Warhammer: In the Name of Nirvana

[It's like a string of fireworks falling into a pond. 】

This was the first time Morgan had truly witnessed a battleship firing in the void.

Although she had been a member of the Fifteenth Legion Astartes for almost a year, the silver-haired female officer had never experienced a real war. She had never even seen Magnus's flagship: the Radiant Light open fire.

After all, although the Great Crusade sounds dazzling, as if it will set off a raging war in the galaxy and three thousand blood kingdoms every moment, the actual situation is far from that.

Most fleets spend most of their time traveling, exploring and transporting. After all, after experiencing the thousands of years of darkness in the Age of Strife, countless worlds in the galaxy have been reduced to ruins and wilderness. Only the remnants of civilizations from more than ten centuries ago are left, or the dark lairs set up by pirates. It is meaningless for the empire to rule these wastelands. They must seize the time to turn these worlds into empires that can provide blood for the Great Crusade. territory.

In the boundless void, the fleets loyal to the Emperor are increasing every moment. By this time, when the Great Crusade has been going on for more than sixty years, the Empire's expeditionary fleets may already be in the tens of thousands, but only a few of them. Most of them are performing tasks such as colonization, exploration, persuading surrender, transporting supplies, and defending newly established colonies.

Only the most elite armed fleets will sail to completely unknown areas to destroy those alien countries, or to recover those human pocket empires that still maintain their independence, and the conquest of the latter is often not necessary. By force, because as the Emperor of Mankind said:

[While a world was burning in the flames of the Great Crusade, hundreds of human worlds were struggling under the vicious universe and alien claws, waiting for the gospel from the homeland of mankind. 】

For now, this is indeed a wise saying.

Perhaps the Empire of Man is engaged in thousands of battles every minute of every day, but when the perspective is zoomed in to the entire galaxy, these smokes are insignificant. The Great Crusade is more about pioneering, persuading surrender, merging, Alliances, coercion, and submission, and even at certain times, the empire will make compromises that go against its ideas.

Only when facing aliens and those who cross the border, the empire's edge will be merciless, even spending a lot of time and energy to mobilize the angels of death.

After all, the Emperor only has ten thousand Custodes, twenty Legions of Astartes, a dissatisfied Mechanicus, and many auxiliaries that are insufficient due to productivity and transportation reasons. With these forces alone, if every step is If there is war, how can we conquer the entire galaxy in just two hundred years?

——————

"I never thought our shells would fall on the heads of Imperial subjects. It feels like a betrayal."

"I prefer to call it sacrifice, Ahriman, sacrifice, the necessary price."

There was a contempt unique to the Iron Warriors in Frix's voice: contempt for life, contempt for mortals, and contempt for himself.

After all, they consider themselves steel, and in any great military empire, a piece of steel is not worth cherishing too much.

"Of course we can let them go, let them go, let them live, and then what? In a few years, we will have to kill more people and cause more damage because of our momentary weakness. "

"I just think there is no reason for us to kill them, Frix. As the emperor's warriors, we have no right to kill any of the emperor's people from the moment we are born."

"But we have even less power to keep them alive."

"I know, but this is murder."

"No, this is not murder, this is kindness, kindness from the emperor. After all, this galaxy is so absurd, even cold death is a luxury that needs to be specially gifted."

"...I never thought that an Iron Warrior could actually have the talent of a poet?"

"That's because you've never really observed."

"Observe what? Your fortress? Or the trenches you dug?"

"Look, this is the kind of thinking. You will only see the most superficial things. You will only see the bricks and stones of the fortress and the soil of the trenches, but you have never thought about what we actually invested in these things."

"You have never thought about the spatial simplicity and force-relieving structure of the fortress, and you have never observed the mutual success of the distribution of trenches and the surrounding environment. You only see them as they are, and then you bring your inherent thinking into them."

The Iron Warrior's voice was deliberately imitating his genetic father Perturabo. He deliberately fabricated that mixture of coldness, reason, intelligence and passion, but he could never quite resemble it, and in the end he simply became someone A pretentiously preachy voice.

Therefore, when Ahriman turned with a slightly contemptuous look, the fearless Iron Warrior could only turn his head in embarrassment, and then he found that Morgan on the other side was also looking at him.

There was no contempt in Morgan's eyes.

But there is something worse than contempt.

The son of Perturabo simply lowered his head and stopped looking either way. This behavior succeeded in making Ahriman laugh.

Their conversation began again as the Thousand Sons patted the Iron Warrior on the shoulder in a friendly manner.

Everything seemed so harmonious.

So weird.

Morgan thought as she looked at the scene in front of her.

Different from Perturabo's flagship [Iron-Blooded], the [Fortitude Resolve] under their feet, which has the function of receiving guests, is equipped with large floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing the darkness in the void to invade the corridors of the ship, thus creating An incredible sight.

But what Morgan sees now is an absurd scene:

The void is gloomy and pure black. It is an embellishment from nature. It is the sum of the most complex pigments that cannot be distinguished by human vision. It seems to be emitting infinite light, and it seems to be able to turn all shining objects into Devouring everything, in this perfect contradiction, its kingdom fell lightly into the corridor of the ship through the huge portholes.

The cloister is bright and spacious, and is the most essence of human civilization. It is composed of steel, brackets, lighting and the most standard numbers. It is complex and simple, soft and cold. It seems to be It was swallowed up by the void separated by a wall, and seemed to completely block it out. Through the porthole, you could even see the rays composed of the strong light of the lighting lamp, slowly disappearing at the end of the void.

The light of machinery and nature was mixed in front of her eyes. They were distinct, but they were mixed together in the most realistic way, twisting into the most holy, darkest, clearest, and most blurry canvas.

And on this canvas, there are two emperors' angels of death walking, and countless mortals who are about to fall into hell.

On the left are Ahriman and Phrix. They are talking, smiling, and coming out of the thinnest guilt and understanding. Of course, they will not feel guilty about these deaths for too long. After all, they have witnessed too much. There was a lot of death and killing, most of which were done by their own hands with their swords raised.

If every life needs to be mourned, then every one of the Emperor's Death Angels will probably need to be mourned until the end of time.

On the other side, at the end of Morgan's field of vision, was a ship, a civilian ship from the Dawn Star. It was being betrayed, hit, subverted, and killed.

Morgan could feel that the fragments and components of the ship were being shattered and scattered in the gravityless void environment. It was filled with refugees from the Dawn Star, probably tens of thousands of them, and she could feel them. Their cries, their howls, their curses, their disbelief and panic, all of it passed through the boundaries of space and appeared so clearly in her spiritual world.

Too clear.

She saw Ahriman and Phrix laughing and talking, side by side, like real brothers, patting each other's shoulder armor, pistols hanging on the other side.

She heard the cries of mortals, the cries of wives looking for their husbands, the sighs of friends bidding farewell to each other, and the mournful whispers of mothers holding their children tightly in their arms.

She saw the shaking of power armor, it was two Astartes fighting each other, they were discussing each other's strength, debating the merits of steel and psionics.

She heard the explosion of the bullet, heard the sharp bullet piercing the weak temple, and then the silent body fell heavily to the ground, disappearing in the extremely chaotic screams.

She saw them disappearing at the end of the corridor, seeing them saying goodbye to her, their huge boots leaving no trace on the steel floor.

She heard the sound disappear, from crying, to wailing, from explosion, to fragmentation, from collapse, to death silence, and finally everything disappeared into the eternal tranquility.

She looked at it all, she listened to it all: light, dim, neat, chaotic, laughing, crying, praising, cursing...

Everything was finally reduced to one point: a huge steel tomb exploded completely in the void. It didn't make the slightest sound, leaving only a faint flash of light that flickered on the walls and portholes of the corridor, making Aspen The reflection of Tate's departure lingered for a long moment.

finally.

She turned her head.

Those mortals are dead.

——————

"Ms. Morgan, please come to the command room."

【……OK. 】

——————

It is said to be a command room, but in fact, to a certain extent, this is also an exhibition hall of Perturabo's works. The Lord of Steel used the "Fortitude Resolve" as a carrier of some vanity that he was unwilling to reveal easily. In the large and oversized bridge, there are works that in Perturabo's eyes are perfect enough to amaze outsiders.

Morgan's journey was smooth, and she moved forward in the shadows formed by those tall Astartes. She couldn't help but miss her original appearance: in order to better adapt to her mortal identity, she had been suppressing her too-tall appearance. figure.

Finally, she came to the huge iron door. Morgan could see that the automated facility was identifying people on its own, and her profile picture and information were obviously the latest among all those allowed to enter on their own, but she An interesting problem was also discovered: in the column that allowed her access, the name of Magnus, her immediate superior, was not filled in.

But it was Perturabo's own handwriting.

She thought of something, and the door was already open. Morgan narrowed his eyes and adjusted his thoughts.

Behind the gate, naturally...

"What are you doing! Perturabo!"

"As you can see, do the right thing."

"If what you say is right is to bring this thing before me, to please me, and then to destroy it completely... Perturabo, my brother, I hate to say it, but this is an atrocity, cruelty. Atrocity!”

"If it's not cruel enough, then what could possibly make you remember it forever, Magnus?"

"You know what the Emperor said, Magnus, our father knew so much more than we do. He saw further and deeper than we do, if even he thought there were places in the so-called [Warp] He doesn’t even dare to look at it, so we have to accept this.”

"Yes, but! It's not necessary! It's this way!"

"Before, you lamented to me the ignorance of human beings and thought that they had desecrated countless arts. Now, look what you are doing again, Perturabo!"

——————

The room shook, the air trembled, the Primarch roared.

Morgan was blinking.

【……】

I don’t know why, but she seems, probably, maybe...

Not surprised at all.