Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Sunlight shines in from the hole in the sundial, leaving a dark gray dot on the marble clock face; this small dot moves with time until it crosses three engraved thin lines and slides out of the edge of the sundial, indicating that time has passed. After twelve hours of daylight, night is falling.

Morse blew a breath to clear away some debris from the stone sculpture. The statue of Perseus, with its hands and face missing, is undergoing a grand transformation. Now its shape is not only much smaller, but it also looks like it is wearing a cloth robe. The statue's face is hazy, with long hair shawl, and a ring of unfinished hair on its forehead. The detailed embellishments are difficult to distinguish.

An unconscious moan that comes with a creature waking up floated upward from below.

Perturabo staggered, grabbing the chair cushion and pulling himself up.

His eyes were still looking at a meaningless point, and the golden-red fire was still reflected in the ice-blue irises and burned unquenched.

Then the boy blinked, and his consciousness returned to reality from the false space constructed by psychic energy. He felt uncomfortable after lying on the ground for a long time, and his feet slipped and fell into the seat.

Morse waved his hand and let the small stone statue that Perturabo had carved fly to the boy: "You're welcome for your unfinished work."

Perturabo grabbed the stone statue and put it aside. Judging from his eager movements and slightly changed expression, he seemed to be very reluctant to let this thing reappear.

He tilted his head and looked at Morse. His open mouth indicated that some words were brewing, but some factors prevented him from speaking. Maybe it was the conflict between him and Morse, or maybe it was his pride.

"If you go to the window, face the sun, and open your mouth, there are two things someone can tell," Morse said.

"What?"

"First, you have something to say now." He carefully traced the chisel on the statue's hand, imagining what movements the person should use. "Second, time."

Perturabo's confusion disappeared as quickly as it came. It seemed that his thinking speed had been improved after a high-intensity teaching session.

"You are comparing my face to a sundial," said Perturabo unhappily. "The nose is the needle of the sundial, the mouth is the face of the sundial, and the teeth are the scales."

"Precision and wisdom, good boy." Morse smiled, stopped what he was doing, pushed the stone sculpture as tall as a person to the side as easily as pushing away bubbles, and talked face to face with Perturabo.

Starting from the current time, he chose to start with food: "First of all, I don't know where to have dinner."

"Um."

Perturabo tried to act serious, but no one in this world could really discuss the merits of salty olives and fresh cherries at dinner with the seriousness of commanding troops to confront each other, so the boy chose to change the topic abruptly. .

He raised his chin slightly: "Morse, I'm ready for tomorrow's trial."

"Oh, good luck to you," Morse said flatly.

This answer obviously did not satisfy Perturabo. For the umpteenth time, the boy fell into his own excessively deep and complicated thoughts and stared at him without speaking for a long time. Morse waited for a while, thinking that he had completed all the content of the conversation etiquette, then let the stone sculpture float back in front of him, and continued to think about the composition of the hand.

Perturabo was inexplicably anxious: "Morse!"

"Um?"

"You..." Perturabo breathed, stood up from his seat, and stepped hard on the floor with his sandals every step he took, even though the floor would not be harmed in any way.

He walked to Morse's side and appeared within Morse's sight. "I debated with them before."

Morse admitted that he was delighted and responded with a statement: "Oh, I know."

"I refuted them." Perturabo enunciated the words "them" and "refute" particularly clearly, and even the most hearing-impaired elderly people could hear his accented words clearly.

"Yes," Morse said.

Using his eyes as a chisel, Perturabo gave Morse a hard look and returned to his beloved chair angrily.

Ten minutes later, when Morse was about to continue trimming his statue with a sharp weapon, the boy suddenly spoke loudly, trying to complete his little revenge by scaring people.

The boy said: "You see, I relied on my own thinking and logic, rather than the innate knowledge that has fallen into the fog of loss, and the innate abilities that you took away. It seems that I am still no ordinary person."

Morse was not surprised that Perturabo found a breakthrough here.

To be fair, when he drew his knife and ran to kill the Arkers, Morse accepted that the child Perturabo himself had a bright spot that could not cover up the flaws - rather, the boy finally showed every mortal There should be a little bit of personal characteristics shining in their souls, and like every child of the same age, they can’t wait to show it off to adults.

"Moreover, I have learned all the forging knowledge you provided me." Perturabo said viciously, "Tomorrow I will prove myself in front of Lokos."

Morse wiped away the erroneous scratches from the surface of the statue with a swipe of his finger, and said in a calm tone as if drinking water: "What exactly do you want to say, Perturabo?"

Perturabo was stuck.

"If you don't speak up, I'll think you're just wasting your breath and talking nonsense again."

"Don't you have a moment to stop your wasted sarcasm?"

“My sarcasm automatically selects and directs itself towards the object of sarcasm.”

Perturabo walked aside angrily, grabbed his half-finished small stone statue, and threw it at Morse, seemingly eager to try.

Morse looked at him with a smile, and he immediately canceled the small action in secret and quickly threw the stone statue back to the table. His face turned red because the collision sound between the stone statue and the stone wall was too clear.

"I didn't..." His tongue fought fiercely with his will.

Morse shook his head, and a smaller chisel flew towards him. "Ah."

This immoral ridicule broke through Perturabo's persistence again.

"Morse!" He continued to torment the floor with his steps. "Didn't my performance exceed your expectations and break your stubbornness? Haven't my arguments refuted your slander? Don't you still Can you say that I am useless except for my talent? You just..."

He took a deep breath, worrying whether he would bring all the dust floating in the air into his lungs. "Can't you comment on how well I did?"

"You did a great job, a great performance. Perturabo, you're a good boy," Morse said.

Perturabo's face looked as if someone had poured red berry juice on it: "You, Morse, you must be... laughing at me and trying to please me! What, what did you say?"

Morse used a little psychic energy, for no reason other than to form a layer of ice to help Perturabo cool down. "Yeah, yeah, you're happy, I know."

"I am not happy."

"Then you're unhappy." Morse waved his hand, and the ice turned into water, then evaporated and disappeared. "But I think you have finally figured out that if you want a reward, you have to speak directly. You don't naively think that I have the patience to figure out your unfathomable child psychology, do you?"

"Morse!"

"I'm not humiliating you, I'm just saving our time." Morse said without any ups and downs. He finally chose to make a sword-holding posture for the statue, which meant that he needed to replenish some materials.

"You...you have nothing to do and are extremely free. What's the point of saving time?"

"Because I made a plan before. When you finish the trial tomorrow, I will leave." Morse said easily.

"Where?" Perturabo blurted.