Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 459 Before Ascension to Heaven

Time is like quicksand, accumulating from milliseconds to seconds, and from seconds to days. If the river of sand accumulates over time, months will follow months, and years will follow years.

Constantin Valdo's spear did not slow down, but the rubble in the tunnel piled up like fallen leaves - flying and shattering.

Erda's emotions swung back and forth between swollen rage and fearful worry, but Constantine's swing remained precise. The Custodes were forged to be a precision weapon of the pinnacle of skill, and now the Custodian Lord fulfills the mission for which the tool itself is defined, pure duty.

His battle with Erda had gone on for so long, maybe days, maybe longer. For Constantine, in this short period of close combat, he had already spent far more time than one battle could last.

The Sun Spear revealed to him all the truths Erda possessed without any gaps. This spear has been held tightly in his hands since the Unification War, as an extension and perfection of his weapon body. Every time the spear draws the enemy's blood from the body, memories and truths follow. In a sense, this is a different kind of genetic detection nerve, but it is more cruel and irresistible.

The Emperor's last words to Erda came to him again and again through the spear, so that his unforgettable memory of his master deepened further - not as a shake, but as a further filling in of the vague fragments of logic, and Constantine The reservation in Ding's heart was filled bit by bit. Beyond this, however, he also saw details that were more immediate.

To be precise, when he read the old and new Erda for nearly two hundred years, and the past years were meaninglessly repeated in the present, he kept seeing a Primarch. The creature confirmed what he had already established, that the instability of the Primarchs outweighed the benefits they could bring to the Emperor.

From Erda's past, he kept seeing the growth of No. 11 across age stages. Sometimes he was a child, sometimes he was a tall adult, sometimes he was a giant snake that did not exist in the real universe, just like every person in his life. Time has experienced a transition of molting or breaking out of the cocoon. The previous period did not contribute to the growth of the original body, and there is no absolute continuity.

When he was young, Erda and he were in an artificial world that was frozen in a fixed time like an ice block. The surrounding machines operated by themselves according to inherent laws, forming a complete and tightly connected maze world. A replica of the real world and Erda is content with that.

She dressed him in elaborate attire as if it were some kind of standard uniform for a son of the Emperor, and then spoke about her imagination and conception of the future of mankind as if that new world had arrived at her without stopping. The whole world around her was a toy room that she and her fellow travelers had built for children but really only for her own use.

As for Eleven, he doesn't even speak Gothic to begin with.

Constantine hit the wall behind him, and the rock exploded on his armor. There was a sharp cracking pain in his waist bone, and his left foot was twisted in the rock crevice. His spear dug into the ground, and the world spun before his eyes.

He raised his hand and grabbed half of Erda's palm, breaking her third arm. The blue light screamed loudly, covering Erda's moving lips. This master of psychic energy has nurtured her power for thousands of years with hatred. The runes of hatred and hatred are engraved all over the tens of meters of blue gauze she wears. Hatred supports her to return to Moro across the galaxy, and hatred stems from fear.

The Sun Spear penetrated downwards from Erda's thigh, penetrating continuously along the edge of the muscle, as vertically as the sun itself. The memory of blood spiraled up the shaft of the spear, and the world shuddered to another memory.

A silent woman moves from one land to another with her child who can only guess at the whereabouts of his curiosity, his clothes changing from one exquisite outfit to another as if it were just Waves of phantom smoke drifted here and there.

She looked down at him with her tall body, and at the same time, she treated him as a larva that developed into a giant snake with sharp teeth, and a child that she had to care for to show that she was different from her master, so she used the best local food. and dress him, wrap him in polished copper cuffs and beautifully embroidered fragrant silks, tell him that although she has no hope, she wants him to thrive above all.

They listened to each other's voices and heartbeats while lying in the two rooms at night. This was the loudest way of communication when words were powerless, and Erda could only read the cold emotions that Eleven had never said during the day. His unquenchable hatred was directed not at the object of his hatred but directly at her.

It seemed that every touch and comfort she gave him with all her compassion turned in the silent hours into a relentless hatred that fostered a negative attitude that was not his fault and that Erda believed was not only It was only her own fault, because her hatred had other roots than her own will.

Constantine stood up, the blazing fire burned in his hair, and the burning smell rushed toward him along with the collapsing mountain. He hit Erda with a fist, and then twisted off her arm with one blow. Head, Erda's body fell backwards, her upper body hit the collapsed boulder, and her head rolled out with a piercing scream, as if it was still closely connected to her lungs through a fragile and slender tube of flesh and blood.

Perhaps it is true, because this is not the first time Constantine has dismembered a part of her. He is sure that he needs one or more sisters of silence, but he will continue to fight alone.

Along the tip of the spear of the sun god, time continues to flow in the past and the present at the same time, and stories and memories and thoughts and perceptions grow from the half-dead flesh and blood. From one day, Ilda forgot to eat, and it was something she remembered a month later. She still remembered that the food she swallowed when she was about to eat was often corroded by the fear and disguised hatred rolling in her chest before it was transformed into nutrients, and this fear was transformed into nutrients itself to feed her.

Until one day they looked at each other like two gray tombstones facing each other in a grave, heavy and calmly hostile, Ilda asked him if he found out that he forgot to eat and No. 11 replied that so she would not die.

As for the other silversmith who sometimes existed, he had no concern for Erda and No. 11. In Erda's drunken memory, the man stood behind the window with a secret look, looking down from high to low, and quietly waiting for time to accumulate silt on them like a river.

The turning point happened one day, when the silversmith persuaded Erda that a complete Primarch would eventually become a container or nail needed by the Emperor, unless this creature born in the sea of ​​souls returned to his original form.

At that time, they were in the mechanical world, and all the parts around them were roaring in the human-like shell. No. 11 asked her what the difference was between being a tool for someone else and dying for the Emperor and dying for you. Erda said that the Emperor did not love the Primarch but she loved him.

No. 11 did not care about her answer because before hearing the answer, his mouth was ready to say "OK". When he abandoned his body, he rejected her tears with a kind of unfathomable smile, as if he had seen through the meaning of his life.

"You can't kill me--" Erda's head hissed, wrapped into a ball by messy hair and blue scarf, "You can indeed kill me countless times, commander, but--"

Constantine put the spear into Erda's eye socket, and for a short time he did nothing, even though the cave was collapsing further towards his location.

Then, he mechanically pulled out the tip of the spear, which was all he could do.

Constantine Waldo felt his throat tightened, so quickly and without warning, the strong surge of astonishment broke through the cold state that a guard should normally have. From his bones, he heard a thin layer of golden eggshell breaking and collapsing, and the whole world shook with it.

——

"He imitated these machines, these tools."

Morse said, waving his hand to sweep away the fragments he had fished out of the soul sea. There was no noise interference from sentient souls on this nameless planet, so he completed it more easily than any other time.

"That smile is exactly the same. If he doesn't always think about destroying the Emperor's plan, has the webway gate here been detected?"

"No, but it is certain that the exit of the door here is underground." Perturabo stood up, his eyes retracted from the void, and the slight hissing inside the cable continued.

"It's Magnus's star language. He hopes that he can talk to us directly."

"Let him contact me directly. After all, his small statue is still in your flagship - a little out of reach."

Magnus' signal came hurriedly and anxiously. The first sentence he said was to ask Perturabo if he knew that the Emperor had ascended the Golden Throne. Then his frustrated sigh proved that he knew he had asked a stupid question.

"You are uneasy." Perturabo said in a deep voice, "Besides the origin of Tyrant Star, what else have you discovered?"

+Your judgment is always so accurate, but I can't verify my conclusions, Perturabo,+ Magnus replied, his psychic communication was filled with a lot of fleeting noises because of his chaotic mind,+ The Emperor said that Remus and Valdor knew all the information, so I thought I'd better ask-+

"Am I the only one who doesn't know that you all know who I am?" Morse raised his eyebrows, "It's up to you. What conclusions did you draw?"

+ Did he-the Emperor start with...+

Magnus struggled to find those broken words, Perturabo could almost imagine the Crimson King frowning, mostly surrounded by a mess of waste paper and ink, his desk was soaked with red and blue ink stains and his monocle was repeatedly fiddled with by him restlessly.

"I dare say you're right," Morse said softly, his words also turned into an unknown puzzle in front of Perturabo, "You can continue, Magnus."

+ Didn't he plan to ascend the Golden Throne himself from the beginning? Because he said that the power of Tyrant Star can support the entire Tuthmons, my father is right, but if so, there is no need to structure the runes into distributed chain nodes from the beginning-this is a feasible option, but not the best and only option.

+ Since my father has mentioned that he still has a backup option after the plan fails, I can't help but consider his other preparation, and I believe that I can see another better option for the runes, so the Emperor can't ignore it.

+ You see, just as I was delighted to realize that the webway itself is a formation, and my father found the discovery I found long ago...+

Magnus blasted out all his words in one breath like a continuous barrage of psychic cannons, fearful that if he stopped he wouldn't be able to muster the courage to finish his statement. In fact, he preferred to remain ignorant of his findings.

+Follow this train of thought - please feel free to interrupt me, Morse, if I say something wrong, just keep going with it, I realize the best way to do this is to have a psychic who is powerful enough to be awake The person who ascended the Golden Throne, and at the same time deployed talented people with the same great power in the remaining twelve secondary nodes, so that the entire Great Rune can achieve a more stable balance... +

Magnus took the initiative to pause for a moment, as if waiting for Morse to interrupt him. He hasn't waited yet.

+In this case, on the one hand, we no longer need to control the number of deaths to indirectly regulate the stable balance between the power of the Tyrant Star and the dark gods of the subspace, but directly use the network composed of all nodes as a high-speed energy exchange intermediate storage; on the other hand, On the other hand, this will also strictly control the internal energy core Tyrant Star.

+So, if we continue reasoning like this, how can we find twelve talented people and an absolute psychic master... +

"You're right," Mors said, finally interrupting Magnus. "It's also incomplete - still incomplete. Like my knowledge of his plan. Like his own knowledge of his plan."

"You can choose to continue to state your opinions. I believe that I can hear more fragments that coincide with the complete plan left to me by the Emperor. After all, you are of the same blood. He will exert his savagery and genius on yours. Born, Magnus, your aversion to the Warp held you back, but you were still gifted."

Magnus remained silent.

+I don't want to. +

He said that in an instant, his stubbornness was surprising. His pearly red face must have turned redder, and his eyes were probably wandering, like chasing the rising gray smoke in front of the tomb.

he repeated. +I don't like it. +

"One cannot remain a child two hundred years after his birth, Magnus," Perturabo said, thunderclouds gathering around his face, but his voice was as steady as ever, "You understand, too. Now, Tell me about your progress. I think this is the last unsealed node, right?"

+…Yes. +Magnus reluctantly admitted that +the other eleven endpoints had all been sealed. +

"There is no need for us to continue wasting time here," Perturabo said slowly. "Clean the surface. This is just an empty shell of a world. After eliminating hidden dangers, we sealed this place and began to prepare for the Emperor's... ...ascension to heaven...huh?”

A terrible fear suddenly surged out of his instincts, causing him to almost let out a call of darkness. The weight of negative emotions suddenly and quickly accumulated in the depths of his soul, with the call and desire for nightmares and destruction. It was strange and familiar to him, and he knew that he—he knew that no human being in the entire universe and galaxy could escape from it.

In the pocket he carried, the crystal box from Ishtar cracked.

——

Lorgar Aurelion gently wiped his hands dry with a towel, then picked up the knife, thought deeply, and cut his palm open along the palm lines, letting the blood condense into bright dew drops and fall into the amber water in his cup. .

He picked up the golden cup and stared at the drop of blood, knowing that the knife was sharp enough. Then, all the preparations he needs have been made.

He walked into the darkness of the Wanderer's Temple.