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 moment he had no energy left to appease any panicked souls.

The excessive cheers, hatred and panic mixed in the venue washed his heart and impacted his spirit together with the heavy rain. 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 up, 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 He will return his suffering to the slave owner through harsh treatment and deprivation, and the matter is still under investigation.”

Angron let go of his hand, letting the shadow of the dataslate fall from his hands. The light dissipated in the rain before hitting the ground.

What was he doing when he received the document?

"There is no rush to build this wall," he said at that time, spreading the map flat on the long table. The several red marks were the target points that the Nucerian army would divide and defeat next. "Let's first Keep the liberation going.”

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 pale cracks on the outside of the rock. The blood stains left by the heavy rain came from these cracks. "We have more than two thousand people. Do you recognize all of them? It's amazing. I memorized them all night, but I didn't remember all their names, and the tempers of these soldiers."

"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. I can still read! This is enough effort. . So, I want to retire from this position as adjutant and let me go to Fei Danmore Mountain, where I can supervise their expansion of the hospital.”

When there were only more than 2,000 people in the team, 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 apparition 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 ending his tour of Desia, his shadow in the red ink Looking at him vaguely in the heavy rain, 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 turn it from bad to good. . We can build ourselves a new fighting pit."

"Do it, child, if you all think it is okay." The Lord of Red Sand said thoughtfully, patting the pharmacist's shoulder encouragingly, and the mechanical arm was attached to his arm, conveying to him the joy of being an heir. "But no casualties."

This joy blinded him, and he ignored the truth that was close at hand, letting all the signs pass through his fingers like rain, and the smell of blood left behind was 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 couldn't wait to take him back to where it all started. 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 causing stinging pain.

Some deep 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.

There is no skin or flesh on the faces of these shadows, 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 the faceless skeletons themselves, 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 gladiatorial 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 the high-ranking rider lay there, while the gladiator holding a long ax turned towards him, the rope of triumph around his waist spinning accordingly. The contemptuous face stared at him, and its 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 committed suicide, it was this warrior who told the story of the deceased.

"Why?" Angron said, "Why restart the gladiatorial arena? You don't like my verdict on these slave owners, but why don't you tell me?"

"Why?" the gladiator asked, his voice hoarse, slow and clear, low and violent, cutting through the rumbling rain of blood, "Why did you betray us, Angron?"

His voice gradually ceased to be a human voice. Several, dozens, 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 the wild cries of table tennis and the unbearable emotional whirlpool, impacting the dam outside Angron's heart, and pouring into Angrun from the surrounding world. 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'm going to 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 wails of ghosts are everywhere, like the overlapping of thousands of sounds, or like the words of the same person. From the words of these souls, Angron finally understood a truth that shocked him.

They come from high mountains.

The lonely souls of Nuceria who fled from the gladiatorial arena to the mountains for thousands of years 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's ghost, and that it was on that mountain that his cooling rage 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 had dealt with the foundation of the Wall of Tears to prevent the wall from causing a vicious accident in the future. But the Tomb of Unknown Bones on Feydenmore has been forgotten.

The noisy emotions were like a furnace that had been fanned over fire, all the flames dancing in the blood rain 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 walked backwards, "I have never betrayed you."

"Our blood is cold, we are hungry, they don't give us food, those hounds eat our dead flesh and drink our dead blood that has not yet cooled down... You hound of war, your master's dog! "The ghost shattered the rain curtain with a deafening roar. This was not a sound that a mortal throat could make. Apparitions of bones and corpses fell from the stands.

Angron responded with silence.

"You are loyal to another emperor..." the ghost said, "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 A slave owner's dog! Do you know what they did?"

The bloody rain turned cold, freezing his legs and feet. It was a rage that had settled in the mountains for thousands of years, where the ether twisted and the burning air filled Angron's lungs.

The ghost pounced on Angron, the ghost of Nuceria, a huge crazy spirit of unrelieved resentment, ignored fear, ideal selfishness and unknown revenge, mixed with a fleeting blood and a quick glance at this place.

"Lead us again, Angron, lead us to kill, lead us to feed, lead us to revenge... You dog! Come back, come back to us, you are one of us..."

Reveal yourself, express yourself, abandon yourself, give yourself, free yourself, escape from the shell you were made of by the emperor, join our passion, vitality, surging blood, feed us, feed us, let us escape from the cold winter, escape from the mountains.

We need you, you roll and sink among thousands of us. Our warmth is all around us, our veins grow from your heart. Do not betray us, Angron, Lord of the Red Sand, 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, you tore her apart, like a beast tore her arm apart. Angron! You traitor! We cannot stop you, oh, another companion's death, at the cost of our lives! Save him!

No, you killed him, you are convulsing, you coward, you broke him easily, his cold soul is still hungry, listen to us! Listen to us! You killed him, he is not free, he will never be free! What are you afraid of, you shed tears, haha, his pain is in you, why are you still calm? Angron!

Ah, we cannot stop you, you are a beast, you want to run, you want to escape from us, no! No! We are so cold, we are dying, come back, come back, our blood, our brother, Angron, please! You can hear me!

You turned around, Angron, you turned to us, thank you, we are hungry.

Angron stopped in the rain, the pain and broken capillaries in his eyes blurred his vision. He stopped 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 sadness of these souls who once pursued liberation.

He saw countless emaciated dead hugged him and lay on his body.

As long as he waved his hand, these ghosts, who were not powerful even after death, would shatter into smoke that would never be liberated. They would die a second time at his hands and lead the living people who were already implicated with them to be buried in this deep pit of red sand. They were not liberated, they were never free. And the primarch could rise above the gladiatorial pit with blood and step on the bones to leave through the high platform.

"You are cold..." Angron said, with a kind of mournful calm, "and hungry."

He held out his hand, and a faceless skeletal ghost bit his finger, the cold sting piercing the bone, hot blood flowing out, a small piece of flesh torn off.

The ghost was stunned. The face full of resentment raised and looked at Angron carefully. Then he became light, and his soul lightly escaped from the hunger and torture that nurtured him.

Angron felt the wound coagulate, the muscles rewoven, he became whole again, and the ghost was freed.

"Eat." Angron sat on the ground, eyes downcast, "My blood is for the victims."