Warhammer Cultivation: Cultivating the Tao Te Ching in the 40K Universe

This shriek, like a command, instantly shattered the fragile silence within the "Phoenix Nest"!

"Fire! Fire! Purify that monster!"

Someone, it's unclear, was the first to break free from that collective mental paralysis, letting out a hysterical roar. Immediately afterward, dozens of elite soldiers from the Glory Guard, seated in the front row, instinctively raised their explosive rifles!

However, before they could pull the trigger, a more authoritative and colder voice instantly overwhelmed all the chaos.

"--stop!"

Inside the Primarch's private box, the Phoenix Lord, Forgrim, slowly rose from his magnificent couch.

He didn't even look down at the monster below, the one who had once been his proudest "son," crawling towards him. His gaze was fixed intently on the chief apothecary beside him.

“Fabius…” His voice was hoarse and low, like two pieces of rusty metal rubbing against each other, each syllable filled with a chill that could freeze a star, “This… is the future you promised me?”

Fabius Bayer, the fanatical believer in science, had by now recovered from his initial astonishment.

His eyes, bloodshot with excitement, burned with a light that bordered on religious fanaticism, the light of a "martyr"!

Far from feeling fear, he was completely captivated by this "new species" full of unknowns and possibilities!

"Yes! My Lord! Yes!"

He opened his arms as if to embrace the "miracle" he had created with his own hands, his voice trembling violently with excessive excitement, "Did you see that? He broke through! He really broke through the shackles called 'flesh and blood' set up by the emperor!"

Although... although the form was somewhat unexpected, this is true 'evolution'! It is the greatest 'sublimation' that life spontaneously undertakes in order to adapt to a higher power!

Data… I need more data! Give me time, and I guarantee I can remove all the unnecessary 'mutations,' bringing you, and the entire legion, the real…”

Forgrim interrupted him. The two words were soft, yet heavy. So heavy they seemed capable of crushing the entire "Phoenix Nest" into dust.

He turned around and looked directly at the monster below, which was still crawling toward him and emitting groans filled with "love" and "pain".

He slowly raised his hand.

The next moment, a magnificent golden teleportation beam, adorned with phoenix totems, flashed past, and a power sword with an elegant design and faint golden flames burning on its blade appeared in his hand.

That was his sword—"Blade of Fire".

Chapter 83 Yin Yang Fish

The "Blade of Fire" was held in the Primarch's hand.

Then, he moved.

Without warning, without a word.

His tall figure, dressed in a magnificent purple robe, was like a phoenix with broken wings falling from a great height, carrying an aura of determination, sorrow, and self-destruction as he leaped off the platform tens of meters high in the Primal Body's private room!

"boom--!!!"

With a loud crash, his demigod-like body slammed heavily onto the pristine, mirror-like marble floor!

The solid crystal ground cracked instantly from the point of his landing, with spiderweb-like cracks spreading wildly in all directions!

The monster seemed to sense the "delicious" aroma emanating from its "father," a mixture of anger, fear, and self-doubt.

It let out a sharper, more joyful screech, and with its two enormous, insect-like limbs that had just grown from its back, it plunged them into the ground, dragging the still-growing mass of flesh and blood, and charged toward Forgrim at an even faster speed!

“Father! Come! Embrace me! Embrace our shared… ‘perfection’!”

Fugrim did not answer.

He simply raised the "Blade of Fire" in his hand slowly.

His eyes were tightly closed on his face, which was as handsome as a god's.

"No...My Lord! No!"

Up in the box, Fabius let out a scream filled with horror and reluctance! He tried to stop him, but it was too late!

A golden sword light, filled with the mournful cry of a phoenix, pierced through the eternal night like the first ray of dawn, instantly striking down!

There was no blocking, no dodging.

The monster's head was cleanly and decisively split in two by this sword strike.

Purple, foul-smelling liquid, along with biological tissue burning with ominous flames, sprayed out instantly, splattering all over Fogrim's magnificent purple robes.

The massive, still-writhing body suddenly stiffened. Then, as if all its life force had been drained, it collapsed with a thud, turning into a bubbling, nauseating pool of...rotten flesh.

The head rolled to the side of the Sword of Ral, a fleeting, alluring purple hue.

The entire "Phoenix Nest" fell into a deathly silence once again.

Forgrim, the Lord of the Phoenix, stood silently in the center of that filthy pool. The tip of his "Blade of Fire" dripped with purple, inhuman blood.

His tall figure, under the simulated, eternal violet twilight of the dome, appeared so lonely, so... broken.

He, with his own hands, killed the most perfect "work".

"Why...why is this happening..."

He muttered to himself, his violet eyes filled with the purest confusion and pain.

Primarchs are far more powerful than mortals. Their thought speed is like the difference between a starship and a running car, so the pain of thought... comes faster and more intensely.

Just then, a calm, emotionless voice came from behind him.

"Because the ultimate goal is never 'perfection'."

Hector Kane, having emerged from the shadows, now stands silently on this stage filled with betrayal and destruction.

Fugrim slowly turned around. His eyes were filled with complex emotions that could not be described.

"It's you. You knew all along, didn't you?" came his voice.

“I don’t know the ‘outcome,’ my Primarch,” Hector replied calmly. “I only… saw the ‘cause.’”

“The cause…” Fugrim chewed on the word, a bitter smile appearing on his face, “Yes… the cause was me… my ridiculous, never-satisfied ‘perfection’…”

"No! My Lord! You are not wrong!"

A voice filled with anger and paranoia rang out from above the Primarch's private room!

Fabius Bayer was leaning over the railing of the box, his bloodshot eyes, filled with fanaticism, fixed on the pool of "samples" below that was gradually losing its vitality. His voice was shrill with excitement!

"The problem isn't with us! It's with the universe! It's the 'morality' of mortals that has imposed a shackle called 'limits' on us, the higher beings!"

Lucius, he didn't fail! He succeeded! He just... went too far, too fast! Give me time, give me more data, and I guarantee it..."

"--Shut up!!!"

Fugrim abruptly raised his head and let out a roar filled with boundless rage and self-loathing! That roar was no longer elegant, no longer harmonious, but filled with the most primal, beastly ferocity!

A massive, purple-gold psionic storm erupted from his center!

The entire "Phoenix Nest" trembled violently under the impact of this force!

"You!" He stretched out his hand, stained with purple blood, pointing it directly at Fabius. His violet eyes burned with a fury powerful enough to incinerate even the soul. "You monster... who uses the name of 'evolution' to commit 'blasphemy'! You have defiled the word 'perfection' with your science filled with lies!"

You have turned my champion, my son, into a pool of filth... less than the lowest worm!

"I command you!" His voice was like a final judgment, "Immediately, use the Legion's most powerful stasis field to permanently seal that damned, cursed demonic sword! From this day forward, I forbid you from conducting any... any experiments related to 'evolution'!"

Get out of my sight! Get out before I order you and your filthy laboratories to be cleansed!!!

Fabius was forced to retreat by this unprecedented, Primarch-derived rage. A hint of...fear appeared on his face, which was contorted with fanaticism.

But he neither begged for mercy nor offered any explanation.

He simply took one last deep look at the gradually cooling "sacred specimen" below with his eyes filled with fascination and regret, and then slowly straightened up.

“You will understand, my lord.” His voice regained its scientist’s cold calm. “One day, you will understand. True ‘perfection’ never needs… ‘beauty’.”

Having said that, he turned around and walked into the shadows of the private room without looking back. But in the instant before he disappeared, he spoke into his private communication channel in a cold voice that only he could hear, issuing orders to the laboratory.

"The beautiful body of the 'champion' is contained within us, our 'sacred specimen'."

Hector knew that an irreparable and profound rift had been completely torn apart between the Lord of the Phoenix and his most brilliant "creator".

Hector never expected that the future renowned Lucius would die like this. He had a vague feeling that something was wrong, but the current situation did not allow him to go forward and examine the... 'corpse'?

As soon as Fabius disappeared, the violent aura emanating from Fogrem vanished instantly, as if all its fuel had been drained.

He looked at his hands, those hands that had once been capable of creating the most perfect works of art, those hands belonging to a demigod, but now they were covered with his son's ugly bodily fluids.

A tremendous wave of self-doubt and self-denial, enough to completely crush his soul, overwhelmed him.

He, the Phoenix Lord who regarded "perfection" as his lifelong belief, at this moment, personally shattered his own belief.

Hector watched all of this in silence.

He knew he had accomplished half of his mission. He had successfully stopped Forgrim from taking the most fatal step on the path to Slaanesh's abyss.

It's not enough to stop someone from jumping off a building; we also need to give them a new path to continue.

He knew that the inertia of fate was so powerful. He had severed one path to destruction, but perhaps, unintentionally, he had paved another... entirely new path to a different tragedy for this pitiful original.

Because he saw that the brilliant, purple-gold aura on Forgrim's body, although no longer as intense as before, had dimmed.

That flame belonging to artists, full of "creativity" and "passion," is extinguishing at a visible speed. In its place is a more dangerous, black hole-like "nihilism," born from the collapse of faith.

A complete denial and fear of everything that is "enhanced," everything that is "changed," and even everything that is "beautiful" itself.

"Has the correction gone too far...?"

Hector sighed softly to himself.

He slowly walked forward to the center of the chaotic stage, a stage filled with the atmosphere of death and betrayal.

He didn't offer any words of comfort.

He nodded slightly to one of the guards behind him. The guard took out a long, rectangular wooden box made of the simplest, unadorned sandalwood from his bag and respectfully presented it to him.

Hector took the wooden box, gently placed it in front of Forgrim, and then slowly opened it.

Inside the box was neither a divine weapon nor any rare treasure. It was simply a... painting.

A pair of yin-yang fish, which Hector personally drew over these three days, pouring all his heart, all his energy, and all his understanding of "harmony" into it.

Chapter 84 Art That Died in the Art Gallery

The scroll was made of special silk from Prospero that could resonate with psychic energy.

The ink in the painting is not an ordinary substance, but rather a mixture of Hector's own essence and the sap from the ancient tree of "Wenxinzhai," which he carefully ground.

The moment the scroll was unfurled, an indescribable Daoist aura, filled with "harmony" and "balance," emanated from it, like the gentlest, invisible spring, instantly washing away the nauseating stench and despair of this blood-soaked land.

It's not simply black and white.

Yin and Yang are compatible, yet they are both separate and exist in each other, and they blend and interact with each other.

Two black and white "fish" connected end to end seem to be chasing and playing eternally and harmoniously on that small scroll, forming a perfect and ever-renewing circle.

In the white fish's eye, there was a dot of black.

In the blackfish's eye, there was a dot of white.

“My Primarch,” Hector’s voice was calm, yet carried a strange power that could soothe the soul, “Your pursuit of ‘perfection’ is not wrong. Your hatred of ‘ugliness’ is not wrong either.”

"The mistake is that you are trying to separate them completely."

He pointed to the Tai Chi diagram, which was full of infinite mysteries.

“My family’s classic text says: ‘The interplay of yin and yang is called the Dao.’”

"Light and darkness, beauty and ugliness, creation and destruction, order and chaos... they have never been opposites."

They are interdependent and mutually transformative, together constituting the most fundamental and eternal 'harmony' of this universe.

“Look,” he said, pointing to the black spot in the white fish’s eye, “the brightest light always contains a seed of darkness. And vice versa.”

"True 'perfection,' my original form, is not that pure 'white' that cannot tolerate a single speck of dust."

Rather, it allows these two energies, black and white, to circulate endlessly within your heart, ultimately achieving a dynamic and eternal… 'balance'.

Fugrim's empty gaze slowly fell upon the mysterious painting filled with exotic wisdom.

But he was deeply attracted.

......

The lament of "Phoenix Nest" was like a silent, never-ending psionic plague, quickly infecting every corner of the "Proud Phoenix".