Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 501: The Sarcosine Formula

The environment here is gloomy. The dark gray dust brought by smoke and fire merges with the darkness of the environment after losing its light, and the air seems to be stagnant.

Suddenly, a faint firelight lit up, and along with a sharp long sword, the leaping flames tore a bright gap in the darkness. The long sword was lying flat on a low table, and on the hilt was an exquisite steel and silver hand. Each embossed inscription became clearer as the firelight engraved it further.

The outline of Fulgrim's face was slightly illuminated by the flames, and his purple-gold armor was faintly revealed from the darkness. Phoenix looked at the Iron Hands around him, as well as his own descendants, and spoke softly: "This is finally a place for us to talk, warriors. Those evil creatures outside can't get in for the time being, right?"

"The door to the vault is strong enough to be indestructible, my lord," said an Iron Hand.

"Even if this does not involve your secret collection, I think it will be enough." Fulgrim chuckled softly, and then injected more seriousness into his words. He leaned forward, and his mechanical hands shimmered in the firelight. "Now, tell me what happened here, why Ferrus went to open one of the secret chambers sealed with the Key of Hel, and which chamber is he in?"

"This is--"

"Do not tell me it is a secret!" Fulgrim raised his voice. "My dear warriors, I am here to help your father. What else is there? Do not delay. Do not allow Medusa to suffer any more harm. What are you fighting against?"

The members of the Iron Ten Legion were silent in the darkness, their minds quickly performing more calculations until they found an answer.

"An unknown invasion, the enemy emerged from within Medusa, but did not actually enter Medusa, they are in the spirit world..." A pause full of disgust, very rare for a warrior of the Iron Hands, "insulting us, turning our servants, and those among us who still retain too much of the weakness of flesh and blood."

"What were we fighting, then?" Kethron spoke for Fulgrim, one Space Marine speaking to another. "Those who fell to our swords were not the product of half-awake nightmares."

"Those things were born from the flesh and blood of the dead," Iron Hand said unhappily.

Fulgrim ran his fingers over the blade. "I am not so sure, warrior. Of those that are tainted, I see many that were born of steel itself..."

"Perfection of steel..."

"What? Are you going to tell me that it is the imperfections of emotion that taint the purity of steel itself?" Fulgrim interrupted unhappily.

He paused and lowered his harsh tone.

This was not the first time he had expressed dissatisfaction with the Iron Hands' methods, but Ferrus had made an agreement with him to change the overly radical aspects of his legion after the Great Crusade. Thinking of that day, Fulgrim felt a little relieved.

"Now, tell me where we can find Ferrus Manus, warrior," he said gently, tapping his fingertips on the sword in a rhythmic rhythm, making the flames dance around his fingers.

"On the moon, Lord Fulgrim. Beyond the gates we know not, to realms we are denied access to. Before my father boarded the moon, he claimed that he would find the secret to banishing the unborn. Banishing what we cannot drive from the void with our guns."

"Can't be expelled?"

"Invaders do not exist. They do not have the weaknesses of flesh and blood."

"Yes, I see. It is indeed difficult to kill those things this way." Fulgrim pursed his lips. "There is no physical weakness, is there?"

"indeed."

"He should have waited for me..." Fulgrim said softly, gritting his teeth. "Ah, he really should have waited for me."

The Iron Hands moved slightly. The tiny sounds of some armors colliding were different from the sound of evil creatures scratching the wall tiles.

"What's wrong, cousins?" asked Kathron.

"No astropath can be heard from Medusa, no one can answer the call. We must fight and win this war on our own," the warrior said, turning in Fulgrim's direction, the pistons and thrusters in his legs clacking as they replaced his leg bones. "We know no one but ourselves. Only the weak and feeble would wait for help at an indefinite time. Master Fulgrim."

"Throne!" Fulgrim sighed. "Kelsollon, Tarvitz, you stay here and fight with your cousins. Send the 4th to 6th companies down later. Akurduna, take the 2nd company and follow me back to the ship. We may have to search for Medusa's satellites one by one... and help me send some distress signals. Lend me your seals, warriors. It sounds very strange that the only ones seeking help on Medusa are the Emperor's Children."

"grown ups……"

"Don't reject me. I don't want your pride to cause any harm!" Fulgrim said softly, calming down these stubborn warriors. "I know very well that some emotions can cause harm to people, and your handling of this matter, at least so far, has not been wrong... Then we can only see how well we can do in the future, alas, darkness."

He held the sword and stood up: "Action, warriors, time will not wait for us."

-

Akurduna had never set foot on Medusa's satellites. On the one hand, no one would go to a vacuum satellite for no reason, and on the other hand, this place was not within the open area designated by Ferrus Manus. The real satellite Iron Moon was not within the open area, not to mention the secret room satellites.

It was rumored that those chambers contained dark technology that was truly heretical—he knew now that that was probably true, but that wasn't the point.

The point is not how they are going to find Ferrus Manus, whom Fulgrim is so eager to find.

The key point is to make a decisive decision: whether to fire at the Iron Hand in front of you, considering that he is using dual swords, so change the word to action.

The thought was only a flash in his mind, and he used his sword to knock off the helmet of the Iron Hand in front of him. At the same time, the long sword in his other hand pried open a gap along the rib plate, penetrated into the opponent's spine, and stripped off a key cable that transmitted energy, intending to paralyze the warrior in front of him.

Akurduna held his breath and watched, nervously checking whether there was any trace of the vivid emotion of a living creature on the exposed face - thank God, the pale, half-mechanical face was full of obvious pain and unbearable anger. Even so, his face was still handsome in a way. And his expression was as if he was really alive, perhaps more emotional than when he was alive.

Great, that means he made the right bet.

The long sword quickly pierced the body in front of him, and the force field and steel cut out white-hot sparks when they intersected. Layers of inhuman ripples spread out violently from the scars. Iron Hand's body trembled, and the surface skin kept bulging and denting, as if waves of gravity were hidden underneath.

The exposed face of Iron Hand became distorted, and the speed and angle of the distortion of the flesh and steel parts were different, but they were still strange enough. "Hiss-hiss-" A kind of low and hoarse sound vibrated on the opponent's mechanical vocal cords. Akurduna felt unhappy when he heard it, and he was not interested in this strange sound.

He slashed with anger, and the long sword pierced the opponent's chest fiercely, and the electric sparks spread rapidly, erupting into a series of small violent explosions. When he drew his sword, an almost invisible hand stretched out from the opponent's chest and tried to grab his sword blade, and he shook it away with force.

"Shut up!" he yelled.

His second attack was continuous and violent, abandoning the ritualistic precision of the Emperor's Children and using the ferocity and persistence of the World Eaters at will, all but shattering his former compatriot into dozens of disconnected fragments.

Gray liquid replaced the blood and flowed out from the cracks of the other's disintegrating body. A dying sigh of the soul passed by his ears. Was it really a soul? Or was it a disguise of the devil to deceive their hearts? Loading a new content in their bodies to disguise life after death?

But no matter what, what followed was definitely the noisy demonic screams.

"Get out!" Akurduna shouted flatly, blocking out the unwilling roars and persuasions of the subspace creatures from his hearing range.

He raised his sword again, and before nanotechnology could quickly repair the dead man in front of him, he completely destroyed his heart and another artificial replacement for his flesh and blood heart, so as to prevent him from being repaired too quickly and standing up again.

Fulgrim's battle was easier than his, and even more brilliant in a sense: his fire burned along the bodies of the demons escaping into the warp, and at the same time chased Medusa's invaders in both the real universe and the unreal space, forcing those insane demons back to their birthplace. Sparks flew all over the sky, and each firefly was a screaming demon being exiled.

"Akulduna..."

Another Iron Hand who stood up from the ground recognized his identity and suddenly called out his name.

Akurduna's nerves tensed, and he immediately stared at his cousin of the Tenth Legion, trying to discern whether he was still himself - or whether he was at least a remnant of his former self, rather than some possessed self.

The warrior seemed to have just woken up and was still a little shaky, recovering from his disordered memory and stagnant logic.

Even though the Emperor's Children do not know what this is now, during this period of fighting, they have analyzed what secret Ferrus Manus has sealed in this area.

They have crossed the absolute boundary between life and death, and the person before them is a perfect example.

"Do you remember who you are?" Akurduna asked.

The other did not answer him immediately. He lowered his head, as if surprised at the stiffness of his body, and when Akurduna found time to kill another thing that looked like Iron Hand, the man adjusted to every limb he now had, as well as his dulled mind.

"This..." he said slowly, his tone empty, "It's perfect."

"Oh, you can't feel emotions? Although I don't want to say this... but that's right." Akurduna breathed a sigh of relief and easily deduced the logic in Iron Hand's mind, "Come and fight with us, cousin, and kill your brothers who have emotions - they are possessed by demons. This is really a wonderful solution-"

He glanced towards Fulgrim, his tone tinged with worry, "And yet we still haven't found Ferrus with a solution..."

-

"This is the situation, Lord Dorne," the Astropath breathed, leaning forward nervously, and even misidentified the direction of Rogal Dorne - perhaps this was due to his blindness. But there was no doubt that what worried him more was what he had just said.

Rogal Dorn's gaze swept towards the porthole, where he could already see the vast, abandoned Medusa's Desolation Star Ring and the tiny, star-debris-like existence of the Emperor's Children fleet.

He analyzed the intelligence he had obtained in silence.

First, the tone of this latest plea for help was unmistakably that of Fulgrim himself, even if the astropathic transmission had compromised some of the details.

Secondly, the content...

It seems that Ferrus Manus came up with a creative idea for how to banish demons from the real universe; nothing can die before it is born, so the demons must first enter reality, and then destroy their real shells, thereby exiling them.

The carrier he chose was the Iron Hand, which was sleeping in death through some kind of technology... Then, after the subspace creature gained a physical body, people in the physical universe could directly cause harm to it.

Rogal Dorn did not comment on this method, even though he affirmed the rationality of this strategy. The only thing he could confirm was that the current situation was not completely under the control of Ferrus Manus, otherwise Fulgrim should have fought alongside Ferrus, exiled the demons, and sent him the good news of his upcoming victory.

Instead of continuing to request his support from the Medusa ground, and worriedly taking time out in the battle to tell him that he still had no trace of Ferrus.

"Let Fulgrim fight," Rogal Dorn told the terrified astropath. "The Imperial Fists will be the Emperor's Children's collaborators and the last resort, even if the Iron Hands' own technology can handle it. Finally, we are so close that they can communicate directly, not through the warp. You can..."

Rogal Dorn waited two seconds for the Astropath to recover from the continuous panting, and then he gave up. "Akamus, come with me and locate Karash Regantis, and then tell the Astropath that he will not be executed for being involved in secrets. We currently have limited manpower."

-

“A tyrant?” Angron murmured, quietly clenching his massive fists. “A tyrant sits on the throne?”

"Tyrant Star," Perturabo completed the words for Angron, his eyes looking even colder against the dark night sky. "Dark Throne, or some other name. There is no fixed name, Angron. But your understanding is correct. The one sitting on the throne is a tyrant, a tyrant who ordered the extermination of Prospero."

"The worst of our father rose to the throne of gold, and yet I still remember the first time I saw him... that's all," Angron said sadly.

He gripped the battle axe tightly, holding back all the heavy emotions, and putting the burning memories back into the deepest part of his soul. "How can we overthrow its impending oppression?"

"First, cease pointing your axe blade at me," Perturabo said.

(End of this chapter)