Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

He took the vast world into his eyes.

No snowflakes fell from the extremely high domes. The bright wind brought eternal daylight from the dying stars. A planet wrapped in a shell of ice was frozen in the paleness. When the heavy iron boots stepped on the ground, Perturabo felt the cold.

The original body's body functions maintained the normal temperature of his body, while the modified Terminator suit stabilized the temperature except for the exposed head. If someone uses thermal imaging to observe a group of people walking on the surface of Invite, then Perturabo and Rogal Dorn should be the two most conspicuous large creatures in an environment of minus 30 degrees Celsius.

His coldness was not an alarm from the body's sensory center, but came from a delicate emotional feeling.

The ice under Perturabo's feet was shattering and groaning under his iron boots. From this omen of damage, he suddenly felt that he was stepping on a dying heart, which could barely supply the flow of blood cells.

Leman Russ described Fenris as consisting of seas of ice and volcanoes. From the joyous songs and strong drinks in his mouth, he could almost imagine the vivid life of a pack of wolves gathering in the hall to bite each other and celebrate. From the Wolf King, Perturabo saw the Fenris people huddled in tents and spent the long winter warmed by mead.

But Invite is different.

Life here was born deep in the ice. Cold snow water flowed in the blood vessels of human beings before they were born. What nourished them was the long cold days given to them by an old dying star, or maybe it was just pure darkness. It makes it impossible to distinguish the difference between before birth and after death. In Invite, the only real things alive are ice, snow and rocks, which appear, change, expand, split, collapse and disappear with the movement of the earth's crust.

The Lord of Iron settled here, and his extremely sensitive mind immediately connected with the life force of this planet that was about to be exhausted or had already been exhausted. Like a piece of metal with extraordinary thermal conductivity, Invite quickly The coldness was transmitted to his mind, cooling or even freezing the part that maintained the heat in his mind.

So Perturabo felt the cold.

On such a planet, it seemed natural that a Rogal Dorn would be born. The Primarch is the epitome of their home planet. What can burn in the ice and snow is a ball of fire, but what can last forever is rock: sharp-edged, cold and firm.

He couldn't help but feel confused about Dorne.

Even though Olympia is technologically backward, its material resources and manpower are sufficient. From the Terra expedition to this point, Perturabo has already discovered how rare the natural and human conditions Olympia possesses are.

But Rogal Dorn's Inwit is nothing but ice and snow. But before Perturabo left Lokos, Dorne had already accepted the surrender of the first other planet.

This is an incredible achievement.

Perturabo was distracted and paid attention to the progress of the team, and realized that while he was distracted, he accidentally took too big a step, so that he walked a few steps in front of the mortal motorcade and the accompanying Iron Warriors. He shortened the distance between his steps and continued walking side by side with Rogal Dorn.

Morse floated lightly outside the queue of Iron Warriors and mortals. Although he seemed to be walking, his footsteps floated on the ice, leaving no traces.

After taking a look at Morse, Perturabo felt even colder. This time it was because this man was wearing a paper-thin unconventional black robe in the snow and braving the cold wind. It was too much.

"How long until we arrive?" Perturabo asked, taking in a mouthful of cold air.

"Ten minutes," Rogal Dorn replied.

"I observed no structures above ground suitable for human habitation."

"Most of the settlements in Invite are located below the horizon, and the same is true for the settlements we are heading to." Roger Dorn said, "This is conducive to using natural or artificial high walls of ice to block blizzards. Proceed in the current direction. Speed, you will see the lights of the energy tower in three minutes."

"Actually, there are already people under this area." Morse pointed under the ice. "I dug a tunnel. Is this the power of engineering?"

"Yes," said Dawn.

After walking through a section of ice, a beam of orange-yellow light that was highly distinguishable in daylight appeared from the center of a pit that looked like a smooth crack due to viewing angle restrictions. Several wisps of very light smoke floated out from the pit. Represents the burning phenomenon required for survival.

Soon, they came to the edge of the pothole. This huge hole, which was naturally formed and later artificially repaired, has a diameter of several thousand meters and a depth of about a hundred meters. The vertical ice surface around the hole is still being expanded and excavated.

There are several passages of inestimable length in the ice at the bottom, which are obviously sub-ice tunnels built by the Inwit people. They used this to achieve communication between settlements.

Surrounding the towering steel energy tower in the center of the pit, various buildings spread out in concentric circles from the inside to the outside, absorbing the heat from the core tower.

The roofs of most buildings are pure white that blends with the smoke due to the perennial snow accumulation, and a few walls are painted with bright yellow paint. Through some routine identification, Perturabo identified habitable houses and shacks, medical clinics and workstations, and central heating hubs scattered far away from the core energy towers.

Some factories are not easy to tell at a glance, and may be related to steel smelting or wood cutting. He even saw several round sheds that were obviously entertainment venues. It was unclear whether the sheds were used for theater performances or for other purposes. This slightly changed Perturabo's view of Invite.

Some abandoned outposts can be seen in the middle of the building complex, witnessing the nature of the inhabited people to expand their living territories. Starting from the concentric circles on one level, the new building plan on the periphery adds additional rationality to the location allocation and the building itself. Donne silently left traces of his rule here.

A group of people boarded the elevator on the edge of the pit in batches. Perturabo saw the brackets with traces of re-welding after the elevator ceiling was raised, so he imagined Dorn deigning to squat in the elevator when he first found this settlement. Be careful not to break the ceiling.

The comical sight brought joy to his heart and softened the cold heart he had felt all the way to this point.

Morse leaned against the guardrail and seemed to be listening. Suddenly, he patted Perturabo's gauntlet.

"Look up," he reminded, "the clock is facing eleven o'clock."

Perturaboy raised his head.

The edge of the eternally calm ice cuts the boundary between the ice and snow pits and the cold sky. And in this pale edge, a small dark gray shadow suddenly rises, with a blazing golden-white fire coming from the tail, and the golden-red afterimage pulls out. Passing the gray and white curtain, the hot smoke pierced the icy clouds several times.

"We are replacing a batch of space stations recently." Dorn said flatly, "The fairings are produced here and shipped to the base for assembly."

"How do you do it?" asked Perturabo, then remembered his Olympia, and at the end of the question got the answer himself.

He devoted a lot of energy to the city construction of Lokos, and used art as an embellishment of daily life, cultivating a group of citizens who grew up in the beautiful city deep in the green mountains and forests and sparkling streams.

Since the Wit people were born in the depths of ice and snow, they have been accustomed to endure and survive at a lower limit. They have no idea how a more comfortable life will unfold, and therefore don't need to.

Therefore, their achievements are far colder than those of the Olympians, and to some extent, higher and more distant.

"Collect raw materials, develop technology, improve theory, assign tasks, build factories, and test many times." Dorn said, "Until success."

Following Dorn's simple answer, the rocket disappeared into the atmosphere, leaving a hot shadow on Perturabo's retina. He seemed to smell the heat in the air.

The elevator dropped to the ground, and heat flowed in the cold wind. The human voice was not loud, and the mechanical unit spoke on their behalf. The hum of the structure spread along the paved rocks to the soles of Perturabo's iron boots, embracing him along with the hot wind.

If he felt the heartbeat of the planet Invite when he stepped on the ice, what resonated with Perturabo at this moment was the heart of the Invites.

This is the planet's second heart, slow-beating, overly cold, with heat lurking deep within its shell.

Because the heartbeat of a Veitian has a different rhythm than that of an Olympian, but it is equally powerful and endless.

Perturabo realized that the Primarch corresponded to this, and he thought no more.

"I'll show you around from the outside, brother." Donn said, brother being a little more important than the other words in his mouth. "This settlement is a good example. Do you have a big picture now?"

"I'm not very satisfied," Perturabo said. "The buildings are disorganized, the design lacks unity, there are redundancies and deficiencies everywhere."

"You are right," replied Donne, for whom criticism was as much an offshoot of advice as praise. "It took generations of Inwit people to build settlements, and once shelter was available from the cold winds, people's willingness to tear down buildings and spend resources on rebuilding quickly diminished."

"This challenges my ability to accept, brother." Perturabo shook his head, "I see a clear possibility for a better life for the residents."

"What do you want to do?" Donne asked, "Where do you want to go?"

"We'll talk about it after reading." Perturabo announced without hesitation, "But first I will start building a large number of temporary shelters on the ice for the residents during the reconstruction. The Iron Warriors will mobilize their forces to complete this work. In addition, , I will report to Terra to gather your legions here quickly, without worrying about time delays, as long as you have the ability to manage your newly acquired legions and let them invest in construction.”

"This is a kindness, Perturabo." Dorn accepted it decisively after a rather simple calculation. It seemed to him that any question could be answered with a yes or no, without any hesitation or pretentiousness. Hesitantly, “We would have a great collaboration.”

"I will make Inwit's heart beat faster," Perturabo whispered, and though it was a murmur of self-promise, Dorn heard it.

"Inwit is a planet..."

"Yes, I know it has no heart, don't ask." Perturabo said without any wavering.

Morse, who was leaning against the fence, pushed away the guardrail that unlocked after landing - this thing was made of wood wrapped in metal, probably to prevent anyone from getting their hands stuck on it. "How long are you going to talk here?"

"The hemisphere we are in has eternal daylight, and there is no urgent matter until all the engineers are ready." Dorn said calmly, "We can chat for a while longer. Do you have any suggestions on the length of time?"

"Dorn is right," said Perturabo. "Are you in a hurry to leave, Morse?"

Morse glanced at Perturabo with an incredulous look, successfully arousing the latter's guilty conscience hidden beneath his appearance.

"Wow," he said, "you've made a friend now?"

"He is not," said Perturabo immediately.

Dorn lagged behind for half a beat, and then fluently uttered a long paragraph: "I'm sorry, I misunderstood you, Perturabo. I thought we were friends now. But according to the normal friendship process, we do have to go through a period of time. Friendship develops when you understand each other.”

This time it was Perturabo who raised his eyebrows and glared at Dorn.

"Do you have a question for me?" Dawn said.

"No problem, but I don't want to chat with you anymore." Perturabo took a breath, "Morse, let's go. The work is urgent."

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