Warhammer: In the Name of Nirvana

Coates has been in a good mood lately.

not bad.

In the darkest corner of the Glory Queen-class battleship, Midnight Ghost built a brand new bloody lair for itself, in an abandoned cabin, with a broken ventilation duct outlet on the wall.

Everything in the new lair was modeled after his dispensable hiding spot on Nostramo. The Midnight Ghost loved it more than the tall palace in Quintus City. He even regretted that he blindly believed in that place. The god-like man left his midnight kingdom too quickly, without even taking one last look at his sanctuary.

But it doesn't matter, he clearly remembers everything there, and can completely imitate it, except that the rows of pockets on the barbed wire are air purifiers, and now they can only be temporarily replaced by the newly harvested skulls of the guilty.

On the wall next to it, most of the ventilation ducts that were already rusty were still spraying with a dirty smell, which made the Midnight Ghost even more satisfied with this place. This smell was indistinguishable from the desolate land of Nostramo. It was the main reason why he fell in love with this darkness.

He loved it here, where he ate his dinner, rested, and did more important things like art and thinking: and now, he was doing just that.

In the darkness, the artist and recycling activist from Nostramo hummed a song that no one could understand, and slowly opened the door of the lair, his dirty robe dragging behind him. He was wearing a bag that looked cleaner, which meant that his outing was fruitful.

Midnight Ghost did not celebrate immediately. He first looked around his brand new lair carefully. Only after confirming that everything was exactly the same as when he left, did he lean against the wall with satisfaction, completely covering himself in darkness. among.

Different from the crumbling shelter on Nostramo, this new home in the bottom of the ship does not have thousands of lights from the distant hive city. The only thing that accompanies the midnight ghost is the round-the-clock sound of the distant ship engine. Terrifying roars, and the darkest light that was so dense that nothing could be seen, but for Midnight Ghost, this was not a terrible condition that was difficult to accept, and he soon found his own fun.

The pale bowl made of skulls and finger bones is filled with a sticky paint, which is the foul-smelling liquid obtained after the dried blood and various internal organs are thoroughly crushed and fused. The Midnight Ghost uses his joints to Ming Ming's long and slender fingers were covered with these colors, and then he painted on the human skin paper in front of him. These drawing papers that were not completely dry could not retain the dye perfectly, which made Midnight Ghost feel briefly distressed.

He bent down and repeated his creation over and over again. His too slender and long limbs made him look like one of those ape-like monsters in mythology. His dirty fingers would occasionally stop, but they would soon stop. In the Primarch's photographic memory, a new round of creation began.

The Nostramo artist obviously has plenty of patience. He straightens up from time to time, puts his creative fingers into his mouth, licks the dried paint, and looks at it from a third-party perspective. He looks at his works critically and murmurs vague criticisms of the creators. When this nightmare-like raving ends, he will be stained with new colors and continue the delicate work in front of him. Craft activities.

There was silence in the space, only the low moans of the Midnight Ghost came from time to time. His spine that was close to the skin of his back creaked occasionally, disrupting the dead silence in the darkness, but it quickly It disappeared into the long dull sound deep in the ventilation duct.

"This piece belongs to the most important guilty person. I remember his smell."

Ten minutes later, the painting in front of Midnight Ghost was almost completed, but he stopped after the last stroke, just because when he once again took out a piece of dye composed of fragments of internal organs from the bowl , he smelled something familiar.

He was silent for a few seconds, and then, in the darkness where mortals could not see anything, Midnight Ghost picked up the debris with his fingernails and looked at it seriously and carefully, as if looking at a living life: Under this distorted solemnity, he began to speak, and he began to speak to this cold piece of rotten flesh, his tone was as soft as if he was comforting a friend.

"I want to apologize to you, sir. Oh, I remember they usually call you supervisor?"

"But no matter what, please accept my apology."

"I promised you that I would kill you before the fourth execution, that your breathing would cease completely before the skin around your eyeballs was exposed to the air: this is what I promised you, but I’m sorry that I didn’t live up to all my promises.”

“When your Adam’s apple is completely exposed to the cold, your cries are still disturbing people in the fog of ignorance, making their children unable to sleep: I discovered this, but I know it is not yours. Wrong, because my skills have deteriorated during my long reign.”

"I haven't tried to separate the skin from the flesh and bones for a long time. I am more accustomed to letting them float together on the steeple. After all, separation is a very painful thing."

"Please forgive me, I didn't mean it."

…

The Midnight Ghost lied.

He knew this very well: because his heart was beating extremely hard.

From the outside, he was trying his best to maintain his composure and calmness, but his eyes were always unwilling to face the person he was chatting with, as if he was deliberately dodging some non-existent condemnation. .

Midnight Ghost knew something, he knew something that would bring shame to his reputation: his word was true, his skills hadn't regressed, it was just...

When that small drop of warm, moist red touched his face, and when he had to resist the urge to lick it, he realized that his hands were already in the roar of the beast named Midnight Ghost. , doing too many things that shouldn’t be done.

"Forgive me, okay?"

"please."

"I promise you, I don't like this at all."

Even though he knew clearly that no one could respond to his words, the Midnight Ghost's complaint was still so softly whispered, as if the next second, terrifying thunder would flash out of the darkness, destroying the blasphemous words of the Midnight Ghost. The pale body was completely torn into pieces.

It would be great if that was really the case...

He couldn't help but look forward to it.

Thinking of this, Cozzi showed a somewhat bitter smile. He slowly crushed the rotten meat in his palm into the smallest pieces of mud, and then completed his work bit by bit.

"For some reasons, I have to commandeer a part of your body. Mr. Director, I think you may not be willing to do this, but like I just said: please forgive me."

"If you can meet your chef friends, please also convey my apology to them. I have requisitioned a part of each of you, but I have requisitioned more for you."

"Please don't question it, all this is really for a very important thing. I need to draw a map, a map that can summarize the darkness in this ship. I need them very much, but I don't have the right and enough color raw materials.”

"So, I have to trouble you all again: I'm so sorry."

In the darkness, Midnight Ghost sincerely apologized for his private requisition, and his fingers did not stop there. After smearing the last few traces on the edge of the drawing paper, he nodded with satisfaction, He sat up straight again and looked at the results of his hard work.

"Thank you for your help, Director."

He turned his head, thanked the empty bowl, and then looked at the map he drew: This is the schematic diagram of the bottom cabin within a few kilometers of the Midnight Ghost's lair, regardless of traffic. The hubs, as well as those connecting to the upper cabins, are all clearly marked.

Each corridor is painted with dried blood, and clusters of visceral fragments mark the direction of the ventilation ducts. These two diametrically opposite dark red colors together create a rather complex web that wraps up the scientific community. The territory that was explored in the darkness, and the general territory of each crew member family was also specially marked by a stream of gray-white cerebral spinal fluid.

Midnight Ghost affirmed his work with satisfaction, and of course he could be proud: I am afraid that even the builders of those ships have far less understanding and memory of these areas than this Nostra who explored it all night Mo Ren.

Koz's somewhat excited breath was like a hot, smelly fog. After a brief thought, he decided to give himself a small reward for his hard work.

The pale claws searched in the bag next to the Primarch, and soon grabbed a few frozen rodent corpses. The Midnight Ghost grabbed them in his hands, started to eat them from the tail part, and used the smelly His stomach was filled with warm hair and cold plasma, and he felt those stiff claws move from his throat to his intestines and stomach little by little in the peristalsis of his esophagus, until there were only a few shriveled heads in his palms.

"They are fattier and more flavorful than their Nostramo counterparts."

Midnight Ghost chewed the pieces of meat in his mouth bit by bit. His voice sounded like he was talking to himself, but also like he was continuing this intermittent chat.

As he spoke, he placed several rat heads in various corners of the map, each one representing a traffic chokepoint or a passage to the upper deck.

Then, after thinking for a while, he took out two shriveled eyeballs and placed them somewhere on the map: that marked the location of the Midnight Ghost's lair at this time.

"You know, this looks just like those interior walls in Quintus."

Midnight Ghost laughed, his teeth showing a disgusting yellow light in the darkness, accompanied by a hoarse laugh from deep in his throat.

"There are two worlds separated by a wall, but there is no difference or difference between the people living in them. What determines their fate is nothing more than which belly they are reborn in: It's really ridiculous. It took me a long time to realize this simplest thing. fact."

"They're no different."

"They're all beasts."

"..."

"Of course, me too."

"Sometimes it is."

"...Sometimes, I'm actually no different from them."

"I bound them with chains of fear and death, turning them from beasts into more civilized individuals, but I was also bound by the same bonds: if I became a beast like them, then I should too Suffer the judgment I have practiced countless times with my own hands.”

"Don't be surprised, this is a very fair thing, Mr. Director."

"I am more advanced than them, but this does not mean that I am a god. It is just because they are all guilty people and are a part of this sinful society, and I am a sad and pure person who needs to Bring the true gospel among them.”

"It's that simple and that difficult."

"If I really become a guilty person like them, or a guilty person like you, then I should die, because the guilty must die, because redemption is an illusion that does not exist, because any sin None of them can be redeemed or forgiven, and words like these are just lies told by the guilty before they die."

"They will say that they can be redeemed. They will say that they will work hard to get forgiveness from the victims. Of course, in more cases, they will say..."

"please."

"They always said this, and this was the second word I learned in Nostramo, but I never understood its meaning: the first word, by the way, was the name they gave me, I love so much."

"But what's the use? Such words cannot stop the trial."

"No one can interfere with this, not you, not me, not God."

He was silent for a while, and then suddenly showed a slightly apologetic smile. His blood-stained paws guiltily twirled his long black hair, but they were stuck and pulled by those sticky hairs. For a while.

"Ah, I'm sorry, Mr. Supervisor, I accidentally digressed. Please forgive me for my mistake."

"Changing a living environment is more difficult than I thought. It's not as simple as moving a shack, so I can't always concentrate."

"Where did we just talk?"

"Ah, yes, your crime."

"In view of the fact that this is a long topic and story, and time is limited, let's talk while eating: I have brought back a lot of good things for you. I don't know if they are to your liking, but this is all. .”

"Speaking of which, the standard of living on this battleship is much better than that of Nostramo. Your garbage dump is as rich as the banquet hall of Quintus City. You even put food on both sides of the corridor. : Is this some special custom between you?"

"You know, when I discovered the delicacies on both sides of these roads, I was really surprised. I even thought it was some kind of extravagant show off."

Midnight Ghost curled his lips and carefully took out the precious delicacies he dragged back from his bag: a green plant was planted on the huge clay pot. Its rhizomes were thick and narrow as it went up, just like a green plant. The overly slender triangles were piled together, and the better-than-nothing spikes on both sides did not block the calluses on Midnight Ghost's fingers. He skillfully broke off the best piece and placed it next to his eyeballs.

"You're welcome, Mr. Supervisor."

"You may not know yet: this plant is actually called aloe vera. Although it may not look like much, the pulp and juice inside it are really delicious. Please be sure to try it."

"After all, we can't always eat pure meat, a combination of meat and vegetables is necessary."

Midnight Ghost ended his explanation and persuasion in a gentle tone, and then continued the solemn dining ceremony. Two bone-like sharp claws grabbed the sides of the clay pot, and the green potted plant more than one meter high was just like this. Conrad held it in his arms, biting the juicy pulp directly with his rugged teeth, and swallowed the branches, leaves and roots in the mud into his belly in a few bites.

"They make me feel cool, a Nostramo cool."

Midnight Ghost's speech was slurred.

"Perhaps, this is what healthy eating is all about: I just realized that today."

After finishing the buffet in his arms in two bites, Midnight Ghost, still feeling hungry, pulled the bag to his side and rummaged through it casually for his next dish: and the selection was unprecedentedly rich.

A kind of bamboo that had never been seen before was also planted on both sides of the corridor, becoming a luxury waste. However, the difference was that it was not planted in the soil, but in a glass bottle filled with water.

Took a bite and it tasted bland.

A fungus, picked up from the damp edge outside his lair, has a very beautiful combination of black and dark gray. The fungus flesh is white with obvious fibrous gray patterns. It seems to be an amanita.

I ate a few and they tasted so-so.

A piece of beef that had just started to go bad: This was a good thing. Although it was messed up by someone with a knife and fork, and it was chewed randomly a few times, Midnight Ghost never disliked such trivial things.

After a few mouthfuls, it tasted pretty good.

In this way, Midnight Ghost leaned against the wall of the lair, placing various kitchen waste and soil-covered plants between his hands, making him look like a person at a feast. Like a great emperor who is picky, and those worms squirming in the rotten dishes are fawning favors and poor court jesters. He caught them, showed a sarcastic smile, and threw them away without hesitation. Entered into his own stomach.

"So, where do we start?"

Tasting the feast with relish, Midnight Ghost licked his fingers from time to time, recalling the taste of the rotten food. These meals were far more memorable to him than any meal he had eaten on Nostramo. In terms of life so far, it can even be regarded as some unimaginable luxury and corruption.

In the rare good mood brought about by a full meal, Midnight Ghost's words were much lighter. He smiled at the non-existent guests and slowly planned the rhythm of his story in his heart.

"Actually, in general, Mr. Director, the first moment I met you, I was at a loss: because I have never been tried for the crime of corruption."

"I feel a little guilty to say that in every city in Nostramo, corruption is really a trivial matter that cannot be brought to the fore. I have to deal with more important crimes every day, so when I saw you When I recorded your crimes in your diary, I actually hesitated because I had no experience in this area."

"Just like what you wrote in your diary: In the third year when you took charge of the logistics supplies for all mortals on this battleship, you began to unite with some of your close subordinates to work on the logistics supplies."

"Sometimes, you will cut one of the five lemon slices next to the foie gras. Sometimes, you will quietly pluck one or two olives from the fruit plate. Of course, your most proud trick is to extract every ingredient the soldiers need for dinner. From each egg, extract a little egg white and intercept it privately."

"Although from an individual point of view, such deductions are insignificant, but given the huge base of the logistics you are responsible for, you have accumulated a considerable amount of money in just a few years. The wealth, thousands of military fruits and other supplies disappeared without notice. They did not appear in the garbage dump, but in a warehouse that had never been reported."

"As you secretly confessed to the emperor in your diary, you know very well that this is a kind of corruption that is no different from stealing, but it can satisfy your strange theft habit, so when you give part of the money to your cronies, in exchange for After coming to their help, you mailed all the remaining stolen money to the orphanage where you grew up. You proudly watched it expand several times in size, and boasted to the lady who raised you with her own hands. Despite his success and status, he never explained where the money came from."

“And all this, without a doubt, is a crime, as you confess before the statue of the Emperor in your room, it is a corruption, and corruption itself is a kind of theft, and as for theft, there is no such thing as a crime. Doubt is a crime.”

"What's worse is that your stolen money was sent to the hands of unsuspecting people. Your deception and hypocrisy made them unintentionally your accomplices and the ultimate beneficiaries of a theft: you thought this Noble? On the contrary, it is a terrible stain."

"You also know this, don't you: that orphanage raised you with the most pitiful kindness, but all you can return to them is malice and lies. The salary you received is not unreasonable, and you are indeed You gave most of it to the orphanage, which was enough for them to operate calmly, but you still want to give them more, give them your stolen money."

"You deceive yourself, you think this is to allow them to have more reserves for future emergencies, but deep down you know very well what you are thinking: you just want to find a stranger, someone who is enough to A stranger you trust but know nothing about can relieve the guilt in your heart and release your stress."

"You said in your confession that you sent a sum of money back out of a conflict and anxiety of longing for them to get better and longing for them to continue to be with you: but this is wrong, and your behavior is inappropriate. It may be a mixture of good and evil: because this mixture itself is impossible, there are only good deeds and evil deeds in the world, and how can a sinful person like you do good deeds since you are burdened with original sin.”

"Your hypocritical kindness and your love for the orphanage and them that you keep saying are just a kind of deception. You not only deceive them, but also deceive yourself."

"This is the second crime: fraud."

"It's on the same level as theft, it's on the same level as murder and rape."

"Because they are sins."

"Because in this world, whether you are a murderer, a rapist, a thief or a fraudster like you, you all have the same name and the same crime: the guilty."

"You are no different."

"In my case, that's it, because there can only be one outcome of the trial."

"So, I came to you."

"I'm here for you."

"You feared, cried, and begged for mercy. You regarded me as the god of death seeking your life. You cried out the names of your caregivers in your sobs until you breathed your last breath."

"This is the punishment you deserve as a guilty person, and I made it happen."

"Your death is valuable: did you see the light in the pupils of the natives in the bottom cabin when they saw your corpse?"

"That's fear."

"It is the source of order."

"It's the starting point of civilization."

"It's the gospel of redemption."

"You are a guilty person, and your death is a deserved sentence. However, with my efforts and skills, your death method has become a benchmark for fundamentally preventing countless crimes, allowing more potentially guilty people to They put away their evil thoughts in fear, and from this point of view, your death has great value."

"No need to thank me, Mr. Director, because this is my mission."

"For this reason I came, on this strange battleship, to continue my career where I left off in Nostramon, where I succeeded, and here nothing will be more. It will be different, even smoother and faster, after all, I already have enough experience and strength to deal with it."

"You and your cronies are the first."

"I also sincerely hope that you will be the last one."

…

He lied again.

Midnight Ghost closed his eyes, and he felt his heart speed up again, which made him a little annoyed and reminded him of some abandoned memories and thoughts.

In fact, as early as the first moment he boarded this battleship, he had already regarded this place as the next Nostramo, a wasteland that he would soon bring order to.

But he soon discovered a big problem: compared to his hometown, the humans on this battleship were too cunning and hypocritical. Under their self-packaging, the midnight ghost could not be found. Reasons to proceed with mass trials.

A situation similar to "equivalent exchange" permeates the deck of the battleship. Everyone seems to be accustomed to receiving undeserved rewards through their own efforts, and takes this as happiness. They only need to complete the work at their posts, They can get everything they want without any chance of revealing their inner sin.

It was under such conditions that the logistics director's "corruption" was noticed by Midnight Ghost: originally in Nostramo, he did not have time to spend on such trivial matters, because Nostramo The deep-rooted aristocratic rule makes it impossible for bribery and corruption to occur, and on this battleship, among the quite common people who are temporarily innocent, the corruption of the supervisor has become particularly conspicuous.

As a result, he became the first person to be approached by the Midnight Ghost, and the more than two hundred lemons in his secret warehouse that he had not yet gotten rid of, his private diary, and his words that the Midnight Ghost could clearly hear Chu's confession became an unshakable guilt.

He couldn't refute all this, because Midnight Ghost did nothing wrong. He was fulfilling his vocation and he was judging.

"That's it……"

Conrad whispered, and the wailing soul in his ear seemed to be convinced by this flawless logic, and it disappeared: or it never appeared.

Midnight Ghost ignored it. He picked up the shriveled eyeball on the map, threw it into his mouth casually, chewed it mechanically, and thought about his next move.

But soon, his thoughts were interrupted by some kind of sound: it was coming from the ventilation duct, like a menacing predator, rushing towards the midnight ghost.

Cozz turned his head. He was somewhat expecting the identity of these uninvited guests, and his expectation did not last long, because almost at the next moment, a silvery white figure jumped out of the ventilation duct.

It was a big cat, an astonishingly big cat. Its snow-white hair was stained with a few traces of dust, but it could still tell the nobility and mystery of blood, and it was unknown which big man's pet it was.

But Kurtz can also make a rough guess. He can even guess the purpose of this creature.

The big cat stared closely at the midnight ghost. Its ears swung back and its body arched. The snow-white hair all over its body was exploding due to this, especially the erect tail. The hair on it had turned into A flower of anger bloomed, its beard stretched forward, its pupils were slender, and its teeth and claws made a clearly audible hissing sound in the air.

Cozzi smiled, and he also slightly changed his sitting posture, and looked at each other with the visitor. His originally straight waist once again seemed to have reached its limit, and he rested his hands on the cold ground. It made him look like a bat lying on the ground, silently confronting the big cat in the distance.

"You want this?"

Midnight Ghost grabbed a dried rat in the bag beside him. He also had dozens of delicacies like this in his bag. It can be imagined that this number is already a very serious problem for the apex predator in the bottom cabin. Provoked.

The big cat hissed angrily. He didn't seem to be afraid of humans at all. He seemed quite confident in his noble status on the battleship. This excessive arrogance also made Midnight Ghost quickly lose contact with this strange little creature. Guys have the patience to keep the fun going.

"Okay, I'll give it to you."

He spoke softly, and his voice seemed to be a sincere apology, and the big cat seemed to understand it. It stopped its angry posture and sat there cross-legged. The contempt in its eyes seemed to indicate its respect for the humans in front of it. I'm not surprised to give in.

Midnight Ghost took out a dozen rodent mummies unhurriedly and arranged them in a neat queue beside his hand. This attracted the big cat's attention and saw him slowly displaying these precious corpses. Food, and then in front of the big cat's somewhat triumphant whiskers...

He threw them into his mouth.

"..."

For a moment, the shock in the big cat's pupils and the feeling of being let down made Midnight Ghost laugh uncontrollably. He showed his sharp nails and swung hard in front of the big cat. The originally menacing invader suddenly realized how powerful and terrifying the person in front of him was.

Unsurprisingly, in the next second, the big cat disappeared into the ventilation duct. It came and went in a hurry, leaving only a long series of angry yells, indicating that it would never let this abominable creature go. Guy.

Midnight Ghost sat there, swallowed a dozen pieces of meat in his mouth, and then continued his rare mood.

"oh……"

"It looks like a war has begun."

"..."

"Um?"

Suddenly, Curze stopped laughing.

Because he heard another voice, a voice that was still very far away, but one that could never be ignored.

This time...

It was the sound of riding boots hitting the ground.