Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Lorgar Aurelion gently pushed the door. The maintained composite gold narrow door was locked, but it could not resist the power of a Primarch. He took a step forward and noticed that he was stepping on a closed hexagram rune, an exorcism symbol favored by wizards.

All around, small silver ornaments were hung from the ceiling. Stones engraved with runes and metal imitations of broken animal bones were connected in series with silver locks, jingling when the air blew through. A celestial sphere system star disk flashed in the center of the house, and the power supply lines were simply tied together and laid along the wall.

All of this was suitable for being used as evidence of heresy to burn the owner at the stake, but Lorgar's eyes were completely attracted by the giant who appeared on the seat, so much so that he even forgot about Morse, who was emitting a faint golden light.

"Perturabo..." He subconsciously called the giant's name, and then realized that the Lord of Iron did not seem to be really here.

His body was even more transparent and blurry than the illusion created by the holographic projection, and he slumped on the bench, his usually resolute face now had his eyes closed and looked painful, which made Lorgar anxious for a moment, wishing he could take his place; or at least let him find out what happened here.

"Why are you here," said another voice. Lorgar noticed Morse's presence, and when he was about to answer, he found that the Imperial craftsman was not asking him.

John Grammaticus touched the pistol on his waist, even though there was no bullet in it, and Morse was obviously not a physical body: "Why are you here too? I didn't hear that you joined us..."

"Join what?" Morse interrupted him unhappily, "What are you doing again? Who told Paridius that he could do witchcraft?"

"Hey, I also want to ask what you are doing, Emperor, you..."

Lorgar looked over, and John immediately stopped talking, his eyes avoiding his gaze. This made a trace of confusion slip through Lorgar's heart.

He was actually curious about what mortals could see in his eyes. They always shrank under his gaze, either because they were afraid of him himself - but Lorgar had no hostility, he just knew the basic etiquette of looking people in the face before starting a conversation; or, people were afraid of their reflections in Aurelion's eyes, and perhaps they would find that they always saw more of themselves in Lorgar's eyes than they thought.

This actually made Lorgar uncomfortable, but he respected these children and creations that were favored by Him, so he was willing to accept it all.

"What happened to Perturabo?" he asked.

Perhaps he should first ask why the Imperial craftsmen and the Illuminati agents knew each other, but this had to give way to Perturabo's safety.

"He was hurt, and I'm waiting for someone who can bring him back to his body." Morse turned sideways and answered coldly. He floated back to the Iron Lord, and the golden runes on his body seemed to echo the three silver floating silver spoons.

"Did this Elihos hurt him?" Lorgar asked softly, which meant that he was suppressing the anger that was surging in his chest. "Did this silversmith cause him to leave his noble body and drift here? Are you unable to take him back, Mors?"

"No," Mors said, and only said this one word.

After a few seconds - these long seconds, Lorgar Aurelion even felt that it was comparable to a long century in which doubts were rampant, filled with anger and worry, he closed his eyes: "I think it was not done by the silversmith."

The craftsman approached Perturabo, and his outstretched hand passed through Perturabo's unawakened soul. Another drop of dark liquid quietly slid down from under Perturabo's cheek and dripped through the craftsman's fingers. Lorgar regretted that he had only discovered the hidden scar now. It was a scratch like an eagle's claw, passing along the jawline.

"What is that?" he asked eagerly. "What can I do?"

"There is a kind of sorcery that hurt him," Morse said coldly, "You can think of it as... an unknown demon. This is not something you can solve, Aurelion, and I don't need you to do anything. Magnus will find this planet, and he will bring Perturabo back safely. There is nothing here that needs your help, Truth Bearer."

Demon, Samus, Lorgar suddenly thought of the ghost wandering in the Whispering Mountains.

Before leaving the planet that dared to offend the Emperor's name, the Word Bearers used a final round of orbital bombardment to flatten the mountains where the unknown soul lurked, but they still had never really seen the annoying demon. It was undoubtedly a demon, bewitching people, avoiding the divine light, whispering in the darkness behind the light, which is a common characteristic of those dark creatures.

Perhaps it disappeared into the universe along with its lair, or perhaps it fled to the unreachable depths of the shadows until the Imperial Truth could not reach it.

Would Samus be related to the power that hurt Perturabo?

"Then..." Lorgar hesitated, stepped over the clutter in the room, and walked towards Perturabo. "Can I, say some prayers for him?"

"If you want." Morse said, his indifference hurt Aurelion a little, but as long as he thought that all this was for Perturabo, the eldest son in his heart, Lorgar couldn't help but feel soft in his heart.

"Don't guess, it's the Nightmare Sun." John Grammaticus suddenly spoke, attracting the attention of others, "Or Komos, Tyrant Star, darkness, bird claws, and creating more doomsday and madness. This is its symbol."

He shrugged his shoulders: "These names were given by our mentor, don't ask me. But the bird's claw scratches are its symbol. You have all heard of it, right? It's a bit common in the Holy Grail Expansion, but Outside of that, it's not very common. I don't know why the Primarch was scratched by it - but you will need this information."

"Mentor?" Morse frowned, "Who is it again?"

"I really don't know his name, maybe he doesn't have one," John said. He sounded sincere, or maybe he just gave up all the secrets and planned to be more open and honest, lest Lorgar put him to death too many times. Kill.

He was smart, because if he continued to say nothing, Lorgar knew that sooner or later he would do just that.

"Is there any way to restore him?" Lorgar asked, "Tell me."

"This is beyond my capabilities, my dear Primarch, and Morse," John replied. "As you know, the only power that can fight against the Nightmare Sun so far is...well, witchcraft, but you can't use witchcraft to repair him."

"Don't worry. I will heal him." Mors said, his words sounding so sure that Lorgar Aurelion instantly felt at ease. This was the Emperor's emissary's promise, and all he had to do was listen.

Morse's chest rose and fell. Finally, he exhaled and looked through the silver titanium alloy window frame at the blue-lit skyline on the far side of Planet Sievers, which seemed to be waiting for the next visitor.

Lorgar's worry quietly revived again, and he could not bear to continue staring at the unconscious Perturabo. This kind of waiting was too painful and too sacrilegious for him.

"Perhaps," he said, "you can take your brother and leave, Morse."

"I can't, I have my mission." Morse said, "Even if I almost regret taking that mission. If you have something to do, go first."

"We came here to look for Elijos," John sighed, "but he has run away now. Before, we were chasing an Eldar tarot card to find the way, but we ended up here -"

He lowered his head and found three tarot cards lying quietly in front of his feet. They seemed to have been placed here a long time ago, but it was not until this moment that they noticed the unique hidden existence of this set of cards.

"Open it." Luojia ordered.

John squatted down resignedly, picked up these LCD cards one by one, and then opened them in front of this group of dangerous people.

"...It might be broken."

He said awkwardly, showing the three blank cards. The fronts of these cards did not show the images that divination should have at all, as if the characters hidden in them ran away secretly.

Morse snorted. "Go on with your mission, whatever it is. But it's best if we don't become enemies."

He paused, "Magnus is here."

——

"The throne is above!" Magnus carefully observed as Perturabo's soul gradually overlapped his body, and red beads of sweat almost fell on his own aura body, "Then what should I do? ?”

Morse's projection stood beside Perturabo's bed in the Primarch's infirmary, staring intently. The chief pharmacist of the Iron Warriors nervously operated the pile of instrument panels, mumbling to himself from time to time, and those yellow exclamation marks illuminated his face very brightly.

"Father is still not awake," Titus said, licking the corners of his extremely dry mouth. "But the number has rebounded slightly. Overall, it has recovered about...30%."

Later, Titus took the time to read the reports of other pharmacists. At the moment when Devin's satellite collapsed, the war blacksmiths judged that this was not a devastating explosion, but a further rupture, and decided to send out teams to rescue as many warriors as possible on the broken continent who still had hope for treatment.

Thanks to this bold decision, many warriors were brought back to the fleet, including Belosos, the war blacksmith who went to the surface. Unfortunately, no one among them was awake yet, and the infirmary was instantly overcrowded.

"Check that wound, Magnus," Morse said, "Use psionic energy first."

Magnus took a breath, then did as he was told. As soon as he received Malcador's call, he traveled thousands of miles to find Morse on the Cliff. Then he found the planet Sivers through the subspace channel at the fastest speed, and faced Lorgar Aureliano's full of energy. With worried eyes, he panted and followed Morse to search for the Devon galaxy.

After the afterglow of the Nightmare Sun gradually faded away, the astrological communications of the Iron Warriors fleet that had been disrupted by the black mist were restored. Relying on the call of the Astropathic Chorus, they finally returned to the Iron Plains and sent the Iron Lord's soul back safely.

But Perturabo still didn't wake up.

A ray of psychic light that was as impersonal as possible rose from Magnus's fingertips. He carefully used this glimmer of light to explore the dark and bleeding wound.

The moment the light touched the scar, it was quickly swallowed up by the darkness, as if this dangerous power was eager to devour any energy that could feed it, and it would not refuse anyone who came.

"It takes strength," Morse judged accurately, even if his own strength was not there. "It must be isolated from absorbing energy. You try it..."

He fell into silence. According to Magnus' understanding of him, Morse himself on the Cliff should be trying to construct a set of effective curse protection measures.

This wound has not really hurt Perturabo's soul, because it has free ether from the outside world to absorb. Once the conditions for absorbing external psychic energy are lost, the Iron Lord himself is likely to be further harmed. What they have to do is to perform a double blockade.

Magnus almost immediately thought of his Thuthmons rune.

A few years ago, he was pulled to the Webway by the Emperor, and the order he received was to draw the seal rune that had been improved by the Emperor twice on any place that could be touched on the Webway.

At that time, after a simple calculation, he chose to divide the rune drawing method into multiple steps with the assistance of Angron, and then let this endless number of construction teams complete the part they learned in order.

This attempt was successful, which was one of the few events at the end of the Great Crusade that greatly increased Magnus's sense of accomplishment.

But objectively speaking, Magnus did not see how the modified strokes added by the Emperor made any difference in generating the power to suppress the four gods of the warp.

But now, a particularly surprising idea is slowly emerging in his mind.

"I'll try to try Temons, do you think it's okay?" Magnus asked.

"Yes." Morse said after consideration. "Be careful."

Magnus nodded slightly, exhaled from his lips, and then carefully drew the runes modified by the Emperor in the air. It was the runes that were rearranged after simulating the movement of the twelve equally divided celestial bodies on the zodiac, and finally formed a slightly three-dimensional sphere. The Emperor said that it originated from Babylon in ancient Terra.

The golden rune with a red glow gradually took shape. The Crimson King placed it on his fingertips, concentrating his attention, and gradually approached the narrow scar, until finally it was like flowing water to the cheek of the Iron Lord, framing the wound.

This rune, which normally does not deform, suddenly began to shrink on its own after sensing the dark aura, and gathered around the wound, gradually sewing the wound like a copper wire, and also fixed the black blood inside the rune.

"It works," the pharmacist beside him exclaimed in a low voice, and was overjoyed at the changing data detection, "It is... gradually recovering, yes, there are changes!"

Magnus shook his hands, "Great," he sighed, "Throne!"

"It seems that the Emperor anticipated the birth of the Nightmare Sun." Morse said softly, with obvious thoughts. "Can you hear me, Perturabo?"

Perturabo's body was still lying quietly, but a weak voice floated into the ears of the psykers in the room.

+Yes,+The Lord of Iron responded softly,+Where is this? There are some...fuzzy blocks of color. There are three fires in total. +

Morse supported the low cabinet beside the bed.

+It sounds like you're still floating in the cracks,+Morse said,+Wait until I throw the Nemesis Blade into the Shadow Prison, and I'll come over myself. You first...+

"My Lords," Titus said. He didn't hear the conversation on the psychic channel, otherwise he would never interrupt it. "After the astropathic communication was restored, this message was delivered. The warsmiths thought you might be interested. It came from Lord Rogal Dorn."

"What is it?" Magnus replied. Perturabo also quieted down, resting and listening.

"This is a top-level communication. Lord Dorn said..." Titus hesitated, "The candidate for the Warmaster has been designated in advance as Lord Horus Lupercal, and the Emperor asked Lord Dorn to prepare to go to Ullanor to build the Coronation Hall. Lord Dorn wants to know if Lord Perturabo is willing to go with him."