Chapter 278: Good News, We've Spanned from Secret Agents to Beat Cops
Sand and dust raged across the wasteland. A few new, faintly glowing, crystallized scars marked the ground. The Fallen Angels' armour bore several new wounds, but none were life-threatening. With a flick of his wrist, Arthur's black sword traced an arc in the wind. The drops of blood that flew from the blade were swallowed by the howling storm and vanished without a trace.
His gaze fell heavily on Galahad, who was half-kneeling on the ground, his body as still as if it were cast from iron. From the fresh wound on his lowered wrist, blood was slowly seeping, his five fingers having temporarily lost the strength to hold his sword.
The Dark Angels liked to "speak" with their swords, and the more quick-witted among them would try to use words to provoke their opponent's emotions during the process, to expose their true nature. This was how they communicated, fighting each other, and in the process, sorting out their thoughts.
Arthur withdrew his gaze and looked up into the distance. In the churning dust, several more figures had struggled to break through the earth and were now standing silently at the edge of the formation, no longer provocative.
"It seems I have initially gained your trust," Arthur said with a smile. This meant he was pleased. "I hope you will hand over your weapons and withdraw from the battlefield with the main force. You will be placed under supervision and will undergo identity verification—but do not worry. This is not a prelude to an interrogation. It is that I must be responsible for the warriors under my command."
He paused slightly, his gaze passing over the crowd and looking at the sand-blurred horizon. "Next, I will personally go to Fort Vigilus to determine if this will be a conflict, or a war. And you will await the result. During this time, the warriors in charge of liaising with you will explain in detail... what exactly happened on Caliban back then."
A brief silence spread in the howl of the storm.
Finally, Galahad slowly turned and walked towards Cypher. His movements were slightly stiff. The other Fallen Angels exchanged a few glances, and their tense shoulders finally relaxed—they had agreed to Arthur's decision.
If Arthur had wanted to kill them, he would only have had to shrink the shield that was holding back the storm by a circle. No one would have had time to get into the drill-machines before the storm descended. As they lowered their weapons and came forward, the Space Marines, who in their eyes were much taller than themselves, also removed their helmets.
"Cypher?" Galahad stared at the approaching face, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly.
A look of surprise also appeared on the faces of many of the Fallen Angels. They had not expected their former comrade to have changed so much. Then, their gazes fell in unison on their own armour, eroded by the passage of time. The once-shining sigils were now mottled and worn. Alright, the change is mutual.
"The augmentation surgery has added three new stages. You will learn about it in the Apothecary training," Cypher's lips curled into a shallow smile, but his eyes were still as sharp as a knife. He raised a hand and rested it on Galahad's pauldron, his knuckles making a dull sound on the metal surface. "Now, turn around and let me confiscate your weapon."
Five steps away, Azrael stood motionless, his boltgun steadily aimed at Galahad's back. Any sudden move would be met with a fatal response. Clear the magazine! This was also for their own safety.
Galahad cooperatively raised his hands.
Seeing this scene, Arthur felt that his efforts of the past decade had been somewhat effective. At the very least, he had managed to raise the standards of a group of do-anything-to-win secret agents to the level of American beat cops. Although they were still instinctively wary, their code of conduct had at last reached a controllable baseline. He no longer had to personally placate them one by one.
In fact, this was enough. If they had really become something like the PLA, that would have been a major problem. In this world, the opponents the Dark Angels had to deal with, in most cases, did not support them having such a high level of quality.
"Remove your helmet," Galahad complied.
The sudden influx of dry, sand-laden air made him unconsciously narrow his eyes.
"By the Emperor," Cypher's voice suddenly lost all its hostility, replaced by a light, teasing laugh. Galahad, hearing this familiar tone, his tense nerves relaxed slightly.
"You've gotten old," Cypher said, looking at Galahad's slightly greying beard.
"But at least it shows I've survived so long on the run without dying," Galahad retorted, then let out a long breath, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
"How long have you been back in the galaxy?" Cypher asked, his fingers expertly disengaging the release mechanism of the power pack. With the hum of an idling servo-motor, the heavy armour component fell away.
"Over six hundred years," Galahad replied without hesitation, his voice weary from the passage of time.
"That's a long time," Cypher's eyebrow raised slightly. His gaze swept over the other's face, which was weathered by the wind and sand, a brown leathery skin that could rival an old man's. "It's been hard, I can see."
"Not as hard as you," Galahad retorted, a hint of envy in his eyes.
A complete logistical supply, a strong organization, a powerful leader, and that calm demeanor that only comes from being in a stable organization for a long time. This was what he had once taken for granted, but now could not obtain.
"Perhaps my bad luck was all used up on Caliban," Cypher replied, in an accent thick with the dust of his homeworld. "Next, you will be transferred. The brothers of the Firewing will conduct a secondary confirmation of your identity. At the same time, they will also give priority to a complete review of the entire Caliban incident. You just need to cooperate a little and explain what you did on Caliban."
The Firewing, in the Great Crusade era, was usually in charge of strategic coordination. They had a hand in frontal command, and in infiltration behind enemy lines. So, in general, these members knew the most Fallen Angels.
"...I understand," Galahad nodded, having listened to Cypher's explanation. He hadn't really wanted Arthur to explain so much. The previous questions had been on behalf of his comrades. Although it might sound a little arrogant, he really didn't care about those things. For him, a Primarch was an authority. As long as he had not betrayed the Imperium, then he would obey the Primarch's orders, and in this process, he would maintain his own noble character. The rest was unimportant to this battle-hardened warrior. This was also the reason why he had remained by the Lion's side, while Cypher had been sent to Caliban.
"As long as you understand," Cypher continued. "On the Vigilus front, aside from the warband led by the Fallen Librarian Olynder, which other comrades do you think have not yet fallen? Give me a hint."
A look of surprise appeared on Galahad's face. He was a little puzzled by the other's understanding of the Fallen's ranks, but he still explained carefully, "Within the Void Claws, aside from the warband led by the Fallen Librarian Olynder, there are also a large number of neutral members, about three hundred or so. In the past few hundred years, we have been absorbing these members. They do not trust the power of Chaos, but they still have doubts about the Lord's orders."
Thinking of the increasingly oppressive atmosphere in Fort Vigilus, he couldn't help but shake his head. "And not long ago, Olynder, during an activity in the warp, accepted Abaddon's help, and thus owes him a favor. The atmosphere in Fort Vigilus is very tense now. If you hadn't come, I would have chosen to leave with my squad soon."
Olynder owed Abaddon a favor. This was not the main point. The Fallen had often dealt with renegade or Chaos-aligned Space Marines. The main point was that Olynder himself had embraced the power of Chaos. These Librarians, who had been dealing with the Sea of Souls for so long, could easily cross that line in their entanglement of hatred and the past, and there would be no turning back. This made Galahad keenly aware that this sanctuary was no longer suitable for people like them.
"So the proportion of those who have turned to Chaos is not small," Cypher said, understanding, his voice growing a few shades colder. "We will send out a signal, to indicate to the members who have not turned to watch from the sidelines. If they insist on interfering in the conflict, then don't blame me for being merciless."
"That is as it should be," Galahad's sigh was particularly heavy in the sandstorm. The meeting had gone so smoothly that he was even beginning to regret...
WHAM! Galahad instinctively looked up and saw a knight who had instinctively resisted being disarmed, and was then pinned to the ground by an examiner. "Calm down!" the examiner grunted. In the flying dust, a hand like an iron clamp seized the wrist that was trying to protect the helmet.
The physical quality of a Primaris Space Marine was not something a Firstborn Space Marine could compare to. With little difference in combat experience, this resisting knight was easily pinned to the ground and then fitted with a restraining device. Only after confirming the threat was neutralized did the shooter, who had been aiming from a distance, slightly relax his finger on the trigger.
This fleeting conflict made the brow under Galahad's faceplate furrow. He looked at his suppressed comrade, then at the tense formation around him. A strange, sharp pain spread in his chest. When had the First Legion become like this?
"Because of hatred," Cypher said. He understood this mentality very well. He glanced at Gareth, who was standing idly by Azrael's side, his social circle having been completely wiped out. Back in the day, he had wanted to cut Gareth down too.
The Fallen, completely abandoned by the Legion... They were unwilling to bear the stigma of rebellion, yet they could not prove their innocence. So they had to find some reason to persevere. For a warrior like Galahad, who had once fought alongside the Lion, they could still hope for the Primarch's return to clear their names. But for many others, the Lion was the traitor, and the current Dark Angels were a continuation of that betrayal.
When innocence becomes a luxury, revenge becomes the only solace. Hatred is a slow-acting poison, making the eyes grow darker day by day, the nerves constantly tense, the thousand-year memory leaving only those twisted fragments to replay in the mind.
"Speaking of which, The Rock has some information about Vigilus," Azrael's voice suddenly interjected, thoughtfully. "A group of Fallen are releasing information about this place. They even sacrifice themselves to be captured by the Inner Circle."
The "Void Claw" hidden in Fort Vigilus—this ancient weapon that could distort space-time and create a continuous gravitational anomaly—was actually a time-space laboratory left over from the Dark Age of Technology. This secret was known to all within the Wardens of Steel, and their primary goal on this trip was to recover this forbidden artifact. In fact, these Fallen were secondary. If not for Arthur wanting to give them a chance, the Firewing's plan was to go in directly, and then kill everyone, and let the Emperor judge if they were loyal.
And this sudden remark also made the gazes of the surrounding people immediately focus on Azrael.
Azrael was a little embarrassed, and then explained, "I asked."
Is that the main point?
The others all stared at this neophyte, who had always had a good relationship with most of the Dark Angels, with a look of surprise. How did you establish contact with a member who had access to this level of intelligence?
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