Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 469 Return to Reality
Constantine Waldo retracted the Solar Spear, and a drop of blood fell from the tip of the spear into the shallow pool of water that had accumulated between the rock walls deep in the cave. It merged with the water that had long been turbid in the flying dust and mud, and became invisible.

His spear hung smoothly and naturally at his side, the tip of the spear still faintly pointing at the dead man on the ground.

Or dying, the commander of the imperial guards thought. The reason why he had not yet laid down his weapon was because of this hidden possibility.

Wrong details will lead to death. An immortal can die countless times until her strength and soul collapse in the torment of life and death, but Waldo doesn't know if he has such an opportunity.

He waited, waiting in the silence for any slight echo of a response to his defense, or the scraping whisper of an unacceptable breeze against his armor, just a ripple, enough to break the frozen air in the cave.

No. Nothing.

He thrust the spear into Erda's abdomen, against the spine, pinning the perhaps dead Immortal to the ground, and continued to listen.

No new fragments of memory came, and the Solar Spear stopped revealing to him the truths of flesh and soul, as if he had pierced nothing more than a bag of thick earth.

Had the power that brought her back to life stopped flowing back? Or was it that this resurrection was taking too long?

Constantine Waldo couldn't tell. He adjusted his stance, letting the armor support his body, half resting and half alert inside the golden armor, waiting for his long-trained and transformed body to bring him back to the peak state.

Beyond his calculations, when this protracted close combat ended, his mind and body were not tired at all - there was a time when he realized that his physical strength had reached a certain limit and was about to exceed the peak he was designed to have; however, when he really took the last step on the limitless boundary and swung an extra blow, he knew that something, something blocked by shackles and curtains was pouring out of his body.

From that moment on, his fighting became more and more impeccable. Millions of years of human martial arts were condensed in his every move, and the tides of attack connected with each other, eventually converging into a tsunami-like wave, killing Erda to the ground.

He lowered his head and stared at the limp body of Jerda, and the final blow that cut her throat. She looked desperate as she was dying, not for herself, but for what she felt.

What they feel.

"His anger," said Erda, his voice filled with fear and blood, "His hatred - you also felt it, Commander-in-Chief, He still came -"

He did not listen to her unfinished words, but instead sent a spear, ending her time in the real universe.

But what Ilda said before she died was accurate, Constantine thought. That vibration came from the other side of the world.

First there was a subversive tremor, like the earth's crust rising and falling on some floating object, everything was in danger. There was a brief lull. Then, darkness and fear were overwhelming, and even a single moment of hatred and curse was enough to dig out an eternal hole of fear in the hearts of ordinary mortals who were shocked.

Just as the Emperor told him a possibility before he left.

The Emperor left.

Temporary. Permanent. Never to be seen again. Never to be returned.

His master left. He stayed.

Constantine put these words in his mouth, savoring them gently and repeatedly. A sharp sourness climbed up the edge of his tongue and became blurred in his mind.

The commander of the imperial guards took a short rest, and then he would carry Erda's body back to a place closer to the cave entrance. He would wait for the next visitor to arrive and for the end of his duty.

-

"The flow of energy has changed," Morse said with a certain amount of surprise, although this surprise did not detract from the solemnity he displayed.

"Positive or negative?" the Iron Lord asked, gazing at the massive crater that had appeared in the center of his planet.

The former earth's crust and the metal structure covering it have all melted, turning into some kind of inky translucent glass substance, with many scarlet threads running through it, winding like hair and bright red like blood beads.

Not long ago, a large-scale explosion suddenly occurred in the Webway Gate deep in the earth. The strong energy aftermath directly lifted up a large area of ​​​​the continental plates. If Morse had not acted as if he had expected this, Perturabo's mind would not have remained relatively rational.

Morse told him that Magnus had made a bold and correct decision. The craftsman looked only slightly disappointed.

He told Perturabo the final part of the Emperor's plan, including the Realm of Silence - the original name of the circle before the Rune of Thuthmons was created, how all nodes would be destroyed and how the Dark Lord would be imprisoned back to his cage.

A game of time, Mors said, between whether the Dark Lord would absorb enough destruction to descend first, or whether he would be caged by the Primarch to whom he was directly related by blood, Death.

Yes, the connection between blood and blood in the mystical concept, as well as a unique skill that was incorporated into the body of the Primarch at the time of creation, undeniably made the Primarch the only choice. And the opening of the Webway was also a foregone conclusion. If Magnus had not made this choice, then Mors would have done it.

But as the process of exploring and confirming the current status of the Webway progressed, the surprise on Morse's face made Perturabo's heart rise.

What happened? He asked in a deep voice, his voice dry. Tell me, what happened?
I'm looking for Magnus. He should not have left the Webway in time. But I can't reach him. There's no echo of him, and his psychic traces... thousands, or tens of thousands of contact points, everywhere, and each trace has a different pattern... This is not the way to destroy the node, Perturabo.

What does this mean? Tell me! Perturabo asked, hearing the ridiculous anger burning in his voice. A long-lost anxiety rose in his heart, hitting his nerves again and again.

Morse probed intently, and the rage that waited in the Iron Lord's heart gradually turned into ember-like frustration and an indelible confusion.

"I can't find him," Mors said, looking him straight in the eye. And the slightest hint of bewilderment on the Craftsman's face, hidden behind the mask of calm, pierced Perturabo. The Craftsman paused. "He is one of my best students, even if I only taught him a few runes. This means he may be able to do more than any of us can imagine - more than the Emperor could ever hope to take from him. For example... changes in the flow of energy."

"It's hard to judge the effect yet," Morse said thoughtfully, "The energy tide is no longer moving towards the Terran throne, but is pointing to a place... I don't know. I can't be sure how he chose the location, but I can assume - you know him, Perturabo. I can assume that if he decides to move the source of the Dark Lord's power away and invest it in another unknown... I'll use the black hole analogy for the time being, then he must have a process of direct confrontation with Tyrant Star..."

"He did not survive the invisible battle," Perturabo said, his mind aflame, each tongue of fire rising and gnawing at the edges of his sanity. The black pits before him spiraled between his eyes, and each crimson thread reminded him of blood.

"From the results, he succeeded—"

The rest of Morse's words fell into silence, and Perturabo saw his own reflection in his eyes, a sullen shadow, still reeling from the murder of one of his brothers until he received a second piece of bad news that same day. He saw his own eyes, like a sky in flames, a sky of clouds held up only by pillars of lightning that fell.

"He sees farther than we do," Perturabo replied, as the molten iron from the forge poured out, flowing through his veins and steaming his internal body. He smelled the blood of iron.

Morse looked at him. Perturabo could guess that the craftsman had experienced life and death a thousand times, and if a man lived for thirty thousand years, this was the challenge he had to go through.

The Primarch also lived for two centuries, a period of time that exceeded the total birth, aging, sickness and death that a mortal would experience in his lifetime.

But he still felt...

Something has ended forever. It happened suddenly, yet it seemed to have been expected.

Like a fire, it suddenly went out when he turned his head. The world lost its color in an instant.

He stood up and felt his soul passing through the body he had thrown on the ground and entering a new body that was standing. His vision was blurry, and after a blink, his vision returned to clarity.

"Let's go!" he shouted angrily, his hands clenched into shaking fists, "Didn't we say we were going to Moro? We still have things to do - ha, send the Iron Blood over here, damn it!"

Damn it, his cry echoed in his mind again and again, Damn it, he thought, Damn it, Damn it! Damn it!
-

Kedomo Fricks squinted his eyes to deal with the glare of the bright sunlight.

When he set foot on the land of the real universe, he felt a long-lost dizziness - just like a sailor who had just broken away from a seemingly endless voyage, stepped onto the land with trembling legs, and felt the world spinning. For a moment, he missed the stability and safety he once had on the ship.

He resisted the urge to find a wall to hold on to, for they were in the vast flat countryside of Tizca, and if he decided to rely on something to support himself, he would have to lie on the ground.

Or find another Iron Warrior to support him. No, that's not what a Warsmith does.

He watched calmly as tens of thousands of warriors filed out, counting their numbers, wishing hope for the survival of everyone who had survived the darkness, while trying to make contact with Prospero's communications tower... communications room... whatever it was.

Thanks to Magnus, they returned to the light along the way from the darkness that suddenly enveloped the Webway. Although no one knew what that terrible darkness was, and why their iron hearts could not overcome the long-lasting horror it brought, the Red King undoubtedly saved all of their lives once again. Just like countless cases in the construction before.

Now there is a problem here, that is, they have been isolated from the world for too long, and their contact with the outside world is limited to the Imperial Guards, the Glorious Queen of the Iron Warriors, and the Space Fortress.

They tried their best to keep up with the various technological upgrades during the Great Crusade, the adjusted sound array channels and communication codes, accepting new herald cherubim, identifying the new mortal auxiliary troops of each legion, getting used to the changes in the settings of the projection screen near the sand table, and the changes in legion relations that were like fog to them; however, when Flex really returned to reality, he knew that these preparations were still not sufficient. Never sufficient.

They are not yet behind the times, but they are certainly out of touch with the world.

"Tizca responded," said Bill Perrin, their temporary signalman, with confusion in his gentle voice. "Prospero always welcomes the Iron Warriors, but they want to know which camps we are from and when we arrived in Prospero so as to confirm our identities. What's going on outside recently? They are very nervous."

If the war blacksmith Perrin could speak frankly of the other side's nervousness, it meant that the air in today's environment could be ignited by just a slight rubbing of flint with steel.

Fricks did not answer his question directly. Their knowledge of the outside world was limited to the Conference of Nicaea and the return letter that unexpectedly arrived earlier than the response.

"I'll give you thirty minutes to line up and get used to the environment here." Fricks ordered his soldiers. Their numbering method was not in the regular battalion sequence of the Iron Warriors, but a different one, using some kind of ancient but still commonly used Terran rune numbering. Putting aside the letters Alpha and Omega... "Ita Battalion, hurry up."

"I hope they will know our number..." Perrin sighed slightly.

"After all, we didn't get here through the formal channels," Fricks turned his head, "It seems that the existence of the Webway has not yet been made public in the galaxy. They are understandably confused. Perhaps we should ask them to help contact the Iron Blood?"

"Iron Wyrm," Perrin reminded, then shook his head slightly. "The Tizcans also said that the recent warp storms have blocked a large number of routes and normal communications, so they are puzzled by our sudden appearance... New news."

He listened for a few seconds and relayed, "Out of trust and lasting friendship for the Iron Warriors, they agreed to let us find a place to live first: there are many empty residential areas built on the outskirts of Tizca, and the population growth cannot keep up with the number of houses. Even if everyone is given a house, they still cannot use up all the existing houses."

"That sounds amazing," Fricks commented, looking up at the white city in the distance, shining in the hot sun.

The brilliant light embellished the geometric edges of the city, and the glimmering force field shield enveloped the main city of Tizca in a dreamlike, transparent semi-arc. A beautiful place independent of the empire, an ideal capital that could not be found in the present world, a city of light.

“It looks like it,” he added.

(End of this chapter)