Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Morse spread out the Regicide chess board on the table.

"Our Perturabo still has too many worries. This is a rare opportunity to work closely with the father of genes, and the final result will be to move the entire human race towards a brighter future. If he can take this job in Iron Warriors announced it internally, and the next day registration forms filled every pore in the office.”

"They are Space Marines," the Emperor said, sitting across from Mors. The golden armor had disappeared from him. "The hope it brings to mankind should be the highest reward."

"This is your original design intention. I am actually a little curious whether every Astartes is as devoid of desires as you said."

Morse said as he opened the box and selected the chess pieces from it for a while.

This tabletop game called Regicide Chess has many types of chess pieces, including emperors, queens, priests, generals, fortresses, citizens, etc., which often reminds Morse of some extremely ancient tricks, such as checkers.

Morse was not very interested in this ordinary chessboard, not to mention that his opponent was the most powerful and unruly psyker in all mankind. For his part, he'd rather play darts on the range with playing cards.

He knocked on the table, and the chessboard suddenly expanded, and the fixed squares suddenly rose up from the chessboard, forming mountains and red sand surrounding the city. The patrol soldiers who appeared in miniature temporarily threw the obstructing weapons into their motorized vehicles. Gu Zhong was sitting cross-legged on the ground outside the city, drinking low-alcohol alcoholic drinks.

In the corner of the chessboard, three or five fighters with rather backward weapons and clothing were lurking behind the hills. A tiny flag was tied with a rope to hide it. One of them grabbed some kind of obvious explosive personal weapon in advance, left the hiding place, and flashed past the edge of the patrolling soldier's field of vision.

The emperor lowered his head slightly and looked at the tabletop that had evolved into a sand table. The red sand earth was reflected in his eyes that had faded from the golden light.

"I can't guarantee that," he said. "But the Astartes are stable enough."

"Stable." Morse savored the word. "There are several broken lightning flags hanging in Malcador's apartment, next to Van Gogh's copy of Sunflowers. If I ask where these flags come from, I will get Answer?"

"When did you go to Malcador's apartment?" asked the Emperor.

"When I asked him what you thought about the fact that the rules of Regicide Chess require two emperors to fight each other." Morse shrugged and looked down at the actions of both sides in the sand table. "His response was that you didn't like the term 'expedition.'"

"I wish for peace," the Emperor said, his shadow cast on the wall dim, slender and tall by the light source. "But humans need expeditions."

"Holy war, faith, hope, nobility, the golden light leaking from the future..." Morse casually listed the words and phrases that flashed into his mind. Finally, he ended the enumeration with a single laugh, "The first wizard of mankind, beware of the stake."

The Emperor made no reply.

In the sandbox, the patrol noticed the enemy's arrival and sounded the alarm.

In the low-lying valleys, because they had not been involved in a real battle for a long time, the team did not leave any soldiers on foot to follow the guard on foot. Instead, they collectively entered the vehicle to track the enemy's whereabouts.

A few minutes later, an undetected bomb exploded directly next to the car, blocking the team's progress. Simultaneously, several shells were fired in a sudden and violent salvo, killing several members of the patrol with great efficiency. The gladiators rushed out from their hiding places with long knives and giant axes, forcibly dismantled the shells of the damaged vehicles, dug out the wounded soldiers who were not yet dead, and prepared to take them away.

A child pulled the rope on the flag, and the flag unfolded instantly. A bright red flag with a very deformed black armored figure was raised in the wind, symbolizing victory with two horns and a giant axe. The child had never received formal painting. education and appear particularly immature. He planted the flag into the red sand ground and quickly left with the other gladiators.

"Their fight began," Morse said.

"Angron No. 12 is not among them."

"Yes, because he further divided his limited power into parts," the sand table rotated quickly, the scale changed, and more battlefield areas were presented on the table.

Among the dozens of gladiators, all those who could still fight launched a unified assault on the patrol point under Angron's arrangement. The Primarch himself broke into a camp alone with an axe, and his movements contained a kind of transcendence of blood and blood. The peace beyond violence, he just cuts and kills.

Within an hour, five positions were invaded by gladiators using equipment from the mortal auxiliary army without any expectation. This sudden attack ended with great efficiency. After all the gladiators disappeared from the city-state's control area, the news was finally sent to the army commander of the high-ranking knights in the chaos.

"It's still pretty good." Morse commented. "As a first-time chess player, he gave this game of regicide a good start."

The Emperor nodded silently, his gaze still fixed on the sand table.

He was not worried about whether Angron would win the final victory. It is not difficult for any intact Primarch to conquer a planet, unless the Primarch is irreparably damaged. He was just assessing the current state of mind and preferences of this descendant based on the tactics adopted by the Primarch.

It took another hour for the city-state guards under attack to decide their move: the city-state directly chose to stand still collectively.

Their artillery had nowhere to fire, and their mobile troops did not dare to move forward for fear of being suddenly attacked again.

Only a group of patrol aircraft flew out of the city and hovered in the sky for a long time. However, except for the burning vehicles and the red sand blackened by the ammunition, these cameras found nothing - the five black and red flags stained with blood were all the effective information that the city-state could obtain.

Two hours gave the gladiators enough time to retreat. They even gathered again and were taken care of and comforted by Angron one by one.

"This Primarch is even worse than our Iron Lord," Morse smiled, "Perturabo treats the Astartes like his people, and Angron? In his world, there are only brothers, slave owners, more brothers, and more slave owners."

"How does he view civilians?" The Emperor suddenly asked.

"I don't know. There are no examples yet. But Angron is..." He swallowed the word "weak" and decided to give Perturabo's brother some face, "a person of quite gentle nature. So don't expect him to be a ruler."

"I just need the Primarchs to do their best." The Emperor said simply, and he stood up only after all the miniature projections of the gladiators retreated from the sand table.

The psychic energy left the sand table as the Emperor withdrew. After losing the majestic energy of remote observation across the starry sea, all the scenes in the sand table stopped, with flying red sand and five flags. When Morse constructed the sand table, he directly borrowed the psychic brilliance around the Emperor, and the Emperor acquiesced to his actions.

"Today's game of regicide ends here for the time being." The Emperor looked at Morse and said.

"Our chess player also needs a rest. If he hopes to win the game quickly, the walls of this city-state should be covered with flags when he wakes up. If he wants to preserve his own strength, we can expect a long and wonderful performance of regicide chess." Morse spread his hands, "Anyway, we will continue tomorrow."