Chapter 284 "Dragon."

Former Storm Seer Denison Mede had just celebrated his fifty-eighth birthday in Temple City.

Four hundred and seventy years had passed since their ancestors' colony fleets had burst out of the Warp Trek and crash-landed on the world they called Dalchana.

Now old enough to be called an old man, he sat up from the sofa that had served as his bed since his son Reval was born, trying to blink away tears from his sore eyes, and the accumulated sand in his joints made him feel like the joints of his bones were being cut by millions of tiny razors when he tried to stand up.

People who live on this planet with endless sand that can get into any place except for the tiny sand that can get into a person's body will eventually become like this, including but not limited to infections caused by skin being worn away, acid eyes that make eyes dry and tearful, corneas worn away, hearing problems caused by accumulation in the ear canals, black lung disease caused by dust being inhaled into the lungs and eventually turning them black, and joint problems.

In short, he had every reason to complain, but he didn't. He just gritted his sour back teeth and tried to stand up.

Just like the colonists who lived in the southern part of Temple City before him, their residences were made of the few military landing vehicles and retired military ships from the beginning, the strongest houses besides the Regent's residence.

Therefore, the people who live here also have to bear corresponding responsibilities. After Reval inherited his job as a storm fortune teller, Denison picked up the old and worn laser gun and went out or shot looters in the city with other volunteer watchmen when every difficult gray winter came.

He heard someone knocking hard on the artillery flank armor plate that served as his home for centuries, and a voice sounded at the same time. He recognized it as the voice of Rom Chaizeko, the watchman responsible for patrolling from South 43rd Street to No. 55 at the end of the southern block.

"What's going on? Rom?"

"Get up! You old man whose ears are not working well," the watcher said, with a rare urgency in his voice, carrying his equally old laser gun, "Didn't you hear the alarm? Come with me to the shelter."

Denison saw through the crack in the door that residents from the gray bunkers and armored plates were constantly pouring into the muddy and narrow streets, and people were hurriedly walking towards the shelter.

The old man smiled, revealing his blackened and shrunken gums, and shook his head. "This year's gray winter will indeed come early, but not this early, Rom, are you mistaken? Reval told me that there are at least a few weeks or even a month left, and wandering looters won't show up so early."

"It's not the gray winter! It's something else! You old man! There must be some big shot coming from outside... Hey! I just received an order for everyone to gather in the shelter temporarily, and I don't know how to tell you, come and see the sky!"

"Who?" The old man's shocked expression contrasted with the other party's panic, "Who would know we are here? Who would land here to see us?"

"How should I know? You'd better hurry up!"

After saying this, Rom ran with the crowd. Denison saw him holding a child with his cloth-wrapped hands and running towards the shelter with him.

Denison leaned against his door for a moment, thinking, then went inside to wrap himself up, coming out with his laser gun in hand, and slowly moved on his aching legs in the opposite direction of the crowd, toward the residence of the Grand Regent.

The roar of the beast came suddenly and threateningly from the gray dust storm sky.

People screamed and huddled in the streets, thin parents used their bodies to cover their even thinner children.

"Dragon," someone whispered fearfully.

But Denison was different, he was a technician, or in the ancient centuries, they called him the Master of the Auspicious, his ancestors had served on the bridge deck of the glorious pilgrim ship, he knew more about the winged, fire-breathing, beast-like roaring thing in the sky than most of the residents here.

It was not a roar, it was the sound of a powerful engine.

It wasn't a dragon either, it was a flying machine, a gunboat, a real flying vehicle that could withstand the sandstorms that had prevented their fragile civilian aircraft from flying over Dalchana for centuries.

The gunboat seemed to glance at the crowd on the ground, or something like that, then pulled up its head and flew towards the upper atmosphere.

The old man clenched his polished old gun, endured the severe pain from his legs and knuckles, and ran.

If there were any superiors here who needed Denison Mead to fulfill his duty as a watcher, then he would damn well do it instead of running and hiding.

——————

"Now." After not being particularly surprised but still disappointed to find that there was really no non-human product to cover up from these night lords, Ramizane slowly exhaled a long breath, and then condescended to board the Prophet's personal Thunderhawk "Dark's End" surrounded by members of the warband led by Talos.

The pilot who greeted them outside the cockpit made his eyes light up.

"Thank God there is finally someone here wearing decent clothes!" (*Our Primarch's body is the most perfect thing in the world, why do you care so much about the secular perspective? There is nothing wrong with being covered in flesh and blood.)

Septimus knew at the first sight of the god-like arrival that his fate would not be decided by him, let alone by his master, because it was the first time that a slave pilot who had served his master for many years saw these things. The demon demigods are so eager to please a certain being, they are like a group of small beasts surrounding the master's feet, but there is no chirping - the Night Lords even attack quietly, with almost no war cry.

But what he didn't expect was that the other party had no interest in "skinning half of his skin alive first and flexing his fingers" or "opening his brains first and listening to the screams". Instead, he only looked at him and asked him to hand over his body. So clothes other than underwear.

so now--

The ash-blond slave held his arms, wearing only gloves, underwear, socks and shoes, standing in the corner shivering from the cold.

The adults of the Eighth Legion, who had watched in stunned silence as they had successfully defeated their other brothers and boarded the Thunder Eagle, were fist-bumping each other - because the tallest, skeletal Death-like adult had asked them to do so.

"Uh, why are you still fighting for seats? Didn't there be a battleship on the track? You are so old... You want a duel, right? If you want to duel, just fight hand to hand, don't cause additional casualties, this place is in short supply of medical care. .”（*……）

And when that adult said these words, his master Talos lowered his noble head in shame. (*Soul Hunter... is a more suitable title for my son. Pharmacist is not his strong point.)

"My lord...!"

Septimus heard his master looking at the giant, speaking the ancient honorific with complex and rich emotions, and the dead language being recited from his throat like poetry.

His masters'... masters? But that's not... that's not already... The slave blinked his only remaining eye in silence and shock, and the other half of the biochemical prosthetic eye circle shrank slightly.

"Please allow me to serve you first..."

Then he saw the adult shaking his head, picking up the clothes he had just taken off, shaking them, glancing at the dirt that made him pick his toes in embarrassment, and then tore off a few strips of cloth from them, first He tied up his long black hair and rolled it back, completely revealing his skeleton-like skinny and pale face in the dark cabin.

Septimus thought he would be frightened.

But he didn't.

What he saw was the skull face of a helpless but gentle god. The pale skin was painted with an alabaster color. Inlaid on it was a pair of extremely deep black eyes, as black as a starless night, but What he saw was - he didn't know how to describe it, but Septimus' human intuition immediately understood one thing:

Something big is about to change.

For a moment the slave thought of many things and one person.

The mark of the Eighth Legion on his body felt a burning itch.

May that change be for good.

The next moment, noisy and shrill alarm signals came from everyone's communicators.