46. Olympia in Turmoil (VII)

Perturabo grabbed a corpse.

His fingers dug tightly into the assassin's shoulder; the man was already lifeless, cut in half at the waist.

Flesh and blood were deeply encased in a black, solid ice that defied reason. The blood that should have gushed out spread like icicles across the two halves of the body, creating a bizarre and unseen spectacle.

The clothing worn by the corpses offered no clues whatsoever—just an ordinary black cloth. But how were they able to sneak in during the council session?

The guards on duty outside the door didn't react at all; although they weren't Astartes, they were definitely not blind.

A few seconds later, Perturabo released his grip and threw the body down.

He glanced back at Calliphone, who was leaning on a pale gold, bronze-tipped cane, looking at him with concern. A pang of heartache he didn't want to admit immediately welled up inside him—she was being tormented by the fate of mortals.

"Are you alright?" Perturabo asked in a casual tone.

Calliphone's right hand, which was supporting her cane, immediately tightened its grip, and obvious shock appeared on the tyrant's face.

It took her several seconds to manage a hesitant reply, "I—uh, I'm fine, Abo. I'm okay."

"Where are your guards?" Perturabo stiffened for a moment, then immediately frowned.

His current expression made the slight concern he had just shown seem like a joke, but Calliphone calmed down as a result. Clearly, she was more comfortable with this look than with Perturabo's concern.

Perturabo knew about this; how could he not know?

"They should be right outside the door," the tyrant replied, slightly puzzled.

Karyl stood by, observing the interaction between the siblings, finding it genuinely amusing. However, he couldn't watch for long, so he stepped into the darkness and used his toe to pick up a translucent gun still stained with blood.

The voice of the Lord of Iron immediately reached his ears. "My design."

"You sound like you're going to kill someone, sir," Karyl said.

"If the guards of the tyrant of Lokos don't show up here in the remaining thirty seconds, I certainly will," Perturabo replied coldly.

"These assassins haven't received any rigorous training; many of them are even farmers. Their hands and rough faces prove my point. So how did they manage to sneak into the council chamber without alerting any guards? Besides, a minute has passed since the gunshots rang out; why haven't they sent anyone in to investigate?"

"An invisibility cloak?" Karyl offered a conjecture in response to his first question, still with his back to the Primarch and the Tyrant, neither of whom could see his face.

"Impossible." Perturabo immediately refuted the conjecture, his tone unusually calm, as if he were conducting academic research. "They don't have any technological devices on them, and even if they did, they couldn't be so thin as to be implanted under the skin or worn close to the body without revealing anything."

Karyl did not answer that question. He casually tossed down his gun and walked straight to the front of the gate, his figure gradually disappearing into the natural darkness created by the stone pillars and the design.

Perturabo didn't know what he was going to do, but he knew that Karyl Lohars wouldn't speak without reason. So he lowered his head and looked at his sister again.

"You have opponents in the city," he said with certainty. "Your guards have either been turned or replaced, Calliphone."

The tyrant's face paled slightly as a result, Perturabo could see her feigned calm beneath her deep unease.

His sister was intelligent, always had been, but lacked political talent. After all, she wasn't just intelligent; she was also stubborn. She disliked, and wouldn't, use her talents for dirty political games.

Some people are like that; if something makes them unhappy, they wouldn't do it even if it meant death.

"How much blood will Lokos shed for this?" Calliphone asked after a while.

She seemed to be smiling, or at least the tone of her voice suggested it. Unfortunately, her expression completely ruined it.

"That depends on the situation," Perturabo said. "But you don't need to be upset about it. People need to decide their own destiny. I made my choice, and so I've been a laughingstock among the stars for decades. If even I can't escape the consequences and punishments of my choices, what right do they have?"

Calliphone looked at him, bewildered; old age seemed to have failed to mature her heart. Or perhaps it was because what Perturabo was describing was too horrifying for her to comprehend. After a while, she finally responded.

"That instructor—" The tyrant took a deep breath, the Primarch hearing her lungs begin to torment each other again. "—What did he do?"

"I have no idea."

"There's something else you don't know, Abo?" Calliphone curled the corners of his mouth, trying to force a smile, but failed.

Yes, there are plenty.

"I don't know this person very well; I've never met anyone like him." Perturabo softened his tone, allowing Calliphone to speak calmly and deliberately. "I can't even tell you whether he left here to kill someone or to conduct an investigation."

"You've made it sound far too alarming."

Perturabo did not respond to that remark. On one hand, he didn't want to explain his reasons to Calliphone. On the other hand, he was more concerned with something else at the moment.

He moved aside, blocking Calliphone from the front door. "You didn't understand what I just said, did you?"

"Which sentence?" Calliphone asked somewhat uneasily, unsure if Perturabo was asking to mock her foolishness as he had done before.

"Starry Sea."

"Yes." Calliphone bit her lip.

"I don't understand. You were born far superior to us. I even think the person who took you away should be called a god. If a god took you away from us to fight a war for all humanity among the stars, how could you become a joke?"

Perturabo was silent for a moment, but those few seconds felt so long to him that he could clearly perceive every thought in his mind at that moment.

He wasn't angry, at least not because of what Calliphone had said. This would have been impossible in the past; if it were in the past, he would have already started berating her.

He wasn't angry; he just felt sad. Every time he thought about it, a name came to mind, and that name...

"Because of foolishness," the Lord of Iron began slowly. "I am not the only one in the galaxy called the Primarch, Calliphone. I have many brothers, many. None of them are worse than me, yet I wanted to prove I was the best among them. I was blinded by this thought, I became blind, and I couldn't even see the reality right before my eyes."

"Aren't you the best of them?"

Calliphone didn't know what to say; she even tried to comfort him with a coaxing smile, but Perturabo wasn't comforted, he just smiled.

"Perhaps," he said. "But now is not the time to think about these things."

He stepped forward and placed a hand behind Calliphone's head.

His sister mistakenly took this as a prelude to an embrace, but it made no difference to what Perturabo was about to do. A fraction of a second later, a bullet pierced the thick wall of the council chamber and struck the back of his hand.

Blood splattered.

"Don't look back," Perturabo said.

He didn't make the same mistake again; his focused hearing had just easily caught a gunshot from hundreds of meters away, clear yet distorted, like the sound of a whip lashing the ground.

So he stood there now, blood seeping from the back of his hand, a specially modified, powerful bullet lodged between his bone and flesh. Calliphone pale.

"In a little while, I'll have someone take you to the tracks," Perturabo said again, softening his tone. Somehow, he was now doing this with surprising ease.

"I'll handle things here," he said. "I assure you."

--

Karyl stepped out of the darkness, knife in hand. He could have gone back in if he wanted, but not now. He hadn't left the council chamber to kill, even with a knife in his hand.

The sky over Lokos remained a clear blue, and the city was quiet, seemingly unaffected by any unrest. However, the main road directly in front of the council chamber was a different story; blood and severed limbs were scattered everywhere, turning the once vibrant red carpet a dark crimson.

There were thirty-five dead, all dressed in guards' robes. Their faces were calm, clearly indicating they hadn't felt anything when they died. There was nothing "unusual" left on their bodies that could be considered evidence.

Karyl scanned their eyes, and his Shadow began to boil.

"Stop," he warned gently. "Their blood is not your food."

The Shadow fell silent again, daring not to make a move. Karyl began to stride forward, and at the same time, a person wearing a dark green cloak slowly appeared at the end of the carpet.

He spotted Karyl immediately, and his movements stiffened for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure. A silver arm was faintly visible beneath the hem of his cloak.

"Sir Luther," Karyl greeted. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"Me too." The newcomer removed his hood, revealing an increasingly aged yet spirited face. "Long time no see, Instructor Karyl."

Karyl observed him for a while, while Luther readily accepted the observation. The old knight no longer possessed the air of someone in a high position; he looked older, with a white beard covering the lower half of his face, and three or four dangerous scars on his forehead and around his eyes.

But his eyes are the key; they now gleam with what he once longed for.

Karyl smiled slightly and said, "Looks like you're doing well."

Luther slowly grinned. "Oh, I couldn't be better."

Also, the code.