Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

"You can also choose a room to rest in." Duncan said to him.

The Second Primarch looked relieved. The lion was not sure whether this was because he agreed to the other party's invitation.

"A chamber for the Primarch," he added, and the next blink seemed to give him little energy, lighting up his tired face. "I prepared a guest room for you, Leon."

"Thank you," Leon whispered. "What do you need me to do for you?"

"No need," Duncan replied. "You just need to rest. Even though we are Primarchs, the universe is so vast..."

Leon listened silently and absently, waiting for him to finish what he said next, no matter how pessimistic it might be. He didn't even intend to refute.

He sniffed his nose lightly. I want to feel the strangeness in the surrounding environment. The Lion felt that something was wrong on board the Glory Queen of the Second Legion, but he could not confirm it.

But Duncan did not continue. He only shrugged, and the dark brown traveler's robes wavered accordingly.

He told him: "If you want, I will come to you when we re-capture a new signal. Maybe you know the latest communication channel password?"

"Are you sure?" the lion asked, with a cold doubt in his voice. He couldn't figure out why he was so aggressive again.

From the moment he nearly stabbed Duncan Ajo's neck, he hadn't even once been offended. Although the appearance of the Primarch of the Second Legion at this moment is very suspicious, there is indeed pure sincerity in everything he says and does.

Duncan didn't talk much. He never talked about frivolous friendship or honor. Every sentence got to the point. Every well-timed line, movements as lively as anyone's, and a faint smile that occasionally flashed across his solemn expression... and his fatigue, which came from being lost in the vast sea of ​​​​stars for a long time, did not interfere with his seriousness. and solemnity.

Objectively speaking, Leon El'Jonson appreciates these precious qualities. It reminded him of Perturabo, not of those noisy, boastful wolves, or of a religious man who only cared about formalism and didn't have even an inch of calloused hands for fighting.

All the details combined gradually formed a friendship that was strange to the lion and touched him.

Brotherly... feelings?

He wasn't sure and didn't dare admit it.

However, Leon still asked himself: In the depths of this vast galaxy, on the dark edge of an accident and crisis, did he really find the so-called friendship between brothers?

A long time ago, on the day he saw Duncan's phalange, the painful burning sensation that had occurred suddenly flew through his mind, as if it had already left a nail piercing his chest. It's a dull pain.

"I'm sure," Duncan said seriously. He showed a little bit of embarrassment and embarrassment at his aggression. This makes him more real.

"Okay, I'll wait," the lion replied.

The first day passed peacefully, so peacefully that even Leon El'Jonson was surprised.

The next day, Leon asked the other party about the phalanges, and Duncan took off his gloves and showed him a pair of pale palms. Some scars ended at the wrists, and his palms looked clean and fragile.

"They were broken," the Primarch said. "The apothecary improvised a new alloy skeleton for me, transplanted nerves, synthetic bionic muscles and skin."

Subsequently, on the third day, they exchanged various management regulations about their respective legions. Duncan was confused by the dual-level setting within Leon El'Jonson's legion, the separation of multiple legions and the intersection of different orders. The lion was not Will admit that this satisfies his inner pride.

After waking up on the fourth day, Duncan did not come to him. Leon took out the books on the bookshelf in the room and browsed. The books here were classified into a variety of categories, ranging from war memoirs and research bibliographies written by Terra's military scholars and ancient generals to some pure poetry anthologies. There were several of each type. .

He read military books for a while, then turned to a book on linguistic analysis and was surprised that he became interested in the narrative.

Later, news from Duncan came over the audio device. The Second Primarch invited him to their Oath Hall.

Ten minutes later, Leon El'Jonson arrived for his appointment and walked into the empty and dark rotunda. The floor was paved with stone tiles that lacked decoration, and candles were placed in groups of three or five on a circle of steps around the sunken floor, providing a little necessary light for the empty interior.

At the other end of the hall, a towering statue was half-hidden in the shadows. Only the long sword in the statue's hand revealed a glint of gilded reflective light.

Leon took a few steps forward and saw Duncan's figure in a dark robe. He stood alone at the foot of the statue. He neither prayed nor made any other unnecessary movements, but just watched silently, as if he was in a kind of situation. Waiting in silence.

The sound of Leon's footsteps woke him up, and the Primarch turned and invited Leon to sit with him on the steps nearby.

"It was in this hall that I first met my warriors." Duncan said, tilting his head, and his black hair fell from his ears, setting off his darker skin tone. "I named them here."

"The Resurrectionists?"

"I didn't understand much Gothic at that time," Duncan laughed, "and I didn't understand the culture of the old land. My soldiers said that they felt reborn when they saw me, and I felt the same when I saw them. That's it, the name of the regiment After that, I understood the meaning of this word in the cultural context.”

Leon did not go out of his way to understand the classical meaning of each word. "Tell me about it."

Duncan was silent for a while, then he spoke.

"This refers to the corpse thieves in Britain during the second millennium. Resurrectionists exhumed fresh corpses from graves and used them for necessary purposes to satisfy the research needs of anatomists and the medical community. This practice Hated by the public.”

"It's necessary," Leon replied, easily hearing the importance.

Of course, for the legions that carry out large-scale body modifications and take gene seeds from the gene storage glands of dead battle brothers, it is difficult for them to understand why humans would have such hatred against social progress in the darkness of the year. .

Duncan nodded slightly, as if he didn't know what to say further. Perhaps he was still immersed in thinking about the name of the regiment, because soon after, he said: "I don't think I should give them such a name."

"Do you care about reputation?"

"No." Duncan decisively denied this, "Even though we are Primarchs, the universe is so vast..."

He repeated the words again.

"Then what?"

"...It makes me unable not to think about fate."

"Is a name related to your current destiny?"

"No, I think, it's just a coincidence." Duncan's voice returned to firmness, although it was still hoarse. Leon looked at the other party's silhouette with clear light and dark, and felt that the other party was like a brick made of sand.

They sat idle for a while. Although Leon did not agree with the second Primarch's pessimistic view of fate, he also knew that even if they were Primarchs, their Queen of Glory would be enough to destroy any world. There are still times in the world when even they can't do anything.

Time passed gradually and nothing happened suddenly. Leon was about to leave, but suddenly, a strange bloody smell floated into his respiratory organs. He took a breath subconsciously, and the blood energy was fleeting, like an illusion or an illusion.

"What is that?" he asked immediately. His chest began to ache again, his heart was pounding, and every rib in his chest seemed to be flowing with hot molten iron. But he was sure he wasn't injured. Suddenly, he felt a pull away.

The hall in front of him seemed to have undergone some vague changes. A kind of hazy crimson water came in like a tide. His vision became a little blurry. His chest seemed to be tightly pressed, and he felt pain and suffocation. It alternately strikes, is quickly soothed, and fades away in the shadows.

"What?" Duncan didn't understand and turned to look at him.

Leon's heart suddenly sank.

On the fifth day, they looked at the universe from the porthole. The pale starlight spread in the lonely corridor as clear as water, making everything fall into an intoxicating silence.

Leon became more cautious in his words, carefully exploring the handle of the second original body. He quickly confirmed that Duncan was aware of his temptation. However, this did not anger the other party, but only intensified the weariness on Duncan's face.

As for Leon, he only felt that the scene before him seemed familiar. The paving bricks in the corridor under his feet were like a long swamp, which sometimes gave him the illusion of falling into a fluid. The smell of blood on the tip of his nose has become clearer since it appeared.

"How much do you know about Ran Dan?" Leon asked.

Duncan's breathing stopped briefly, then slowly resumed, as if he was enduring some inner pain.

"I know what you know," he said, "and no more."

"Where's the Risen One?"

"Ran Dan's consciousness cluster treats all Space Marines equally." Duncan said, looking directly at Leon El'Jonson, his eyes made the Lion feel an inexplicable heart palpitation.

"We will terminate the controlled Space Marines."

"The resurrected cannot escape Ran Dan's control, my brother..." Duncan took a deep breath. It was hard to imagine that such a degree of gloom would appear on the other's serious face.

"They can't escape?"

Duncan said, his eyes filled with pain. "There's no escape," he said.

"I understand." The lion turned around and left along the cold starlight in the corridor.

For one moment, he felt as if he was stepping on the entire Milky Way, and the next moment, the waves of the Milky Way climbed up to his ankles, causing him to stagger for a moment.

The hot touch burned his whole body from the chest down, and the smell of blood became stronger and stronger, lingering very close to the tip of his nose, sending an urgent urge, like the last words of hope-filled words of a flesh-and-blood person on his deathbed. tell.

Duncan watched him leave without pursuing him.

On the sixth day, Leon El'Jonson returned to the Oath Hall and walked step by step towards the statue at the end of the dark hall.

During the last brief observation, he had thought that it was another icon of the Emperor - anyone who had ever entered Lorgar Aurelion's cathedral flagship full of Emperors would easily have subconsciously thought that it was All the tall statues are the majestic form of the Lord of Mankind.

No. that is not.

It was the Second Primarch himself.

The statue of Duncan Ahor towers in the depths of the shadows, the sword is fixed in his open palm by a chain, his head is lowered, his eyes are closed, his face is serene, and he has wings on his shoulders - not as fluffy and elegant as Sanguinius's. The luxurious snow-white wings are instead a kind of bony, multi-layered primitive giant wings spread out like the leaves on the back of some deep-sea animals.

Rustling grunts lurked in the dark pipes, and dark shadows surged around the statue of the original body, blocking more details around him like a mist.

Leon El'Jonson closed his eyes forcefully, feeling the pain within himself, and actively urged the torturous nerve pain to become more and more intense in his body.

The crimson wave was rising and falling erratically, and that wave of energy that did not exist within his perception, but actually touched his blood from the outside, fragmented images began to flash past him one after another. It looks like the Second Primarch, sometimes looking sad, sometimes looking tired, appearing in different backgrounds, such as the corridor, the meditation room, the ecological area, the news room...

There are many places Leon El'Jonson has not been to, or rather, this time, he has not been to them yet.

Huh... His lips lifted upward angrily. How many times has he been lied to? madness!

High in front of him, the Second Primarch's voice came softly and far away, no longer through words, but directly touching his angry consciousness.

"Farewell, Leon El'Jonson..." Duncan sighed, his voice was intermittent, with multiple noises, as if he was chanting in a low voice through the throats of countless people. "You still need to rest...I won't..."

The lion refused to listen. He sucked in the air, and then roared as loud as he could from his chest. A roar like thunder swept through the entire hall, like a heavy hammer hitting the edge of darkness. The world trembled violently in the darkness, first expanding endlessly, then contracting violently, until it compressed to an astonishing extreme -

He heard a sigh.

Then, Leon El'Jonson opened his eyes.

The first thing that caught his eye was a Space Marine falling in front of him. He lay on his back in an awkward position, and even though his life was expiring, he still tried his best to reach out with his hand, trying to reach a bolter that had been released from his hand with the muzzle facing him.

Blood dripped from the gaps in his armor and fell into the flesh and blood beneath him. Although his armor was covered in bloodstains, there was still a pearly white background that shone slightly in the dark environment.

Luna Wolf.

This is the only outsider in this flesh and blood room that was once the Second Legion's Oath Hall in recent days. It is also the smell of his blood that plays the role of a rare external interference, allowing Leon El'Jonson to wake up from the endless cycle by relying on pure will.

The lion looked away from the Luna Wolf. He wanted to make more moves, but found that he was deeply bound by bones and blood, and the severe pain from his chest became more intense, like a hurricane piercing his chest. After that, prepare to destroy everything.

He frowned, raised his head, blinked away the dried blood on his eyelids, and looked towards the end of the hall.

In the dark shadow, there is a giant statue-like thing lurking. Just looking at it, both reason and anger disappear. All kinds of sadness came to my heart.