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Chapter 57 Escape, Panic, and Paris
"My lord."
The Eighth Dalian team arrived at the Warriors' Monument as quickly as possible.
They saw their genetic father, Hector, naked, holding a chainsaw axe that looked like a toy compared to his size, standing quietly in the center of the hall.
The cries of the offspring awakened Hector, who looked around at his offspring with their heads smashed and their mangled bodies mercilessly cut apart by the chainsaw axe.
A sense of bewilderment washed over him as he walked toward the steps where the dead were laid to rest, under the watchful eyes of the Eighth Dalian Astartes.
Hector threw down his chainsaw axe and slumped down on the steps.
He was surrounded by at least forty Astartes corpses, some headless, others torn apart by chainsaw axes.
The Dawn Messengers of the Eighth Dalian observed the orientation of the bodies when they died and came to a terrifying conclusion.
Everyone was charging toward the position where the Primarch was standing.
An Astartes, as if possessed, removed the helmet from a corpse whose face was covered with a thin layer of frost.
His face was contorted, suffocating, and ferocious.
This expression is unusual; it looks as if his soul is engaged in a brutal struggle and battle with an unknown creature.
"Betrayal," the Astartes murmured, not with anger, but with a sense of absurdity.
After this brief absurdity came unparalleled rage and shame.
He raised his foot, wanting to crush the traitor's head; they were no longer brothers.
But this action was noticed by Hector, who was looking dejected on the steps.
"Stop." Hector's voice was very soft, but the power contained within it was enough to make the soldier of the Eighth Company stop in his tracks.
"Holmes," Hector then called out Holmes's name.
Amidst the bewildered gazes of the warriors, Holmes emerged from the shadows in the corner.
His appearance was disheveled, completely devoid of the dignity and composure he once possessed as the commander of the First Company.
"You ran pretty fast." Hector wanted to make a joke, but the bitter taste of killing his own offspring was too much for his heart to bear.
Even the jokes he uttered carried a sense of dejection and weariness.
"Astartes never runs away."
"But at this point, we must run, my lord." Holmes, however, was unconcerned, an attitude that infuriated the soldiers of the Eighth Company.
The father of genetics was bleeding and wounded, while Holmes, the second-in-command of the Second Army, a senior commander, and the company commander of the First Company, fled in fear.
"coward."
It started with the voice of a soldier.
"coward!"
"coward!"
The idea quickly gained traction, with other soldiers in the Eighth Company echoing their brothers' sentiments.
Hector sighed, turned to Holmes, and gestured for him to handle the situation himself.
Holmes did not refute this point. He appeared nonchalant as he walked back to his hiding corner and dragged out Onosque and several other Night Guards who were still alive.
"You will learn about this matter later. For now, you need to remain quiet and take our brother to the apothecary."
"That's an order."
The noise stopped instantly, and several Astartes stepped forward, looking at Holmes with displeasure before faithfully carrying out his orders.
Sensing that the surroundings had finally quieted down, Hector closed his eyes slightly to relieve his fatigue.
This silence lasted until the soldiers of the Fifth Company arrived at the Monument to the Warriors.
They saw the soldiers of the Eighth Company standing too straight and rigidly, and watched them huddled around Hector, who seemed to be asleep from exhaustion.
One body after another was carried out of the room.
"You're too late," a company commander complained as he passed by, his voice tinged with barely concealed panic.
"That was to clean up the mess you left behind," Singh retorted, oblivious to the underlying meaning.
"Don't tell me you've forgotten what you did, Ahoka."
"So, you put the lives of those inferiors before the Primarch." Ahoka's scarred and deep-set face beneath his helmet tightened, as if he had found an outlet for his anger, and he said in a cold and sarcastic voice.
"Don't try to pin this on me. It is you who are disregarding the lives of mortals, forgetting the teachings of the Primarch, and your brutal and disorderly behavior is tarnishing the Legion's reputation!"
"How will they view the Legion!" Singh growled in a low voice.
Ahoka's words clearly stung Singh. Most of the soldiers in the 18th Company behind him had dissatisfaction in their eyes, and clearly agreed with Ahoka's point of view.
"Who cares what they think of the Legion!" Ahoka stood firm, his eyes burning with the same rage.
It wasn't entirely because of the late arrival of Singh's troops, but also because of the fear and anxiety surrounding those traitorous soldiers.
How would the original society view their descendants?
traitor?
An untrustworthy person?
Under these circumstances, Singh's forces actually slowed down their rescue of the Primarch for the sake of the mortals.
As Ahoka thought of this, the inexplicable fear in his heart was amplified infinitely.
"I'm stopping you from making a terrible mistake!" Singh suppressed the urge to roar out and answered sharply.
"What terrible mistake could there be! What mistake could possibly be greater than losing the Primarch!"
"Do you want the army to hear rumors that the Astartes are nothing but cold-blooded murderers? How will the mortals of the Legion view us? How will they view our Lord?!"
The argument between the two almost escalated from a verbal dispute into a physical fight.
Their voices, fueled by emotions as intense as boiling oil, grew louder and louder, no longer restrained by reason.
It was so large that Hector, who was resting, opened his eyes.
For a brief moment, vertical pupils, sharp and piercing like those of a feline, appeared in those brown eyes.
"A full fifteen people! Fifteen people lost their lives because of your reckless actions! At least thirty or forty others were seriously injured, and hundreds more were affected."
"Do you know what a serious blow this is to morale!"
Without hesitation, Ahoka's head nearly collided with Singh's: "Even if they all die, it's a necessary sacrifice!"
"You bastard!"
"...Go away."
Just as the two were at their breaking point, someone who seemed impossible appeared in the monument to the warriors.
Hector coldly watched his quarreling offspring, preparing to see how they would end things, when his gaze caught sight of a very familiar figure obscured by his two unfilial sons.
The tall figure was not wearing power armor; his upper body was bare, and his lower body was wearing a pair of athletic pants that fit the size of an Astartes.
He clutched a white robe in Trojan style tightly in his hand.
The moment Hector caught a glimpse of a face through the blur, he instantly sat up and cried out the person's name in disbelief:
"Paris!"