Standing at the edge of the building that housed the Sanctuary, feeling the biting wind rush toward him, Karyl narrowed his eyes and slowly shook his head.
A peaceful night's sleep was a rare thing. He thought.
Last night, he had experienced that feeling again, for the first time in ages. There had been no dreams, nor anything else waiting for him in the dark, only a calm, somber stillness.
He had slept peacefully for six hours. He could have asked for more, but he had refused.
There were important things to do, after all. Besides, indulging too much made a person lazy.
"We need to wait, Wraith."
Facing the sour, biting wind, Karyl narrowed his eyes and spoke.
"What happened last night will soon become known to all the nobles."
"Something like that can't stay hidden for long, not to mention the families with interests tied to one another. Even the nobles who shut themselves away in their own worlds and care only for pleasure will realize something's wrong eventually."
"They might react as I expect and start fighting over the vacant seats and power. Of course, they might not. Either way, we'll have to wait a while."
Karyl paused, then sighed.
"After all, this is the eve of the Great Purge."
Wraith thought it over, then nodded, but offered a different opinion.
"Why don't we kill the other nobles too, Karyl? We know where they are. We know how to find them."
Karyl raised an eyebrow in mild surprise, then smiled. There was genuine delight in his expression.
"How about this, Wraith—let me ask you a few questions," he said softly.
Wraith nodded without a word.
"You see a gang member robbing someone. What do you do?"
"Kill him," Wraith replied without hesitation. "He's probably done it more than once."
"Correct. Then, a second question: you see a group of gang members robbing someone. What do you do?"
"Kill them all." Wraith frowned. "The gangs deserve to die."
"Correct. Third question, Wraith—you see a group of teenagers trying to join a gang, carrying out the first robbery of their lives. What do you do this time?"
Wraith fell silent.
But Karyl continued.
"They're starving and dressed in rags. A few gang members watch from a distance, coldly observing what they do, even shouting at them to hurry up and kill someone already. What do you do?"
Wraith remained silent. Only the index finger of his right hand twitched, while his expression grew increasingly serious. That was rare, and Karyl was glad to see it.
It meant Wraith was beginning to think about these difficult questions.
"Well? Do you have an answer, Wraith?" he asked patiently.
"...No," Wraith replied quietly. "I don't have an answer."
"Then let me tell you what might happen next."
Karyl lowered his head and looked at the filthy streets below, growing more chaotic as time passed. He narrowed his eyes, his voice growing gentler.
"If you kill those gang members, the teenagers will scatter. But that doesn't mean they'll give up. They'll keep at it, join another gang, or go back to this gang's hideout and report what happened."
"Then, if you're lucky, you might see a few of them again."
"And after that, you'll have to kill them—because they joined a gang."
"If you choose to stop the teenagers and tell them not to commit a crime, they'll ignore you. Some will get bolder and carry on with what they were doing; the others will seek help from the gang members."
"Only a few will feel guilty because of what you say, but they won't do anything. After that, the gang members they asked for help will come over from across the street."
Karyl turned to look at Wraith. His expression now held something Wraith couldn't understand, and his eyes were heavy with sorrow.
"...So in the end, you'll still have to kill them."
Karyl shook his head. "That's one way things could go, Wraith. I'm done."
"..."
Silence. Then Wraith asked in a strained voice, "Why?"
"Because they have to."
Karyl answered softly. "They saw what their parents were like with their own eyes, Wraith. You've seen it too, haven't you?"
"The workers in the Shantytowns, and those grime-blackened faces in the mines on the outskirts of the city. They're skin and bones, sick all over."
"They work day and night. Once the factories have squeezed every last bit of value out of them, they kick them aside. After that, they cough up black dust and blood on rotten wooden beds by the roadside until they die."
"Who would want to live like that?"
"But..." Wraith asked hesitantly, despondent. "Do they really have to join a gang?"
"What else can they do?"
Karyl couldn't help laughing out loud.
He was no longer as pessimistic as he used to be, but he still felt a profound hatred for the state of the world. His laughter drifted away in the cold wind. It held no joy, sounding instead like broken sorrow.
"They have no choice, Wraith."
Karyl spoke softly. "Between looking like a person and living worse than animals, they chose the former. We can't blame them for that, but we can't forgive them on behalf of those who died unjustly."
Yes.
Wraith understood that very well—they couldn't forgive on behalf of the dead. No one had that right except the dead themselves.
"So killing is never the best solution to a problem. Even if you kill all the nobles, there are still the gangs—"
"And the gangs will sooner or later become the new nobles. It's a cycle, Wraith. What we have to do is break it, not join it by killing."
"Break it?"
"Yes, break it." Karyl nodded.
Wraith blinked, then brought up something they had discussed long ago. "So, Karyl, have you found a way?"
"I've seen the beginnings of one."
Karyl answered gently. "But I don't know how to explain it clearly, Wraith. I'm not very good at expressing myself. I can only do my best to describe it to you—"
He raised his right hand and spread his palm.
"It's like a flame, only just kindled. But in this world, full of special fuel, it will soon spread across the whole world."
Karyl clenched his right hand.
"When that happens, perhaps I won't need to explain this method to you anymore."
Wraith nodded silently, committing every word to memory. Some of it made sense to him, some only partly, and some not at all. But his instincts told him that he ought to remember it.
"Besides, since we don't need to work today..."
Karyl smiled faintly. "Didn't you want a knife of your own?"
Wraith's eyes lit up.
Nostramo was a world rich in adamantium.
In fact, describing it as rich in adamantium was something of an understatement. The truth was, Nostramo's crust contained vast quantities of natural adamantium.
Vast quantities.
So we could just as well say that it was a world wrapped in adamantium.
Of course, like everything else on Nostramo, adamantium was firmly in the hands of the nobles.
They used it to trade with neighboring worlds, making it an extremely reliable source of income. The nobles used adamantium to amass wealth and exchange it for anything they wanted.
Naturally, they didn't care how much blood stained the ore.
A leap, a fall, and finally a landing—the movements were the same as always. Karyl had done this many times before, but something felt subtly different this time.
He frowned.
In the past, Karyl had always prepared to absorb the impact before landing. He had done the same this time.
But just now, after he landed, his muscles and knees seemed to be telling him he didn't need to.
You don't need to be so careful, they told their owner with a gentle rebound. You're not the same anymore.
What was going on?
Everything had been normal on the way back to the Sanctuary last night. Why had one night's sleep brought about such a change?
Was it some side effect of resurrection that he didn't know about? Or had the enhancement granted by that power not faded?
Was it permanent?
Karyl began to ponder, his brow furrowing tighter and tighter despite himself. He hated the feeling of not being fully in control of his own body.
"What's wrong, Karyl?" Wraith asked from behind him.
"..."
Karyl didn't answer. His eyes slowly widened instead.
He had noticed something.
That sense of danger—the instinctive threat he always felt when Wraith was behind him—was gone.
"Karyl?"
"...I'm fine."
Karyl spoke quietly, forcing himself to forget about it for now. He raised a hand and pointed toward the other end of the ruins. "Do you remember that mine, Wraith?"
Crouched on the edge of a ruined house, Wraith nodded.
Of course he remembered. That was where he had met Karyl.
They were at the northwestern edge of Quintus, on the outskirts of the Hive City. It was slightly better than the wasteland beyond the city, but only slightly.
There was no electricity, the buildings had fallen into disrepair, and no one came here except the miners. Even the miners didn't live here; they only passed through. They made simple tents near the mines to use as resting places.
After all, the houses on the city's outskirts were dangerous—so dangerous that there were hardly any rats around. Most rats lived in the mines.
You wouldn't want to know why.
"It's been abandoned."
Karyl straightened up and stepped over a hole in the peaked roof of the building. Darkness surrounded them, with only a faint glimmer of light from the entrance to the abandoned mine not far away.
"But there seem to be people there," Wraith said quietly.
"Of course there are."
Karyl answered calmly. "The mines can be abandoned, and the gangs in charge of hauling the ore and the mine owners can simply walk away, but the miners can't."
"...But the mine's been abandoned," Wraith said, confused.
"The miners have been abandoned too." Karyl turned to him and said it plainly.
"..."
Wraith pressed his lips together, not knowing what to say. Karyl gave him a gentle, reassuring shake of the head.
"You don't need to say anything," he said softly. "How about we go see them? If we're lucky, we might even run into someone who knows you."
Wraith's eyes widened.
First of all, thank you all for your support. Truly, I never dreamed this flop of a book would make it onto the new-book rankings.
Next, please allow me to recommend two Warhammer fanfics.
The first is Reading the Black Library. Some readers may have already read this celebrated work on another site, but the author has brought it to Qidian. It's a reaction fic about the Primarchs and Malcador reading the Black Library series. I caught the author hanging out in the group chat yesterday, and now he's not only started two more novels, but also has to write six thousand words a day. Heh heh heh.
(By the way, both of the author's other books are also on this site.)
The second is Emperor's Children: The Purple Phoenix Reborn.
That title alone is captivating, isn't it? The author's prose is solid, with a strong translation-like flavor. It's still a fledgling, just like mine, but it already shows some interesting promise. I won't spoil anything. If you're interested, go check it out.
Before you continue