Chapter 183 Hunger
The main entrance of the arena was once opened directly to the civilian audience, so Angron walked into the auditorium. These long rows of wooden benches were like pitch-black stairs that were not enough to bear his weight, extending one by one toward the deep pit below.
His arrival caused the people around him to suddenly fall from the carnival into an abyss of panic. The wooden chairs rubbed violently against the ground, making unpleasant noises. The smell of chemicals secreted by the brain due to fear spreads in the rain. Angron had never wanted his people to fear him, but at this time he had no energy left to appease any panicked souls.
The excessive cheers, hatred and panic mixed in the venue together with the heavy rain washed his heart and impacted his spirit. Unrecognizable crimson shadows appeared and disappeared in the rain. Some shadows became more and more blurred, like ghosts scrawled together with bones, accompanying every living person; some became clearly identifiable.
They take shape and open their mouths, stepping into the overlapping area of reality and memory.
The memory of the Lord of Red Sand was shattered, and fragments of memories that were broken enough to be retrieved jumped out.
“The construction of the Wall of Blood and Tears did not go smoothly.” A glowing tablet fell into his hand from the rain with a Gothic document on it. “The Nucerian nobles are very unfamiliar with basic physical labor. In addition, there are rumors that the gladiators will return their pain to the slave owners through harsh treatment and deprivation. This matter is still under investigation."
Angron let go of his hand and let the shadow of the data pad fall from his hands. The light dissipated in the rain before hitting the ground.
What was he doing when he received the document?
“This wall will not be built in a hurry,” he said at that time, spreading the map flat on the long table. Several red marks were what the Nucerian army would divide and defeat next. Target point, "Let's continue the liberation first."
Angron walked through the crowd, from the top to the bottom of the auditorium. He saw many unfamiliar faces, with facial features appearing from the poles to the middle of Nuceria. Angron's movements became stiff, as if he was reacquainting himself with Nuceria and what he had done.
“It was only two months ago,” Kleist’s phantom said to him. She was sitting on the top of the boulder. The blade on her leg gently pressed out pale cracks on the outside of the rock, left by the heavy rain. Blood stains flowed out from these cracks, "There are more than two thousand of us. Do you recognize all of them? It's amazing. I memorized it all night, but I didn't remember all their names. And these soldiers have good tempers." Bad.”
“Then, at the beginning of this spring, many guys who were also dissatisfied with the high-level riders came to our army. I can’t even remember them all. Literally! This is a lot of work. So, I want to retire from the position of adjutant and let me go to Fei Danmore Mountain. I can supervise their expansion of the hospital."
When there were only more than 2,000 people in the city, Angron remembered everyone's names. Later, when the army marched across the red sand and formed a powerful force of tens of thousands, it was impossible for him to have time to truly communicate with everyone who joined the team.
Angron believed that his troops were united because he had said that there would be no reward for their fighting. People fought together for freedom and the future, fearlessly spilling their blood on the enemy's defense lines.
But they are not.
The phantom of the female gladiator dispersed. The rain is falling from the sky, and the lights of the arena illuminate the red rain. Beyond the red rain is an endless darkness, where the colors of the entire world converge. Blood coated his legs, cold and sticky. The dry bones without palm prints imprinted the handprints on the rain curtain, and the ghost's voice penetrated from the back side of the world.
“Father, it is said that the red sand in the Nuceria gladiatorial pit is still soaked with moist blood,” his pharmacist Garland once said to him after finishing his inspection tour in Desia, His shadow looked at him vaguely in the red ink rainstorm, and the mechanical arm stretched out behind him, blending with the dazzling light. "I think that instead of forcing Nuceria to forget this matter, it is better to forget about it." From bad to good. We can build a new fighting pit for ourselves."
"Do it, children, if you are all okay with it," the Lord of Red Sand said thoughtfully. He patted the pharmacist on the shoulder, and the mechanical arm was close to his arm, conveying to him the joy of his offspring, "But there should be no casualties."
This joy blinded him, and he ignored the recent news. The truth that is so close makes all the signs pass through the fingers like rain, and the smell of blood left behind is regarded as an illusion born under the shadow of suspicion and the past.
Step by step, in his blindness that amounted to acquiescence, his two armies simultaneously slid toward an almost inevitable possibility. He made so many mistakes, and the cumulative consequences were so great. Ever since he jumped out of the pit, he thought everything was going for the best.
He was wrong. His expectations were scattered like red sand.
Angron stood on the edge of the golden platform, and the route in the heavy rain became clear. A year ago, he climbed up the nail pillar from the deep pit of red sand, grabbed the pipe conveying the acid-etching liquid, and jumped onto the high platform. Here he was, right where he stood, tearing apart the nobles and their announcers, and then his brothers fell from the sky and everything turned upside down.
He took a step forward, and then he jumped down into the pit.
Gravity can’t wait to take him back to the starting point of everything. The red sand covered his feet again, and the flying sand crashed into his eyes. A drop of rain fell in his eyes, taking away the gravel and sending a stinging pain at the same time.
Some dark red shadows gradually surrounded him in the blood rain, wrapping around him, whispering, like crying or roaring. He couldn't hear the words of the shadows clearly, and could barely make out their outlines. The heavy rain caused these awakened dead souls to twist and shape in the fractured and changing light and shadow, and the huge emotional torrent made him drown in the rain.
The faces of these shadows have no skin or flesh, and even the skeletons are made up of countless mismatched bone fragments, like the remnants of a cluster of the dead born from a certain barren grave.
Those hand bones and thoracic vertebrae seemed to have been broken several times during their lifetime, while the blurred eye sockets and scattered facial bones seemed to have experienced hundreds of thousands of years of wind and snow erosion. From these faceless skeletons itself, you can see countless pain and too far away stories.
Where do these wandering souls come from? Are they the remnants of high-ranking riders, or the will of gladiators? Are they born bound to this pit of red sand, or have they gathered here from afar?
The appearance of the wandering spirit reawakened the red sand arena, the shouts from the audience began to appear again, and Angron's spirit was torn apart by double pain and abnormal joy.
He walked forward, his deep footprints filled with rain of blood.
In the center of the field, the headless corpse of a high-ranking rider lay there, and the gladiator holding a long ax turned toward him, the rope of triumph around his waist spinning accordingly. The contemptuous face stared at him, and the skin was as chapped as weathered stones. The gladiator threw down his long ax and looked up at Angron. This allowed the Primarch to recognize him.
When two gladiators from Hozan City committed suicide, it was this warrior who told the story of the deceased.
"Why?" Angron said, "Why restart the Arena? You don't like my verdict on these slave owners, but why didn't you tell me?"
"Why? "The gladiator asked, his voice hoarse, slow and clear, low and violent, breaking through the rumbling rain of blood, "Why did you betray us, Angron?"
His voice gradually ceased to be that of a human being. Several, dozens, or hundreds of equally hoarse and painful voices overlapped with his. His voice was the voice of countless souls at the same time: "Why betray us, Angron!"
When the gladiator finished speaking, the smell of blood suddenly rose. The shadows around him began to howl, their fury rippling through his mind like nails across his scalp. Those animalistic resentments, hot dust, breath, heavy rain, and sulfuric acid merged into wild cries and unbearable emotional whirlpools that hit the dam outside Angron's heart and surged from the world around him into Angolan. Gronn's dizzy senses tried to pull him into this huge trembling passion and endless hot swirl.
Angron took a step back uncontrollably, pulling away from the boiling rain of blood. Suddenly he understood what the ghosts were saying.
"I can't escape," a shadow wailed behind him, "It's so cold here, so cold, I'm so hungry, I have nothing to eat..."
He turned back suddenly and heard the sound of blood gushing from the scars and bones breaking on the rocks. The howling of the mountain wind blended with the rain of blood.
"I will kill them, kill them all!" Another voice roared, and the burning desire for revenge hit Angron's temple. "I want to eat their blood and flesh!"
"Their hot blood, hot souls, they are alive..."
The wailing of ghosts is everywhere, like thousands of voices The overlap of the sounds sounded like the words of the same person. From the words of these souls, Angron finally understood a truth that shocked him.
They came from the mountains.
Nuceria's lonely souls who have fled from the gladiatorial arena to the mountains for thousands of years have gathered in the tomb of bones. When the remains of countless similar people have been scattered in the wind, their souls have become a unified consciousness forever. The ground wanders and mourns.
Angron realized that it was on that mountain that he first heard the hateful words of the gladiator ghost, and it was on that mountain that his cooling anger was ignited. The image of the dead soul's revenge is not an illusion stirred in the wind.
The red-skinned brother he had never met was right. The aggregation of negative emotional projections in the unprocessed soul after death will lead to unknown consequences.
They have dealt with the foundation of the Wall of Blood and Tears, so that the wall will not cause a vicious accident in the future. But the Tomb of Unknown Bones on Feydenmore has been forgotten.
The noisy and noisy emotions are like a furnace that has been overheated, and all the flames dance wildly in the rain of blood, releasing huge pressure. People's fingers trembled, their pulses jumped rapidly, their throats became dry, hot blood surged to their heads, and the rain boiled into a sea of fire. They are no longer just themselves, with multiple souls and multiple hatreds overlapping and erupting.
"I have not betrayed you, my brothers and sisters," Angron stepped back, "I have never betrayed you."
"Our blood is cold, we are hungry, they do not give us food to eat , Those hounds eat our dead flesh and drink our dead blood that has not cooled down... You hound of war, the master's dog!" The ghost shattered the rain curtain with a deafening roar, which is not something that a mortal throat can do. the sound made. Apparitions of bones and corpses fell from the stands.
Angron responded with silence.
"You are loyal to another emperor..." said the ghost, "you are the slave of another emperor! You left us, you are no longer one of us, you slave! You despicable Traitor and coward! You slave owner's dog! Do you know what they did? "
The blood rain turned cold and froze his legs and feet. This is a kind of anger that has been accumulated in the mountains for thousands of years. The ether is twisted here, and the hot air is filling Angron's lungs.
The ghost rushed toward Angron. This was the ghost of Nuceria, a huge mad spirit formed by unresolved resentment, fear of being ignored, ideal selfishness and unknown revenge, mixed with A fleeting breath of blood casts a quick glance at this place.
"Lead us again, Angron, lead us to kill, lead us to eat, lead us to revenge... You dog! Come back, come back to us, you are one of us... ”
Reveal yourself, express yourself, abandon yourself, dedicate yourself, liberate yourself, escape from the shell you were built by that emperor, join our enthusiasm, vitality, surging blood, feed Feed us, feed us, let us escape from the cold winter and the mountains.
We need you, you are tumbling among thousands of us. Our warmth is all around us and our veins grow from your heart. Do not betray us, Angron, Lord of the Red Sands. We have nowhere to go.
Ah! You killed one of our souls! How innocent she was, she was only eleven years old when she died on the mountain, and you tore her apart like wild beasts tore her arms. Angron! You traitor! We can't stop you, hey, another companion dies at the cost of our lives! Save him!
No, you killed him, you were convulsing, you coward, you broke him so easily, his cold soul is still hungry, hear us! Listen to us! If you kill him, he will not be freed yet, and he will never be freed! What are you afraid of? You are crying, haha. His pain is on you, why are you still calm? Angron!
Ah, we can't stop you, you are a beast, you are going to run away, you are going to escape from us, no! Can't! We are so cold, we are dying, come back, come back, our blood, our brother, Angron, please! You can hear it!
You turned, Angron, you turned to us, thank you, we were hungry.
Angron stopped in the rain, his vision blurred by pain and broken capillaries in his eyes. He paused panting. Among the emotions of these dead souls, it was not anger or hatred that really pulled him. On the contrary, he almost drowned in the endless sorrow of these souls who once sought liberation.
He saw countless emaciated dead people hugging him and lying on his body.
As long as he waves his hand, these ghosts who are not powerful even after death will be shattered into smoke that will never be released. They will die for the second time under his hands, and bring along with them the living people who are already involved with them. Buried in this deep pit of red sand. They are not free, they are not free. The original body can rise to the top of the fighting pit with the blood, and leave through the high platform stepping on the bones.
"You are cold..." Angron said, with a mournful calm, "and hungry."
He stretched out his hand, and a skeletal ghost with an unrecognizable face bit it On his fingers, a cold sting pierced into the phalanges, hot blood flowed out, and a small piece of flesh was torn off.
The ghost was stunned. The resentful face raised and looked at Angron carefully. Then, he became lighter, and his soul escaped lightly from the hunger and torture that gave birth to him.
Angron felt the wounds clot, the muscles reweave, he became whole again, and the ghost was freed.
"Eat." Angron sat on the floor with his eyes lowered, "My blood is shed for the victims."
(End of this chapter)