Warhammer: Start with a dog

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Does the Emperor love us?

This question Samokan had never actually thought too deeply about.

In the short life of this barbarian child, there was no need to think about the essence of such a difficult question. The hardships of life in front of him were enough to occupy most of the energy and thinking space in his mind.

The Emperor loves His people and loves humanity.

We are humanity, we are His people.

Therefore, the Emperor loves us.

Everyone said so, the priests said so, the officers said so, and the father said so when he left home.

He said that the Emperor loves us and He will bless him.

And Samokan's mother said so when she cried, prayed, and finally decided to send him to Zhongsi Academy.

After leaving his hometown, he witnessed countless separations and deaths and learned how he had lived in ignorance. At that time, it seemed hard but was actually so peaceful and happy. From wandering to now almost facing a living purgatory, something finally began to touch the childish thoughts and accelerated the formation of its synapses.

Samokwan's mind - the rose beads that always pulled at his perception of reality from his neck, or the genetic material gift from another powerful warrior, Uriel Ventress, who was over two hundred years old, and the mixed gene seed of the Fourth and Seventh Legions, or the burning voice in his heart that hissed like a snake to give him timely help - finally began to unfortunately, prematurely, but fortunately, like a new sprout breaking through the last layer of frozen soil, uncontrollably giving birth to more thoughts about all the things he had been told and known so far that he thought were the truth.

+ They are in pain. They are hungry. +

+ I know. +

"Is your pain... mainly because you have no skin?"

The King of the Skinless nodded, then shook his head. Its sharp and dirty huge claws raised and carefully stroked Samokwan's translucent demon skin, and the muscles flowing with silver warp energy were still faintly visible underneath.

"Emperor, Emperor, we pray that he loves us. As long as he loves us in heaven, we can sleep down there even if it hurts."

"The Emperor loves you, the Emperor loves all his children." Uriel's eyes were withdrawn from the huge metal statue with a compassionate posture. Hearing this, his answer almost blurted out, and then he seemed to be frightened by his own words and fell silent.

+He lied to them. +

+Then how do I know that what you said is true? +

+You don't trust me too much. +

+You speak as if you are worthy of my trust. I can think for myself. +

The King of the Skinless turned his reptilian yellow eyes to the speaker, and a huge, skinless worm-like tongue protruded from his mouth full of sharp teeth, wrapped around the neck of the former Ultramarines, and sticky saliva dripped from it. Uriel felt a stinging pain on his skin - although the saliva of the Skinless was not as acidic as that of the Space Marines, it obviously had some digestive and corrosive functions. He stopped his companion's actions and stood where he was, enduring the touch of the other's tongue.

"You do have the same smell as when we were thrown down, but you have skin, why?" A look of suspicion and greed floated from the bloody skull-like face, "Are you sent by the Iron Man? Are you pampered? Lie? Cheated us? We have eaten this. Bones, crunchy, meat, fresh, juicy."

"Oh throne, I don't want to know such details, it's disgusting." Pasanius whispered.

"You said the Emperor, loves us. Does the Emperor really love us?" The King of the Skinless asked further, the eager look was completely inconsistent with its height and terrifying appearance.

Uriel and Samokan, one as an elder and the other as a peer, realized it almost at the same time.

Although they are such a group of weird and low-intelligence failures, mutants and man-eating monsters, who have escaped the sharp blades and suffocation of the sewers, wandered in the strange sky of Medlengard for who knows how long, and lived on such horrible hunting, they are human beings, they are children, a group of helpless, helping children, and under what they were taken away by those Chaos Iron Warriors and barbaric undertakers, they still have a trace of the deepest desire.

Longing for love, longing to be forgiven, longing for comfort and tranquility.

Children who were taken away from their parents and forced to suffer pain and power that they should not have under this ugly form and deformed power.

"Yes, the Emperor loves you..." "The Emperor will not love you."

Uriel looked at Samokan in shock, and the form of the winged lifeless began to appear more clearly on him.

The skinless ones howled in anger and sadness, "Bad guys! Bad guys! Iron Man's darlings! Eat them! Eat them!"

The mutated monsters here seemed to be more excited by these hurtful words. Some of them had already stood up and rushed towards them - each aberration was as big as a dreadnought. When they charged, the ground here vibrated, and the statue of mercy hanging in the air by rusty thick chains swayed gently, as if sadly and in vain to appease the fierce bloodshed that was about to happen below.

"Look at what you look like now--!"

The outer hooves brought by the devil's skin hit the uneven ground like his boots. Samo took a step forward and ignored the monsters rushing towards him. On the contrary, he faced the group of people more confidently. They shouted loudly, "Are you willing to hide like this? Are you willing to spend your whole life just begging for love that will come one day? How long can your leader protect you? Do you want to live?! Then your hope is Where?! Who would love a monster like you who doesn’t even have a face?”

"Samokuan, what are you doing...!" Pasanius shouted, while Uriel frowned and stared at the boy. He saw that the rosary was still tightly wrapped around the skinless neck, Emitting the same faint glow that had helped them pass through the tunnel before.

"You, at all! You don't understand anything!" The King of the Skinless Ones also roared angrily. Compared to the tribe members who depended on each other for their lives, as the biggest and smartest one, he was undoubtedly the most deeply hurt by these words, " You! Traitor! Why did you grow this skin?

His sharp claws clawed at Sammo's broad shoulders, and illusory yet solid armor even began to grow on the demon's skin. Uriel saw with a chill that even though there were many more scales and scales than what he knew he looked like. Sharp teeth, but the type of armor a Space Marine would recognize in his training: an ancient and badly damaged Mark IV, with faint red paint plating - whose power armor is this?

"Want it?"

Storm-gray eyes stared at yellow eyes through the eyes on the visor of the illusory demon skull.

The other party stared at him, suddenly realizing what this strange existence was promising them.

"Do you want skin? Skin like mine? With skin, you can get love, love, and give it to strong children who can be confident and strong enough to appear in front of the world."

The King of the Skinless Ones howled. He suddenly stretched out his arms and knocked over the first of his kind that had already rushed towards Samokuan and was about to attack. He beat the latter to a bloody head, but it didn't seem to be doing anything. Feeling pain, he just rolled around and surrendered to the leader's sudden attack in confusion.

Then their howls came one after another, echoing in the abandoned mine factory, as if they were communicating in a more primitive and animalistic language. The icon called the Emperor by the Skinless people was covered in dim bronze. The armor, the metal wings spread out behind it, shimmered slightly in the pale light.

Uriel slowly approached Samokwan.

"With a new skin, will we gain the Emperor's love?"

Finally, when the howling finally stopped, the King of the Skinless once again stared at the boy wearing demon skin and ancient broken power armor, "Does the Emperor love you? Did he tell you to give us the skin first?"

The former Ultramarines had already taken up positions one to the left and one to the right behind Samokan.

+Have you learned to lie, child. I'm very relieved. +

+Shut up, I won't lie. I'm thinking. +

"I don't know if the emperor loves me or not. I haven't felt it. Maybe he has his own reasons, or he really can't hear the prayers here." The yellow eyes narrowed dangerously.

"But from what I have seen, I think you have more genuine devotion to the Emperor than anyone else. Such sincerity is commendable, but Soltarn told me more than once what his father said, He said, if you want people to love you, you must first love yourself." He raised his head and said, "Come with me. You can't continue like this. Follow me, and I will get food for you. Next, the skin is just. first step."

"You have no love from the Emperor! You are playing tricks on us!"

The beast roared angrily, "We want love! The Emperor! Love! Mercy! Love!"

"Then why don't you look at what you are like! You know it, right? Why are you arguing with me?! Who would love you, a sloppy guy who eats garbage?! How old are you?!"

This last sentence had a power that was beyond Uriel and Pasanius' expectations. It directly stopped the huge monster in place. Finally, it said repeatedly, "...ten years old...? I don't know, I I don’t know how long I slept in Iron Man’s castle.”

"So are you the oldest?"

"Me? I don't know. But there shouldn't be anyone older than me?"

"So, I'm almost thirteen years old!" The boy with a huge demonic appearance puffed up his chest proudly, "As the same person without skin! I am older than you! I am more powerful than you, and I know more knowledge. ”

+…I don’t know what to say to this. +

+Shut up. Boys have boys solutions! +

+Okay. As you wish. +

The King of the Skinless Ones pondered. This beast certainly has intelligence.

he said at last.

"I want to make sure you can protect us! Protect the tribe! Don't trick us into eating out!"

"Tell me, how do you want to be sure?"

The fleshless claws were raised and pointed at the icon that had been looking down at them in the dark sky until now.

"Let the Emperor be certain. He will send down His decision. Lie, die, truth, live."

"..."

+Look, he doesn’t make sense at all. It would be better to kill all the disobedient ones. +

+Shut up. I want to take them all out, not kill them. +

+I remind you, kid, the two lackeys of the cursed behind you have been staring at your vitals for a long time. +

+I know. +

+Your guardian, he also looks like a lackey of the cursed, do you really believe that he will accept you and them? +

+This has nothing to do with you. You promised me before, lend me enough power to deal with all this. +

He strode to the front of the statue, the head without facial features drooped compassionately from the metal covered with dust and oil, looking at this boy who was covered in demon skin, had part of the space warrior, but was not completely separated from the human.

Samokan didn't know what to do, so he stretched out his hand to the statue.

+Hmph. +

The strange broadsword that appeared in his hand before appeared in his hand again in its entirety, more complete and detailed than any time before, and seemed to be almost entirely made of metal.

The voice's owner crept into his soul with resentment, and with it came a new combat skill and experience in how to use this strange double-edged broadsword.

The boy tried to swing the broadsword properly for the first time, and his thumb touched a switch.

"Buzz."

"Throne, Uriel, that's it!" Pasanius prayed in a low voice.

In the cave full of skinless people watching them with crystal light, the ancient power blade was lit up by the blue light of the open field.

Yellow eyes stared at it.

Intuition made Samokan seize the opportunity.

"Look! The Emperor loves me!"

————————

"You can't... You can't just let him go!" Lieutenant Colonel Yolan stepped forward, and the deep hatred in his voice could no longer be concealed by other excuses.

"I agreed to serve you in order to kill our enemy! Kill him!"

Others looked at this bold mortal in surprise, but some of them didn't look surprised.

"Oh." The white-haired wizard lord shrugged, not really caring.

Now, after Soltarn successfully used the customized power armor suit given by his father to beat up Tolamino, who had not yet given up and sneak attacked the old stonemason and intended to obtain his father's location information from him, he took Grendel and the wizard Iron Warrior, who looked like he was watching a good show, through the battle lines of the two warring parties who stopped because of surprise and new orders, returned to the command center, and began to announce to everyone that the Chaos Lord decided to "abandon the dark and join the light" and "turn over a new leaf" - although the person involved still looked very suspicious.

And Lieutenant Colonel Leonid of the 383rd Yolan Dragoon Regiment was unexpectedly the first to oppose such an easy victory.

Tolamino didn't care much about the undisguised hostility of others here - haven't the Iron Warriors been confined to this small planet for ten thousand years and have they caused enough betrayals, fights and annexations? Isn't it just fighting a war while guarding against being stabbed in the back by friendly forces? He is very familiar with this. Any noble who grew up in the city-state of Rochos in Olympia is not unfamiliar with this skill. But he still asked.

"Being hated by a tiny mortal is not something worth remembering, but why do you want my life?"

"Heart of Hydra." Leonid hissed, "All the attackers at that time died except the Lord of Kalan-Gol. Our last mission was to protect the seeds, and you snatched the important seeds of Captain Eshara and his men."

"What does that have to do with me?" Tolamino shrugged cunningly, "It was Barban Falk and Honso who attacked the Heart of Hydra. I only seized this fortress later. Your hatred should be directed at them. If you must say who led the way, it was Barban Falk."

The Yolans stood there with bloodshot eyes, "Barban Falk. Is that the name of the war blacksmith?"

"Yes." Tolamino sneered, "Why? What did he do to you?"

"He owes us a final mission." The lieutenant colonel whispered, "The final mission entrusted to us by Captain Eshara."