RWBY 40k – Salem, Mistress of Inquisition.
Ep 33: The Night Haunter.
On a black and gloomy planet. A huge meteor crossed the sky. No one knew where it came from but what is certain. This meteorite shattered and crossed the vast landscape of this deadly planet. The meteorite then crossed the Geosphere before finally crashing near the core of this planet.
Despite this immense cataclysm which had struck this immense planet.
Something came out of this iron meteorite in the shape of a cylinder whose number was marked VIII.
He was a young child covered in dust and ash on his pale skin.
For the first time in his life, he saw the black sky of this planet bearing the sinister name of Nostramo.
He could see from everywhere the gigantic planetary city covered with foundries, where millions of workers worked hard.
Sensing danger, he took a long shard of jagged metal stuck into the ground before going into the huge city, hiding like a shadow.
He could see crime flourishing, the poor living in utter misery.
The few guards who roamed the streets brutally punished those who broke the planet's laws, of which the child Primarch was unaware.
But the child eventually saw that the guards were personally looking for him, because apparently witnesses had seen him coming out of his capsule and told them everything.
He tried to hide but was pursued.
Guard 1: "Hey! Where did he go?!"
Guard 2: "He can't be far away, search the alleys!"
The guards split up and only one was left in the alley where the child Primarch was.
Guard (wanting to be reassuring): "Where are you? Know that I don't want to hurt you. Come out of your hiding place..."
But suddenly, the Primarch came out of his hiding place, gutted him before attacking him while he screamed in agony.
He cut off all his fingers, from his hands to his feet, scratching his face to the bone.
When he stopped to look at his victim, the Primarch smiled sadistically for the first time. This feeling was good, very good even.
He left before the troop of guards arrived to see the death of his comrade.
During the years that followed, the Primarch grew into an adult and then into something more, a being transcending Humanity.
The Primarch fed on rats, then dogs, and finally the corpses of victims of the Nostramo underworld.
Over time, he fought against the criminals, executing them with cruelty.
The biggest thugs disappeared before their bodies were found, skinned and emptied of flesh. Corrupt officials were hung upside down from the windows of their homes.
The Primarch had created his own laws in his mind and made those who broke them pay with their lives.
Little by little, the people of Nostramo wrote about him. Speaking of him as a specter of death that haunts the dark streets. They gave him a name: The Night Haunter.
One day in particular, his legend would take on a new dimension.
In a cathedral dedicated to a false god, a self-proclaimed queen-priestess executed a large crowd of Nostramo nobles.
She stole absolutely everything, their money, their freedom, their blood and even their children. To serve a dubious honor to benefit from the protection of this queen priestess that all the other kings and queens of the streets did the same.
The Primarch was watching this from a nearby building.
Night Haunter: "What a bunch of cowards... They'd follow anyone for nothing. I think it's time they saw a first draft of my order."
He jumped onto the roof of the cathedral, he could hear the muffled sounds of the sacrifices and the sacraments made by the Queen-Priestess.
He carefully cut out a stained-glass window, placed it on the roof before finally sliding onto the ceiling using his metal claws.
After observing the crowd for a moment, he saw the Queen-Priestess, dressed in rich clothes, with a sadistic and crazy look.
Night Haunter: "The world will be better off without you..."
He let himself fall and fell before the Priestess and the rest of the horrified crowd.
Before she could react, he cut open her stomach before crushing her heart with his fingers.
The panicked population recoiled from him.
Man: "It's the Night Haunter!"
Woman: "The shadow demon!"
The Primarch turned to them, seeing in their eyes the fear and hatred they felt against him. Just like the nobles of this planet.
He turned and fled the cathedral with a sinister laugh.
In the years that followed. His philosophy was clear, fear could prevent crime and debauchery. It simply had to be exploited, developed and made an essential part of the lives of these poor people.
He had seen time and time again since his youth that it was impossible for them to trust them to comply with the most basic ideals of nature itself.
Civilization and culture had no importance for him. Only that the violence that Nostramo's humans inflicted on each other was on a primitive level and contrary to the natural laws of animal society, intelligent or not. A divided society will never be able to rise, succeed or progress. They lacked even the unity necessary to thrive in the universal hatred of a common enemy.
No motivation for progress, nor for progress, only the selfish need to rob and murder each other.
The Night Haunter preyed on anyone who went against his laws, including family members.
One day, his target was an old man who extracted money and blood from the people.
The old man was horrified to see him, his pale complexion, his gigantic size, his long black hair.
Man: "No! Please don't kill me!"
The Night Haunter was extremely annoyed by this man's behavior. Like all the others before him, they implored his grace when they already saw them as dead.
Night Haunter: "You are already dead in my eyes. You are just a leech who sucks the blood of others."
Man: "Do I really have any other choice? I have a wife and a daughter! I have to feed them! Why don't you understand that?!"
Night Haunter: "You won't have to worry about them anymore."
Man: "What?"
Night Haunter: "Look at the building next door."
The man looked up towards the building pointed by the Night Haunter, he saw a vision of horror. This man's old wife was murdered, all skin removed except the face, the girl was next, flayed and gutted. Both were crucified on the roof of this building.
Man: "No... No... Not them..."
Night Haunter: "Die!"
He slammed his claws down on the man, ending his existence.
Later, the old man was found crucified on the facade of a tower, his eye socketBy dint of applying his terrible justice.
People increasingly holed up in their homes and rarely came out after dark and when the smelters closed. The blows, the cries of agony, the cries of raped women and the moans of the dying no longer resonated. A dead silence reigning in the city.
The crimes were better hidden, but the corruption remained there. Fear was everywhere, a fear so hard-earned by the Primarch.
The lords were trying to track down the Night Haunter with their followers. But the mercenaries, even generously paid, increasingly refused to dare to confront him. The men and women who wanted to see his death were too cowardly to take to the streets and dare confront him.
The Night Haunter, seeing all his work, decided that it was time that his dawn had come.
One day, the last nobles of Nostramo met the Primarch on a minister's throne.
The vision provided by these ministers made them feel an animal fear.
Noble 1: "What is the objective of this alliance...?"
Night Haunter: "See how the city is so calm since I took justice. But that's not enough... Civilization must return to this world. Fear must be master, because peace is much better than freedom."
A noble stood up, clearly irritated.
Noble 2: "Enough is enough!"
Night Haunter: "Hm?"
Noble 2: "It's not civilization. It's pure terror! You punish different crimes with the same atrocious sentence. You forget the context of everything. I see a bleak and silent city, fearing that a wrong word was a death sentence!"
While the nobles tried to silence him from his words with outraged reactions.
The Night Haunter saw in this nobleman the potential to bring civilization back to Nostramo.
Night Haunter: "Tell me, what is your name?"
Noble 2: "Bal... Balthius."
Night Haunter: "Unlike the others. You seem more virtuous than the others. I thought that would never have been possible."
Balthius: "But who are you in the end? I don't understand."
Night Haunter: "I must act as an emissary of civilization. The sins of Nostramo sicken me to the core. So, listen to my deal... This peace that I have imposed, I will use for progress. But so that it can expand. You must make me your king."
Noble 3: "You...are you sure?"
Night Haunter: "You will be associated with my reign for this progress. So, what do you say?"
The nobles looked at each other before finally bowing to him.
Thus, the Night Haunter turned Dark King of Nostramo began to reign. He no longer hunted during this period; time had eroded this desire. Nostramo Quintus began to become a silent Hive Planet, illuminated by progress and by the material illumination of street lamps, lighthouses and other beacons. The planet during this period knew no crime. The Night Haunter ruled with fairness and unrivalled judgment were hollowed out.
But when a crime was committed, the Night Haunter hunted down the culprit. Then when he found it, he mutilated it. He broadcast the mutilations on the available screens of each household which transmitted the screams of the victims through the planetary communication network.
The people of Nostramo knew that the Night Haunter never hesitated to take to the streets for the slightest of provocations.
Paradoxically, exports of adamantium to nearby planets reached an unprecedented level with profits.
Its smelters and forges burned hotter than ever, while its refineries and processing plants grew ever larger and its mines plunged ever deeper into the depths of the planet's precious crust. Every evening, at curfew time, the city fell asleep in absolute serenity and at dawn, the workers went out into the thin light of the dying sun, to go and repeat the immutable cycle of labor.
But all was not going well for the Night Haunter himself.
Indeed, he had discovered that his senses were more than human had been sharpened to an unimaginable degree.
He was aware of maturing towards something he was destined to become.
First, he began to guess the words of his interlocutors before they opened their mouths. Then he began to dream of what would happen the next day.
Finally, visions of the future began to overlap with images of what was happening before his eyes.
For example, when one of his subordinates was talking to him. At the end he heard his last words that he would say when he died of a heart attack, nine years later.
Night Haunter could see the wrinkled and scarred faces on the faces of the governors who did not yet have these features.
But a dream began to return, it came back more and more often.
He saw a woman with golden hair and deep blue eyes. Talk to him with love and understanding. Something he had never known and felt.
But another dream, much more sinister, also manifested itself. A dream with a galaxy in flames and whose weeping golden-haired woman cried over the bodies of people he had never seen and yet felt a familiarity.
One day, a huge armada arrived on the planet, illuminating it with a thousand lights.
All of Nostramo wept in front of these stars lit by the reactors of their gigantic spaceships. Men, women and children gathered in the streets could not hold back their tears.
A gigantic parade passed slowly. The foreigners advanced in phalanxes. In successive formations, each wearing armor in their colours, black, bronze, royal purple and earthy gray.
But in front, pranced a woman of sumptuous beauty. Possessing golden hair and lapis eyes.
Silent with respectful terror, the millions of inhabitants of Nostramo Quintus admired the invasion of these soldiers from distant worlds.
In the heart of the city, the Night Haunter awaited them.
He could see the woman of his dreams, accompanied by four giants taller than her.
The first is dressed in ornate gold with white hair.
Rogal Dorn: "Hello Night Haunter... Or should I say, brother."
The other Primarch said nothing. But he saw in spirit fighting against monstrous warriors, all under a cataclysmic storm.
The second giant wore deep black riveted armor. He had arms with silver colour, but as finely drawn and loose as limbs of living flesh.
Ferrus Manus: "I am Ferrus Manus. Primarch of the Iron Hands."
The Primarch of Nostramo saw him as a battered warrior with one arm missing and one eye missing.
The third is dressed in purple armor, the color of a sunset on a world unknown to humans. He too had white hair, like the first, but long and elegant, where his companions were short, cut pragmatically. He was the only one to smile at him and look him in the eyes with cordiality.
Fulgrim: "My name is Fulgrim and this girl is my daughter. Edelgard."
He saw the girl in question, dressed in purple armor, her white hair tied in a braid. She is much smaller but having a great beauty coupled with a closed face.
He saw in them, the giant in purple armor was injured and in some sort of chamber, surrounded by machines. While the girl wore royal clothes, accompanied by a young child with long hair as white as snow.
The fourth wore gray armor engraved with a thousand words and maxims whose lines wound into arabesques. This gave the impression of being in front of the work of a scholar who had chosen to practice his pen on an immense stone. He too bowed his head, which he had shaved and tattooed with writing, like his armor, but whose letters were gold on his browned skin.
Lorgar Aurelian: "My name is Lorgar Aurelian. Nice to meet you Night Haunter."
But the Night Haunter saw him, with a monstrous form with a supernatural aura. His face was that of a monster.
The Night Haunter began to be terrified.
?: "Is everything alright?"
He turned to the source of the voice. It was the woman with golden hair, dressed in a large uniform with a double-headed eagle symbol. Staring at him with a worried, motherly expression. But all the Night Haunter saw was the woman dressed in a large cape covering her entire body except her face. Her face was full of melancholy and rage. But above all, her hair was now white, her skin was pale as a corpse, surrounded by red and black veins, her eyes had irises of blood. She had in her hand a scepter with an eagle where the underside of her paws was in red and black flames that burned intensely.
He trembled with terror at the sight. But the golden-haired woman took his hand.
Golden-Haired Woman: "What's the matter, do you remember me? My name is Salem. And your name is...?"
He doesn't answer, not knowing what to say.
Salem: "I'll give you a name then. Konrad Curze will suit you."
Night Haunter/Konrad Curze: "What?"
Salem: "Yes. You are my child and I can see that this world has really hurt you. All because of the Chaos Gods. But now I will make up for lost time."
He accompanied them to his palace. As Salem recounted what happened. He resented this Salem calling herself his mother. She gave him a name that did not suit him.
Salem: "...In this way, I could improve your planet. But I wish you to join the Great Crusade. I am ready to make up for lost time with you as well as with your father the Emperor. The VIIIth Legion will join you. Are you okay?"
The proposal for the Primarch was intriguing, it seemed like he had a lot more power in his hands than he realizes.
Night Haunter/Konrad Curze: "Maybe. Anyway, I already know what you're planning in the future."
Salem was a little surprised by this kind of comment but preferred to smile delightedly.
Salem: "Trust me. You won't be disappointed."
To be continued... Xenocide of the Psybrids.
The Sub-fleet of the XIIth Legion, under the command of Praetor Erad Krüg, which was fighting the Orks of the Glortian Empire, was suddenly attacked by familiar Xenos. Roboute Guilliman seeing that the Xenos are the same as those of the Osiris Rebellion, ordered them to stand against the Psybrids. Kariady went ahead of him to bring the revenge she had promised her grandmother.