Warhammer: Start with a dog

Chapter 519 A Chaos Space Marine Champion's Morning-

Robert Guilliman opened his eyes in his own bedroom.

He was alive, and still here.

Suspended in the vortex of the Warp, thousands of light years away from his home of Macragge.

He was silent for a moment, listening.

Though he had heard the whispers and temptations of the Warp in many of the languages ​​here, he now listened intently and heard nothing but the sound of waves lapping against the shore at the edge of the Storm Ocean.

Oh, not really, there was another firm voice, coming regularly from deep in his chest.

His heart beat strongly, and this bizarre Warp dream was as real to him as any he had ever experienced before.

The air purification system detected his awakening, automatically turned on, and drew away the warmed air, and began to hiss into the room with a breeze maintained at around twenty degrees. Although Honsou did his best to his own strict standards, he still could not completely eliminate the subtle post-purification odor inside.

Only after actually trying to repair the air purification system here with Honso and his men did Guilliman deeply realize how terrible the meaning behind the seemingly insignificant matter of maintaining fresh air on his fourth brother's Iron Blood was.

Of course, the air here is definitely much more comfortable than that on the New Thorn Palace, the fleet of Atasia, or the ships of Salumba. The former uses a lot of candles and incense to cover up the smell of blood, corpses, murder and conspiracy, while the latter two - the Primarch of the Ultramarines dispels the smell of some memories and the images they cause from his mind.

If Honso had not repeatedly pleaded and vaccinated several times in advance, he would definitely take an axe and find an opportunity to chop these... these...

The sound of a metal mechanical structure flapping its wings interrupted his thoughts.

He frowned and turned around, and as expected, he saw a product that could well demonstrate how pathetic and ignorant the Empire or the entire galactic human race has fallen to, flying towards him with his schedule for today.

Cherubim.

Although Guilliman knew rationally that their infant-like bodies came from the cell culture tanks of the Mechanicus or similar laboratories.

For example, this one was a damaged Cherubim that Honso had specially found and re-cultivated and repaired for Guilliman in his own laboratory. He also knew that each of these special servitors transformed from infants was unique and valuable. Some of them could even have their own emotions, depending on the craftsmanship of the maker. Whether in the Empire or elsewhere, a beautiful Cherubim assistant was regarded as a symbol of status, and they also had different practical values ​​depending on the direction of reinforcement.

But he couldn't help but think of the contents mentioned in the historical documents that Honso had written to him in his busy schedule with disgust.

For example, the birth of these small servitors with skin as pale as death, body temperature not much hotter than ice, anti-corrosive fluid flowing in their blood vessels, reinforced with chrome and brass, and cables, anti-gravity engines, speakers and other things sewn into the delicate skin of babies who had never lived.

Their current record of birth is about two thousand years after the end of the Horus Heresy. When he thought that they were actually first produced and launched by the State Religion and the Mechanicus at the celebration of the Emperor's Ascension Festival, the purpose was to "intentionally 'approach' their image to the child angels beside the gods in ancient human legends, so as to make them appear more pure in the eyes of the Emperor" and "enhance the sanctity of their users", the Primarch's eyes could not help but become cold.

Everywhere is the praise of death and suffering, everywhere is indulging in the worship of sacrifice, the morbid fanaticism is like the cold wind blowing through the gaps in the ribs of the huge rotten corpse of the Empire, passing through the empty eye sockets of the cherubim and servo skulls. The crazy flesh and blood mechanical technology of Mars has extended to every part of the human empire. In the eyes of these mechanical religious lunatics or geniuses, humans themselves have also been quantified as a material, a religious tool, a seemingly solemn and dignified but actually morbid to the point of unnecessary materialization.

As if sensing his disgust, the brass wings of the Cherubim flapped twice in grievance - yes, the reason why he agreed to appoint this Cherubim as his identity symbol, liaison officer and secretary attendant despite his disgust was because Hong Suo told him that he integrated part of the brain waves of Tech Sergeant Hestia, one of Guilliman's unfortunate descendants of the Fifth Company who were all sleeping in the life support cabin, into the body of this repaired Angel Servant in the Indomitable.

"This is also to take into account the large number of renovation requirements that the Indomitable needs now and the safety of my cousins. After all, this is the Great Vortex. Who knows what will happen if they sleep there and we can't go to see them all the time, so I reawakened part of Hestia's spirit, who is most friendly to machines, and connected it to this blank body as a mobile interactive interface here. He is also very happy to serve you."

This is also true. Although they can command Honso's original warband warriors to help to a limited extent, there are only a little more secrets in the Indomitable, and Honso's evaluation of Huron is a little bit high, so There are still many places that the three of them still need to keep an eye on in person, except for food and coffee, which are always In addition to Nass's elusive presence and hand-delivery, all the trivial secretarial work such as assisting the original body of the Ultramarines in putting on armor or cleaning power armor and weapons, making maintenance appointments, daily news, schedule reports, work progress, etc. As a matter of course, it was left to Hestian, who was partially awakened.

After all, Cherubim are still a kind of advanced servitor with a baby appearance. Their small mechanical bodies have hydraulic and power devices that do not match their appearance, so there is no big difficulty in dealing with daily life. On one side of the room In the large niche, Hongsuo also installed a mechanical automatic system to help penetrate armor at his request...

Guilliman looked around the room again.

At first, Grendel and the others, who were in charge of decorating the original body's private room, wanted to decorate him a splendid shrine-style bedroom full of dark Gothic and death-worshiping styles according to today's aesthetic tastes - to be honest, in the eyes of outsiders, , whether this style is used as the bedroom of a high-ranking noble of the empire, the archbishop of the state church, or a high-ranking dark apostle of the Word Bearers, it will be very consistent with their status. However, it was obvious that the original body from nine thousand years ago did not appreciate this very much. Instead, Honso believed that the bedroom of the Lord of Macragge was a private room. "We are the only ones here who know the identity of His Highness. Who can we show it to?" ?"; In this case, it should be decorated according to the original body's own preferences, but if you want to blatantly fly the Imperial Eagle flag, forget it.

In the end, the place became what it is today: a simple room with no additional decorations except a large bed, desk, chair and a few Ultramarines-style war tapestries and carpets that were originally on the Indomitable, decorated with elegant and simple lines. There are niches hidden behind the door panels, where weapon racks and other equipment are stored, giving the room, which is painted a soft creamy yellow, a hint of the atmosphere of his childhood home on Macragge.

I wonder what became of his former residence on Macragge? Guilliman still remembers that room in the Fortress of Hera, where he grew, learned, laughed and cried, and almost died there. What happened to it now? I heard that it is now very popular in the Empire to preserve relics and objects that are considered sacred... Maybe his memories are still there...

The Primarch's extraordinary powers of deduction brought another related possibility to him.

Although he never told anyone, including Honso, Robert Guilliman actually speculated on some other possibilities after being awakened from this warp dream, including his role in Macragge's Hercules. The possibility of being awakened as the only Primarch in the Fortress of Ra, surrounded by his descendants, recognized by the empire, and prayed by believers.

But the data collected later added to this calculation the shackles of despair that were so heavy that he could hardly breathe. Guilliman soon realized that if this was the case, he would be wrapped up in such a heavy and ardent hope. All the superstitions, hopes, lives and futures of hundreds of millions of people, including Macragge, Ultramar and even the entire empire, would weigh on his shoulders, and he trembled even more. Now, despite this, he still... will be like a horse desperately trying to pull a huge ship that is about to crash, trying to save as much as possible and even keep as many humans as possible from the corpse of the cruel and decaying empire. , just for this reason, the things he needs to give up may be much more and more important than now, and he will have to become some of the people he once criticized...

Even though the original body thought that he was not really afraid of this kind of pressure, the loneliness, despair and pain that his powerful deduction ability calculated for him almost made him suffocate. At certain moments, he realized that When it came to the situation of the performance, he even thought with some luck, fortunately, I woke up here, I was in the dream of my soul, and my brother was still alive and fighting.

At the moment when he was distracted, his body had already habitually walked up to the console and started to put on the armor. This huge power armor that fits his actual size was hastily built for him by Honso and Grendel. The materials and reactor components were all taken from the damaged armor of the Fifth Company and Dreadnought. They did not dare to risk using the real Chaos Ah. Any armor material from Stat.

To be honest, his two nephews, although one has the name of Smith, now seems to be better at apothecary and palace warfare. After all, Guilliman once understood and studied the Iron Warriors ten thousand very carefully. Some advantages years ago, the war blacksmith's functions except for a few In addition to the unique work of the Fourth Legion, it is actually similar to the legion consul of other legions. In this regard, Honso has a bit of retro talent, and with his mouth, he can also become the personal pharmacist of the original body, which shows that his The fourth brother's temperament has indeed improved a lot after the incident.

Although Grendel is a good accountant, he is obviously more immersed in the way of war. They can only be said to have a little knowledge of precision craftsmanship such as building original-size power armor. Fortunately, they still have it here. Hestian - although without his own body, the technical sergeants can only do drawings, verbal instructions and fine welding, but it is better than them mindlessly modifying it, so in the end Guilliman obtained this piece The gun-silver power armor is barely passable - although he has been wearing the original-level phantom camouflage to disguise himself, the function of the disguise is to disguise and distort what is already there, rather than to combine the power armor, internal circulation device, respirator, Things like loudspeaker arrays were conjured out of thin air.

The blue paint coating was carefully removed during production, and the shoulder armor was also painted with yellow and black stripes. Honsou also ingeniously created some additional decorations on the power armor during production to make the armor look more like It looks a little like the style his brother likes to wear. Guilliman's argument is that this can be used as a second layer of insurance - who knows if the camouflage will suddenly fail, but it doesn't hurt. Anyway, the camouflage is always on. He has always been wearing red armor, with spell scrolls wrapped around his limbs and waist, and a chaotic image with devil horns on his head.

Hestian, who had no idea that he had just been thought about by the Father of Genes, pressed the button of the device with his now small fingers, then flew up and began to perform his own work, silently reciting the binary hymn around the original body. While checking the maintenance status of each part of the power armor.

"The overhaul is complete, praise the God of All Machines! Praise the Father of Genes for his power armor! The Machine Soul is joyful! The Machine Soul bless your armor and weapons!"

Fortunately, Hestian was his heir, so after he repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction tactfully but forcefully, the technical sergeant canceled most of the comforting ceremony with some uneasiness, except for this prayer. Guilliman really didn't want to recall the first time he saw the lengthy hymns and incense-anointing rituals that the other party sang while inspecting the power armor. He couldn't believe his eyes and ears. At the same time, he also commented on certain departments in the empire. Downgraded again.

If it weren't for Honso and the others who were always by his side, and the Iron Warriors' Potion Master would occasionally pull out some objects that matched his previous knowledge with a pained look on his face, Guilliman would sometimes really think that he was either sleeping for a long time. It has been too long and I have lost my mind. Now I am suffering from the hell of religious ignorance I imagined in my own mind, or I have actually died from Fulgrim's poison blade. The time that seems to be passing now and So many things that happened were just the elongated eternal darkness that he glimpsed in the last moment before his death.

He stepped out of the mechanical platform in one step. The working platform with several mechanical servo arms made a clicking sound. The eyes of the skull embedded on it changed from red to green, and then went out. The platform was withdrawn into the large alcove along the track. , this room regained its calmness.

"Your schedule for today, my lord." Hestian took out a long roll of parchment from the scroll box behind his back, "Lord Vannas said that today's breakfast will be ready in six minutes, and he will personally Send it to the bedroom."

"Very good. Is there anything special I need to pay attention to in today's schedule?"

"Yes, the fleet assembly has been completed. We are about to set off to attack the predetermined target. Before departure, Mr. Hongsuo sent a message saying that he was going to perform the third stage of surgery for the Black Heart King. He hoped that you would prepare the operating room... "

"...During the four hours you rested last night, I recorded eight duel invitations for you in the Indomitable's communication..."

"...Lord Aitasia...distributed the renovation and banquet of the station..."

"...Ms. Salomba...a thrilling harvest racing invitation..."