Chapter 508 Shadow Crossing the Sky (5)
When John Grammaticus woke up from where he was, he felt as if he had just been run over by a whole rhinoceros— —Not pain, but numbness. It was like what was left of him was just a pile of sacks filled with bones and muscles glued together, rather than some kind of living thing...
What ran over him was a huge spiritual will.
The will ruthlessly peeled him apart layer by layer, examining his internal and external structure, like flipping through a book, brutally obtaining everything John owned from his mind.
Then, the other party said something to him, and then put him away...
His mind was dull and he continued to recall the meeting.
Who guided him? Who met him?
He was trembling, but he was not alone.
Some sound of metal collision. His mind conjured up a golden armor of memory...a stern face. A spear... seemed to glow with bright force field thunder... or so he remembered.
But what he saw was an almost pure white spear, completely translucent, filled with translucent light from the handle to the tip of the blade, with only a handful of circling golden threads attached to the surface of the spear. ……
It's like this weapon has just been blessed by a supreme power...
Who blessed it?
Then, another man half-knelt up from his prone position. The heavy cloth seemed to be creaking, and the ornament hanging on his chest was shaking slightly... At first he thought it was a cross, but John Taking a closer look, I found that it was the simplified symbol of the Imperial Sky Eagle - its wings spread out, its head and claws connected, close to the shape of a cross, but it was undoubtedly a symbol of the Empire.
Who changed this symbol?
While John Grammaticus was puzzled and confused, a strong arm suddenly lifted him up from the ground and forcibly helped him stand upright. When he realized that even if he stood up straight, he was much shorter than the soldier in front of him, he felt an inexplicable sense of peace in his heart.
"You are not suitable to travel with us. You are too weak to bear my Lord's thoughts." The tall warrior's voice was cold and his expression was calm.
"Maybe, but the boy called my name and told me to follow you," John laughed, "and he said, 'John Grammaticus, you will follow Eulanius S. Persson, search for the origin of the curse, and discover the true name of the Lord of Darkness,' that's what your master told us, so don't be so critical of me, Commander."
Or. He stood up slowly, still wearing his simple soldier-like clothes.
This reminded John of the pensive look in the strange boy's eyes when he saw Orr in the bright world like a dream just now - and of course Orr's expression of hesitation to speak.
That made John feel as if he was an outsider who shouldn't be there. Alas, after all, the two people around him were very familiar with the Emperor, and he was the only one who had barely met the Lord of Mankind.
"You have a gift," Orr said, interrupting John's thoughts. "The gift of learning spells. Therefore...the Emperor hopes that you will accompany me."
He was silent for a moment and corrected his title to the Emperor.
Yes, that boy did inspire them that way. John recalled the scene by the river...
The dark-skinned child stood by the river, holding a scary skull in his hand, and told John what surprised him. . Tell him that when he can feel uncomfortable just by reading the scrolls recording the curses, it means that he has the sensitivity and talent for the correct use of this language. All he needs is to learn...
He does He is very talented in language knowledge, but curses are another matter. Both its power and its danger.
John carefully expressed euphemistically to the two warriors who were dedicated to the Lord of Humanity: "I want to treat my body parts well, two adults. Although I have some recovery ability, it does not mean that I can cut my throat and reattach it casually. ——However, I am willing to escort you, Orr, this is true."
"We must explore the true name of the Lord of Darkness."
Orr paused and glanced. After four weeks, the light that had not completely dissipated flickered slightly.
Once they leave this area, the edge of the glorious crossroads where they are now, any words must be more cautious and carefully considered how to express them.
“But there are neither prophets nor psychic masters among us. After the destruction of the 15th Legion, these powers no longer belong to us. Therefore, we must master at least one means to resist The power of subspace.”
"But I-" John was about to retort.
"My lord made it very clear, John Grammaticus." Constantine's voice was cold and hard, calling him by his full name without any room for error.
John smiled bitterly and shrugged his newly recovered shoulders, trying to ease the awkward atmosphere.
Yes, the little boy did come up with some theories that left John unsure.
When the Lord of Mankind stood at the final crossroads of time, feeling the rhythm of the shadow of the Lord of Darkness in another part of the world, and looking back on everything that had come, he realized that the way they had used the spell had been incomplete. Even Morse the Eternal and Magnus the Red are the same.
After all, even the knowledge of the two of them only comes from the emperor's understanding of the scholars back then, and the emperor has only now put forward a new point of view: they have not truly "recognized" the origin of the curse.
And all the negative consequences associated with speaking the curse are the price of this insufficient knowledge - and only when a being truly reaches a depth deep enough to touch the source of the curse can he feel it. Messages hidden deeper.
Angelic, the first language... although it sounds like a language, it actually does not conform to any known rules of grammar or vocabulary - something John has long known. It does, however, translate through phonemes and morphemes, inducing a state of mental dissociation that is difficult to control.
This state of dissociation stems from the inability to understand the nature of the curse, and using the curse in this case will bring mandatory consequences... such as various injuries to the body and skin that have been recorded Physical disaster.
As for how to truly understand all the secrets of the curse... The answer John got made him speechless.
The boy said he didn't know.
"I understand." He said listlessly, "This is what I should do. Go back to Terra, back under the nose of the Dark Lord, and pray that he can't smell us."< br>
The boy's advice to him was to return to Terra. After all, the source of the curse was there, and they needed to trace it back to its roots.
“You don’t need to—” Orr wanted to continue persuading.
“No,” Constantine interrupted him coldly, “you need to feel guilty for the unconscious behavior that gave birth to the Lord of Darkness.” He put away his spear and took a step back, as if suppressing Some kind of emotion.
"I didn't refute it, Commander-in-Chief," John put two fingers on his forehead and raised them slightly with a hint of disapproval.
He knew that this guy was hating everyone who had put the Emperor in this situation...hate, a Custodian actually retained such an emotion, but, yes, hate...
Hate indeed.
John smiled, with a hint of self-deprecation, "Go and do your business, I won't delay your meeting with those primarchs... Oh my God, let you tall people go to the party, we The short man must return to Terra and die.”
——
"You are here, Constantine."
Perturabo's voice seemed even colder in the cold wind. It traveled through the valley with the night wind, echoing in the silent and dark depths before dawn.
He stood beside the wall of the fortress base on the mountainside of Telefus, standing still. Four warsmiths surrounded him like shadows, alert to any possible danger. At the same time, these assistants and escorts promptly shared the intelligence with their primarch for Perturabo to process.
In addition, there are five tall iron ring soldiers guarding the surroundings, motionless and silent, coated with gray and black shadows from the night.
Without the existence of words, they only rely on the information flow after the language of consciousness is transcoded into numbers, and the messages are wordlessly transmitted to the great mind of the original body. Such silence, in the snowy mountains where the oxygen is gradually thinning, presents a deep coldness.
Constantin Waldo felt the heat here. Above his head, the armor does not have a constant temperature system, and there is a red tassel covered with heavy ice crystals.
His eyes swept across the snow-capped mountains behind the iron-clad original body, revealing the iron-green ground. Under the heat released by the workshop furnace, all the surrounding ice and snow mixed with molten iron melted and re-solidified into dirty lava-like strips, or a congealed blood scab attached to abstract meaning.
"Who guided your path, Constantine?"
Perturabo's eyes turned back from the darkness outside the city wall, his cold tone devoid of any emotion. Frost and snow formed a thin layer of frost on the fur on his face, but he seemed unfazed by the cold.
“A beam of golden light.”
The voice of the commander of the Imperial Guard was still calm, intertwined with the fractured cold wind in the air.
At almost all times, he remained calm.
Amidst the sound of frost crackling like broken bones, the commander of the Imperial Army pulled apart the heavy cloth covering the spear. After leaving the Radiant Cross Road, the spear of the Sun that faded to silvery white shone in the twilight before dawn. The silvery-white spear was as sharp as a silver thread, which was one of the few bright spots in the dim environment.
He raised his spear, pointing the tip in the direction of Perturabo. The cloth half hung on the spear handle, fluttering slightly in the cold wind.
The Warsmith raised his gun at him. The same goes for the Iron Ring robots directly controlled by Perturabo, with many weapons aimed at Constantine motionlessly.
Perturabo looked at him.
"You would not attack a Primarch, Lord Custodes." "Not anymore," Constantine said. It took him a moment to realize that the answer he spoke answered two questions at the same time.
Does this answer also answer his fate? This was a question beyond what he needed to think about.
"I am no longer the commander of the Imperial Guard, the Warmaster. The Imperial Guard was born to guard the throne, and I will no longer lead such an army." Constantine kept saying, his voice steady, "Other than that , I will indeed take action against the Primarch. This is my mission in the future, and it is also the road you will face.”
Perturabo's expression grew darker. He raised his hand, held the back of Constantine's spear blade, and pressed it down slightly.
The cold frost and snow seemed to slip from his fingers. Under Constantine's force, the descent of the spear blade stopped.
"You cannot kill a Primarch, Constantine Valdor." He did not deny Valdor's words, "You are only born as a Throne Warden, you cannot even defeat Alpharius and Omegon."
Constantine remained motionless, inspired by the Emperor himself. When he was commissioned, did he ever think that the birth of the Primarch was the cause of all this?
"I was born to assassinate inhuman things, Warmaster. You need to understand that if the Primarch dies under the Sun Spear, what will be stripped away is his shadow in the Warp. It will remain. It will be their unbridled will. This spear has been consecrated as a conduit to the crossroads, and the stripped power will return to the light of our Lord."
A gust of wind with ice and snow swept by, and the metal debris in the distance creaked and whined.
Silently, the warsmiths seemed to have received the order from their primarch, and they lowered their weapons one by one, but still formed a protective formation. The same goes for the Iron Ring Mecha.
"Are you our assassin?" Perturabo asked coldly. "Very well, then do it. What will happen to the will left by my brother?"
"Put it on something, or dissipate in the time of the real universe." Constantine said, "I cannot carry out an assassination alone. Not even Konrad Curze or Corvos Corax could have killed any of you on their own. My Lord has made you too powerful to consider how to kill." You."
"Then the only thing you need to do is the final execution. I understand your mission and I will add you to the calculation."
Perturabo said coldly, showing no objection or showing any hesitation to Constantine's proposed killing. In Constantine's eyes, this was enough to make people question whether the fourth son who once cared for his brother was one with this person.
In fact, Constantine believed that Perturabo understood that if they could get a good assassin, it would be much easier to destroy the Legion Astartes' defenses around Terra.
The death of the Primarch was a blow to the Legion's heart. Even if it was not enough to destroy two of the Legion's life-sustaining hearts at the same time, it was enough to severely defeat an army.
The sky gradually brightened, and the light of dawn shone slightly on the side of Perturabo's face, shrouding his figure in an unreal glow. The air was still cold, and the snow was silent, as if the dawn light was another layer of ice, freezing the life of this land in the depths of silence.
Perturabo faced the distance, raised his voice, and said to himself, as if facing the nihilistic light: "Can you hear me?"
His call penetrated the air like a cold wind, pushing out layers of echoes in the air. The sound shook the surface of the mountains, as if to tear the snow-covered land apart, but in the end, everything recovered In silence, the mountains remained standing.
Perturabo waited for a few seconds, silence and cold being the only echoes.
Perturabo just turned his head again and gave the War Blacksmith a calm order: "Folk, contact the Astropathic Choir and write to Rogal Dorn to inform him of what you heard. " He ordered, "Tell it as it is, but he must be left alone to listen. "
The War Blacksmith's heavy armor hummed in motion, and he did not raise any questions. "Yes." He said, and retreated along the city wall.
Then, Perturabo walked out from his escort and came to Constantine, looking down at him. His eyes looked down at Constantine, as if he could see everything about him through the armor.
The sky is getting brighter, and the sky is gradually turning from darkness to gray-blue. This land is recovering in terms of time sequence. However, the darkness of the cold night still retains Olympia, frozen in this piece of snow that never melts all year round. The mountains of Olympia are like an eternally frozen boulder, refusing further recovery.
The Lord of Iron effortlessly reached out and grabbed the cloth wrapped around Constantine's spear. Constantine did not resist and let go, allowing the Warmaster to easily remove it.
With the exception of his Apollo Spear and his own armor, nothing else was considered necessary for Constantine's mission.
The thick piece of cloth fell heavily and slowly in Perturabo's hands, rolled up into an inconspicuous pile of debris. A cold light flashed on the fully exposed spear.
Perturabo reached out and touched it gently, and a drop of blood slipped down his finger.
At this moment, Constantine felt another kind of power.
His consciousness was pulled into another world, a dark and stormy world full of roars and roars. Inside, on the top of a high mountain, stood an almost violent luminous machine and those crazily rotating gears. and cables wrapped like a spider web form a steel cage, restraining a dazzling light source. It was running at high speed all the time, cutting out infinite straight rays of light in the crazy storm.
This is the truth revealed to him by the Spear of the Sun God.
He stared at these metaphors, focusing on a nimbus full of anger and depression.
Perturabo squinted his eyes. He didn't say anything, he just threw the heavy cloth in his hand outside the city wall.
The fabric floated slowly in the night wind, slipped in the air, and gradually disappeared into the unfathomable dark valley.
"I hope that Lorgar Aurelion is your first and last prey, Constantine, but I understand that this is impossible." Perturabo said, "I will make sure , Can your strength match any of us?"
"Right here?" Constantine raised his eyebrows slightly.
"You don't always have the opportunity to breathe and rest before killing one of my brothers." Perturabo said, without any intention of using force. On the contrary, his eyes fell again. Looking into the distance, it seems just waiting.
Constantin Valdo waited in silence, every muscle ready for battle.
As a gust of hot wind blew behind him, he realized he was still too slow.
In just a moment, the attacker was close.
He tried to respond, but the handle of his spear was pressed against his chest, and the smell of bronze and blood rushed into his breathing apparatus. He growled and parried the attacker's next punch, but his forearm and abdomen were hit together. A crackling sound came. He quickly stepped back to relieve his strength, but his spear was still tightly held by the attacker. Press it tightly on your chest.
Constantine felt that the opponent's fingers had slipped towards the edge of the Sun Spear. The hand did not tremble at all. He even ignored the sharpness of the spear, and his rough skin resisted the dangerous position. Staying on the edge of being pierced, his fingers firmly grasped the tip of the spear that shone with cold light, as if the weapon that was supposed to cut off the palm was just a blunt instrument.
Perturabo interrupted them.
"That's enough."
The chilling atmosphere in the air seemed to be forcibly strangled by something. The attacker leaned forward slightly, as if examining Constantine. After a moment, he let go of the blade of the spear and stood up straight.
"Constantine Waldo," Angron said in a deep voice, his voice like thunder in the valley. "The Emperor has indeed chosen us, then."
"I am glad you have confirmed it again," Perturabo replied, his voice clear of any emotion. This answer is merely a courtesy. "Constantine, follow the direction of the astral language and observe Rogal Dorn's reaction after receiving it..."
"I do not obey your orders, Warmaster."
"But you will make the right choice. Otherwise, what other path do you have?" Perturabo asked, a storm building on his face. "The Emperor has ordained your path."
"Ordained yours," Constantine said indifferently, as if the fracture and pain in his body had no effect on him.
Behind them, the stars were slowly rising. The first ray of sunlight gently brushed the snow. The wind carried the heat awakened by the sun upwards, whistling and stirring up a messy sound. Pale snowflakes.
"This is what we have chosen for each other." Perturabo said, his voice low, "Enough, save our time, Rogal Dorn must be using astrology to contact Olympia, and we The response will definitely be faster than the message he sent."
For two seconds, Constantine said nothing. He glanced at the white tip of his blade and slowly wiped away the trace of blood remaining on it.
This is an unsheathed weapon. Its camouflage layer had been discarded by Perturabo.
"Goodbye, original body." He said goodbye softly, following a golden thread that was invisible to the naked eye and disappeared in the wind. His figure gradually disappeared, and the golden thread seemed to merge into the wind in an instant.
Perturabo felt something, and his eyes passed over the traces left by the invisible golden thread.
Suddenly, the wind surged up from the valley. The sinking heavy cloth seemed to be awakened in his eyes, and was suddenly lifted up by the wind. The hunting land was rolling and floating, rushing against the trajectory of its fall. toward the sky. Under the dawn, the piece of cloth showed scarlet red, like a bloody mouth soaked in blood, drawing a broken trace against the sky.
Perturabo watched the red cloth disappear in the dawn, and then turned his eyes to Angron, who was already standing beside him.
"His reaction speed is good," Angron said, flexing his fingers. "The strength is acceptable."
To be evaluated like this by a primarch who is good at close combat is something that has never been done before. A level that is difficult for the commander of the Forbidden Army to reach.
"This shows that his speed and strength are still growing, or being released." Perturabo said, then changed the subject and returned to the last topic they discussed before the holographic star map yesterday.
"What other bait can you think of that would be enough to lure the Word Bearers to Istvan III, Angron? Prospero is nowhere to be found..."
( End of chapter)