Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 31 The Old Paper Holy City (4k)

The paper rolls were stacked layer by layer on the wicker chair, and the dust on them was carried away by the wind that came out of thin air during the process of taking them out.Wicker chairs swayed in the long, narrow room whose door had been closed for many years.

The owner of the rattan chair is walking through the tall infinite bookshelves, strolling leisurely in the collection of books that resembles a well-cultivated garden labyrinth, taking scrolls that he is interested in from the symmetrical iron shelf, and making them magically float behind.

The footsteps of the other person are much lighter and younger. He hurriedly ran in the treasure house of knowledge, immersed in the pile of old papers like children of the same age who are addicted to games.

The scrolls in his arms are much more logical than those randomly selected by adults. Ancient knowledge has been categorized and used in a systematic way. As sublime a technology as anyone in Olympia could have imagined.

and many more puzzles.

The brisk footsteps stopped at a corner, and the rapid breathing gradually sank to calm, like the rippling water returning to a mirror that can reflect the sun and the moon.

Afterwards, Perturabo showed his face from behind the bookshelf without haste.The way he is holding the scroll looks like a rudimentary philosopher.

The boy waved to Morse: "I discovered a new language."

"You can't decipher it yourself?" Morse replied standing still, he was not very interested in these ancient technologies. "I taught you some principles of language and semiotics."

The development of science and technology cannot stop the regression of civilization. Apart from accompanying Perturabo, he came to the library that the Lokos royal family had built for generations. In fact, he just wanted to find a few novels to read, no matter how bad they were, epics would be fine.

"Of course I can decipher it myself," Perturabo said, "but I don't understand why they let this knowledge go away."

"Because the day is gone as it is." Morse smiled. "Well, the answer is, I don't know."

He turned around and leaned against the iron bookshelf, looked up at the night sky outside through the small skylight on the roof.Those bright stars shine with eternal light, making the night as transparent as bright.

Perturabo looked with him at the very distant things, and saw a particularly large circle in the vast sky.The circle reflects the light of the star, seizes part of the sun's life, and stores it in its own body. When night comes, it becomes the continuation of the sun's life.

"I read some documents, and some documents say that the sun and stars we see are the same thing. The sun is also a morning star, but the moon is not." Perturabo said.

Morse nodded calmly, "Yeah. What do you think?"

"I think it's more practical than those gods pulling the sun around our heads every day in a chariot."

"Verified?"

"Not yet." Perturabo shook his head, "I'm deriving the formula."

"Deduce it yourself?" Morse recalled, "Look in the artist's perspective calculation reference book, maybe you can find some predecessors' wisdom faster."

Perturabo looked at him, tilting his head. "Knowledge about art is not in this library." There was some small resentment in his tone.

"This is the consequence of you telling the tyrant that you want to read science and technology books." Morse commented.

"I'm going to ask for a pass to another library tomorrow." Perturabo said unhappily, "You have to help me carry the books on both sides."

"Your dreams are enchanting."

Perturabo shook his head, adapting well to Morse's rejection. "Then you are always swaying in front of my eyes, but the library pass was exchanged between me and the tyrant. How can you borrow my permission without paying anything."

"You're a quick learner."

"The equivalent exchange you taught." Perturabo said proudly, lifting the document in his arms and hugging it tighter. "Or you can directly teach me some of the content I want. The organization of Lokos Library is as bad as rotten fish, and all kinds of information are messed up and mixed together."

"A good boy must learn to be self-reliant." Morse said, "Like me, breaking into the Locus library illegally by self-reliance does not count as borrowing your ID."

"Where did you get so many fallacies!"

"Innate."

"Where could someone like you come from!"

"It's not this Olympia anyway."

"How many Olympians are there in the world?"

"There was another one before."

"now what?"

"Now it's in the sky." Morse was on the verge of laughing. The kid was far more interesting than the dull epics in the local library.

"Ah? What kind of puzzle is this?"

"Do you want to see it?"

Perturabo looked up at the skylight, "Where?"

Morse's laughter echoed throughout the empty library.The paper flew out of his hand and floated into the wicker chair where he temporarily placed his belongings.

He stepped forward and shuttled through the corridor of the library. He found the iron steps that rotated upwards. He put his hands on the railing and trotted upward briskly, his black robe undulating behind him like wings.

"Wait, I haven't finished reading the books on the first floor! What's wrong with you?" Perturabo shouted anxiously. He looked around and temporarily piled the scrolls in his hands on the side of the bookshelf where he could not trip. , followed Morse all the way and started running.

Mors had no intention of waiting for Perturabo; he knew the boy could catch up.

Following the spiral staircase, he passed through the second floor and then to the third floor. He then placed the ladder under the skylight, pushed open the window and stood on the roof.When he finished all this, Perturabo was struggling to find a balance among the excessively smooth tiles and glared at him angrily: "What are you doing?"

Morse smiled at him and walked forward quickly. "Under our feet is the knowledge that this planet has preserved for thousands of years." He whispered, causing the murmuring voice to drift back along the airflow. "But so what."

The tiles receded beneath his feet and he came to the edge of the library.This majestic building is located at the center of the entire Locus, but it has turned into a giant that does not exist for a long time, and everyone takes it into their sight but cannot see it.

"The puzzle of Olympia sleeps in three places, one is in the library, the other is above the moon, and the third is on the other side of the galaxy." Morse said in the silent night, "Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but I I have told you too much."

"What's the matter!" Perturabo shouted from behind, "You are obsessed with your stories and riddles every day!"

"You can solve the first puzzle yourself, and I can remind you of the second puzzle. The rumors of Olympia have long made it clear: the last time their shadow fell on this world, slaughter and enslavement fell on tens of thousands of people. I saw people die , and saw an unclean spirit coming out of the mouth of the false prophet. And there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings.”

Morse chanted about the coming disaster like a song, which is better described as a kind of sigh than ruthless.

"Olympia's moon has another name, and I'll tell you about it when things on the ground are over—or you guess right in advance. Will you guess now?"

"You at least give me a hint!"

"You definitely know the word, kid. Everyone in Olympia knows it. A color, a noun."

Morse stopped at the edge of the building. After estimating the distance, he jumped forward, crossed a small distance, and climbed to a nearby spire.Without using any psychic energy, his fingers were accurately and effectively embedded in the gaps between the masonry, moving upward with extremely high efficiency.

He heard Perturabo murmuring some unpleasant words that were not rude, and the smile never left his face.

The moonlight came from the cracks in the dark clouds and shone on the building above him.

He jumped to the top floor and sat on the floor, leaning against the clock in the building.

After a while, Perturabo came up here panting, and it was his last sanity not to fight.He was about to pull Morse up from the ground, and Morse invited him to sit down.

"The third puzzle is in the ancient night." Morse raised his head and looked out from the bell tower, "You ask me where I come from, child. I can't explain it to you; if you want to say that I come from the stars, It would be too poetic and ethereal to come to a certain planet. What’s more, from here, we can’t see the planet buried in the old night?”

Then he raised his hand and tapped lightly in the air, "It's about that direction, that's where I came from."

Perturabo raised his eyebrows in confusion, and the exertion of climbing made him sit down with his back against the clock.

"This world isn't just Olympia, is it?" the boy asked.

"Is that enough of a question?" Morse said. "I thought you remembered you weren't born in Olympia."

"But I don't know where I come from." Perturabo said. When mentioning this topic, he no longer mentioned those empty words such as greater mission and more magnificent territory, leaving behind There is only a pure wandering and confused heart.

The stars looked at him indifferently, and Perturabo thought of the swirling eyes of the stars. Although he no longer saw it, he could almost hear the sharp wails and sounds of death again.

Morse put his arms around his shoulders, and suddenly he stopped having the bloody, painful dream.

“Don’t think about where you came from until your past catches up with you,” Morse said.

Perturabo wonders if Morse's past will lead to him, then realizes that he doesn't actually know Morse's real name.

This sudden sense of frustration shattered his words before he could speak them.

"Then you..." He considered what to say, comparing the possible impact of each question.

There were so many things he wanted to ask, ranging from the previously mentioned, now absurdly cute question of his collection of books, to whether Morse knew anything about his origins.He jumped from question to question in a hurry, but the words he asked were not in any part of his thinking chain.

He asked: "What is the planet on which you were born?"

"I don't know," Morse said. "I was gone a long time."

"There used to be a lot like here," his eyes fell on the Olympian landscape, "there were hillsides, and forests. The sky shone among the hills, and the moonlight snaked in the valleys. And beyond the hills, there were lakes, And there is the sea. There are lights on the other side of the bay, and in the dark there are strings of orange lights at the end of the coast. The city-state is there, and people live in the city-state."

"what about now?"

Morse gave a low chuckle.

"There is the Holy City, whose brightness is like a very precious stone, like jasper, like crystal. It has a high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates are twelve angels. The wall has twelve foundations, and at the foundations are The names of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb. The city was measured with a reed; its total length was four thousand miles, its length, breadth and height all the same. If measured according to human measurements, its total length was 140 four cubits."

He raised his head, uncharacteristically indifferent, and although he was reciting sacred words, there was a cold hostility on his body.

"The wall is made of jasper," he continued, "and the foundations of the wall are decorated with precious stones. The first foundation is jasper. The second foundation is sapphire. The third foundation is green agate. The fourth foundation is emerald. The fifth foundation is onyx. The sixth foundation is ruby. The seventh is yellow jade. The eighth is beryl. The ninth is red jade. The tenth is emerald. The eleventh is purple agate. The twelve is amethyst. The twelve gates are twelve pearls. The streets in the city are pure gold, like transparent of glass.”

Perturabo's eyebrows knitted deeper, and the shadow cast on his face became particularly intense.

"Is there really such a city?" he asked. "But how should the people there live, where should their cables be installed, and where should the canals be passed? Will the jasper walls not collapse? How can the glass streets bear weight? Can the structural force be handled with gemstones? Workers How to build such flashy bricks and tiles? How does their transportation work, how is the community space distributed, where does the sewage drain, where does the clean water come from, where does the road go, how does the goods circulate, fire and floods Can it be protected against wind and snow..."

The more he talked, the more he couldn't stop, until he caught a glimpse of Morse's surprised expression, suppressing a smile, and he was instantly overwhelmed with shame.

"You're kidding me again, Morse." Perturabo said, feeling a little hot on his face, "There is no such city in this world. Why are you talking nonsense with me?"

"Someone is going to lie to the people of this world, saying that there is such a city that will come after the end and death." Morse lightly flicked the boy's face with the back of his index finger, and he was slapped away angrily. “Saying that when the tabernacle of God falls among men, all things will be made new.”

"Who said it?"

"Probably the Book of Revelation."

"Did your god raise an army of builders to build the city?" said Perturabo.

"What about me! I look like a believer!" Morse laughed and cursed, stretched out his hand, and the night wind wrapped around his fingertips.

He comprehended quietly for a while, and suddenly said thoughtfully, "It's almost dawn."

Perturabo calculated the time in his mind, and according to Olympia's time rhythm and astrology, he quickly came to a conclusion: "There are still 38 minutes."

Morse relaxed his posture and pressed the stopwatch in his heart according to the beat of his pulse. "You still have time to enjoy the night breeze, kid."

Some birds in the forest are about to wake up. They burst out from the sleeping city-state and vast mountains and forests in front of them, spinning in the gradually brightening gray-black sky, their feathers shining with colorful lights like dream shadows.

He was so bored that he knocked on the clock behind his back with his knuckles, and a small sound of gold and stone swirled around, going to the world under the clock tower.After just one knock, he stopped.

(End of this chapter)