Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Mortarion distinguished the surrounding scenes, looking around among the charred broken walls, fallen rocks, and the desolate fog where even the weeds had been wiped out, trying to identify the surrounding abandoned fortresses burned by artillery. A shadow of the past.

Whether judging from the specific digitized longitude and latitude, or tracing the memory traces back to the time when the fortress once stood in the dark mountains, Mortarion is extremely certain that this place is the scope of his activities, that is, Knack The place where Ray gave him his prison.

He grew up here with difficulty, painfully absorbing nutrients under the cold threat of Nakre, like a weed desperately pushing against a rusted beam. The gloomy tones of the stained glass scattered on the ground, the broken pages of the books, the ashes, and the remnants of shackles, Mortarion has every memory of them.

But Nacre was one step ahead of him, destroying the place into ironic ruins with ghostly green witch fire.

Mortarion could think of why Naklay acted like this. It was an insult to him and a punishment for his adopted son's choice to defect. The wizarding overlord tried to use this to anger him and let the area take the punishment on his behalf. Tell Mortar Rian was disgusted and rebuked by Nacre, and warned him that Nacre still has the power to destroy everything he possesses to this day.

Perhaps the younger Mortarion would have been deeply humiliated by this situation and felt that he was still inferior to the Overlord. But now Mortarion only found it ridiculous.

Does Nacre still think that the human reaper is still a child who can be easily offended and manipulated, letting emotions dominate rationality, and then affect concepts and decisions?

All right. Mortarion thought, raising his hand to signal his elite troops to stop, alert to the possibility of an ambush in this scenario.

Now that he could understand the hidden intentions and the needless humiliation of Naklay, of course he would feel filled with resentment.

But as long as he thought that his biological father was at the end of the team, touching his chin that was pretending to be old, and secretly commenting on him with the wizard, all the emotions caused by Naklay would naturally disappear - even if he was not very good at it. Willing to acknowledge the Emperor as his father.

Not once in a year had the Emperor treated him the same way he treated his heir.

If Morse hadn't revealed the blood connection between the two from the beginning, Mortarion knew that he would still have thought that the Emperor of Mankind was just another sorcery overlord with hidden intentions of exploitation.

Since the emperor doesn't want to call him his son, he shouldn't call him his father either.

As expected by Mortarion, a sharp, piercing scream and an annoying buzzing vibration suddenly rang out from the thick, almost liquid poisonous mist high in the dark mountains.

Mortarion gestured quickly. The trained team seemed to have a connection with him, and immediately looked for bunkers suitable for resisting long-range attacks in the remaining parts of the ruins.

Within ten seconds, the burning witchcraft fireball pierced the air, emerged from the thick fog, and struck towards the ruins in a blade-like arc. At the same time, a large number of mechanized trebuchets smashed out a large number of objects that looked like rolling stones.

If Mortarion had been immersed in his emotions for just a moment longer, and if he had been slower in giving orders, this round of attacks would have brought death to several cherished lives.

The falling fireball and the rolling stone collided with each other, and an abnormal reaction occurred quickly with witchcraft as the catalyst. In the blink of an eye, it turned into a burning black oil. Combined with the sudden explosion of high-concentration poisonous gas, it was like a purgatory in the sea of ​​fire.

The soldiers' armor quickly began to corrode, and the outer layer of the hoses that carried the air softened into a stringy, greasy, sticky substance.

Fortunately, the inner hose is additionally sprayed with a chemical spray developed by Mortarion to resist erosion. Otherwise, this group of teams will quickly lose their combat effectiveness. Those with weaker resistance to poison may even lose their lives within a few minutes. .

Mortarion gave the second battle command with hand gestures, telling the warriors to pay attention. The second round of fireballs began to fall, which was larger and darker in color than the first round.

After landing, the fireball quickly transformed into a monster whose whole body was burning with blazing green smoke. The rotating fireball continued to pour outward from the monster's arms, like an alternative witchcraft firearm. This round of attacks caused casualties among the warriors, and some warriors hit by the fireballs melted into a pool of scorched black marks on the ground in the blink of an eye.

Those Death Guards who would make some noise to adjust the atmosphere from time to time during battles, not only did not beg for mercy at the end of their lives, they even endured the last cry of pain on behalf of life.

They face death in silence.

Mortarion held the scythe in his hand, calculating the data needed for the battle. The scythe he waved spun out brilliant silver light, like a caged light in the thick mist and netherworld flames, guiding the way forward. direction.

Every part of his mind is used to deal with the immediate emergency scene, and numbers are the most reliable and convenient tool in this process.

The only brother he knows now, the defense master Perturabo, once passed Morse's message and gave him a set of formulas for evaluating and calculating various data in the war system, and told him that he could use it based on actual conditions. Demand adjustment constants and exponential magnitudes.

Mortarion immediately found that this was just the boost he needed for someone who opposed witchcraft and loved the laws of physics.

Different from mysterious and mysterious witchcraft, when quantifiable, clear and easy-to-understand calculations flowed in his mind at high speed, he felt that his movements seemed to become more capable and powerful, and the arc of the sharp blade became brighter and had an extinction-like effect. Destructive.

All the henchmen of the witchcraft overlord have been cut off, and at this time, Nacre is on the verge of a cliff. This made his attacks become even more frenzied, and the attacks that followed were the likes of which Mortarion had never encountered in all his fighting.

Puppets, ferocious beasts, tanks, and mechs, Nacre seemed to have emptied all his treasure trove for this well-designed ambush.

And Mortarion chose to face it all head on. Because this is the only way to the fortress at the top of the mountain.

One by one, he slew the new flaming monsters, while his troops followed in their leader's footsteps, wielding their weapons with determination. Compared to more practical, physical enemies, poisonous mist is a truly deadly threat. In an environment where the fog concentration is almost close to that of the mountain top, the coating that resists the dense fog begins to inevitably peel off.

Sometimes a soldier vomited out pieces of meat and blood while suffocating, exhaled his last few breaths, and collapsed from exhaustion after the last shot or swing of a knife.

The human Reaper listens, senses, and analyzes the status of his companions during battle to assess whether they have the strength to continue fighting. Then, he glanced at the location of the hermit and the wizard - the dark yellow mist blocked his sight, but whichever corner was the quietest, the hermit must be there.

Mortarion rarely hesitated in battle. He recognized what the mortals had done for him, but he didn't want them to die in a useless battle.

They've gone far enough.

The battle that follows is no longer a level that mortals can enter. This will be his decisive battle with Nacre, the last battle between inhuman weapons and the overlord of sorcery.

He needs stronger warriors to stand beside him, not psychological toughness, but physical and objective strength. And this is something that the current Death Guard does not possess.

It was a tough decision, but one he had to make.

The Emperor and the Wizard... have the ability to lead the warriors away from this battlefield that does not belong to them.

During Barbarus' agricultural season, it has recently been wheat harvest time. Today, outside the influence of the dark mountains, the fog is rare and the sky is clear. It is a great harvest day.

People harvesting food in the wheat fields are eagerly looking forward to the return of their relatives and friends.

"My warriors—" he shouted, finding that his voice was drowned in the explosion of fireballs and the chaotic noise of battle, and could not be conveyed at all. The chaos of the battle and the obstruction of thick fog greatly reduced the visibility on the battlefield and made combat gestures useless.

During his brief distraction, another round of fireballs rained down, spawning new witchcraft ghosts. A fireball flew towards him. He turned to avoid it and used his scythe to meet the first attack made by the monster transformed from the fireball.

Mortarion's judgment of the location was accurate, but the attack method chosen by the monster was to detonate its ugly body on its own. The huge shock wave pushed him back with a deafening roar, and blood was drawn from his ears. , the world in his hearing suddenly became extremely distant, as if separated by a distant membrane, binding him in a silent and dim vacuum.

Mortarion's heart beat violently, pounding against his gaunt chest. In the process of weakening other senses, another additional intuition seemed to become more acute. It seemed that there was a different kind of power in his body that turned into a boiler of life, supplying energy to his outer shell.

This power seems to be calculable. To Mortarion, it is neither distant nor vague. It contains some measurable beauty that can be easily manipulated by him.

He failed to grasp this strange and transparent state that passed by in an instant. Mortarion immediately brought his thoughts back to reality.

He shouted: "Emperor!"

With his hearing temporarily disabled, Mortarion didn't know if his throat was really making any sound. But the Emperor answered him.

+I am here. +

"Protect my warriors!" Mortarion shouted, a rush of broken blood rising in his throat. This was the first time he took the initiative to seek help from extraterrestrial visitors.

A faint golden light quietly emerged in the battlefield, like pure water, carrying a mist of pure cold mist, flowing through the blood-stained and scorched ground.

In the last breath before the soldiers could no longer maintain the fight and fell to the ground to meet death, the golden spiritual energy froze their state, like the end of time, sustaining their respectable lives.

The Warrior King will reward those who die bravely.

+What about you? +This is Morse's voice,+Need a revelation? +

Mortarion didn't answer. He had fulfilled his duty to his comrades, and the battle that followed belonged to Death's Son alone.

No longer required to care for his fellow warriors, Mortarion was freed from the worries of battle and allowed to fight at his own pace and pace.

He used his scythe to carve out a blood path straight forward for himself. He was no longer obsessed with killing every puppet and destroying every weapon, but focused more on breaking through the encirclement. After being held back for a long time fighting in the ruins, Mortarion began to advance again.

Something changed in the mist behind. The power that maintained the life of the dying warrior seemed to have gone through a round of replacement and turned into another unique witchcraft that was different from psychic energy. This belongs to Morse.

And the Emperor was following Mortarion at a distance, at the edge of his fog-reduced perception, just as the Emperor had been when he had walked alone through the swampy plains of Barbarus a year before.

The Emperor watched his back silently, waiting for his demands rather than forcing favors upon him.

Mortarion had never seen so clearly the silent companionship the Emperor provided him during the war for the Overlord Barbarus. The Emperor supported him.

Even if he still didn't feel that the Emperor had feelings for him, that was what he had been told truthfully from the beginning.

Again, as at first, Mortarion acquiesced to the Emperor's following.

Nak'rai destroyed the fortress, Mortarion thought, and the sorcerer overlord no longer needed him as a son.

And Nacre probably wouldn't have thought that he no longer needed that father.

Passing through the ruins, the road heading upward becomes more inclined. Chemical agents have eroded the cliff rocks until they are as smooth as glass, making it difficult to climb.

And the road is incredibly long. Mortarion had never been to the peak of the Black Mountains, but his mathematical knowledge told him that this long dark path was definitely lengthened defensively by witchcraft.

His respirator still worked, and at the insistence of the clans who had joined Haven, the Primarch's armor and respirators were even more sophisticated than those of his elite squad. Therefore, it was his reserve of oxygen that was used up first.

Soon, the real-time purification modules could no longer keep up with the primarch's breathing needs. After the filter in his mouth and nose was filled with toxic oily substances and microscopic particles, Mortarion pulled off his mask, untied the oxygen tank from his back, and threw it down the cliff.

The acid-etched gas tank collided with the hard black stone and quickly rolled into the cliff.

He breathed directly into the thick fog that tortured his lungs, and blood bubbles appeared in the corroded lung lobes. Mortarion tried to catch his breath and focus on the battle needed to advance. The puppets and falling rocks rushing towards him could not trap his steps, and he moved forward resolutely.

The lonely fortress on the top of the mountain already cast a dark shadow under his feet. The poisonous mist bared its teeth and covered his face in a thick layer, wearing a deadly veil on him in anger and despair.

This was the last remaining bastion of the sorcerous overlords, and Naklay was there, waiting for his rebellious adopted son to swing the scythe of death upon him.

This huge scythe, removed from farm machinery and modified to match Mortarion's physical needs, reaped the lives of Barbarus' tyrants like wheat.

Today is a great harvest day.