Monstrous strength and speed turned his blow into a terrifying omen of murder. The sound of the air being cut momentarily drowned out even the gunshot.
And in the next moment, the opponent's head turned into a bloody mist.
Disgust finally appeared on Kariel's face.
But there was no other way.
Blood poured ceaselessly from the gaping wound where the head had been. The headless body collapsed, but the fountain did not cease.
Kariel stepped over it and hooked an automatic rifle lying nearby with the toe of his boot. This weapon would not be useful to him in combat – neither before, nor especially now – but he needed it.
More precisely, he needed it for one thing.
He walked past the corpse and threw the rifle into a burlap sack he carried on his shoulder. The sack was huge and, even on Kariel's current body, concealed part of his torso.
"Last haul," Kariel thought.
Standing at the bullet-riddled door, he cast a farewell glance at the devastation inside. With the sack on his back, covered in blood – a stranger would have taken him for a robber.
But he was not a robber.
And what he was doing… in a way, violated one of his old rules.
He stepped into the darkness, impassive and agile. In the darkness, nothing awaited him but acid rain and neon streaking the sky. Chaos of sounds came from a block eight hundred meters away.
Kariel remained indifferent. His work for the day was done. The last haul. With a light jump, he climbed onto the roof of a low building and ran.
Five minutes later, he returned to the Sanctuary.
On the roof of the building, a pile of five equally huge sacks, stuffed with weapons, already loomed.
Homemade rifles, high-class all-metal models, assault rifles, shotguns… a third of them were deadly lasguns. Kariel knew their exact number: one thousand seven hundred and forty-three.
Such an arsenal would be enough for a small war, but on Nostramo, it was just the stock of six gangs.
With one movement, Kariel dropped the sack from his shoulder. It fell at his feet. The deadly weapons inside clinked dully against each other, but surprisingly, none fired.
"Well, we can consider ourselves lucky," Kariel thought ironically. "One shot or ricochet would have been enough to bring down everything in the Sanctuary except the entrance door."
He grinned, and in the next second, his eyes flashed with an icy blue glow.
The weapons. With a dull thud, they burst out of the sacks woven from reinforced fabric and soared upwards, revealing an unprecedented sight above the abandoned roof – a veil that hid the sky.
The barrels froze silently in the air. Acid rain fell vertically, but not a single drop touched their surface. The steel beasts stood frozen in anticipation – some well-maintained, others touched by rust, but all waiting for something.
Kariel closed his eyes, penetrating every detail with his mind. His consciousness plunged into a deep well, at the bottom of which he learned the exact number of lives taken by these weapons.
"How terrible," he said dully. "But is the weapon itself to blame for anything?"
He raised his right hand and slowly clenched his fist.
A grinding sound of crushing metal echoed. The bones and muscles of the steel beasts contorted and broke with a mournful groan.
Springs flew out of their sockets, bullets remaining in the chambers caused tiny explosions, special lasgun ammunition crumbled into dust.
An icy cold froze the acid rain. Drops in the air turned into myriad thin needles, which fell onto the roof and shattered. The needles kept falling and falling.
Kariel clenched his fist tighter and sighed.
"I swore to use this power with caution, and now I am forced to resort to it again and again. First I killed with it, and now… now I am creating a gift."
"Kariel Lohars… you will pay for this one day."
He smiled mockingly, opened his eyes, and sharply unclenched his palm.
The temperature changed again. Low-quality and first-class metal turned into boiling lava, and its bright glow dispelled the darkness. Kariel contemplated this miracle, created by himself, and felt a chilling cold again.
He distorted reality itself, and did so without the slightest effort.
But… what the hell?
Sighing, Kariel broke the flow of thoughts.
When he wasn't busy instructing the Night Ghost or Konrad Curze, his mind constantly wandered.
Sometimes these wanderings led to something good, but more often – almost always – they rapidly rushed into the abyss.
Today, he would not let them take his time.
The molten metal continued to boil. Kariel closed his eyes and mentally drew a sharp, straight silhouette. A straight hilt, predatory lines, a silver guard…
A blade.
A promise.
A weapon reborn from bloodied beasts. And a gift.
He opened his eyes and extracted a knife from the ice needles frozen in the air. It fit perfectly into Kariel's palm, rejoicing and calling to him dully.
"No."
Kariel raised the knife and looked into his reflection on its blade.
"You are not mine," he whispered.
The ice needles rained down, shattering into pieces.
…
"A gift?"
Konrad Curze's eyes widened, and sitting in his chair, he repeated, "A gift? For me?"
Ferrus Manus and Rogal Dorn nodded impassively. They moved so synchronously that even the slightest movement of their eyes seemed identical.
"But…"
Konrad Curze put down his pen and tilted his head to the side.
"Why?"
"Because you are our brother," Rogal Dorn replied impassively.
His tone was as if he were announcing that one plus one equals two.
Curze blinked and turned to Fulgrim with a pleading look. The latter leaned against his desk and checked Konrad's notes, and the Chemosian was so engrossed that he even covered his face with a notebook.
Although, perhaps, he just didn't want to see Ferrus Manus and Rogal Dorn.
But…
The Chemosian sighed, put down the notebook, and said softly, "If you want, accept it, Konrad. Nothing special. After all, what is some sword to Ferrus Manus? He can forge a new one in a couple of days."
Konrad Curze turned silently to Ferrus.
The Gorgon shook his head impassively.
"I spent ten days just on the sketches."
"Oh, ten days?"
Fulgrim chuckled. His tone was strikingly different from how he spoke to Curze.
"Only?"
Dorn frowned.
He was about to object to Fulgrim, pointing out his mistake in estimating the weapon design time – in fact, ten days for sword development was an incredibly short time.
But then he remembered Ferrus's 'Forge Breaker'. This warhammer was forged by Fulgrim himself. The Chemosian could not possibly make such a gross mistake.
"…."
Rogal Dorn silently took a step back.
Seeing this, Konrad Curze became even more confused, but he didn't have time to say anything.
"Yes, ten days."
Ferrus nodded calmly and quickly added, "You are not an amateur in blacksmithing, Fulgrim. My hammer can teach a lesson to anyone who thinks otherwise. Therefore, I ask you, do not ask questions that diminish your radiance."
Dorn slowly raised an eyebrow, surprise flashing across his face. Curze looked back and forth between them in confusion, completely unaware of what was happening.
Fulgrim squinted and nodded.
"Diminish radiance… An interesting expression, Ferrus. Accepted."
He lowered his gaze to their pale brother.
"So, Konrad, here's the thing. Ferrus wants to give you a gift, a weapon, a power sword, but he doesn't know if you'll like it."
"A power sword?"
Curze blinked.
"I've never used swords, let alone power swords. But why do you think I won't like it?"
"Because Kariel Lohars clearly doesn't use swords."
Rogal Dorn said this with an impassive look, under Fulgrim's stunned gaze. Moreover, as emotions changed on the Chemosian's face, he managed to add:
"And we believe that you are most likely to imitate his fighting style."
Dorn nodded impassively.
"Based on the above, we decided that you might not like Ferrus's sword. That's why we came to ask. This way, Ferrus will have time to reforge it before your legion arrives."
Konrad Curze blinked and did not answer immediately.
"Konrad, Rogal didn't mean that," Fulgrim said quickly.
"And what did he mean?" Curze asked, raising his head.
Meeting his gaze, Fulgrim faltered again.
"He didn't… at least, not what you think."
"But…" Konrad Curze smiled. "I am indeed learning from Kariel. He is very effective."
"And besides…"
He stood up and continued in a serious tone, "Kariel says that in a gift, it's not so much the thing itself that matters, but the giver's feelings, isn't that right? I won't judge a gift by whether I like it or not."
Fulgrim exhaled with relief, but before he could say anything, Dorn beat him to it.
"But this is a weapon. For a warrior, the choice of weapon is a purely personal and very serious matter. For someone, a warhammer will always be better than a two-handed sword."
Rogal Dorn slowly, calmly, and completely indifferently to Fulgrim's scorching gaze shook his head.
"Therefore, I think you should reconsider."
"Hmm-m…"
Curze looked at the Chemosian in confusion. The latter instantly changed his expression, smiled encouragingly, and when Konrad turned away, he glared at Dorn again.
The blacksmith himself, Ferrus Manus, remained surprisingly calm, although something strange appeared in his eyes.
"Do you want to see it?" Ferrus suddenly asked.
"What?"
"Your gift. It only lacks the final touch…"
A forced smile appeared on the Gorgon's stern face.
"I see you don't know yourself if you'll like the power sword. So, do you want to see it?"
After a few seconds of silence, Konrad Curze nodded decisively.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
***
Read the story months before public release — early chapters are on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Granulan