Chapter 185 Within the Blade
They sat down in the middle of the street in RA-124. The mud mixed with flesh and blood and the fragments of dead bones were crushed by the ceramic armor, and some dark fragments stuck in the gaps of the armor under the squeeze.
"The Primarch Rogal Dorn has left," Jaeger said, moodily. "I think... have we done something wrong? Are we violating the will of the Emperor and Father?"
Several World Eaters looked in the direction of the street in unison, their sights extending among the ruins. Go deep into the smoke and dust, the rain of blood and fire falling from the sky, all the way to the dark technological fortress formed by the collapse of the city walls on the horizon, which is a combination of steel and immaterial energy.
Just now, after giving a speech, Rogal Dorn walked towards the collapsing fortress. The nameless golden skull and the recently replaced giant chain sword "Storm Fang" were hung on the giant sides of the body. The primarch in golden armor left traces of his dazzling light in the blood mist of burning sand. Even though he had walked out of the sight of the World Eaters, his figure seemed to still be here, bright and constant, It penetrates the mind through the senses and lingers for a long time.
"Father." This crucial word for an Astartes was painful in Mago's mouth. The steel cloak given to him by the former Legion Master spread out behind him and hung on the ruins.
“We should remember that our father does not want us to kill without honor. Maybe we should start to change.”
“As you have been persuading, Centurion?” Han No asked. "Seeking glory in fighting rather than killing?"
Margo nodded and dug the blade of the long ax into the soil next to her. He had actually been the one to speak out against the senseless slaughter, but he didn't defend himself in front of Rogal Dorn.
"Margo." Garland Sulak called the centurion's name. He stood beside several people without sitting down.
He is the unquestionable elite among the World Eaters' apothecaries. Some say he was the apprentice of an apothecary named Fabius Bayer, one of the few surviving members of the Third Legion, while others say there must have been a personal grudge between them. Regardless, there is no doubt about his professional ability.
"What do you think?" Margot asked, looking up at the pharmacist.
Garland's helmet was held in his hands, and the smile on his broad face looked false due to the twitching of his mouth: "Are you still pursuing glory, Centurion?"< br>
"We are the hounds of the Skyhawk." Margo said calmly. "You brought the gladiatorial arena into the Fortitude Resolve. Isn't it a manifestation of your pursuit of glory?"
Garland laughed: "Aquila's hounds? Margo, do we look so noble? No. , we are just a group of creations based on mortals, blessed by technology, and accessory to technology and miracles born in batches. We have no inherent glory.”
He pointed to the fortress in the distance: "We and those fortresses are the same thing. Creations of technology. Weapons of war. I don't understand what glory we need to pursue."
"Primarch Dorn The speech didn't touch you at all? Garland?" Margo frowned in the armor and rubbed her hand on the ax handle. "You are really crazy in the laboratory that our father approved you to use. , you dismantled six cabins, threw our military cargo out of the room, replaced everything with your chattering brooders and cold, disgusting canisters, and let the Martians and medical slaves keep you company. What the hell have you been thinking about lately? "
"What about you, Centurion?" Garland raised his eyebrows, "Preparing to use words to stop the pharmacist's normal research, and use your ax to kill your battle brothers?"
"I will report all this to Angron." Jaeger reminded, his eyes falling on Garland as he spoke.
"Then do it, Jaeger." Garland replied coldly, taking Jaeger's words as a clear threat, "Then let the original body ban my research. I would have You know what kind of cowardly father we unfortunately encountered.”
"Some insults are not easy to say, Apothecary."
"Oh, Jaeger." Garlan said, "You are so old-fashioned, you don't even dare to hear a bad word from Angron. Could it be that in your heart, you are agreeing? "
Jaeger jumped up and slammed Garland into the ruins, his heavily armored arm pressed firmly on the pharmacist's chest. , faced him face to face and shouted: "Apologise! Repent!"
Garland coughed heavily, looking for an opportunity to break free. Then Mago's tomahawk handle pressed against his hand, forcing him to stop.
"What did I say wrong?" Garland said coldly, "A father who is full of troubles, bound by absurd morals, and blinded by weak illusions, is this what you want?"
"Look at Rogal Dorn, how he rebuked us mercilessly! Look at Perturabo, how he used tools to make one-tenth of his descendants disappear into thin air, taking full advantage of our role and value! The Imperial Fist and the Iron Warriors, these two legions, are the true conquerors who have achieved the great cause of the Emperor! And what about us? What else do we have to do to liberate everyone and follow a slave..."
Jie Gal was furious, punched out, and smashed Garland's head between the wooden boards and mud of the ruins. In an instant, dust flew up and blood splattered. Garland's fingers twitched, and Margot grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the ruins. His whole body was thrown to the ground, his head covered with blood.
“You deserve to die!” Jaeger roared and threw himself at Garland again, but was forcibly held back by Mago. "Calm down, Jaeger, let's leave and suspend the killing. From today on, Garland Surak is no longer our brother."
Garland lay quietly, letting the blood flow out, his face Twisted into a contemptuous sneer: "Pause? Remember why we want to kill? The ruler we are chasing comes from a planet full of witchcraft energy, and the potential for witchcraft also exists in the air here... It's too late It’s time, brothers.”
The pharmacist looked at the sky, the scorching air was trembling, the final screams of the war dead echoed in the rain of fire, the ruins of flesh and blood burned again, and coke and brass spread in the blood.
Jaeger and Mago suddenly stiffened, and Garland could see the shock and regret of the two centurions from the performance of their armor.
Their conflict with Rogal Dorn resulted in a small amount of incommunication between the two parties that did not affect the overall situation, leaving a Primarch without knowing anything about it. , facing old night technology and sorcery tricks alone, this is close to betrayal.
The centurions opened the communicator and tried to contact Rogal Dorn. After a few seconds, Mago nodded to Jaeger, took Hanno and started running wildly, praying that the Primarch did not run away, try Trying to catch up with Dorn.
In the distance, eight dazzling red lights suddenly lit up in the collapsing fortress. An extreme anger and desire to kill arose in Garland's heart. He enjoyed the perfect sharpness and purity, and happily accepted this rage that seemed to be able to conquer the world.
In the laboratory of the Resolute Resolve, he tried to imitate the Butcher's Nail many times. This is the most satisfying of Nuceria's many technological inventions: pure anger is enough to offset all the remaining excess humanity and useless conscience.
This would help them become the best tools to rule the galaxy, which he believed was what the Emperor wanted. Brilliance and glory are built on the cornerstone of victory. Without conquest, there is no justice.
Unfortunately, his attempt was never successful. There were many factors blocking his research path; if he was given another period of time or more experience, he would definitely be able to improve this tool for getting rid of unnecessary pity. Use it well to make up for the Astartes' shortcomings. He felt sorry. "You can't leave." Jaeger kicked Garland down as he tried to stand up, his voice filled with barely suppressed anger.
The next moment, Jaeger fell in a whirlwind. He grabbed a brick to prevent himself from kneeling, and pulled out a thin needle injected with black medicine from his neck. Feel your heart melting.
Garland put away the needle gun. "The annoying Fabius gave me this thing when he last met me. Goodbye, Jaeger."
——
Blood-colored figures and copper-like black clouds increased in front of Dorn's eyes, and flames burned on every collapsed house. The streets were littered with corpses, some in pedestrian robes and some with armor. The smell of gunpowder smoke in the air became thick, strange and familiar.
He recalled smelling the same bloody, fiery metallic smell while waiting for the execution of the rebellious aliens in the orbit of Genna. In later battlefields, he would smell this smell from time to time after he ordered an attack.
Roger Dorn was unsure whether this was a recurrence of the same hallucination. He walked forward.
The crumbling road gradually turned into a dark red color like a furnace, and some thoroughly burned materials turned into white-hot flowing metal, shining with the light of disaster. The half-collapsed tower in the distance erupted with a red blood light that could not be seen directly. The cooling mud under his feet began to heat up, and the crystals and metals on the surrounding buildings and facilities that had been used to fix some non-material energy began to melt. Collective resonance.
This planet is undergoing some kind of transformation, from a ruins of a battlefield to a conceptual microcosm of countless ruins of battlefields. Another scene is like a thick cloth, covering the surface of the original world, adding a new bloody image according to the original outline. Red sand poured into the soles of his feet, and everything from the remains of chariots from dozens of millennia ago to the detached hatches of the latest Stormbird vehicle was twisted in sand and fire.
Similarly, he would sometimes see visions of the battlefields he had fought in, disturbing phenomena that would disappear around Perturabo. Dorn thought that this might be born from the same aversion to the battlefield as Angron's disturbing hallucinations, so he overcame it all in silence. He realized now that it wasn't psychological. He may have been secretly watched by some force.
Donn believes that he will be able to effectively distinguish this anomaly the next time he encounters something similar.
Atomized sulfuric acid and filthy fireballs rose from the gleaming metal debris around them, and ferocious and wild noises ignited primal like flames. Sulfur and black fire collided sharply on the soles of Dorn's boots. The sound and roar seemed to be summoned, and the impactful power was sweeping the world.
He didn’t know where this was. He doesn't like it here. But Dorne still moved on.
Within sight, the number of corpses with twisted spikes on their armor was increasing. He saw several bodies chopped to pieces with axes and blades, sprinkled on the erected flagpole, the broken blood-red flag, the black wooden wheels of the chariot and the A pile of spiked wooden stakes driven into the sand. The dead bones were penetrated, torn apart, and fell together with the bolts and rusted copper pieces. The richer sharp blood baked all the dead bodies, statues, animal claws, and leather. Then, to his surprise, the dead bones began to gather from the broken pieces.
It started with a hand bone, picked up a round shield wrapped with copper edges, and pieced it together with the round shield on the upright skeletal remains. Then, when he saw the deadly red light shining in the eyes of more bones, Dorn raised his sword.
Rogal Dorn has not personally engaged in battle for a while. In fact, his last bloody battle was chasing orcs. This is not only because he is in a commanding position, but also because his son Sigismund is always guarding him with a sword.
But his power will not weaken.
The teeth of the storm swept away a piece of skeleton bones. They reunited after a brief separation and emerged from the thick dust and firelight. Their notched blades slashed at him. Dorn calmly smashed the skull into pieces again, trying to carve out a path among the gathering eternal weapons. He doesn't know where he's going yet, but he won't stop.
Unhappiness came to him sooner than fatigue or anger. Dorn frowned as a skeleton struck the golden skull at his waist. He took off the golden skull from his waist and held it in his palm, protecting its delicate appearance, the shape held up by his palm, and the oval gold-copper gem that really drove the operation of the skull.
Then, he discovered that the golden runes on the gem had started to flicker on their own at some point.
“Your skin is burning with war.” The head made of steel was embedded in the gilded palm of the stone carving. The upper and lower mandibles of the head vibrated, and the teeth rattled, saying what he said before coming to Nuceria , the same sentence Perturabo once joked with him.
Dorn looked at the skeleton and replied: "But Inwit is a world of ice."
The voice it used was a combination of Perturabo's voice and his own words The union is a duet of words of steel and stone, complementing each other in all accents and long sentences, making each other complete.
When Rogal Dorn heard these words, a certain kind of stable and cold calmness supported his consciousness, like pouring rain, allowing him to feel an inner feeling in this blazing brass world. The coolness and tranquility outside.
Those complex runes worked faithfully. In the cold golden light emitted by the golden skull, the brown and yellow bones that were chopped by Dorn took three times as long to revive again. The cold and clean air blew over Dorn, and the fire and flowing lava beneath his feet cooled into a tiny piece of nothingness and darkness, barely allowing him to stop.
The gifts given to him by Perturabo and Morse unintentionally played a strange role. Dawn knew she would thank them for it when she got out of the field.
"You are me," Dorn said to the skull. "You are my other voice."
"You want to hear our voices," the skull said. "Through me, you talk to yourself."
Dorn held the skull with his left hand and held the sword with his right hand. The tail feathers of the sky eagle created a space on the outside of the sword hilt, acting as a guard to protect his limbs.
"I need to get out of here." Dawn said.
In the frantic light, some kind of bright red monster, thin but full of muscles, carrying a black sharp blade and an armor-like horn-shaped blade, crossed over the elementary bones and rushed towards him in groups. These monsters are gleaming with blazing fire, harnessing beasts that combine demons and machines. Flames instead of blood support their bodies, and turn into thunder to become the sound of their attacks. The erosion of hate and violence follows them.
"Then fight," the skull answered, speaking in the voice of both primarchs.
I originally wanted to write about war in Dorne, but this was really included in the just-released Dead End 2, so I decided not to follow suit.
(End of this chapter)