Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 508 Shadow Crossing the Sky (5)

When John Grammaticus woke up from where he was, he suddenly felt as if he had just been run over by a whole rhino - not pain, but numbness. It was as if all that was left of him was a pile of bags filled with bones and muscles, not some kind of living thing...

What ran over him was a huge spiritual will.

That will ruthlessly peeled him off layer by layer, examining his internal and external structures, like flipping through a book, and brutally took everything John had from his mind.

Then, the other party said something to him, and then threw him away...

He was slow-witted, and continued to recall the meeting.

Who guided him? Who met him?

He trembled, but he was not alone.

Some metal clanging sounds. His mind outlined a golden armor in his memory... a stern face. A spear... seemed to flash with bright force field lightning... He remembered it like this.

But what he saw was a nearly pure white spear, which was translucent, and filled with translucent light from the long handle to the tip of the blade, with only a few swirling golden threads attached to the surface of the spear...

It was as if this weapon had just been blessed by a supreme power...

Who blessed it?

Then, another person half-knelt up from his prone position, the heavy cloth seemed to creak, and the ornament hanging on his chest was shaking slightly... At first he thought it was a cross, but John took a closer look and found that it was a simplified symbol of the Imperial Sky Eagle - with wings spread out, head and claws connected, close to the shape of a cross, but undoubtedly a symbol of the Empire.

Who changed this symbol?

While John Grammaticus was puzzled, a strong arm suddenly lifted him up from the ground and forced him to stand up. When he found that he was much shorter than the warrior in front of him even if he stood up, he felt a sense of relief inexplicably.

"You are not fit to travel with us. You are too weak to bear the will of my Lord." The tall warrior said indifferently and calmly.

"Maybe, but the boy called my name and asked me to follow you," John laughed, "He said, 'John Grammaticus, you will follow Orlanius Persson to find the source of the curse and explore the true name of the Dark Lord'. That's what your master told us, so don't be so dissatisfied with me, Grand Commander."

Or slowly stood up, still wearing his simple clothes like a soldier.

This reminded John of the thoughtful look in the strange boy's eyes when he saw Or in the dreamlike bright world just now - and of course Or's face that he wanted to say something but stopped.

That made John feel like an outsider who shouldn't be there. Alas, after all, the two people around him were unusually familiar with the Emperor, and only he could barely be considered to have met the Lord of Mankind.

"You have talent," Or said, interrupting John's thoughts. "A talent for learning spells. Therefore... the Emperor wants you to go with me."

He was silent for a moment and corrected his address to the Emperor.

Yes, that boy did inspire them in this way. John recalled the scene by the river...

The dark-skinned child stood by the river, holding a scary skull in his hand, and told John this thing that surprised him. He told him that when he felt uncomfortable just by reading the scroll recording the spell, it meant that he had a sense and talent for the correct use of this language, and he just needed to learn...

He was indeed talented in language learning, but spells were another matter. Both its power and its danger.

John carefully expressed to the two warriors who were loyal to the Lord of Mankind: "I want to treat my body parts well, my lords. Although I have some recovery ability, it does not mean that I can cut a throat and reconnect it at will - but I am willing to escort you, Or, this is true."

"We must explore the true name of the Dark Lord."

Or paused, his eyes swept around, and the light that had not yet completely dissipated flickered slightly.

Once they left this area, that is, the edge of the Glorious Crossroads where they were now, any words must be more cautious and carefully considered how to express.

"But there are neither prophets nor psionic masters among us. After the destruction of the 15th Legion, these powers no longer belong to us. Therefore, we must at least master a means to resist the power of the warp."

"But I-" John was about to refute.

"My Lord has made it very clear, John Grammaticus." Constantine's voice was cold and hard, calling him by his full name, without a trace of leeway in his tone.

John smiled bitterly and shrugged his shoulders that had just recovered, trying to ease the awkward atmosphere.

Yes, the little boy did propose some theories that made John unsure.

When the Lord of Mankind stood at the last crossroads of time, feeling the rhythm of the shadow of another dark king in the world, looking back at everything that had come, he realized that the way they had been using the spell was not complete. Even Mors the Eternal and Magnus the Red were the same.

After all, even their knowledge was only from the Emperor's understanding of the scholars of the Tao, and the Emperor only now put forward a new point of view: they have not really "recognized" the origin of the birth of the spell.

And all the negative consequences of speaking the spell are the price of this insufficient cognition - only when a being reaches a depth deep enough to touch the source of the spell, can he feel the information hidden deeper in it.

Angel language, the first language... Although it sounds like a language, it actually does not conform to any known grammatical or lexical rules - John has long known this. However, it can indeed be translated through phonemes and morphemes, thus causing an uncontrollable state of mental dissociation.

This state of dissociation stems from the inability to understand the essence of the spell, and using the spell in this situation will bring about mandatory consequences... such as the various disasters that have been recorded that hurt the body.

As for how to truly recognize all the secrets of the spell... John was speechless when he got the answer.

The boy said he didn't know.

"I understand." He said listlessly, "This is what I should do. Go back to Terra, go back to the nose of the Dark King, and pray that it can't smell our scent."

The boy's advice to him was to return to Terra. After all, the source of the spell is there, and they need to trace it back to its roots.

"You don't need to -" Orr wanted to continue persuading.

"No," Constantine interrupted him coldly, "You need to feel guilty for the unconscious behavior that gave birth to the Dark Lord." He put away his spear and took a step back, as if suppressing some emotions.

"I didn't refute it, Grand Commander," John pressed two fingers on his forehead and raised them lightly, with a hint of disapproval.

He knew that this guy was hating everyone who had put the Emperor in his current situation... Hate, a guard actually retained such emotions, but yes, hate...

It was indeed hate.

John smiled, with a hint of self-mockery, "Go and do your business, so as not to delay your meeting with those primarchs... God, let you tall guys go to the party, we short guys have to hurry back to Terra to die."

--

"You're here, Constantine."

Perturabo's voice seemed even colder in the cold wind. It passed through the valley with the night wind and echoed in the silent darkness before dawn.

He stood at the wall of the fortress base on the hillside of Telephus, motionless. Four warsmiths surrounded him like shadows, alerting any possible danger. At the same time, these assistants and guards shared intelligence with their primarch in time for Perturabo to deal with.

In addition, there were five tall iron ring mechas guarding around, motionless and silent, with gray and black shadows plated by the night.

There was no language, they only relied on the information flow after the consciousness language was converted into numbers, and silently transmitted the message to the great mind of the primarch. Such silence, in the snow-capped mountains where oxygen was gradually becoming thinner, showed a deep coldness.

Constantine Valdo felt the temperature here. Above his head, the armor did not have a temperature-regulating system, and a spike of red tassels was full of heavy ice crystals.

His eyes swept across the snow-capped mountains behind the primarch in iron armor, revealing the iron-blue ground. Under the heat released by the workshop furnace, the surrounding ice and snow all melted with molten iron and solidified into dirty strips like lava, or a kind of coagulated blood scab attached to abstract meaning.

"Who guided your path, Constantine?"

Perturabo's eyes turned back from the darkness outside the city wall, and his cold tone did not have any emotional fluctuations. Frost and snow formed a thin layer of frost on the hair on his face, but he seemed not to be moved by the cold at all.

"A beam of golden light."

The voice of the commander of the imperial guards was still calm, intertwined with the broken cold wind in the air.

Almost all the time, he remained calm.

With the crackling sound of frost like broken bones, the commander of the imperial guards tore off the heavy cloth covering the spear. After leaving the Glorious Crossroads, the silver-white Spear of the Sun God shone in the dim light before dawn. The silver-white spear was as sharp as a silver thread, which was one of the few bright spots in the dim environment.

He raised the spear and pointed the tip of the spear in the direction of Perturabo. The cloth half hung on the spear handle, fluttering slightly in the cold wind.

The warsmith raised his guns to him. The iron ring robot, directly controlled by Perturabo, did the same, and many weapons were aimed at Constantine motionlessly.

Perturabo looked at him.

"You will not rashly attack a gene primarch, Lord Admiral."

"No longer." Constantine said. It took him a moment to realize that the answer he spoke answered two questions at the same time.

Did this answer also answer his fate? This was a question beyond the scope of his thinking.

"I am no longer Lord Admiral, Warmaster. The Admiralty was born to watch over the throne, and I will never lead such a legion again." Constantine said without stopping, his voice steady, "Besides, I will indeed attack the gene primarch. This is my mission in the future, and it is also the path you will face."

Perturabo's expression became more gloomy. He raised his hand, pressed the back of Constantine's spear blade, and gently pressed it down.

The cold frost and snow seemed to slip from his fingers, and under Constantine's force, the spear blade stopped falling.

"You can't kill a Primarch, Constantine Valdor." He did not deny Valdor's words, "You are only born as a throne watcher, you can't even defeat Alpharius and Omegan."

Constantine was motionless, he was personally enlightened by the Emperor. When he was ordered, did he think that the birth of the Primarch was the source of all this?

"I was born to assassinate inhuman things, Warmaster. You need to understand that if the Primarch dies under the Solar Spear, what will be stripped away is the shadow of his body in the warp. What will remain is their unrestrained will. This spear has been consecrated as a conduit connecting the Crossroads, and the stripped power will return to the glory of our Lord."

A gust of wind with ice and snow swept by, and metal fragments in the distance creaked and wailed.

Silently, the warsmiths seemed to have received the order of their Primarch, and put down their weapons one by one, but still in protective formation. The same was true for the Iron Ring Mechas.

"Are you our assassin?" Perturabo asked grimly. "Very well, do it. What will happen to the will left by my brother?"

"To be placed on something, or to be dissipated in the time of the real universe." Constantine said, "I cannot accomplish an assassination alone. Even Konrad Curze or Corvos Corax would have difficulty in assassinating any of you alone. My Lord has made you too powerful to consider how to kill you."

"Then, only the final execution is needed for you. I understand your mission, and I will include you in the calculation."

Perturabo said coldly, without any objection to the killing proposed by Constantine, nor did he show any hesitation. In Constantine's eyes, this was even enough to make people question whether the Fourth Son, who once cared for his brother, was one with this person.

In fact, Constantine believed that Perturabo understood that if they could get a good assassin, it would be much easier to destroy the Astartes Legion's defenses around Terra.

The blow of the Primarch's death was a blow to the Legion's heart, even if it was not enough to destroy two Legion Hearts that maintained life at the same time, it was enough to cause a great setback to a unit.

The sky gradually brightened, and the light of dawn sprinkled slightly on Perturabo's side face, shrouding his figure in an unreal glow. The air was still cold, and the snow was silent, as if the light of dawn was another layer of ice, freezing the life of this land in the depths of silence.

Perturabo looked into the distance, raised his voice, and seemed to be talking to the illusory light, and said to himself: "Can you hear it?"

His call penetrated the air like a cold wind, pushing out layers of echoes in the air. The sound vibrated the surface of the mountains, as if to tear apart this snow-covered land, but in the end, everything returned to silence, and the mountains still stood still.

Perturabo waited for a few seconds, and the emptiness and coldness were the only echoes.

Perturabo simply turned his head again and calmly ordered the warsmith: "Fok, contact the Startalk Choir and write to Rogal Dorn to inform him of what you heard." He ordered, "Repeat it verbatim, but he must listen alone."

The heavy armor of the warsmith hummed and moved, and he did not raise any questions. "Yes," he said, and retreated to the rear along the wall.

Then Perturabo walked out from his guards, came to Constantine, and looked down at him. His eyes looked down at Constantine, as if he could see through everything about him through the armor.

The sky was getting brighter, and the sky gradually turned from dark to gray-blue. This land was reviving in terms of time, but the darkness of the cold night still retained Olympia, stagnating on the snow that never melted all year round. The mountains of Olympia were like a huge rock that was always frozen, refusing further recovery.

The Iron Lord effortlessly reached out and grabbed the cloth wrapped around Constantine's spear. Constantine did not resist and loosened his grip to allow the Warmaster to remove it.

Except for his Solar Spear and his own armor, nothing else belonged to Constantine's mission.

The heavy cloth fell heavily and slowly in Perturabo's hands, rolling into an inconspicuous mass of debris. The spear, which was completely exposed, flashed with cold light.

Perturabo reached out and touched it lightly, and a drop of blood slid down his fingers.

At this moment, Constantine felt another power.

His consciousness was pulled into another world, a dark storm world full of roars and screams, in which a nearly violent luminous machine was supported by the top of a high mountain. Those madly rotating gears and cables entangled like spider webs formed a steel cage, which bound a dazzling light source. It kept running at high speed, cutting out infinite straight rays of light in the turbulent storm.

This is the truth revealed to him by the Spear of the Sun God.

He stared at these metaphors, focusing on a halo filled with anger and oppression.

Perturabo narrowed his eyes, and said nothing, just threw the heavy cloth in his hand out of the city wall.

The cloth drifted slowly with the night wind, slipped in the air, and gradually disappeared into the unfathomable dark valley.

"I hope Lorgar Aurelion is your first and last prey, Constantine, but I know that this is impossible." Perturabo said, "I will make sure whether your power can match any of us."

"Now? Right here?" Constantine raised his eyebrows slightly.

"You don't always have the opportunity to get a breath and rest before killing one of my brothers." Perturabo said, but he had no intention of using force. On the contrary, his eyes fell into the distance again, as if he was just waiting.

Constantine Valdor waited in silence, every muscle ready for battle.

When a gust of hot wind blew from behind him, he realized that he was still too slow.

In just a moment, the attacker was close.

He tried to deal with it, but the handle of his spear was pressed against his chest, and the smell of bronze and blood rushed into his respirator. He growled and parried the attacker's next punch, but his forearm and abdomen were hit together. There was a sound of cracking bones, and he quickly stepped back to relieve the force, while his spear was still tightly pressed against his chest by the attacker.

Constantine felt the opponent's fingers sliding towards the edge of the Apollo Spear. The hand did not tremble at all, and even ignored the sharpness of the spear. The rough skin resisted the dangerous position and stayed on the edge of being pierced, while his fingers firmly grasped the tip of the spear that flashed with cold light, as if the weapon that should have cut off the palm was just a blunt instrument.

Perturabo on the side interrupted them.

"Enough."

The murderous atmosphere in the air seemed to be forcibly strangled by something. The attacker leaned forward slightly, as if examining Constantine. After a moment, he let go of the sharp blade of the spear and stood up straight.

"Constantine Valdor," Angron said in a deep voice, his voice like thunder in the valley. "Then, the Emperor did choose us."

"I am glad that you confirmed it again," Perturabo replied, without any emotional ups and downs in his voice. This answer was just a courtesy. "Constantine, follow the direction of the star language and observe Rogal Dorn's reaction after receiving it..."

"I don't obey you, Warmaster."

"But you will make the right choice. Apart from this, what other path do you have?" Perturabo questioned, with a storm on his face. "The Emperor has designated your path."

"And yours," Constantine said indifferently, as if the fracture and pain in his body had no effect on him.

Behind them, the stars were rising slowly, and the first rays of sunlight gently brushed across the snow. The wind lifted up with the heat awakened by the sun, whistling and stirring up a mess of pale snowflakes.

"This is what we chose for each other." Perturabo said in a low voice, "Enough, save our time, Rogal Dorn must be using astropathic communication with Olympia, and our response will definitely be faster than the message he sent."

For two seconds, Constantine said nothing. He glanced at the tip of his white blade and slowly wiped off the trace of blood on it.

This is a weapon that has been unsheathed. And its camouflage layer has been discarded by Perturabo.

"Goodbye, Primarch." He said goodbye softly, following a golden line that could not be detected by the naked eye, and disappeared in the wind. His figure gradually disappeared, and the golden line seemed to merge into the wind in an instant.

Perturabo seemed to have sensed something, and his eyes swept across the traces left by the invisible golden line.

Suddenly, the wind surged from the valley, and the heavy cloth that was sinking seemed to be awakened in his eyes, lifted up by the wind, fluttering and swaying, rushing towards the sky against the trajectory of falling. Under the dawn, the cloth appeared scarlet, like a bloody wound soaked in blood, leaving a broken mark against the sky.

Perturabo watched the red cloth disappear in the dawn, and then his eyes turned to Angron, who was standing beside him.

"His reaction speed is good," Angron said, moving his own fingers, "his strength is fair."

To be evaluated like this by a Primarch who is good at close combat, this is a level that the former commander of the Imperial Guards could hardly reach.

"This shows that his speed and strength are still growing, or being liberated." Perturabo said, and then changed the subject and returned to the last topic they discussed in front of the holographic star map yesterday.

"What other bait can you think of that would be sufficient to lure the Word Bearers to Isstvan III, Angron? Prospero is nowhere to be found..."