Chapter 351: What Do You Think Life Is?
Eidolon saw his own death.
His soul was being watched by something, waiting to annihilate it the moment it left his body.
This was the true terror of death.
To vanish forever, along with his very existence, like metal in a furnace, losing everything that made him who he was.
"You are just a dream!" Eidolon said in horror.
"No," Ancient Rylanor said, looking at the Lord Commander he had once valued so highly.
He actually somewhat envied Akurduana.
A character like Akurduana was most fortunate to die before the Heresy. As a First Captain, he endured the hardest times with the Legion, watching his gene-father return and the Legion reborn from the ashes like a phoenix.
The Primarch was still that Primarch, the Legion still that Legion. Glory remained, the banner unfallen.
But Rylanor's fate was miserable.
He witnessed the fall of the Legion, suffered in torment for ten millennia, and finally waited for a Primarch so fallen he was unrecognizable.
"This is just a nightmare!"
Driven by pain, Eidolon was subconsciously escaping reality.
"Perhaps."
"You should be dead! You should have died on Isstvan!"
"I decided to live," Rylanor said, exerting more force with his hand. "Only people like you and your kind die."
"Spare me, please, Ancient of Rites."
The fear of death and physical pain made Eidolon almost cry, forcing him to face reality. The current Lord Commander of the Emperor's Children was nothing but a chaotic shell.
His strength and muscular physique were all given by the warp, while his will had long collapsed.
Rylanor looked at this monster, who had grown under his watch and then degenerated into the monster he was now, twitching in pain, begging for mercy, escaping reality.
He was not a person, nor a Space Marine anymore.
He wasn't even a "he," but an "it."
Clang!
Rylanor released his grip, dodging Eidolon's venomous spit. The implantation of Laer gene-sequences had caused severe mutations in the Emperor's Children's organs under long-term Chaos erosion.
But it was useless.
The current Rylanor was whole and powerful.
He watched the foul-smelling venom fly past him, landing on a wall lamp filled with corpse fat.
"No, let me go."
Seeing the sneak attack fail, the Lord Commander fell to the ground and began begging again.
He was just a mass of muscle and flesh almost devoid of thought.
Anger rose in Rylanor's heart. He couldn't understand why the Legion had fallen to this state.
He raised his power sword to strike Eidolon.
Eidolon panicked and fought back.
However, his body was broken, his mind withered. Whatever consciousness remained in Eidolon's shell was too dull.
One strike!
Knocking the weapon away.
One strike!
Slitting the throat sac.
Facing the court swordsmanship he was most familiar with, Eidolon had no power to resist.
His soul was too broken to guide the strength in his body. He had abandoned the skills honed over years, tiredly knowing only to strike one blow after another.
Steps loose, muscles weak.
This couldn't kill any Emperor's Child.
Rylanor's actions made Eidolon feel ashamed; Rylanor's vitality made Eidolon feel inferior.
"No, you damned bastards, what right do you have to despise me? Haven't you also dedicated your souls to a new master?" Eidolon screamed.
Squelch!
A moment of distraction, and the power sword pierced Eidolon's chest, exiting between his shoulder blades.
Eidolon collapsed limply to the ground, twitching like a mortal in a severe car accident.
Pain—
The Ancient, the paragon of the Emperor's Children, grabbed his head and lifted him up.
Eidolon screamed and waved his arms. An adamantium-encased hand clamped onto his skull. As the hand began to exert force, blood and bone fragments were flung into the air with his struggles.
His limbs flailed wildly. He felt his skull beginning to distort, the occipital bone flattening against a brainstem of questionable functionality. The pressure increased, cerebrospinal fluid spurting out, about to crush his skull.
I won't die like this.
He wanted to scream as death approached, but his deformed skull couldn't even open its mouth.
So he groped for the short dagger at his waist, struggling to stab in the direction his experience told him.
Clang!
His hand smashed against ceramite armor, bending inward and breaking. The dagger fell to the ground because he couldn't hold it.
"..."
Rylanor, who had prepared his defense early, was silent.
Eidolon heard the angry crackle of servo motors, only feeling his shattered skull buzzing.
Only one last voice remained in his mind.
"You will be a start."
Rylanor said. Around him, the warriors of the Shattered Legions showed expressions of hatred.
They liked the name Shattered Legions.
They were broken, they were betrayed, and they would remember these debts.
Splash!
Rylanor threw down the Phoenix Lord's broken body.
The lampstand burning with purple flames flickered nearby. The Prince of Pleasure couldn't help but feel regret for the death of a believer.
Rylanor looked at the distant wasteland, at the Lord of Knights surrounded by Dark Angels.
The victory of this war would be the beginning, and it would no longer be a light victory.
Primarchs, traitors, daemons...
Those guys who were still unscrupulous under the protection of the Evil Gods should have paid the price long ago.
"You won."
Vision filled with black smoke, seeing only a bloody hand choking his neck and a pair of bright crimson eyes.
"You won, Romulus. This game with you was interesting, full of surprises."
Perturabo muttered to himself, staring fixedly at the Regent before him, wanting to carve the opponent's face into his mind.
He lost this contest.
He underestimated these brothers' ability to mobilize Imperial forces, choosing conservatism in the early stages of the war when he should have launched a full-scale offensive.
He overestimated the productivity in his hands. Under the increasing pressure from the Imperium and the Space Wolves' raids on traitor rear production worlds, he had to forcibly execute radical tactics.
He misjudged Romulus's combat ability, rashly carrying out an aggressive decapitation tactic, leading to a total collapse.
But he hadn't lost completely.
He had learned the lessons from this war, and he would surely apply them to the next one.
A trace of arrogance flashed in Perturabo's eyes.
He was prepared; he still had a chance.
Truly high and mighty.
Romulus sneered.
Hehe, they say he is arrogant, but he thinks these Primarchs are the truly arrogant ones.
Could it be that a war that buried countless lives at the wave of a hand, displacing millions, engulfing nearly half a sector, was just a game to Perturabo?
Oh, indeed it was.
But where was the fun? Where was the surprise?
Right now, when the outcome of the war was almost certain, when the Black Templars and the Dawnbreaker Fleet inflicted heavy damage on the Chaos main fleet, when his partners performed steadily, stabilizing the ground war, when the raiding fleet led by the Space Wolves inflicted severe damage on the few productive forces in the Chaos rear, when victories were reported from various sectors—
Countless lives had perished.
As the pillar of the entire campaign, the Black Templars had been committed to the frontal battlefield. Of the nearly ten thousand who gathered, only half remained. Of the eighteen Astartes Praeses Chapters, three had only scout companies left, and the homeworlds of four Chapters were destroyed.
Although the Imperial Navy fleet of the Cadian Gate defense circle still retained a considerable number of capital ships, in such a high-intensity war, the losses of escort fleets were countless.
Nearly ten thousand civilized worlds were affected, hundreds of which would be difficult to recover within the next century.
Astra Militarum, laborers, ordinary citizens... every battle, every migration, every allocation of supplies represented countless deaths.
The Regent lowered his head, bloodstained hair hanging down, his whole person gloomy like a beast suppressing full rage.
Is this a game?
Just a game launched by a traitor Primarch out of wishful thinking to prove he is stronger than his 'brothers'?
What do you think life is?
"Ramesses."
He began to call his partner. The soul data collected during the battle with Perturabo and the warp composition were uploaded simultaneously.
This information data would be combined with the spell Ramesses had prepared early on. Relying on the fragments of the Maugetar Stone, they would extract the authority most deeply connected to Perturabo through his current vessel, extracting the essence that constituted the individual Perturabo after his daemonic ascension.
Just like Fulgrim did to him back then.
Perturabo was proud of his thorough preparation, while the Dawnbreakers were confident in their all-out effort.
They would make these guys who still didn't understand reality pay the price.
Next time.
Romulus lifted Perturabo, glaring at that face, watching the expression change from arrogance to confusion, then impotent fury.
You think there will be a next time?
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