Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 883 The Temptation of the Wolf
The Steel Ship of Destiny, Commander's Office
Magna's mechanical body sat on an armchair to the side, like a gold and silver statue.

Mechanical cables and pipes dangled from the walls and ceiling behind him, inserting into a series of interfaces from his brain to his spine. The glint of ultra-high-speed computing flashed past his lowered electronic eyes like trillions of meteors.

On his side opposite, the two masters, the master's brother, and their father in a certain sense were sitting together talking.

The trusted and incredibly strong-willed chief steward is serving everyone (and the pigeons) a cup of caramel biscuit crumb reca.

“So the Pale King can’t bring them back himself?” Ramizane asked. “I thought he’d have some other privileges in the mystical realm of this universe, in his form. Like, look at Kluck, he can disperse himself into all the shadows. — Well, but why can he be impersonated?”

“This is definitely not the first time that Alpha has been able to impersonate me without me noticing, because only with this precedent can this be considered ‘reasonable’ and thus go unnoticed by me.”

The Lord of the Ravens, wearing the face of Adalic Vannas, held his mug, which was painted with ravens, and added a lethal amount of cookie crumbs to it, before replying.

"Now I'm more concerned about this matter, specifically when exactly..."

“The Pale King should generally have this kind of privilege.” Perturabo BC frowned, then sighed loudly, interrupting the Raven Lord’s whisper, “I was hoping he would help me with more work after his ‘return’.”

"But clearly, the place they were sent to was also a severe dam of fate or some kind of siltation point, so that Scarabatharax's power just happened to conform to the damned mollusk's illogical formula and send them there. —Pah! Just think about it! They were blown away because of a change in the winds of Nurgle! That's insane!"

“Then you have to tell me…” The other person’s attention was indeed drawn to this matter.

“Okay…you see, although his priority is higher than others, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t other ‘him’s’ in this fragmented universe where even time is starting to stratify. Those who influence the development of the ‘future’ also have the power to unintentionally ‘allow’ him to leave before resolving things…”

—Yes, with the mindset that "telling one secret of a brother is the same as telling ten secrets of a brother," Perturabo BC has now revealed most of the Pale King's secrets to someone—of course, he still keeps the most crucial secrets well hidden.

Magna remained politely silent about this behavior, refraining from speaking ill of his elders, while the pigeon was deeply moved and even began to sing in a soul-stirring tenor voice from its perch, something like, "Ah! This is how depravity begins from the smallest place, a thousand-mile dike is breached by an ant hole."

The black and white plush original was ignored.

However, just as He began singing something like "Nessun Dorma, steel rusts with the tears of stone," He was suddenly attacked by a sheepdog and disappeared (?) for a while.

Magna's fair assessment of this is that "perhaps He misses the energy and passion of fighting. I suggest He go find his wrestling opponent to train properly and not disturb our normal work."

After a long and meticulous explanation by Peturab BC, using extremely precise language and mental descriptions, Ramizam finally nodded.

“Okay, I understand… Now we only need to consider two things – whether to prioritize sending someone else to ‘pull’ them back, or to set up trigger conditions so that they will be automatically ‘spit’ back here once the conditions are met, right?”

"Not bad at all."

"Can we go together?"

“Obviously impossible,” Peturabo BC pointed out. “Although we don’t know where it is, this place has already been crammed with at least three Primarchs who don’t belong there. If there are more, the river of time will burst its banks if we go any further!”

"Isn't that like the world overeating and then hiccuping? Wouldn't that just bring everyone back to normal?"

"..." Peturabo wearily rubbed his furry brow with his white paws, where a "川" (river) shaped pattern could be seen between the fur.

"You know that this approach won't work in practice, that's all that matters!" he finally roared, unable to contain himself any longer.

“Oh…” Ramizan nodded, turning thoughtfully to the pigeons—the latter were on their perches having their wet feathers dried and their quills plucked by the palace steward.

"...If only there were a way to see exactly where they are, we wouldn't have to be in this passive discussion..."

Peturabo BC suddenly looked up. "Wait..."

The pigeon stood frozen in place, its crown and red eyes both gleaming with a bright golden light.

Crackling flames and lightning surrounded the pigeon, which opened its beak, from which a ball of blue lightning shot out and flew wildly throughout the room.

"Are you crazy!" Peturabo BC roared, pressing the office's fire alarm button. The colorful, film-like bubbles formed by energy immediately filled the entire room. The lightning had just managed to burn a plant when it was enveloped by the surrounding energy film, frozen solid, and fell to the ground with a thud.

“What’s going on? Why is He so resistant to this statement?” Magna exclaimed. “A large amount of positive and negative logic annihilation energy has been detected!”

The pigeon let out a faint, dying "clucking" sound, then fell straight down from the perch, emitting a puff of blue smoke. Fortunately, the palace steward caught it in time with his large, sturdy hand.

“I know why.” Perturabo walked to the frozen ball of lightning, picked up the sphere that had turned into a pale blue-purple crystal, and turned around to show it to everyone.

"Here."

The remaining people stared intently and discovered that it was a planet under attack and engulfed in war.

"The planet's land features are not obvious. There are fleets and burned-out orbital docks in the sky above it, all of which look like imperial style, ancient designs from ten thousand years ago... Perhaps the time period can be determined to be not now."

Clarks stared intently as he spoke, when suddenly his purplish-black eyes narrowed.

"Wait! That boat! Let it turn around a little!"

He pointed to a massive ship that was slowly orbiting in the shadow of the planet.

When the giant red eye on the bow of this colossal ship, along with the destroyed lower flank of the hull, turned around and was illuminated by the starlight, the ship's name became clear.

"A spirit of vengeance?"

Peturabo BC squinted.

"This destroyed status is interesting... So, this is after the Great Rebellion, but the ship is still under Horus's control, and it's not the same as the one I saw during the Siege of Terra, so..."

He pondered, his claws tapping against the hard surface.

"The timeframe can be shortened to within a few decades. Yet I still don't recall ever glimpsing this planet in any of the files."

"Perhaps it was a secret operation by Horus during this period."

Magna offered a reasonable way out. "At least we can confirm that there are now four Primarchs in this place, so it's indeed not advisable to introduce any more Primarchs."

"That's troublesome."

Peturabo BC couldn't help but furrow his brow deeply, revealing his black and white downy hair.

"Motalian can still get away with it, but what identities do Pallas and Ruth use in a place like this to avoid the trouble of talking to people and having their identities verified? If I remember correctly, at this time, 'Horus' is accompanied by a large group of people possessed by the Unborn, products of witchcraft, and witchcraft users."

"Why was it Mortarian who managed to get away with it?"

Lamizain asked curiously.

"Didn't he even dislike the Legion's think tank and claim that the Death Guard would never establish a think tank? How can he tolerate seeing so many blatant magical artifacts around 'Horus'?"

Peturabo BC and Clarks exchanged a few awkward glances.

"...Regardless of Mortarion's attitude at the time, well, you have to understand, the Pale King's attitude towards witchcraft is relatively peaceful now. After all, he has already written his own numerology software, and now...we all have to help each other out."

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"I thought the term 'cemetery area' was just a figure of speech."

Ruth spoke in a low voice through the helmet's built-in channel.

They were now standing with the other two Primarchs' guards present—Warmaster Horus—or at least the Warmaster who looked like Horus. To show his trust and closeness to his brothers, he had the Gastalin Guard, the Phoenix Guard, and the Death Shrouds stay on the outside of the hall called the Resurrection Dome, while the three Primarchs went to the center to meet and talk.

The Terminators, in black, purple-gold, and bone-white, stood there, while the Death Guard seemed particularly isolated and silent—everyone knew that the Death Shroud couldn't speak, so no one bothered to approach and try to talk to it.

What made the wolf king even more uneasy was that the place was filled with the dead, frozen in their hulls.

"Who knew this was actually a physical mausoleum, and a public one at that. How could anyone arrange to meet in the middle of a cemetery, each with a large retinue, and then have their retinues standing far away? What do you think, Pallas?"

In the center of the hall was a massive, column-shaped liquid nitrogen cooler. Ultra-low temperature pipes, like spokes of a bicycle wheel, extended outwards to the tightly stacked cryogenic chambers in all directions. From the side where they were standing, they could see at least a hundred corpses. The peaceful faces of the dead lay in the column-shaped chambers, appearing as if they had been instantly frozen, lifelike.

Judging from visual inspection, the Wolf King estimated that there were at least 20,000 corpses in this hall.

Who came up with the idea of ​​preserving so many people's bodies before they died? Judging from the name of the hall, are they planning to resurrect them in the future?
The Wolf King thought to himself, "It would be better to put him in the Fearless Cave. At least he can really survive there."

"I really wanted to rush up and kill him."

Pallas, however, gave an irrelevant answer and gripped his weapon tightly.

His eyes were fixed behind the helmet visor on a strange figure in the center of the hall, a figure that was taller than the other two Primarchs.

It was a non-human creature with scales composed of every color in the world, a smooth, narrow, handsome face like porcelain, a perfectly muscular torso, four arms, a snake tail, and skin that shimmered with the most beautiful luster between all shades of blue, purple, and pink.

The traces of his former perfect warrior can only be faintly seen on the parts of his armor. Now, coiled on the serpent's tail, looking down at his two brothers, is Slaanesh's beloved pet.

“…You always advise me to suppress my restlessness.” Ruth became serious at this moment. “If it were just him, I would definitely go with you, without you even having to tell me.”

“We have three men,” Pallas hissed through clenched teeth, like the pre-poisoning hiss of venomous fangs. “They only have two. We can easily take them both out here, especially…”

"An enticing idea. But since Mortalian didn't make such a plan in the first place, perhaps we should wait. When fate comes to me, I'll laugh and cut it off, but when I start to weave it, I'll warn myself to be careful."

The wolf king tried to comfort Pallas and listened intently, only to hear some even worse words.

The conversation between the three rebel Primarchs made no attempt to avoid their own guards. Conversations included things like, "Is Perturabo still alive? I still need him to breach the palace walls for me," and "He refused to fully sacrifice his power for my glorious ascension, but at least I freed him from the foolish notion of eternal damnation." Only Mortarion, through his mask and with a reasonable air of anxiety, inquired about Perturabo's current situation.

“What does he mean?!” Pallas roared from inside his helmet. Several members of the Phoenix Guard seemed to be glancing at them, while two members of Gastalin looked over warily.

"I'm going to kill him! Shameless!!! Did he just say he almost killed Peturabo and still have the nerve to criticize others? He's a monster—"

"Palas!" The Wolf King suddenly reached out and pressed down on the trembling young phoenix. "Wait! Don't..."

The unusual movements between the Death Shroud members had clearly caught the attention of the other Terminators on the other side, especially the Sons of Horus, who appeared unusually tense.

A taller Astartes stepped forward, accompanied by a warrior whose face appeared to have been shaved off and stitched back up.

"What's going on? What are you doing there?!"

The tall soldier said he had a high braid tied up with silver rings.

When he caught a glimpse of them approaching out of the corner of his eye and realized who they were, Ruth suddenly realized that he might have just spoken a self-fulfilling prophecy—

"...When this lifeline comes to me, I'll laugh out loud and cut it off..."

"Ezekiel Abaddon?"

A bead of sweat quietly rolled down Russ's forehead.

The temptation is right at the wolf's mouth.

Forgrim, leave him to Pallas, he'll take good care of him.

But he, Leman Rus, suddenly realized that he had the greatest opportunity of his life to achieve great things: kill Abaddon now, then rush up and kill "Horus," so that perhaps all the tragic deaths and destruction that followed would never happen again...

The lifeline was delivered to the wolf. Sweat streamed down his face. With his heart pounding, Ruth slowly placed his hand on the long spear behind him, which was covered and disguised.

—This time, can he truly make this spear fulfill its mission?

(End of this chapter)