Emperor's Bane

Chapter 768 New Year's Eve Special Chapter: Slaanesh if Line Extra

Chapter 768 New Year's Eve Special: Slaanesh if Line Extra

"Luo Jia, my brother."

"Come here, I need you."

"You know, this great war has reached its final stage."

"The end is coming."

"Victory and the smile of the gods are waiting for us not far ahead."

"To this moment, we have shed too much blood, too many sacrifices, and too many great victories to count: think of the Five Hundred Worlds and Isstvan, where the Emperor's blood and tears were shed for us."

"The false empire created by the tyrant is now crumbling: all his servants have been crushed by us. The only thing that can stop us now is the last high wall and the power he has stored on Terra."

"But it is not easy to destroy the immortal Theodosian Wall."

“We need strength.”

"I need power!"

"More power...all the power!"

"Go and gather them, brother, go and gather all the comrades who share the same ideals as us!"

"Tell them I need them."

"This war needs them!"

"Tell them to come to Ullanor!"

"Come to Terra!"

"Jonson, Fulgrim, Angron, Konrad, Perturabo..."

"And she..."

"Call them all, Lorgar."

"Tell them: It's time to send our frail father off."

“A new era is coming.”

“I don’t want anyone to be late.”

"I'll be here, waiting for them."

------

"And you need to go to the Far East: please invite the queen over for me."

"Be careful, Luo Jia."

"Don't let her charm you."

"Don't end up like Konrad, Jonson, Perturabo, and Guilliman."

"You know, she's very...strong now."

------

“It’s crazy too.”

Layak could hear his father's whispers.

As the Law of Faith cautiously approached the land once called Avalon...

world?

country?

Or field?

He couldn't explain it clearly: he could only see a maddening shadow, expanding infinitely in the universe. It seemed not much bigger than an ordinary civilized world, but also seemed to be the collection of desires of an entire star region.

The Word Bearer was confused. He silently calculated the time in his heart: from the time they left Ullanor, it would take at least...

"That's not necessary, Layak."

Luo Jia sighed in front: He knew very well what his offspring were wondering about.

"After she destroyed everything of Guilliman, we can no longer view Morgan with worldly reason."

The Primarch turned around, his skin covered in golden prayers clinging to his bones, revealing dark blue veins, making him look even thinner than he had imagined: and Lorgar's face was paler than Layak remembered.

Maybe his father was afraid?
Layak couldn't help the thought.

"what do you mean?"

"You're asking even though you already know the answer, Layak."

Lorgar stretched out a hand, and an invisible flame ignited from his palm, creating a criss-crossing bridge in the chaotic waves of the warp, guiding the direction of the ships behind him: otherwise, they would be destined to be swallowed by the darkness.

The Primarch's voice was deep.

"In the Elysian Crusade, Morgan and her legions razed all of Ultramar to the ground. Five hundred worlds were either massacred or became altars that were deliberately preserved: the fate of the Ultramarines was no exception."

"Except for Guilliman who managed to escape, may he live in peace on Terra, the other three Primarchs who dared to resist in that expedition all became the sacrifices that Morgan prepared for himself. Five hundred worlds are just the appetizers."

"Alpharius, Vulkan, and Corax..."

Every time he said a name, Luo Jia's finger moved a step forward.

"They were all sacrificed."

"And five hundred worlds: all sacrificed by Morgan to the prince in the Silver Palace."

"..."

"Can you imagine: such a feat would earn Slaanesh such great favor?"

"So: don't interpret Morgan after this as the name we have in mind."

"She has already... ascended."

The Primarch hesitated for a moment before finding a less appropriate adjective.

At the same time, the light of the Great Speaker also bloomed in the subspace.

Behind the dirty golden lines was a clearly visible passage: the originally unfathomable darkness shattered like a pale mirror, rushing in all directions. In the blink of an eye, only the mixed prayers and the hissing of human bone instruments in the room troubled Layak.

"You succeeded, my Lord?"

Amid the ecstasy of his offspring, the Great Speaker nodded calmly.

Then I breathed a sigh of relief.

Good: it looked like his sister had deigned to meet him.

Hopefully her good mood will last a little longer.

Lorgar waved his hand and handed his life and soul, as well as the more than one hundred warships and tens of thousands of Word Bearers under his command, into the hands of the woman: he knew that after sailing into this endless darkness, not even the gods could determine his fate.

The emperor is even more impossible.

Because the case is right next to it.

"That is……"

Not long after traveling in this area that seemed like the Warp, a huge creature that passed by them attracted the attention of the Word Bearers.

Layak lay on the porthole, watching the scene in disbelief.

"That's Macragge's Glory!"

“It was wrecked.”

Luo Jia might be the only one who was indifferent to all this. He was still staring straight ahead in the darkness, his smooth back of the head covered with dense beads of cold sweat.

"Now it's Morgan's trophy."

"Oh my god..."

Layak stared at the scene outside the porthole in a daze: not because he had a new understanding of the Spider Queen's power, but because he was amazed at the luxury of this darling of Slaanesh.

The Macragge's Glory, a top-tier battleship famous throughout the galaxy, was now abandoned in the cold void like an ordinary spaceship.

Not only that, its keel and shape were obviously distorted. Countless hideous tentacles and invisible hands roughly broke the soul of the Queen of Glory and made it into a crudely made arrowhead to guide the direction of the Word Bearers' fleet.

"This is such a waste."

Layak muttered to himself.

He was not an expert on ships, but he could see that the damage to Macragge's Glory was not serious: if the battleship fell into the hands of the Word Bearers, then with just a few modifications and twists, the fleet of the Seventeenth Legion would be even more powerful.

But here she is...

Layak's throat moved, and he suddenly stopped thinking.

Because he felt that a will had set its sights on him: no, not just him, those invisible pupils were staring at everyone in the fleet.

It's not the devil, it's not witchcraft...

The gaze came from power itself: from the hierarchy of gods, but not from any of the gods he was familiar with.

Layak broke out in a cold sweat: until Lorgar came over, stretched out his hand, and tried his best to comfort his capable offspring.

"keep going."

said the Primarch.

In the following time, the fleet continued to grope in the darkness: no one knew how long they had been sailing, no one knew how far they had driven, and even the directions of front, back, left and right disappeared from the minds of every captain.

The only things that could guide them were the huge coordinates that occasionally emerged in the darkness: either a mighty warship, an entire burning world and fortress, or hundreds of billions of mortals who had just died or were not yet dead, bound together by blood and tendons, their wailing cries seemed to pierce the silent law of the void.

They are all [fresh].

The battleship had just been destroyed, the world had just been destroyed, and even the deaths of those mortals had not yet fully appeared: Layak couldn't imagine how exaggerated the power that could place these signs in real time was?
He could only be thankful that this journey, which was even more bizarre than the Eye of Terror, was finally coming to an end after a period of hellish hardship.

A ray of the most holy light blinded everyone's eyes at the end of the field of vision.

Before they could scream, a stubborn will restored everyone's sight.

"Here we are."

After several hours, Luo Jia finally took his first steps again.

"Where are we, my Lord?"

"In the Warp, and also on Avalon."

Luo Jia answered briefly.

“Now, there’s no difference between the two.”

"The territories of the three former Far Eastern countries have nothing to do with the real universe anymore."

Layak fought back the urge to vomit.

It wasn't because he felt nauseous, but because after the journey, he realized a problem belatedly: he didn't know when he had become accustomed to the crazy scenes before him.

At first, he resisted and felt extremely crazy.

But after watching it a few more times, it was as if the darkness around him began to erode his brain. He no longer resisted. He was able to accept them calmly and even perceive the beauty in these distortions. Then, in his heart, he longed for the next thing he would witness. What would it be like?
damn it……

Why did he become like this?

When exactly is it…

"Don't think about it, my child."

Luo Jia's voice came: Layak heard a hint of solemnity that he had never heard before.

"Don't dwell on the reasoning behind it."

"If you don't want to be just another slave at her feet."

"Now, follow me."

"Only the two of us can go see her."

"Then the others..."

"Leave them alone."

Lorgar picked up the scepter and muttered something that Layak couldn't understand.

"From the moment I stepped into the darkness, their fate was no longer up to me."

"You, too, my child."

------

This is a palace.

It is also a city.

And... more normal than he thought?

In the nearly ten minutes after following the Primarch to the ground, Layak did not see anyone coming to greet or alert them: not only did the Dawnbreakers not show up, even the bustling crowds of mortals on the streets seemed completely unmoved by the heroic presence of a Primarch.

Even though Luo Jia had already fully revealed the light bestowed upon him by Chaos.

This was very unusual: there should at least be some patrols to guard against them?
Layak muttered to himself, his eyes sweeping across the golden fountains, white jade towers, lush street parks and bustling commercial streets: all he heard were laughter and noisy conversations, and even after careful discussion, he could not discern any clues.

It was indeed a metropolis with carved beams and painted buildings and crowded people. It was countless times better than the most livable city in the human empire. Apart from floating in the void and being exposed to the radiation of the warp without reservation, Layak did not notice anything wrong.

And he realized that some of the mortal faces around him looked distinctly familiar: before the outbreak of the great war, Layak had also followed his Primarch to visit the Aurora, the flagship of the Dawnbreaker Legion.

That's right: whether it was the appearance of the buildings on the street or the people on the road, Dou was exactly the same as the former battleship: except for the increase in age, he was in a larger Aurora.

But...something seems wrong.

This is subspace.

Being too normal...is not normal.

what is going on actually?
"gentlemen!"

"!"

"what?"

Layak turned around suddenly and found that several children were standing beside him.

How can it be!

He clearly hadn't noticed anything! The Word Bearer was stunned for a moment, then immediately turned around and looked for his Primarch, but he found no trace of Lorgar: the road ahead was still full of bustling people, but just a few breaths ago, the Primarch, who was less than three steps away from him, had disappeared.

This... How can this be...

"gentlemen?"

The sound was getting closer.

Layak looked in the direction of the sound and saw only a golden ponytail and blue pupils.

A little girl in a scout uniform was smiling sweetly at him, and behind her were several companions, who were holding up a lunch box that was a bit too big. It had not been opened yet, but it exuded rising heat that made the Astartes warriors feel greedy.

What is so delicious?

He thought subconsciously and almost ignored the little girl's words.

"Well, sir, we are offering free tasting this week: as long as you give us a good review and sign your name and contact information, you can taste the roasted deer head we just made this morning for free."

"The ingredients were just delivered yesterday, and we guarantee that they are absolutely fresh and contamination-free."

Roasted deer head?
Before Layak could react, the lid was opened: the Word Bearer looked over involuntarily, and then, he was struck by lightning.

A human head, so huge that it was definitely not something a mortal could possess, was placed on the plate, staring at him blankly: Astarte's pupils had been deliberately poked into a pulp, and a fruit was ritually stuffed into his wide-open mouth.

The golden service nails were so shiny, but they were covered with thick sauce, and the two sharp blades were inserted upside down on the skull split by the axe, like a pair of lifelike antlers.

Among the fresh fruits, the logo of the Ultramarines was thoughtfully marked.

He just lays there.

Like a hot pizza.

"I made this with my own hands."

The little girl stroked it with a smile, and a child's sense of pride emerged.

"Come, sir."

The girl, who looked to be about eleven or twelve years old, had an innocent smile on her face. She held the fork in her tender white hands and stabbed the Astartes' head on the plate without hesitation: the indestructible skin and skull melted like ice cream in front of the fork tip, and in an instant, a bloody hole was dug out.

The little girl raised the fork, which was covered with messy skin and rotten meat. An eyeball that was still moving fell underneath. The eyeball seemed to be able to look at Layak, but it exuded a fragrant scent: so fragrant that Layak couldn't help but want to taste it.

No.

He patted his head.

This is clearly a foul smell.

It is the stench of a corpse that has been left for a long time: a physiological stench that is unbearable for humans.

but……

But it smells really good...

Damn...it's so scary...but so fascinating...

Layak froze in place, and then discovered in despair: with every breath he took, the desire in his heart would overcome greed, and the distortion in his heart would overcome facts. This change was progressing at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the Word Bearer could only watch, but he was powerless to stop the changes in his mind.

"..."

The Word Bearer stared at all this in a daze.

He felt like vomiting again.

But he wanted to try again.

In previous holy wars, he had killed Ultramarines before, and he even worked with Morgan's most trusted hunting master Bayar to kill 500 of Guilliman's best warriors on the battlefield of Calth.

But all that, but all that...

"gentlemen?"

He didn't know when, the little girl had actually come right in front of him, her scarlet flesh constantly hitting his lips. Layak screamed and stepped back, only to find that more little girls had gathered around him. Their soft little hands were placed on his armor, shaking it coquettishly, making the Word Bearer begin to lose his balance.

They were dragging him!

And he couldn't resist at all!

They are far weaker than he is!
They are not powerful at all!
But he couldn't resist.

They are weaker, so they are stronger...

Damn it! Why would he think that?
"Sir...sir..."

The childlike shouts and laughter still surrounded Layak, swallowing him up like a whirlpool. The Word Bearer wanted to struggle hard, but found that he had no strength left. Looking to the side, he could only see a peaceful street scene.

Others were smiling at him: it was like observing an awkward old man trapped by a group of little girls.

Gods, what on earth is this...

Just when Layak felt that he was about to be dragged to the ground by this force, the Primarch's big hand suddenly stretched out: Lorgar had stood behind him again at some point, supported the Word Bearer's body, and with a slight force, he pulled his offspring out.

At the same time, the Primarch smiled gently at the little girls.

"Sorry, everyone."

Layak looked on in shock as his Primarch greeted the little girls.

"We are in a hurry right now and may not be able to help your cause."

“I wish you a good grade.”

"All right sir: thank you for your blessing."

The little girl holding the head of Astartes smiled sweetly at Luo Jia and bowed very politely without any intention of entanglement. In the blink of an eye, she and her companions skipped away, leaving behind a string of silver bell-like laughter.

"Layak."

It was not until this moment that Lorgar's heavy voice brought the Word Bearers back to reality.

"What I just said: Don't leave my sight no matter what."

"I'm sorry, sir. I just..."

"You just don't think this city is that big of a deal, do you?"

The Primarch sneered, then grabbed Layak's shoulder and pointed to a place.

"Look there."

"What do you see?"

"A... vendor?"

Layak concentrated his attention and swore that he must have seen the real situation: but he did see only one stall, a stall that seemed to be very popular. The owner carefully prepared plates of skewers, and half a dozen guests were feasting at the tables.

Everything is fine.

"Really?"

Luo Jia smiled, then patted his child's temple.

"Look again..."

“Look carefully: What are they eating?”

"!!!"

Layak saw it.

"That...that's..."

"Correct."

Luo Jia nodded.

"That's the Unborn."

"And in the parlance of the Thousand Sons: they prefer to call them guardian spirits."

"But Dawnbreaker clearly sees things differently."

"..."

The Primarch seemed to have said some more important knowledge, but Layak no longer had the energy to listen. He only felt that all his worldviews so far were crushed by the warm scene before him.

What did he see?
He saw those unborn beings that were created by the currents of the warp, those beings that would be carefully nurtured by the warriors of the Thousand Sons Legion and grow into guardian elves, but now they were placed on the dinner plates of mortals.

The stall owner seemed to have his own refrigerator, but in fact, he just casually grabbed handfuls of newly born unborn beings in the air and threw them into the furnace burning with white flames.

They screamed and struggled. Their sharp teeth and claws were powerful enough to tear steel, but they were useless in front of the mouths of mortals. Morgan's people devoured these demons at will, but they all had mortal faces.

The big man with a lot of flesh on his body swallowed the raw food whole.

The mother carefully divided the meat on the plate into small pieces, and while the child was devouring the meal, she wiped his face lovingly.

The old man, who looked like he was dying, put on his dentures with great effort and bit the food in front of him bit by bit.

They are all mortals.

They are all devouring demons.

And all this, all this madness, all this anti-Tian Gang...

How natural it is.

That's how it should be...

Layak was despairing to find that this thought actually popped into his mind.

"Stop looking."

Luo Jia forcibly pulled him away.

"I don't want to lose another child on the streets of this city."

"Let's go, Layak."

Luo Jia dragged him away from the bustling city at the fastest speed and walked to the end of the main road: there were brightly colored glass and polished silver domes, and a luxurious palace with sixty-six towers showed where its owner was.

"Morgan is waiting for us."

Luo Jia raised his head, his face looking pious as if he was looking at a god.

"We'd better not keep her waiting too long."

"Yes, my lord."

Layak bowed his head deeply and walked the rest of the way in silence.

They remained silent and walked efficiently for the next ten minutes until they left the bustling city behind. A sudden winding path led them to a city gate made of pure white marble, on which stood several long-lost figures.

It's the Dawnbreaker.

Gods Help Me: They look the same as they did during the Great Crusade.

Layak breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, he suddenly felt that something was wrong. "

"Welcome, Master Luo Jia."

Just as he was thinking about it, a Dawnbreaker with a giant dog came forward, and behind it was a knight mecha filled with flesh and blood. Layak had seen similar creations on countless worlds of the Fallen Mechanicus, but this one made him feel particularly uncomfortable.

"Mother is waiting for you."

Dawnbreaker bowed humbly, but Lorgar obviously did not accept the kindness.

"I thought I wouldn't get any treats along the way."

"How is that possible? You are the Primarch's brother."

The Dawnbreakers laughed arrogantly: even facing the Primarch, they did not change their notoriously arrogant mentality.

"But please forgive me: our new military dog is obviously not well trained yet. He failed to find you the first time. We will focus on training in this area after we return."

"..."

Luo Jia was silent.

But Layak could sense that his genetic father had suddenly fallen into a rage.

"Dawnbreaker!"

Luo Jia spoke heavily.

"I hope you understand: the galactic holy war needs their strength now more than ever."

"Instead of being here, being forcibly captured by you to have fun with!"

"what?"

Layak looked up, confused.

What is his father saying?
"I know, sir."

The Dawnbreaker's voice was like that of a vulture that had just had a full meal.

"But the sad thing is: they did all this voluntarily."