Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 421 The Emperor’s Descendants: Feast of Blades

Cooper knew that he was not the material to be a memoirist - even though his father, his mother, and the camera servants they carried with them were all talented in literature and worked conscientiously to complete the glorious task of recording the story of the Great Crusade for the Emperor of Mankind. It seems that his family's writing genes should be good.

But seriously, he felt dizzy when he saw the quill, and his tongue felt bitter when he smelled the ink.

Perhaps in a sense, this is the normal state that Necromunda should have. You don’t have to know the characters, but you must be able to fight.

From the top of a termite nest branching into the sky, to the edge of a heat dissipation pipe that is almost rooted deep into the planet countless kilometers below, all children must learn to join gangs at the corresponding level - unless there is a sudden collision at home. Good luck, then you can join a gang with a higher residential level.

Then, if you get a gang tattoo, swear a few more oaths, pay a sum of money or get a few heads, you can spend a peaceful and restful life under the humiliation and protection of this second family. . Maybe five years, maybe fifty years, until you die or the gang falls.

If the latter is the case, you'd better find a new extended family at this level and pray that their initiation ceremony doesn't consume too many parts from you.

In Necromunda, life has been like this for thousands of years. Even if a few nobles fall from the upper echelons, it's best not to have any wishful thinking that there is a way to climb up - you think, the thing is like this, there is one missing surname on the top, it is not just to make room for an illegitimate son who lacks a surname ?

This cycle of personnel work is the crystallization of the wisdom of mankind through the dark ages. Unless external light illuminates this dark eggshell, the iron laws of our ancestors are unlikely to be changed.

"There's no outside light," Cooper's father said, muttering as he studied the latte art in his coffee, wondering whether he should urge the family's servitor to go to the Coffee Association to get a top barista certificate, "Necromunda doesn't The only external light is the external fist - bang, the Seventh Legion, the iron fist of the empire, smashed a hole in our ceiling with one slap. "

"That's a good thing," his mother said, floating over with the data pad in her arms, leaning out the window and overlooking the infinite scenery of the top nest. The chaos of steel lay like a thick layer of dirt below, piling up on the ash wastes and filling Necromunda's residential quarters.

"It is a good thing for our family. The emperor's errand has promoted us from the middle level to the royal nest." Father finally drank his coffee, "In order to make it easier for the ship from Terra to pick us up."

Necromunda's only spaceport hung above them, the Eye of the Moon space station, the only one capable of accommodating orbiting transport ships.

All transportation and trade are closely related to it. As for whether Necromunda has the most prosperous royal nest on the entire planet first, and then the Eye of the Moon on the top, or the other way around - no one can say clear.

They have such an intimate relationship, which is as eternal as the classification of middle and lower hives on the hive planet.

"I'm not talking about this," the mother rolled her eyes and smoothed the half of her blond hair that was left after the mechanical transformation. "I mean, since the Human Empire provided us with an official promotion path, we plan to leave the nest." The number of people who came up through the nonsense suddenly decreased.”

"You're right, although the Planetary Defense Force and the Imperial Fists recruit only a handful of people every year." My father nodded pretending to be elegant.

Cooper didn't want to hear this, not sure why. He didn't like the way his parents talked about Necromunda's hive relationship, but he couldn't tell what was wrong.

Parents always have a point, he thought uncertainly, maybe - maybe, one day in the future, he will listen to what they say and inherit their will.

But not today.

He jumped off the high stool at the dining table, planning to go out and fight to release his inexplicably uncomfortable mood.

He wasn't the kind of guy who could hang out in a kid's gang with other punks. He just doesn't want to drink happy water with them, and he doesn't find it much fun to bully the lower class hooligans.

No, he will have a fierce fight with his equal in status according to his own will, no matter who is on the opposite side or how many short-barreled guns he has.

He is fearless, loves to fight, and loves to single-handedly tear off the opponent's fragrant silk robe and throw it into the nest with the wind. In a sense, he felt it was his glory—even though he wasn't quite sure what that glory was.

In a nutshell, Cooper is a loner.

After leaving the door, Cooper found that it was surprisingly empty outside today. There were no bastards running around on flying skateboards on the street, nor was there a fleet of two-wheeled vehicles.

He thought for a moment and raised his head with squinted eyes. Sure enough, there was a circle of suspended aircraft floating in the sky, a bunch of bright yellow dots. The Imperial Fists returned from space and sent a fleet back to their major recruiting ground.

Ever since the Seventh Legion saved Necromunda from the orc threat, the great Emperor of Mankind had given them special permission to recruit troops here.

Whenever their expeditionary fleet was suspended in the sky, the entire Necromunda—the part that could see them, not counting the residents huddled in the middle and lower levels without seeing the light of day—turned out to surround the Imperial Fists. Outside the fortress, praying for success on any level.

Cooper boarded the rail car, and out of curiosity he was determined to find out what was going on. He circled around the periphery a few times, but couldn't break through the crowd in front of him, and his height was not enough for him to see where the unexpected congestion came from.

He went with the flow, followed the crowd, and gradually mixed into a group of boys of the same age as him, and identified the middle-class gang with a little old grudge against him by tattoos.

Last time he ran into them grabbing the boy brought up from the lower level and trying to push him down from the top of the tower in order to measure the constant of Necromunda's gravity. Their excessive complacency provided Cooper with a perfect opportunity for a surprise attack.

He didn't see the upper-class young men from the top families, and didn't know why they were not there.

The bastards obviously saw him, and Cooper waited for them to take action.

But strangely, those bastards wrapped in gorgeous silk were particularly quiet today. They just cast contemptuous glances at him, or put their thumbs on the tip of their noses and flapped the remaining four fingers without any attack.

Cooper grinned at them and cursed them freely in Gothic. This is the benefit of having a pair of educated parents. His vocabulary of cursing is far better than that of ordinary hooligans.

"Wait," the person on the opposite side sneered at him, "Your good days will end sooner or later!"

Cooper shrugged, "You are the ones who will be finished! One day, bastards!"

He continued to walk forward with the team, looking for an opportunity to drag the bastards out of the team and beat them in the fork of the street. But he didn't find the opportunity until the group of bastards entered the small tent in front that looked like a temporary building.

Not long after, the members of the small gang came out one by one with dusty faces - this is not an absolute metaphor. Half of them were limping and sweating, as if they had just been whipped from head to toe. Cooper was delighted to see them.

Before it was Cooper's turn to enter the tent, he laughed at them.

Then, he was grabbed by the shoulders and turned to the front by the sergeant who was wearing a brown lining and a golden triangle embroidered on his shoulder, which was nested in a chain and had a clenched fist. He was examined mercilessly from head to toe.

"Good conditions." The sergeant said, as if Cooper had passed some kind of primary screening without knowing it. When he boldly glared at the sergeant, he got a second evaluation: "Good eyes."

Then, this guy irresistibly put his arm around his shoulders and took him to the inside of the tent separated by a curtain in the room.

There wasn't much in the tent: a desk with application forms, a clerk copying, a one-way silver mirror, and something that was obviously a modified electric chair, standing in the middle of the tent, with a bunch of instruments full of needles and cables installed, and belt buckles loosened one by one, obviously waiting for the next child to sit on it.

"No, sir!" Cooper hissed, not afraid, but really surprised, "What is this?"

"To test your physical condition." The sergeant said, motioning the clerk to take a registration form from the table, "Age."

"Fourteen... Wait, why do I need to test physical condition?"

"To preliminarily screen qualified candidates. Height."

"Five point seven feet, what qualified candidates? Planetary Defense Force?"

The sergeant looked at him strangely: "Are you a drug abuser?"

"I don't take drugs, not at all - God, it won't be a space marine?"

"Of course. Level of mental illness? "

"Untested!"

"It's okay, we'll test it for you. Last name. You have one, right?"

"Helm'ayr! I don't want to test--"

The clerk stopped registering, and the sergeant looked at the boy in front of him in disbelief: "Helm'ayr, the memoirist of Necromunda? So young? I've heard that you've done everything you can to get into the legion and get first-hand information..."

Cooper Helm'ayr's mind turned, and it seemed too late to admit that he had mistakenly entered the Imperial Fists recruitment tent, and it was related to his face. He coughed, vaguely acknowledged his father's identity, and prayed that the sergeant would enforce the law impartially and kick him out of the recruitment tent.

"And I heard that the great Seventh Legion will be active in the fortress of Necromunda recently. I hope to observe this event from a more realistic perspective that will help deepen the understanding of the Imperial Fists..." He said randomly.

The next moment, a low, thunderous voice sounded from behind the one-way mirror. A giant pushed open a door hidden in the wall, and had to bend down slightly when entering the room because of his height. This made his shadow even more shrouded on Cooper.

Cooper looked at the giant, almost fascinated.

His parents' pretentious and gorgeous words could not describe all the extraordinary features of the giant in front of him - whether it was the muscles tightly wrapped in bright yellow clothes that symbolized infinite power, or the face with deep contours as firm as a rock, he was instantly full of yearning. That kind of infinite glory... real, unheard-of honor...

In a sense, he began to regret that he did not just report an unknown surname, then sit on the chair, and wait to become a qualified person. Yes, he had the confidence to pass the test.

One day, he would become a great man like the Space Marines. He was happy to climb up.

"You are well informed, Memoir Helmar," the Space Marine said. "I will consult the Primarch. Until then, do not move."

——

"At first, it was just a friendly match, originating from the great games organized by the Fourth Army in Olympia fifty years ago."

The Space Marine introduced him, thumbing through his datapad. Cooper immediately guessed that the Imperial Fist had probably written everything that could and could not be said on that data pad.

"At that time, the Primarchs were discussing, and it was the Eighth Primarch who proposed the name 'Feast of Blades' for the first time... But the real origin of this competition began with the dispute between the Eighth Legion and us in Chelawt. .

"In order to confirm the final plan to launch the attack, our Templar Chief Sigismund once again volunteered to start a sword fight with the head of the Eighth Legion."

"Again?" Cooper said, trying to keep his composure and sound more like the Emperor's Remembrancer.

He was not afraid of being exposed. He was indeed Helmar, just not the old one.

He just didn't want to miss out on this precious information and go home and get a beating from old Helmar.

"This is our habit, to decide the stalemate through duel. And Sigismund is almost invincible. But that day, he and Jago Severtarion were tied."

"Who is this Savita Leon?" Cooper asked. "Is this something I have a right to know?"

"The newly promoted first company commander of the Night Ghost Court in recent years is highly regarded by the Lord of the Eighth Legion. His martial arts was personally tutored by his original body." The Imperial Fist soldier said, "This is not a secret."

"So, our Sigismund is tied with him..." Cooper mused.

“This does not detract from the glory of the Imperial Fists, but Lord Sigismund has launched a deep reflection on this.

“After the battle with Chelawt, he invited Akul Duna of the Emperor’s Children, Karn of the World Eaters, Coswayne of the Dark Angels, and Ezekiel Abaddon of the Luna Wolves to enter the Steel with him. In the Narni Court of Warriors, several days of martial arts training begin.”

Cooper kept these names in his heart. Although he knew nothing about them, the mere existence of these names and the infinite space for imagination behind them was enough to make his heart surge.

This is a true honor...the highest praise a man can receive. he thought vaguely.

"After that, our first internal competition was held within the Templars. Every warrior must participate in this competition to test their martial arts level in actual combat. Lord Rogal Dorn and Lord Perturabo heard that After this incident, it was agreed to officially name the competition the Feast of Blades and standardize the event."

"Each round of the Feast of Blades begins with a regular competition of varying duration, which depends on the war situation of the Great Expedition. During the competition, players will receive victory points. Each fleet will be ranked by points until the Feast. Year... Do you need a record, Helmar?"

Cooper nodded his head confidently: "I can remember, sir."

The Space Warrior continued: "In the Year of the Feast, all contestants will be eliminated after a defeat. The top two to seven fighters within the fleet will compete again in pairs, and the winner and first place will be qualified to go to the host base. Conduct the second round of competition.

"In this round, the Haskar Guards will simultaneously undergo screening for entry into the team. In addition, warriors from other legions can also participate in the competition. Fighting with them will not count for victory or defeat, but the winner's honor will be obvious to all.

"Finally, under the watchful eye of the Primarch, the eight warriors will compete until the winner is born - he will be the Templar recruit of that year."

Cooper nodded and jogged to keep up with the Space Marines. They were following a road that Cooper had never traveled before, and Cooper guessed that this must be the road to the place where the Space Marines said the Feast of the Blades was held-at least the place where the division was held.

Just imagining the grand scene of that duel made Cooper excited. The fights in his own life in the past were just meaningless fights, stupid disputes without goals. Fighting for glory, if he can one day participate in the great battle of the Space Marines...

"Then...where did we end up this round?"

"This is the Year of the Feast," said the Space Marine, proving that even these giants had moments when their voices grew increasingly high. "We are holding the first round of trials. Afterwards, the winner will ascend the Mountain, see the Primarch for himself, and even gain Lord Dorne’s approval…”

"Can I -" Cooper swallowed a few words. It was obvious that he couldn't go on the field to play in person. "Can I record all of this?"

"If you know how to write," the Space Marine said, "you have Lord Dorn's special approval. Good luck to you, little Helmar."

Cooper was surprised, his face flushed with excitement. He clenched his fists: "I will always remember this day, Lord Space Marine. I...I swear to the Emperor that I will join the Imperial Fists!"

The Space Marine nodded. "For Rogal Dorn, and the Master of Mankind. The Imperial Fists welcome true warriors."

"For Rogal Dorn, and the Lord of Mankind!"

——

"Today, Imperial scholars often believe that the Helmawr family, the ruling family of Necromunda under the Imperial Fists, is led by successive family leaders. While governing the entire hive city of Necromunda and maintaining the internal operation of the planet, it also provides an endless supply of troops for the Imperial Fists. The glorious history of eternal loyalty to the Seventh Legion began on the day when Cooper Helmawr was specially approved to watch the Feast of Blades.

"Even if Cooper Helmawr never joined the glorious Seventh Legion in his lifetime, his family's great and selfless contribution to the human empire will still be remembered forever." - "Lord of Necromunda: Helmawr"