Nineteen Statues Shatter, the Dead Return (IV)

Tujea heard his own breathing and heartbeat, perfectly clear and natural. However, he could only hear these two sounds; everything else had vanished completely. Neither the prayers coming from behind the door nor the flames burning in the fireplace in Horst's room.

Closely following them, rushing towards the realm of nothingness, was his sense of smell.

The stench of blood and the primal, putrid stench unique to Chaos vanished without a trace, as if they had never existed. Tujea felt a chill of fear. He didn't understand what had happened, but did he really need to know?

Those dark eyes remained fixed on him, never blinking from the moment they appeared, as if their owner was neither human nor any living being, and therefore did not need to blink to keep their eyes moist.

A statue? Is it a statue?

Tujea found his own idea laughable; he truly didn't understand where it had come from. However, after the self-deprecation subsided, Tujea began to genuinely consider the idea a possibility.

Yes, only statues possess such eyes. As black as gemstones, as still as ice, devoid of any emotion, only pure nothingness remains.

No living being could possess such eyes, not even the dead. Tujea had seen many corpses, and unless one truly died peacefully in their sleep, a person would inevitably reveal at least one emotion in the moment before death.

But there was nothing in those eyes.

His emotions gradually calmed down; humans are always very good at self-comfort.

However, some people do it to escape reality, to give their conscience a temporary, false shelter. Others, however, do it simply to stay calm and prepare for the myriad difficulties that lie ahead.

Tujea didn't consider himself the latter, but he did gradually calm down. With each breath he took, he slowly raised his head and looked into the eyes of the "statue." Then, he saw his own reflection in them.

"O the Emperor," Tujea uttered His name in a thoughtful tone. "Where am I?"

No one answered, but a strong sense of weightlessness came from beneath his feet. Once again, he lost his footing and fell, but returned to the world of the living from that abyss.

The sounds, smells, and light returned; the matches in the fireplace crackled; and Horst's blood-stained black clothes fluttered on the coat rack without wind.

Tujea blinked, looking down at his hands in confusion and a growing sense of unease. The black fragment remained quietly inside, as if nothing had ever happened.

Tujea silently clutched the fragment, put it in his coat pocket, and left it with his candy.

He left the abyss, but the owner of those eyes did not.

It wasn't until ten thousand years, or even ten thousand years after Tujea's departure, that he realized someone had once been here.

His once keen senses had been eroded into countless blurry fragments by the passage of time. In a place where time had no meaning, possessing such acute senses was tantamount to intensifying the punishment.

Thus, he became a madman indulging in hallucinations.

"Who is it?" he asked, trembling with anticipation.

No one answered; only deathly silence remained.

--

"A ceremony?" Uermit asked.

"Ritual." Kaul nodded, repeating the word again.

They stood side by side, as a pale mist, no higher than their knees, drifted by, making the place seem like a cloud in the sky. But all around was darkness, and there were no stars or moon in the "sky," only an iron-gray ceiling and five different flags hanging together.

The Shadow Knights' five Librarian were busy beside an iron coffin not far away. They made no sound, and even when they moved, they were as quiet as Ghost.

Uermit observed them, still unable to discern the origin of the inscriptions carved around the coffin. However, while he couldn't decipher the text that gradually filled the entire coffin, he could understand who this coffin was intended for.

Uermit asked again, "Am I going to lie down in there later?"

"Yes."

"Then what?"

"I don't know," Kaul said.

He was still wearing a helmet, and the voice-changing function of the breathing grille was turned off, so Uermit could clearly hear a distinct smile in that sentence.

The Sons of the End had no choice but to suppress the urge to ask further questions. He knew very well that asking any more questions would not yield any results.

If a Shadow Knights tells you he doesn't know, then he really doesn't know.

Uermit had never seen any of them lie; even when dealing with traitors who deserved to be despised, they would try their best to remain honest.

Interestingly, this honesty often proves to be particularly effective during interrogations.

But I'd rather you tell me a lie, Uermit thought.

Twelve minutes later, the Librarian stood the iron coffin upright, and the heavy coffin lid was slowly pushed open, revealing a dark red interior that looked like dried blood.

Uermit took a deep breath and began to disarm himself, not even sparing the helmet hanging from the buckle at his waist. A seemingly listless Servitor took them one by one with his modified hands, and then disappeared into the increasingly cold and thick fog.

Watching it disappear into the distance, the Sons of the End calmly withdrew his gaze and walked towards the opened iron coffin. The faces of the Librarian were hidden beneath their black hoods, their shimmering blue light shining brightly in the darkness. One of them suddenly raised his right hand, signaling Uermit to stop.

Then he asked, "Are you loyal, son of Lorgar?"

What kind of question is this? And what's with that title?

Uermit frowned, unable to suppress a hint of displeasure, but he still answered the question, "In the name of the Emperor and Terra, I am absolutely loyal."

"No, I'm asking you, are you loyal to Lorgar Aurelian?"

Uermit was stunned. At that moment, the emotions on his face shifted back and forth between anger and suppressed rage. After a full half minute, he finally answered, "No, I have no loyalty to him whatsoever."

"Very good," the man said.

In an instant, everything spun around. Uermit's extraordinary reaction speed was rendered useless, and everything turned into a shimmering, tearing shadow.

Uermit stared at them, suddenly realizing that he had somehow walked into the coffin. He looked sharply at the Librarian who had spoken to him, but before he could utter a question tinged with accusation, the coffin was closed.

Darkness descended, completely obscuring everything. Then, two dull tapping sounds came from outside the coffin lid, as if someone was tapping with their fingers as a warning.

"Prepare yourselves, sons of Lorgar Aurelian."

"What are you preparing?" Uermit asked.

No one answered his question, but outside the coffin, just a layer of steel separating them on a physical level, the inscribed words began to glow with a scarlet Radiance.

When Uermit observed the Librarian, he subconsciously overlooked one thing: a rusty blade constantly being passed around among them. He had seen far too many "ritual objects" and assumed this was just one of them; he was wrong.

As for the script he couldn't understand, it was Colchis.

They were a eulogy, written in the form of poetry. The poem mentioned three people: Lorgar Aurelian, Angron Te, and Uermit, the sergeant of the Sons of the End, who had just been laid down, a young man without even a Service Stud on his forehead.

What merit or ability does he possess to be ranked alongside those two people?

Kaul didn't care about the answer, only the result. He walked up to the Librarian members and asked, "How long will this take?"

"You know I can't give you an answer, Chapter Master." The Librarian who had spoken with Uermit answered his question truthfully, raising his hands and slowly removing his hood.

His eye sockets had been completely replaced; it was hard to tell whether it was silver or steel that had replaced his brow bones, and psychic light burned persistently within his glass-clear eyes.

"So, what about guesses?" Kaul asked again.

"At least twelve hours," the Librarian said. "A scam needs time to work, especially when the person we're trying to Deceit is Erebus."

"What? You don't seem very confident about this plan."

The Librarian shook its head and tapped the coffin again with its right hand. This time, no sound came out.

"I'm just worried about Sergeant Uermit," he said slowly. "Can he really remain rational under the shock of the truth? Even if he harbors hatred for Lorgar Aurelian, how long can that hatred last?"

"Once he learns the truth, it will completely dissipate amidst confusion and shock. At that point, perhaps all we can do is pray for the miracle of Angron."

"No need to pray, he will come," Kaul said.

The Librarian shook its head, said nothing more, and left with the others to prepare for the next war. However, Kaul, as the Chapter Master, did not leave immediately.

He looked at the iron coffin and sighed softly.

Two centuries ago, Shen personally ordered the casting of this coffin. It was made of a mixture of steel and a kind of ash. In order to obtain that ash, the Shadow Knights lost two hundred and twelve of their comrades in that operation.

That handful of ashes came from a world that had long been destroyed; its name was the Perfect City.

No one knows why Shen issued this order, not even Kaul. But he knows other things, such as the whole picture of the plan.

Or rather, how should this scam work?

For ten thousand years, the name of the traitor Erebus has resounded in countless worlds. Unlike other traitors who chose to escape into the Warp, he arrogantly remained in the Realspace.

Even Ezekyle Abaddon, who commanded the Black Legion, wouldn't dare to be so audacious. However, beneath Erebus's madness lay an extremely cunning mind.

Unlike Abaddon, he never approaches the Sol System, nor does he join the Daemon and traitors in attacking Holy Terra. He is like a disease that slowly erodes human health, operating only in the smallest details.

By the time you realize he exists, it will already be too late.

Erebus has been proven to have carried out at least twelve horrific conspiracies over the past ten thousand years, each starting small and eventually spreading to a previously peaceful galaxy.

His mere existence has inspired hatred in countless people. More than twenty Chapter have declared their intention to hunt him for centuries to come, but to this day, they have found nothing.

Erebus seemed to have become a ghost; he truly existed, yet no one could grasp him.

But he still harbored a desire, a desire that perhaps traced back to a monstrous creature that he could freely summon.

The skin of Lorgar Aurelian.

To paraphrase Jago Sevatarion's words, "Chaos bestowed you upon Erebus, and you are nothing but a laughable creature regarded as a plaything and tool by your so-called priests. You don't even have a life."

"You think he's loyal to you? You're wrong. He's after your appearance. Open your eyes and see what he wants to do with you. He wants a promotion, monster, do you understand?"

After uttering those words, he ordered the Exterminatus, blasting the planet, already thoroughly corrupted by Chaos, into dust among the stars.

Erebus had already fled. Afterwards, Jago Sevatarion's words spread like wildfire, reaching all the Night Lords members present. They were all there at the time; it was a hunt for Erebus initiated by the Midnight Blade itself.

Although they failed, some things were Legacy down, and this scam is one of the legacies of that incident.

Erebus wanted to be promoted, whatever the reason, he truly wanted to be promoted. Everything he did was to please the Chaos Gods and gain greater power.

The conspiracies he orchestrated did indeed grant him immense power, but it wasn't enough, at least not in Jago Sevatarion's cold-blooded deduction, even if it was enough to destroy the world.

What Erebus truly desires is evolution; therefore, he has his sights set on the last drop of Lorgar Aurelian's blood, and he will use every means to obtain it.

Therefore, this time, he will definitely reveal himself. He will definitely leave the dark corner and expose himself to the range of the Macro-cannon.

This time, we won't let you get away. We're all here. This is another hunt. We're not only going to get that piece back, but we're going to burn you to ashes in front of him. Kaul thought bitterly.

What he didn't know was that Erebus had already arrived and was waiting on a ship very close to them.

The ship was burning, just like the world below it.