Warhammer 40k: Melee Warriors

Otto continued: "As far as I know, the orcs were born much earlier than you Eldar. How dare you call yourselves the eldest sons of the Ancient Ones?"

Connecting these two fragments of memory, Novia suddenly had a crazy, unrealistic, and ridiculous idea.

Could it be... that he is the last ancient saint?

Otto was merely a vessel he had chosen, and he came to Blackrock Fortress only to reconnect with his departing soul.

Is that possible? Or think about it from another angle, why not? Isn't Blackrock Fortress, which he controls, the best proof?

Legend has it that Blackrock Fortress was built by the Vaal, but its ultimate authority remains in the hands of the Old Ones.

Once the idea took hold, it couldn't disappear from Novia's mind. Her fear of this space transformed into immense respect for the power and legacy of the ancient saints, and a sense of overwhelming gratitude for witnessing a glorious past suddenly appeared on her reserved face.

This behavior puzzled Koken, who sat on the throne. He wondered: Has Novia gone mad? Or is she experiencing a bout of Stockholm syndrome?

What had he done? He had crashed Novia's Ark onto the Eye of the Faraway Fortress, fused the souls from the Infinite Circuit together and mined them like minerals, and turned her into a half-spirit who was not accepted by humans or Eldar.

She should be afraid of herself, hate herself, so what's with this cautious, worshipful feeling she has when she meets her idol?

Unable to understand Novia's thoughts, Koken could only comprehend the current situation based on some information about the subspace.

Novia was probably corrupted; her body was impure, and her soul was insane. Like those who follow Nurgle, their mouths oozing filth and riddled with sores yet still shouting "Fatherly tenderness!"

But isn't this rate of corruption a bit too fast? Can I ask Khorne? He must have considerable experience with this kind of situation.

"You will become my slave, understand?"

"clear."

I will reap your soul!

"Ok."

"I will transform all the spirit race into half-spirits!"

"I hope things go as you say."

She was too cooperative, so cooperative that Koji suspected Novia had secretly done something. He struck out with his palm, knocking Novia's soul out of the pure white hall and back into her body.

Back to reality, Komi used a short stick to forcefully poke Novia's ribs and repeated his question, but the answer he received remained unchanged.

She stopped screaming about her fat and instead began to enjoy the soft, yielding response.

Alas... this is the Slaanesh curse starting to take effect.

Komi stopped what he was doing before Novia cast a strange look at him.

It's really suspicious... but I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong... Maybe I really do have a corrupting power over half-spirits who have never appeared before, just like Slaanesh can sway the pure spirit race with just a flick of his wrist.

He left a mark on Novia's soul to ensure he could destroy her at any time. Komi considered her loyalty to his orders and sent her to the Far Eye Fortress to help Fetia adjust her soul path.

Before the Punisher departed, Komi left more than two thousand people and corresponding supplies for Fithia in the Eye of the Faraway Fortress. They would build a fighter jet landing pad there, so that it would truly have the ability to deploy combat troops.

It was time to leave. Koji calculated the time. From meeting with the Eldar to the end of the matter, he had wasted half a year. Sometimes he worried that as soon as he went out, he would hear that Abaddon had already advanced the battle line to the vicinity of Auberdine.

"Fetia, send us out." Komi gave the order from the bridge of the Punisher. The ark that was stuck on the Eye of the Far East fortress began to rotate with the fortress, releasing a rift from its remaining tail that tore through the black hole's encirclement.

As the Punisher entered the rift, Komi heard the persistent screams of the Sage of Sem.

"No! Wait! Wait! I haven't seen enough yet! Give me another six months! Just six months will do!"

Komi glanced at the Sage of the Sem who was firmly fixed in a corner of the bridge and unable to move, and sighed, "Don't worry, Sage of the Sem, we will come back in the future."

Sage Sam did not accept Komi's comfort. He shook his head like a child craving candy and let out a resentful roar.

Chapter 509: Why...why are you doing this to me! My skills are clearly better!

Koji understood Sage Semi's reaction, so he went over and reminded him.

"We're about to leave, and you're not feeling well right now."

"Of course I'm not good at it! How could you let that greenhorn Fitaia work there! She may be a little clever, but this isn't something you can figure out just by being clever!"

Sage Semi, in his emotional state, did not suppress his voice, making his movements audible to everyone busy on the bridge.

"Ahem..." The old butler, Faith, coughed lightly. He lowered his head and focused his gaze on the buttons on the control panel. The others followed suit and pretended that they hadn't heard anything.

The more you know, the faster you die.

Everyone understands this principle. Even if Koken's methods of governing the Exterminator could be considered weak in the eyes of other merchants and ronin, excessive curiosity can still lead to one's own demise.

Komi was very satisfied with his subordinate's discerning eye. He patted the Sage Semi's metal head and said, "Don't worry about what Fetia is doing. Look at yourself now. Where is the demeanor of a sage? You look like a child who grew up in a garden world, throwing a tantrum because you can't get the ice cream you want."

"I don't care! I don't care! Otto, you bastard! How could you do this to me! That Blackrock Fortress! That Blackrock Fortress!!!"

Sage Semi was twitching violently, which made Koji gradually lose patience with continuing the conversation. He slapped him, making the metallic clang echo in the bridge, but this had little effect on Sage Semi, who continued to wail.

If you can't give him ice cream, then give him a candy snack.

Komi wasn't sure where he'd learned this method of educating children from, but he decided to try it out based on this principle.

“Sage Sem, look what this is.”

Komi mysteriously pulled out a reinforced test tube. The intuition that Sage Semi had developed through years of scientific research told him that what was inside was definitely not ordinary. He immediately shut his mouth and stared intently at the test tube in Komi's hand.

Sage Sem's reaction was exactly what Komi had expected, he thought to himself.

I refuse to believe that the body fluids of the original Bai Yuheng wouldn't pique your interest! You should know that I haven't even really started researching this stuff myself!

"Is this blood? But the color is too murky. Is it the sap of some unknown organism?"

“Sage Sem, if you can keep quiet, I’d be happy to have a good chat with you in my room, otherwise…” Komi flipped his hand, and the test tube was stored in his personal soul channel.

Upon hearing this, Sage Sam immediately stopped crying and fussing, staring intently at Komi with his glowing mechanical eyes and asking, "Then when shall we talk?"

“You’re really in a hurry…” Komi shook his head. “Have you done any work on repairing your combat suit? You’ve been messing around these past few days, and I suspect you’re not making any progress at all.”

“This…I…” If Sage Sem had skin on his face, he would have blushed with embarrassment. “I’ve been drawn to the fortress these past few days. Having seen the sun, how could I be satisfied with the light of those candles? You should sympathize with the torment I’ve endured these past few days.”

“In that case, how about we set the time for our chat until you finish your work? I’d like you to rework the Xuan-style defensive armor on the combat suit and coat it with the Shanwen protective layer.” Gu Jian smiled knowingly, as if he had figured out Sage Sem. He didn’t ask Sage Sem to add a sadistic core and soul steel to the combat suit.

These two new products have only passed testing and have not yet achieved mass production. They can only be produced locally by the personnel remaining in the Eye of the Faraway Fortress and then transported over via the Soul Path.

Upon hearing this, Sage Sem did not hesitate for a moment before allowing Komi to remove the shackles on his body.

Kojima did as he was told, and Sage Sam disappeared from the bridge in a flash, rushing to the lower deck. After that, his work efficiency was unprecedented. What used to take him and Fetia a month to complete, he and the ship's technicians finished in a week all by himself.

According to what Fesse told Komi, the Sage of Semi put a lot of pressure on the technicians. Some of them collapsed at their posts after working non-stop for several days. When they woke up, they found that they had lost some flesh and gained some parts. Then, amidst the Sage of Semi's scolding, they went back to work.

After finishing his work, Sage Semi came to Komi's room, where only the two of them were. On the large desk sat the test tube that Sage Semi had been longing for.

"Congratulations, Sage Sem! That's truly remarkable work efficiency," Komi clapped his hands in praise.

Sage Semi didn't buy his politeness and asked directly what the thing in the test tube was.

Koji naturally couldn't directly say that this was Bai Yuheng's body fluid. In the Sage of Sem's understanding, the Human Empire only had nine Primarchs, so asking him to think about what Bai Yuheng meant was really beyond his comprehension.

Therefore, Koken simply said, "We found a genetic sage in the fortress, and this is the legacy he left behind during his exploration. According to his report, the liquid in this test tube can affect the development of Space Marines."

"Development? Can it accelerate the growth of their gene seeds? Many warbands have been destroyed because of insufficient gene seed production."

"I don't think so. Sage Sem, do you know about the cursed army?"

"Of course I know. A group of genetic sages tried to improve the technology left by the Great Emperor with their shallow knowledge. Their audacity was punished, and the Space Marine chapters born during the Curse of the Army were all shameful. You mean this thing is related to the Curse of the Army?"

Komi nodded. "It's more than just related. This thing can help us reverse the mistake of the cursed army, cure the mutations of those Space Marines, and even make them stronger."

All the previous words were just made up by Komi to fool Sage Sem, only this sentence carries Komi's true thoughts.

Browsing through Bai Yuheng's life story greatly benefited Gu Jian. He learned about the general procedures of many kinds of gene surgeries and understood that Bai Yuheng's genetic characteristics were key to ensuring that these gene surgeries would not conflict with the same Space Marine's body.

His genes possess a unique inclusiveness that weakens the rejection reaction caused by other enhanced organs when they are introduced into the body to a negligible level. This allows Bai Yuheng to extend gene surgery to the entire legion, rather than only modifying raw recruits.

Similar behavior would be impossible in other legions, whose genes lack this inclusiveness. The mature organs in veterans are extremely exclusive, and rashly increasing gene surgery would only cause them to die on the operating table. This is why the Primal Forging modification by the Sage Caul later caused the Space Marines' mortality rate to reach 61.6%, and the process of dying was so painful that it was indescribable. It was not until Caul became familiar with Primal Forging that the mortality rate was greatly reduced.

Besides using Bai Yuheng's gene modification surgery to eliminate the adverse reactions, Gu Jian also wanted to use his blood to cultivate new gene seeds to expand the scale of the Unifying Hand War Gang. You should know that it takes five to ten years for a gene seed to mature. If you rely on this to build an army, you'll probably have to farm for hundreds of years.

Chapter 510: You don't want the fortress to be taken over by the Mars headquarters, do you?

This efficiency is far too slow. If the fighting gets even slightly brutal, the Space Marines' replenishment can't keep up. It's not impossible that Space Marines loyal to the Empire of Man could simply pay a seed tax and wipe out the entire crew in one battle.

Moreover, Koken would not be satisfied with a small battle group of a thousand people. He believed that if he really wanted to make a name for himself in this galaxy, he would have to form an army of tens of thousands of people.

What legion could be more worthy of nurturing than Bai Yuheng's legion? Even if warriors with Bai Yuheng's blood were to suffer from an Oedipus complex, where could they place their affections? They would inevitably end up with Gu Jian. If it weren't for the exceptionally close connection between Bai Yuheng's body and the Eye of the Faraway Fortress, Gu Jian would have dragged this Primarch out for a stroll, giving Abaddon a little shock of being a lost Primarch.

Of course, these ideas could not be discussed with the Sage of the Sem. Koji only emphasized that this thing could wash away the genetic mutations of the cursed Space Marines, allowing their impure bloodline to return to purity.

“Sage Sem, do you think you have the ability to figure this out?”

“I think I have it.” Sage Sem spread his hands, trying to take it from Komi’s hands.

"But I don't recall you studying genetics. Didn't you study electronics and mechanical engineering? Are you sure you can do it?"

"I believe that the God of All Machines will bless my studious heart. After working under you for so long, I have come to understand that some knowledge cannot be learned; one must experience that indescribable feeling with one's heart."

Gu Jian's face darkened; the same trick he used to fool Sage Sem had actually backfired on him today.

There's no other way... so let's just give it to him. What if he actually figures something out?

As Gu Jian held the test tube, preparing to hand it over, Sage Semi reached out even further.

Tsk...he probably won't need that much.

Komi's eyes lit up, and he decided to give Sage Semi a few drops for his research instead of throwing out the whole tube, even though it wasn't particularly valuable to him.

When Bai Yuheng, who was sitting on the throne, squeezed his body, a lot of tissue fluid of this color would spray out from the holes.

Seeing the approximately 5g of original tissue fluid in his hand, Sage Sem was somewhat disappointed, as he had expected to receive more.

Just as he looked up to say something, he heard Gu Jiandao say, "This thing is extremely precious, so you should use it sparingly."

Upon hearing this, Sage Semi knew he couldn't get any more from the stingy Komi. He sighed somewhat unsatisfiedly and prepared to leave the room and return to his research lab.

Komi stopped him and brought up the Eye of the Faraway Fortress from a few days ago. "Sage Sam, can you keep your mouth shut? I think you know very well what that fortress means. You certainly don't want the people from Mars Headquarters to come and take it away, do you?"

“They dare!” Sage Sem roared angrily, showing a determination to fight to the death with the Martian Mechanicus headquarters. “Saint Otto, rest assured. You won’t hear me discussing that fortress in the coming days, and I will also make sure to properly erase the memories of the people on the Punisher.”

"very good."

Komi smiled as he watched Sage Semi leave. He knew that even if Sage Semi could perfectly erase everyone's memories, the existence of the Eye of the Faraway Fortress would definitely be exposed, and then endless trouble would come knocking.

Leaving aside the chaotic war gangs that made their fortunes through plunder and robbery, even within the Empire alone, Koken could easily name a few forces that would wage a cataclysmic war against him in order to seize control of the Far Eye Fortress.

The Mechanicus, which I just mentioned, is one of them, and perhaps the most troublesome. The techies at Mars headquarters don't like anyone other than themselves studying these ancient legacies, not even from other forging worlds. They sent scouts in the first year to investigate, and maybe by the second year their combined fleet of Sages' Mechanical Arks will be on its way, filled with their privately owned cultists, fighters, knight families, and even Titan legions.