Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes

With Calvin's return, the episode in the main tent also ended.

Mars let Little Mal go and no longer pursue his fault. And Little Mal left in a hurry to repair his mental trauma in an unknown corner.

The soldiers in the camp regained a lively atmosphere under discipline, which itself illustrates the significance of Calvin's existence.

The sun had just reached the middle of the sky. Taking advantage of the right time, the team began to break camp and set off back the way they came.

Compared with when they came, there was no other difference in the entire team except that there were two more people.

The team was well prepared for the long march. There were five large horses in spare for Calvin alone. Two of them were just suitable for the two of them.

The strict discipline of the troops effectively suppressed the curiosity of the soldiers, and no one showed any abnormal reaction to the arrival of Elvis and Allen.

Mars did not ask about their origins. After getting along with Calvin for a long time, he understood that there were things he needed to know, and Calvin would naturally tell them. Otherwise, it means the time has not yet come.

He suppressed his imagination, not to guess what was in the palace that descended from the sky, nor to think about the origins of these two giant men who were taller than their two heads and nearly twice as wide.

Anyway, judging from their ecology of retreating with Calvin and their absolute obedience to Calvin, it was enough for the soldiers to know that these two were also subordinates of the chief.

As for Calvin's identity, not to mention, the tribe has long had its own understanding of his natural martial arts and his ability to never age, but they just didn't make it clear.

The return journey was still the same. The difference was that this time I didn’t even hear the sound of small animals. This was due to the overflow of Alan Janus’ psychic energy as a Gray Knight recruit.

He is still adapting to the feeling of his soul being connected to the etheric ocean, but fortunately, this body is directly derived from Calvin's genetic template, and his adaptation to psychic powers is like instinct, and is rapidly strengthening with his breathing.

He rode close behind Calvin on the large horse prepared for him.

This is a strange feeling that he cannot describe specifically with his lack of vocabulary:

Being in close contact with his genetic father made him tremble and excited at the cellular level every moment.

In addition to controlling his own psychic powers, he focused all his energy on observing Calvin's actions. Every detail he observed at the psychic level made him feel that he was one step closer to perfection.

He could sense how huge Calvin's soul was hidden under his body. It was a body that exceeded the limit of Allen's gaze just by sitting down.

In the heights of the invisible face and in the sky, just breathing can bring about white-gold wind and thunder.

The iron crown covered with thorns is worn on that head. The thorns symbolizing suffering and the spikes symbolizing authority are looming in the clouds, and the voices of thousands of souls are faintly singing among them:

Holy book! Holy book!

Allen also wanted to see more clearly, and his soul also wanted to get closer to its source.

Unconsciously, the surrounding environment changed.

He found that he had a set of silver power armor on him that he had never seen before, and he was in an unknown city-state.

In front of him was a huge square that had no edges, and in the center of the square stood a towering nameless temple.

Following his own instinct, Allen strolled to the door of the temple, and then he saw three people wearing the same armor as himself on both sides of the door, holding a long and sharp halberd in one hand and meditating with their eyes closed in a half-kneeling posture. .

"Who are you? Where are you?" Allen couldn't help but ask.

What responded to him was damn silence. His voice echoed in the square for a long time before one of the Gray Knights opened his eyes and looked at him.

"Oh? A living person who came in unexpectedly? He's still a newborn." A hoarse voice came from under the silver-gray hood, making Allen instinctively awe.

The taller figure stood up from his kneeling position and walked up to him with the halberd in his hand. Allen couldn't see his face clearly, or he should have seen it clearly, but his cognition was not enough to remember it.

He just remembered the friendly smile that person gave him:

"The time has not come yet. This is not the place you should be. Go back..." After saying that, the mysterious gray knight reached out and gave him a gentle push, and he returned to reality in a whirlwind.

"Uh..." Allen shook his head in a daze and saw his big hand still holding the reins.

The leaves were rustling in the surrounding woods. The smell of rotten wood in the air and the crackle of dead branches and fallen leaves from horse hooves made him confirm in the chaos that this was the side of reality.

And he looked up again, just in time to see Calvin turning back and giving him a mysterious smile...

Elvis looked at the woodland around him, hiding his confusion with a calm expression.

Being separated from the mothership where he lived for a long time and the pharmacist's power armor that he lived with day and night, he had the illusion of being extremely fragile.

Elvis knew it was his psychology. Looking at the slender and fragile native cervical vertebrae of the mortals in front of the team, he knew clearly:

As long as he thought about it, even with bare hands, no one among the more than a hundred soldiers here except Calvin and another Gray Knight could survive for more than ten minutes.

This is Elvis's basic self-confidence and the essential difference between Astartes and mortals.

Their strength does not come from external substances. No matter how powerful their indestructible armor and indestructible weapons and equipment are, they are just a way to release their combat power.

What really makes them powerful is themselves. It is their understanding of war itself resulting from the transformation of life forms. That is what distinguishes them from ordinary people.

Hundreds of years of conquest can make any mortal collapse, but in the eyes of an Astartes, hundreds of years of conquest is only considered a fierce battle, not all.

Their willpower and life span beyond mortals allow them to concentrate on the path of war skills for hundreds of years, polishing their combat skills and spiritual shortcomings with inhuman patience.

The time for this kind of growth and transformation varies, because the gene seed has the function of recording the memory of the battle where the gene comes from.

The Astartes will strengthen their inherited combat memories from a first-person perspective during their daily sleep, so that they can immediately understand how to deal with a specific target when they encounter it.

Training under the acceleration of this kind of memory can last from a hundred years to a few decades.

You can see the transformation of an Astartes from a new recruit to a veteran of many battles happening visibly with the naked eye.

Eventually it grew to represent the limit of force of the human race, and rushed to various battlefields with aliens and chaos in the vast star sea of ​​the empire, thereby defending the interests of the human race.

Astarte, the literal translation in High Gothic - the person who walks in the starry sky. The original name is derived from this. As for the title of monk added later, it is just a unilateral arrogance imposed by the ignorant beliefs of mortals. That’s all.

The team was still marching quietly, but the speed was much faster than when they came. Without the threat of accidents while exploring the unknown, the unscrupulous warriors were more motivated by the hope of returning home.

The three-day journey back took only one day, and the total fifteen-day journey was only on the fourth day as the team headed south. The border checkpoint belonging to the tribe had already appeared at the end of the field of vision.

Elvis quietly advanced amidst cheers and said to Calvin behind him:

"Dear Mr. Ji..."

Halfway through his words, Elvis decided to call the Primarch in front of him simply "Sir" under the hint of Calvin's eyes.

He exerted force on his legs, urged the horse under his crotch to take two quick steps to reach a position beside Calvin, and asked Calvin in a low voice the question he had wanted to know along the way.

"Lord Calvin. I want to know your next steps for me and the chapter I belong to."

It's not because he's too anxious or not kind enough, but it's about the future of his war group. Being able to endure so long before asking already made Calvin look high on the young man.

Calvin did not answer his question directly, but under Elvis' nervous gaze, he mentally calculated the return date agreed with Constantine.

"Ten years, 15 years at most."

He raised his hand to stop Elvis' urging, and explained seriously to this young man who shouldered a heavy mission.

"Within five years, the ally I am waiting for will arrive. With his help, I expect to be able to complete the initial industrialization of the northern continent of this planet within ten years. This is also the basic condition for us to return your mothership to space."

"So long?" Elvis still couldn't accept it.

"I'm afraid the High Lords Council will not allow us to disappear from their sight for such a long time." He said worriedly.

Diplomatic matters concerning the Chapter were not within his scope of responsibilities.

But as the chief and only pharmacist, he is also half of the top management of the war group. Although he has no decision-making power on all major internal affairs of the war group, he is obliged to attend and observe.

Under the influence of his ears and eyes, Elvis knew a little bit about the management of the war group, although he had never seen a pig run away, but the pork there was inedible.

"You have no choice in the first place, right?"

Calvin looked at Elvis calmly, reminding him with his eyes and words that even if they had not lost contact with the High Lords Council, they would still fail the Tribunal's next gene seed inspection.

"Okay. Follow your will."

Under the puzzled eyes of the indigenous warriors beside him, Elvis made an eagle salute to Calvin from the saddle. This was his way of testing Calvin to see if he was hostile to the Empire's Legitimacy newspaper.

Naturally, this little thought could not be hidden from Calvin's eyes. He smiled casually and said to Elvis: "The Emperor's blessing! You can trust any Gray Knight! We are different from you. We have been fighting against Chaos for nearly ten thousand years. In battle, we never fell!"

"you!"

The red-faced Elvis was about to argue, but Calvin didn't give him the chance. He had already mounted his horse and charged forward, joining the soldiers cheering for seeing their hometown.

The sound of horse hooves sounded behind him. It was Alan Janus who strolled and drove his horse to Elvis. Under the gaze of the young man, he said to Elvis seriously:

"Condens your useless emotions and think carefully about my father's words. You will know how ridiculous your doubts are. As he said, the genes of the Gray Knights come from the holy emperor himself, and my father is only responsible for the inheritance. , Our purity is not something you can desecrate! You should be careful what you say!”

As soon as he finished speaking, Allen also urged the mount on his crotch to rush towards the fireworks-filled walled city ahead. At the end of Elvis' field of vision, from the main gate of the city that opened wide, he could already see the huge greeting team of mortals...

In Imperial Calendar 020.M36, 30 years have passed in the blink of an eye since the collective establishment of the eleventh Astartes chapter in the second year jointly initiated by Terra and Mars.

Calvin returned to the tribal center and began to devote all his energy to the management of the tribe.

The long-term and stable economic policies of the past dozen years have begun to bear fruit. No matter how the southern countries intervene and infiltrate, the materials and population of the entire Northland have increased to an extremely terrifying number.

This number was hidden in the complicated political decrees set by Calvin and the complicated economic data of various places. It was not impossible for the spies of the southern countries to detect it.

But without overall data summary, this core secret is still known only to Calvin.

Under his complex but clear-purpose policy adjustments, within half a year, the work center of the entire North Han Dynasty began to slowly withdraw from production and construction, and instead moved covertly in the direction of military preparations.

Weapon smelting workshops and warehouses everywhere are moving out all their stocks and transporting them to key route warehouses where the main forces are gathering.

The training subjects for off-duty professional soldiers in various places are quietly turning towards actual combat. The content of acting is no longer a single subject, but a complete set of systematic strike procedures with the support of complete staff functions.

The second-line militia mobilization plan has not been made public, but the number of training camps is slowly increasing in intensity on a monthly basis.

Reserve officers from various places also began to be withdrawn from various departments under the orders of the general staff. In a centralized and closed environment, they consulted the maps of southern cities that had been issued, as well as information about the villages and water sources connecting them.

The wheels of war have begun to slowly start, and Calvin does not have much confidence in absolute secrecy.

Once a national-level armed sequence is launched, it will have a huge impact that cannot be concealed. This is his unique clear understanding as a ruler.

But unfortunately this time the enemy was too ignorant and too arrogant.

Their ignorance and contempt for the modern military mobilization system caused them to lose the most precious time to gather and prepare on the eve of war.

The southern countries, which had been paralyzed by the long-term peace, were still immersed in the illusion of a good economic environment, no worries at home and no strong enemies externally.

The corruption and underpayment of the army pervaded their army, and even the front-line troops could not avoid it.

The irony is that their envoys are strong on the outside but weak on the inside due to their arrogance. From the mouths of the envoys from the southern countries who were stationed in the ancestral homes of the tribes, Calvin even heard their outrageous remarks that "the nomads in the north are naturally inferior."

Obviously, this group of people who have been at peace for too long and have lost their sense of crisis are still stuck in the illusion of "successful domestication" of the northern peoples...

When these documents symbolizing the completion of the preparation work were gathered into Calvin's hands like snowflakes, all the preparatory conditions under the map of the South in the big tent where he worked were met.

Calvin knew that the day of unifying the continent was not far away.

Two in one, updated, please vote.