Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 469 Return to Reality

Constantine Valdor retracted the Solar Spear, and a drop of blood fell from the tip of the spear into the shallow pool of water accumulated between the rock walls deep in the cave, merging with the turbid water that had long been in the flying dust and mud, and becoming invisible.

His spear was hung steadily and naturally beside him, and the tip of the spear still faintly pointed at the dead on the ground.

Or the dying, the commander of the imperial guards thought. The reason why he has not put down his weapon is because of this hidden possibility.

Wrong details will lead to death. An immortal can die countless times until her power and soul collapse in the torment of life and death, but Valdor did not know if he had such an opportunity.

He waited, waiting in silence, waiting for any slight echo of reaction to his defense, or the whisper of a breeze that should not exist blowing through the armor. Just a ripple is enough to break the solidified air in the cave.

Nothing. Nothing.

He thrust the spear into Elda's abdomen, against her spine, pinning the perhaps dead immortal to the ground, and continued to listen.

No more new fragments of memories, the Apollo Spear stopped revealing the truth of flesh and soul to him, as if he had pierced only a bag of heavy soil.

Did the power that brought her back to life stop flowing back? Or did the resurrection take too long this time?

Constantine Waldo couldn't tell. He adjusted his stance, letting the armor support his body, half resting and half alert in the golden armor, waiting for his long-trained and transformed body to bring him back to the peak of his condition.

Beyond his calculations, when he ended this long-lasting close combat, his mind and body were not tired at all - there was a time when he realized that his physical strength had reached a certain limit and was about to exceed the peak he was designed to have; however, when he really took the last step at the limitless boundary and swung an extra blow, he knew that something, something blocked by shackles and curtains, was pouring out of his body.

From that moment on, he fought more and more impeccably, the martial arts of mankind for thousands of years condensed in his every move, and the tides of attack connected with each other, and finally gathered into a tsunami-like wave, killing Erda on the ground.

He lowered his head and stared at Erda's limp body and the final blow that cut her throat. She looked desperate as she was dying, not for herself, but for what she felt.

What they felt.

"His anger," Erda said, her voice filled with fear and blood, "His hatred - you also feel it, Grand Commander, He still came -"

He did not listen to her unfinished words, but sent a spear to end her time in the real universe.

But Erda's words before she died were accurate, Constantine thought. The tremor came from the other side of the world.

First, there was a subversive tremor, like the earth's crust rising and falling with the waves on some floating object, everything was precarious. There was a brief lull. Then, darkness and fear were overwhelming, and even a moment of hatred and curse was enough to dig out an eternal hole of fear in the hearts of ordinary mortals who were shocked.

Just as the Emperor told him a possibility before he left.

The Emperor left.

Temporarily. Forever. Never to be seen again. Never to return.

His master left. He stayed.

Constantine put this group of words in his mouth, tasting them gently and repeatedly, a sharp sourness climbed along the edge of his tongue and became blurred in his mind.

The commander of the imperial guards took a short rest, and then he would take Erda's body back to a place closer to the cave entrance. He would wait for the next visitor to arrive and wait for the end of his duty.

——

"The energy flow has changed," Morse said with a lot of unexpected emotions, although this unexpectedness did not detract from the solemnity he showed.

"Positive or negative?" The Lord of Iron asked, focusing on the huge pit that appeared in the center of his planet.

The former crust and the metal structure covering it had melted, turning into some kind of inky translucent glass material, with many scarlet threads running through it, winding like hair and bright red like blood beads.

Not long ago, the webway gate deep in the stratum suddenly exploded on a large scale, and the strong energy aftermath directly opened up a large area of ​​continental plates. If Morse had not shown an expected look, Perturabo's heart would not have remained relatively rational.

Morse told him that Magnus made a bold and correct choice. At that time, the craftsman looked only slightly lost.

He told Perturabo the last part of the Emperor's plan, including the Silent Realm - the original name of this array before the Thutmons Rune was born, how all nodes would be destroyed, and how the Dark Lord would be imprisoned back in its cage.

A game with time. Mors said that the bet was whether the Dark Lord would absorb enough destruction to descend first, or whether he would be locked into a cage by the Primarchs who were directly related to him in blood.

Yes, the connection between blood and blood in the mystical concept, as well as a unique skill that was incorporated into the Primarch's body at the time of creation, undeniably made the Primarch the only choice. The opening of the webway was also a last resort. If Magnus had not made this choice, Mors would have taken action.

But as the process of exploring and confirming the current status of the Webway progressed, the surprise on Morse's face made Perturabo's heart lift.

What happened? He asked in a deep voice, his voice dry. Tell me, what's wrong?

I'm looking for Magnus. Judging from the time, he shouldn't have time to leave the webway. But I can't reach him. There is no echo from him, and his psychic traces... thousands, or tens of thousands, of contact points are everywhere, and the pattern of each trace point is different... This is not the only way to destroy the node, Perturabo.

What does it mean? tell me! Perturabo asked, hearing absurd rage burning in his own voice. The long-lost anxiety surged in his heart, knocking on his nerves over and over again.

Morse devoted himself to the investigation, and the anger waited in the Iron Lord's heart, gradually turning into an ember-like depression and an indelible confusion.

I can't find him, Morse said, looking directly at him. The slight hint of confusion hidden behind the mask-like calmness on the craftsman's face directly penetrated Perturabo.

The craftsman paused. He was one of my best students, even though I only taught him a few runes. This means that he may be able to do more than any of us imagined - more than the Emperor could ever hope to demand from him. For example... changes in energy flow.

"It's hard to judge the effectiveness yet," Morse mused. "The energy tide is no longer moving towards the Throne of Terra, but is pointing to a place... I don't know. I can't be sure of his method of selecting the site, but I can assume ——You know him, Perturabo. I can assume that if he decides to remove the source of the Dark Lord's power and invest it in another unknown... I will use the black hole analogy for now, then he must have a direct connection with the Tyrant Star. The process of confrontation..."

"He did not survive the invisible battle." Perturabo said, his mind burning, every tongue of fire rising upward, biting at the edges of his sanity. The black pit in front of him spiraled into a spiral between his eyes, and every crimson thread reminded him of blood.

"Judging from the results, he succeeded——"

Morse fell silent for the second half of his words, and Perturabo saw his own reflection in his eyes, a sullen shadow, still haunted by the murder of one of his brothers, until he died that same day. The second piece of bad news came. He saw that his eyes were like a sky in flames, and this dark cloudy sky was only supported by falling lightning pillars.

"He sees farther than we do," Perturabo answered, as the molten iron poured out of the forge, coursed through his veins, and steamed his inner being. He smelled the blood of iron.

Morse looked at him. Perturabo could guess that this craftsman had experienced life and death thousands of times. If a person lives for thirty thousand years, then this is a challenge that must be passed.

The Primarch also lived for two centuries, a period of time that exceeded all the births, old age, sickness and death that a mortal would have in a lifetime.

But he still felt...

Some things end forever. It came out of the blue, as if it had been expected.

Like a fire, it suddenly went out when he turned his head. The world suddenly lost its color.

He stood up and felt his soul passing through the body he had left on the ground and entering a new standing body. His vision was blurry, and after a blink, his vision returned to clarity.

"Let's go!" he shouted angrily, clenching his hands into trembling fists. "Didn't you say we were going to Moro! We still have things to do - ha, let the Iron Blood come over, damn it!"

Damn it, his shouts echoed in his heart again and again, damn it, he thought, damn it, damn it! damn it!

——

Kaidomo Frix squinted his eyes to deal with the bright sunlight.

When he set foot on the land of the real universe, he felt a long-lost dizziness - just like a sailor who broke away from a seemingly endless voyage and stepped onto the land with trembling legs. He felt that the world was spinning, and for a moment he missed being on the ship. Peaceful and peaceful.

He resisted the urge to find a wall for support, because they were in the endless flat countryside of Tizca, and if he decided to rely on something to support himself, he would have to lie on the ground.

Or find another Iron Warrior to support you in pairs. No, this is not what a warsmith is supposed to do.

He calmly watched tens of thousands of warriors line up, counting their numbers, wishing with hope that everyone who was alive before the darkness fell successfully survived, while trying to communicate with Prospero's communication tower... the communication room... …just get in touch with anything.

Thanks to Magnus, they returned to the light along the way from the darkness and terror that suddenly enveloped the Webway, although no one knew what that terrible darkness was and why their steel hearts could not offset the long terror it brought. But the Crimson King undoubtedly saved all of their lives once again. Just like countless cases in previous construction.

Now there is a problem here, that is, they have been isolated from the world for too long, and their contact with the outside world is limited to the Royal Palace Custodes, and the Iron Warriors' Glory Queen and Space Fortress.

They tried their best to keep up with the various technological updates in the Great Crusade, kept up with the adjusted sound array channels and communication secrets, accepted new herald angels, new mortal auxiliaries to identify each legion, and got used to the changes in the settings of the projection screen near the sand table. As well as the changes in corps relations that seemed to them like smoke and mirrors; however, the moment Frix truly returned to reality, he knew that these preparations were still insufficient. It’s never enough.

They haven't fallen behind the times, but they are indeed out of touch with the world.

"Tizca responded," said Bill Perrin, who was temporarily acting as a signalman, with confusion in his gentle voice, "Prospero always welcomes the Iron Warriors, but they want to know which camps we are from and when we arrived in Prospero in order to confirm our identity. What happened outside recently? They are very nervous."

If War Blacksmith Perrin speaks out the other party's nervousness, it means that the air in the current environment can be ignited by a light touch of flint with steel.

Fricks did not answer his question directly. Their understanding of the outside world stayed at the Nikaea Conference and the return docking book that unexpectedly came earlier than the response.

"I will give you thirty minutes to line up and adapt to the environment here." Fricks ordered his part of the warriors. Their numbering method is not in the regular camp sequence of the Iron Warriors, but a different one, with some ancient but still commonly used Terra rune numbers. Put aside the letters Alpha and Omega... "Itar Camp, hurry up."

"I hope they will know our number..." Perrin sighed slightly.

"After all, we didn't arrive here through formal channels," Fricks turned his head, "The existence of the webway doesn't seem to be public in the galaxy yet, so their confusion is understandable. Maybe we should ask them to help contact the Iron Blood?"

"Iron Origin," Perrin reminded, and then shook his head slightly, "The Tizca people also said that the recent subspace storm has blocked a large number of routes and normal communications, so they are confused about our sudden appearance... new news."

He listened for a few seconds and relayed: "Out of trust and eternal friendship for the Iron Warriors, they still agreed to let us find a place to live first: many empty residential areas have been built on the outskirts of Tizca, and the population growth cannot keep up with the number of houses. Even if everyone is given a house, they can't use up all the existing houses."

"It sounds amazing." Fricks commented, looking up at the white city in the distance under the scorching sun.

The brilliant light adorned the geometric edges of the city, and the glimmering force field shield enveloped the main city of Tizca in a dreamlike, transparent arc. A beautiful place independent of the empire, an ideal capital that cannot be found in the present world, a city of light.

“It looks like it,” he added.