Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

The lower level of Gemo, the lair of the Bloodlings. When Hexakeris was found, his vocal chords had not yet recovered from the previous round of torture.

The visitor was not surprised by this. The man who wore a simple cloak and had all the covert measures that Gemo could find, such as position interference and sound wave displacement, took out a bottle of medicine from the cloth bag he carried. .

The old blood singer's erudition was not enough to support him in identifying its place of origin and maker, and this already explained a lot of things.

After being treated with the medicine, the severely mutilated parts of his body were quickly restored, but the restraint device was not removed.

The unknown visitor cherished words like gold. The second thing he showed was a piece of white paper with a line of questions printed on it.

"Analyze something for me."

Hexakeris looked at the visitor's cloak. Even though his naked eyes could not see any flaws, he had already given him the answer before he fell into madness in pain.

"Oh, Asdúbal Victor," he said. "I'll finish the work for you, but you won't leave me with a brain that can still remember."

The visitor was unmoved. A sealed test tube was placed on the low table.

When the light-blocking tape was torn off, the old Haemon can no longer take his eyes away from the contents contained in this test tube. His dark and withered heart began to beat again. He loved it and regarded it as the ultimate in all life. The art of flesh and blood is fully expressed in this tube of blood.

He reached out tremblingly, grasped the test tube tightly, and smelled the unique fragrance of blood through the test tube plug.

"Conrad Curze," the old Haemonculus sighed happily and sincerely, "my most outstanding student... my greatest master! And you, even though you can kill me, Victor, you must let me Let’s finish analyzing it first.”

——

Vashtor, the Creator, stood at the heart of the soul-forge concept, listening to the particles dancing in the tubes, anxious about whether he should stoop back to the mundane shell of the physical universe.

He had already heard the crisp sound of the keys in the plan colliding in reality, and had locked onto the fragment of the divine sword that became extremely eye-catching in the vision of the demigods who were higher than reality.

Vastor remembered what the shard was, and how his sword had been taken away by Kane. He was not torn apart or forcibly infiltrated in the Great Fall; Vaal walked out of the Pantheon, left the restricted environment and the world far insufficient for his performance, and chose his own path; therefore, he is still awake.

The past events had made him angry and dissatisfied, and Asuryan's judgment could not quell his dissatisfaction. But when his hands were covered by chaos and his body was completely elevated by this dark and chaotic power, the shadows of the past suddenly lost all meaning.

He no longer hated any living thing because his forge worked so well. Technology, only technology has value.

Click. The intertwined events in the real universe are mapped into interlocking gears in front of Vastor's eyes, one after another, accurately transmitting infinite power.

Every minute and every second, countless mortals play their role in the huge machine composed of the entire galaxy; when the previous state is finalized, the survival or destruction of the next moment can already be calculated.

This is the finitude added to the infinity of the universe, and this is the true way in which the force called fate operates; time, space, every section is fleeting, and the cosmic machinery does not stop for any life - or, at least, Vastor is not qualified yet.

The Creator hesitated no longer, the opportunity was rare and he had to seize it.

The curtain of reality was torn apart, and Vastor stepped into the storm, calibrating his senses, and found that under the many limitations of reality, he was actually using the poor thinking and perception rules of physical life, and he couldn't help but sigh.

Under his feet, the molten Cordolis decomposed into several fragments floating in space. The former mechanical factory and the remains of the unfinished ark were like a circle of gray light.

The Creator raised his forging hammer, and the fragments of the factory were pulled back together by the tides of the warp, restored in the most incomprehensible way into a strange makeshift shipyard. The Arkworld was dismantled and divided, returned to raw materials, and then put into the criss-crossing assembly lines of the shipyard. It was resurrected from the devil's forge to form a new mutant fleet.

Vastor boarded the flagship, which can be called a huge monster in the center of the fleet, and connected his huge mental network with these physical entities in sequence. Each node was activated, and the entire fleet born out of thin air became the creator's additional The thinking tentacles.

If the definition of body is broadened, then this fleet is now a part of his real body.

The location of the key became increasingly clear, and its location both surprised Vastor and relieved his worries.

The most depraved of Isa's children would have no power against him.

The subspace path calculated by Vastor quickly entered the mainboard of each ship. The dimensional runes wrapped the storm of the subspace and pushed the fleet into the vast ocean. Until all this was completed, Vastor calculated the resources he had consumed based on a thing unique to the real universe - time.

He was not prepared in advance, and fifty hours passed quickly. If he is given the opportunity to plan in advance, the time can be greatly shortened, but this does not really hinder anything.

His demon army is already restless in the cabin, thirsty for blood and soul energy. No doubt they will be satisfied.

——

Time is passing. first day. the next day. The third day. Conrad Curze sat on his throne, silently counting the minutes and seconds that were passing by. In twenty years, he never knew that the long time itself was such a torture that was difficult to survive.

On the fourth day, he grew tired of the Eldar's compliments. Their faces are smooth but hypocritical. They only care about whether they meet the common etiquette when facing their master, but they don't have the slightest respect or even concern for him in their hearts. Their eyes look into the inside of their souls, never showing any real emotion outward.

On the fifth day, he closed his eyes, knowing that his light sleep would always be awakened by things worth dealing with. He didn't want to open his eyes and observe how everyone in the hall was building relationships or sowing discord. After the party, all these former interpersonal relationships will lose their meaning.

On the sixth day, he lost patience with the entire lengthy banquet and had to look forward to the sudden arrival of those hallucinations.

The latest play was playing to a very targeted and unique large-scale meeting. He watched Mortarion step on the stage with exactly twenty-eight steps and denounced the dangers of superstition and magic. This contrast made Koko I couldn't help but smile.

"Hasn't the opportunity you've been waiting for come yet?"

The visitor asked a total of three times before Curze came out of the hallucination, and the latter had not yet seen how his red-skinned brother was reprimanded by the Emperor.

He stared at Victor in annoyance: "Are you back? Where have you been?"

"The details of arranging the banquet," Victor replied.

"Then go sit down." Kurtz closed his eyes again. While he squatted on this unfortunate seat for six full days, Victor was able to move around freely.

"No," said Victor, "you have to see. Gomo's defenses are being breached."

Curze gave up on retrieving the prophetic visions he had not finished watching, and sincerely prayed that these visions could one day resume the continuation of the meeting.

"Wait until the demon breaks into the banquet hall and wakes me up," Curze said, "or wait until Perturabo walks into this hall."

He raised his chin slightly, his eyes penetrated the shadows of the gorgeous hall, and focused on the sky above Gemo.

It's almost over, he thought. He is about to return to the Human Empire, and Gemo's annoying story will finally come to an end after tonight.

——

A dark barrier stretched across multiple spiers, stretching out and curving into a hemisphere at the end of the sky, to the edge of sight. For many years, the mysterious energy outside the void has been isolated and controlled, forming an infinite night outside the city of Gemo.

Not far away, the emerald portal rests on opalescent spiritual bones, serving as a safe entrance to other realms. Although vague images of other realms can occasionally be seen within the shield, this flickering energy barrier is just a solid and ordinary boundary visible every day to the vast majority of Gomo people.

Now, however, changes are happening beyond the barrier. The void outside is visibly rotating at a faster speed, twisting into an unknown spiral, accompanied by electric shock-like pulsations. Shattered light spreads outward from the portal's surface, as if leaking irresistibly from another surreal environment, bringing with it the clatter of rolling gears and the roar of steam.

Suddenly, many buildings in Comoros began to shake violently, the river water on the ground floor was churning, and rubble fell from the spiers on the upper floors. Long chains snapped, and towers and palaces collapsed, easily claiming the lives of a few unlucky souls, but this soon proved to be a lucky escape.

An energy impact higher than reality distorts and flips the physical world parasitic on the webway. Combined with the silent high-speed strikes of the artillery fire from the outside world, the barrier creaks under the load.

This anomaly finally caused large-scale confusion and panic, but everything happened too quickly - the attackers seemed to know the Eldar port city too well, even better than the residents of Gomo City themselves.

It knows very well how to launch a series of attacks on the most important weak points until the originally strong protection is horribly weakened and lifted.

The evil and morbid power quickly seeped into Gemo's interior, inducing the overly rich perceptions in the fragile body of the Eldar into an unknown direction.

Some Eldar quickly descended into madness, laughing and tearing off their limbs in surrender to the power of evil, while others were melted, evaporated or reduced to ash, fighting the dangers of being parasitized or tortured by unseen forces. Call.

The stable environment of the real universe has been polluted and too turbid by demons of all shapes and sizes; swirling flames and rotting zombies wielding indescribable weapons are eating away at the city excitedly and hungrily.

The huge and eternal Gemo, who has not yet recovered from the scream of the thirsty lady's birth, has been immersed in the bloody game of fighting for power. Under the real power, Gemo suddenly seemed to turn into a sand fortress, crumbling. , on the verge of collapse.

Many more Eldar survived the taint of the Warp, having to face the twisted creatures that burst into reality through the cracks in the barrier. Rough and primitive, these demons brought back to the Eldar the horrific nightmare of Slaanesh's birth, bringing with them a mass of hysterical screams and resistance at all costs. Every time a demon is torn apart by a mixed weapon, ten times the number of new demons will jump out from outside the barrier, expanding the disaster.

At the moment when the entire Youdu was under attack, Konrad Coze's banquet hall, where many people of noble blood gathered, would certainly not turn a blind eye to the crisis erupting above them. A short note was passed into the hall, causing several nobles who were pretending to be drunk in wine to pretend to wake up and frown.

The laughter, singing and dancing gradually stagnated, and low whispers spread across the solemn faces. From time to time, someone looked at the door and then at the Blood Marquis, seeming to be thinking about how they should find a polite excuse to return to their respective territories to see what hope and even benefits they could find in this crisis.

"What's wrong?" In the silence, the Xuehou's voice came calmly, passing through the hall and piercing the heart of every thinking person, "Do you have any objection to my hospitality?"

"Marquis, Gemo is being invaded by a force. I must return to the clan and preside over a confrontation." Someone said.

"No, answer me." Cozz stood up, his four-meter body casting a large shadow, "What objections do you have to my hospitality? Don't you miss your former gods?"

Before the commotion became too noisy and the crowd became too angry, the Blood Marquis sneered without mercy, his brows filled with cold pleasure. His waiting paid off, and Perturabo delivered the last gift tonight as promised.

And Konrad Coates always enjoyed every moment of killing criminals, and he admitted it. There is no point in denying the blood in nature.

"We specially invited your fallen craftsman god Val as the last special guest in tonight's story. For this reason, my blood relatives and I spent a lot of effort to invite this missing man from the distant forge. The old god himself. Dear friends, this long night is finally coming to an end... I hope you are satisfied with the final set of this dinner party..."

He looked out the window. In the distance, explosions and flames have begun, and the city is filled with thick smoke, like a furnace; the raw energy emitted by the fleet in the void burns the barrier like fire, surging in the air with indescribable power and wild qualities. The roar of heavenly fire or thunder shakes everything.

As a microcosm of the end of the Eldar race, the already destroyed Cordoris finally delivered this destruction to the city of Gemo on the sixth night.

"See you for what you are," Curze whispered. "Fallen, and dying of corruption. This is the ultimate fate you have chosen."