Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 13 Unfinished Work
Sunlight shines in from the hole in the sundial, leaving a dark gray dot on the marble clock face; this small dot moves with time until it crosses three engraved thin lines and slides out of the edge of the sundial, indicating that time has passed. After twelve hours of daylight, night is falling.

Morse blew a breath, clearing a little debris from the stone carving.The statue of Perseus with a broken hand and face is undergoing a grand transformation. Now its shape is not only much smaller, but it also seems to be wearing a cloth robe; The thinned ornamentation is difficult to distinguish.

An unconscious moan that came with the creature when it woke up floated up from the low place.

Perturabo staggered, grabbing the cushions and pulling himself up.

His eyes were still looking at a meaningless point, and the golden-red fire was still reflected in the ice-blue iris, burning unquenchable.

Then the boy blinked, and his consciousness returned to reality from the false space constructed by psionic energy. Because he felt uncomfortable after lying on the ground for a long time, he slipped and fell into the seat.

Morse waved his hand, causing the small stone statue carved by Perturabo to fly in front of the boy: "Your unfinished work, thank you."

Perturabo grabbed the stone statue and put it aside. Judging from his eager movements and slightly changed expression, he seemed to be very reluctant to let this thing reappear.

He turned his head and looked at Morse. His open mouth indicated that some words were brewing, but some factors prevented him from speaking. Maybe it was the conflict between him and Morse, or maybe it was his pride.

"If you go to the window, face the sun, and open your mouth, then people can know two things," Morse said.

"what?"

"First, you have something to say now." He carefully moved the chisel on the statue's hand, imagining what actions the person should use. "Second, time."

Perturabo's confusion disappeared as quickly as it came. It seemed that his thinking speed had been improved after a high-intensity teaching session.

"You are comparing my face to a sundial," said Perturabo unhappily. "The nose is the needle of the sundial, the mouth is the face of the sundial, and the teeth are the scales."

"Precision and wisdom, good boy." Morse smiled, stopped what he was doing, pushed the stone sculpture as tall as a person to the side as easily as pushing away bubbles, and talked face to face with Perturabo.

Starting from the current time, he chose to start with food: "First of all, I don't know where to have dinner."

"Ah."

Perturabo tried to act serious, but no one in this world could really discuss the merits of salty olives and fresh cherries at dinner with the same seriousness as commanding troops to confront each other, so the boy chose to change the topic abruptly. .

He raised his chin slightly: "Morse, I'm ready for tomorrow's trial."

"Oh, good luck," said Morse flatly.

This answer obviously did not satisfy Perturabo, the boy fell into his own overly deep and complicated thinking for the countless times, staring at him for a long time without speaking.Morse waited for a while, thinking that he had completed all the content of the conversation etiquette, let the stone sculpture float back in front of him, and continued to think about the picture structure of the hand.

Perturabo was inexplicably anxious: "Morse!"

"Ok?"

"You..." Perturabo took a breath, stood up from his seat, and trampled on the floor with his sandals every step of the way, even though the floor would not suffer any damage.

He walked to Morse's side and appeared within Morse's sight. "I debated with them before."

Morse admitted he was amused, and he replied in a statement tone: "Oh, I know."

"I refuted them." Perturabo enunciated the words "them" and "refute" particularly clearly, and even the most hearing-impaired elderly people could hear his accented words clearly.

"Yes," said Morse.

Using his eyes as a chisel, Perturabo gave Morse a hard look and returned to his beloved chair angrily.

Ten minutes later, just as Morse was about to resume manipulating his statue with a sharp weapon, the boy suddenly opened his mouth, trying to complete his petty revenge by scaring people.

The boy said, "You see, I relied on my own thinking and logic, rather than innate knowledge that has been lost in the fog, and natural abilities that you took away. It seems that I am still not extraordinary."

Morse was not surprised that Perturabo found a breakthrough here.

To be fair, when he drew his knife and ran to kill the Arkers, Morse accepted that the child Perturabo himself had a bright spot that could not cover up the flaws - rather, the boy finally showed every mortal There should be a little bit of personal characteristics shining in their souls, and like every child of the same age, they can’t wait to show it off to adults.

"Moreover, I have learned all the forging knowledge you provided me." Perturabo said viciously, "Tomorrow I will prove myself in front of Locus."

Morse wiped the wrong scratches from the surface of the statue with a finger, and his tone was as calm as drinking water: "What do you want to say, Perturabo?"

Perturabo was stuck.

"If you don't speak up, I'll think you're just wasting your breath and talking nonsense again."

"Haven't you been able to stop your saliva-wasting sarcasm for a moment?"

"My sarcasm automatically picks up and goes to the object of the sarcasm."

Perturabo walked to the side angrily again, grabbed his half-finished small stone statue, and threw it at Morse, as if eager to try.

Morse glanced at him with a smile, and he immediately canceled the little tricks he had been doing behind the scenes, and quickly threw the stone statue back on the table, his face flushed because the sound of the stone statue colliding with the stone wall was too clear.

"I didn't..." His tongue fought fiercely with his will.

Morse shook his head, and a smaller chisel flew towards him. "Ah."

This amoral ridicule broke through Perturabo's persistence again.

"Morse!" He continued to torment the floor with his steps. "Didn't my performance exceed your expectations and break your stubbornness? Haven't my arguments refuted your slander? Don't you still Can you say that I am useless except for my talent? Just..."

He took a deep breath, worrying whether he would bring all the dust floating in the air into his lungs. "Can't you just comment on how well I did?"

"You've done a great job and played well. Perturabo, you're a good boy," Morse said.

Perturabo's face looked as if someone had poured red berry juice on it: "You, Morse, you must be... laughing at me and trying to please me! What, what did you say?"

Morse used a little psychic energy, for no reason other than to form a layer of ice to help Perturabo cool down. "Yeah, yeah, you're happy, I know."

"I am not happy."

"That's not happy." Morse waved his hand, and the frost turned into water, then evaporated and disappeared. "But I think you've finally figured it out. If you want rewards, you have to directly appeal to your mouth. You don't think naively that I have the patience to figure out your unfathomable childish psychology?"

"Morse!"

"I'm not humiliating you, I'm just saving our time." Morse said without any ups and downs. He finally chose to make a sword-holding posture for the statue, which meant that he needed to replenish some materials.

"You...you have nothing to do and are extremely free. What's the point of saving time?"

"Because I made a plan before. When you finish the trial tomorrow, I will leave." Morse said easily.

"Where to?" Perturabo blurted out.

(End of this chapter)