40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 277 48. Olympia Rebellion (End)

Perturabo returned to his home alone.

This was once only the palace of the tyrant Damex, a collection of details that were irksome in the eyes of the Iron Lord. Everything is so boring and there is nothing worth mentioning about the design or praise.

Not so now.

Now, it is a jewel. The palace of Lokos has been regarded as some kind of pilgrimage beacon by every Olympian in the past years, and tourists flock from various city-states just to see the glory of this palace with their own eyes.

It had been completely rebuilt by his hands decades ago, and everything that belonged to Damex's architects had been overturned. Perturabo did everything he could, and the results he achieved were amazing.

He was complacent about it for a while, which was a pity. Now it seems that he is still not satisfied here.

It was night now, the surroundings were quiet and there was no sound of people. The Iron Warriors cannot speak during their missions, not to mention the Midnight Blades. All the guards have been dispersed, and they are staying in the square of the side hall under the supervision of the Iron Warriors.

Some of them are trembling knowing the truth. Others were confused and saw this as another classic example of Perturabo getting angry and letting it out.

Yes, Perturabo knew what they thought of him, but he didn't care.

He clenched his fists and pushed open the main entrance of the palace. Pale golden light escaped from it, dispelling the darkness. The light emitted by the redesigned chandelier is not harsh, it can even be called gentle.

Sixteen marble columns inlaid with relief panels stand quietly in the hall, with a coffin parked among them. Perturabo didn't look at it. The first thing he looked at was the throne of Lord Lokos located at the very back of the hall.

Damex had sat here, he had sat here, and after he left and Damex died, the person who sat here became Califon.

During his years away from Olympia, his sister sat on this cold throne and stared at the empty hall.

Time had turned her into a symbol of aging and frailty, completely different from the smart and beautiful person he remembered. Perturabo thought he would despise her for this fragile imperfection, but he didn't.

What was surging in his heart was another emotion.

Perturabo lowered his head and walked towards the coffin. The hard crystal that made up its main body was still covered with earth. Under the orders of Perturabo, the Iron Warriors dug up Damex's tomb and brought the only governor of Olympia here.

Perturabo stopped a few steps away from the coffin and did not come any closer.

Standing here, he could clearly see what he wanted to see. Damex was lying inside. The old tyrant's face was a miserable gray color that only the dead have, but he was also very thin, and this was not death. Due to the influence of the disease, he was very thin while he was still alive.

The Lokos who raised him gradually transformed from a sturdy old man to this appearance in the last dozen years of his life. The glory is gone, only a decayed and thin body remains.

He was very stubborn, and even though Perturabo had used remote communication to persuade him several times to allow him to undergo mechanical modification or surgical implantation of organs, Damex was not willing to do so.

He died of old age, but even according to the normal lifespan of an Olympian, he lived a long time.

One hundred and seventy-two years.

Perturabo thought of the number—he knew it immediately, without even half a second of thought, as if he could command it, otherworldly. Far beyond any mortal, his transcendence is so obvious.

The father who raised him is dead, his sister is old, and everything he knew in that era has disappeared, but he remains the same.

He will always be the same.

A fear suddenly rose from his heart, and the fear was very complicated. Perturabo hated to admit it, but he admitted it anyway.

"Father," he spoke to the coffin, using a title that Damex had never heard before when he was alive. "Olympia is against me."

His voice was soft.

"It is not they who are against me, it is Olympia who is against me," repeated Perturabo. "There's a difference, do you understand? This planet doesn't welcome me. It doesn't like what I do to it."

"Luthor the Caliban, who arrived here from a world you don't know, can confirm what I'm saying. In fact, that's what he told me. He told me everything in full in his hideout. The seeds of civil unrest and those ideological trends were planted many years ago.”

He paused and took out a rough metal cube from his waist. Its uncarved appearance made it hard to believe that Perturabo was holding it at this moment.

Perturabo carefully pressed a few hidden buttons, and it spun and opened on its own. From a cube, it became a triangle.

A small fragment of carefully polished broken metal was exposed. It was iron gray and had a name engraved on it.

Alteros.

"He is an Olympian too," said Perturabo, looking again at the coffin. The look in his eyes was so complicated that you couldn't believe it was him.

"I don't know if you understand what I'm saying, Father, but I should be able to confidently assume that you do. Wasn't that what happened many years ago? When I describe a scientific theory or my disdain for a work of art, you I don’t understand, but you will listen patiently.”

"Eltros is also an Olympian. He is one of my descendants. He went through many selections and became a member of my legion. Then he was killed by me with the hands of his brothers."

The Lord of Steel was silent for a moment again. He pressed the button to turn the triangle back into a square and put it back. For a few seconds, his masseter muscles tightened and contracted repeatedly.

This man - if he could simply be called a human - had uncontrollable rage surging in his eyes, a rage that did not belong to a mortal, or even should belong to a human.

It's too complex, too twisted and extreme, even the devil in hell won't like it. Anger should be a person's most violent expression of emotion, but Perturabo's anger was different.

He suppressed it, twisted it, made it lose its angry essence, and became a whip in his hand with which to whip himself.

"I don't even know who I should be mad at when it comes to this."

He muttered to himself toward the coffin.

"That's how it used to be. I always find someone to vent my anger to, and I can always find someone. But when Olympia comes to this point, who am I going to blame? On myself? I should do this, my reason tells me, I should do it, but I can’t.”

Perturabo curled his numb fingers and ran them across the glass of the coffin.

Damex lay inside it with his eyes closed, unable to respond to any of his words. This ordinary man who once tried hard to be his father has become a corpse. It can be a banner in some people's mouth, or it can be a symbol of others' attempts to resurrect.

But he would never be his father again.

forever.

Perturabo looked away, suddenly amused - what was he doing?

When Damex was alive, he never revealed anything sincere to him. Now, he has been dead for more than thirty years, but he can't wait to lie on the old tyrant's coffin and cry loudly.

How ironic.

Perturabo sneered loudly, raised his head and looked at the ceiling of the hall.

He carefully designed a glass dome there, and the general star map of the Milky Way was displayed through the refraction of light through the convex and concave glass. The Olympian night was superimposed under their influence, making it look extremely beautiful.

But, to the Primarch, there was much more to the night sky than that.

He stared at it, and it stared back coldly.

A huge whirlpool, something that stood among the stars. It examined him, judged him, and made him anxious, uneasy, and manic countless times.

What exactly is it?

"What are you?" Perturabo asked it, a sincere question emerging on his face.

This question once belonged to many people, including ancient scholars who wore robes and could only observe the stars through hand-ground glass lenses. There are also believers of gods who preach to the believers while observing the stars under the night sky.

Now, that question belongs to one of the Emperor's sons, one of the most illustrious of mankind.

For the first time in his life, he looked directly at it with unquenchable courage.

"Do you want to destroy me?" The Lord of Steel asked softly. "Or change me? Turn me into something I myself despise?"

The whirlpool among the stars did not answer, of course it would not answer. There was only one situation where it would answer his words, and that wasn't what was happening now.

"There was only one moment in my life when I was free from you, when I stood with him. He was wearing armor and shining. He and I stood side by side on a nine-thousand-meter-high mountain looking down, and then you Disappeared. Why? Are you afraid of him?"

The Lord of Steel smiled coldly.

"Look," he said to it. "It's up to you, you can read it however you want, and evaluate it however you like."

The whirlpool remained silent, and only Perturabo's voice echoed in the hall. The Primarch's voice was resolute, and the connection between the words was as powerful as a hammer striking an anvil.

"I have accepted my flaws, and you are no exception. You are just an illusion, an illusion. It comes from some kind of unsearchable disease in my nerves. I may be killed by you one day in the future, but at least now I am still Perturabo."

He glared at it like he had won.

"And Olympia is my world," said the Lord of Steel. "The problems between it and me will be resolved by me and it."

Also, code.