Warhammer: Striving to Be a Grinding Man

Chapter 189 The Cyber ​​War (6)

Cohen had lost count of how many days it had been.

The cold, psionic light deep within the network had no distinction between day and night; only the constantly ticking numbers on the timer and the accumulated fatigue within his body each time he withdrew his consciousness from the sacred bone wall. He painstakingly pieced together the broken psionic pathways between the various nodes of Karata, extending the light trail an inch into the darkness with each completed section. The speed was relatively slowing, the resistance was increasing, and the erosion of chaos was resisting every attempt at repair.

The technical priests established multiple prefabrication and assembly sites behind the front lines. The bone plates and outer layer of the boundary membrane were pre-molded by Cohen, and the mechanical monks assembled them as needed, creating standardized barriers and bunkers among the ruins. Cohen regularly traveled to those bunkers to complete the final step—attaching the bone structure to the walls of the net, allowing the newly formed walls to merge with the ancient saint's skeleton.

Most of the time, he remained moving between the walls of the net. The breaches grew deeper and deeper, and each repair required traversing an even greater distance to reach the next point of damage. The Black Pearl, on Karasta's scale, consistently followed in his footsteps.

The flames of war are burning even deeper.

The flow of people on the transport ships at the rear was never-ending. Every day, fresh faces of Astragalians, Apostles, Pilgrims, and Space Marines poured into Karasta, advancing along the repaired passageways, disappearing into the cold psionic light deep within the Nexus, and almost never returning. Occasionally, seriously wounded soldiers were carried back to the rear on stretchers. The transport ships went to the front lines with cargo holds full of ammunition and spare parts, and returned carrying the wounded and crates of identification tags. On the transfer platforms at the edge of Karasta, the sealed crates waiting to be loaded often piled up to the horizon.

In the distance, the flashes of artillery fire flickered continuously in the cold light of psionic energy. The Emperor's dark gold, Khorne's crimson, Slaanesh's purple, and Tzeentch's blue alternated in the darkness deep within the Nexus, like a stained-glass dome shattering.

On this day, the weight that had been present at the edge of his consciousness fell again. Cohen stopped between the walls of the sacred bones. The Emperor's psychic will appeared directly in his consciousness, without sound, but faster and more direct than sound, like a heavy pressure being pressed into the surface of water.

"Slow down the repairs. Let those things think there are gaps to exploit."

Cohen didn't ask why. He stood beside the newly joined section of the wall, waiting for the Emperor's will to continue.

"Those things must be nailed to the spot. Tzeentch isn't committed now; he's watching and waiting. He wants them to feel they have a chance to kill me."

Cohen understood the weight of those words. The significance of the network restoration was never about replacing the Emperor with someone else on the Golden Throne—Magnus, or anyone else, were merely recollections of the Emperor. The Emperor needed the throne itself. The Golden Throne was not His prison, but His amplifier.

For millennia, He has been using His spiritual power to combat the expanding divinity within Him. He sits on the throne not because He is locked there, but because only through the magnification of the throne can He suppress the shell that is devouring humanity. With the repair of the web, the throne's efficiency has increased, allowing Him to use more spiritual power to suppress divinity—rather than to release it. He chooses to become more human, rather than more divine.

The destiny Tzeentch saw wasn't the restoration of the Web granting the Emperor freedom, but rather the Emperor actively denying his own divine status through the restoration of the Web. He saw an eternal prisoner who rejected godhood, using the Web He restored to reinforce his anti-divine armor. For the Lord of Destiny, this was a more alluring scenario than any victory—destiny itself was being rewritten, and the way it was rewritten was by a being who could have become a god choosing not to. This was one of the reasons Tzeentch stayed.

The slowdown, cessation, or even regression of the network's repair will alter fate once more, and the Lord of Destiny may be unable to bear the true consequences. Khorne's army has already pressed forward with full force, more than half of Slaanesh's main force has entered Karatha, and Naggog's vanguard has also appeared. Tzeentch arrived earliest and chose to hide.

The Emperor has set a trap. Slowing down the repair of the gap will lure the Four Gods to commit their main forces to Karata, where the Emperor will entangle and wear them down. This is a brand-new strategy, and Cohen's existence is the trump card He has never played before.

"Manufacture, quickly, 20,000 units."

A complete psionic blueprint was infused into Cohen's consciousness along with the Emperor's will. The body's structural parameters—bone density, muscle fiber arrangement, distribution of nerve nodes—were more precise than those of the Space Marines, more complex than the previously provided plans, and clearly very special. There were no gene seeds, no implanted organs, only a body rearranged at the atomic level. This was a blueprint tailor-made for Cohen's abilities.

There was also a headless body. It appeared alone at the end of the drawing, taller than all the Imperial Guards, with disproportionately broad shoulders and a different thoracic structure. Cohen saw its outline and knew exactly what it was.

The Emperor's psychic power temporarily suppressed the fatigue accumulating within Cohen, but that suppression itself was also draining him—

Like a piece of armor that's constantly pressing down on your skin, it won't make you fall, but it will remind you that you're being crushed.

Cohen didn't hesitate. He turned and left the newly joined section of wall, moving deeper along the passage at the edge of Karasta until he reached a pre-prepared underground bunker. A sacred bone dome covered the entire space, the boundary membrane shimmering with a uniform pale golden glow on the walls, supported by an adamantite skeleton. A well-protected, quiet, and deep workshop, far from the front lines.

Atoms were retrieved from the warehouse and condensed layer by layer according to the Emperor's blueprint. The skeleton of the first body grew out of the void, followed by muscle fibers weaving onto the adamantite framework, and finally, skin covering and shaping. The faces were uniform templates—short, dark hair, sharply defined features, and expressionless.

Then comes the Radiant Gold Armor, a single piece that runs from the breastplate to the shoulder armor to the leg armor. Energy conduits are embedded along the inner lining into the layers of armor plates.

The blade of the power sword extends from nothingness, and the protective runes on the hilt are etched onto the adamantite surface as it takes shape.

The first batch, one hundred bodies, were arranged in ten neat rows in the center of the dome, all clad in gleaming golden armor. Their helmet visors were all open, revealing closed eyes. They were merely shells, devoid of souls and consciousness.

Then the Emperor's golden psionic energy descended.

Cohen felt the psychic energy fall upon these unconscious bodies. The psychic imprints of the Imperial Guards who had perished over millennia awakened upon touching those empty shells—He was calling them back. Those Radiant Warriors who had fallen on the palace steps, before the entrance to the Netway, and in the Chaos Assault—their bodies had long since turned to ashes, but the Emperor had preserved the lingering imprints of their psychic energy, their last moments of will, and the warmth of their names. Each imprint was like a candle burned to embers.

There were also complete souls, retaining all their memories, fighting for the Emperor as members of the Cursed Legion. At this moment, from the direction of the Golden Throne, from the depths of the warp, these remaining psionic imprints and complete souls were pressed into the empty shell created by Cohen.

These souls are not all in perfect condition. Some carry the traumatic memories of the final battle ten thousand years ago, while others have had their psionic imprints worn away in the shadows of the warp. But the Emperor's recall does not require completeness—it only requires that they remember they are the Custodians and that the Emperor needs them.

The monotonous faces that Cohen sculpted gradually changed under the will of the Emperor's psionic powers. The faces automatically adapted to the memories of the souls, varying in height, weight, and build, each corresponding to a piece of history buried by time.

They all had their own names, their own memories, and their own souls, though to varying degrees of completeness. At that moment, they all looked at Cohen. No one spoke. Cohen did not avoid their gazes.

The Emperor's psychic power receded for a moment, then surged forth again for the next batch. More recall marks welled up from the depths of the psychic power, some still warm from the disintegration of the stasis field, others their names worn away by the shadows of the warp. With every hundred strikes, a hundred warriors from ten thousand years ago opened their eyes anew.

On the left side of the seventh row, Carde Villacant opened his eyes. Tribunal, brother of La Endymion in the War of the Nets. In the fifth year of the war, he ventured deep into the tunnels outside the Impossible City, pursuing the enemy against all advice, and ultimately perished in the darkness engulfed by chaos. At this moment, his self-aura locked onto the direction of the dome's exit, as if still carrying out that final command from ten thousand years ago.

In the twelfth row, Jasak—another tribune, the one who fell two weeks earlier than Kade. He, along with Kade and Ra, had jointly commanded the Imperial Guard to defend the Webway, and was one of the first generals to fall in the Webway War.

In the center of the nineteenth row, Sagittarius Malaque opened his eyes. The pilot of the Dreadnought, his body long since reduced to ashes, but the Emperor preserved his will in his final moments. For millennia, his name had been etched in the oldest honor roll within the Imperial Guard.

Their consciousness was intact, fighting to the death for the Emperor, life after life. Some had fragmented memories, but these fragments did not hinder their fighting. They only needed to know that they were the Imperial Guard, only needed to know that the Emperor needed them. Kade Virakan's face silently lit up in the seventh rank. He knew who he was. That was enough.

The Emperor's psychic energy was like a layer of continuously seeping golden grease, each arrival rekindling a hundred candles. Those recalled imprints—however shattered—gained warmth anew within their new bodies. Some clenched their fists, some turned towards the dome's exit the moment they materialized—the direction of the battlefield—some looked down at their gloved hands. Then they stood upright in silence.

Twenty thousand bodies have been spread out in the center of the dome, like a golden array frozen in time.

Then the Emperor's psychic power did not leave. His will shifted from the newly awakened Imperial Guards to Cohen.

"—My best tool. My Macado. My dearest friend."

Then the psychic energy began to recede inch by inch from the edge of Cohen's consciousness, like a tide retreating into the abyss, returning to the direction of the Golden Throne.

Cohen sensed it. The 20,000 Imperial Guards behind him moved at the same moment. There was no fighting stance, no turning or forming ranks.

At the same moment, 20,000 gleaming golden armored figures knelt on one knee. The sound of their kneecaps striking the sacred bone ground was so synchronized that it didn't seem like 20,000 people, but rather like a shockwave compressed into space, spreading outwards from the center of the dome before converging.

Cohen turned around.

Sagittarus Malaqui stood at the very front of the line. His dreadnought armor had long since crumbled into fragments ten thousand years ago, but now he stood in a completely new body, the insignia on his shoulder armor gleaming a dark gold in the cold psionic light. He was the highest-ranking former member of the Aegis Guard among this batch of recallees, a pilot of the dreadnought, and had commanded the Inner Sanctum's Imperial Guard during the most intense phase of the Cybernetics War. His face, after ten thousand years of slumber, regained its warmth, and his eyes, upon opening, were already focused, locking onto the direction of the dome's exit. He didn't look at Cohen—his gaze passed over Cohen, landing further away, as if receiving an instruction only he could hear.

The silence lasted for several seconds.

Then Malaque's lips moved slightly. His voice was hoarse, like metal soaked in millennia of ashes: "Imperial Will. Reorganize, form ranks, and deploy to the Karasta front."

Twenty thousand clad warriors in gleaming golden armor rose simultaneously. Their movements were so synchronized, it was as if they were not twenty thousand men, but rather a single, forged will shifting its posture at the same instant. There was no hesitation, no questioning, no stopping to confirm the command's correctness. The Emperor's will had been conveyed through Malaque's words—that was enough.

Malaque gave Cohen one last look. His gaze lingered on Cohen for less than half a second before he clenched his fist and performed a full Eagle Salute. Then he turned and walked toward the dome's exit.

Twenty thousand gleaming golden armored figures rose in succession behind him, bowed, turned, and marched forward. The sound of their footsteps merged into a continuous, low-frequency rumble beneath the sacred dome, like a mountain range in motion. As they passed Cohen in formation, no one turned their head, no one slowed their pace. They were simply a legion that had been rekindled, returning to where they belonged.

Cohen stood there, watching the golden river flow from the center of the dome to the exit, then disappear into the edge of the cold psionic light.

The Emperor has given him a new task. The Mars Forging General has assembled the Titan Order, and tens of thousands of Titan pilots await their divine machines. And the God of Machines will bestow them upon them through Cohen's hands.

Deep within the bunker, the cold white lights still shone. In the center of the dome, a massive adamantite life support pod occupied the entire space. An armored glass observation window cut diagonally down from the top of the pod, revealing a silent silhouette—headless, but with shoulders broad enough to make any mortal feel insignificant.

Cohen watched the headless torso bobbing in the nutrient solution. Feralus Manus's head had already been shipped from Medusa, bound for Terra, bound for Karasta. He had been informed of this, along with the Ultramarines' Primarchs, who were also on the Radiance of Macragge, bound for Karasta. Clearly, the Emperor was planning something big, and Cohen was merely a tool being exploited by the Ultramarines.

Meanwhile, another rift had already opened at the edge of Karata. Nurgle finally couldn't hold back any longer and made his move.

On the skeletal wall at the edge of Karata, an existing crack was widening. Its light was dark and viscous, like pus slowly seeping from a rotting wound, spreading inch by inch along the texture of the sacred bone structure. The stench arrived faster than the light—the stench of rotting organic matter, aged pus, and fungus fermenting in dampness for countless centuries—pressed into the cold psychic light, like an invisible layer of grease covering the surface of the sacred bone. This time, no dark golden light countered it, no restorative pulse surged from the depths of the wall to repel it. The crack continued to expand.

Nurgle wriggled from the crack, emitting faint, gurgling laughs, and crawled toward the nearest fissure in the wall. Plague swarms followed closely behind, a dark mass of insects pouring out, casting moving shadows in the cold psionic light. The bow of a Plague cruiser emerged from the crack, its rotting dark green paint gleaming sickly in the psionic light, its armor plating covered in moss-like creep, pustules pulsating slowly on its surface. A second, a third, seven more Plague ships lined up, their decaying green light seeping from their hulls, tinging the surrounding psionic light with a dull green. The creep spread outwards from the edges, covering the spirit bone ground and climbing the broken spire. The psionic pulses of the sacred bones extinguished segment by segment where the creep touched. The covered wall ceased its autonomous pulsation; the Old Ones' restoration process was abruptly halted at this point.

After the ship came to a stop, the armor plates cracked open like rotting skin pushed aside from the inside, pus gushing out. The Death Guard's plague warriors marched out in formation, their decaying green power armor covered in rust and fungal patches, each step leaving a rotting footprint in the spirit-skeletal ground. Their advance was silent—no roars, no howls, only a continuous, relentless...

Their unhurried pace resembled a moving wall. Behind them, more auxiliary troops, twisted by the plague, dragged their festering limbs forward in formation. Midway through the ranks, a Nurgle perched on the shoulder armor of a Plague Terminator, digging at the corrosive substance in the armor's seams.

The Great Impure One emerged from the depths of the ship. Over ten meters tall, its body was bloated like a mountain, its entrails dangling from a massive rift in its abdomen. Its expression was almost benevolent, devoid of anger, only a calm, all-encompassing satisfaction. Seven Great Impure Ones stood in a loosely arranged column. Between them, tens of thousands of Nurgle demons marched in procession, tinging the cold psionic light of Karasta with a dark green.

A final tremor echoed from the depths of the rift—the low, heavy sound of wings flapping, the ripples accelerating the growth of the fungal carpet. Mortarion emerged from the rift. A dark green glow seeped from the seams of his armor; he wore the "Savage Armor," his left hand gripping the energy scythe "Annihilation," and his right hip slung the pistol "Beacon." His wings slowly unfurled, each flap stirring a gust of wind carrying spores. As he took his first step, the cold, psionic light of Karata dimmed slightly.

He stopped at the base of a broken spire, looking down at the Eldar ruins and Imperial defenses below. Then he turned toward the direction of a fading psionic trail deep within Karatha. It was the direction of the section of wall Cohen had just left, the "gap" the Emperor had deliberately left behind. Mortalian's self-light couldn't find a specific outline, but he sensed the lingering warmth of the trail. His lips twitched, a barely perceptible movement, like a door rusted by time closing inward by less than a degree.

He raised his scythe, pointing it into the depths of Karata: "The Empire thinks they're guarding the Webway. They don't know the Webway itself is sick. Our benevolent Father knows this. Let it rot."