Chapter 142: Lion El'Jonson is the Traitor!
This was never what I wanted.
I never intended to betray, nor did I ever attack my own battle-brothers.
I once swore an oath to Lord Astelan that I would fight for humanity until my last breath, and be loyal to the Lion.
But the Lion betrayed us.
He ordered the fleet to attack, and he lied to his own sons!
And I had already let it go. We all should have let it go.
I didn't want to become an Astartes, didn't want to be a so-called company champion, and I certainly didn't want to leave my mother and father. I never wanted to fight.
And reality has proven that becoming an Astartes was a pure mistake!
To abandon the past, to live as a miner. An Astartes's physique can easily complete such work, and can also protect oneself from the endless, hideous creatures in the mining tunnels.
To work at sunrise and rest at sunset, just like on the estates of Caliban, just like when I was with my mother and father.
Then to die with my secrets, to peacefully complete my life as an ordinary person.
What's so bad about living an ordinary person's life?
When faced with the struggle for survival, I would choose to work hard in exchange for food and sustenance. When faced with the great enemy of Chaos descending from the heavens, I would also take up a sword to resist and defend my home.
But, my past, why do you still pursue me?
And those people, why do they still hold onto their illusions about that traitor?
Lion!
Why will you never let your sons go?!
"Lion El'Jonson is the traitor!"
A great roar, filled with an endless resentment and sorrow, spread through the hall, reaching the ears of every person.
Everyone present, whether they were conscious, conscious but pretending to be unconscious, unconscious but following their genetic instincts to pretend to be conscious, or just plain unconscious, all turned their gaze at that moment to the one who had roared.
"What's with this guy?" Ramesses asked, disguised as a Deathwing Terminator, mingling beside Arthur just like Romulus. He had also heard about his partner's situation over here. These Dark Angels were too much of a spectacle; he had to come and see for himself.
"An Astartes's anesthetic forces the nerves to relax. It's essentially a powerful neurotoxin used for assassination purposes. He's probably dreaming about something," Arthur replied. He definitely had not used a truth serum.
"Oh~" Ramesses said, sizing up these Fallen Angels, and continuing to have his daemons open their "boxes."
"..."
This was a large, round council chamber, with several hundred seats. It was constructed entirely of white marble, complemented by red and black carpets and banners. A white light seeped from the ceiling, illuminating the entire hall.
Gareth looked around in confusion. His memory was still stuck at the moment his heart had been pierced by a knight who looked like the Lion. But now, they were in a grand hall, seemingly attending a meeting? His armor was still on, but it seemed to have been changed. The power system was not yet active; it was likely that his identity had not yet been verified.
He looked at the faces around him. Some of them overlapped with his fellow miners. Then the rest...
Gareth quickly covered his face.
Time in the council chamber froze for a moment.
Whether they were calmly pretending to be unconscious or were actually conscious, they all reacted, quickly trying to find something to cover themselves. But there was nothing around.
The white marble, the bright light—it seemed to make all secrets have nowhere to hide.
"Zahariel?" Cypher's voice came from his side, making Zahariel, who had hidden his entire face in his arms, shift his attention.
"Stop hiding. They've already seen everything," Cypher couldn't help but remind him. "We're next to the round table. They saw us the moment they opened their eyes."
He then looked curiously at Zahariel's handsome, middle-aged face and was surprised. "I don't have any sensitive memories of this face in my memory. Why did you have to hide your face every time you ate before?"
It was absurd. For the Dark Angels, showing one's face while eating was an expression of mutual trust.
Hearing his friend's words, Zahariel subconsciously glanced at the metal of the table and found that his face had returned to its original appearance. He subconsciously looked at Arthur, who was in the center of the seats.
Golden hair, emerald eyes, a handsome face.
!!!
Much younger than the Lion in my memory.
Zahariel quickly let out a sigh of relief, then gratefully nodded at Arthur, who had turned his gaze towards him.
"Hmm." Arthur nodded in response, also knowing what the other was expressing. This Zahariel had been in the Warp for a relatively long time, and his face had mutated due to uncontrollable forces. Arthur and Ramesses had helped him repair it.
RUSTLE~
Seeing that almost everyone was no longer pretending, Arthur also prepared to stand up.
"Silence!" Ramesses said at the opportune moment, acting as a castellan. His voice was loud and unrestrained, instantly drowning out the whispers among the many Fallen Angels.
Only then did the crowd come back to their senses.
They should have been prisoners, yet now they were sitting here, safe and sound. There was no interrogation as they had expected, nor were they held in contempt, imprisoned in a dungeon.
All because of that man.
And as Arthur stood up, the gazes of everyone present were irresistibly drawn to him.
For this knight, who had defeated most of them and had captured them all, all the Fallen Angels were filled with inquiry and curiosity.
"I am Arthur Pendragon," Arthur introduced himself. "I have not participated in any Great Crusade campaigns, so it is natural that you do not know me."
"Today's meeting is to deal with the conflict between you."
To make everyone sit down and talk properly, you just beat everyone up and throw them at the table, right?
A truly fitting method for the strong.
Everyone listened quietly. There were no fierce refutations or anything of the sort. Because the person before them could have killed them all, but he had not. This meant that what he said was not empty words.
"But, my Lord, do you know the situation on Caliban?" Zabriel asked tentatively. His relic-cruiser had been confiscated. This council chamber had been newly built on the Silent Vow. He was quite resentful about this. The key was that the Machine Spirit had been overjoyed about it, which had left him completely baffled.
"Zabriel, I remember that you should have been on the surface during the Battle of Caliban. After the Rangdan Xenocides, the vast majority of the Terran-born, including Astelan, were exiled back to Caliban by the Lion. Including you. This batch of Terran-born played the role of aiding the tyrant in Luther's rebellion," Arthur said flatly, at the same time giving a verdict on Luther's rebellion.
"My Lord, I had no idea of the situation. The army in orbit had just landed and began to slaughter us without a word. We could only resist." Feeling the death-glares from behind him, Zabriel, who had been about to check if his head was still attached, broke out in a cold sweat and quickly explained. Was it easy for him, to be mixed in with a group of boarding-action fanatics? It was a good thing there were no familiar faces among the Fallen Angels yet. And he himself had discovered the problem when he had reviewed the events, but he didn't dare to tell the other Fallen about this secret.
"Correct. Luther, during the rebellion, cleverly used the series of encounters the Lion had during the Great Betrayal, and his own paranoid state of mind. A merchant ship leaving Caliban transmitted a message to the Lion that the planet was under Luther's rule and was preparing to rebel. At the same time, Luther also manipulated an orbital cannon under his control to attack the Lion's fleet."
"This caused the Lion to, without a word, attack the entire planet of Caliban, forcibly pushing the Terran-born and the new recruits who were still on Caliban to Luther's side." Arthur did not pressure Zabriel, but explained, supplementing the part that Zabriel did not know.
Zabriel let out a long sigh of relief. At least from Arthur's attitude, he should be fine. He looked back at his battle-brothers, who had slightly softened their hostile gazes.
As a Space Marine, he was not afraid of death. But he had not yet seen the Lion. He could not die with this injustice. Even if it was a judgment, it could only be the Lion who judged him.
At the same time, a deep doubt also surrounded his mind.
My Lord, have you really not participated in the Great Crusade?
(End of Chapter)