Delayed Judgment (XVII)
Before the Dark Angels took over the Order's responsibilities and officially became the guardians of Caliban, the contamination of the behemoths was a thorny and difficult problem to deal with.
It takes at least five years for a child to grow from an apprentice to a reserve knight, and wars to slay behemoths can easily result in the deaths of a dozen or even dozens of people. Caliban has many the Order, each of which regularly announces that it will launch a campaign against the behemoths. Unfortunately, before Lion El-Jonson became famous, they always lost more often than they won.
Some old knights who survived the war would even tell young people with a touch of self-deprecation that their survival had absolutely nothing to do with their superior martial arts skills, unwavering will, or excellent equipment.
The three points mentioned above are merely prerequisites for facing the giant beasts. The only reason they have survived to this day is simply because of luck, or perhaps because they are cowardly enough.
Despite facing such a dire situation, the Caliban continued to throw themselves into this seemingly hopeless war.
They were martial and unafraid of sacrifice, especially since they were fighting against evil—to die for it would be the greatest honor.
However, no matter how much they despised death or how much they revered honor, they had to admit one thing: before Lion Aljonsen appeared, even Luther, who was hailed as the "greatest" knight, had failed to turn the tide.
By then, the situation had deteriorated to an extreme degree.
Let me give a very small example: the placement of a corpse. A young man who has overcome countless hardships to become a knight dies in a war against evil, protecting the innocent. For this, should he be given a burial plot and a coffin?
This is of course a matter of course, but the Order are simply incapable of handling these two simple matters. The behemoths have been corrupted, and the dead, torn to shreds by their claws and teeth, are naturally also to blame.
To prevent even more horrific consequences, these heroic fallen soldiers were often dismembered on the spot and then burned along with the corpses of their enemies. If the Order in charge of this task was fortunate enough to possess Phosphex, the process would be much faster.
But not.
The Lion El'Jonson had heard Luther say at the dinner table that the flames burning the corpses of the dead and giant beasts could last for up to half a month, even changing the color of the sky. Even after the flames died down, the charred smoke lingered for a long time, like the last breath of the dead.
He stared expressionlessly at the sea of fire before him, watching the twisted pieces of flesh writhe and writh in the flames, gazing at their cursed forms, remaining silent for a long time.
In contrast, Luther, standing behind him, was humming a cheerful tune. The foul stench emanating from the dreadful inferno had long since filled every inch of the air around him and the Lion El'Jonson, but Luther seemed unaffected.
The Lion El'Jonson couldn't help but take a second or two to consider the difference: was it true immunity, or simply being used to it?
He gave Luther a long look and noticed that the old knight actually seemed quite pleased. This was unusual; Luther was never one to show his emotions openly.
He once admired chivalry and elegance, but after some changes, he turned to mysticism. To this day, the Lion El'Jonson is too lazy to even guess how many secrets he carries.
He turned to face Luther and swung the Lion Sword, scabbard and all. The battle-hardened weapon plunged deep into the earth, sending fragments of stone and dry soil flying everywhere. The Lion El'Jonson's cloak fell silently to the ground in the firelight.
He looked at Luther, still silent. The filthy flesh of the giant beasts was melting at an extremely slow pace in the flames, but the billowing smoke from the chain reaction had completely obscured the sky above the top of the forest.
Soon, the stench of burning corpses will seep back and drift into the depths of the forest.
Luther smiled and nodded slightly to him, finally offering an explanation in the face of the silent interrogation.
"We have to wait, Lion."
"Wait for what?"
"We'll wait for two people and one thing to appear," Luther explained. "The first person is your son, Zabriel. If all goes well, he'll follow me here and find us."
"The second person is also your son, but unfortunately he has betrayed you and is full of sins. He will come here to beg for your forgiveness, but before that, he will tell you that he has done his job and he is not a fool."
"I will only give him death," the Lion El'Jonson replied with utter calm.
"You can give him anything, even forgiveness," Luther said nonchalantly, winking mysteriously. "The most important thing isn't how you face him, but how he'll arrive before us. Now let's talk about one last thing."
As soon as he finished speaking, the old knight's smiling face turned cold without warning. This change happened in an instant, and even the Lion El'Jonson couldn't help but feel a little surprised.
"Can you imagine what it is?" Luther asked emotionlessly.
That face. No matter who he was, what feelings he had, what status he held, or who he knew, none of that matters anymore.
The moment that question was asked, the identities of knight, Grand Master, father, brother, friend, traitor, and spy, along with everything they represented, vanished completely.
His face was as deep and unyielding as stone, and his eyes held a primal and cruel malice.
Staring at them, the Lion El'Jonson felt a chill run down his spine.
His intuition suddenly broke free from the shackles of reason, easily transporting him back to a moment in human history. At that time, the first city-state had not yet been established, but in the darkness, a group of people had already raised their knives and spears against the beasts.
They hunted them, not for food, not for clothing, and not for pleasure; they simply did it. They continued killing until the continental shelf was flooded with blood, and at least thousands of species went extinct.
At this very moment, what was boiling in Luther's eyes was this malice.
"The answer doesn't really matter," Luther said slowly. "We only need to do two things with it: enslave it, or kill it."
"If it agrees to the former, then the latter need not be carried out. If it refuses, then we must grind it to dust at the end of time; we must keep killing it until it can no longer be aroused or used in any form."
But why? the Lion El'Jonson wanted to ask. The question stuck in his throat, lingering there, unable to escape some kind of shackle, something that had firmly locked the question away.
The Lion El'Jonson suddenly realized that he didn't actually need to ask, because he already knew the answer—long before the word "history" was invented, when those crazy primitives were hunting wild beasts in the dark by torchlight and spears. The answer to this question had already been born.
But what exactly is the problem?
The Lion El'Jonson lowered his head, thick blood dripping slowly from his nose, staining his whiskers and tracing dark red lines along the patterns on his armor. Waves of needle-like pain surged from the depths of his mind; he clenched his teeth with all his might, hearing a grinding sound and indescribable, muffled cries.
Cry?
No.
On the line between illusion and reality, Lion Aljonson, with his gradually sinking sanity, discerned the truth of the sound: it was not a shout, but a cry.
The cries of babies.
A cold wind rose, and his senses became thick and filled with unease and fear. His legs felt like lead, but that didn't stop him from running. In the dim wilderness, he ran towards a certain place.
He ripped off some kind of animal hide covering the stones, wood, and mud with both hands, with a strength that even he himself could hardly believe.
A roar rang out, and a figure swiftly swept past him, fleeing into the night with a thick stench of blood.
He had no time to think about anything else; he rushed into the blood-stained wreckage and carefully lifted a mangled body that had been disemboweled.
Only after that did grief engulf him.
Then came more shouts, not just from one person, but from many people outside the tent. They were filled with anger and hatred. Some pulled him up, some took his child away, some stuffed a spear into his mouth, and some smeared his face with blood.
Dozens of eyes burned fiercely, their malice mirroring that of Luther.
This malice is born from anger, hatred, and sorrow, but it has far exceeded the scope they can describe—these things alone cannot drive a tribe or a group to spend generations committing genocide.
Only the noble quality of "protection," which is completely opposed to them, can give birth to it.
To protect newborns and young offspring, primitive people could carry spears and chase from the northernmost part of the continent to the coast, killing every wild animal they could see, passing Legacy their habits from generation to generation, and hanging their bones on the tops of tents, inside and outside their territory.
If this creature were to reappear someday in the future, then their descendants would be able to wield spears once more.
What pure malice this is!
The Lion El'Jonson pursed its lips and finally let out a few muffled thuds.
"Yes," Luther said. "That's exactly why I came."
He smiled contentedly, revealing a set of white teeth. His wrinkles smoothed out, the coldness melted away, leaving only pure and simple joy. Flames roared, and the carcasses and chunks of flesh of the giant beasts writhed within them, while the old knight laughed heartily, even bending over.
"Ouroboros is an extremely powerful supernatural entity, Lion. It's capable of far more than you can imagine," Luther said very gently. "From a mystical perspective, it's no different from Caliban."
"We could even say that it is Caliban itself. Nevertheless, the relationship between it and Caliban cannot be judged by common sense; there is no such thing as mutual benefit or mutual destruction between them."
"Even if Caliban is destroyed, the Ouroboros will still exist, and that is precisely its purpose. Caliban is like a prison, trapping it firmly. Of course, it will not be content to be a prisoner, so it will spare no effort to make Caliban suffer unbearable costs. The corruption of the behemoth and the internal strife within Caliban are just one part of the whole."
"After the Terra rebellion ended, it seized the opportunity, and it almost succeeded. Too bad, I'm here."
Luther straightened up, took a step, walked past the Lion El'Jonson, and stepped into the raging flames.
"I am here, Ouroboros!" he shouted. "And you have only two choices: kneel or die. Choose!"
His voice could not penetrate the barrier set by the flames, nor could it possibly reach the depths of the forest, but the Lion El'Jonson saw it clearly.
He looked up and saw layers of surging darkness rushing wildly from the other side of the sky, which was dyed red by the firelight, flapping its wings and opening its beaks wide. He instinctively drew his Lion Sword, but then a rain of snakes began to fall from the sky. One after another, venomous snakes with their tongues flicking slipped from the sharp claws of the birds and fell to the ground with a series of loud thuds.
Luther's laughter turned into maniacal raucous laughter, as if he had achieved some goal and was overjoyed by it. Even when the Lion El'Jonson put his hand on his shoulder, the raucous laughter did not stop.
In the darkness forged by the combined forces of snake rain and bird clouds, the Lion El'Jonson slowly exhaled a breath of air carrying the stench of a rotting beast's corpse.
Suddenly, he asked, "How are we going to kill it?"
--
The shuttle's hatch slowly opened, and the smell of blood, along with the scorching steam, rushed into the fourth hangar of the Edge of Reason. Twelve Dark Angels filed out, silently carrying huge iron crates bound with chains, and quickly disappeared into the distance.
As they walked, those who had been waiting in the hangar since early morning could faintly hear inhuman roars coming from the boxes.
The servants lowered their heads in fear and immediately began to silently recite the Emperor's prayer. Several veteran sword guards stared coldly at the iron box until it disappeared into the deepest part of the darkness before they looked away.
It was at this moment that Karyl Lohars stepped out of the cabin.
He still held the knife, showing no intention of putting it away. His hands were stained with blood, and the hem of the Inquisitor's uniform gleamed, already soaked with blood. Upon seeing this, the servants immediately stepped forward to tidy his appearance, but received only a silent and firm refusal.
"You may all leave."
A cold voice commanded the servants, and a giant followed closely behind, emerging from the darkness. He wore no knight's cloak, and his armor bore numerous scratches and weld marks.
He had a rather broad and ruthless chin, his lips were tightly pressed together, the lines of which were almost like sharp blades. He had a hooked nose, high cheekbones, thin cheeks, and a pair of extremely gloomy eyes, the pupils of which were like two small, unfocused dots.
"Raphael."
As the servants departed, Karyl greeted him.
Raphael, the "Chapter Master of Chapter," nodded to him with a complex expression, offering a brief greeting, before immediately raising his hand and making a swift and intricate gesture.
The veterans standing around him immediately dispersed, scattering into the shadows as if they had never existed. For a moment, only Karyl and the Chapter Master remained in the fourth hangar.
The cold, pale lights shone on their heads, the shuttle's engines were still slowly cooling down and humming, but the air was as cold and still as ice.
Karyl didn't let the silence last long. He flicked his wrist, grazing the blade diagonally across the edge of his coat, and asked, "What are the analysis results?"
"Very bad," Raphael said. "That ship has become a breeding ground for Chaos. The three priests I brought in nearly died during the entire ceremony. Their rosaries and statues were all shattered, and the Librarian in charge of maintaining the ceremony told me that if it weren't for their devout faith, they would probably be possessed by Daemon by now."
Karyl shook his head, his tone unusually serious. "You should be more careful, Chapter Master."
Raphael didn't respond to this, but his brow furrowed, and his expression grew increasingly somber. Several seconds later, he finally spoke again, "I must admit I made an empirical error in this matter; I should have listened to your advice."
"This is not the time for such talk, and besides, I have no right to stand here and listen to your self-criticism. Now, as the Grand Inquisitor of the Inquisition, I issue an order: Chapter Master Raphael, I believe the Blade of Truth must be destroyed immediately, and I will bear all the consequences arising therefrom."
Raphael nodded and said briefly and decisively, "The artillery array was warmed up ten minutes ago."
"Leave no survivors," Karyl replied softly.
He turned around and boarded the shuttle again. It was now empty; the Machine Spirit had been pre-programmed with logic to ensure the shuttle could continue flying forward.
The starry sea was dark, and a blazing beam of light soon grazed past it, triggering alarms on the instruments and creating a massive explosion on the blasphemous hull of the Blade of Truth, engulfing Karyl's face in a white haze.
Sound cannot travel in a vacuum, yet he seemed to hear a mournful wail and a calm, contented sigh.
The former came from the traitorous flagship of the Thousand Eyes Warband, the Blade of Truth; the latter came from the War Hounds, named the Mountains. They were taken away, trampled upon, and altered and distorted by Chaos.
One Vengeance has been completed, just as he promised.
But this was only the beginning. The shuttle continued flying, its engines working steadily, unaffected by external influences. Karyl, knife in hand, went to the rear of the cabin and turned to look at the monitor beside him. In the shimmering blue light, a cluster of scarlet dots was flashing rapidly.
That was the mighty army of Thousand Eyes, an entire fleet, the culmination of Seraphax's millennia-long accumulation. One ship after another was leaping out of Mandeville Point near Kamas, recklessly charging into this trap that had been laid with an inescapable net.
From a tactical standpoint, this was undoubtedly an act of suicide.
"I'm afraid I'll have to resort to some illegal means," Karyl said to his Shadow, looking down.
"You've never followed any rules, Father," his Shadow replied. "Do whatever you want. I just hope Lion Aljonson doesn't return to find a burning Kamas."