out.

"Because we are already dead," a man said softly. "The dead cannot leave unless they are given permission."

"Allow? You fucking idiot, are you kidding me?" Sevatar yelled at him, brandishing his fist. "You're dead, who are you going to listen to? You moron, come here!"

The dead man obediently did as he was told, while Sevatar had no idea why he had suddenly made him "come over." His reason seemed to have broken down, or perhaps madness had taken over.

In short, the boy is now well aware that his condition is abnormal, but he needs this abnormality.

He absolutely had to let his reason take a backseat for a while.

Sevatar began to observe the Ghost that emerged from the darkness; its face was extremely ferocious.

He had no eyes, no tongue, and no jaw; the remaining half of his face looked as if it had been thrown into some machine and churned for a long time. He stood crookedly, with some iron chains wrapped around his body, deeply embedded in his flesh.

"You're saying you're dead?" Sevatar glared at him. "What dead person bleeds?"

"This is the City of the Dead, child," the man replied hollowly. His words sounded like an explanation, but they didn't solve anything.

Sevatar stuck out her tongue, exposing her almost completely bitten-off tip to the air. "Don't call me kid, do you know who I am?"

"I have no idea."

"I am I, Jago Sevatarion." The boy raised his chin, giving a haughty and comical laugh. "I am a reserve member of the Emperor's Eighth Legion, the Midnight Blade, one of the Astartes under Konrad Curze Curze. You're in trouble, understand?"

"I don't understand." The Ghost stared blankly at him, its form flickering.

"That's true, you're all dead after all." Sevatar shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "But I can forgive you. After all, I'm already a reserve officer, why would I bother with dead people like you? So stop fucking talking to me."

He stood up and pointed to his eyes. "See? You're driving me crazy! My eyes are killing me from seeing how you all died. And my ears too! Why do you all talk so much? Are all dead people so talkative?"

The Ghost nodded silently to him, opened its mouth, and its decaying, blackened teeth were faintly visible. "Hatred drives us to do this."

"Then let's go get revenge!" Sevatar roared.

"No," the Ghost said. "The injustice has been redressed, the hatred has been wiped away by blood, but we need more."

He reached out a hand and firmly grasped Sevatar's right hand. The sensation of contact with Ghost was almost equivalent to having a blade cut into one's body. Sevatar's face contorted in a grotesque grimace as he felt a knife being plunged into his right forearm and being twisted incessantly.

"We want more," the Ghost whispered, pulling Sevatar out of the light. "We're dead, they're dead, but there are still many nobles and gangs in this world who are alive."

"There are no nobles or gangs left in Nostramo!" Sevatar roared at him.

"There are other places," the Ghost said. He turned to the side, and another dead man emerged. He had gray hair, a robust body, and clear, bright eyes, and had nothing in common with the Nostramo people.

"Like where he came from." The Ghost grabbed Sevatar and pulled him up from the ground. The pain in his right hand became more intense and more pronounced.

"He came from places where slave owners lived, Jago Sevatarion of the Midnight Blade. Those slave owners killed him and turned his children into monsters. Do you understand, Jago Sevatarion? And many worlds, many nobles, gangs, slave owners."

"And they didn't die, unlike us. They didn't die. What right do they have to live? What right do they have to stay alive?"

"How the hell would I know?" Sevatar laughed numbly. "What's the point of telling me all this?"

"Useful, from Jago Sevatarion of the Midnight Blade."

The Ghost released its grip.

"You can Vengeance us."

"Whom should we Vengeance on?"

"Those people," the Ghost answered, filled with boundless hatred. His voice began to blur and change, transforming into the combined voice of ten million people, like thunder, reverberating endlessly.

"Those who create more Ghost, those who torture and kill for pleasure, those who force people to separate from their families and cause their deaths. You can Vengeance us, Jago Sevatarion."

"What's in it for me?" Sevatar took a deep breath of the icy air, his voice hollow, his eyes devoid of any light. "Let's talk about that first. What's in it for me to Vengeance you? You can't expect me to work for free."

The boy finally felt a little relieved.

What a joke—if such people truly existed, they shouldn't be alive in the first place. Even if these Ghost didn't ask, he would have done the same after joining the Legion. In fact, he decided to join the Legion precisely because he heard it was possible to do so.

The decision was hasty, and perhaps terrible; Sevatar couldn't find a reason to explain it. He didn't know why he had agreed to join, but now he understood.

Some things don't need a reason at all.

What the hell do you need a reason for? Those people deserve to die.

They deserve to die.

But he had to go to the Terminus Altar; if he couldn't get there, he wouldn't be able to complete this truly bizarre "twentieth operation," and he wouldn't be able to join the Legion.

So, as always, Jago Sevatarion displayed his characteristic street-smart cunning.

However, the Ghost made no promises to him.

"There is no reward," he said, his eyes empty. "We are dead, we cannot promise you anything, Jago Sevatarion. And you don't really need any reward."

Sevatar almost laughed out loud—"What kind of lame joke are you talking about? Of course I need a reward or compensation, I'm going to the Terminus Altar!"

"You're already here," the Ghost replied in a low voice.

The next second, a fierce wind howled, Thunder illuminated the gloomy sky as if it were daytime. The smell of burning finally reached its peak, assaulting the senses and filling the mouth, tongue, nose, and ears. Sevatar's eyes widened as he discovered that everything was gradually disappearing.

Without anyone noticing, the ruins and Ghost vanished, replaced by a desolate and muddy land. Sevatar looked up and saw five rough and enormous stone pillars. They supported a palace, which was dark inside, but the smell of burning emanated from within.

He looked down at his right hand, where the parchment scroll had unfurled on its own. It was scalding hot, like lava, with black flames dancing wildly on it.

"Be prepared, you will face the truth, Jago Sevatarion."

Yes, code

I rewrote it three times, and finally finished it.