Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 586: Betrayal, Revenge, Scar Story
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“Even if you don’t want to be a well-behaved prince or general, but want to be a traitor or heretic with a particularly disgusting but cool appearance, you still have to study hard. Otherwise, when you want to summon a cool demon but find that you can’t even understand or draw the diagram of your sacrificial ritual array, you will know how important reading, mathematics, and geometry are. If you don’t know these, you can only rely on those who hold the classics. The more hosts participate in similar ceremonies, it doesn’t mean that things will be easier or better. In fact, most of the time, it’s just the opposite.”

"What does it matter? It's so simple. Didn't you say that all my descendants have lived longer than me, know more things, and have more knowledge in their heads? Then I just need to catch a descendant who can draw for me right away..."

"Shut up."

"Alright then, I'll keep my mouth shut on this. So when do we start our heavy sword fighting lessons? I promise I won't talk too much."

"If you still have some energy left, go and work at the mill west of the city. The harvest is good this year."

"Hey! I won't go! Every time I go over there, they try to fill the millstone with wheat grains! It's definitely because they feel sorry for their donkeys who have to eat grass while I'm a free laborer!"

"Do you want to eat some fried dough cakes? You came back with a bag of flour after pulling the cart, and you ate all the snacks prepared in the kitchen."

"I'm growing! I'm hungry! I'm hungry enough to eat the whole world! Well, if you cook it yourself. I need lots of Grox oil and leeks, and you'd better make more so that I can have the leftovers as a midnight snack while I read the history of the war tonight."

"Of course, I'll press the edges of each pancake and fry them until they're crispy and golden, so you can eat them while they're hot."

The golden smell of scorched sand and dry wheat straw outside the city blew past.

There was old, dried blood buried in the gravel, but it was diluted with the scent of medicinal herbs and the cleanliness of regular housecleaning.

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When the creature who called himself "Julius", who may have been an Astartes, or may never have been, gathered his tremendous psychic power into one stream and rushed towards Varo Digris, the first thing the Chief Librarian realized was how huge the other party's "existence" was on the scale of the Warp's psychic vision - as a powerful psyker who had once faced the terrifying will of the Hive through a glimpse of a psychic node creature, even he was like a mortal child in front of a void whale in the face of the power of this creature.

Nevertheless, thinking of the senior officers who had been taken away by the Lifeless, the almost collapsed Calgar, and the Primarch who had been abducted by the heretics and whose whereabouts were unknown - thinking of how long they had been deceived by the existence in front of them, how much time they had wasted in searching for the Primarch, and perhaps the fact that the Primarch was now getting farther away from the Ultramarines every minute and every second, the sudden pain that surged from his heart allowed Varo Diglis to hold back the throbbing of fear that surged from his biological instinct.

He breathed deeply, his chest rising and falling, and he opened himself up, like a trembling man offering his mind alive on a plate to some unpredictable and powerful creature.

The Chief Think Librarian trembled as he felt some kind of energy-based, intangible yet existent thing, passing over the psychic hood of the Think Librarian's power armor that was guarding his intellect and brain. The ancient protective scriptures and protective patterns engraved on it were all powerless. They could not stop it, just like the foam rising from the surface of the abyss that could easily pass through solid fences and barbed wire, flowing through all his protections against himself, and then seeping into every groove and every end of his brain and beginning to occupy every crevice in his mind.

For a moment, Varro Digris seemed to have returned to that moment, the moment when he first encountered the Mind Beast when the Leviathan Hive Fleet attacked. The monster killed his brother in front of him, and then peeled his brain open alive on the spiritual level with the Hive Mind behind it. The huge, distant, rancid, hungry evil will pressed down heavily, and the strong, never-relieving hunger was like a living hell, almost shattering all of Digris's reason and dignity, forcing him to struggle to experience the emptiness of the empty stomach that could eventually devour itself...

In this moment that seemed like eternity, a small part of Digris's senses were still working, telling him that his psychic hood coil was currently overloading, and the purity marks on his body were igniting one by one without fire. The legendary Malcador's staff that once helped him resist the devouring of his mind was now silent, as if it had lost all the power that the legend of the Imperial hero had given it to guide Digris against evil with the fact that Malcador himself appeared in Macragge.

Suddenly, his cold, naked and trembling soul was embraced and lifted up by a solid force emitting gentle warmth. For a moment, Digris thought he was surrounded by Calgar's arms, just as his chapter master would stride over to lift up the Librarian who was exhausted due to excessive use of psychic energy after they had won a crucial or difficult battle.

But the next second he found that this was just an illusion caused by his mental shock. This was the spiritual energy from the existence above. Although it was different from the emperor's light that his fingertips had touched, it was not golden, but it also glowed and had a familiar feeling, just like the flickering campfire seen by primitive humans in the cave in the dark wilderness.

The Chief Librarian tiredly raised his eyelids and looked, but what he saw was a bright face that looked exactly like the face of their gene-father that every Ultramarines had seen in countless meditations and circuits. Now the pair of blue eyes shining with blue light were looking at him with concern and a little worry.

Such superimposed stimulation was too private and intimate for the Chief Librarian of the Extreme Warriors, but he was somewhat comforted by the idea that such a deep infusion was a kind of protection for his safety, which he received from the other party.

Digris trembled and continued to exhale long breaths, leaning on his staff to prevent his legs from kneeling or showing any fear, so that the other party's spiritual energy tendrils would completely wrap him up and firmly carry him into some kind of dream world, a differential dimension of space and time, or perhaps a bubble of space and time created by a powerful metaphysical mental force.

Then another long second or several seconds passed.

The Chief Librarian felt his boots step on a surface that had a different texture from the marble floor of the banquet hall.

"Where...is this?"

He looked around and was surprised to find that he was standing in an ancient cave that was obviously man-made but very crude. Some bloody and primitive sacrifices were being carried out in the sacrificial pit and the platform beside him. Ten piercing spears surrounded the sacrificial pit. The bases of the spears were covered with years of blood and excrement. The spears were now pierced with human corpses wearing primitive leather clothes - each one was pierced upright on the spear, and the spear tips with the remnants of internal organs stretched out from their wide-open mouths as if howling, piercing the rugged top of the cave.

A pale-skinned girl with long curly hair and abstract primitive worship symbols tattooed all over her body was holding a priestess's staff and chanting spells or prayers in a language that Digris had never heard of in the sacrificial pit, while dancing an intricate and tortuous primitive shamanic dance. Her striking purple eyes sparkled in the firelight, surrounded by white paint. Sweat had washed away the edges of the patterns, but her dancing and chanting did not slow down.

Torches illuminated a small section of the center of the cave, shadowy and haunted, the smell of sweat, blood, fear and rage filled the air, and there were more mechanical noises that sounded slightly different from the familiar noises of power armor - were there Space Marines here watching these primitive tribesmen?

Digris frowned and turned around to observe more. Then he glimpsed from the shadows the red armor of those ancient and blasphemous traitors covered with scriptures and heretical spells. He gripped his staff tightly in anger and tried to use psychic lightning to vent his emotions and teach these hateful traitors of the Word Bearers a lesson of severe and profound destruction.

Wait, why is there the sacred and rare golden armor worn by the guards of the Imperial Order here? Diglis hasn't seen this unique golden armor outside the palace for many years.

Wait a minute! That is!

Although Diglis had never seen the appearance of this extremely tall man in any image or scroll, and the man stood behind the crowd with his hood completely covering his face, the Chief Librarian knew who he was the moment he saw the giant.

This giant who was more than half a body taller than the warriors around him and was surrounded by red-armored Word Bearers, and had such a temperament could only be -

Then this imperial guard...

The Custodian demanded that Lorgar surrender himself! He raised his gun towards the Primarch! In the name of the Emperor! Then he must help this Custodian! His power will be very useful in the battle ahead -

But the Chief Think Tank was surprised and painfully discovered that, just as no one could see him here, the bombs and killings in their battle would only pass through his smoky body and could not hurt him. Conversely, the psychic power he was proud of also had no effect on the atrocities that were happening and about to happen here. He was just a spectator who was brought here to witness this secret ceremony. Whose eyes was he looking through... ?
He saw the Imperial Guards fighting against the powerful warrior in red armor and holding a red iron sword and the Word Bearers led by him. He saw the pain and despair in the eyes of the leader warrior about what he had to do and what was about to happen, but he was also horrified to realize that although this warrior knew that he was stepping into the abyss of evil and falling into a quagmire from which there was no turning back, he would never refuse any order given to him by Lorgar Aurelion.

He hated himself so much for becoming who he had become to fulfill his Primarch's vision, and the tragic fate they would bring to the galaxy; but he would never hate the Primarch who had imposed and given that vision upon him.

"Why? Why can you do this?"

Diglis watched in shock as the Word Bearer took up arms and began a life-and-death struggle with those who once considered themselves his friends, all in order to fulfill his Gene-Father's quest for the original truth in blood sacrifice.

Someone sighed softly in his ear.

"Because this is what the blueprint required when they were designed. If 'he' had not been distorted, he would be the most perfect herald, but someone obviously did not realize that this universe does not operate according to his will... Although this may be the dream he pursues, if every dream can be realized as desired, then the poor boy's home will become a prince's palace."

"Design... what a cruel word. But humans cannot be completely designed. Humans are not metal machines. It is precisely because we are full of heroic heritage and draw our courage and glory from the honor and heroic stories of the past that we can defeat our enemies again and again from impossible situations, protect our people, and maintain the existence of hope! And who would be so cruel..."

The chief think tank suddenly fell silent, and his face turned pale and gray in an instant.

"That's right, Digris. Even with inanimate objects, errors in the design blueprint cannot be completely avoided. What's more, the raw materials used by Astartes for carving are living human children. Individual differences among humans are so small and yet so huge, and they are easily affected by various environmental factors... The designer's original idea may be very attractive, but when these design blueprints are applied to each individual, all kinds of strange and subtle differences will occur, and eventually become the horseshoe nail that destroys a kingdom."

The voice sighed again, "But that's not what we're here to talk about today. Keep reading. Here is part of the answer to the question you want."

The battle over there has already been decided.

The Custodian was indeed as powerful and tough as the rumors said, and he instantly killed three Word Bearers, including a senior officer who looked like a Chapter Master or Archon, before rushing towards the Word Bearers Primarch and being attacked.

But he failed to reach Lorgar because his breastplate was hit by a priest's bullet, which hindered him for a moment. At this moment, a red iron sword carrying betrayal, held in the hand of a friend, pierced the head of the imperial guard from front to back, creating a huge horizontal gap below his neck, turning all the words in his mouth into blood and struggling breath.

Then Diglis saw with a chill all over his body.

The priestess of the primitive tribe pointed at the body of the guard who was not yet dead. "This is the tenth sacrifice!" She said, "The ancient and great chosen ones, Lorgar, you have chosen the sacrifices. This is the tenth one, the sacrifice to the gods."

Diglis witnessed the warrior's final stand against his Primarch.

But it was completely ineffective. In an instant, something huge, angry, winged, swept over the twitching bodies of Lorgar, the warriors and the Custodes in a pool of blood.

Finally, the warrior surrendered and picked up the golden armor of the imperial guards.

The guards were still alive when they were impaled on the spear.

The girl's crazy dance entered the final climax.

Something even more impossibly evil is about to break out of its shell.

Then Diglis could only hear a sighing whisper before he was carried away by the warm power: "This is not something you can watch directly now. Come on. This is one of them."

(End of this chapter)