Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 433: Panshe Temple
In the images sent back by the camera, the entire Devon is being slowly woven and reshaped, with each broken continent drifting in the void along invisible ocean currents, until they return one by one to a position that seems to have been designed by a higher being - like some kind of self-contained celestial sphere system, revolving around the central core according to their own orbits and speeds, casting interlaced shadows on each other's surfaces.

The shadows are sometimes chaotic and sometimes form a fixed pattern: three parallel cruel diagonal lines, two or more groups coexisting, like deep scratches made by eagle claws.

Dantioch stood behind Perturabo, monitoring the situation on the ground of Davin 63-8 with his Primarch. Everything that was happening here was difficult for him to understand, and another word that had been quietly emphasized by his colleagues in the Iron Won Stonemasons Club branch recently suddenly came to his mind.

"Chaos," Kyle Varen said. "A threat that requires vigilance. If there is any evidence of sorcery, report it to our father first. I am sure you understand what this means, brothers."

He turned his head, and his unhelmeted face met the wrinkled face of the Preacher Kyril Hindman. They had joked with each other that there were two old men traveling together on the front line of the Great Crusade. On the other hand, Hindman's existence was indeed a proof of the ancient law of Terra, that the elderly often possessed extensive knowledge.

Just a few minutes ago, Hindman analyzed the meaning of the coiled snake pattern for them.

"Ulaeus adorned the pharaoh's headdress of ancient Terra, representing power and protection," the speaker said, while recording the conversation as material for war documentation. "In Greece tens of thousands of years ago, the coiled snake of Asclepius symbolized medicine, and Ouroboros was associated with endless reincarnation and immortality..."

He then describes the historical origins of the Kundalini and Quetzalcoatl, as well as the entangled serpents of the Erinyes, in an attempt to explore the origins of this totem's appearance in Daven.

Their learned Primarchs hypothesized that the Serpent of Eden represented knowledge and awakening, and the deception and corruption that followed.

Each explanation had its place, but the truth had long since been reduced to ash by the flamethrowers of the Word Bearers.

As more and more anomalies were reported to the Iron Lord by various companies, a serious haze covered the face of the Iron Lord. He no longer participated in the discussion, but focused on processing the information, moving his lips slightly, and judging the situation with his own calculations. Hindman and Dantioch wisely kept relatively quiet.

Suddenly, Perturabo spoke, frowning and muttering, "My negligence."

"grown ups?"

"Everyone retreat," Perturabo did not answer him. The Lord of Iron did not even need to speak. A data cable had already sent the order to the communication channel at the fastest speed. "Return to orbit and terminate the counterinsurgency exploration..."

Dantioch began to contact the transport boat to ensure that the return operation could proceed normally. However, in the sound array, apart from the narration of the iron ring machinery, there was only a slight buzzing sound of electricity, like the limbs of a beetle crawling through the pipe. His instructions did not receive any response.

A slight, cold breeze blew across Dantioch's arm.

He was about to confirm again whether it was a problem with the communicator or whether the ground combat personnel had encountered an accident when one of the lights above his head suddenly went out, followed by the second.

Then, darkness fell.

Within seconds, the light in the room was hungrily devoured by the darkness, and everything within reach was as dark as ink, as if they were in an inescapable black hole.

The temperature dropped rapidly, and the air exhaled by Dantioch formed dry ice crystals on the stubble around his mouth. The energy that kept the space fortress running was drained away in an instant, and the war blacksmith could almost hear the wailing of countless mechanical valves and the shrill screams of the axles running out of control.

"My lord!" Dantioch called out loudly, trying to walk towards Perturabo in the darkness, but was trapped by the power armor that had lost its power source.

The pain brought by the passing of age pierced his skin and penetrated into his pain nerves. The power armor was no longer a life-sustaining protective device, but a ruthless iron cage.

He gasped, suddenly realizing how weak he was.

The Warsmith's two old hearts accelerated at the same time, and he used his muscles to drive the movement of the armor, and he slowly moved towards the Iron Lord's desk.

"Sir?" It was Sinderman's voice. The Memoirist stood up by the armrest of the chair and called out uneasily, shivering from the cold. "Sir Perturabo?"

A light shone dimly - not a colored light of reality, but a dark, metaphysical light, shining through the porthole in the Primarch's office, calling on Dantioch to look outside, to observe, to feel the huge shadow that shone from behind the veil.

"Don't look, Sinderman," Dantioch immediately warned Sinderman.

The warsmith turned his back to the porthole, carefully controlling his senses. His gauntlet was blocked by a heavy iron object, and Dantioch carefully followed the edge of the table, tentatively searching for the Iron Lord's arm. The chill gradually penetrated into his aged bones, causing them to ache faintly inside his flesh.

"Father..." he said hoarsely.

The call was eaten by the black sun, becoming broken and hollow, as if it was echoing in the distance. Time was stretched to an incomparable length, a momentary point stretched into an eternal line, and then suddenly rebounded, hitting Dantioch in the chest.

His strength went out, his legs gave way, and he fell beside Perturabo's table, his armor clanking to the ground.

Then, light and time returned together.

The lights were turned on again, and after flickering a few times, they emitted a steady cold light again.

The fuel began to flow and burn again, and electricity supported the operation of thousands of ship components. A steady and reassuring flow of energy ran through the wires buried in the walls, like mechanical blood vessels, supplying this huge fortress with the energy it depended on for survival.

Thousands of automatic alarms turned short warning bells into a perpetual shriek. Resources were destroyed, freezers leaked, sealed pipes ruptured, and pharmacists' experiments were ruined... a series of damaged or destroyed warnings rolled frantically on the holographic screen, reporting the countless consequences of this brief lack of energy.

It can be imagined that in the next month, the Iron Warriors will concentrate on recovering the losses caused by this accident.

But above all this, there is something more urgent.

The specially made power armor fit Dantioch's skin again, giving him the strength to stand up again. The Warsmith anxiously and even embarrassedly got up from the ground, restraining himself from jumping directly on the Gene Father.

Perturabo leaned back against the iron chair, his right hand hanging down from the edge of the chair, his left hand resting on the edge of the table, as still as an Olympian stone sculpture. The nerve cables extending from the back of his brain were like a black net, holding his head down as it drooped forward, like a sling to hold a falling stone.

"My lord?" Dantioch said softly, raising his hand and gently touching the Iron Lord's left hand.

Such a slight force was enough to make Perturabo's uncontrolled hand slip off, hit the armrest, and then swing outside the seat. The internal communication of the Iron Wyrm was reconnected, and the war blacksmiths were urgently sent to inquire about the reason for the brief abnormality just now, and whether the Primarch had made any relevant requirements that needed them to execute.

Dantioch was in a state of confusion. He looked out the window at the Devin satellite, which was still in a shattered state, as if nothing had changed. He answered the questions one by one in an orderly manner, and called on his fellow warsmiths whose ships were close to the Iron Warrior or who were already on the Iron Warriors' flagship to rush to the office to discuss the next situation.

He had never been so panicked before, and every time he spoke a word, he felt his lips and tongue go numb. His companions' voices seemed to be blocked by the electronic system, and the clear words were as vague and distant as if they were sunk in deep water.

Kyril Hindman seemed to be nailed to the spot, even giving up his original duty of recording and preaching. He stared at the motionless Primarch, trembling and coughing, and then asked: "Lord Perturabo...?"

Dantioch turned around and said, "It's all right. The Iron Lord is just unconscious. If not, we, as his descendants, would definitely feel it."

He opened the drawer at the bottom edge of the iron table in front of Perturabo and found a set of small iron tools, which he began to untie the neural cables from behind the Primarch's head one by one. They had been trained by Perturabo himself to know how to deal with the unique cables that the Iron Lord had modified himself in special circumstances.

The unlocking interval between the two nerve cables should be at least five minutes, otherwise the mutant mind link will cause damage to the nerves of the Primarch. Every war blacksmith keeps these details in mind...

"Send the pharmacist to prepare the infirmary, bring the sliding stretcher, and contact Terra. No," he whispered, to help organize his thoughts, "first... contact the Cliff of Craftsman Morse..."

Within thirty minutes, three more Warsmiths arrived in the Primarch's office and, after a brief moment of consternation, began to surround Perturabo, trying to wake him.

Dantioch pulled aside his worried colleagues to make room for Titus who had hurried over. The snake staff on the chief apothecary's armor, a medical symbol, stung his eyes, and the faint breathing of the primarch echoed faintly in his ears.

"The primarch is in stable condition," Titus said quickly, "it was a coma, he'll be fine."

The senior officers nodded.

"The situation of the Primarch is kept secret for the time being." Dantioch said. "What about the Astropaths?"

"No response yet—No," the warsmith Hako frowned deeply, "The star language transmission was interfered with, and the message could not be sent."

-

Ever since Perturabo opened his eyes, he had to overcome the sensory warnings that were bursting in his brain to convince himself that he was not actually standing high in the void, but was standing on some invisible surface that was strong enough to support his body.

He lowered his head and looked past his feet wearing Olympia sandals - it didn't seem like the shoes he should be wearing at the moment. But where did he come from? He vaguely remembered a shadow, a dark, nightmarish illusion of destruction...

Yes, it was Perturabo, and where was he now?

Under his feet, the world was divided into two parts by an unclear boundary.

The world on the right is shrouded in dark fog. Broken streets connect buildings with huge cracks. Thick fog pours out from the depths of the cracks, interweaving into the afterimages of human behavior before death. The image stays at the last moment before destruction. Distorted faces and limbs in the haze are close to each other, but they are fleeting when they actually touch and take shape. The dark sunlight shines on the earth through the gaps in the clouds, like rays of light between ribs.

The world on the left was colorful. Snakes and flying insects made the shadows come alive. The dancers' singing floated gently, flowing along the winding blood river until it reached the edge of the dark world. The colorful gas hissed and made a harsh sound. Too many colors made everything turbid. Faintly, the twisted shadows of some kind of entangled and swirling multi-headed creature could be seen on the ground.

The worlds on both sides are ready to move, colorful mist and black shadows are fighting for that boundary, starting an invisible war.

Perturabo squinted his eyes and noticed that in that colorful world, there seemed to be a person with a blurred face standing on top of the projection of the twisted hydra, guiding the movement of the giant snake.

Before he could see the man clearly, the unknown plane beneath his feet suddenly began to surge, turning into soft mist-like quicksand, causing him to fall downward. In an instant, his mind was filled with giggling and a silent void at the same time. He could hardly breathe, waving his arms, unable to find a foothold, and falling painfully.

"No..." He squeezed out a word from his teeth, blurry images rolling through his mind, none of the faces were clear enough for him to remember their identities. An empty confusion threw him to the ground, and then a heavy blow hit him in the back of the head, knocking his consciousness out of this soul-like body.

After an unknown amount of time, Perturabo opened his eyes again and found himself leaning against a cold door with unknown patterns engraved on it.
His head hurt so much that his thoughts became sporadic. The two worlds were still fighting, but the black sun seemed to be retreating, and the crazy colorful colors were even more rampant.

Light-colored dust swirled in the streets, and the discolored skeletons were dyed into conspicuous dark green or dark copper the moment they entered the colorful world. Blazing purple flames began to burn from the top of the building where he was, like reverse lightning piercing the sky, and the darkness was burned away layer by layer, turning into a shattered and terrible black cloud, which gradually dissolved into the multi-colored energy.

However, there were still dark forces fighting back. The malicious and poisonous force extended its needle-like tentacles. Wherever it reached, the grass turned into iron filings, and the beasts were instantly twisted into charred bones. The emotions of despair and fear almost turned into entities. Just by looking from a distance, Perturabo felt that he was burned through by a sharp burning pain again.

Perturabo ignored his physical discomfort and stood up, holding on to the pillar beside the door. The carved scales on the pillar stung his hands.

He looked around and saw that he was standing at the entrance of a temple. In front of the temple, a pool of clean water was rippling slightly, reflecting the shadows of the surrounding trees. The sculpture of a coiled snake formed a fantastic optical illusion geometric pattern, decorating the center of the pool. The three-headed snake's mouth spit out flowing water reflecting clear colorful light, forming an ingeniously designed fountain.

He turned around and saw a huge tree of life carved on the bronze door of the temple, with luxuriant branches and leaves and abundant fruits. The roots of the tree extended outwards, towards the pool outside the door. A giant snake was vividly entwined around the tree of life, two of its heads were hidden in the green leaves, and the third head was facing a plump fruit on the tree, intentionally guiding Perturabo to reach out and pick it.

He noticed that the fruit was the exquisite and unique door knocker of the bronze door.

As he stared at the fruit, the pain in his body quietly faded away, and a cool breeze with a sweet scent caressed his forehead, then slid down along the soft white robe made of gold thread, around the golden wristband engraved with Urphunkian, took his finger, and guided him to knock on the door knocker, enter the temple, and receive selfless protection.

Perturabo stood still.

The breath of destruction behind him was coming back, the shadow of death was gaining the upper hand again, and the dangerous fear swept across the edge of his soul, tearing at his shadow with insatiable greed. The colorful half of the world was retreating, as if the guiding force supporting the advent of this complex force had burned out.

It wouldn't be long before he was completely swallowed up by the dark shadow behind him.

Unless he pushed the door open.

(End of this chapter)