Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 462 Silver Bullet
"You allowed it to happen," Eleven said. "Even you couldn't stop it. Now it's only a matter of time before it tears the world apart, and your galaxy is shattered to dust. Everything you care about will be over."

"Or perhaps it will be limited, and the time it takes to tear the world apart will be after the world destroys itself." Perturabo stepped forward. "Since you are here, you can't be here for no reason."

"Do you want me to be your helper now? As an enemy? As a brother? Or as an iron chain to jointly restrict the Tyrant Star?" Number 11 turned his head and scanned the planet he was on. "I didn't expect you would call me here, but this is a good place. When Erda left, it will be even better. One of the twelve great rune endpoints of the Silent Realm..."

"Tell me what role you can play in preventing its wrong birth. Now is not the time for puzzles. Yes, it will come, but this end has not yet been closed. Before it completely leaves the throne, I think you should seal this place with us and ensure the correct closure of the formation."

"The formation cannot be closed."

"It's time. It sounds like you know something about this formation. No matter what Erda wants to do to the Emperor, Tyrant Star will sleep in Tuthmons' cage from now on. You can either help, leave, or be forced to leave."

"The formation cannot be closed, Four. Because it's too late. It has already stood up, right in our real universe, outside the sentries and walls that you are vigilant about. Yes, otherwise why do we all feel it in our hearts? Why does the blood in our souls flow out of the gap? Or you can go to your Terra and take a look. Your father must have been freed from the restraints. Maybe he is still fighting against the darkness, or maybe he has become powerless."

"you--"

+He's right. +Morse said, coming out of his trance, still speechless, as if his ability to speak had been silenced by the rising night.

+He is right, Emperor... a corner is missing from the nexus. The Emperor never gave up, but a crack has appeared in the Golden Throne - no, the balance still exists, but it is on the verge of being broken. +
Mors's psychic voice resonated in the silent city. Perturabo turned around and looked at him. He saw that Mors's face became blurred under the golden runes, or perhaps the craftsman was actively hiding his expression.

+...Yes, if the cracks in the throne continue to spread, even if the cracks in the throne cannot be repaired, all nodes must be overturned for the Emperor's second plan. +
+I'll tell you the part of his original plan that I know of, let me think about how to say it...+
"What are you talking about? I'm right, right?"

Eleven asked quietly, noting the rapport between Perturabo and Morse inquiringly, and a smile passed across his unclear face again.

"Perhaps," Perturabo said.

"So, is there anything I can do for you?" Number Eleven asked curiously. "I heard that in this situation, you can offer a bouquet of flowers? Sing a lament? Or recite a litany?"

"What do you mean?"

"A gift for you."

"Need not."

"No, it's necessary. You know I no longer have the ability to sacrifice for his plans, Four."

Eleven said, walking towards him, holding his hands out to show that he was unarmed, even though that meant nothing to a psionic master other than making a statement.

"Number Four, you said that the Emperor has told you everything. Then you also know that as a node, our essence is as important as our body. Here, you are the only one who can be a complete node..."

Number Eleven said, and as he spoke, his right hand pulled out a bunch of transparent plastic crystal flowers from the air, which glowed with a dark purple-blue light of the evening under the gray sky, and there were also a few floating red candles attached.

"So, you're going to die for him?" Eleven asked curiously, his voice whispering above the thick clouds surrounding the nameless planet. "Right here? Who will help you, the people around you?"

"That moment has not yet arrived, Eleven, if you are willing to go and mend the rift."

Morse walked up to Perturabo and stood with his arms folded. The runic light surrounding him retreated, disappearing behind his pale waxen skin.

"The Emperor's will has restrained the throne from collapsing at the last moment. Now he needs someone to offset the dark forces that he cannot control, and then Malcador can help him return to the Golden Throne."

"Hmm...are you beginning to resist your mission? This is inconsistent with your previous righteous words."

"The plan we know is not the same strategy, Eleven. The plan is the armor of mankind against fate. After the Lord of Mankind put on the first set of armor, why couldn't he find a second set of heavy armor? This is his plan now. As long as he can still control himself, his descendants will still be his descendants, not tools and containers of the mission."

Number Eleven dropped his eyes.

"Am I his son? He doesn't think so, does he? No, there is no need to pretend that I am so that I can help you. And I don't need to ask. I was born and bred for this, and there is no place for me to go, Perturabo. But until then—"

"Stop, what are you talking about?" Perturabo said, glaring at Eleven, then Morse. "What was the Emperor's original plan? I don't want you to talk about all this in a vacuum when I know nothing about your riddle. Of all people here, I am the one who -"

"Warmaster?"

"Is it his son?"

The two psychics said in turn, and then looked at each other.

Perturabo followed up, "What is dying for the Emperor? What was the first set of plans that the Emperor abandoned?"

Eleven looked at him. He seemed to be trembling. His smile widened into a sarcastic sniff. "So you don't know. I thought you, all of you brothers, knew the Emperor's will. I thought you would all rather meet your destiny, die for your Father - truly obey his command and commit suicide. I was mistaken..."

Morse's voice gradually drowned out Eleven's mumbling.

"It was in the letter, Perturabo. The very letter I shared with you and Magnus at your bedside. You see, I did not read out its entirety. I did not consider that passage necessary to be used at the time... O Emperor, by His Throne!"

He paused, recalling the shock and anger he had felt when he read the secret letter, and suppressed them all.

"The answer is simple, Perturabo. You were not created as offspring, nor was he created as a father desiring twenty children.

"It is not difficult for us to imagine that as the Lord of mankind, his first consideration is how to properly use power to seek long-term benefits for mankind - rather than having some self-righteous martyrdom and putting unnecessary self-sacrifice first."

"Messiah, once is enough..." Eleven said softly.

“What’s more, the Lord of Mankind now obviously regards the Saint as the enemy of the stability of the Empire, sneers at the mission of depriving mankind of the right to choose through the only preset path, and believes that drowning individual responsibility and freedom under the glory of the lofty cross is the legacy of ancient Terra and should be eliminated along with the last church?
"Yes. When a normal human makes a plan, how could the best option be to die first? How high must his moral pursuit be to wish to use a great sacrifice to preserve his eternal reputation? Moreover, he is an emperor."

Morse said, switching to a quick, ten-thousand-word psychic communication, causing the thoughts and emotions of the three inhuman beings to collide directly at high speed.

+The Emperor's original plan was simple: thirteen containers as blockade points, enough to lock the power of the Dark Lord within a certain range, four containers as conduits, able to channel the power of the Dark Gods, and finally one heir to help him succeed to the throne. In addition, he decided to leave two spares in case of emergency.

+In order to adapt to the power of the warp, the core of these vessels also needs to be obtained from the warp, and the outer shell must use materials from the real universe to prevent the vessel itself from being eroded by the warp. In order to lead the Space Marines, the vessel needs to have intelligence, as well as superhuman appearance and credibility. +
"Primarch..." Perturabo said, "the purpose of our birth -"

"Tools. Weapons. Containers." Eleven answered skillfully, just as he had been taught thousands of times.

+Yes. His creations, His tools, His artificial humans.

+No one knows how he accomplished the task of binding the energy of the Warp, nor where he got the method to create the Primarchs. In short, after the Great Crusade, seventeen of you should have returned to your original duties, becoming the spokes that hold the Wheel of Souls together, or the cornerstones of the Imperium of Man. +
"...One person per node?"

"And our essences will be linked together, Four. Before that happens, our consciousnesses must die, so that the vessel remains pure and stable."

+I guess Erda can't accept this, right? +
"She was scared." Eleven whispered, "She said his ambition blinded his morals and the false prophecy deceived his reason... But, you said there was another plan... A second plan that should have succeeded? He still hanged himself on the cross, ah, just like Ilda said..."

+He did overturn his own decision. A cross? If you must describe it this way, I don't mind proving the limited knowledge in your mind. +
+At a certain point, he realized that each of his sons had a name,+Morse's emotions paused for a moment and he amended his words.

+At least most of the Primarchs had names. So, at a certain moment, he realized that he could not kill the seventeen sons who trusted him and looked forward to him. At a certain moment, he realized that he had given his tools emotions, expectations and wishes, and had an influence on them beyond power and control; at a certain moment, he realized that he had become the core of identity and belonging, and was incorporated into a larger community system, so that he could not extricate himself. In addition, at a certain moment, he found that the second construction of the webway could greatly ease the pressure of controlling the dark king alone.

+At some point - the Emperor regretted it. +
Morse looked at Perturabo with a complicated expression, recalling those countless invisible turning points.

Was it the moment when the Emperor witnessed the greenskins' restoration of the Webway?

Was it the moment when Perturabo had a brief encounter with the Emperor decades earlier at the Pharos Lighthouse?
Is it the moment when the Emperor plays Face and mentions Morro to him?

Was it the moment when he took the stage at Olympia as St. George and said that what had been was past?

Or is it the moment to bring the Second Primarch into the City of God, which shouldn't have been born at that time?
Or was it the moment in the Terra Palace in 963, when he discussed the unknown gamble of becoming a god with Morse in the snowstorm?
He said: Plans will always go wrong. So we must fill in the possible gaps caused by failed plans. And so on and so forth until we reach the end of human power.

He said: At the beginning of the plan, they were not sons. Weapons. Tools. Weapons. The only thing they were not was offspring, until the plan changed.

He said: My thoughts toward you are thoughts of peace, to give you a future and hope.

He said: We are all tools, weapons, containers, fruits. And humans are never satisfied.

"So the plan that Erda hated has changed," said No. 11 with a half-smile, "He weakened the twelve branches of the Silent Realm, right? All control has been transferred to the Throne of Terra, and the restrictions on extracting the power of the Warp in the hope of positive and negative annihilation have also been lifted... Then, when darkness descends on the mortal world, there will be no more snares to restrict it.

"Yes, what else can we do now? Think about it, if your father is really as cruel as Elda said, how good would human beings live——"

"No," said Perturabo, "—no."

"Am I wrong, Four? Am I wrong?"

"Your logic is correct, but the destruction of the plan cannot be blamed on the Emperor's decision, and the plan still has room for recovery."

Perturabo said, his mind racing, taking more factors into consideration.

It no longer mattered whether the Emperor had ever seen them as mere tools and vessels, they had already established enough of an emotional connection, and the anger and sadness he had felt when he truly learned of the Emperor's original plan - if the spark that disturbed his calm and burned painfully in his throat was sadness, that emotion had been thrown aside and refused to be acknowledged by him.

This alternative plan is only an echo of the past, at best a testament to the Emperor's inner transformation. Those who are imprisoned by the past are pitiful, but the consequences they cause are more hateful than anything else - the Blade of the Nemesis, the slumber of Horus Lupercal, the false coronation of the Warmaster - the last of which is where Lorgar Aurelion's misstep began. The shadow of the Serpent looms behind it.

Perturabo's chest trembled, and his tone changed to a low growl: "The Emperor's plan can still be saved, as long as the excessive power is restrained and the throne is repaired!"

Eleven stared at Perturabo, his face waving like mercury, the shadow of the crystal snake flickering in his imaginary body. The bouquet fell from his hand, replaced by an antique revolver.

He could shoot faster than the fastest mortal or even Astartes gunner, and also faster than the Primarch Perturabo who was not at the forefront in close combat, but he could not catch up with the never-ending golden protection.

In the flash of light, Perturabo suddenly grabbed No. 11's hand, and the gun fell out of his hand. No. 11's figure disappeared instantly, and then reappeared at a slightly farther distance, with a faint smile on his face.

The gun fell and was instantly picked up by Perturabo. A bullet with spiritual fire was fired and hit the left shoulder of Eleven. The snake body that was hovering in the sky and faintly visible suddenly trembled, and a cluster of small flames burst and died, taking away several bright scales. "You want to stop me, Perturabo," Eleven hissed, "I said you wanted to stop me."

"What can stop you? Kill you?" Perturabo shouted loudly, his voice piercing the gray and black streets. He looked directly at the shadow of the giant snake, raised his hand holding the gun, and the gun barrel transformed into a heavy hand cannon woven with runes. Even as he was asking the question, the sound of the cannon rumbled. He would rather shoot down the giant snake before talking to it, and Morse would help him complete this psychic battle.

"A good suggestion, Perturabo."

The giant snake hovered in the sky in pain, its movements slowed down, and in the eyes of the intact Primarch it was almost motionless, but the stability of its voice was not affected by the pain brought by those scales burning with golden flames, and it remained as calm as before.

"If you kill my will, then I may be only yours to use, Perturabo. I do not like the reason for my creation."

The golden flames cut an inescapable web of blazing flames on its huge snake body. A fragmented smell of burning came from the wind in the sky, as if volcanic ash fell from the sky, blowing down from above with great force.

Perturabo's hand cannon chased the serpent's body, his arm raised high, firing the cannon repeatedly, as if this had become some kind of timeless ritual that must continue in a cycle surrounded by serpent bones.

"Come down!" he yelled. The rationality of the material universe told him that this would make his voice travel farther. Or maybe his turbulent thoughts were trying to find a way out, so he couldn't help but yell, "Come down!"

The giant snake seemed to descend a little, its skin cracking continuously, and the unhealed silver blood split the universe like threads, shredding the endless dark space.

"Really? Really? Then hurry up, Perturabo," Wherever the silver blood passed, the grass, trees, soil and rocks made of nanoparticles all disintegrated, and the mechanical dummies on the ground of the planet melted and collapsed one by one, "Then burn my skin and chop off my head," it said, "Then let me die for your tyrant, ha, this is the same as dying for Erda," its hissing chuckle was even a little naughty, "Kill my heart, use my essence to smear your bombs, and then hit your Terra," it said, "Hurry up."

"Get down here!"

"I might as well go away, Perturabo, I might as well just go away..."

"and many more!"

"But will I leave? Will I? My fate is not in my hands. I don't have hands. How can a snake have hands--"

The Iron Lord's hand cannon blasted multiple anchor points of the golden net in the void, like a giant harpoon for hunting sea fish, pulling the giant snake to the ground. The giant snake struggled uselessly, futilely, and even casually in its net for a few times, and more silver blood splashed on the ground, further destroying the sand table city.

As the snake fell, a huge echo trembled and resounded in the infinite soul sea. Perturabo's etheric vision was dark for a moment, and the accumulated afterglow of the afterimage flashed a large number of light spots, spreading like fireflies in front of his eyes.

The last loud crash exploded in his ears, shattering all the dull barriers and obstacles. Under the shocking air waves of the Supreme Ocean, the Lord of Iron fell backwards - no, the whole world tilted upwards, and gravity fluctuated and changed wildly in a short period of time. He grabbed the edge of the falling building, gasping to resist the turbulence and chaos in the soul realm.

Then, a face suddenly appeared near him, with a slightly darker complexion, looking at him quietly, faded due to blood loss. He looked at him twice, his eyes moved to the hand cannon made of a pile of gold characters, and then raised his head again, breathing short and weak.

His eyes were open, unblinking, with neither joy nor sadness in them, but still that expression that could not be called an expression, perhaps a smile. This was the only expression he could have, Perturabo suddenly realized.

"You want me to fulfill my mission?" he said, and what was the emotion in his eyes? Not fear, nor surprise, nor anticipation. No.

Hatred, Perturabo read this rare emotion, hatred, without a trace of doubt, it was a burning and gloomy hatred.

Perturabo turned his head to look at him. The building he was holding was continuing to collapse, and some debris was peeling off into the black void below. Some beams that might be wood or iron railings fell down silently.

"I want you to stop the Tyrant from actually coming." Perturabo replied firmly.

Eleven took a breath, keeping his eyes open and twitching slightly like a disabled clockwork doll. Then he began to gasp softly, filling his heart and lungs with flying embers and the debris of shattered crystal.

He seemed to want to say something, but his words seemed to have been burned dry by the golden flames, or perhaps he was in a completely vacuum and silent room, and he could only stay in that unknown place waiting to die of suffocation after the air was exhausted. At that time, he would fall backwards, his fragile bones would hit the ground and break, and his blood would flow out of his wide-open mouth and broken spine, filling the entire empty dark space.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yes."

"In whose name?"

"Perturabo."

"For whom did you get this mission?"

"Myself."

"Because the Emperor gave you no orders?"

"It's more than that. I take responsibility for my decisions."

"So you want me to fulfill my mission?"

"Yes, number eleven."

Eleven continued to look at him, he didn't smile anymore, his lips twisted into a dead cold expression, which finally unified with the gloomy hatred in his eyes before. But his eyes abnormally showed a real smile, as if the world in front of him finally ushered in a dawn and that dawn was actually the last moment of dusk before sunset.

He stared at Perturabo and asked no more questions.

Then, the glow on his face faded, replaced by a fountain of silver blood, which warmly enveloped Perturabo's body, especially the pair of hand cannons he carried.

The body of the giant snake also silently transformed, evolving into a huge cavity, directly connected to a certain end point inside the planet. Silver blood was still oozing out, spreading through the countless cracks on the snake's body that never healed, maintaining this temporary passage, blocking out those subspace creatures that were roaring and shouting excitedly. The crackling scratching and harsh tearing and gnawing sounds were endless, and it was like being blocked by heavy water and could not penetrate.

At the other end of the passage, endless darkness surged cruelly and violently, tearing the golden shell into pieces like a torn gauze net.

This is undoubtedly not a real substance, but a sublime reflection of some non-material realm. It is spinning and crashing madly in a cage on the verge of breaking with a rage that corrodes the world, and it may explode further at any time - yes, it has taken the first step, and the blockade vaguely wrapped around it is nothing more than a thin rope as fragile as a hair, unable to withstand the rumbling and violent black beast that pulls the reins straight.

Perturabo glared into the darkness at the other end of the tunnel without blinking.

He raised his hand cannon and fired a shot. The silver blood attached to the cannonball emitted an incredibly pure flash, like new snow falling on the gray soil, or mercury covering the earth. It was swift and clean, seemingly slow and still, and yet fast as a shuttle, not bound by any force, penetrating space and time until it reached its destined end.

Did Perturabo hear something? Some imperceptible, phantom pause and void? Some silent question or answer? Some invisible gasp and final hate or smile?
The silver light and darkness offset each other and wiped out each other in the violent collision, constantly invading and offsetting each other back and forth, eroding each other like the tide and the sand surface in the traction and flow, and gradually turning into a violent rampage.

The crystal clear energy within the giant snake's trunk surged and shook, confining all the overflowing waves within this attack beyond time, until some deep-seated things began to collapse and disappear, and the darkness was bitten through by the whistling silver light. The dissipated majestic force gradually became transparent in the struggle, dancing, flapping, and roaring, but still weakened layer by layer.

The original golden light suddenly became brighter, and was reconstructed with a powerful will, pulling the darkness backwards and blocking it within the golden wall that began to repair itself.

The dual-color glow of gold and silver seemed to intersect in an instant, like a distant and perhaps wishful meeting.

But after that, the mercury's brilliance began to disintegrate itself, and within a few moments, it completely, silently, and without a trace. It was as if it had never existed.

Perturabo lowered his raised hand, withdrawing from the battle of the mind universe, and the invisible battlefield receded from him.

He lay there, looking up at the sky, ashes were still falling.

"Its birth has been put on hold again," Mors said, sitting beside Perturabo. "The throne needs repairing. The Emperor's veil must not be breached a second time, or we will be helpless."

Perturabo's silence was longer than usual.

Then he said, "What if it is destroyed a second time? Do I need to kill seventeen more brothers?"

"That is no longer effective. All nodes in Tuthmons have been blocked, and no new node container can be added. The Emperor -" Morse paused, "abandoned the option of killing you."

"And what if the Throne fails a second time?" Perturabo repeated stubbornly. "What if? The Emperor gave you the answer, Mors, in His secret letter. The Master of Mankind will not give you a plan that is completely outdated!"

He propped up his upper body, pursed his upper and lower lips, and his face was tense. He had a thousand questions ready to ask, all of which were transformed into the irrepressible commanding emotion in his tone.

Morse looked at him deeply. "Magnus already knows the answer, Perturabo. He has deduced all he needs on his own. All we need."

"And Morro?" Perturabo asked.

"What happened to Morro?"

"Eleven said it," Perturabo said. "No, it is a word that simply reverberates in his mind, among many other words. Mother, Father, Empire, Throne, Flower, Snake, Pain, Hate, Chip... Ten thousand words flow through his blood, thirty of which are most frequent, and only one of them puzzles me."

He looked at Morse: "What is Morro?"

-

"The Word Bearers cannot return to Terra," Magnus grabbed the sound array button from the pile of books and shouted to Rogal Dorn, his left face covered in blood. "Rogal, no matter what reason you use, stop Aurelion! The Pilgrim cannot meet with the Emperor, and the Lost Sons' ability to stop him is limited!"

"...What?" said Rogal Dorn.

"It's Tarot - never mind. Trust me, Roger. You know what the Word Bearers are like now. They will make the situation on the Emperor's side worse, although I'm not sure in which direction... Go and intercept them, please!"

"...Okay." Rogal Dorn replied, "I understand. But I need further explanation. I look forward to your answer, Magnus."

The Crimson King threw away the sound array button and covered his face with his hands. His mind was screaming loudly, and this had been going on for some time. Every time he calculated the position of a new rune arrangement on the Thutmons Sky Ring, his pain deepened further.

Does it have to be like this? No, or he should say, even if it is like this, is there still a chance?
Besides, there were still some holes in his tarot readings, some layers of fog covering them up - he hated these tricks of mystery, but now he had to use them. He was good at them, as good as Mortarion, there was no denying it.

He had deduced a small fragment of it, namely that the Emperor received a prophetic enlightenment from Moro, but it was still unknown by whom the enlightenment was brought.

He also saw that there was still something lurking around the throne: it was a snake, but the Lost Son had clearly encountered the Lightning Tower representing Perturabo - yes, Perturabo's card had transformed into a Lightning Tower, and Magnus could not yet figure out what it meant.

What else could he do?
(End of this chapter)