Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 436: Warmaster Selection

Lorgar Aurelion pushed gently at the door, a narrow, maintained composite golden door that locked but could not resist the force of a Primarch. He took a step forward and noticed that beneath his feet was a closed hexagram rune, a symbol favored by sorcerers as an exorcist.

All around, small silver ornaments were hung from the ceiling, stones carved with runes and metal imitations of broken animal bones were linked together with silver locks, jingling when the air blew through. A celestial sphere system star disk flashed in the center of the house, and the power lines were simply tied together and laid along the wall.

All of this could be used as evidence of heresy and the owner could be burned at the stake, but Lorgar's attention was completely drawn to the giant who appeared on the chair, so much so that he even forgot about Morse, who was emitting a faint golden light.

"Perturabo..." He called the giant's name subconsciously, and then realized that the Lord of Iron did not seem to be really here.

His body was even more transparent and blurry than the illusion created by the holographic projection, and he was slumped on the bench, his usually resolute face now had his eyes closed, showing pain, which made Lorgar anxious for a moment, wishing he could take his place; or at least let him find out what was going on here.

"Why are you here?" said another voice. Lorgar noticed Morse's presence and was about to answer when he realized that the Imperial craftsman was not asking him.

John Grammaticus touched the pistol at his waist, even though there was no bullet in it and Morse was obviously not a physical body: "Why are you here too? I didn't hear you joining us..."

"Join you what?" Morse interrupted him unhappily, "What are you doing? Who told Paridius that he could do witchcraft?"

"Hey, I was just wondering what you guys are doing, Emperor, you..."

Lorgar looked over, and John immediately stopped talking, his eyes avoiding his gaze, which made a trace of confusion pass through Lorgar's heart.

He was actually curious about what mortals saw in his eyes. They always flinched under his gaze, either because they were afraid of him himself - but Lorgar was not hostile, he just knew the basic etiquette of looking people in the face before starting a conversation; or people were afraid of their own reflection in Aurelion's eyes, and perhaps they would find that they always saw more of themselves in Lorgar's eyes than they thought.

This actually made Lorgar uncomfortable, but he respected these children and creations that were favored by Him, so he was willing to accept it all.

"What happened to Perturabo?" he asked.

Perhaps he should start by asking why the Imperial craftsmen and the Illuminati agents knew each other, but this had to give way to Perturabo's safety.

"He's hurt, and I'm waiting for someone who can bring him back to his body." Morse turned aside and answered coldly. He floated back to the Iron Lord, and the golden runes on his body and the three silver floating silver spoons seemed to echo each other.

"Did this Elihos hurt him?" Lorgar asked softly, which meant that he was suppressing the anger that was surging in his chest. "Did this silversmith cause him to leave his noble body and drift here? Are you unable to take him back, Morse?"

"No," Morse said, and that was all he said.

After a few seconds - these long seconds, Lorgar Aurelion even felt that it was comparable to a long century full of doubt, anger and worry. He closed his eyes and said, "I think it was not done by the silversmith."

The craftsman approached Perturabo, and his outstretched hand passed through Perturabo's unawakened soul. Another drop of dark liquid quietly slid down from under Perturabo's cheek and dripped through the craftsman's fingers. Lorgar regretted that he had only just discovered the hidden scar. It was a scratch like an eagle's claw, passing along the jawline.

"What is that?" he asked eagerly. "What can I do?"

“There is a sorcery that has harmed him,” Morse said coldly. “You may interpret it as… an unknown evil. This is not for you to solve, Aurelion, and I need no further help from you. Magnus will find the planet, and he will bring Perturabo back to safety. There is nothing for you to do here, Truth Bearer.”

Demon, Samus, Lorgar suddenly thought of the ghost wandering in the Whispering Mountains.

Before leaving the planet that dared to offend the Emperor's name, the Word Bearers used a final orbital bombardment to flatten the mountains where the unknown soul lurked, but they still had never actually seen the annoying demon. It was undoubtedly a demon, bewitching people, hiding from the divine light, whispering in the darkness behind the light, which is a common characteristic of those dark creatures.

Perhaps it disappeared into the universe along with the nest it inhabited, or perhaps it fled into the depths of the untouchable shadow until it was beyond the reach of the imperial truth.

Could Samus have had something to do with the force that hurt Perturabo?
"Then..." Lorgar hesitated, stepped over the clutter in the room, and walked towards Perturabo. "Can I, read some prayers for him?"

"If you want." Mors said, his indifference made Aurelion a little hurt, but as long as he thought that all this was for the eldest son in his heart, Perturabo, Lorgar couldn't help but feel soft-hearted.

"No need to guess, that's the Nightmare Sun." John Grammaticus suddenly spoke up, attracting the attention of others, "Or Komos, Tyrant Star, Darkness, Bird Claws, and the Creation of More Doomsday and Madness. This is its symbol."

He shrugged. "The names were given by our Masters, don't ask me. But the bird's claw scratch is its mark. You have all heard of it, right? It is a bit rampant in the Grail Expanse, but it is not very common outside of that. I don't know why the Primarch was scratched by it - but you will need this information."

"Teacher?" Morse frowned. "Who else?"

"I really don't know his name. Maybe he has no name," John said. He sounded sincere, or maybe he just gave up all his attempts to hide his true feelings and decided to be more open and honest so that Lorgar wouldn't kill him too many times.

He was smart, because if he continued to remain silent, Lorgar knew he would do just that sooner or later.

"Is there any way to make him recover?" Lorgar asked, "Tell me."

"This is beyond my ability, respected Primarch, and Morse." John replied. "You know, the only force that can fight against the Nightmare Sun so far is that... uh, witchcraft, but you can't use witchcraft to repair him."

"Don't worry. I will heal him." Morse said, and his words sounded so sure that Lorgar Aurelion felt relieved in an instant. This was the promise of the Emperor's messenger, and all he needed to do was listen.

Morse's chest rose and fell, and finally, he exhaled, his eyes looking through the silver titanium window frame at the blue skyline of the distant planet Sivers, as if waiting for the next visitor.

Lorgar's worries quietly revived. He could not bear to continue looking at the unconscious Perturabo. This kind of waiting was too painful and too blasphemous for him.

"Perhaps," he said, "you could take your brother away, Morse."

"I can't. I have my mission," Morse said, "even though I'm about to regret taking that mission. If you have something to do, go first."

"We came here to look for Elihos," John sighed, "but he's gone now. We were following an Eldar tarot card to find the way, but we got cut off here-"

He lowered his head and found three tarot cards lying quietly at his feet. They seemed to have been placed here a long time ago, but until this moment, they did not notice the unique hidden existence of this set of cards.

"Open them." Lorgar ordered. John squatted down resignedly, picked up the LCD cards one by one, and then opened them in front of these dangerous people.

"…it might be broken."

He said awkwardly, showing three blank cards. The front of these cards did not show the divination scenes at all, as if the characters hidden in them had sneaked away.

Morse snorted. "Go ahead and complete your mission, whatever that is. But it would be best if we didn't become enemies."

He paused, "Magnus is here."

-

"Your Majesty!" Magnus carefully observed Perturabo's soul gradually overlapping with his body. Red beads of sweat almost fell on his spiritual body. "What should I do next?"

Morse's projection stood beside Perturabo's bed in the Primarch's infirmary, staring intently. The Iron Warriors' chief pharmacist nervously operated a pile of instrument panels, muttering to himself from time to time, and the yellow exclamation marks illuminated his face very brightly.

"Father still hasn't woken up," Titus said, licking the corners of his extremely dry mouth, "but the values ​​have slightly recovered. Overall, he has recovered about... 30%."

Afterwards, Titus took the time to look at the reports of other pharmacists. At the moment when the Devon satellite collapsed, the war blacksmiths judged that this was not a devastating explosion, but a further rupture, so they decided to send a team to rescue as many soldiers as possible on the broken continent who still had hope of being treated.

Thanks to this bold decision, many soldiers were brought back to the fleet, including the warsmith Berossus who went to the ground. Unfortunately, none of them woke up for the time being, and the infirmary was instantly overcrowded.

"Check that wound, Magnus," Morse said. "Use your psychic powers first."

Magnus took a breath and then did as he was told. As soon as he received Malcador's call, he traveled a thousand miles to find Morse on the Cliff, and then used the warp channel to find the planet Sivers at the fastest speed. Under the worried gaze of Lorgar Aurelion, he followed Morse breathlessly to find the Davin system.

After the afterglow of the Nightmare Sun gradually faded away, the Iron Warriors fleet's astropathic communication, which had been disrupted by the Black Mist, was restored. Relying on the call of the Astropathic Choir, they finally returned to the Iron Won and sent the Iron Lord's soul back safely.

But Perturabo still did not wake up.

A ray of psychic light that tried to remove personal attributes rose from Magnus' fingertips. He carefully used this ray of light to probe the dark and bleeding wound.

The moment the light touched the scar, it was quickly swallowed up by the darkness, as if this dangerous force was eager to devour any energy that could feed it.

"It needs power," Morse judged accurately, even though his own power was not there. "It must be isolated from absorbing energy. You try..."

He fell silent. According to Magnus's understanding of him, Morse on the Cliff should be trying to construct a sufficiently effective spell protection measure.

This wound has not really harmed Perturabo's soul, because it has free ether from the outside world to absorb. Once the conditions for absorbing external psychic energy are lost, it is very likely that the Lord of Iron himself will be further harmed. What they need to do is to carry out a double blockade.

Magnus almost immediately remembered his Thuthmons rune.

A few years ago, he was pulled to the Webway by the Emperor, and the order he received was to paint sealing runes that had been improved by the Emperor twice on any place on the Webway that he could reach.

At that time, after a simple calculation, he chose to break down the method of drawing runes into multiple steps with the assistance of Angron, and teach them to the endless number of green-skinned orcs in sequence. Then, he let this endless number of construction teams complete the part they learned in order.

The attempt was successful, one of the few events at the end of the Great Crusade that greatly increased Magnus's sense of accomplishment.

But objectively speaking, Magnus did not see how the modifications added by the Emperor made any difference in generating the suppressive power over the Four Gods of the Warp.

But now, a particularly surprising idea was slowly emerging in his mind.

"Is it okay for me to try Tatmons?" Magnus asked.

"Okay." Morse said after careful consideration. "Be careful."

Magnus nodded slightly, exhaled from his lips, and then carefully drew the runes modified by the Emperor in the air. It was the runes that were rearranged after simulating the movement of the twelve equally divided celestial bodies on the zodiac, and finally formed a slightly three-dimensional sphere. The Emperor said that this originated from Babylon in ancient Terra.

A golden rune gleaming with a red luster gradually took shape. The Crimson King held it on his fingertips and concentrated his attention, gradually moving it closer to the long and narrow scar, until it finally flowed like water to the cheek of the Lord of Iron, framing the wound.

This rune, which usually does not deform, suddenly began to shrink autonomously after sensing the dark aura, and gathered around the scar, gradually sewing the wound like a copper wire, and also fixing the black blood within the rune.

"It works," the pharmacist beside him exclaimed in a low voice. Facing the changing data detection, his joy was beyond words. "It is...gradually recovering. Yes, there are changes!"

Magnus threw his hands. "Great," he exclaimed. "The throne!"

"It seems that the Emperor anticipated the creation of the Nightmare Sun." Morse said softly, with obvious consideration. "Can you hear me, Perturabo?"

Perturabo's body still lay quietly, but a weak voice floated into the ears of the psykers in the room.

+Yes,+ the Iron Lord replied softly,+ where is this? There are some... fuzzy blocks of color. There are three fires in total. +
Morse supported the low cabinet beside the bed.

+It sounds like you're still in the middle,+Morse said.+Once I get the Nemesis Blade into the Shadow Prison, I'll come over myself. You first...+
"My Lords," Titus said. He had not heard the psychic channel conversation, or he would never have interrupted it. "This message arrived after the restoration of the astropathic voice. The warsmiths thought it might be of interest to you. It comes from Lord Rogal Dorn."

"What is it?" Magnus replied. Perturabo also calmed down, resting and listening.

"This is a top-secret communication. Lord Dorn said..." Titus hesitated, "The Warmaster has been designated in advance as Lord Horus Lupercal. The Emperor asked Lord Dorn to prepare to go to Ullanor to build the Coronation Hall. Lord Dorn wants to know if Lord Perturabo is willing to go with him."

(End of this chapter)