Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 434 Silversmith
Perturabo looked at the knocker in front of him, then took a step back, then turned around and looked directly at the black wave that was almost touching his face. The breath of death surged forward, radioactive dust mixed in the swirling wind and waves, and the mutated black shadow ghost stretched out its skinny claws and slashed across his face the first moment it appeared, cutting a bloody gap close to his jaw.

He raised his hand to wipe away the dripping blood, realizing that this wound could not heal immediately. This made him more certain that once he fell into the clutches of the dark world, he would pay a price he could not imagine.

But what about the temple?

Perturabo pressed his thumb against the bleeding wound and walked around the pond in front of the temple. A flock of crows were startled and flew towards him with noisy caws. When they got close to the pond, they froze into hard stones and plopped on the grassy ground. The turbid yellow sun chuckled in the sky, casting a gaudy mother-of-pearl luster around Perturabo, like a purple vortex that added color all the time.

Perturabo frowned, and tried to find his way forward, sticking to the edge of the colorful world and the faded world.

Although he didn't want to, he had to admit that these ever-changing lights disgusted him more - even frightened him - than the black world on the other side that brought primitive fear.

Earlier in his life, in his vague past, he must have been bathed in a similar light: a vortex from the stars, with mad malice, grabbing his pretended cold young spirit, letting him know that he was being watched forever, and when he walked, drank water, passed by rocks and trees, and was about to fall asleep, there was a bruised wound in the sky, and from the wound, a shameless huge eye peeked out...

Someone had removed the eye that symbolized fear from his side and covered it up. But today, the eye returned with a new look, from an arrogant and malicious gaze to a seductive smirk and whisper - but he still recognized it.

"Disgusting," he whispered. "No."

Despite this, the uneasiness in his heart still spread like an out-of-control candle flame.

He felt that this place was not naturally like this. Although this was based on intuition and expectation rather than purely rational judgment, he felt that the situation here must be closely related to the specific initiator, and the person who caused this situation should be the only human figure he saw when he was still in that more macro perspective, the human figure under the shadow of the hydra.

He continued to move forward, and he felt someone calling him, "Father", one person, no, many people were around him. He wondered when he married anyone and had children; but his intuition still provided him with the corresponding emotions.

Now, his uneasiness was compounded by a sense of anxiety, which made him eager to respond to his offspring and tell them of his safety.

The cool wind blew across the back of his neck again. He turned around and saw the temple with coiled snakes chasing him. After he had walked for an unknown amount of time, the temple was still chasing him relentlessly. The many-headed snake on the bronze door stared at his back, its eyes flashing a dazzling red light.

Perturabo turned his wrist and began to feel that something was missing from the back of his hand.

After walking about three miles, according to his calculated pace and stride length, he found a key lying on the edge of the muddy road.

He hesitated for a moment, tore off the corner of his clothes and wrapped his palm, then bent over to pick up the key and held it in his hand to observe. The key was made of silver, and the key ring should be a pattern derived from the ring of the eight-pointed star, with different themes carved in each quarter of the quadrant, including green grass leaves, sharp blades and axes, screaming ravens and coiled limbs.

"Who are you?" He asked the key, feeling that he was being stupid. His common sense told him that the key did not have any voice expansion components installed, and the inside was solid, so it could not answer his question.

He waited expectantly for a while, but no one paid any attention to him.

Perturabo snorted and moved forward, grabbing the key. He seemed to hear some strange sounds coming from the key, like a person's cold and rapid breathing, and the chaotic sound of rummaging. Now the things around him increased further.

He carefully climbed over some upright rotten plates and jagged metal pillars, and immediately realized that this was the wreckage of a human warship - if he could see more debris, then he could even further determine the model and origin of the ship.

The rolling black fog was weaker than ever before, and the disgusting smell was correspondingly stronger, almost suffocating him. He wiped the side of his face again, and the bleeding wound healed quietly, with a thin layer of blood scab on the scratch. This was not a good sign, so he tore off the blood scab and let the blood start flowing again.

Under his feet, the living and combat supplies of the former crew were scattered all over the place. These water bags, lights, identity cards and components of visual enhancement equipment... standard equipment from sixty years ago. But why sixty years?
He took the second key from the protruding corner of the broken keel of the ship, and used brute force to buckle it with the ring of the first key. The sound from the key was further amplified, gradually forming a discontinuous language: "No... reject it..."

Perturabo didn't think he needed to be reminded of which side of the world the silver key pointed to. What he needed to do now was to run, or fight - because enemies were pouring out of the purple world around him, and the temple gate that seemed to be the entrance to the fairyland in the forest suddenly flashed with a filthy and rotten luster, and an ugly illusion of collapse and destruction.

The Key screamed, its warning becoming more coherent: "You must hold on, Primarch, you cannot be harmed by the Ancient Four—"

Perturabo punched out suddenly, smashing down on a feathered serpent that was rushing towards him. Its mouth was big enough to swallow a mortal whole, and its sturdy body was covered with iron-like scales. In the midst of the battle, a thought slipped gently through his mind. He was a Primarch. Primarch...

He is the descendant of the Emperor, ranked fourth. His legion is called the Iron Warriors. His mentor is the Emperor's old friend, the craftsman Morse. He came to Daven 63-8 to quell the rebellion. The evil power that is entangled with him comes from the Dark Gods. In the past two hundred years of memory, he has fought against them more than once and escaped from the threat of Chaos.

Everything suddenly became clear: his identity, his duty. He was Perturabo.

It wasn't over yet. His incubator fell through the atmosphere into Olympia, and he grew up in the mountain where he landed.

As he grew up, he learned about human society. He saw a basilisk attacking a shepherd, so he went to the village to get a sword, and then cut off the basilisk's head. People looked at him in fear, and the shepherd asked him vigilantly if he wanted any reward - this was his first lesson in entering human society.

He recalled this long-lost childhood with such vividness that it no longer moved him. With the memory came the power of the Iron Lord. He slew more beasts for the Olympians, first the basilisk, then the hydra. Perturabo twisted off the serpent's head, like a reflection of his actions two hundred years ago, a kind of spiral of fate. The difference was that he would have eaten the flesh of the snake back then, not knowing that it was poisonous. Now he would not eat the Chaos creatures at hand.

Perturabo growled and gathered strength, using the broken snake bones like whips or long sticks to fight more monsters that surrounded him. Each monster was a more deformed and twisted shadow of the prey he had torn or chopped off before. He strangled a membrane-winged bird, and the beast's red eyes were crushed into burning powder by his feet, and their wide eyes stared at his neck, eager for the dried blood there.

He cursed ritually in the Olympian dialect as more mutant beasts pounced on him, trying their best to leave a claw mark on his body or pierce his arm with a bone fragment caught by the tip of their hooves. Perhaps he had been scratched by a light blow, not light enough for him to feel, but just enough to break his skin. If that had happened, the effect would be inevitable, and Perturabo tried his best to avoid letting his fate fall into the unknown abyss of horror.

At some point, his hand cannon returned to his wrist, followed by the mechanical arm and a portion of the modified Terminator armor behind him. The flames of the guns and cannons erupted around him, like an extension of the Iron Lord's arm and will, bringing his combat capabilities to a higher level - or in other words, the bullets pouring out while wearing heavy armor and holding heavy cannons are the Iron Lord's true combat level.

This may be related to his psychic power level or mental clarity, but exploring the role of psychic power in shaping the fantasy world and expanding these basic theoretical fields have never been Perturabo's subject. All he needs to do is to apply the existing theories and then destroy all the enemies around him.

The third key fell from the sky, perhaps thanks to the aftermath of his battle in the ruins.

The moment it fell, it began to radiate a silver psychic glow, connecting with the silver key hanging on Perturabo's waist to form a clear starlight. In this connected light, another kind of psychic sensation gradually arose, different from any kind of psychic sensation Perturabo had ever known.

Accompanied by some extremely ancient and distant singing, a circle of silver light like a door frame appeared on the ground, and dreamy silver crystals spread outward, temporarily helping Perturabo get rid of the invasion of Chaos Beasts.

A certain kind of power within him was also enhanced in this protective environment, and in a sense, he was even liberated - even if he didn't know where this feeling came from.

"Come here, Primarch," the singing voices intoned, their voices hoarse like those of old crows howling in the winter wind above a traveler's head, "away from the Ancient Four, away from the Nightmare Sun -"

"Who are you?" Perturabo said coldly. "Come out."

Silver light surged like a wave, barely weaving out a face wearing a faceless mask. Obviously, this person's power was not strong enough, and his intermittent appearance had already touched the edge of his ability.

"Elliohos of the Illuminati, a mere silversmith," the stranger said, "step into my crystal dream, Primarch, you cannot be sacrificed..."

As he spoke, a door-like silver light opened a star-like gap on the ground. Inside seemed to be another complete universe. Stars floated in the deep space where the silver light flowed. The power was different from that of the Four Chaos Gods or the Nightmare Sun, and it did not seem to belong to the same system.

"Hurry up," Elihos urged nervously, his singing voice becoming unstable, "I am not as powerful as the three immortals of your human empire, and we want to preserve the life of the Primarch more than you do..."

Perturabo stared at the faceless face. "Did you attract the Four Gods?"

"Four gods? No, they are just the four most powerful extra-dimensional psychic aliens. Calling them gods is as foolish as calling your human master the future god," Elihos responded excitedly, and even his singing voice shattered into ice-like residues. This reaction stunned Perturabo for a moment, as he had never heard of such an argument before.

Elihos cleared his throat and suppressed his excitement: "Yes, only strength is enough to resist strength. The Nightmare Sun has been summoned unintentionally, and it must be suppressed by an equal force..."

Perturabo put aside his disbelief and the rebuke that was about to come out: "How did you summon the Four Gods? That temple?"

Elihos was surprised at the Primarch's sharpness: "Yes, this is the existing original altar, the remaining power in it can be used... No, Primarch, you must leave, I can no longer maintain it..."

Perturabo pretended not to hear him and turned around. The number of mechanical arms behind him continued to increase with his will, from a pair of conventional servo mechanical arms to a dual-linked automatic assault firepower matrix, and then to compound heavy bolters and suspended precision bolt pistols, as well as plasma pistols enough to arm a squad of 100 people, and a large number of hot melt and deflagration pulses originally distributed in groups of five, and the Terminator's unique shoulder-mounted Reaper automatic cannon... The processing controller floated around him and was grasped by him, used to exempt all units within twelve meters from the programmed behavior restrictions.

All the muzzles of the hot weapons were aimed at the bronze door behind him, and then, the blazing ammunition sparks blasted towards the beautifully carved temple door like a torrent. The jets of flame and the explosion merged into a surging wave of steel, the snake scales were peeled off, the fruits were sunken and burned, and the tree of life became unrecognizable almost in an instant. The scorched oil mist and the blood of steel instantly replaced all the chaotic corruption, violently and unstoppably destroying all the corrupt things that intended to imprison the steel.

The temple collapsed, the bronze door fell down with a bang, and the mountain embedded in the temple door collapsed, causing the earth and rocks under his feet to collapse. At the same time, the colorful colors of the world faded rapidly, Elihos's singing rang out loudly, the silver keys all shattered, the light suddenly became brighter, and the ground formed a door without a door.

Then, Perturabo began to fall.

-

Titus opened his eyes slightly and looked at the suddenly fluctuating data on the detector. Inside the complex body of the Primarch, which was the product of mankind's greatest genetic engineering, all the values ​​began to rise again to the constant range of awakening. He almost wanted to shout out to convey this good news to the other war blacksmiths on duty who were guarding outside the infirmary day and night.

However, before he could speak, the Primarch's vital signs dropped once again, falling back to a disappointingly low level, meaning that their Gene-Father would remain in a coma.

He anxiously peered out the porthole and was horrified by what he saw: World 63-8 in the Devon Galaxy was falling apart completely.

(End of this chapter)