Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 425 The Emperor's Child·Postscript

When the editor-in-chief of the Memoirs, our legendary - or ghostly - Lord Morse, came to me and asked me to write the postscript for the first set of stories to be released across the galaxy by the Terra Memoirs, I felt like I was hit by Vulcan's hammer.

This posed a problem for me, and I almost panicked and returned to my suite, praying that when I woke up the next day, the Lord would withdraw his order, a complete postscript given by the Emperor would appear on my desk, or I would never wake up again.

Then I woke up, all right. I resigned myself to picking up the pen and thinking about how to summarize our work over the past hundred years. Most of the time was spent chasing the trails of the Primarchs and Legions, and wandering the galaxy in their footsteps.

There was also some unfortunate duplication of work that we had to do over and over again, mainly because some of us broke our wings and fell in the process of chasing. For example, Lloyd Dahl, who recently lost contact with the entire Colchis, Joao, who disappeared in Melchior a few years ago, and Cindy, who disappeared at the edge of the Holy Grail Expansion about fifty years ago...

Their precious lives disappeared in the unknown depths of death. I feel sorry for them. If they could all disappear like Cindy, sending the manuscript back to Terra, it might be more joyful.

Lord Morse once told us that you should make these real demigods come alive on paper and make them real "human characters".

We talked a lot in the cafe that day. After all, how can the Imperials imagine what they don't know? How can this be done?

Oleg, who is in charge of the Wild Wolves, patted his chest and said "no problem" on the spot... Oh, maybe the Space Wolves are an exception.

These distant and extraordinary demigods led their unparalleled legions to conquer and maneuver. The numbers brought by their wars are almost crazy. Billions of lives were burned or saved in a few years. This is a strange story that lives in a storybook.

For me, my mission was completed quite happily. The few of us who were in charge of the Ultramarines only needed to stay in Ultramar 500 Worlds most of the time, enjoy the rare comfortable atmosphere in the local world, and record the "Robert's little stories" that everyone talked about. Orlaneus said this was the second best job he could think of, and the first best was to return to his home planet to farm.

We laughed, but the atmosphere of laughter soon turned into an indelible classic conflict - because Fenrich said that the application he filled out at the beginning was clearly to go to the Olympia Cluster, and he is still full of yearning for it.

So we started arguing among ourselves: Which legion's home planet is the most comfortable place for the human empire?

Is it Nuceria, which has the best medical care in the galaxy on the red sand? Olympia and Macragge, the old infrastructure powerhouses? Prospero, the small world with the most difficult pass in the entire universe and the highest happiness index? Or Colchis, where you can eat for free but you have to be able to chant? It can't be the original Caliban!

Finally, we laughed and changed the subject, and went to the tavern to have our dinner together.

In order to write more realistically, I added a lot of Macragge dialect to the paragraphs I was responsible for, and added corresponding annotations to ensure that readers can fully and accurately understand the culture of the Ultramarines. I found myself enjoying this process more and more, and liking these great people I know.

When I finished my part, I was so lost that until today, I often walk on the streets of Macragge in my dreams, the colorful shadows of the market tarpaulins in the sun fall in front of me, and the shouts of the vendors, and the movement of them fanning with straw hats interweave into a natural tune, like the rolling of wheat, or the waves of the waterwheel in the stream.

In order to write this postscript, I read through the stories written by all of us again. This is a pleasant process. I see that we all describe the legends we have seen with a considerable degree of affectionate love.

I saw frost and snow blowing across the plains of Fenris, clean cold rain falling from the sharp teeth of gargoyles into the drainage ditches of Nostramo, steel reflecting cold light under the light of Medusa, the sandy surface of Colchis shining around the fire at noon, and the long wind of Chogoris blowing across the vast grasslands...

The best of the human empire is concentrated on these wonderful planets, and the planets send their stories to readers through our hands.

Well, I hope this is not our boasting, and our readers can also like these stories of different styles equally.

But you must know that the reason why there are no typos in the chapters of Space Wolves is obviously thanks to several of our proofreaders. Only the throne knows whether these people are intentional or not!

By the way, Lord Morse seems to intend to promote his homemade war games along with the simultaneous release of this set of books.

"Let those little military strategists who love to talk about politics and history waste their energy on war games in their attics," said the Lord, "so that the self-proclaimed martyrs will not stir up trouble in real wars or get into trouble."

We decided to wish him great success in his war games, what else can we say?

--Marcel Coronel, 001.M31, written on Terra--

Perturabo rubbed his temple and smoothed the nerve cables back.

On his seat, a servo robot arm automatically stretched out and fastened the lids of the paint cans on the table for him one by one, and identified the used pens - each one was a natural animal. Made of hair instead of the artificial hair brushes that the upper class nobles of the hive city are qualified to use, soak them in the pen holder and wait for cleaning later.

"You're here?" said Perturabo. "Any updates on the Empire's work arrangements?"

"Or look at what you've been up to lately," Morse replied, dragging out his chair and sitting down. "You've got time to make models, and it seems like Murder Star isn't putting much pressure on you."

"The situation is not bad. Compared with the battles the Iron Warriors have experienced, it is relatively easy to deal with the giant spiders, not to mention they have no air defense capabilities at all." The Iron Lord nodded slightly, seeming to emphasize the difficulty of their current battle. , "It's just that the Emperor's Children's airdrops and close combat are indeed not conducive to making enemies of these monsters."

"Eidolon is about to be demoted by Fulgrim. He caused the Emperor's Children to ask for our help."

"What about you? Is the book you recently edited finished?"

"There are still a few manuscripts left. The memoirist in charge of the Word Bearers has just started, and the guy in charge of the Iron Hands has made a mistake in mechanical modification, and now everything he writes looks like an experimental data report. Finally... maybe I will find someone to write another one. I don’t want to write a postscript myself, it’s boring enough to just write a preface, and then we can wrap up the project.”

Morse yawned deliberately, "A major project of more than a hundred years."

"That's because your efficiency is too low." Perturabo shook his head mercilessly and put aside the vehicle on his desk that he was painting with a paintbrush.

"Is it still too slow after more than a hundred years? Then you must not have a deep enough understanding of the empire's administrative system, great Iron Lord. Don't use the efficiency of the Olympia Star Cluster to replace our noble and unusual Imperial Interior Ministry..."

Perturabo ignored Morse's sarcasm and chose to go directly to the next topic: "If you are free, we-"

An orange-yellow message suddenly popped up on the screen in front of him. The source of the signal was very unfamiliar and was not within the empire's identification system.

"It's the orbital warning beacon the Emperor's Children mentioned," Perturabo muttered, and considering that Morse was here, he projected the specific information on the screen as well.

"Decoding so fast?" Morse raised an eyebrow, "Have you updated the interpretation system?"

"No," Perturabo frowned, "This message is in Gothic, and the sender is... Interrex?"