Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Mortarion climbed onto the broad platform closest to the top of the mountain, and the black iron fortress of Naklay was clearly in front of him. This is a towering, twisted, dark fortress with overgrown branches, wrapped in dark orange dense poisonous mist.

His body was shaking, half from the trembling caused by the poison, and the other half from the excitement for the upcoming battle. This is the Barbarus' revenge against the sorcery overlord, and also his revenge against the huge shadow that haunted him in the first half of his life.

He grasped the long handle of the scythe and roared: "Nakre!"

His cry echoed across the mountains, followed by a cold wind-like sneer, a cacophony like the flapping of thin insect wings, wafting from the thick fog surrounding the fortress.

A skinny and tall terrifying figure appeared in front of him, floating on the stone platform piled with rocks, looking down at Mortarion arrogantly.

"You let me down," Nacre said condescendingly. "You made an unimaginably stupid choice."

Mortarion gasped, swung his scythe violently, and rushed towards the figure of the sorcerer overlord. The sickle pierced the thick orange-yellow haze, instantly cutting through a waterfall, drawing a cold arc through the mist, but there was no tactile sensation of hitting an actual object.

He stepped onto the stone platform. Nacre was not here, and his chest seemed to be burning with a poisonous mist fire, making his body wrapped in gradually rusty and corroded armor hot and weak, brutally destroying his vitality. .

Mortarion looked around, the mist deepening in color until it turned into an abyss-like dark substance. This is different from the regular night, which is the night that the Primarch can see clearly - this is a sticky dark environment that is weird and unrealistic, and controls the surrounding environment through unknown witchcraft.

Mortarion vaguely knew that at a certain point in this darkness, a golden bonfire was burning quietly, but he could not definitely perceive it in any way. He could only see clearly the heavy armor on his body that was peeling off layer by layer, and the lightly bloodied areas on the surface of the scythe, reflecting his pale and angry face.

"Face me!" Mortarion roared loudly, metal blood boiling in his throat.

A shrill wind blade struck from behind him, and Mortarion suddenly dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the pale energy attack. The stimulation brought by adrenaline immediately combined with his will to fight, dispelling the severe pain in his body.

He turned around immediately, and on the other side of the darkness, Nacre's figure was waiting for him.

It seemed to be a withered figure glowing with a miserable white light. Its limbs were as thin as leaves that had withered in the dark environment before growing. Gray-white fragments like broken cloaks were dotted around the shoulders of the figure. On the lower torso, it spread wantonly into the surrounding darkness.

A long, slender metal gray knife, like a curtain fluttering in the cold night wind, was held in the palm of the figure. It was the swing of this sharp blade that created the fatal blow just now in the darkness.

After summoning the visible enemy, Mortarion maintained stubborn silence. The heavy war scythe transformed from a farm tool in his hand struck a blow that matched its huge mass and size. It might not be fast enough, but it was heavy and fatal. Nacre sneered strangely and faced Mortarion's attack head-on.

The scythe cut through the darkness of the void again, without cutting off anything tangible, but the attack of the gray long knife actually fell on Mortarion's heavy armor, leaving the armor full of holes, holes, and corrosion. The original coloring was taken away, leaving only a rusty gray-white tone, as if a heavy crack had been cut into the armor made of inferior stone.

Regardless of the damage to his armor, Mortarion stubbornly persisted in attacking the only pale form he could currently perceive.

According to his understanding of Nakre's witchcraft, there must be a just-right moment when Nakre will pour his power into the attack of the gray phantom. He couldn't figure out which extremely brief and mysterious moment it was, but he couldn't hesitate.

"Your resistance is powerless," Nacre said lowly, "Death -"

It was at this moment that a cold premonition penetrated Mortarion's bones, and axioms and numbers connected tightly with each other, starting to operate one after another like gears. It was at this moment, this precise moment that could not be missed, that Mortarion swung his scythe.

The speed of his blade swing was not that fast, no more than the previous attacks he had made on his own initiative, but the heavy sharp blade happened to cut off the gray-white figure's waist at that critical opportunity.

A handful of gray blood burst out from the middle of the body like flowing mercury. A flash of light flashed, and Nacre's words and his phantom were chopped into pieces.

A shrill and unbelievable cry briefly broke through the silent darkness, and also broke the aloof mask of the sorcery overlord Nacre. When the right pain breaks through Deathson's scythe to defeat his defenses, the Overlord bleeds as well.

The first phantom of gathered power was executed. Mortarion took back his scythe and strode down the stone pile. The unprecedented physical weakness caused by the dark fog and the layer-by-layer collapse of the iron armor gave him the strength of his mind. clear.

One step, three steps, then four steps, interpolation, then ten steps next time.

He looked for Nacre's next apparition. Even if he can't identify the direction, a prophecy is pointing his way, just like the ancient wandering wizard holding the trembling hands of those who seek prophecy on the earth, and calculating the clues left in the future from the lines of palm prints or pupils. .

But Mortarion believed that the power he had gained was different. This was the mystery of calculation, the number of destiny hidden in the axiom, and the measurable operation.

The second figure appeared in front of Mortarion, no more powerful than the first one, and could not do any new tricks. The phantom's attack was a mixture of real and fake, and it was a waste of computing power to use energy to calculate the speed and angle of the next attack of this gray-white phantom.

Except for some heavy blows that were too threatening and fell on the head, Mortarion did not dodge. Under the heavy armor, blood flowed quickly in his body, and the combat inner shirt that was close to his muscles prevented the further collapse of his wounds, protected his injured body, and maintained his fighting rhythm.

After the first direct defeat of part of Nakre, something seemed to have changed permanently.

The Overlord that had been casting its shadow on his body as if it was covering the sky, the colossus that had to be overcome and killed, was suddenly proved to be nothing more than a decayed old thing from the old era, not knowing how to abdicate from the new era, not knowing how to admit its decay.

Its restrictions and drives degenerate into the desperate afterimages of the old Overlords with lost teeth and loose joints. With just a slight push, these unburied corpses will fall into the graves dug for them by the scythe of the god of death.

And Mortarion will bring a new beginning to Barbarus. A moment of departure for a golden era, an expedition of hope that will illuminate the galaxy.

Mortarion swung his scythe again, and the tip of the blade pierced the second phantom, and then stepped back to avoid the energy shock that exploded in front of him. The gray phantom broke back, and the painful expression only existed for a short moment, but Mortarion had seen it.

Mortarion struggled to absorb the scarce breathable elements from the dark fog. His physical strength was exhausted to a lower point than ever before after a series of long battles. Strength drained from every wound of his, and pain bound his limbs, which was a thousand times more painful than when he and his warriors drank poisonous wine.

He staggered, and in the dark environment, he used all his remaining computing power and physical strength to search for the existence of Nakre.

The third, he thought, would also be the last. Numbers have revealed this truth to him.

And he could not retreat, could not fail. The people of Barbarus called him a beacon. If he went out in the darkness, he would fail the expectations of the people, his own will, and the wishes of the Emperor.

"You accepted it," Nakre sneered, trying to sting him in the dark coldly and without any effort, "You accepted your power. You, like us, have a side of death. You thought you could defeat me alone with your own will, but you can't. You turned to the things you resist."

"Nonsense!" Mortarion shouted with his bleeding throat, ignoring Nakre's heart-wrenching nonsense. The next moment, he saw Nakre's figure.

The last incarnation of the sorcery overlord was Nakre himself, with a haggard appearance and a face like a dead wood. The gray-black cloth robe spread out behind him. The nightmare-like arms and pale face made Mortarion unforgettable. The black toxin gathered around him, forming tangible tentacles, spreading deep into the depths, trying to drill into Mortarion's chest and abdomen through the broken part of the heavy armor.

"And you don't know whose blessing I have accepted," Nakre said, "nor do you understand how many years He has watched you."

Motarion gathered his strength and rushed forward with his sickle, and Nakre also swung his knife back. The knife light and the sickle blade intertwined, and the two figures constantly replaced each other, allowing the rotation of the void and reality to entangle and intersect in the withered darkness of death. The dark world was set off by amazing waves.

The body of this rotten tumor of the old world seemed to no longer be limited to the real universe, but when Nakre fully exerted his witchcraft, it was inexplicably that the direction of the flow of witchcraft power could be more easily calculated by Mortarion.

The ancient curse succumbed to the truth of numbers, turned into insect-like ashes under the sickle of death, and dispersed into the darkness. This relieved Mortarion's pressure, but the injuries were still accumulating.

The sickle blade came down at a high speed along the sharp arc of the long sword, and when it was about to reach the sword guard, it suddenly turned and pierced through the body of the sorcery overlord from the chest. The gray and white rotten blood splashed out in a large area, spreading a half arc like a full moon to the back.

Nakre took a step back, and the pierced part was quickly repaired temporarily. The thick dark shadow filled the chaotic energy flow in the empty shell-like body.

Mortarion breathed with difficulty, and the blood of the primarch continued to flow out, flowing in the dark stone slabs, winding into cruel patterns. His armor was almost completely peeled off, and his physical strength was also very little, as if his source of life was gradually lost, and he was being peeped at by the ancient existence peeping through the cracks in the shadows.

Both of them have reached the end of the road. Whoever can swing the blade for the last time will get the other's head.

"Stupid moth," Nakre snorted coldly, and it seemed that this was no longer just the voice of the sorcery overlord. "You wish to defeat death?" The sorcerer raised his hand and cast a string of runes so blasphemous that just watching it made Mortarion sick. He struggled to raise his scythe, hoping that he could sink the blade into the evil skull before Knakre finished his spell.

He didn't have time to finish. Nacre completed the last spell, with both gestures and spells ready. He burst out with an arrogant laugh, knowing that he had a chance to win.

But nothing happened. No evil energy descended, and there was no further surge of darkness. The call for ancient power that Nacre believed in was like the ravings of a madman, and failed to receive any response from any force.

Nothing.

Nacre only had time to show his shock for a moment. His head had been cut off by the sickle blade of death, and he fell into the darkness, rolling like a bone. And his body immediately collapsed, half turning into a pile of festering carrion, and the other half turning into flying residual feathers and dirty phosphorus powder, turning into dust amidst the lingering sounds of miserable screams.

Mortarion kept swinging his sword until the thick darkness gradually dissipated, and the deadly poisonous mist returned to a tolerable normal concentration after the death of the sorcerer overlord. He saw again - no, he saw for the first time, the blue and clear sky above the mountain top.

He took a deep breath, letting the clean air rush through his riddled lungs, and put away the scythe.

Killing the Overlord was the end of revenge, the end of Mortarion's resentment, but not the end Barbarus needed.

Mortarion stepped over the remaining dead bodies of Naklay, entered the dark fortress, walked through the garden, passed through the corridor, walked through the foyer, and was in the maze, calculating the correct direction to find the highest point in the complex fortress structure. A bell tower, climbing up the winding stairs step by step, carrying the sickle on the bleeding back, grabbing the long ladder to climb up, and smashing open the solid attic baffle with bare hands.

The top of the clock tower at the top of Barbarus' world opened to him.

Mortarion stared at the ancient, abandoned clock, wondering about the thousands of situations he had encountered along the way.

The young man who escaped from the dark mountains full of hatred, the hunter who howled in despair when the village was burned, the confused wanderer walking in the wilderness, the guardian under the windmill of Heller Pass.

In the first round, the bell was rung four times, and the sound echoed from the mountains to the fields.

A rebel who wanders among tribes and clans, a warrior who kills sub-overlords, a builder of safe havens, and the leader of warriors who shares poisoned wine with his companions.

The second set of four bells rang through the poisonous fog and reached the villages and passes, causing farmers during the harvest season to straighten up and look up into the sky.

The medicine man who counteracts the poisonous fog with chemicals, the leader of the Liberation Front in the south of Barbarus, the one who brings the wise hermit for help, the reaper who wields the scythe of death against the last sorcerous overlord.

The third set of four bells rang across the mountains and the wall, and the eagerly awaited Death Guards felt something and smiled.

Mortarion held up the stone pillars of the bell tower, overlooking the vast misty white plains of Barbarus. This plain is deposited with the bones of countless mortals, with countless tragic souls floating around, and with persevering people growing up from generation to generation.

Their skin is rough, their palms are chapped, their fingernails are filled with mud, and their clothes are stained with dust. They survive in hardships, work diligently and unyieldingly, sit around the bonfire in the square in the center of the village, drink home-brewed grain wine, and live in rough surroundings. Night after night was spent in the singing, with a slight light shining in the eyes.

At the end of the mud and darkness, Mortarion watched over his Barbarus, looking forward to a harvest season in the coming year.

Finally, a guard in a wheat field.

The thirteenth bell rang, Mortarion breathed weakly, put down his scythe, pressed his back against the surface of the stone pillar, slowly slid to the ground, and closed his eyes.

A broad palm pressed on the back of his hand, grabbed his trembling hand, and gently picked him up. Through the cold armor, Mortarion felt a certain clear warmth, soothing his tired spirit and letting him slip into a long-lost sleep.

After that, all there is is silence.