Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 483 After Death

"I thought you were dead, Remus." Erda said, and in the air of Moro's embers, she saw a shadow that made her feel paradoxical.

The cold shadow walked out of the flying dust, its black robe swirling in the wind and sand. His eyes looked at her mercilessly, as if he was unfamiliar with her image.

Erda couldn't remember clearly why he came here and when she appeared in this land called Moro.

"Why are you wearing a black robe?" Erda asked.

Remus twitched the corners of his mouth sarcastically, then turned it into a smile.

"Because you think I'm dead and in mourning for myself," he said, and something in his tone seemed to relax. "What makes you think that, Erda? Besides, I want you to call me Morr now." "

"I remember, a name that symbolizes death," Erda took a step forward, and Morse reached out to stop her from stepping into the thorns.

Erda suddenly realized that they had arrived at the edge of this thorny land again. Some drops of blood stretched down from the edge of the vines and fell on the dry black earth.

Erda stared at the thorn bush and vaguely saw the shape of flames. The old fire burned coldly among the winding and stinging thorns, and the vines crackled into ashes and fell rustlingly.

"He came from here to see us," she murmured. "You were there too... That was the last time I saw you, Remus... Are you really still alive?"

"You'd better not think he killed me, that would be stupid of you," Morse shrugged rudely, "I'm just leaving temporarily. What did he tell you that made you scared?"

"His plans have changed," Erda said, watching the flames dwindle and then grow in the thorn bushes. "That's not what he planned in the first place."

Morse looked at her.

"I know," he said. "I want to hear your opinion. Why are you here again, fifteen thousand years after that thing ended? Why did you destroy the map of the Webway, after you had completed it? Why did you seize it? A Primarch, just to oppose him? Your behavior is inconsistent, Erda."

Erda shook her head. "Didn't you see it?" she asked, her skin feeling cold all over her body. A gray wind blew across the ash plain, stinging her exposed skin that burned. "Don't you see what he will become? You left too soon, Remus..."

"Oh, that's enough." Morse said, "I don't want to hear my old name from your mouth any more, Erda. You can choose to explain what he showed you as soon as possible, or our The conversation ends here." He nodded and smiled wider at Erda, "It's over."

"He will be - that thing," Erda answered, walking towards Morse, still unable to believe that the long-lost Immortal was still alive. "He will become darkness itself, Morse, I saw it all," a tear fell from the corner of her aging eyes, glowing slightly red, "he showed me his delusion, the king of darkness..." That’s not who he should be, that’s not what we said in the beginning.”

Morse watched her, and Erda felt a dark rage rising around her from the burned embers of Moro.

She shook her head slightly: "You clearly know, Morse, he took us to Moro and told us that he was going to find a successor - he didn't, something changed him, something from subspace, something An existence we have feared for a long time..."

"You want to tell me that Nyos was bewitched?" Morse interrupted.

"I saw it very late, Morse," Erda said sadly, and the memory of the darkness made her shudder: a dark, bone-like terrifying existence, crouching like a beast between the metal thrones , staring into her eyes, countless tiny demons around him were subordinate to him, staring at her with similar cold eyes... She raised her hands and covered her temples where she had a headache, and a wave of nausea spread from her stomach to her esophagus. Her head started to hurt.

"So, you saw it," Morse whispered, waving his hand and the shadows around him seeming to slide with his movement. "You saw it, and therefore you meant his destruction, Erda."

"Why not?" Erda looked at Morse, examining the scars on his supernatural body. She saw the rings of time, a shining void, and in this void there was still something missing. She was confused as to what she was seeing. She knew something was wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was.

She stared at him sadly: "He was changed by the subspace, you should know it. He shouldn't believe everything he saw in Moro... There was a ghost from the vast ocean that deceived him and made him believe in him. Being able to control the power of the Dark Lord allowed him to regain confidence in the Warp that he was obviously wary of... Let him intend to create twenty false Daemon Princes, Morse. He shouldn't have done this - how cautious he had been. . Tell me, can you imagine him preparing to create a magic circle across the galaxy? Is that the Nyos we trust?"

"He's been—"

"He has always been full of wishes and ideals, but how could he rashly throw the entire galaxy into a gamble? A gamble that is bound to fail!"

Morse stared at her. "You meant to stop him, Erda - but you became a part of his destiny."

"I...really?" Erda said softly, avoiding Morse's burning eyes. She tried to find a support around her, but failed.

She only saw thorns and sandy plains...the damaged surface of the world, scarred rocks, and collapsed flags soaked in the swirling dust. The smell of blood came up, squeezing her chest and lungs. She wanted to Vomiting, a distant and brilliant melody tore through her dizzy consciousness.

"Did I contribute to my destiny?" she whispered. "Did I really do that?"

"The birth of darkness is inseparable from you, Erda," Morse pressed forward step by step, the gloominess of his words hitting Erda's heart like a heavy stone, "Now mankind has come to this point. One step, you made a difference, Erda.”

"God knows I tried..." Erda asked blankly, dark shadows flashed before her eyes over and over again, and her fingers were numb.

"You lost."

"Really? Did I do something wrong?"

Morse stared at her, "Big mistake."

Erda knelt on the ground, and there seemed to be a white-robed shadow standing among the thorns. When she looked at him, the shadow disappeared. She slowly turned her head, feeling dizzy as if she was drunk...

What did she say today? Is the person in front of her Remus? Hadn't she just seen Neos show her the prospect of a dark sun?

And she was completely defeated by that fear. She fell to one side and hit her head on the stone. Her shoulders were sore. She didn't know who she was or what she was going to do. The world in front of her spun and returned to its rightful place. A distant song echoed and caught her racing heart.

This is my dream, Neos said, his eyes were so sincere, and there was only unreasonable certainty and madness hidden in his sincerity. He said that we must reshape the entire galaxy with our own hands, because I am sure of all this. It can succeed because this is an established agreement, and there is only one path we can take, even if it is brutal and tortuous...

"What..." she said.

"What did he say to you, Erda."

Morse stood in front of her like a tall tower, and the melody of the music was accelerating rapidly. All time flew by, like the birds of time flying from the more distant past to the present in nothingness, towards writing. The "Hope" street signs flew past...no fragments were left behind. Most of the moments were blurred, and the images flickered one by one. Neos stared at her from every cold moment, threatening her with terrifying darkness. She shuddered.

"He said to me..." she said.

"Um?"

"Moroch told him everything...he saw him..."

"Who did he see?"

Erda covered her head, with painful marks on her face. She reached out to Morse, but the black-robed craftsman ignored her.

She stared at him, and more pieces flew by, about how she was torn apart by a man in golden armor, about how she was broken into ten thousand broken pieces, and how she fought on with some surging fear until Her fear was no longer enough to sustain her triple avatar dancing in the cave. She trembled, as if she understood something.

"You're dead, Remus," she said dreamily. "This was my dream."

"What nonsense are you talking about?"

"This is a dream after my death," Erda said. "This must be it, Remus...I was killed by his lackeys, in Moro, in 001.M31," she trembled. In one moment, "I'm dead, and so are you... At the last moment, you captured my memory. You can do it."

The flames on the thorns burned brighter and brighter.

"Maybe," Mors said noncommittally, moving closer to her, towering over her. His shadow tilted over. "Maybe you have left, or maybe you haven't..."

Flames began to climb up to the edges of his black robes, and the flames gnawed at his robes.

"But you still remember who he saw, right?" Morse said. "He was asked to do something in Moro for a completely different reason than anything we had ever agreed on. He gave up on his simple plan, I chose the birth of darkness instead, Erda?”

"You're right," Erda said, even a drop of pity in her expression, "He divided you because he listened to a visitor from the Dream Sea, Remus - he finally told me, He said that his belief came from the echoes from the future, he told me... and Orr, he told us, about all this... He said that he would become the Lord of Darkness because he believed in the promises from the future, how ridiculous! "

"An echo from the future?"

"From the first year of the thirty-first millennium, a voice from the future assured him of the success of his plan - can you believe it, Remus? He believed it. He believed an echo, a hoax, a Visions of the Warp fueled his ambitions."

Erda said as she stood up, the ashes peeling off her body, she was dying completely and she had never felt so light. The fear that had entangled her for thousands of years was gradually disappearing. She smiled slightly, with dying pride.

"In Moro," she whispered softly, "he believed in a future that he could not have. So I came here, believing that I could find the truth about that fraud... Constantin Waldo, he's the best The spear came here, believing that he could wait for the truth he expected. And you, your remnant soul, have been drifting since fifteen thousand years ago, still looking for why you died, how do you feel? "

She looked at the broken halo flowing on the black robe's body and the skin obscured by black smoke. Somehow, she couldn't show a proper sarcastic smile.

"At the end of the day, we will all be abandoned by him, us the Eternals, his favored Astartes and Primarchs, all of humanity, Remus. Nyos needs us, But he won't have to go on forever; what place will humanity ultimately get in his human empire?"

Morse ignored Erda's words, or at least that's what he said.

"It's over," Morse said coldly. His existence seemed to be moving away from her, getting fainter and distant, out of her reach... and the fire in the thorn bushes gradually burned up. the whole space. It was the fire from which the Emperor had walked, the fire that Nyos had stolen, snatched, snatched from the Warp.

Morse grabbed a bunch of flames and threw it towards the cave where they were. The fire suddenly lit up the entire dark wall, and further burned through the space like a canvas.

"Yes, it's over," Erda said softly, like a burst of words in a dream, mixed with a declaration of victory or a hesitation that passed like sand, she could no longer tell. "It's over, darkness has fallen, we all lost."

"You're wrong, Erda," Morse said. "It's not over yet."

"Am I wrong?"

The world is falling, and the stones are peeling off bit by bit, smashing into the empty darkness. Colors and sounds are leaving her, and countless fragments are rushing towards the end of nothing.

There is another echo that exists in the collapsed mental image. His voice is still so clear, even - not only his voice, not only Remus is here, but also another familiar voice, another familiar existence, which makes her familiar and even unable to safely enter her end. . In her dying moments, new fears and worries captured her.

"She's wrong," Morse said, "and you told the truth, Orr. Somehow I don't want to come to that conclusion."

The second echo came very late, and the regret in it was so restrained, so restrained, but deep enough that Erda suddenly went crazy to resist her death, which finally made her proud.

No... She thought, no... no, why would he... let her see him, just for a moment... No, it's too late...

"Yes, she is wrong," said Eulanius Persson.