The atmosphere at night was very eerie.
Yarrick stood on the east wall of the fortress, staring at the jungle.
He had been standing there for half an hour, trying to figure out what was bothering him.
The darkness not only covered the ground, but also the sky was pitch black, as if all the stars had died.
When he realized that someone was vaguely visible to his right, he turned around and saw a tall figure striding towards him.
It was an Astartes wearing Terminator armor.
When he walked, the entire wall seemed to tremble. If a warrior's requirements are strength and reason, then he has both.
Alex felt more and more that this night was unusual.
"Commissar Yarrick."
Sosh Yang greeted him.
"Good evening, my lord."
He originally wanted to talk to Yaric about the handling of some post-war issues and some of his personal arrangements for Yaric - to try his best to let him leave the battlefield at the end of the war.
But after walking to the other party, he felt a thin energy surrounding the young political commissar.
Soshyan immediately judged that the other party must have experienced some psychic phenomena - this was not a good sign.
Many soldiers infected with the aura of Chaos will experience psychic visions before going crazy, such as visions or auditory hallucinations, and most of the time mortal will cannot resist these visions.
"What are you looking at? Can you tell me something?"
Alex chose his responses carefully, doing so out of responsibility rather than avoidance.
He would neither hide nor equivocate from the great warrior who had saved him—he was struggling with a frustrating ambiguity.
"I am not sure."
He struggled to formulate appropriate language.
"There's a smell in the air that I can't identify."
"We're on a wet planet, and given the richness of life, some mix of smells and flavors is not surprising, even for us."
"Are you going through the same thing, Chapter Master Soshiyang?"
"My perception is different from most people's."
Sosh Yang said it without hesitation, as if it was a common thing.
Alex hesitated for a moment, then settled on an explanation that was not easy for him to accept.
"The air smells of blood."
"Of course, we've all witnessed the cruelty of this planet."
"But there's something underneath the smell of blood that I've never encountered before."
Sosh Yang was silent for a while. Then he said:
"Describe it"
"I hope that I can."
Alex closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the stench of the night.
"The smell means nothing."
He then stopped again.
What am I saying, that's wrong.
Yarrick had doubts about his senses in his heart. Since leaving the battlefield, he seemed to have become a little suspicious, which was not a good sign.
What's below? Apart from blood, but related to it, it does have a taste, it tastes...
Suddenly, he broke through his sensory disguise and fell into an abyss of impossibility.
"It tastes like shadow."
Yarrick gasped, shadows filling his throat.
He tried to expel them by coughing, he couldn't shake the thought.
"How are you?"
Yarrick could barely hear him.
"I feel the smell of death."
He didn't know if he said it loudly.
Shadows and whispers permeate the world, they exist in a fragrant hell, and something is struggling in the smoke clinging to the shadows, and it is impossible to see what shapes them or their shape.
Because Yarrick didn't actually hear the whispers and couldn't understand them.
He was aware only of the outlines of the language, and of its venom and stench—a stench that no rational mind could comprehend.
It lingered outside his awareness.
There is a shape that sounds like the laughter of prey and the scream of a planet.
When his knees started to buckle, Soshyan caught his arms.
A strange buzzing sound surrounded him, which seemed to come from his own body - and the sound kept repeating something.
After a moment, Yarrick realized that it was his own name.
When he realized that he seemed to be a little abnormal, the fanaticism and fearlessness on the battlefield returned to his body like a ray of sunshine.
Reality became reliable again, and his senses corrected themselves, allowing him to straighten his back.
"I don't know what happened-"
Alec muttered.
"I'm not a psyker"
Soshyan stared at him with a scrutinizing gaze. After a long time, until Yarick's neck felt a little hairy, he spoke:
"Think clearly about where we are now, Commissar. The barrier between reality and subspace is very thin here. We cannot be surprised by the impact of subspace invasion, but it would be a shame if we gave in."
"I will not give in! But this is not just a hallucination, a whisper..."
Soshyan interrupted him immediately.
"There were no whispers, I didn't hear anything... Yaric, you have withstood the test on the battlefield. I believe that your loyalty to the Emperor and the Empire is extremely firm. From the time I met you, all mortals have There are signs of wavering, except for you, and I believe that’s a revelation.”
I am really not as great as you think, Mr. Chapter Master.
Alex sighed secretly in his heart.
But then he threw those thoughts away.
Soshyan was right, he reacted like one of those who wavers, but he knew full well that he would not waver.
Perhaps to be more precise, this should be uneasiness or some kind of premonition?
Not a single whisper.
Yarrick lowered his head, and there was no shadow under his tongue. The most important thing was that nothing evil happened here.
"Perhaps you are nervous about the Inquisitor's presence."
Soshiyang suddenly changed the subject.
"But I'll make sure you're okay."
Alex raised his head, and he heard something else from these words.
In fact, as a political commissar, he is not completely unaware of the current situation. After encountering such horror, how good can their outcome be?
It's just that Alex doesn't want to think about these things.
"grown ups--"
As soon as he said two words, someone suddenly started screaming.
"What----"
For a while, Private Arthur thought the scream was his own.
His mouth was still open, his hands were pressed to his ears, and his eyes were closed in the darkness.
But he could still feel the rustle of a million insects, could feel the filth and words molded by the breath on his lips—and of course there would be a scream.
But upon closer inspection, the voice was not his.
His throat was tightly locked with an almost invisible fear.
Arthur felt eyes wandering over him, and it was nothing more than a thought, and maybe that was all.
But an idea could be very dangerous, and it was thoughts and other things that kept him immobilized.
The thought sliced through his flesh like claws, making him feel cold inside.
It wasn't his idea, or anyone's idea, but it came from something that knew exactly the shapes, details, and smells of desire and fear in the hearts of men and women.
It knows them so well, as if it was born out of these things.
Arthur immediately gasped out of his tight throat and let out a small, high-pitched whimper.
Something lingered in his mind for a while and then disappeared.
He didn't know where it had gone, except that it no longer tempted him to open his eyes and let madness take hold of him.
But there are still people looking around, because there are still people screaming, there are people seeing things that are not there - as a concept, that is enough.
Arthur strained his ears and listened carefully.
The voice was male, sounding more like an animal than a human, and the man kept screaming without pausing to take a breath.
Then, Arthur heard running footsteps.
