Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 882 Preface
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"...That day, my father came to me joyfully and told me about some new insights he had gained from his reading and reflection that day. —Has no wise person ever considered certain questions in tens of thousands of years? Since the essence of this universe has another world behind a veil, a world in which the power of the soul, spirit, and mind operates, then where have all the names and masters who were once born in this universe, those who were anticipated, worshipped, praised, and revered by the soul and mind, gone? It's impossible that in so many stories, all the roles are played by only one person, the 'Emperor'? What about the other gods? What about the ancient deities? Scientists? Philosophers? The great pioneers?" Who were they? The heroes of a pivotal era? Where have they and their spirits of wisdom gone? — Moreover, if a certain level of wisdom and civilization is required for the birth of primitive worship, then what exactly is this so-called primordial truth? He didn't believe the Four Gods were born as early as everyone thought, but one thing certainly misled everyone: once someone becomes a 'god,' they simultaneously begin to exist in the past and present, thus deceiving people and preventing them from determining the correct time and place of their birth. It was for this reason that, when he read certain texts in the Great Library of the Destiny Steel, he had the following thought: "I will, with joy and excitement, write down the truth for the people of today and the future…"

—Julius Robert Omar, *The Book of Sayings*, Chapter 1, Book 2

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"Damn it! I knew something was off about him right away!"

The blond warrior, clad in Terminator power armor painted in bone white and moss green, was about to spit on the ground when he suddenly remembered he was wearing a helmet. So, he could only kick a hapless, charred, rotten log by the roadside in frustration.

"That guy is definitely not Clarks! It's Alpha! It must be that damn Alpha!"

The falling trees groaned in horror and sorrow, spraying out ashes like fountains while making the sound of dry ribs breaking, stirring up clouds of dust as they fell, perhaps mixed with the remains of the defenders.

"...Let's not kick them around here." The silver-haired warrior, who had also changed the color and style of his power armor camouflage, couldn't help but mutter in his helmet, "What use are they besides attracting attention?"

The wolf king started whining in the helmet channel, like an old wolf that was unwilling to give up and was lingering outside the prey it was guarding.

"...But we're both wearing our own power armor anyway, the camouflage is just an illusion, we can totally charge through..."

"Hush! Even if you and I could take down several Dalians single-handedly, what good would it do? To be honest, killing thousands of nephews sounds impressive, but what can it actually change? It's better to lie low and observe first!"

Pallas ruthlessly psychologically subdued his old uncle.

"Besides, we're even charging over there! We don't even have a Thunder Eagle, let alone a Rhino! Are you planning to walk there on two legs or charge hundreds of kilometers on four legs?"

"...Alas, little Pallas, how could a trek and getting lost have changed you so much? Where has Ruth, the cute and cheerful little wolf cub, gone..."

"...Don't talk like I've suddenly become your son, Leman Ruth! I'm getting goosebumps!"

"When are you two going to stop bickering? Aren't you even a little bit nervous? Do you know that we might start facing tens of thousands of elite legion warriors who haven't been split up yet? If I were you, I wouldn't choose to be so disrespectful to my opponents."

The person at the front spoke, his voice carrying a faint air of indifference and a calm composure honed by years of experience.

The two people following behind then shut their mouths.

But after trekking for only a short while through the ruins and wastelands left by the war, Riemann Russ couldn't help but start talking again.

"...Are you sure we're not lost? Are you sure you know this world?"

With a sigh, the Pale King Mortarion turned around, the brass incense balls hanging in front of his Barbarus armor making a slight clinking sound with the movement, and the chains hanging from the end of his giant scythe also swaying.

“Of course I recognize it. You haven’t been here before, so you probably don’t remember—I mean, Ruth is far away right now, and Pallas, your original body’s cultivation organization must have been established before this incident, so you don’t remember this place either—but I have been here, and I encountered something here that 'I' will never forget. The only problem is that I don’t know what time it is here now. If that incident has already happened, then the three of us can expect to be hit by a whirlwind torpedo soon!”

“Oh, that’s terrifying.” Leman Ruth, disguised as a Death Guard Primarch, winked inside his helmet. “At least my and Pallas’s power armor should be able to withstand an Extinction Order—well, it should be, right?”

Pallas sighed almost helplessly as he continued, “Yes. You couldn’t originally, but as everyone knows, Ramizane takes life protection very seriously. Last time, my set was of standard Primarch specifications and it suffered a great loss against Abaddon, who had become a vessel for the Four Gods. Now, our power armor defense systems have all been upgraded.”

"Great, what about the weapon system?"

“No!” Pallas said irritably. “If you let Desimana, the arms maniac, upgrade you, I can’t even imagine what you’d do.”

"Ha! Ha! So you see, the Cyclone Torpedo isn't all that—"

"Oh? And then they flew away from orbit, leaving the three of us—we didn't die, but we had no food or water, and we weren't starving either—just staring helplessly on this planet where everything had turned to ashes. We could only miserably start by smelting ore and handcrafting spaceships for thousands of years, or wait for some unlucky ship to crash near us in ten thousand years? Is this what you want to hear, Ruth?"

The Pale King's vivid and terrifying description made the Wolf King hiss, "...It can't be that bad! You can travel between different timelines..."

“I’ve already explained it to you! I can’t just travel anywhere! I can only travel back and forth along the routes that I can appear on! The Destiny Steel is a special exit, which is why I can always appear from there.”

"Then you can't just take us back like this?"

“If I could, why would I bother going down into this rotten pit to find you all one by one?! And I was originally planning to leave through normal channels… Damn Scarabeth Salax! This family is really good at causing me trouble! Damn it! Next time I'm going to put bacteriophages in the petri dish!!! Damn it! This time I'm definitely going to charge you…”

"A fee?" Ruth repeated sharply.

“It’s nothing! You misheard!” Dr. Mortarian replied through gritted teeth, gripping the Silent Scythe in his hand tightly, and continued leading them in a certain direction.

"We need to hurry!"

He raised his slender finger and pointed to the sky, where a huge and bright star hung on the horizon, in the opposite direction to the sun, the star of this world. What was even more striking was that every now and then, meteor-like specks of light would fall from it to the ground.

"See that? That's the most obvious sign! The Budaan Orbital Dock, it's been burned down! That means the world has fallen into the hands of the rebels, so the window of opportunity is very short. They could enter the cemetery at any time, and then the attack will happen."

Dr. Mortalian, now in the form most familiar to everyone at the beginning of the Rebellion as the Deathguard Primarch, frowned under his hood. "It seems the attack has most likely not happened yet. In that case, we must get there before the attack on the three Primarchs occurs, so that we can perhaps smoothly continue what follows—because according to 'my' memory, as soon as the attack happens, 'I' will immediately return to the End for treatment and will not see 'Horus' and 'Forgrim' again."

One of the names he mentioned made Pallas involuntarily clench his fist.

"Then, the problem is, if the three Primarchs originally attacked in this raid were Horus, Forgrim, and Mortarion, wouldn't your presence here cause problems? Two Mortarions? Whose side will your Legion take?"

“There will not be two Mortarion,” the Pale King said calmly. “'I' am now one, with higher order and priority than the other 'me's. This means that if 'I' appear here, the 'Mortarion's' in this timeline will naturally disappear, and they should start looking for 'me'. 'I' may have multiple 'selves' at the same time, but there will not be the paradox of two humanoid 'me's' on the same timeline. 'I' am equal to all beings, and there is only one 'me'.”

“You’re making me not recognize the word 'I' anymore,” Pallas muttered. “Just say you’re of a higher rank and therefore you’ve overridden the 'you' here.”

"When will your offspring find you? They won't wait until the three of us have reached the other side before they remember to run around looking for you, will they?" the wolf king asked.

“It makes sense that the search of the surrounding area was done later,” the Pale King pointed out. “After all, I have no reason to suddenly get into the mood at this time and go for a walk with two people in their death shrouds hundreds of miles away without telling anyone—oh, by the way, you two would look more normal if you were forty-nine steps away from me.”

"...Does your numerology have to show off at this time too?"

“Numerology is the real science!” the Pale King replied with dissatisfaction. “For example, my calculations tell me that we will encounter the search party in seven minutes—you two can only speak to me in the encrypted channel! Do not utter a single word! Death shrouds cannot speak! However, they do have their advantages. Even Legion warriors will not know who is inside the Death Shroud power armor; they are already on the death list.”

“Your past habits were really strange,” Russ grumbled. “Depriving your offspring of the fighting glory they deserve, and the pride and honor of being chosen to protect you, and even letting them lose their names in the silence of their premature deaths and be forgotten by everyone—is that really good for their mental and physical health?”

“This is a very typical ritualistic metaphor.” Mortalian subconsciously wanted to push up his non-prescription glasses on the bridge of his nose, but then he realized that he was wearing a breathing mask and gave up.

"Strictly speaking, it would be better to establish some compensatory institutions and rules, since this is very close to certain covert fronts... However, given my state of mind at the time, this approach gave me a certain temporary peace of mind, and the effect was quite good."

He commented fairly, “We should look at the changes and development of things in a realistic and progressive way. I naturally had my own reasons and ideas back then, but if you let me write the rules now, they will definitely be different.”

"...It's really terrifying to hear you say that, my brother, it's as if you're possessed by Magnus."

"Don't always lump me together with those so-called scholars like Magnus who are obsessed with witchcraft and rituals, Ruth. Don't you really know the difference between us? You can't do scientific research properly if you're unchanging, stick to the rules, and spend all your time hanging out with warp elves."

But you two really don't look that different. At most, you're not in the same research field.

Pallas didn't say this because their keen ears could hear the familiar roar of the aircraft engines behind the distant horizon.

—Just as Mortarion said, three minutes passed after seeing the Stormbird and Thunderhawk, painted the bone white of the Death Guard Legion, fly over—exactly seven minutes later, the Stormbird stopped in front of the three of them and opened the ramp door.

A death guard rushed out from inside, almost as if granted a pardon, and hurried toward them.

"grown ups!"

The Primarch's servant Kepha Morag's voice carried emotions that were extremely complex and intense for the Barbarus: fear, joy, loss and recovery, and more.

“You’re here! That’s wonderful!” He rushed to Mortarian’s side, trembling as he tried to touch him, his fingers hovering in the air for a moment as if hesitant.

"You had already been missing for quite some time when the war commander's order was delivered! We searched for you everywhere like madmen! We almost got into a fight with other legions..."

"I'm fine. Warmaster's orders?" Mortarion asked from under his hood. His clear, smooth voice, without any hoarseness or dullness, startled Morag. He raised his head in confusion and boldly looked closely at the Primarch's face behind the mask before nodding.

"The Warmaster's orders, my lord. He says he will meet with you and Lord Fugrim in the Resurrection Dome in the Deville Mausoleum."

"A meeting?" Mortarian scoffed, and with that familiar snort, Morag's expression became noticeably calmer. "He'll probably be meeting us there! But I'll go, in this Stormbird. Let's go."

He strode forward naturally, and the two silent Death Shroud figures behind him followed him onto the Stormbird, their gazes filled with slight doubt but without any attempt to stop him.

(End of this chapter)