Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 192 Extra: Apocalypse and the Rack
——Volume 63, Chapter [-]: Regicide Chess Fragments Expand——

Malcador raised his hand, and his apartment was illuminated by bright lights.

Morse's eyes swept across Van Gogh's copy of Sunflowers, swept over the pale and mysterious smile of the woman in black, and smiled at the self-portrait of a man with one ear tightly wrapped in gauze.

On another wall hung a few tattered flags, thunder faded and thunderbolts bent.He reached out and picked up a corner of the broken lightning flag and smelled the blood stained on the edge of the flag.

"The surface of my body is free of grease and bacteria," the craftsman put down the lightning flag and turned his head. "There's no pollution - and you're hanging these things in the air, it's not really a problem to worry about."

Malcador's white hair spread in his hood.He sat on a wooden chair, slowly opened a bottle of red wine that had just been taken out of the stasis stand, held the concave groove at the bottom of the bottle and tilted the bottle, and the wine fell into the glass.

"Want a drink?" Macado asked.

Morse took the wine glass and sat down opposite Macado.The wooden chair made no sound, as if sitting on it was just a mass of light black mist.

"I don't recognize that flag," Morse said, "just like I don't exactly recognize these cards you're playing with. A variant of Tarot?"

"Before the old night, people used these cards for divination." The prime minister said, "They were just gadgets to relieve boredom."

The old man turned over the cards one by one.moon.Martyr.monster.bishop.The Dark King pinned down half of the Emperor's side.

"Their meaning is not absolute," Makado said. "The moon, for example, symbolizes rising destiny in hive cities in Western Europe, and is associated with unexpected sacrifices in Antarctica."

"Where are the martyrs?" Morse asked.

Malcador took back the card with the picture of the withered bones tied to the stake in his palm, and the card disappeared into the air.

"Necessary sacrifice." The prime minister replied, looking past the craftsman's ears and falling on the thunder flag behind him.

Morse tapped his fingers on the side of the armrest of the wooden chair and looked around at the apartment of the Imperial Prime Minister.This place doesn't look like an inhabited place, but more like a small museum.The incense blends with the floral decorations on the walls, and expensive natural wood is paved on the dark brown floor. In the center is the small square table they use now, which is so small that it can only accommodate two people sitting face to face.

"Is there that painting here?" Morse asked, "the one where a young woman is in the middle of the painting, wearing a skullcap and a long yellow skirt, holding a red, white and blue flag, leading a group of workers, citizens and children to fight. ?”

"Never heard of it." The prime minister took a sip of red wine.

"In the second millennium of the Empire's clock, in a country called France, the Bourbon dynasty was restored for the second time. On July 1830, 7, the citizens of the French capital revolted and occupied the palace within three days. Charles X fled."

Morse closed his eyes and rested his head half on the top of the neck-height backrest of the wooden chair: "During this battle, Clara Lessing was the first to raise the tricolor symbolizing the Republic on the barricade. She is the frame of the painting. subject."

"History is a cycle of domination and resistance," said Makado.

"And we are on the road to dominance?" Morse opened his eyes, put one hand on the middle of the armrest, and raised his head.

Malcador refilled his glass: "There are no more than three bottles of this wine in the entire galaxy. You should drink some."

Morse gently put the wine glass back on the table: "You can pour it back."

Malcador smiled.

"Nios was nearby when Clara Lessing died," Morse continued. "In fact, he is in that painting."

"As an unknown comrade?"

"No, he's in the Notre Dame Cathedral in the background," Morse said. "He was a priest at the time."

"He was involved in the citizen uprising." Makado guessed with certainty.Morse covered his smile with his hand when he recalled, "A three-day uprising that won. They all said they must be crazy before participating in the battle. Those people carried rifles and knives and walked from the streets. Rushing out of the alley, like a storm descending from the coast upward... But they won, although the bloody smell of the dead made the street that was as dirty as a nest even more unsightly, and this god-sent The victory was also lost in the cycle of history. What do you think Neos wants, Malcador?"

"What do you think?" the prime minister returned the question to Morse.

Morse shrugged and changed the subject again. "There was a joke in Guterre when France still existed. The country needed women, dwarfs and foreigners to save it. There was another woman more famous than Clara Lessing."

Malcador listened quietly, his eyes dark, his fingers hanging above the set of cards.

"Jeanne d'Arc," Morse said, "was later named a saint. In 1429, Jeanne d'Arc, a shepherd girl from Donremie, ended the offensive of the British army that was attacking France and led The troops raised the siege of Orleans, then claimed to have heard the words of revelation and led the army in a series of incredible victories that turned the tide of the war."

He paused briefly.

"In 1431, Joan of Arc was tried and accused of heresy. The court asked her whether she had received God's grace. She said that if she had not received grace, she hoped God would give it to her; if she had received grace, she hoped God would still favor her. She further mentioned that she owned a ring engraved with three crosses and an inscription of Jesus and Mary.”

"In May of the same year, she was burned at the stake. Her confessor rushed back to the church to get her a golden cross. From the time she was set on fire until she turned into bones, she firmly shouted the name of Jesus, but received no response. Then they turned away Charcoal was used to examine the body and it was burned again in case anyone wanted to collect the ashes. The ashes fell into the Seine.

“The executioner later said that he was terrified that he had executed a follower of the Revelation with his own hands.”

Malcador did not ask what happened during the two turning years, which was not a question for an imperial prime minister. "What role does Neos play in this story?"

"I thought it was obvious." Morse's fingers brushed the top of the wine glass, making a series of sliding friction sounds. "He is the voice of revelation, the God who cares for the saint, the shadow behind the curtain that drives the situation. He made Joan of Arc believe in him."

"This is..." Macado didn't finish his sentence.He took another sip of red wine and pressed his fingers on the side of the wine glass. The temperature was transmitted through the glass to the wine, affecting the taste of this extremely precious bottle of wine.

"I'm being sarcastic," Morse sighed suddenly and took a sip from his wine glass. "I'm being sarcastic again."

He flipped his palm over and tossed out a Martyr card.The thin cards slid on the table and fell back into the original pile accurately, falling into the gap under the Emperor card, with only a corner of the flame on the card exposed.

"He himself experienced it once when hunting wizards in the Middle Ages," Morse said. "He had a hundred ways to escape, but he didn't. 'Those who deny the existence of demons and witchcraft are heretics,'" he said in order to publicly refute The Holy See’s words at that time literally burned itself once.”

"This is really..." Macado shook his head.

"Put what you learn into practice," Morse said. "This is now in Imperial Truth, but it's just changed one word."

He drank all the wine in the glass and once again proved that he didn't like the astringent taste of red wine. Then he stood up and reached out to Macado.

The Prime Minister shook hands with him and let go after a few seconds.

"I won't ask what that thunder flag is." Morse's voice was soft and cold, "All mortals are mortal."

"Revelation can also die for revelation." Malcador murmured, put away the bottle, pulled the hood back over his head, and suddenly paused: "You accompanied him all the way, where do you fit into these stories?"

Morse stretched out his hand to the side, his palm wrapped in black cloth facing up.

A ring fell into the palm of the hand, like gold or copper, small and simple.It is engraved with three crosses and has the inscription Jesus Mary.

"It's a gift for you. You can add it to your collection." Morse threw the ring to Macado and curled his lips. "I'm usually the executioner."

　Okay, so this long volume is finally over!
　　The next volume is of course a certain Robert Guilliman...is it just him?I do not know.

　　By the way, some small mindsets seem to need to be mentioned. The scythe is not necessarily equal to Mortarion, the snake demon is not necessarily equal to Fulgrim, and the one who sends the brothers the giant cannon is not necessarily the Lion King, which is difficult to break. The walls don't have to be Dorne...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)