67. Dark Crusade (I: Poison of Faith, Bonus Chapter 5/5)

The sky in this realm was a somber, iron-gray, and rain was falling, giving it a hazy, smoggy quality. ♞👣 Claw ♔🐺 The ground was muddy, with a few blades of grass swaying in the rain. Not far away stood a huge, withered tree; it was large, but no longer had any leaves.

If someone were to suddenly decide to observe it upside down, they would probably mistake it for a huge, multi-branched tombstone holding up the sky.

Not far from the tree, rows of dilapidated thatched huts were being battered by the rain. They had clearly not been repaired for a long time and had long since lost their function of sheltering from the wind and rain.

Of course, buildings are buildings after all, and they can still reveal certain things. For example, this used to be a village, but now it's deserted.

No, perhaps there are still people who exist.

The man walked naked in the rain, his face blank.

He was tall and strong, with eyes beneath his damp blond hair that were a clear, deep blue like the ocean. He walked barefoot through the muddy, deserted village, exuding an air of extraordinary nobility.

If one ignores the crimson stain on his lips and hands, he is almost a walking demigod, his physique alone enough to be captivating.

Every muscle in that robust body possesses a supernatural beauty; for an artist, they are the ultimate fantasy that can only exist in dreams.

But if a well-trained soldier were to look at this demigod, he would probably only feel a chill run down his spine. Soldiers are professionals who specialize in killing, and they fully understand what such muscles mean.

But he didn't understand; he didn't even know his own name.

A deluge of indescribable knowledge is cramming into this newborn brain. It's ruthless, completely disregarding whether he can accept it or not, only caring about rushing into brain cells and occupying its own place.

They brought pain, but also something that made him increasingly puzzled.

For example, the things that are falling in front of him and floating on his body are called rain.

He reached out and caught a few raindrops. He watched as these transparent, icy streams of water lingered in his palm, wetting his skin and bringing a strange tactile sensation.

He was stunned.

So this is rain?

His bewildered mind began to pound within his skull; this was the first question that had arisen since he had come into being.

What is rain?

In another sudden, sharp pain, he got the answer. Then more questions were posed one after another, and then answered one after another.

Curious, he entered the thatched hut, touched the rotten wood with his hands, picked up the rusty iron pot and the tattered clothes that had been thrown away to examine them closely, and even began to taste them.

A certain innate analytical ability began to come into play, becoming tightly connected to the database within his brain.

He began to know what wood was, what rot was, what iron was, what rust was, what clothes were—then, he looked down and observed, and his first desire was born.

I need clothes.

He acted quickly, and half an hour later, he found many messy clothes and tattered sheets in the surrounding houses. He was lucky; he also found a box of sewing tools that had been left behind by someone.

Although they were surprisingly small for him, he managed to use the knowledge in his mind to sew the clothes and sheets together to make a dirty, tattered robe.

And so his first desire was satisfied, and then more desires followed. The first desire he had to deal with was hunger, a concept that was not unfamiliar to him; he had memories of himself eating wild animals in the mountains.

There were so many memories that if they were pieced together, the exact time could be estimated. In this way, he learned that he had been in the mountains for about two months.

The cries of those animals before they died seemed to still echo in his ears; of them, the animal he ate most often was the deer.

He was stunned again.

The word "deer" triggered a flood of memories buried deep within him, thanks to his vivid imagination. At this moment, he could clearly recall eating a doe's fawn in front of her.

The elegant animal did not stop it, perhaps out of fear, or perhaps it had already given up resisting.

She just stood there blankly in front of him, trying to nuzzle the small mass of flesh and blood in his hand with her wet nose, then moaning softly, as if trying to persuade her child to stand up and leave with her.

Then, then.

He knelt on the ground, clutching his throat, as if he were about to vomit. A deep sadness washed over his simple heart; if he were truly "him," he wouldn't be experiencing this emotion now.

However, he is not "himself"; he is merely an existence fabricated by faith.

Those who believed in him brought their simple concepts of good and evil into his heart, along with a series of extremely complex viewpoints such as right and wrong.

And now, they are impacting him.

→

He understood that his act of foraging for food out of hunger was not reprehensible; it was a natural process. But he also felt that his act of eating a mother's child in front of her was utterly cruel.

Whether or not the deer possessed the same emotions as him, he shouldn't have done that. He also had a mother; he—

--Wait, Mother?

The sorrowful giant suddenly opened his eyes wide.

A name rushed into his heart along with the faith that shaped his existence: a white-haired woman in Archon's robe, leaning on a cane. Her name was Tarasha Euten, Roboute Guilliman's adoptive mother.

My name is Roboute Guilliman.

He frowned deeply, then slowly stood up from the ground. There were still some things he didn't understand, but along with the name he remembered, many other things also came to mind.

For example, his duties include being the monarch of Macragge, the monarch of the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, the thirteenth son of the Emperor, and one of the great Primarch.

Roboute Guilliman is so great; he is a demigod walking among humans, born with immense power and the wisdom to use that power wisely.

He is fair, but never heartless. He is kind, but he will never let any evil person go unpunished.

"Is this really me?" the giant wondered silently, frowning.

He keenly sensed the inconsistency between these descriptions and his current situation; if he were truly Roboute Guilliman, he could not have ended up in such a predicament.

Moreover, in his memory, just a few months ago he was still eating wild animals in the mountains; how could Roboute Guilliman be in such a sorry state?

Of course, there is another crucial question—where did these words, or rather, this knowledge, come from?

He stood up silently, though confused, and walked out of the dilapidated hut. It was still raining outside, and the ground of the abandoned village was completely soaked. The mud puddles were like natural broken mirrors, cutting his image into uneven fragments.

Through them, the giant was able to piece together his own image. He crouched down and carefully examined his broken face, his azure eyes filled only with the simplest and most direct confusion.

"Who am I?" he muttered awkwardly in High Gothic.

A few seconds later, he heard several screams, the sound of horses' hooves, and the sound of weapons being swung. He could easily identify these sounds without even needing to distinguish them.

They reached his ears in the rain and wind. He frowned, stood up, and strode toward that direction.

Along the way, he passed that huge, withered tree again, where a bird, entirely black, perched on the top of one of its branches, gazing at him. It didn't call, didn't move, didn't even blink; it simply stared intently at him in the wind and rain.

The giant stared at it, not understanding what the creature was thinking, but he couldn't concern himself with it now. He hurried on towards that place.

Behind him, the bird silently flapped its wings and took flight, disappearing into the mountains without a sound.

The mountains reeked of blood; even the word "massacre" wouldn't fully capture its brutality. The grasslands were saturated with blood and bones, the carcasses of animals, devoured clean, crushing the grass. Their blood also nourished the plants, softening the soil and fueling a frenzy of insects.

This special bird took in everything, but instead of stopping, it continued flying. It flew for nine nine-minute intervals, reaching its destination—an empty cave—at the pace of a slow-flying bird.

It stopped in front of the cave, its eyes beginning to glow with a soft, shimmering blue light, as illusory as light in a mirror, completely illuminating everything inside. The cave was filled with dried blood and nine rotting corpses.

They had been dead for at least a year; their robes had long since become one with their flesh and blood, rotting like another layer of skin. Each of them held a dagger and a small wooden statue in their hand.

The bird hopped over, used its strong beak to pry out all the statues, and placed them next to the corpse.

The faces of those statues are indistinguishable from those of Roboute Guilliman.

The bird tilted its head and stared at them for a long time before its glowing gaze finally passed over them and the corpses, reaching into the depths of the cave. There lay an open stone coffin, empty inside.

It leaped deeper into the cave, flapping its wings and landing on top of the coffin. There, someone had left a line of small characters with something like a carving hammer.

Our Savior

The bird opened its beak and pecked at the words until they were blurred, then corrected them, and finally even added a sentence. When it finished its work, it couldn't help but let out a cawing sound, as if it were feeling quite pleased with itself.

"A hypocritical savior, a simple being born from the flesh and blood of beasts—let me wait and see what fate awaits him."