Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

"He really knew how to make the atmosphere scary," Morse said, pulling back two layers of black and purple gauze to make the scene of the amphitheater below clearer.

Below the distinguished box on the second floor where they were located, Konrad Curze's throne was hidden behind a thin but excessive layer of fur curtains, leaving only a hazy outline of the Primarch's huge body.

Below the throne, every stone step is covered with a layer of solidified blood stains.

The composition of these blood stains is divided into two halves. The first part comes from the sacrifices killed by Curze's followers during the midnight ritual of death three days ago; the second part comes from the behavior of the followers coming one by one to cut off their own faces.

Perturabo watched the entire process, and he actually used his anxious body language to explain what it meant to be restless.

"There's something about that..." he whispered.

"Excessively bloody?"

"It's not necessary, in my opinion." Perturabo said, and immediately added, "Only in general terms. The Dark Eldar are particularly unique, which is understandable."

At the end of his words, Perturabo added hesitantly again: "He probably wouldn't use this on his own Space Marine Legion."

"That's not necessarily the case," Morse put down the gauze, sat back on the Comoburn lounge chair, picked up the wine bottle, poured half a glass for himself, smelled the unique and strange fragrance of the scarlet wine, and took a sip. "The Astartes have helmets, but we don't necessarily guarantee what they look like inside the helmets... Okay, okay, I won't scare you anymore, big robot."

Below, several new remains servants belonging to Conrad who had already put on red gloves carried an empty coffin made of black crystal to the center of the field.

In the coffin, a pool of flowing black blood accumulated on the dark bottom.

"Asdubar Victor," Perturabo read out the Eldar name burned with charcoal on the coffin lid, "did he really not expect that he would die?"

Morse took another sip. Unexpectedly, he really liked the fragrant and sweet taste.

"Oh, about him, that guy came to me to verify one thing, that is, his genes seriously conflict with Conrad's blood potion, and he will die if he drinks it. Our Curze will definitely resurrect him anyway," he lowered his voice. Voice, "Pretty bad, right?"

In fact, Morse was more curious about how Conrad Coates collected Victor's blood. After all, the body of the Archon of the Black-Hearted Conspiracy was... destroyed completely.

"Eldar." Perturabo snorted, rubbing his fingers on the map of Inferno that contained the map of the Webway. He is still exploring the secrets in the drawings these days.

"Dark Eldar, now they have a new name." Morse corrected.

In the amphitheater, the colorful clowns enter the venue through various tumbles and jumps from the sky and the shadows.

Different from the splendid and flashy performances in previous performances, they put on new spring green uniforms with relatively uniform colors this time, chose an aria symbolizing rebirth as the background, and used dance steps, songs and spiritual energy to weave a unique vitality effect. The space is filled with bright sparks of life.

This makes their dance easier to understand and watch.

If these Eldar performers did not regard the dark brown blood stains on the ground as the soil for cultivating the foundation of life, perhaps the impression of this dance would be much better.

"Although they have always tried their best in their performances, after seeing so many gorgeous things, I still prefer this more normal dance."

Morse commented, putting down the crystal cup, opening up his perception, and his consciousness touched the psychic waves stirred up by the clown's singing and dancing in the field below.

"I always feel that they are saying that the bloody night is over. After that, it will be a happy and clean reconstruction work, with the new king ascending the throne, pardoning the ministers and so on."

"The night is indeed over," Perturabo said, not entirely focused on the amphitheater.

After the previous battle with Vastor, with the help of Mors, the Lord of Steel successfully intercepted some of the knowledge remnants of the ancient Eldar's technological peak.

As for the intercepted part of the essence of chaos, Perturabo will certainly not take it; now, Morse takes that part of power and waits to slowly purify it.

In their heyday, these Eldar tribes created many artificial life forms and automatons to assist them in reclaiming and fighting on wild planets. This leaves them free to focus on pursuing the ultimate perfection in art and a high degree of praise for extreme self-satisfaction.

Regardless of the fact that the ultimate outcome of their pursuit is to create great things, in terms of technology and architectural aesthetics, Perturabo still quite agrees with many of the designs of these aliens.

If it were in the past, he would definitely not play these alien tricks within the scope of the human empire. But looking at Konrad Coze's attitude of wanting to directly lead the Eldar auxiliary army to conquer the galaxy, Perturabo couldn't help but secretly sigh, maybe he didn't have to abide by the rules too strictly.

In addition, for a very brief moment, Perturabo also saw the unique extraordinary vision of the subspace Chaos Demigod. It is a kind of gaze that is higher than the level of time. It is a perspective that regards the future, present and past as one transmission gear after another on the same level in the huge cosmic machine.

Different characters flashing by quickly, interlocking events and causes and effects, these complex contents are mixed into vague engine power, pushing the entire universe along the sling of time, sliding in one direction towards the future.

Perhaps this is Conrad Coates’ perspective. he thinks. The prophet's perspective.

Perturabo lowered his head and looked at the album in his hand.

In this high-level vision, there was a moment that did not exist. He actually saw the hazy face of the painter who passed away in an instant, and the scene seemed to be a confrontation. But he failed to see clearly.

Perturabo gave up the futile recollection for the time being and allowed his thoughts to drive this active map, drawing the path of the Webway that he expected to see.

Considering how old this map was, even if he had determined that it was made by humans, the names of most of the places on it unfortunately had nothing to do with the new naming rules of the current human empire.

Most of the time, he could only update these ancient place names step by step through the relationship between star clusters.

However, the name of the Ultramar sector has not changed since ancient times, and the word "Macragge" is very conspicuous.

Perhaps it would be an option to take advantage of Robert Guilliman's territory and then return to his army.

Below the high platform, the Pied Eldar in the amphitheater finished singing a song. Conrad Coze, who was hiding behind multiple layers of fur, stretched out his long pale fingers and shook them gently toward the center of the theater.

Although the Blood Marquis was almost silent today, the audience and actors in the theater always had one eye staring at every move of the Blood Marquis on the throne. After the events of Black Sunfall and Death Midnight, the Blood Marquis has become the new generation of uncrowned lord of Gomo.

After receiving the message, the troupe changed their formation and stood in a circle next to the empty black crystal coffin.

In the midnight of death, the majestic spiritual energy condensed from the dark pain of the entire Youdu was gathered in this resurrection ceremony.

The twisted rope of psychic energy passes in front of the dark sarcophagus, turning into a viscous river that can be sensed even by those who are not psychic; the etheric rain fills the empty coffin, blending into the occult and Asdubal Vik Among the residual bloodstains that are most closely related to this.

A surreal crack gradually widens, and the flowing river of rejuvenation energy rolls into a surging vortex, pulling the withered soul back.

Morse cheered up and monitored the surrounding psychic environment, checking for opportunities for the subspace unborn to take advantage of the opportunity. Even if the resurrection ceremony in which the Pied Eldar were personally inspired by the Laughing God was not omitted, there are still many details that require special attention in this dangerous process of connecting to the etheric ocean.

Psychic sparks flickered around the black sarcophagus, and all the noise in the amphitheater seemed to fall silent. Under the blood lord's high throne, the sarcophagus of the newly born person gradually emitted a light full of power.

The clowns held hands and concentrated on maintaining the stable position of psychic energy. The energy flow is injected into the blood pool, and the original matter gradually condenses.

Gradually, the blood pool surged and sank, like an ebbing tide, revealing a pale skeleton born from the blood. Then, as the blood continued to fall, cartilage, tendons, and ligaments took shape, and muscle tissue flowed like molten marble, fixing into brand new limbs and torsos.

As the blood gradually bottomed out, the skin began to grow, covering the surface of the almost non-existent fat layer, outlining the true outline of the resurrected person.

At the last moment of the ceremony, a wave of released psychic energy swept through the entire theater in an instant. Everyone was so shocked by the vigorous life force born from pain that they even forgot to breathe. A deathly silence enveloped the entire theater.

There was a soft sound of moving the curtain from the throne.

The bottom of the hard boots clicked against the long blood-stained steps. The back of a scarlet cloak hung solemnly, decorating a midnight blue costume.

Conrad Coates opened the leather curtain, walked down the steps step by step, and came to the center of the amphitheater.

Without saying a word, he stroked the black crystal cover with his palm and stared at the body of the sleeper in the coffin through the transparent material.

Then, the crystal cracked open, a lightning-like pattern cut through the cover, and the crystal fell, exposing the resurrected person's body to the air.

The resurrected man opened his eyes suddenly, and his eyes were almost pure black within the light and shadow of the black crystal. He looked at Conrad Coates and held out his hand to him.

The Blood Marquis pulled up the upper body of the resurrected person, and the broken crystals slipped from the latter's body like a drizzle.

"To our Bloody Marquis, Lord of the Royal Court, God of the Dark City, Konrad Curze." Asdubal Victor's voice was hoarse and firm. "Awesome, Lord of the Night."

Everyone in the theater woke up from the silence and knelt down towards the center of the amphitheater.

"Long live, the true God who reverses life and death, the dark muse who presides over punishment. Please have mercy on us according to your mercy, and wash away our sins according to your abundant mercy."

"Awesome, Lord of the Night."

——

"I still think Macragge is more..."

"This is my request, brother." Curze said politely, regardless of the fact that he had been pestering Perturabo for more than ten minutes. "Please find for me whether there is any trace of Noster on the webway map. Is it okay to have an entrance near Ramo?”

Perturabo stared at his brother who had just gained the status of Muse of the City of the Underworld, and sighed in defeat.

"I know you really want to go to the theoretical home planet where you were originally supposed to grow up, but if the Emperor hadn't discovered it decades in advance, it would still be just a planet that has nothing to do with the Empire, and you can go there alone. , What good will it do in the short term? Why not return to Terra with me, meet the Emperor, and then take your own army there?"

"I can take my court with me," Curze said. "I also need to take them into actual combat, Perturabo."

"You can return to Terra first and present your achievements to the Emperor. He will recognize your actions..."

Curze quietly raised a hand, interrupting Perturabo's statement.

"Perturabo, don't worry about me starting a midnight ritual of death on my planet. I won't do that easily."

"Yes, I can start a massacre against the planet at any time. I do not object to staining my hands with blood, but at the moment, I have no anger to vent to everyone. I... know the lowest level that life can degenerate. I They also know where their souls can spark cleansing.”

Perturabo opened his mouth, glanced at Morse who was leisurely watching a play not far away, and gave up any further debate.

He originally wanted to advise Curze to inform the Emperor of his royal court, but in a sense, the Emperor, who resolutely opposed the aliens in all national policies, was still a cold pragmatist in essence.

"Okay," he agreed with Coze's suggestion and spread out the map of Purgatory, "Let's go to your Nostramo first. I'll take a look, and you should also pay attention to where your planet appears on the map..."

Curze nodded and moved closer to Perturabo. Bright light blue lightning patterns flashed on the dark blue robe.

Perturabo's hand turning over the drawings suddenly paused, and a flash of light higher than the timeline passed through his mind.

In an instant, he finally saw the creator of this album clearly again.

It was a tall woman, wearing a skirt that reached her ankles. The dark blue fabric was dyed with various brilliant colors using batik technology. A purple-blue gauze stretched from the top of her head downwards, covering her shoulders, covering her skin as smooth as sandalwood. Her eyes flashed with sad light blue lines.

"How could you, a cunning man, deceive me like this! How could I silently accept such absurd behavior! If what you did is true as you said, I would rather abandon the webway map in an invisible place than tolerate this cruelty of yours. Held in the world!”

Perturabo pressed his forehead and immediately took out a pen and paper. Before the memory faded again, he quickly sketched the angry figure of this person with precise painting skills and recorded what she said.

Morse appeared beside him at some point, staring closely at the sketch on the manuscript paper, his brows furrowed in a rare deep frown.

Tens of seconds later, Perturabo put down his pen and asked, "Do you know her?"

"Oh." Morse blinked. "That's Erda."