Chapter 349: Fulgrim Returns, With Painted Lips and Powdered Face
Fulgrim was well prepared.
When dealing with this beloved of Arthur, he poured more energy than ever before.
He even found time to retrieve the Pride of the Emperor, a Gloriana-class battleship abandoned for who knows how long in the revelry of some daemon horde.
He even did a lot of 'superfluous' things besides enjoying himself.
With the help of a Chaos Sorcerer's prophecy, he found a thought projection device left over from the Dark Age of Technology and personally tested its intensity with the Emperor's Children.
Then he went to the Chaos realm and personally 'borrowed' the god-slaying sword Drach'nyen, capable of harming any human, even the rotting corpse on the Golden Throne, from his nephew Abaddon, who was recovering from the failed raid on Craftworld Ulthwé.
The Warmaster was not in good shape at the time.
Because of the Primarchs' return and his severe injuries, his Black Legion was also in chaos, with many warbands leaving and many Chaos Lords challenging his position.
This Chaos Warmaster refused the deals of the Four Gods, believing it would make him a complete slave to Chaos.
Fulgrim didn't understand, but he complied.
He found Abaddon and Fabius Bile quite amusing. Clearly fallen beyond recognition, mouthing the Imperial Truth while actually creating daemon engines, yet insisting on maintaining their facade.
He looked forward to the day when these two got exactly what they asked for.
Anyway, for this operation, Fulgrim really prepared seriously. He even went to Commorragh to prepare a resurrection contingency that preserved his consciousness, and deliberately blocked his senses to re-practice his long-neglected swordsmanship.
He even led the temporarily assembled Emperor's Children to rot and enjoy themselves together, almost making everyone involved in this war, even the Chaos Gods, ignore them.
—Well, this one didn't need pretending.
So, being serious was a rare thing for the Phoenix Lord.
As someone who fished for three days and dried nets for two, and because his KPI was over-fulfilled ten thousand years ago, this Daemon Primarch lived a free and easy life compared to his brothers who dealt with their tasks reluctantly and with sour faces.
So he rarely focused his energy on one thing for a long time, and his Chaos master never constrained him much.
But everyone knew how terrifying this Daemon Primarch, who had personally killed two Primarchs, lured the Iron Lord to near death with wisdom, abandoned all morality and conscience, and completely indulged himself, could be when he got serious.
Slash!
The blade tore through the air and hit him, scraping his vermilion lips.
Bang!
Armor slammed into him, making him stagger back, foundation dripping down with sweat.
Squelch!
With the sound of a sharp blade cutting through flesh, blood gushed from the wound, flowing down the armor covered in slash marks, even soaking his platinum-blonde hair.
Fulgrim circled Arthur like a dancer, the daemon sword flowing and flipping between his four arms, enduring the pain on his body, then gripping the hilt with both hands and slashing down at Arthur face-on.
Arthur raised his shield to block.
Fulgrim quickly switched arms, clamping the shield with two hands, while his free arms attacked from another direction.
Clang!
Arthur loosened his grip, took a step back, letting the opponent push aside the shield that lost power support, then steadily grabbed the blade of Drach'nyen amidst Fulgrim's expression of seeing a ghost.
Gripping the blade tightly with his right hand, he swung a sword diagonally, deeply slicing open Fulgrim's abdomen covered in slippery scales.
Fulgrim stumbled back.
As the Phoenix Lord retreated, his mind suffered severe trauma again. Those Emperor's Children fighting on the plain bastions, already on the verge of collapse, were even more chaotic.
Titus, mixing in the battlefield, shuddered.
Compared to those warriors dedicated to administration and Primarch protection, Titus preferred to prove his value in the fires of war.
He was a contemporary Space Marine, claiming not to have undergone the rigorous tempering of the Great Crusade, but he was by no means weak-willed.
He couldn't understand why these legendary warriors had become so shrinking, clearly Ancient Rylanor and others were so tenacious, those members of the Shattered Legions were all heroes.
He turned his head and saw the Auxilia soldiers deployed to the top platform of the wall chasing a Flawless Host warband into rout. Those people threw down their weapons and scrambled to escape to the rear stairs and transport ramps.
Some fell to the ground, crying uncontrollably.
Is it scary?
Yes, very scary.
The blade was silent, stirring the surrounding atmosphere, just like a laser sweeping across, directly blasting a rift in the ground.
Fulgrim rolled away in embarrassment under the excited gaze of a group of Slaaneshi daemons, but then his tail was burned through, and he was caught by Arthur while staggering.
Clang!
Blades clashed. This time, Fulgrim finally left a wound on that face he dreamed of.
BOOM!
Shield bash, knocking down the tall purple phoenix. Iron boots stepped on the back of his head, powerful impact grinding Fulgrim's face into the mud.
"Hehe, my brother, what exactly are you?"
Spitting out blood, tasting the mixture of smoke and mud, his swollen body twitching in pain, making Fulgrim regret that he should have removed more accessories.
The outcome was decided.
The blade pierced through the skull.
At the same time, he looked up at the blade in his hand that had once made the Emperor bleed, meeting the flickering eyes, suspecting Abaddon gave him a fake sword.
Drach'nyen was also lost in thought, confused about how the Emperor's scam technology had iterated again while it had been a sword rotting for ten thousand years.
As for the thought projection device Fulgrim used before to play the Emperor reenacting the Unification Wars of Terra?
Used before the battle, but the opponent didn't buy it.
Arthur's threshold for satisfaction was too low, making it difficult for Fulgrim to tempt him into mental corruption. Secondly, Fulgrim completely failed to understand what kind of world the other party lived in; illusions were quickly seen through.
Secondly, Arthur was really unlike the Lion or Perturabo, saying this and that were unimportant but thinking 'I love father, father loves me' inside.
Nor was he like the Angel Sanguinius, perfect on the surface but gloomy and sensitive inside.
This one felt very straightforward in everything. If you obeyed, he would be happy; if you didn't, he didn't care. His whole purpose wasn't to prove anything to his father or anyone, but simply doing the thing itself.
Fulgrim really couldn't understand this one's needs, feeling he was untouched by greed, anger, or obsession. Mind reading didn't work because the soul couldn't be found at all.
You can't imagine a non-existent world.
Then the device was blown up by Rylanor leading the Dark Angels shortly after activation, so interference was impossible.
This reminded Fulgrim of his past self.
At that time, he would also lower himself to communicate with his sons, trying to understand them even if he didn't like some of them. He enjoyed the process and constantly pushed the Legion towards the goal of perfection, successfully making the Emperor's Children truly a model among Space Marines.
At that time, they were the only Astartes who could wear the Imperial Aquila.
Perfection is not a final state, but a process of striving for it.
How beautiful, self-disciplined, not indulgent, suppressing one's own emotions, accommodating everyone.
Ah~ My past.
Fulgrim's body began to twitch, recalling past glories, the satisfaction he hadn't experienced for ten thousand years.
This is Slaanesh.
The Phoenix Lord once spat on depravity, but once tasted, there was no going back.
It was the ecstasy when you first wrote a proud poem; the magma flowing in your veins when you stood above ten thousand people listening to cheers; the long sigh of relief when you exhausted your efforts to complete a perfect work.
It was all your peak moments, purified, refined, concentrated into a single instant, skipping the process.
In that instant, you are a god.
But only for an instant.
When the mirror shattered, the person woke up.
At that time, the heart felt empty as if hollowed out. The ultimate completeness just now, like a branding iron, burned a mark on your soul.
You knew such a taste existed, then looking at reality again, you found that your past efforts had lost meaning. You could never make reality reach the peak of that instant again.
All other tastes in this world turned to sand.
Savoring the peak taste just tasted, magnifying, lengthening, replaying repeatedly in memory. Each echo was clearer than the last, deepening the emptiness of the moment.
So, after tasting that feeling, even a Primarch is forever hungry.
Having eaten clouds in the sky, mud on the ground can no longer be swallowed.
Having experienced oneself once, one can no longer tolerate this imperfect self.
Everything in reality lost meaning in an instant. No energy to pay attention to sons, to numb oneself with the process of pursuing perfection.
I am at this endless banquet, chasing the next more perfect "flower in the mirror," expecting the next time to surpass the peak of the past.
Depraved?
Of course depraved.
But don't question me first. Ask anyone at the banquet, is anyone willing to stop?
No one is willing to stop.
Because it's impossible to stop.
"Yes, that's right. Never stop, never change, never step onto that path, Arthur."
Fulgrim tried to squeeze out a smile on his scattered face, his words contradictory.
"Arthur, I will chase you until one of us is completely shattered."
Arthur remained silent, not understanding what this disgusting pervert wanted to express, raising his blade to mince this body into paste.
He only knew this war was about to end.
He didn't choose to pick up Drach'nyen fallen in the ashes; after all, there was a precedent right in front of him suffering for picking up random weapons.
And Fulgrim had completely entered the state, grinning and laughing loudly.
Hoo!
Khorne, whose face wrapped in iron armor showed no expression, breathed out hot air.
He found His target before this unsatisfactory campaign ended.
He grabbed a sword at the edge of the throne.
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