Chapter 317 Harvest Day (Part 2)
Mortarion climbed onto the broad platform closest to the top of the mountain, and Naklay's black iron fortress was clearly in front of him. This is a towering, twisted, dark fortress with overgrown branches, wrapped in dark orange dense poisonous mist.
His body was shaking, half of it was the trembling caused by the poison, and the other half was the excitement for the upcoming battle. This is the Barbarus' revenge against the sorcery overlord, and also his revenge against the huge shadow that haunted him in the first half of his life.
He grasped the long handle of the scythe and roared angrily: "Nakre!"
His shout echoed in the mountains, followed by a cold wind. A sneer, a harsh murmur like the fluttering wings of an insect, wafted up from the thick fog that surrounded the fortress.
A skinny and tall terrifying figure appeared in front of him, floating on the stone platform piled with rocks, looking down at Mortarion arrogantly.
"You have disappointed me." Nacre said condescendingly. "You have made an unimaginably stupid choice."
Mortarion gasped and swung his scythe violently. , pounced towards the figure of the witchcraft overlord. The sickle pierced the thick orange-yellow haze, instantly cutting through a waterfall, drawing a cold arc through the mist, but there was no tactile sensation of hitting an actual object.
He stepped onto the stone platform. Nacre was not here, but a poisonous mist fire was burning in his chest, making his body wrapped in gradually rusty and rotten armor hot and weak, cruel. The ground destroys his vitality.
Mortarion looked around, the mist deepening in color until it turned into an abyss-like dark substance. This is different from the regular night, which is the night that the Primarch can see clearly - this is a sticky dark environment that is weird and unrealistic, and controls the surrounding environment through unknown witchcraft.
Mortarion vaguely knew that at a certain point in this darkness, a golden bonfire was burning quietly, but he could not definitely perceive it in any way. He could only see clearly the heavy armor on his body that was peeling off layer by layer, and the lightly bloodied areas on the surface of the scythe, reflecting his pale and angry face.
“Face me!” Mortarion roared loudly, metal blood boiling in his throat.
A shrill wind blade struck from behind him, and Mortarion suddenly dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the pale energy attack. The stimulation brought by adrenaline immediately combined with his fighting will to dispel the severe pain in his body.
He turned around immediately, and on the other side of the darkness, Nacre's figure was waiting for him.
It seemed to be a withered figure glowing with pale white light. Its limbs were as thin as thin leaves that had withered in the dark environment without growing. The gray-white fragments like broken cloaks were ring-shaped. From the shoulders down on the torso of this shape, it spreads wantonly into the surrounding darkness.
A long, slender metal gray knife, like a curtain fluttering in the cold night wind, was held in the palm of the figure. It was the swing of this sharp blade that created the fatal blow just now in the darkness.
After summoning the visible enemy, Mortarion maintained stubborn silence. The heavy war scythe transformed from a farm tool in his hand struck a blow that matched its huge mass and size. Perhaps Not fast enough, but heavy and deadly. Nacre sneered strangely and faced Mortarion's attack head-on.
The scythe cut through the darkness of the void again, without cutting off anything tangible, but the attack of the gray long knife actually fell on Mortarion's heavy armor, leaving the suit full of pits and holes. There was a gap, and corrosion had already taken away the original color, leaving only a rusty gray-white tone, as if a heavy crack had been cut out of a battle armor made of inferior stone.
Mortarion ignored the damage to his armor and stubbornly persisted in attacking the only pale form he could currently perceive.
Based on his understanding of Nakre's witchcraft, there must be a just-right moment when Nak're will pour his power into the attack of the gray phantom. He couldn't figure out which extremely brief and mysterious moment it was, but he couldn't hesitate.
"Your resistance is powerless," Nacre said lowly, "Death-"
At this moment, a cold premonition penetrated Mortarion's bones, and the axioms and numbers were in perfect harmony. Connecting with each other, they start to rotate one after another like gears. It was at this moment, this precise moment that could not be missed, that Mortarion swung his scythe.
The speed of his blade swing was not too fast, no more than the previous attacks he had made on his own initiative, but the heavy sharp blade happened to cut off the waist of the gray-white figure at that critical opportunity.
A handful of gray blood burst out from the middle of the body like flowing mercury. A flash of light flashed, and Nacre's words and his phantom were chopped into pieces.
A shrill and mysterious cry briefly broke through the darkness of silence, and also broke the aloof mask of the sorcery overlord Nacre. The Overlord bleeds as well, when the right pain breaks down his defenses through Deathson's scythe.
The first phantom of gathered power was executed. Mortarion took back his scythe and strode down the stone pile. The unprecedented physical weakness caused by the dark fog and the layer-by-layer collapse of the iron armor gave him the strength of his mind. clear.
One step, three steps, then four steps, interpolation calculation, the next time is ten steps.
He looked for Nacre's next phantom. Even if he can't identify the direction, a prophecy is pointing his way, just like the ancient wandering wizard holding the trembling hands of those who seek prophecy on the earth, and calculating the clues left in the future from the lines of palm prints or pupils. .
But Mortarion believed that the abilities he had gained were different. This is the secret of mathematics, the destined number hidden in the axiom, the measurable operation.
The second figure appeared in front of Mortarion. It was no more powerful than the first one, and it couldn't do any novel tricks. The attack of the phantom is a mixture of reality and reality. It is a waste of computing power to use energy to calculate at what speed and angle the next attack of this gray-white phantom will be launched.
Mortarion did not dodge except for some heavy blows that were too obvious threats and hit his head. Under the heavy armor, blood flowed rapidly in his body, and the battle shirt that clung to his muscles prevented further cracking of his wounds, protected his injured body, and maintained his fighting rhythm.
After the first frontal defeat of part of Nakre, something seemed to have changed permanently.
The overlord who once cast a shadow on his body as if the sky was blocking out the sun, the behemoth who had to be overcome and killed, suddenly proved to be nothing more than a decaying old man. The old things of the times don't know how to abdicate from the new era, and they don't know how to admit their own decadence.
Its restrictions and drives have degenerated into desperate afterimages of the old overlords with lost teeth and loose joints. With just a slight push, these unburied carrion corpses will fall into the scythe of death for them. Among the dug graves.
And Mortarion will bring Barbarus a new beginning. A moment of departure for a golden era of glory, a journey of hope that illuminates the Milky Way.
Mortarion swung his scythe again, the tip of the blade piercing the second phantom, and then stepped back to avoid the energy blast that exploded in front of him. The gray phantom snapped back, its pained expression lasting only a moment, but Mortarion had already seen it.
Mortarion struggled to extract the rare breathable ingredients from the dark fog. His physical strength was exhausted to a low point never seen in his life after successive long battles. Power flowed from every wound on his body, and the pain bound his limbs and bones, a thousand times more painful than when he drank poisonous wine with his warriors.
He walked unsteadily, and in the dark environment, he used all his remaining computing power and physical strength to search for the existence of Nacre.
The third one, he thought, would also be the last one. The numbers had revealed this truth to him.
And he cannot retreat, cannot fail. The Barbarians call him a light, and if it goes out in the darkness, he has failed his people, his own will, and the Emperor's wishes. "You accepted it," Nacre sneered, trying to sting him coldly in the darkness, "You accepted your power. Like us, you all have a side of death. You think you can Defeat me alone by your own will, but you cannot. You resort to what you resist."
"Nonsense!" Mortarion yelled through his bloody throat, ignoring Naklay's heart-tugging lies. The next moment, he saw Nacre's figure.
The last incarnation of the witchcraft overlord is Nacre himself. He is haggard and has a face like rotten wood. His gray-black cloth robe spreads out flamboyantly behind his back. His nightmare-like arms and pale face make him... Mortarion was unforgettable. Black poison gathered around him, forming tangible tentacles that spread deeper, trying to penetrate into Mortarion's chest and abdomen through the damage in the heavy armor.
"And you do not know whose protection I have received," said Nacre, "nor how many years He has watched you."
Mortarion gathered his strength, He charged forward with his sickle, and Nacre struck back with his sword. The light of the sword intertwined with the blade of the sickle, and the two figures constantly replaced and replaced each other, allowing the alternation of void and reality to intertwine and intersect in the withering darkness of death. The dark world has been shaken up.
The body around this rotten cancer of the old world seems to be no longer limited to the real universe, but when Nacre fully displays his witchcraft, it is inexplicable that the flow of witchcraft power can be more easily controlled by Mo. Talion calculated.
The ancient curse surrendered to the truth of numbers, turned into insect-like ashes under the scythe of death, and dispersed into the darkness. This took the pressure off Mortarion, but the damage still piled up.
The sickle blade followed the sharp arc of the long knife and went down at a very fast speed. When it was about to reach the sword grid, it suddenly spun and penetrated the body of the sorcery overlord from the chest. Gray-white rotten blood splashed across a wide area. It shot out, spreading a full moon-like half arc to the rear.
Nacre took a step back, and the penetrated part was quickly repaired temporarily. The thick shadow of darkness filled the chaotic energy flow in the empty shell-like body.
Mortarion breathed with difficulty, the blood of the original body continued to flow out, flowing into the dark stone slab, winding into cruel patterns. Almost all of his armor fell off, and there was also very little physical strength left, as if the source of his life was gradually being lost, being watched and sought by ancient beings peering through the cracks in the shadows.
Both have reached their end, and whoever can swing the blade one last time will get the other's head.
“Stupid moth,” Nacre snorted coldly. This seemed to be no longer just the voice of the witchcraft overlord. "Do you want to defeat death?"
The sorcerer overlord raised his hand and typed a series of extremely blasphemous runes. Just watching it once made Mortarion feel sick. He struggled to lift the scythe, hoping that he could bury the scythe's blade into the evil skull before Nakre completed his spell.
He didn't have time to finish. Nacre completed the last spell, with both gestures and spells ready. He burst out with an arrogant laugh, knowing that he had a chance to win.
But nothing happened. No evil energy descended, and there was no further surge of darkness. The call for ancient power that Nacre believed in was like the ravings of a madman, and failed to receive any response from any force.
Nothing.
Nacre only had time to show his shock for a moment. His head had been cut off by the blade of the sickle of death, and he fell into the darkness, rolling like bones. And his body immediately collapsed, half turning into a pile of festering carrion, and the other half turning into flying residual feathers and dirty phosphorus powder, turning into dust amidst the lingering sounds of miserable screams.
Mortarion kept swinging his sword until the rich darkness gradually dissipated, and the deadly poisonous fog returned to a tolerable normal concentration after the death of the sorcery overlord. He saw again - no, he saw for the first time, the blue and clear sky above the mountain top.
He took a deep breath, letting the clean air roll through his riddled lungs, and then put away the scythe.
Killing the Overlord is the end of revenge, the end of Mortarion's resentment, but it is not the end that Barbarus needs.
Mortarion stepped over the remaining dead bodies of Naklay, entered the dark fortress, walked through the garden, passed through the corridor, walked through the foyer, and was in the maze, calculating the correct direction to find the highest point in the complex fortress structure. A bell tower, climbing up the winding stairs step by step, carrying the sickle on the bleeding back, grabbing the long ladder to climb up, and smashing open the solid attic baffle with bare hands.
The top of the clock tower at the top of Barbarus' world opened to him.
Mortarion stared at the ancient, abandoned clock, thinking blankly about the thousands of situations he had encountered along the way.
The young man who escaped from the dark mountains full of hatred, the hunter who howled in despair when the village was burned, the confused wanderer walking in the wilderness, the guardian under the windmill of Heller Pass.
The first time the bell was rung four times, the sound echoed from the mountains to the wilderness.
A rebel who wanders among tribes and clans, a warrior who kills sub-overlords, a builder of safe havens, and the leader of warriors who shares poisoned wine with his companions.
The second set of four bells rang through the poisonous fog and reached the villages and passes, causing farmers during the harvest season to straighten up and look up into the sky.
The herbalist who counteracts the poisonous fog with chemicals, the leader of the Liberation Front in the south of Barbarus, the one who brings the wise hermit for help, the reaper who wields the scythe of death against the last witchcraft overlord.
The third group of four bells rang across the mountains and the wall, and the eagerly awaited Death Guards felt something and smiled.
Mortarion supported the stone pillars of the bell tower, overlooking the vast misty white plains of Barbarus. This plain is deposited with the bones of countless mortals, with countless tragic souls floating around, and with persevering people growing up from generation to generation.
Their skin is rough, their palms are chapped, their fingernails are filled with mud, and their clothes are stained with dust. They survive in hardships, work diligently and unyieldingly, sit around the bonfire in the square in the center of the village, drink home-brewed grain wine, and live in rough surroundings. Night after night was spent in the singing, with a slight light shining in the eyes.
At the end of the mud and darkness, Mortarion watched over his Barbarus, looking forward to a good harvest season in the coming year.
Finally, a guard in a wheat field.
The thirteenth bell rang, Mortarion breathed weakly, put down his scythe, pressed his back against the surface of the stone pillar, slowly slid to the ground, and closed his eyes.
A broad palm pressed on the back of his hand, grabbed his trembling hand, and gently picked him up. Through the cold armor, Mortarion felt a certain clear warmth, soothing his tired spirit and letting him slip into a long-lost sleep.
After that, all there is is silence.
(End of this chapter)