Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

"There is a nature without bad, but there is no nature without good. If an unjust person suffers because of the loss of good, it means that he still knows what is good, and he still has a part of good left." - "The Book of Lorgar"

They are moving, lifting their legs, and then putting them down; their hands follow the movement of their legs, swinging forward, then backward, stretching to an angle, and then circulating in reverse.

They walked past the hands of the soldier lying on his back on the bed in the medical room, hanging by the bed, one after another, standing tall, like some dark green trees whose roots can leave the soil, walking woodenly and silently around him. The dusty floor of the ward unfolded under their feet, with many leather boots and shoe prints that no one had cleaned up.

The soldier recovered from the effect of the anesthetic. He habitually cursed a few words in a low voice in the dialect of his birthplace, and tried to sit up, but failed. His arms shook weakly because of this.

69 Book Bar → 69𝒔𝒉𝒖𝒙.𝒏𝒆𝒕

The soldier paused, "Does anyone... have time to look at my legs?" His uneasy voice spread around, part of it reaching his hands hanging by the bed. "They are not put properly, and, by the Emperor, my damn back is probably broken."

The people walking around heard this lonely voice, and they turned at different speeds until everyone was facing the soldier. Then, those legs began to approach at a steady rate, the drooping, bloody, soaked and hardened dark military uniform hems, like pieces of moving rocks, gradually approaching the position of the soldier's arms hanging by the bed.

"No, goodbye, brothers, or not..." The soldier said hesitantly, wanting to retreat, he tried his best to rely on the small part of his body that could move, and rubbed against the head of the bed. The uncontrolled arm collided with the edge of the bed, making a slight bang.

Others continued to approach, as if this was an instinctive continuation rather than a specific conscious control. A bandaged leg came too close and touched the hanging arm. Some blood from the wound oozed from the wet bandage and lingered on the soldier's arm.

"No, what the hell is wrong with you? Li De? Sul? Soraka? Don't... why are you staring at me? Whoever it is, say something!"

No one responded. Figures surrounded the soldier, attracted by the sound he made, just like moths will constantly wrap around a bright candle, standing silently in silence.

At first, the soldier resisted in fear, and tried in vain to drive him away with words. Then, after a while, his words turned into mechanical repetition.

"Leave," he repeated the last few words of the previous sentence, sometimes saying more, "You leave," and sometimes only the last vowel and consonant combination and some hoarse panting sounds were left, similar to a damaged tape.

"...Open," he said, "...Leave. Leave me. You...Leave."

His arm stopped moving, hanging stiffly in its original position until the soldier stopped talking, and his breathing became slow and steady, like returning to sleep, unperturbed by fear and pain, running at a fixed rhythm like a biological machine.

The people around him left one by one, turning around at the same speed as when they came. The sound of footsteps and clothes filled the entire gray space again, and the dust floated up and down quietly until everyone who could walk left the ward.

The light was dim, and the brightness in the room was further reduced. Outside the medical wing, some lights were turned on, and the cold light stretched along the ground and shone on the edge of the arm. Above the bed, the light bulb flickered under the short connection of the circuit, and soon went out completely.

In the darkness, a dull collision sounded abruptly.

The soldier raised his upper body and tried to leave the bed according to the established habit. His physical condition prevented this intention, so after reaching a certain height, the soldier fell back to the hard bed board of the bed. His arms trembled under the force, twitching nervously.

Soon, the second collision came. After falling down, the soldier immediately repeated the action of getting up again ineffectively, and fell down again after a few seconds. Because of the previous movement, his hard head hit the angle between the bed board and the headboard. The bed shook violently.

The third time, the fourth time... His actions were repeated again and again, and this was the only source of sound in the dark room.

The flowing droplets slid down the headboard and soaked into the sheets silently. Time passed in the dark night.

Bang.

The sound stopped.

——

"There is nothing worth seeing later, and of course, there is nothing in the front."

The craftsman said, and his voice seemed distant at first, and then it was pulled closer in an instant.

The darkness was pierced, torn from the middle like a painting, and the dim infirmary reappeared in front of the two gene primarchs.

The glass bottle broke away from the floating state and returned to Morse's hand. The sample sealed in the glass bottle seemed to have lost some unreal color, and surrounded by golden runes, it showed the dullness of inorganic matter.

Perturabo immediately lowered his head and observed the body lying on the bed. The former soldier had merged with the pale sheets and yellow pillows, and the sunken and blackened bones were exposed under the rotting pulp. Obviously, he had been dead for a long time.

"To put it in a nicer way, this is the memory of an object," said Morse. "It has no emotions, nor is it affected by souls or will. The principle is that the object is used as a lens held by a camera servant to capture images that occur over a period of time."

"Of course, the drawback is that we cannot read anyone's mental activities, but can only see the impact of Randan on their external performance." He continued to say his words. As for the specific impact, he did not feel the need to explain it in front of two Primarchs with superhuman minds.

On the other hand, after Morse accompanied Malcador to handle a series of paperwork, he quickly developed a deep fatigue of language communication and the handover of affairs in the work process, so that if there was even a clean bed here, he would want to sit down immediately - or lie down.

Perturabo pondered for a moment, thinking about the various characteristics of these transformed creatures and the deviation from their actual combat capabilities.

It is obvious that people affected by the aliens have lost their ability to think to a certain extent before they died, so their consciousness is blank after death.

If the creatures affected by Randan can only rely on their instincts before death, how can they have enough combat power to compete with the Imperial Expedition and Defense Fleet on the battlefield?

In addition, if Randan's invasion is related to the nervous system and consciousness, what factors caused this effect? ​​If it is psychic power, he believes that with Morse's tens of thousands of years of experience in using psychic power, he should have solved the mystery of mind control long ago.

"You said that their consciousness still exists." Perturabo said in a deep voice. Unconsciously, a solemn atmosphere was brought into this dusty room by the Lord of Iron. "So, can we take a look at the blank memories left in the consciousness?"

He turned his head, and the data cable fixed on the armor at the other end stretched or shortened with his movements. "What do you think, Aurelion?"

"The Emperor blesses him, because he did not damage the identity of mankind because of his betrayal and bring rebellious harm to us." Lorgar murmured, nodded to the corpse on the bed, and then smiled, and the light and darkness covered on the golden text changed quietly.

"I agree with your decision, my brother." He said softly and gently. The bearer of truth always has endless patience and kindness when facing his brothers.

Morse nodded indifferently: "If you want to see it."

He snapped his fingers ceremoniously, and the whole world seemed to change in an instant, but everything was fleeting. Before capturing any information, the blank memory ended.

"It's over," Morse said, "Guess how long I stuffed your memory, two."

"I sensed one hundredth of a second, Morse." Lorgar said.

Perturabo blinked, and a large number of redundant and invalid fragments suddenly added to his external auxiliary data system, occupying a large amount of his external memory. He kept the data for the time being and checked the log in the data system, and got an answer that surprised him: "One imperial year?"

Morse shrugged, "This is what you want to see, Perturabo."

Perturabo remained silent. It seems that Randan's manipulation of personal consciousness is extremely thorough, irreparable, and irreversible-or at least they can do this.

So, will the Astartes be equally harmed? What about the Primarch?

"In the body of the demon, there is no longer a human spirit," Lorgar sadly made a cross with his index and middle fingers on his chest.

"I need to contact the communication base station," said the Iron Lord, "send this information to Horus... Horus?"

"What happened, my brother?" Lorgar asked immediately.

The Iron Lord sighed unhappily: "This is wartime, and they are still involved in disputes!"

"The First Son and the Emperor's First Son?" Lorgar's violet eyes showed clear confusion. "Why? Aren't they holding a combat meeting?"

"It's Russ's fault." Morse said, the golden light in his eyes extinguished, "Not because of what he did, but mainly because of his existence."

"Horus mentioned Leman Russ. Of course, he was smart enough to use the nickname 'friend who discovered the second Primarch'. None of us knew the Second Legion, and Horus felt it necessary to ask Russ, the only one familiar with the missing Primarch, what his opinions and views were, while keeping the secret of the disappearance of the Legion."

"Lion, with some unique acumen, directly guessed that the unspeakable person was Russ, and had a series of discussions with Horus on whether Russ had the ability to bring a Primarch back to the Great Crusade, and the topic gradually deepened."

"Did they argue about this?" Lorgar asked.

"No. Jonson controlled his temper." Perturabo said, and it was unclear what the meaning of his slight relief at this time was. "He walked away and returned to the Indomitable Truth alone, telling Horus to wait until he had finished talking to Russ alone before they continued the meeting."

He read more information, looked through the dusty window of the medical room to the direction where the Vengeful Spirit was docked, and continued: "There is still a warrior named Luther left among the Dark Angels in the strategic room of the Vengeful Spirit. Zhuang Sen trusts him very much."

"Because I have had the honor of teaching the Primarch." Luther answered the questions that Horus Lupercal had when he was chatting with him. He stood with his back to the porthole of the strategic room, his black hair meticulously trimmed close to his scalp.

He looks slightly older than the average Astartes, but the difference is not huge. This may have something to do with his age when he became an Astartes - fortunately he was not yet too old to undergo a full range of transformation surgeries.

On leaving the Strategium, the Primarchs each left a trusted person with Horus to facilitate communication.

At this time, Daniel, the leader of the Mulistan Order of Lorgar Aurelion, was standing aside with a silent smile, listening to the conversations of others. His skin bears scripture tattoos similar to those of his primarch, except that he uses black ink.

As for Perturabo, he placed a mysterious steel cube here, about the size of the Primarch's palm. It is said to integrate a series of functions such as recording, photography, computing, positioning, transformation, psychic confrontation, fire support, etc. Horus politely asked no further questions.

"What kind of teachings? Can you tell me about it?" Horus sat relaxedly on his spacious throne to reduce his natural pressure in front of the Astartes.

"Some techniques for using words."

"Writing documents?" Horus said, "This is really troublesome. None of my warriors like this job very much. Alas, so do I."

Luther looked like he was just recalling some hard times in the past.

"Not exactly, my lord, but... something like this. The Wolf King's warriors found me, and that's how I got the job."

"So you know some of the sources of the conflicts between them, right?" Horus's eyes lit up, and he shook his head slightly, "No, I won't ask. Leon definitely doesn't want me to know..."

He saw a line of text projected on the iron box left by Perturabo, and the words changed: "Perturabo said that he and Lorgar are coming back, so please call Leon too."

Luther nodded and left.

The Wolf God stood up, sighed with a headache, and examined the map in front of them. A bright red thread zigzagged deep into the star map, marking the movement track left by the Second Legion before it disappeared.

Around this line, several military-related signs were lined up in alternating sparse and dense patterns, indicating the military goals they needed to complete at these locations.

Just by looking at the current layout, Horus could already predict the long battle that would follow. It can last for years, and a critical mission presents an even greater challenge.

"You mean Duncan? He is a rational guy who pays great attention to the allocation of resources. Even the entire legion is as careful as he is and pursues excellence. No, unlike Ferus, Duncan does not have the drive to encourage competition. He also I'm very happy to make everyone live a better life - I haven't heard from him in the past two years, why do you suddenly think of him? "

The star language sent Russ's words, and the Wolf God sent his thanks.

"Daniel, come and see if you can accomplish these goals if you assign them to the Word Bearers." Horus said.

"Me?" Astarte was slightly surprised and walked over quickly.

"Yes, we are all people who perform our duties in the cause of mankind. Anyway, you have been serving as a tactical advisor to Lorgar, right?"

The Word Bearer smiled at Horus's praise, "Yes, my lord."

He observed the aeronautical chart: "I have no doubts about your arrangements, and it is difficult to make decisive suggestions. But just for the sake of my original body's hobbies, maybe he will be willing to take on more destructive tasks. He is very interested in the aliens." The behavior was extremely angry.”

"He doesn't show it - well, he never looks angry," Horus said, changing some of the tactical markings.

"These areas are left for you to vent your anger. Please advise Luojia to control the time. After completing the initial goals, we need to meet here."

He put his five fingers together, and the hand with a gold ring on it was like the horn of a ship's bow, pointing to a narrow corridor in the center of the star map. The projected light weaved a network on his fingertips. The threads marking the territory occupied by Ran Dan were dense but fragile, as if they would collapse at the first touch and could not withstand the attack of the fleet.