Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 448 Tracing

"I invite you," said Conrad Curze, bowing slightly to Morse and Perturabo and opening his cloak to one side with his arm. "I hope you will come to the temporary stage that has been set up. If you want to..."

He removed some of the fancy decorations and riddles, and he had to lick his lips to make up for the awkward feeling of loss.

"My subordinates have spent decades tracking the Illuminati in the Holy Grail Expansion, looking for the traces of the Nightmare Sun and the Illuminati mentors who are against it. Finally, they told me that the Harlequin's tracer dance needs the help of a sufficiently powerful psyker, otherwise, we will never be able to break the fog left by the three-headed snake on its trail."

"Is this why you have been busy in recent years?" Perturabo said, and then nodded, "This is also the information we need."

"I am very happy to hear this, Warmaster," Conrad's expression relaxed, and he pronounced the word Warmaster clearly and deliberately, "Please follow me through the webway and find what we have prepared. The stage of the pied harlequin is in the center of the webway, where there is no time and place, only unquestioned answers, and unreal reality, so shadows and curtains lose their ability to block vision..."

"I bet there is a name there." Morse said.

"The Black Library." Curze looked at him and said.

After a brief tacit discussion, the iron ring was left on the Iron Wyrm to temporarily take care of this space fortress, which is huge and expensive, but not absolutely important. Perturabo and Morse boarded the Cliff, and under the leadership of Conrad, they shuttled along the webway covered with runes by Magnus.

"Some... people do have objections to allowing Magnus to paint here," Curze said, resting his feet on the edge of the seat, his hands on his knees. Of course, he is now just a shadow made of psychic energy, and he can do anything, "until they prove their effectiveness... It's like, this was a waterproof raincoat before, and then it became a submarine."

He laughed to himself for a while, and then suddenly stopped, staring at Perturabo with his dark eyes: "What does it feel like to be a warmaster, Perturabo? Will you change for this?"

"In which aspect?" Perturabo asked.

Curze shrugged and leaned against his armrest. "I don't know, my brother. I hope... no."

"This is not an easy crown to wear. Its radiance will make you stand out... Even my Tarot saw you, Perturabo. Three Tarot cards, the Emperor, the High Priest, and the Lone Wolf. This is the first time you appear in divination. For this, I feel... This is not what I want to see."

"Which one am I?" Perturabo asked.

"Lone Wolf (Jackal), because the LCD card shows you wearing a crown, I will not be mistaken. But I still can't interpret its meaning."

Curze bit his lower lip, then put his fingers to his mouth, trembling slightly to suppress the blood that was spilling.

"This is abnormal, my brother, I'm not sure - as Magnus said, the essence of true prophecy is to rise above time and explore the resonance of the future of ordered time in the subspace..." "It will be fine." Perturabo said in a deep voice, gently interrupting Conrad's thoughts with his own voice, "You are probably the one in the entire galaxy who knows best how to avoid being affected by prophecy, Conrad." After he finished speaking, Morse, who was lying on the recliner, immediately sat up, "Oh?" Coz put down his hand, his face as pale as usual, "It's almost there," he He said, as if smiling, "It's time to go, my dear brother."

——

"Elegy for Tracing, every actor will only perform a complete performance once in his life - and after discussion, now is the time to complete it."

Koz said, his fingers slid across the edge of the leather page, and words longer than time flowed out from near his fingers, dissipating before being read, along with all the undeveloped and unmanifested roads, entangled into a wisp of rising ink smoke, briefly outlining a black and white picture, and then immediately disappeared.

Perturabo retrieved the memories stored in his brain. These words that should have been remembered by the Primarch in an instant had been gently shrouded by the mist - it may not be impossible to forcibly decipher it, but Perturabo was not interested in it. He was reluctant to even raise his eyebrows.

Sigaole, who was hidden deep in the webway, didn't want them to see too much, but in fact, no one present would be idle enough to check the prophecies and unknown dangerous knowledge stored in the Black Library.

The clowns moved between the bookshelves, some of them were the big clowns who played the God of Laughter himself, Sigol, on the stage, and some of them were the single actors who played the hungry enemy with double horns and purple flames. Sometimes, even if there was no performance, they would imitate a glorious battle between the bookshelves, living in their unique roles, and finally bowing to three passers-by.

"Your actors are ready," said a death clown in a low voice, squatting on the top of a high ladder, holding a heavy gun in his hand as light as a feather, in line with the cultural tradition of the god of death on his shoulders.

"The red jade is covered with a cloak of shadow, so that the secret behind the curtain can be revealed, a sheltered secret place, a thousand-year-old nest wrapped with snake heads, shaped by time, and made complete by the half-demon who was born to be a shadow..."

"A good announcement." Morse's words were cold.

The Death Clown flipped on the ladder and quietly fell into the shadows behind. The bookshelves in the Black Library seemed to move for this, and it seemed that only the two Primarchs and the craftsman themselves moved.

They stepped into a round hall. The arranged bookshelves circled the empty gray stone hall in the center. A large number of piled books blocked other roads leading to the round hall, creating a closed and narrow area. In the center of the gray stone stage, an iron eight-pointed star immediately attracted Morse's attention.

First, he recognized the dangerous mark; second, a domino black and white clown was squatting in the center of the eight-pointed star, wearing a gilded tricorne hat on his head, a broken mask of tragedy and joy, and bright red lips.

"Lord of the Night," the clown raised his head, "the elegy is about to begin."

"What can I do for you?" Morse asked. "Are you Zephyro Ruby?"

Two clowns brought a weapon rack, on which were all kinds of weapons, from spears to bows and arrows.

Curze replied: "This is a mapped tracer ritual, Mors. Your ritual level must be much higher than that of my insignificant young Primarch - look at those weapons, think about our purpose... both behind the veil and within the sky wheel..."

Perturabo watched Mors staring at the weapon rack thoughtfully, and couldn't help but feel helpless in his heart about the riddles of these people who delved into psychics.

If everyone tried to introduce all the principles of psychic energy in a way that greenskins could understand like Magnus, it would undoubtedly... No, he had to admit that maybe humans would not be able to rely on the shelter of ignorance to survive darkness and chaos.

While they were talking, Ruby's performance had begun. This was almost a solo dance of his, if the accompaniment in the unknown shadows was not included in the performance.

At the beginning, Ruby acted as if she was knocked down by some demonic power and knelt down with her chest in her hands.

Then, he stood up, spinning, with a new colorful heart painted on his chest. The gloomy melody also brightened, and a long high-pitched string music was added to it.

At some point, Hongyu's mask was replaced with the unique grid iron mask of the legion under the Blood Lord, marking his new identity. He jumped lightly, sometimes crossing the beams following him, and rummaging briskly in the piles of books around the hall, symbolizing his work for Conrad.

Until one moment, the black eight-pointed star in the center of the venue suddenly emitted a terrifying black light, and the shadow of a crystal snake swam out from the edge of the venue, twisting and twisting, and coming with a fierce momentum. The clown danced with the crystal snake, and the cards in his hand were played from time to time, stabbing at the edge of the crystal snake's swimming body, trembling elastically.

The Tarot card framed the route of the long snake, but it was slow to lock it completely. The Harlequin's lips were pursed into a bright red line. He tore off the mask, revealing a pale face, and suddenly nailed the tip of the broken mask into the ground, hitting the front of the crystal snake's torso.

The long snake bent and jumped up, suddenly pounced on the Harlequin, climbed up his legs, and launched a fierce counterattack. The crystal poison of chaos pierced from the fangs of the long snake and injected into the palm of the Harlequin. Hongyu twitched exaggeratedly, holding the snake and smashing it to the ground.

Morse instantly pulled out a long sword from the weapon rack and threw the sword violently, accompanied by floating golden words. The tip of the sword pierced the long snake from the side, and the crystal snake twitched in astonishment. The splashing blood spilled into the gray ground to form a formed word, and then it tore its own snake body and quickly swam back to the surrounding darkness, and the long sword broke.

The music stopped abruptly, the dance ended, and all the lights came on.

"Ishtar, Holy Grail Expansion." Morse strode forward and read the words composed of crystal blood.

This is not only the name of a planet that is artificially assigned, but also the specific location of its projection in the warp: the name is power, form, existence and truth.

Just by seeing a name, he can already see in his mind the deep blue outline of the planet embedded in the vast universe, and the bloody three-headed snake shadow surrounding the planet.

Until this time, Perturabo finally used his logical reasoning and moderate experience to speculate and infer the theory of the ritual: "This is..."

He had difficulty in choosing words. "Is this a real battle?" asked the Lord of Iron.

"You can understand it this way," Morse said, returning to Perturabo's side, the surging light in his eyes dimmed in a blink of an eye, and finally returned to its original black. "This is a symbolic performance, and each scene reflects the development of the real universe."

The throw just now seemed easy, but he knew how much energy he poured in an instant. In time, the spreading spell that was enough to tear the stars attached to the temporary disposable ritual, that is, the long sword, and successfully penetrated the warp scales of the temporarily trapped crystal snake, leaving a trace of its existence.

Perturabo nodded, a part of him still immersed in the drama just now, the Primarch's mind made him try to analyze the energy flow and amplification principle, even though he knew that even the Harlequin himself might not understand all the mysteries.

"I thank you, Conrad," he said.

Perhaps because he felt that his mission had come to an end, Konrad Coates waved his hand indifferently, as his limited response, "I won't accompany you to find this 'mentor', let's say goodbye... Who is willing to take you with me?" Warmaster and craftsmen leave here? Forget it...forget it, I will take you to the exit of the Webway. Maybe you know the general process of the construction of the Webway, dear Warmaster, and you also have the map, but I know how. It will be faster to move forward.”

Not wanting to delay, they headed back to the exit. After all, they still have too many questions that need to be answered after catching Number Eleven.

Before leaving, Perturabo looked back at the Harlequin Ruby who fell on the ground. He lay silently, his chest sunken where his heart was, leaving an unfillable void. Clearly, he has paid with his life for "Tracer's Elegy."

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the Immortal Silversmith captured by Magnus, an Immortal who was supposed to be immortal, quickly died silently under the strict guard of the Crimson King. After the chaotic power that supported his existence was cut off, the extra life he gained turned into dust in the blink of an eye.

On the verge of death, the Silversmith neither delivered a threatening word to Chaos nor was he frank enough to admit the entire Illuminati conspiracy. All he handed over were the architectural drawings and various writings he had designed in the old night - after Magnus carefully analyzed those drawings and found that they were really just ordinary architectural designs, Magnus was so angry that he didn't want to speak.

"But Ishtar is there," said Perturabo, watching Conrad float away in his black boat. "Will it escape again?"

"If it feels that it can continue to freely come and go in the subspace without bleeding heavily," Morse replied. He was closing his eyes to observe the looming body of the crystal snake. There is no doubt that it has indeed been injured in the ritual, and the sharp and non-existent whine surges around the entire dark blue planet, causing endless ripples in the sea of ​​emotions.

He stood up, walked towards the porthole, and observed the protective mode and energy structure of the three-headed snake.

The three-headed snake envelops the entire planet of Ishtar. If he wants to reach the surface, he needs to break through the protection of the Chaos Creation raised by No. 11 - or kill it, he prefers the latter. This means that he needs to deal with a Chaos monster that can vaguely compete with the unborn Tyrant Star. This can be implemented, but it will not be easy.

Just before he made his final decision, a voice came. It does not come from within the planet, but from the three-headed snake itself.

"Come on," it said, spitting out the snake message softly, ignoring the disturbing noise, it was almost a sigh.