Chapter 202: Coming to a Close |
Clank—
The metal sarcophagus's sealing mechanism let out a harsh, grating screech as condensation dripped onto the floor through the cracks.
Fabius Bile's eyes snapped open. His artificial pupils shrank to pinpricks in the dim light of the laboratory, and the bitter taste of cultivation fluid welled up in his throat.
"Father, you're awake."
Melusine was resting her chin in her hands, watching a holographic projection of Fulgrim.
Hearing the noise, she suddenly snapped out of her daze and looked at Fabius, who was pushing himself up from the cultivation vat. She quickly trotted over to drape a long robe over his shoulders.
"Prepare the ritual and contact the Black Legion. I need to head out."
Fabius pulled his robe tighter and began organizing his instruments.
Suddenly, his hand froze in midair. He frowned, staring at an empty numbered slot.
They should have been locked inside sterile cabinet number seven.
"Father, didn't you just leave with the army sent by the Despoiler?"
Melusine asked, her voice tinged with confusion.
"?"
Bile turned his head in bewilderment. Melusine hurriedly pulled up the surveillance logs and handed them over to him.
Crack!
An instrument was gripped tightly in his hand, clear cracks spreading across its purple-glowing glass surface.
Staring at the operation logs his daughter had given him, Fabius's murky eyes suddenly shrank.
He... had forgotten?
——
'What exactly happened?'
Aboard the battle barge of the Consecrators Chapter, Ezekiel clutched his head.
He had absolutely no memory of what had transpired since landing on this planet.
"Do you know what I've been doing?"
Faced with Ezekiel's question, the Knight Captain of the Consecrators Chapter mirrored his confusion.
"I do not know."
The Knight Captain shook his head and, following Ezekiel's request, handed over his own operational logs.
Click.
The Librarian snatched the data-disk and slotted it into the reader on his helm, reviewing the entire sequence of events.
Receiving orders to breach the Chaos defensive line, achieving victory, and then extracting.
It wasn't the first time he had executed such a maneuver.
Everything that had happened on the planet's surface was vividly outlined before his eyes.
They had reclaimed the planet. Relying on intelligence provided by the Magos of the Forge City, alongside the assistance of the Carcharodons and the Mantis Warriors, they had stormed the Chaos fortress.
After the forces completed their assault, they evacuated under the command of Chapter Master Nakir. The Chapter utilized the firepower of their frigates to utterly obliterate all traces of their presence, leaving the mop-up operations to the Dawn Fleet.
It was a standardized Dark Angels operational pattern.
'This is no coincidence. There is absolutely a secret hidden here.'
Ezekiel grabbed the Knight Captain, glaring at him coldly.
With only blizzards and enemies in his field of vision, Ezekiel meticulously compared his own fragmented impressions against the combat logs.
There were alterations.
The handiwork of the Inner Circle.
Flawless execution!
Ezekiel's mind reeled in shock. Waving a hand to dismiss the Knight Captain, he pressed a hand against his forehead.
Why couldn't he remember?!
Where had his memories gone?
"Grand Master Ezekiel!"
Before Ezekiel could make sense of the situation, Nakir's voice rang out.
"Enter."
Nakir pushed open the cabin door, his stern gaze locking onto Ezekiel.
His gaze carried a faint trace of wariness and suspicion, emotions that Ezekiel could easily read.
'He suspects something is wrong with me.'
"You met with many members of the Outer Circle,"
Nakir stated bluntly.
Ezekiel remained silent, his state of mind shifting rapidly. It took him a long while before he finally replied,
"I needed to verify their ideological health status."
"Interrogations of the Fallen?"
Nakir asked another question. Seeing Ezekiel keep his mouth shut, his tone grew increasingly severe.
"The Warband of the Myriad Eyes—how many accomplices do they still have, and who else among them remains in hiding?"
This caused a growing panic to well up within Ezekiel.
He had no memory of interrogating any Fallen Angels.
Nakir gripped the hilt of his sword. This Master Chaplain had always been like this, approaching any suspicion with extreme zeal.
The temperature in the cabin seemed to drop a few degrees. Ezekiel's eyes lowered as he desperately dug through the information in his mind.
Then, his fingertips brushed against a stack of books on the desk, lifting them up.
Creak—
A teeth-setting squeal echoed out as a hidden chamber opened.
'Just as I thought.'
Ezekiel stared at the corpses inside. Seraphax had been cleaved entirely in half through his midsection, his skull shattered. Bael had been shot cleanly through the brain, his death exceptionally swift and absolute.
'But when did I interrogate them?'
"They are dead, Grand Master."
Nakir suddenly became agitated.
"Mm."
Ezekiel replied flatly.
"Do you not intend to explain?"
Nakir pressed.
"You will know."
"When?"
Nakir continued to push.
"When it is necessary for you to know."
Nakir stopped his questioning, but kept his eyes locked tightly on Ezekiel.
Under Nakir's intense scrutiny, Ezekiel's expression remained perfectly composed.
It was the same scrutinizing gaze as always; this zealous Chaplain was always like this. Fortunately, Ezekiel hadn't actually exposed anything.
"I will report this during the Inner Circle council."
After a long moment, Nakir ceased his confrontation and simply turned on his heel to leave.
Ezekiel let out a heavy breath, quietly staring at the corpses before him.
He remembered nothing at all.
His memories stopped right after completing his coordination with Romulus, and the very next thing he knew, he was waking up at this desk.
Perhaps he should tell Nakir the truth?
He didn't dare.
He didn't dare speak of it. He didn't dare tell Nakir that his memory was compromised, or that his understanding of everything that happened on the planet's surface was a complete blank.
Just like back during the Sulurian Campaign, when he hadn't dared to tell the Grand Master that his prophetic abilities were failing.
Because that would signify falsehood, corruption, and disloyalty!
This was a secret.
Information gathered from the warriors of the various Chapters began to weave together, turning into tangible memories that started to fill the void in his mind.
Psychic energy violently crushed the bodies of the two Fallen Angels as Ezekiel meticulously erased every last trace of their existence.
An absolute secret that no one could ever know.
——
[With the approval of the Council of the Round Table, the Firewing and Ravenwing of the Dark Angels have conducted an investigation into Elson Nakir, Chapter Master of the Consecrators.
The investigation found that throughout Nakir's career as an Astartes, he murdered nineteen of his fellow Consecrators, all executed under the pretext of keeping secrets. He also killed twelve Knights of Caliban; though four had fallen to Chaos, the remaining eight were entirely innocent. His actions implicated and destabilized multiple factions.
He has jeopardized the centralized unity of the Dark Angels Legion, deviated from the principles upheld by His Highness, and engaged in the prolonged, unlawful slaughter of his brothers-in-arms, resulting in a pernicious influence.
In accordance with the regulations of the Council of the Round Table, following deliberation by the Grand Masters of the respective Orders, and having submitted the findings to His Highness for council review, it is hereby decided that Elson Nakir, Chapter Master of the Consecrators, shall be stripped of his rank and sentenced to death.]
Aboard the Vow of Silence, in the grand hall of the Council of the Round Table.
Listening to the litany of his crimes being read aloud, Nakir sat in the center of the judgment stand. Heavy shackles locked his limbs in place, and every inch of his muscles trembled with raw fury.
His gaze swept over his surroundings. A full thousand Fallen Angels, armed to the teeth, stared at him in dead silence.
Such an overwhelming number would require mobilizing the vast majority of the Inner Circle to eradicate.
Even now, to his very last moments, he was still contemplating how to wipe out this band of Fallen.
"These are your crimes."
Having finished reading the verdict, Gareth looked coldly at the beast before him.
The Council had deliberated extensively before ultimately deciding that he should be the one to deliver the sentence.
Because of his composure.
The others feared they wouldn't be able to resist striking the man down in the middle of the reading.
"Loyalty and honor are the will of the Dark Angels; they are the desperate craving of all the Lion's sons."
Nakir sneered, baring his blood-stained teeth.
Will? Craving?
Gareth shook his head.
He didn't engage in philosophical discourse. This was no place for a debate, and there was no need for a clash of words.
His hand gripped his hilt, slowly drawing the greatsword that symbolized judgment.
A cold flash of steel arced through the air.
A severed head rolled onto the floor, spraying hot blood across the crest of the Round Table Council.
Death came clean and absolute. There was no superfluous suffering, nor was there any so-called salvation.
Gareth's gaze swept the room. Having waited for the execution to conclude, the Dark Angels finally began to file out of the hall.
Automata drones dragged away Nakir's remains. His corpse would be incinerated to prevent any possibility of desecration.
Gareth then drove his sword into the floor of the judgment hall. There, several other blades already stood planted.
Upon these blades were inscribed the stories of the executed—the crimes they had committed, their motives, the sequence of events—
Everything about who these men were as Dark Angels.
They would serve as a part of the Dark Angels' history, standing as a grim warning to those who came after.
Gareth looked toward a corner of the hall, where a group of half-grown youths had gathered, intently watching the execution.
This was the Legion's new blood, its very future. They were the elite chosen from various planets, humans cultivated by the Alpha Legion to possess the capacity for independent thought.
The Primarch of the Hydra had always encouraged his progeny to think for themselves, a legacy that naturally survived ten millennia later among the factions that remained loyal.
Even by the rigorous standards of the Dark Angels, these were remarkably exceptional humans.
Therefore, their lives absolutely should not be squandered in meaningless fratricide.
The causes and consequences had all been made public.
Understanding, scrutiny, indignation, doubt.
All kinds of emotions surfaced on the faces of these youths.
'And yet, the hatred is fading.'
Gareth finally understood exactly what His Highness was trying to accomplish.
The Legion would absorb new blood. Under His Highness's supervision, the Legion would learn its history from an objective perspective.
Once these youths gradually infiltrated the Inner Circle and uncovered the entire truth, the ideological foundation upon which the Inner Circle rested would naturally rot away.
The secrets would be laid bare and transformed into mere history. Neither side would be branded traitors; it would simply be recognized as a farcical, laughable slaughter among brothers.
What they would hand over to His Highness would be a reborn Dark Angels Legion—free of its tainted past and personally led by him. They would remember this history of fratricide, but they would no longer inherit the endless hatred that had spanned between the two factions.
They would be a truly glorious generation, standing proudly in the light of day, looking back upon the past with the right mindset.
——
"..."
Having overseen the trial proceedings, Arthur stood by the viewport, watching as the Consecrators Chapter departed.
"Arthur?"
Romulus's voice rang out.
"I'm here."
Arthur replied.
The Knights couldn't help but cast curious glances his way, so Arthur simply activated the comms' loudspeaker.
"Can you hold things together? Do you need me to do anything from my end?"
That very first sentence brought looks of shame to the faces of the Dark Angels.
More than one Primarch was worrying over them.
While Romulus concerned himself with Arthur's affairs, his hands never slowed in organizing his data.
The Magos on the planet's surface was dead, and the Forge City needed to be resettled;
The conspiracies of the Four Gods had been thwarted, and the chaotic forces on the planet's surface had been utterly eradicated;
They had bumped into a clone of Fabius Bile; Rameses was currently trying to extract whatever he could from those fragments of consciousness, simultaneously severing the clone's memories to severely delay the moment when the group would be targeted by him;
The Consecrators Chapter was basically in the palm of their hands. Ezekiel was too busy keeping his own secrets—thanks to the labyrinth of misdirection Rameses had set up—so they could now begin gradually implementing their strategy to cycle in fresh blood, steadily strengthening the Wings of Dawn's grip over the Dark Angels;
As for sparing Ezekiel's life, it was because he was strongly tied to a stable time-travel event in M41.912. The transmigrators intended to use this temporal anomaly, triggered by the destruction of Caliban, to verify certain theories.
Though quite a few hiccups had occurred, fortunately, everything had been handled flawlessly.
"No need."
Arthur replied.
"It seems you already have a clear plan in mind?"
Romulus chuckled. Truthfully, he also approved of Arthur's approach.
On one side was a faction drenched in blood since its inception, a group whose obsession with keeping secrets over the course of ten millennia had driven them to near madness.
On the other side were warriors who had suffered blows from all directions, yet still refused to surrender to either Chaos or harsh reality.
Which side to choose?
It had never truly been a choice.
"Of course."
Arthur replied. He then looked back at the Knights behind him and smiled.
Establish standards, draw bottom lines, build the correct understanding, and follow standardized procedures.
These Knights were finally no longer as easily provoked or highly strung as they used to be.
He, too, was changing things.
"My matters here are coming to a close; I'll worry about the rest later."
Arthur said,
"Let's deal with the Tyranid Hive Fleet first."
"Agreed."
Romulus concurred, returning his focus to the data files.
We need to finish this fight quickly, find a homeworld quickly, and establish a stable rear guard quickly.
The longer we fight, the more conflicts arise—who could possibly withstand all this?