Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Lawson picked up the teapot and poured a cup of tea into the empty cup opposite him.

"The war commander also needs to rest."

"Now you are the only Primarch of our Empire's Dark Side, the only backbone."

Your health is the most important thing!

The Lion King looked unconvinced.

"Give me a break, don't try that on me."

He reached out and picked up his teacup: "Compared to you, I'm nothing. I'm just a thug."

He took a sip of tea and put the cup back on the table.

"Tell me, why did you bring me back?"

Lawson didn't beat around the bush: "I captured Mortarian."

"what?"

…………

The Seventh Blackrock Fortress, deep within its core area.

Motalian has been locked up here for three months.

This cell had no windows, no door, no wind, and nothing that could be called a sound.

It's eerily quiet here!

The four walls are made of pure black stone, like four black tombstones cut from the deathly silence of the universe.

With the Black Stone Field set to its highest level, he could not sense any trace of the subspace.

Mortarian finally regained his body.

He also regained all the debts owed by this body.

The wings on his back had long since turned to ash, and the remaining bone roots were still embedded near his shoulder blades, scraping his spine like a dull knife with every breath.

After the rotting flesh propped up by Nurgle's magic collapsed, large patches of dry, pale skin were left behind. The blood vessels beneath the skin bulged like dead black worms, filled with toxins and necrotic fluid that had accumulated for thousands of years.

His lungs were also in pain.

The rotting respiratory system, after being demonized, was forced back into its normal physiological state.

Each breath felt like pouring red-hot iron filings into my chest.

Ten thousand years of mutation, expansion, reshaping, and demonization transformed his skeleton into something that shouldn't exist.

Now the Black Stone Force Field is peeling away the layers of those subspace support structures, the bones are bearing the weight again, and all the old cracks are awakening, as if countless nails are pushing out from the bone marrow.

His skin shrank, cracked, and died under the pressure of the black stone, and then each death was truthfully sent back to his nerves.

It hurts! Every organ and every cell in my body is aching! They're screaming in pain!

Ordinary Astartes can ignore pain.

Moreover, the original entity, but the current situation is different.

His pain was rediscovered, incredibly clear, amplified a thousandfold.

Beyond the physical pain, the soul suffers even worse.

Mortarian once thought he hated the Emperor, hated the sorcerer tyrant of Barbaros, and hated all the high and mighty masters who called themselves saviors.

Nurgle gave him a simpler answer: accept decay, accept the cycle, accept the Father, accept that everything will eventually turn to mud.

But even that answer is nowhere to be found in this black stone prison.

He could neither hear his father's whispers nor feel the presence of the Plague Garden.

When the umbilical cord that once connected him to the depths of his soul was severed, what remained was not freedom, but a huge void.

The void was empty, save for his own panting and the endless, deadly pain.

For three months, he has been constantly cursing.

He cursed the Emperor, Lawson, Nurgle, Terra, Guilliman, and all those who were alive and those who were dead!

Despite the most vicious language used, the black stone wall remained unresponsive.

He tried punching the wall, digging his nails into the ground, and banging his forehead against the cold, black stone in the center of the cell.

His fists were shattered, his fingernails were torn, and his forehead was split open.

The Primarch's physical body prevented him from dying easily, while the Blackrock Field prevented him from using Nurgle's blessing to revert to his monster form.

So he could only heal slowly, suffer slowly, and shatter slowly again.

Later, he even stopped cursing.

Because every curse agitates the chest, and every roar tears open new wounds in the already shrunken plague tissue in the throat.

Silence is more terrifying than pain!

Without Nurgle's whispers filling the void, some memories he thought had long since decayed began to surface from the depths of his soul.

He wasn't always a monster.

He used to hate monsters.

He had sworn to kill those who ruled the weak with poisonous fog, fear, and immortality.

Then, he looked down at his hands.

Pale, withered, with scars on his knuckles from the black stone that had worn away the Nurgle runes.

Negro once used numbness to cover up his corruption for ten thousand years.

Now, the numbness is gone.

Mortarian could only kneel consciously in the darkness, feeling inch by inch what he had become.

He himself didn't know how much time had passed.

The door to the dark cell opened for the first time, and footsteps came from the entrance.

Mortarian finally raised his eyes.

He recognized a figure he hadn't seen in a long time.

The Lion King walked in.

Ryan Aljonson, clad in armor with a sword at his waist, had a cold and stern face, like a stone statue that had stepped out of an old era.

Mortarian stared at him for a long time.

The gaze was initially filled with resentment, then it transformed into a kind of almost biting jealousy.

He hated that Ryan could still stand so straight.

Hate Ryan remains like an unblemished sword.

Even after waking up from a slumber of ten thousand years, Hate Lane still carried the noble shadow left behind by the Emperor when he created the Primarch.

After being stripped of the Blessed One, all that remained was a rotten body of flesh that had been forcibly dried out.

Mortarian coughed, and black blood gushed from his throat.

He chuckled softly: "Ryan..."

"You've finally arrived. What, what did Lawson send you here for? A brother visiting him in prison? Or to show the maggots in the cage the dignity of the Imperial family?"

"Do you feel particularly pleased to see me like this now?"

The Lion King entered the cell and looked down at Mortarion.

There was no pity or disgust in his eyes, only a profound complexity.

They used to be brothers, but they weren't exactly close.

During the Great Crusade, Mortarion was gloomy, withdrawn, and averse to witchcraft, while Llane was cold, proud, and distrustful of everyone.

Neither of them were particularly likable Primarchs, yet they both once conquered the stars for the same father.

Ten thousand years have passed, and everything has changed.

An empire is not an empire, and brothers are not brothers.

Now one is standing.

One is kneeling.

The Lion King said in a low voice, “You look worse than I expected; you shouldn’t be like this.”

Mortarian grinned, revealing his bloodied teeth.

"You look just as annoying as ever. Do you always feel satisfied when you look in the mirror, Ryan? Are you glad you slept for ten thousand years so you can still play the role of a loyal son when you open your eyes?"

The Lion King was not provoked: "Mortalian, I'm not here to argue with you."

"Then what are you doing here? Bringing me a cup of poison? Or a eulogy for the empire? You can't possibly be faking tears, can you?"

The Lion King shook his head: "Neither. I'm here to give you a choice."

Mortarian's laughter grew louder.

His laughter shook his chest, reopening his wound and causing more black blood to spurt from his mouth.

He coughed and laughed at the same time, until the laughter almost turned into panting.

"Old Lion, you're Lawson's lobbyist? Now you've learned to be someone else's lackey!"

His gaze was like a poisonous nail fixed on the lion king's face.

"How familiar! Every tyrant likes to use this word. The wizard lord of Barbaross said it, the emperor said it, Nurgle said it, and now it's your turn? You who sit on high places always like to polish your collars and tell those who kneel on the ground: Look, this is the choice."

The Lion King's fingers pressed lightly on the sword hilt, his expression complex.

“Lossen didn’t kill you because you still have value, and because Father once said that you might still be saved, Mortalian. I don’t like that statement, but I won’t deny it.”

Mortarian's face contorted little by little.

"Don't say that word in front of me, Ryan. You use it so easily, like a hound that's been petted on the head. Father, Emperor, Sovereign, Lord of Mankind, the sacred corpse on the Golden Throne... How many titles have you changed? Aren't you all the same? A bastard sitting on a high place, making all his sons bleed for his dream, and when the dream shatters, making his sons clean up the mess for ten thousand years."

The Lion King's eyes turned cold.