Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 792 How could it be you?
When Euphrates Cheryl left her narrator's quarters, she did not attract anyone's attention.

Even her closest companions were not paying much attention to her movements at the moment.

Documentary photographers are typically strong, confident, independent, and full of creative talent and passion. It's perfectly normal for such people to go out for a meal or to wander around looking for fun and inspiration.

Today she was wearing a more androgynous outfit than the previous male trainee officer's uniform, which made her very mobile.

Thick-soled short military boots, trouser legs tucked into the boot shafts, a white vest over a trainee officer's jacket, buttons fastened down to below the collarbone, and long golden hair still haphazardly tied into a bun-like style hanging down the back of the head.

She gripped the pendant tightly in her hand, the silver chain wrapped around her wrist.

She dodged the crew and officers changing shifts, frowned as she avoided the crowds listening to speeches about Horus being the divine embodiment of the emperor, then skillfully bypassed the guards near the core area of ​​the strategy room, and finally quietly entered the strategy room.

The place is now deserted. Since the tax collector and Eribas arrived, the general meetings of the Strategy Room have not been held as frequently as before, and the situation where the Council of Four Kings stood together in the shadow of the Warlord has not been repeated for a long time.

Although the Strategy Room leads to the Warmaster's private reception room, guards are usually only assigned to the outdoor corridor. This area, along with the Memorial Gallery, is unattended when not in use—after all, even the Warmaster wouldn't specifically assign guards to watch over an empty conference room and an empty medal gallery.

Euphrates, using the dim light of the distant stars outside the window, walked to the central stone platform and gently stroked the rough surface of the boulder.

“I’m only giving you this one chance,” she whispered almost silently, then turned her gaze to the drooping banners of honor hanging on the wall.

At the highest point here hang three legion banners. In the center is the "Eye of Vigilance," bestowed upon him by the Emperor in Ulanor, representing the Warmaster's personal honor—meaning "Watcher of Terra." Following that is the banner of the Sixteenth Legion, the Shadowmoon Wolf.

Originally, the flags of Shadowmoon Wolf were also hung on both the left and right sides, but now, because Peturabo and Saint Gilles are both in Fleet 63, the insignia of the Fourth Legion and the Ninth Legion are being hung.

So… her gaze shifted to the flag of the First Company on one side, one, three, five, seven… She stopped before the battle flag of the Seventh Company, then carefully parted the banner made of metallic silk and precious dyes—

Damn it. She cursed inwardly.

In the dim light, behind the battle flags that should have been smooth metal bulkheads, where about four mortals stood side by side, the outline of a small door was now hidden.

In terms of its form, it belongs to the kind of small maintenance passage that can be found everywhere in the lower and lower levels of Vengeance Souls, but it should not be in this position in the strategy room.

She moved closer and scraped the metal around the doorway with her thumb. Then she held her hand up to her eyes and squinted at the dim light to observe it. A very thin layer of dark gray metal shavings clung to her fingertips. These were the oxidation marks left when the terracotta and metal of the warship's walls were cut by a thermoforming cutter.

In other words, this door has only been here for a short time; it may have been opened recently.

Of course—considering that the area behind the battle flag is actually a sanitation dead zone, the door may have existed for years.

But the cutting and construction of the entire door is very professional and neat, something that ordinary soldiers or officers could not do. The skillful chamfering, the screwing in of rivets, and the welding are all very professional, which is why it is so flat behind the battle flag. It cannot be seen from the side, and you can only see the whole picture when it is lifted up. When this place is full of people, no one would randomly lift up the flag behind a company commander, right?
She gritted her teeth, carefully touching and observing, which meant... the Mechanicus... might not be so innocent—of course, it could very well be the work of some technocrat in the Legion.

After completing the inspection and taking photos of all the details with her most inconspicuous miniature camera, Euphrates placed the hand holding the pendant near what looked like a doorknob.

After a while, she reached out to push the door.

The door opened silently, and she carefully followed the wall into the dark passage.

The passage was still quite spacious for a mortal like her who was not short, but when she looked up and stretched out her arms to estimate, she realized that the size of the passage was absolutely impossible for a Terminator power armor to pass through, and even a Mark-type would have difficulty.

She walked a little further, turned on her mini flashlight, and made sure there were no streaks of ceramic scraping on the metal wall.

In other words, the main users of this passage are either ordinary people or Astartes without power armor.

She continued walking forward. There were no mechanisms or traps in the passage, and no lights, until she stopped in front of another door at the end of the passage.

It was an arched door, but there was something on the metal bulkhead around it.

Euphrates turned on the flashlight and shone the light onto the door.

"...!!!"

A skull glowing red with a sinister smile appeared, and as the surrounding distorted runes and inscriptions crashed down on her like a tsunami the moment the light illuminated them.

Euphrates' eyes widened, a violent, bloodthirsty urge suddenly surging from the depths of her heart: she wanted to tear something apart, she wanted to spill blood everywhere...

But then, a golden light surged from her palm, and the crimson skull, illuminated by this light, immediately howled in resentment and returned to the door, once again becoming a decoration of a skull face. The runes, which had been twisting and writhing, returned to their original state as patterns engraved on the wall.

The photographer stumbled and steadied herself against the wall, cursing a few vulgarities, while the golden light still surrounded her.

"I should have gotten some self-defense weapons before coming here. Even a laser gun would be better than a flashlight."

She caught her breath for a moment before picking up the fallen flashlight and tightening her grip on the silver chain and pendant on her wrist. Only then did she approach more cautiously than before.

Under the protection of the golden light, she studied the rune inscriptions at the door for a short while.

“This isn’t the Fenris script used by Ruth’s so-called rune priests, nor is it the script that Magnus’s offspring have engraved on their armor,” she examined them one by one. “If we’re talking about similarities… it’s very similar to Kolchis script, but why are the transitions so strange yet so familiar?”

She traced the sharp, hard turns of a character with her slender fingertips.

“…Damn it, I know, this is a Krzunian writing in Krzunian script.” She nodded, her brow furrowed. “In other words, someone gave the writer a document, and he copied it here. But writing habits don’t change, so it’s so strange. Damn it, if he knew that carving this here would make people so dangerous, why would he carve it here? To make everyone who comes in more agitated and violent? Or is it just a defensive measure to prevent people from breaking in when no one is around?” She shook her head, not studying the strange skull any further. After confirming that it wouldn’t move or pose a threat for the time being, Euphrates pushed the archway in front of her.

The door opened.

The space behind the door was surprisingly spacious, even a large hall for Euphrates. There were no windows on the left, right, or front; it was completely dark, and no one knew how far or how deep it was.

She turned her flashlight to high beam and looked around. Judging from the layout and shape, she figured this place must have originally been a common rest room or equipment storage room for workers during construction. Such temporary spaces often connect multiple maintenance passages, but they are usually sealed off or abandoned once the ship is completed.

But now someone has discovered its prime location and rebuilt a secret passage to reopen it, even going so far as to renovate it.

The decoration means that the style here is not like that of a modern imperial warship, or even an ordinary cabin, but rather like that of the Sixth Legion, with rough, primitive stone used to decorate the floors and walls.

Under the dim light of a flashlight, rows of roughly made stone benches can be seen on the left and right sides of the hall, leaving only a path in the middle leading forward, at the end of which a vague, table-shaped object can be vaguely seen.

Euphrates gripped the pendant tightly, the golden light now receding into her body. She swept the ground with the light; it was an ordinary stone path, with no apparent traps.

So she carefully lifted her foot and placed it on it, stomping on it hard—it was very solid, just like an ordinary stone floor.

She walked along the central path, alertly scanning both sides with her flashlight. There was a lot of graffiti on the walls, some similar to the text on the wall outside the door, while others looked like stars, three dots, meaningless circles and lines, wavy lines, or randomly intersecting lines.

There was no sign of anyone else being here, but the smell of incense in the air was very strong, indicating that someone had used this place recently. The closer you got to the end, the stronger the smell became, and you could even feel that some of it was still burning.

But there was nothing around her or in front of her that resembled a lit incense burner.

What happened? Finally, just before she reached the end, she accidentally swept her flashlight across the ceiling.

Several white skeletons, their eye sockets emitting wisps of smoke from embers and their gaping mouths, silently gazed down at her from above.

"..." Euphrates suppressed the urge to spit, and swept the ceiling with his flashlight. He then discovered that many rope nets were hanging from above, each containing a skull. Some of them had stopped smoking, while others continued to act as incense burners, with wisps of incense smoke rising from their eye sockets and teeth.

Only after confirming that the skulls were completely dead and would not suddenly move and harm her did she continue forward. After walking another ten steps or so, she reached the end of the passage.

This was the farthest point of the bulkhead in the hall, the walls also covered with graffiti and Colchis script. However, unlike the entrance, there was a wooden table here, or rather, based on her knowledge, she immediately recognized the style—it was a very simple wooden altar.

Therefore, the indentation on the table is where the so-called offerings to the gods were stored, while the books spread out on the side must be the scriptures read by the preacher.

She suddenly found it ridiculous that such a temple, shrine—a church—clearly filled with primitive superstition, existed so brazenly behind the Vengeance Souls' strategic room! And judging by its size, it was clear that more than just one or two people had listened to so-called religious sermons here!

She took two deep breaths, resisting the urge to kick over the altar, and walked to it to examine its contents carefully.

The circular indentation on the altar was carved directly, and some dried liquid powder still remained within. Given her encounter at the entrance, she became even more cautious; so she used a polarizing filter from a camera to stir the powder—and then determined it was most likely dried blood, possibly human blood. So they were still performing this even more ignorant and unclean ritual of blood sacrifice! How long had it been since the meeting between Ulano and Nicaea?!

Ancient anger was reignited, like a raging fire doused with oil, engulfing her mind. Golden light immediately surged out, enveloping the photographer and calming her down once more.

Only then did she notice a thick, heavy book at the other end of the altar. And next to the seat in front of it were bundles of long, irregularly shaped objects.

Out of some curiosity, she went over to examine those things, then returned with a grim face: now she probably knew the whereabouts of the other parts of the owners of the skull incense burners above and the blood on the altar.

"Alright, let me see what kind of false god this is that has bewitched Astartes, making him lose all sense of right and wrong..."

She frowned, muttered to herself, inserted a polarizing filter into the pages, lifted the cover of the large book, and opened it to its first page.

At first, nothing happened.

She frowned, seeing only the Colchis script written on parchment that she didn't recognize, which seemed fine except that the writing looked blurry and even seemed to wriggle in a nauseating way.

Then, in this hall deep within the spirit of vengeance, the skulls hanging from the ceiling began to sway gently like wind chimes.

got windy.

The air currents ruffled the blonde hair behind her temples, like the whispers of an intimate lover or the breath of a murderer brushing past her ear.

But when the photographer suddenly turned around and kicked the enemy behind him in the chin, there was no one there.

She cautiously scanned the area with her flashlight, but it remained as empty and quiet as before, and the feeling of air movement had faded away.

She took a step back, her palm first touching the rough edge of the wooden altar, but then she found herself leaning against a hard, tall, broad, and sturdy chest.

To be more precise, it's the plastron (or ventral armor).

"What are you doing here?"

She recognized the voice; it was easy to recognize.

This is the voice of Ezekiel Abaddon.

(End of this chapter)