Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes

The last books Calvin saw were not quite what he came for.

He saw some unexpected gains in the bookshelves on the library’s outer transparent wall.

At the end that Calvin could see, there was a whole floor of bookshelves that stood out.

Their all-metal material and the book spines that reflected the metallic luster made Calvin know that these were a batch of books specially prepared for the Astartes.

This is a rare thing. After Calvin became a Gray Knight, apart from the demonic book, he had never seen what kind of books were prepared for the Astartes.

And the books in front of him, which were obviously prepared for them, made him feel the rare but real breath of life in him.

Yes, it is the breath of life.

Calvin was unwilling to call his life of service a life.

Because in his eyes, from the moment he woke up and became a Gray Knight, he no longer belonged to the category of civilians.

Therefore, Calvin had his own consciousness about the emperor's most expensive currency, which was cultivated by the sacrifices of countless people of the empire:

As a Gray Knight, he can live and live, but there is no life.

This is fundamentally different from other Astartes, because even the Astartes as angels have their own non-combat status and private time.

Private time, private hobbies, private aesthetics, and private consciousness.

What does all this mean? This means that even as powerful as the Astartes, there are still personal likes and dislikes.

In other words, if you cut open the appearance of these heavily armored, nine-foot-tall god-like warriors, the essence of their souls is still human.

At least subconsciously they still see themselves as human beings.

They are not bad at the good and evil, black and white, joy, anger, sorrow, and joy that humans should have, and they have everything they should have.

So the shortcomings brought by these emotions are not bad either.

Perhaps these shortcomings are not a problem when facing aliens and heretics, but when their enemies include evil gods originating from subspace and capable of playing with people's hearts, their shortcomings will be infinitely magnified.

Sora has a god-like body but no corresponding will, that's what they are talking about.

And if we continue to deduce this point of view, then the subsequent rebellion and betrayal will appear to be logical.

But the Gray Knights are different. They were born to face the chaos and evil of the Warp.

They must arm themselves with faith every moment and cannot slack off for a moment.

Whether it's fighting on the battlefield or training on Titan, the Gray Knights never have time for themselves.

In essence they have given up on their identity as human beings, on the beauties of humanity and the flaws that come with those beauties.

They chose to completely give up themselves, embrace divinity and animality after abandoning humanity, and use inhuman cruelty to resist the pollution and corruption of the evil god.

As long as a Gray Knight can still realize that he is alive, his will will only be prepared for the battle with demons.

No rest, no dormancy.

Their spirit and will are in a state of alert at all times, so that not even a trace of pollution can take advantage of it.

Are you tired? Maybe so, but life is so short that after death you should sleep forever.

This is Calvin's idea, and in fact it is also the idea of ​​all Gray Knights.

Therefore, death is liberation for them, so death is the completion and end of their duties.

It is precisely for this reason that the Holy Dreadnoughts of the Gray Knights Chapter, which also belongs to the Codex Astartes, are the rarest of all Astartes Chapters.

Because there are really not many Gray Knights who are willing to drag their broken bodies to fight for the Emperor again after a lifetime of nervous fighting against Chaos.

That's really too cruel for them.

Compared with such endless suffering, they have the right to choose eternal sleep.

Calvin turned away from this uninvited "trouble" and chose to walk towards his goal.

The trainee demon judge behind him also chose to stay away from Calvin after receiving a gesture with clear intentions.

The huge library was unexpectedly quiet.

Calvin never encountered another person while traveling inward. Only the servo skulls that occasionally flew by quietly in response to calls in certain spaces showed that there were more than two people here.

The architectural structure of the library is very exquisite. The designer seems to have classified them into independent spaces based on longitude and latitude coordinates according to different content orientations.

Each independent space is just the right size and enough for one or two people to read and study quietly again.

And each independent space within this overall structure can be dismantled and ejected individually at any time.

This design made Calvin once again determined to borrow the book and leave, never reading here.

After he arrived at this area that was obviously prepared for the Astartes, he quickly found the summoning authority for the Servo Skull based on his experience studying abroad in the City of Vision.

But unlike his expected quick response, the servo skull here did not start searching for books as soon as he made the request.

After confirming Calvin's borrowing authority and level, the other party summoned "colleagues" on the entire floor.

Not long after, these little guys who relied on miniature anti-gravity engines to float, worked in pairs and carried out the books Calvin needed one by one.

A total of 150 heavy books encapsulated in metal were placed in front of the stunned Calvin through the hard work of 30 servo skulls.

"I was careless..." Calvin looked at the little guys in front of him apologetically.

He didn't know the internal structure of the Mechanicus, so he didn't know whether each of these servo skulls had its own consciousness, or whether they were all the bodies of a certain main consciousness.

But such an ineffective instruction obviously made him feel a little apologetic when facing these skulls, but he didn't know how to express it.

So, in the quiet air, Calvin looked at the skulls, and the skulls looked at Calvin quietly.

"This is so stupid..." Calvin patted his head.

So he selected the two books he wanted to read recently in the order he set, and then watched the little guys in front of him once again pick up the remaining books one by one in pairs. Went back.

Having achieved his goal, Calvin tightened the books under his arm and walked out quickly.

This library gave him a really bad impression, and in this cosmic environment where psychic energy is the embodiment of spiritual power, if it doesn't feel good, it means it's not good.

An instinct seemed to tell him to get away from this place as soon as possible, otherwise something bad would happen.

He strode away from the library on the ropeway he came from. It wasn't until he passed through the huge gate and watched the heavy door panel closing in front of his eyes that this strange feeling disappeared from his heart. .

"Strange thing..." Calvin shook his head and put the matter behind him.

This kind of old ship likes to do weird things like this, and even the Gray Knight's ship is no exception.

This has nothing to do with the contamination of Chaos, otherwise the Geller force field detectors all over the ship would have discovered it immediately.

Even if it is a more covert invasion, the purity marks and rituals that have been carried out throughout the entire process from the steel smelting process in the early stages of manufacturing will never be lost.

What's more, this whole ship of Gray Knights are themselves the victims of subspace.

"Invasion of a Gray Knights battleship?"

If you express this idea, the bloodletting demon will probably think that you are suffering from heartburn after eating sulfur cornmeal.

However, such things have indeed happened many times to warships in various fleets of the empire that have served for too long. However, after many investigations by all parties, no recognized results were obtained, and in the end it could only be classified as a machine-soul rebellion...

On the surface, the priests and bishops of the Mechanicum have no objections to this.

Because this does increase the mystery of the Ohm Messiah in a certain sense in the empire, but only the almighty Ohm Messiah knows whether the binary language in the belly of the bishops and priests is cursing.

After leaving the library area, Calvin returned to his living area and began a new period of his life on the ship.

The concept of time in the warp is chaotic and disorderly, but this has little to do with the crew living inside the Supreme Order.

The true state of the Supreme Edict in the subspace, which is covered by the Geiger force field in every inch of the entire hull, is actually a bubble of the real universe floating in the current of the subspace.

The space inside the hull is the space within the Geiger force field, where the laws and laws of time and space are no different from reality.

Calvin, like all the crew, maintained his schedule and training by observing the time accurately calibrated by Terra in the ship.

But unlike ordinary crew members, he needs to bear more responsibilities and obligations.

As one of the top five quasi-high-level personnel in the actual command sequence of this space city with more than 200,000 crew members at full readiness.

Whether Calvin wants it or not he needs to be deeply involved in the command of the entire ship.

This is not to say that the whole ship really lacks him.

Rather, as a large military organization equivalent to one of our standard military regions, all staff officers and combat personnel of the Supreme Order are preparing as detailed as possible for various situations that may be encountered throughout the battle every second before entering the battle. , solid plan.

Of course, there will be questions about the orderly transfer of command positions when top command personnel are no longer able to perform their duties.

So even if the probability of it happening is slim, Calvin must spend at least 4 hours every day to understand the entire battleship's command and operation system and its principles from the middle-level staff.

This job is undoubtedly complex and heavy, but fortunately, Calvin is not a pure newcomer.

The previous service experience on the Revenant Redeemer saved Calvin's quality of life on the ship at this time, preventing him from being entangled in these systematic tasks and affecting other aspects of training and learning.

There will be more later, please vote