Chapter 459 Before Ascension
Time is like quicksand, accumulating from milliseconds to seconds, and from seconds to days. If the river of sand accumulates over time, then month after month, year after year.
Constantin Valdo's spear did not slow down, but the rubble in the tunnel piled up like fallen leaves - flying and shattering.
Elda's emotions swung back and forth between swollen anger and overflowing fear, but Constantine's blade remained precise. The Custodes were built to be a precision weapon of the highest caliber, and now the Custodian Lord fulfills the mission for which the tool itself is defined, pure duty.
His battle with Erda has lasted for so long, maybe days, maybe longer. For Constantine, in this short period of close combat, he had already spent far more time than one battle could last.
The Sun Spear revealed to him all the truths Erda possessed without any gaps. This spear has been held tightly in his hand since the Unification War, as an extension and perfection of his weapon body. Every time the spear draws the enemy's blood from the body, memories and truths follow. In a sense, this is a different kind of genetic detection nerve, but it is more cruel and irresistible.
The Emperor's last words to Erda came back to him over and over again through the spear, so that the unforgettable memory of his Lord deepened further - not as a waver, but as a vague fragment of logic. Further filling in, filling the reserved space in Constantine's heart bit by bit to complete. Beyond this, however, he also saw details that were more immediate.
To be precise, when he read that Erda was old and new for nearly two hundred years, and that the past years were meaninglessly repeated in the present, he kept seeing a Primarch. The creature confirmed what he had already established, that the instability of the Primarchs outweighed the benefits they could bring to the Emperor.
From Erda's past, he kept seeing the growth of No. 11 across age stages. Sometimes he was a child, sometimes he was a tall adult, and sometimes he was a giant snake that did not exist in the real universe. Just like every time of his life, he has experienced a transition of molting or breaking out of the cocoon. The previous period did not contribute to the growth of the original body, and there is no absolute continuity.
When he was young, Erda and he were in an artificial world that was frozen in a fixed time like an ice block. The surrounding machines operated on their own according to inherent laws, forming a complete and tight maze. The world, everything is an imitation of the real world and Erda is content with that.
She dressed him in elaborate attire as if it were some kind of standard uniform for a son of the Emperor, and then spoke of her visions and conceptions of the future of mankind as if that new world had arrived at her without stopping. The whole world around her was a toy room that she and her fellow travelers had built for children but really only for her own use.
As for Eleven, he didn’t even speak Gothic in the first place.
Constantine hit the wall behind him, the rock exploded on his armor, his waist bone burst with severe pain, and his left foot was twisted in the rock crevice. His spear dug into the ground, and the world spun before his eyes.
He raised his hand and grabbed half of Erda's palm, breaking her third added arm. The blue light screamed loudly, covering Erda's moving lips. This psionic master has nurtured her power for thousands of years with hatred. The runes of hatred and hatred are engraved all over the dozens of meters of blue gauze she wears. Hatred supports her to return to Moro across the galaxy, and hatred stems from fear.
The Sun Spear penetrated downwards from Erda's thigh, penetrating continuously against the edge of the muscle, as vertically as the sun itself. The memory of blood spiraled up the shaft of the spear, and the world shuddered to another memory.
A silent woman moves from one land to another with her child who can only guess at the whereabouts of his curiosity, his clothes changing from one exquisite outfit to another as if it were just Waves of phantom smoke drifted here and there.
She looked down at him with her tall body, and at the same time, she regarded him as a larva that developed into a giant snake with sharp teeth, and a child that she had to care about in order to show that she was different from the master, so she Decorate him with the finest local food and clothes, wrap him in polished copper cuffs and fragrant silks embroidered with beautiful patterns, tell him that although she has no hope, she wants him to thrive first.
While lying in the two rooms at night, they listened to each other's voices and heartbeats. This is the loudest way of communication when words are powerless, and Erda could only read that during the day, No. 11 never The cold emotion he spoke out, his unquenchable hatred was not directed at the object of his hatred but directly at her.
It seemed like every touch and comfort she gave him with all her compassion turned in the silence of time into a relentless hatred that fostered a negative attitude that was not his fault and at the same time Erda also believed that it was not just her fault, as her hatred had other roots than her own will.
Constantine stood up, the blazing fire burned in his hair, and the burning smell rushed towards him along with the collapsing mountain. He hit Erda with a fist, and then A blow tore off her head. Erda's body fell backwards, and her upper body hit the collapsed boulder. Her head rolled out with a piercing scream, as if it was still connected to her lungs through a fragile and delicate flesh and blood. The tubes are closely connected.
Perhaps this is true, because this is not the first time Constantine dismembered a part of her. He is sure he needs one or more Sisters of Silence, but he will continue to do it alone.
Time continues to flow in the past and present along the tip of the sun god's spear. Stories and memories, thoughts and perceptions grow from the half-dead flesh and blood. From a certain day, Erda forgot to eat and that was She only remembered it a month later. She still remembered that the food she swallowed when eating was often corrupted by the fear and disguised hatred rolling in her chest before it was converted into nutrients, and this fear was transformed into nutrients itself. Feed her.
Until one day they looked at each other with heavy and calm hostility like two gray tombstones looking at each other in a tomb. Erda asked him if he found out that he had forgotten to eat, and No. 11 replied, so she Not going to die.
As for the other silversmith who existed from time to time, he cared nothing about Erda or No. 11. In Erda’s drunken memory, the man stood behind the window with a secret look in his eyes. Looking down from the lowest ground, and waiting quietly for time to pile up silt on them like a river.
The turning point happened one day when the Silversmith persuaded Erda that a complete Primarch would eventually become the vessel or nail needed by the Emperor, unless this creature born in the Sea of Souls was allowed to return to its original state. form.
At that time, they were in a mechanical world, and all the parts around them were roaring in human-like bodies. No. 11 asked her what the difference is between me being someone's tool, and asked her what the difference is between me dying for the emperor and dying for you. What a difference, Erda said the Emperor didn't love the Primarch and she loved him.
No. 11 didn't care about her answer because his mouth was ready to say "ok" before hearing the answer. When he gave up his body, he used some kind of invisible expression. The smile rejected her tears, as if he had penetrated the meaning of his life.
“You can’t kill me—” Erda’s head hissed, wrapped into a ball by messy hair and blue gauze, “You can indeed kill me countless times, Commander, but— —”
Constantine drove the spear into Erda’s eye socket, and for a brief moment he did nothing even as the cave collapsed further toward his location.
Then he mechanically drew out the spear tip, which was all he could do.
Constantine Valdo felt his throat being tightened, and so quickly and without warning, the strong outpouring of shock overwhelmed the cold state that a Custodian should have under normal circumstances. In his bones, he heard a thin eggshell of gold breaking and collapsing, and the whole world shook.
——"He imitated these machines, these tools."
Morse said, waving away the fragments he fished out of the sea of souls. There was no cacophony of sentient souls on this nameless planet, so he accomplished it more easily than ever before.
"That smile is exactly the same. If he doesn't always think about destroying the Emperor's plan - has the Webway Gate here been detected?"
"No, but we can be sure that the door exit here is underground." Perturabo stood up, his sight retracted from the void, and the slight hissing inside the cable continued.
"It's Magnus's star language. He hopes he can talk to us directly."
"Let him contact me directly. After all, his small statue is still in your flagship— —Somewhat out of reach.”
Magnus’s signal came quickly and anxiously. The first thing he said was to ask Perturabo if he knew that the Emperor had ascended the Golden Throne. His sigh of annoyance proved he knew he'd asked a stupid question.
"You are uneasy." Perturabo said in a deep voice, "Apart from the origin of the Tyrant Planet, what else have you discovered?"
+Your judgments are always so accurate, and I have no way of verifying the conclusions I draw, Perturabo,+ Magnus replied, his psychic transmissions carrying a lot of fleeting information due to the confusion of his mind. Murmurs,+The Emperor said Remus and Valdor knew all the information, so I thought I'd better ask-+
"Am I the only one who doesn't know that you all know who I am?" Mo. Else raised his eyebrows, "Let it go, you guys. What conclusion did you draw?"
+He—did the Emperor initially...+
Magnus Struggling to find those broken words, Perturabo could almost imagine the crimson king's frown. He was probably surrounded by a mess of waste paper and ink, and his desktop was filled with red and blue ink stains. He fiddled with his monocle uneasily.
"I dare say you guessed it right," Mors said softly, his words turning into an unknown puzzle in front of Perturabo, "You can continue, Magnus. ”
+ Was he not prepared to ascend the Golden Throne himself at the beginning? Because he said that the power of the Tyrant Star can support the entire Tutmons, his father is right, but if so, there is no need to form the rune structure into distributed chain nodes in the first place - this is a feasible option, But not the best and only option.
+Since my father has mentioned that he still has backup options after the plan fails, I can't help but consider his other preparation, and I believe that I can see another side of the rune. better option, then the Emperor would not be able to turn a blind eye to it.
+You see, just as I realized with joy that the webway itself is a formation, and my father found what I found a long time ago...+
Magnus fired all his words out in one breath like a continuous psychic cannon, fearing that if he stopped, he would not be able to muster the courage to finish his statement. In fact, he preferred to remain ignorant of his findings.
+Follow this line of thought - please feel free to interrupt me, Morse, if I say something wrong, just keep going with it, I realize the best way is to have a person who is adequate Powerful and sober psychics ascend the Golden Throne, and at the same time deploy equally powerful talents in the remaining twelve secondary nodes, allowing the entire Great Rune to achieve a more stable balance...+
Magnus took the initiative to pause for a moment, as if waiting for Morse to interrupt him. He hasn't waited yet.
+In this case, on the one hand, we no longer need to control the number of deaths to indirectly regulate the stable balance between the power of the Tyrant Star and the dark gods of the subspace, but directly use the network composed of all nodes as high-speed energy Exchange intermediate storage; on the other hand, this will also strictly control the internal energy core Tyrant Star.
+So, if we continue to reason like this, where can we find twelve gifted people and an absolute master of psychic abilities...+
"You are right," Morse said, finally interrupting Magnus. "It's also incomplete - still incomplete. Just like my understanding of his plan. Just like his own understanding of his plan."
"You can choose to continue to state your opinions, I believe I can hear more fragments that coincide with the full plan the Emperor left me. After all, you are of the same blood. He brought his savagery and genius to your birth, Magnus, and your influence on the Warp. Disgust has held you back, but you are still gifted.”
Magnus remained silent.
+I don’t want to. +
He said that for a moment, his stubbornness was surprising. His pearl-red face must have turned redder, and his eyes were probably wandering, as if he was chasing the rising sky with his eyes. Gray smoke in front of the tomb.
He repeated it. +I don't like it. +
"One cannot remain young in mind two hundred years after his birth, Magnus," Perturabo said, thunderclouds gathering around his face, but his voice was as steady as ever, " You understand. Okay, let me know your progress. I think this is the last unclosed node, right?"
+…Yes. +Magnus reluctantly admitted that +the other eleven endpoints had all been sealed. +
"There is no need for us to continue wasting time here," Perturabo said slowly, "Clean the surface. This is just an empty shell of a world. After eliminating hidden dangers, we will seal this place, and then Start preparing for the emperor's...ascension...huh?"
A terrible fear suddenly surged out of his instinct, causing him to almost let out some kind of dark cry, and the weight of his negative emotions suddenly increased rapidly. Accumulated deep in his soul, with the call and desire for nightmares and destruction. It was strange and familiar to him, and he knew that he—he knew that no human being in the entire universe and galaxy could escape from it.
In the pocket he carried, the crystal box from Ishtar cracked a crack.
——
Lorgar Aurelion gently wiped his hands dry with a towel, then picked up the knife, thought deeply, and cut his palm open along the palm lines, letting the blood condense into bright dew drops and fall into the amber water in his cup. .
He picked up the golden cup and stared at the drop of blood, knowing that the knife was sharp enough. Then, all the preparations he needs have been made.
He walked into the darkness of the Wandering Temple.
(End of this chapter)