40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 348 68. Moth

In essence, war is a science, a very cruel science. And what humans are best at is probably war. Does this represent human nature to a certain extent?

Perturabo thought about these questions many times, and he felt an ambivalence about philosophy that both disgusted and interested him.

On the one hand, he believed that philosophy was of no help to human survival. On the other hand, he also believes that philosophy is of great research value and can help him kill time.

Of course, as always, he did not reveal these thoughts. This was his style - after all, Steel would not speak for himself. Steel only silently endures forging, tempering, and becoming armor, weapons, and shields.

"Horus sent a message." The Fire Dragon Lord said. "He will be waiting near Istvan Three."

"Did he mention Fulgrim and the others?" Perturabo asked, lowering his head.

He was gently tapping a metal octahedron with a tool hammer. Its surface is silver, with fine patterns and the Olympian coat of arms. There is no doubt that this is one of Perturabo's works.

However, the strange thing is that Vulkan did not see the purpose of this eight-sided cube.

"No." Vulcan said. "That's what I was worried about and he didn't say a word about it."

Perturabo gave a dull nasal voice, which was considered to be some kind of answer. He turned the octahedron and continued tapping, until it finally responded. The surface began to deform, and with the sound of gears turning, it transformed into a beautiful car.

Vulkan looked at it with a bit of amazement and couldn't help but ask: "How did you design it?"

"I don't know," said Perturabo. "Just doing it for fun"

He said this, but then he knocked on the front hood of the car in front of Vulkan, so it deformed again and returned to the octahedral shape.

"There are sixteen ways of transformation in total," the Lord of Steel said. "My original intention was to make an educational toy for children, but it seemed too difficult to make. Not to mention children, even the scholars at Olympia couldn't fully understand the rules of this octahedral deformation."

"I'm disappointed because it's just some simple mathematical formulas. It's understandable that kids can't understand it, and it's really frustrating for me that they can't understand it."

"Are you showing off?" the third person in the room asked quietly.

Unlike Perturabo and Vulkan, he was fully armed, and his armor and respirator were even polished. The famous scythe called Silence rested quietly in his hand, and hanging from his waist was a brass energy pistol called the Lantern, which was one of the Emperor's personal collections.

"It sounds a bit similar." Vulcan laughed. "But it shouldn't be that our brothers shouldn't need to look for a sense of superiority in ordinary people."

Perturabo snorted coldly and said nothing, which was regarded as acquiescence.

Mortarion shook his head, and the smell of spices became stronger with his movements: "When will you change this problem?"

"What?"

"this."

"What?" Perturabo turned his head rudely and impatiently, still holding the tool hammer and octahedron in his hand.

"What exactly do you want to say, Mortarion? I ask you to finish your words in one breath, speak clearly, and explain it clearly. And don't use your numerology to explain it to me in a way that is consistent with the truth of the empire."

Vulkan laughed happily and silently on the side, he already knew what would happen next.

"Numerology is a very scientific set of scientific theories that are very consistent with the truth of the empire -" Mortarion raised a finger extremely seriously. "——The seventh is the hidden truth of all things. I can give many examples to prove that I am correct."

"Then lift it." Perturabo put down his hammer and octahedron, sneered and crossed his hands. "Come on, let's have a debate. At this point, you serious guy."

"Your attitude makes me want to stop talking." Mortarion said, with obvious helplessness in the eyes on the respirator. "Conrad actually said that you are a good person. I really doubt whether his evaluation of you was through the filter of brotherhood."

The corners of Perturabo's eyes twitched sharply: "You actually——"

He took a deep breath.

"——Forget it." The Lord of Steel returned to his expressionless face. "Stop chatting and get down to business. What do you think about Horus?"

"I don't believe he would do what you are speculating, but Conrad's predictions do have a high degree of credibility. Although I can't understand his talent yet, his words are indeed consistent with numerology. The derivation of learning.”

Mortarion said, raising a finger again very seriously.

"I think we need to be cautious. There are too many doubts about this whole thing. Fortunately, we will be close to Istvan III soon, and by then, the truth should come to light."

"But, brother, what if our bad inference comes true?" Vulkan asked seriously. "I think we must make two preparations. I propose that the combined fleet immediately carry out pre-war mobilization and warm up the artillery positions. At least we must be prepared before danger comes."

Mortarion did not answer immediately. He frowned and seemed to be thinking.

Perturabo answered very quickly, and the Lord of Steel still maintained his expressionless face: "I have no objection. If he wants a war, then we will give him a war. But if all this is just a misunderstanding, I will apologize to him."

"I hope so." Vulkan sighed and looked at Mortarion again. "What about you? Have you decided, brother?"

"The minority obeys the majority." The Lord of Death said so. "You make sense, Vulkan. I agree."

A few minutes later, they jointly issued an order, which quickly spread throughout the huge joint fleet. Battle barges, cruisers, destroyers, and even people on the shuttle accurately received the order signed by the three primarchs.

A tense atmosphere began to spread in the fleet, except for one ship.

It was the only exception.

It was called the Terminus Est, a template for the Predator-class battleship, and was completed in the manufacturing plant on the moon. Once called the Dusk Raider, now it is just the Terminus Est, the flagship of the first captain of the Death Guard, Karas Typhon.

It has strong firepower, many decks, and is specially designed to accommodate several times more assault boats than ordinary ships. It has outstanding merits within the Death Guard, and its name shines as brightly as that of Karas Typhon. But it will not be soon. —— Ezekiel Abaddon dragged himself back to the royal court. He had just inspected the repairs on the first twenty floors of the Vengeful Spirit. In the absence of crew members and servants, it was still repaired very quickly. Most of the places damaged by bombs or other things have now been restored to their previous appearance, and this is by no means the credit of the technical sergeants. In fact, the Vengeful Spirit is healing itself. Abaddon didn't know how to look at this matter. He gave himself many explanations, but none of them could really convince him. So he had to force himself to forget it temporarily and returned to Lupercal's royal court. The wolf god sat on his throne, the fur of the giant wolf trembling slightly on his shoulders, and the scarlet eyes on the black armor stared at Abaddon as if they had self-awareness. This was something that had never happened before. Abaddon lowered his head, also temporarily forgetting about this matter, and spoke slowly.

"Primarch." He kept his voice calm and said so. "We can go into battle again. The repair of the Vengeful Spirit has been initially completed."

In response, his gene father gave him an intriguing smile.

"No, it's not enough." He said.

"My Lord?"

"In fact, it's far from enough, Ezekel. We need people to preheat the artillery and load ammunition. These chores need to be done by mortals." The man on the throne said with a smile. "We can't let the Astartes do these chores, can we?"

"But we don't have any servants available."

The crew doesn't have any either. Abaddon said in his heart. I don't even know how the Vengeful Spirit will sail and turn if the war really starts later.

"Don't worry." The wolf god chuckled. "I have my own way. By the way, Ezekyle, have you seen Loken, Tariq and Eichmander? Why didn't I see them come to see me?"

Abaddon was silent. For a moment, he didn't understand why his Primarch asked this question - was he joking with him?

A sense of absurdity arose spontaneously, prompting him to raise his head involuntarily and look at the Wolf God. The latter's burning eyes were staring at him, causing both of his hearts to stop for a moment.

". Primarch?" Abaddon hesitated. "Have you forgotten? They. left."

"Oh." The Wolf God nodded thoughtfully. "I forgot, sorry, my son. I almost forgot that they were already traitors."

He laughed.

"This is really interesting. My own son betrayed me and took my crew and servants away. What? Can't they find anyone else to drive the ship?"

Took away the crew and servants? They are not.

The hanging dead bodies appeared in front of Abaddon, and their terrible appearance swaying in the cold and stinking wind. A rebuttal came to his lips, but he swallowed it back. The wolf god looked at him with satisfaction, and a certain murderous intent quietly disappeared.

"Eliminate them." He waved his right hand indifferently. "Find out how many betrayed me, and eliminate them all. One day, they will return my blood to me. As for now, Ezekel, you can leave."

"As you command, Primarch."

Head down, Abaddon fled from Lupercal's royal court, his body cold and no longer the same as before.

Update completed.

The plot will start to advance tomorrow.