Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

"In this blue valley," Morse read flatly, the pronunciation was very different from Gothic, the strange rhythm was hidden in the gaps between syllables, and the cadence of the language itself filled the vacancies in tone, " The silver light of the river is hung on the tips of the hanging grass. The sun shines on the other side of the mountain, and the light in the valley is like floating foam. "

"A young warrior lay quietly on his back in the sparkling blue water, with his body spread out in the water. The clouds in the sky contrasted with his pale face, and light like rain fell into the green moss beside him. . One of his feet is in the calamus."

"He was very quiet, like a child who had been ill for a long time and was smiling. He was lying in the arms of natural warmth, not cold. The fragrance of flowers could no longer make his nostrils tremble, and he fell asleep in the sunshine of tomorrow."

The psykers of the Star Language Court lowered their heads next to the black-robed craftsmen. Morse's golden psychic light with runes blended with the many quiet blue radiances that shuttled through the stars through their wills, covering the indoor landscape. The unique golden-blue hue of deep lakes under the upper sun.

In this cabin of the Resolute Resolve, all the mortals were immersed in comatose consciousness. Although the reason was that Morse knocked them all unconscious to facilitate private conversations with the Iron-Blooded, Perturabo seemed to be able to feel that these mortals were talking to each other. He shared Morse's recital and was moved by poetry with equal melancholy.

The Primarch watched in silence as Angron tended to the gladiators surrounding the body of the deceased, via a remote electronic connection to a ground-based camera servant.

The faces with cracks that are deeper than those on the earth during the years of drought are almost indistinguishable by age and gender. Their chapped skin, scarlet scars of injury, and the sadness in their empty eyes unite them into an indistinguishable one. As a whole, the personality that the gladiators usually displayed melted into a strong collective emotional resonance in the common mourning of souls and bones. Even in the Iron-Blooded Ship, which was extremely far away from the scene, he could still objectively experience their pain. .

When the giant arrived, the gladiators spontaneously made way for him, stretched out their hands to try to hold his arm, and pushed his legs to make him arrive faster. People looked towards Angron silently as if they trusted their blood relatives. to ask for help.

Angron responded to them. The majestic warrior's half-kneeling movement was so natural and smooth, perhaps because it was not a surrender to any slave master, but out of deep care and protection for his companions - even though this was Angron's first time with him. The two deceased men knew each other.

He stretched out his huge palm and carefully supported the head of a deceased person to prevent his severed neck from dislocating. The silver cables from the dead warrior's skull slipped in Angron's hands, and the muscles in the giant's face twitched with rage and paralyzing pain.

The other man next to the dead man had no extra neural implants in his head. A rusty knife penetrated his ribs and stabbed into his chest with a hunter's precision, and was tightly grasped by the dead man's dry and stiff palm.

Their skin is the same dark ocher brown. If suffering is the growth rings of human bodies that increase age, then the torture they have experienced has made these growth rings so dense that they are no longer easy to identify.

"Old Simon has always regarded Boy as his child." One gladiator said, his voice hoarse due to physical damage. He spoke quickly and clearly, with a loud voice, like a muffled big box instrument, tattered and just talking, but everyone was listening.

"After they nailed Boy, Boy was taken away by those beasts and locked up alone. Simon has been waiting until the day he can see his little Boy again."

"I advise this old man to be careful. How can a beast recognize a human face? Don't be ruthless and don't dare to poke the spear you have sharpened. If you go up and be torn in half by Boy, that would be completely ridiculous. . Simon was smiling so hard that his rotten teeth were showing, and he couldn't even chew a piece of animal meat, and he wasn't in a hurry."

"Of course, their crazy high-level riders like to watch the drama of turning against each other. Boy must have to fight with his father, right, he must have to fight. Old Simon must have expected that day, so He's not in a hurry, he knows they still have to meet, and I'll be there that day, and the sun in the sky will burn me to death."

"I saw Boyi, his mouth full of blood and foam, with iron bars stuck on his shoulders, and human skin hanging on the iron bars. I thought Simon was dead at that time. Who knew that Boyi was roaring, and when he saw old Simon, He suddenly became quiet and stopped moving. He was awake. Now I think he was overdoing it, but the high-level rider was angry. The announcer shouted that he should be punished. , I haven’t seen him since..."

Angron's chest heaved violently, and air surged into his nasal cavity and was immediately transformed into hot blood.

His eyes scanned the layers of scars all over Boy's body. Compared with the scars suffered in gladiatorial battles, the bloody mouths on the skin were more likely to come from the slave owners' iron whips and pig iron.

The joy of defeating Hozan City left him, and the shadow hovering above his head gradually returned. The bitterness of failure and nightmares came to him, giving Angron a shiver.

Onomamos walked out from among the gladiators and gently patted the back of the several-meter-tall giant. After the Iron Warrior's tireless treatment, he miraculously recovered most of his body functions. The parts that could not be restored were also modified with mechanical technology, such as his semi-mechanical Achilles tendon, which supports the veteran warrior's activities.

The old warrior said not a word, but Perturabo could read the meaning of his movements. Onomamos is trying to tell Angron that they are both still alive.

"Thank you," Angron said slowly, buoyed by his shared sorrow, "thank you. Did they... leave any words?"

"No." Another gladiator said, "After they reunited, Boy probably asked Simon to kill him. After the slave owner is dead, we no longer need to live for others."

Perturabo could detect a startlingly genuine admiration in the gladiator's voice, and this was especially evident in Angron's ability to connect emotionally with others.

The giant's expression was particularly sad when he closed his eyes for a moment.

"Have they mentioned what they want to do in the future?" Angron asked, although he wanted to ask more about where the gladiators present wanted to go in the future.

"Oh," the gladiator who envied the deceased laughed, "who hasn't thought about it? We talk every night and we will kill all the high-level riders in the future. We also want to live in a tall palace and enjoy not having to fight. You can have plenty of food and drink, and eat the most delicious beef horn in the world five times a day.”

"But we can't enter those palaces." A female gladiator from Hozan said gloomily, her teeth grinding every time she spoke a word. "Just looking at these golds makes my broken fingers hurt. Simon, let's go." Now, he has found a place to sleep."

"Life will get better, life will get better. Simon says this back and forth every day, but we are just ruining life when we live." Someone sneered.

"Yes." Another gladiator sighed, but this simplest sigh made Angron look over suddenly, because the one sighing was not the fighter he had just rescued in Hozan City who was unfamiliar with him, but the fighter in Hozan City who was unfamiliar with him. Desia had slept beside him, fought back to back, and been an active fighter throughout the entire campaign against Hozan.

Angron was often proud to think that his brothers and sisters all had the flame of struggle and freedom burning in their chests. They joined him in killing slave owners and fighting for the liberation of more people. However, at this moment, he suddenly saw several souls who were actually extremely tired.

They were once forced to be warriors, but they were never proud of it. Now, the fact that the gladiators are willing to follow him in battle may not be a sign of support for his ideals - they just have nowhere else to go.

"Boy said he wanted to turn into a little lizard." Another little warrior from Hozan said. He was as tall as Yochuka. "Crawl away from the gap and never come back. Look at Boy's neck." , a giant gladiator. Maybe the little lizard he turned into escaped from his body. Simon was the best, and he got into the sand and ran away with the little lizard he turned into. "

Perturabo didn't know if this was a joke on the little warrior, or if he really believed in the existence of this fairy tale. He took a deep breath.

The psychic shadow of Morse sat beside him. "I like this story," said the craftsman.

"This would not be the first similar incident," Perturabo said, "if Angron had not found a way to prevent it. Throughout my conquests, although the nature and cause were different, it was undeniable that suicide would There are many.”

"If a person cannot see the path he can take, it is better to find a pure land that can accept him forever in a valley with abundant water and grass." Morse said, "I usually think that sleeping without regrets is the happiest thing in this universe. It’s a pity that not many people recognize me.”

Perturabo wanted to say that Morse must have lived too long, but then he thought that the place where Morse had lived in seclusion for thousands of years seemed to be somewhat consistent with his words, so he did not ask questions.

This attracted the attention of the craftsmen. Of course, Perturabo knew that even Morse could not always understand his sentimental thoughts, but it was a comforting thing for him to be able to care about each other.

Morse raised his hands in a gesture of surrender: "Yes, I have lived too long, and I know that what I said conflicts with human morality. In short, the current dilemma can be solved by Angron himself, and I agree with you being there. The decision to watch.”

Perturabo nodded, waiting for Angron's next move.

He had just told Morse that his brother seemed to have an extraordinary talent for soothing emotions, which also made Perturabo think that Angron had the ability to solve the current problem on his own.

Angron put down the hand holding the deceased. If these abominable steel cables had not been tightly connected to the deceased's brain, he must have torn away these sources of slavery and pain for the fighter named Boi and let his body To achieve a certain level of freedom and cleansing.

He held back the raging pain in his heart and controlled the superimposed despair and grief that radiated towards him from every fighter present. He reached out to the left and right sides.

"Hold my hand, brothers and sisters." Angron said lowly, "One by one, let us become one."

His voice echoed in the air, like a ray of light, far softer and more solid than the crystal lamp in the high-ranking lord's golden palace. His brass-like eyes seemed to be moistened by mist, and the twinkling water light fell on the stars. Since he shed tears among the skeleton graves in the wilderness of the mountains when he was born, this may be the second time that the tears in his heart overflowed from the lake of his heart and came to reality.

His hand stretched out tremblingly, like an anchor chain, waiting for the wandering soul to fall to him and find an anchor point in the sea of ​​red sand.

The gladiators looked at each other, and then one after another they took each other's hands, Onomamos took his left hand, and the child who told the story of the lizard took the fingers of his right hand. They approached him one after another, heard each other's breathing and heartbeats, and tasted each other's sadness and suffering in their breaths.

Angron could feel his power passing through this long arc. They have become one.

"My memory begins in the mountains." Angron said, frowning slightly at the pain that lasted longer than anyone else's life. "It was there, among the bones and blood of those who fled to freedom, that I was taken to the arena. ”

"From that moment on, I tend to think that it may be the wish of each of us to avenge these dead people who will never have peace and let their remains be eroded and disappeared in the cold wind."

He paused, feeling the heat of several strong thoughts of revenge radiating from the souls of the warriors. He remembers the names of these warriors and waits for the rest of his companions to draw strength from the held hands.

"But I forgot that we all just want freedom from this painful life. I found my way to freedom in fighting for freedom for our kind. I was confused by the future I imagined Eyes, I forgot that this bloody road of battle and struggle is not the destination of each of us. Maybe some of us just want to find a place where we can live the rest of our lives without restraint."

Some tired souls shed tears in Angron's will, proving the correctness of what Angron said. This directly caused tears to flow from the Primarch's eyes.

Perturabo became attentive during Angron's speech. In his brother's philosophy, he was acquiring ideas that could be generalized. He was used to assigning everyone's tasks in an orderly manner. At this time, he suddenly realized that maybe he still lacked some deep soul communication, especially with his Iron Warriors.

"I should consider you," Angron said, without using his usual "warrior" title. "I should heed your wishes. From now on, I will make amends, I hope it's not too late."

"My brother has said he wants to build a building for me, but we haven't talked about what kind of building we need to build yet."

Perturabo was slightly startled by the sudden mention, especially when Angron directly used the word brother to refer to him.

"I think I have made a decision now." Angron said, "I want a hospital. Since the half of the mountain behind Desia City that is exposed to direct sunlight is the training ground for warriors, then the hospital should be built where the sunlight needs to cross the mountain to reach it. See the other side. From physical scars to spiritual scars, this hospital will heal both our bodies and our souls.”

"It is said that there is such a position as a spiritual healer in this galaxy, but we don't have such a doctor yet," Angron added a smile to his tearful face. He was excited that his talent would be put into greater use. He said happily, "Then, maybe I can become the first psychiatrist in Nuceria."