Chapter 439 Webway
Morse walked upwards, leaving the shadows deep in the Palace of Terra on foot.
The tens of meters high wall behind him contained darkness and secrets deep in the building structure. All the secrets contained in it could dwarf the instrument hall that Interex was proud of, so much so that It is doubtful whether the Shadow Prison relies on the control of the Forbidden Army, or on the precarious internal checks and balances formed by things inside that may have been accumulated before the birth of the palace: if one of the things in it escapes from the darkness, it may be the real killer. Those who escape will be killed by other, more difficult-to-control dangers.
In normal times, Morse would ask Malcador some questions, but he was dissatisfied with the behavior of the Forbidden Army at this time. When he arrived here, they had just finished a bloody game and removed the cyclone torpedo in orbit. They seemed to be unsatisfied and still full of challenges to the palace's protection level.
Most of the commanders of the imperial army have followed the emperor to Ullanor to complete their duties as attendants.
But Morse had no intention of delaying, for Perturabo still lay in the infirmary. Devon is a red flag. He ensured that apart from the Iron Warriors, only Malcador, Magnus and himself knew of Perturabo's injury.
At least he thought Waldo was in Ullanor.
"Waldo," Morse said, his voice low, "What are you doing here?"
Constantin Waldo stood in the corridor, the humid air blowing around him Dettol condensed on his golden armor. His eyes were as calm as water, reflecting slightly in the semi-dark environment. The statues collected by warlords who were looted as trophies are arranged in inwardly concave display racks like shrines. The carefully designed dynamics make these objects seem more alive than Waldo himself.
"Waiting for you," said Waldo, "at my lord's command."
Morse felt puzzled, a feeling that had been growing with each passing day in recent days.
He hoped his words did not sound like a question, "Did Malcador tell him about his old enemy Blade?"
Waldo was silent for a moment, looking directly at Morse.
"No," he said, "I was ordered to wait before the Ullanor War began."
"Sounds like someone is trying to play a prophet," Morse said , "Does he have a new plan?"
"It is a letter addressed to the Fourth Primarch." Waldo said, "But the Lord said that it is up to you to decide whether to deliver the letter to him in its entirety. Follow me."
His successor The half-sentence caught Morse's attention and made him have to be patient for their next short trip.
They passed through the winding and complicated roads inside the palace. Along the way, the golden-armored guards paid homage to the commander of the imperial army. The stairs became narrower as they went up. They were originally decorated with gorgeous golden railings, which were suspended from the ceiling and shaped into double wings. The Aquila chandelier, which takes the form of a golden flame, is finally made of smooth polished marble.
When they arrived at the door, all that was left was a plain metal door, a simple square table inside the door, and simple seats - for Constantin Waldo to sit. size.
A letter written on parchment was placed on the square table, giving Morse an uncomfortable feeling. He walked over and picked up the letter.
The letter paper is thick and tough, with fat and hair removed, cleaned and shaved, and set and dried in the sun to create a tough, smooth surface.
Its slightly yellowish surface surprised Morse, the letter was written almost a hundred years ago when the Great Crusade was at its peak, except for the one who had just been declared missing. Primarch No. 11, and Primarch No. 2, who had long since died, all performed their duties.
But this is not sheepskin, but the skin of a soulless man.
It is enough to block any prying eyes, if they exist.
Constantin Waldo is undoubtedly the sole keeper of this secret letter.
"Can I see it now?" Morse asked symbolically, "so that I can decide whether to tell Perturabo."
Waldo nodded, his expression unreadable.
“Don’t tell me what’s in it,” he said, turning his back and retreating into the shadows of the room. There are no windows here, and the only light is a fluorescent strip embedded directly above the tabletop.
Morse used a spell to reconstruct his fingers, filling in the part where the psychic energy had been offset. His fingers passed over the sealing wax of the letter, and the crimson wax fell off quietly.
He unfolded the folded letter paper. Every letter on it was carved by the Emperor himself. You could even see the unfamiliar handwriting caused by the Lord of Mankind not using a carving knife for a long time. Under the light, it was semi-transparent. The soulless skin of light makes the letters themselves seem to glow.
Morse's smile disappeared during the reading process. He stared at the letter in his hand and said softly: "I think this letter will no longer be useful after reading it, right? You can turn it around, Val. "Much."
"The Lord gives it to you," Waldo replied, "but you cannot take it out of this room."
"You are right," Morse. He said coldly, walking to the door of the room to relieve the discomfort caused by the soulless man's skin, "I believe your weapons can turn it into ashes, and I entrust you to do this."
——< br>
“The Tyrant Star is coming, and its fate is fixed. I have seen the signs of its rise more than ten thousand years ago.
"If possible, it will be the ending that the galaxy will inevitably enter, but first, it must devour humans. Just as about three hundred years ago, we witnessed the first cry of the Dark Prince, and an arrogant race turned into a Nourishment for the New God,"
Morse said, calmly reciting the words of the letter. His voice was transmitted within the protection of the rune formation, and therefore did not produce any echo, as if all the voices fell into a black hole.
"So, for many years, I have been thinking about how to make use of its birth."
Magnus moved forward a little in his seat.
“Use?” He repeated, holding each other’s hands tighter: “Do you mean ‘use’?”
"It wasn't me, it was your father who said this phrase," Morse raised his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes. The mood swings he had experienced in the past week were comparable to those in the previous ten years combined, "Use. ”
+Please continue. +Perturabo said that in order for him to safely join the conversation, Mors made preparations such as drawing twice as many runes and energies as when he accompanied Magnus deep into the Warp all those years ago. .
Morse completed all this with an almost indignant attitude, and at the same time imagined the emperor's expression when he was carving words with a pen knife: he must be carving very slowly, in his great brain Countless grim decisions about the future must emerge, and at the same time, he will calculate every word and sentence he writes to ensure that Morse's emotions will follow his words in the right direction.
In the Cheorwon, which has a suitable climate all year round, he felt the cold wind clad with snow from the Corona Tower blowing through him again.
“Only equal forces can confront each other. Therefore, after I accidentally learned of the existence of the Tyrant Star, I confirmed that it would be the best means for humans to completely expel the subspace. Perhaps the only one.”
"But how do we use it and how do we put a yoke on this power?" At this point, Morse glanced at Magnus.
"By chance, dozens of centuries ago, we learned of the properties of the Webway," Morse said, closing his eyes before Magnus noticed him. , continued, "It is some kind of ancient creation, an excellent conductor with self-growth, and a race has proven its resistance to subspace. In addition, its expansion range almost includes the entire galaxy. .
“In fact, we already discovered the fact that Magnus No. 15 discovered recently. "
Magnus was stunned for a moment. He thought he was just a bystander: "Recently? What have I discovered recently? ”
+That was the 'latest day' the Emperor wrote,+Perturabo said,+You are always discovering new things, Magnus. +
“I wondered at that time whether the network node distribution in the galaxy could form a natural psychic prohibition rune formation—a rune with the galaxy as the scale; therefore, our old friend Accepted my request to detect and draw a map of the entire webway for me.
“This process is not easy. It took Erda thousands of years to complete the complete map of Purgatory, and her discovery proved me. conjecture. Unfortunately she later discarded it and left me.
“No matter what, to this day, I still want to thank her for her efforts in drawing the map.”
+Why did she do that? +Muttered Perturabo.
He had seen Erda's apparition, when he briefly witnessed the scene that Vastor had seen. The tall woman rebuked the Emperor for his actions as grotesque and cruel—her accusations still seemed odd enough.
“Two things prevented me from further exploration that year. One was the loss of the map of Purgatory, which disappointed me. Therefore, I must thank you and Konrad Coze for bringing it back At my hand."
When writing this, the emperor changed a line. He did not write much about the dispute between Erda and him.
"Secondly, in the current era, no one can build the webway and reshape it into the shape we need-until Mors brought the green skins into the entrance of the webway, and I The surprise and joy at that time are still fresh in my memory."
Morse recalled in his heart. He didn't look surprised at all, honestly. The Emperor only spoke a little slower.
"In this way, all two obstacles have been removed. Without the necessary conditions brought about by your help, I would have sealed this idea forever and never mentioned it again."
"Erda?" Magnus read the unfamiliar name and quickly put it behind him. His brain was more active than ever.
"Let me think about it... Let's put it this way, if we can intercept the branches that need to be used and really activate them - yes, I said at the time that it could isolate the hyper-reality Mutual interference of effects! That was a hundred and fifty years ago. Did my father know that I went to find you on your ship, Perturabo? I only mentioned this to you!
" Your Majesty, I dropped that topic later because it required too much energy! I was even afraid that my father would use his life to complete it, because that is the only equivalent energy source I can think of in the universe...
"So, is it the Tyrant Planet? Use the one he mentioned The power of the Tyrant Star to power runes on a galactic scale? I said, why should I paint walls all over the world and fill them with Tutmons... But those greenskins are not that stupid, they learn it so quickly. ...I was surprised and happy at the time, really..."
+I think, yes, it’s the Tyrant Star. + Perturabo thought thoughtfully. Even if he didn't understand the rules of psychic operation, he could use mechanical creations to make analogies.
“Next, in my plan, the only thing we have to do is to ensure the integrity and absolute sealing of the Webway, and when the Tyrant Star truly breaks through the curtain, its carrier happens to be on the Web. "The throne room!" Magnus blurted out, "The golden throne!"
He muttered excitedly while calculating. Sex invigorates him, which shows that he was indeed taught and raised by his biological father in his early years.
"...Yes, the rune modified by the Emperor can extract the power of the Nightmare Sun. We just tested it before! We only need to change the Golden Throne... This will be a balance between internal and external, Tyrant Balance the forces of Star and Chaos and let them throw sorcery at each other!
"We only need to divert part of the network tunnel, cut those dozens of sections - to be safe, we can use double the number of sections, cut them off the main route, and then seal them! Why hasn't anyone thought of it? Oh, we want to occupy the entire galaxy, come on Make sure those webway runes are under our control, of course... The Great Crusade, this is the Great Crusade, the Throne!
"So - what is the carrier of the Tyrant Star? ”
At last, a question jumped into Magnus’s endless reasoning, leaving him stuck.
Before the Emperor proposed this concept, he had always thought The Tyrant Star is a phenomenon that was spontaneously formed in the subspace. He was annoyed that he had such a blind spot in his thinking.
"The Emperor is responsible for this part," Morse said, not hiding his dissatisfaction. Yue. “He can indeed make the Tyrant Star be born at the right time and place. ”
"This is your father's decision. He intends to regard this as his last job as emperor... After that, he plans to step down from office and leave all the affairs of the empire to Horus and Malcador. The two of them will fight for ten thousand years.”
+Okay. +Perturabo said, considering that this letter was actually written to him.
"As for you, Perturabo, you may have to be a maintenance worker, clearing the network channels at any time and protecting those pipelines." Morse said, paused, "The letter also has an ending."
He continued to recite the letter. After reading it once, he remembered every mark of the pen on the letter.
“I never thought that someone would choose to part ways with me knowing my plans. Yet, it happened. So don’t blame me for not telling you all this sooner, my Friend, my child.”
Morse read out the following group of pronouns, which made his throat feel like a blockage, even though he knew that this was a deliberate word play by the Emperor.
How could the Emperor believe that after reading that damn letter, he would not abandon him like Erda? Could it be that these two personal names are what he relies on? No, that's not it. What he really relies on is the Nightmare Sun that has emerged - which means that the prelude to the Emperor's dream has been played.
The Emperor ensures with facts that the pieces he can move will find themselves with only one move to salvage the rest of the game: to continue with his plan.
“Some people may try to prevent the birth of the Tyrant Star. They are cautious, their nostalgia for the past stops them from moving forward, and superficial discussions of morality blind their vision. But the history of mankind cannot continue with hesitation and It ended in timidity
“You know that the general of Cartagena crossed the Alps and used half of the troops lost in exchange for the entire defenseless Rome; the longbowmen of Agincourt fought a hundred years of war. The key turning point; the marchers to the sea crossed three hundred miles to directly attack the supplies and bases in the south... This is the real lesson that history has given us, and you have witnessed it all. ”
Morse swallowed the unforgivable epithet at the end of his sentence, not wanting to read his name in front of Perturabo.
“You give and you gain. This is the only law for us to ask for rewards from our destiny.”
Morse stood up and walked aside: “I’m done.”
As his epilogue ended, the other two Primarchs in the room simultaneously fell into thinking.
"How did Father come up with it?" Magnus whispered to himself, "A galaxy-wide rune? Then there would be no more sorcery in the world! Mortarion couldn't use numerology either. Learned - Oh, I want to go back to Prospero -"
+You can use Cheorwon's scratch paper first, Magnus. +Perturabo saw through Magnus' subtext with ease. +Morse, is this...all of it? +
“No, because I am the one who has the authority to decide which part of the letter is relayed to you,” Morse snorted, “As for the rest of the letter, it will never happen. ”
(End of this chapter)