Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Time was frozen at the moment when the stasis grenade, dark green energy stone and entropy field were connected. The Hrud people's charge was restrained, and almost all of them fell backwards as the energy wave spread.

Then, the energy stone began to tremble violently, and broken crystal blocks continued to collapse from the boulder. The energy index fluctuated rapidly in the helmets of the two warriors, rapidly increasing towards the dangerous level of death, igniting severe pain between the internal organs and bones. .

Zoran gasped violently, staggered forward, and a brief cheerful smile appeared on his face under the helmet. "Battlemaster, the two of us can be considered, ahem, to live up to our father..."

Without saying a word, Dantioch grabbed Zoran's arm armor and pulled him to start stumbling wildly.

"Hey, Battalion Commander—"

"Shut up and breathe!" Dantioch roared, no longer hiding the hoarseness in his voice. He forcefully pulled Zoran and sprinted towards the tunnel leading to the Hrud spaceship port that he had previously favored, trying his best to escape from the chaos caused by the energy stone and the loss of timing.

"But--"

Dantioch cursed loudly, squeezed all the air from three damaged lungs, and shouted: "We swear to live, sergeant!"

The temporary stimulating potion was injected into the sergeant's body through the working module of the armor. This potion was provided by the Eighth Legion. It was modified from the failed Heartbreaker potion at the Olympia Games. Now it has removed most of the side effects and truly reached its activation potential. In other words, it is the function of extracting the potential of Astartes' body in advance.

Zoran tried to regulate his breathing rhythm, feeling the renewed vitality in his tired limbs. He gritted his teeth and followed, and at the same time threw a few stasis grenades to intensify the energy and time in the room behind him, betting that they could escape before the turbulence swallowed everything up.

The tunnel collapsed chasing their footsteps. He couldn't calculate how long or how far the two of them ran. Every time they took a step forward, a few meters away, behind them, there was a vitrified stone that collapsed and solidified into nothingness. It turned into a split road composed of broken stones, frozen in the long and dark darkness, turning into a still picture.

Zoran swallowed the rusty taste in his throat, and globs of liquid still seeped out from his clenched teeth, dripping close to his neck and onto the dark lining inside the armor. A sharp stone hit his shoulder bone from behind. He grabbed a piece of more gravel, glanced at it briefly, confirmed that it was a fragment of the energy stone, and put it in his satchel.

"Here!" shouted Dantioch.

"Damn it!" Zoran cursed, "Damn it!"

He followed the battalion commander and fell into a disconnected hall. He tripped over a thick cable on the ground and was pulled up by Dantioch. Hot blood flowed from Dantioch's hand through the cracks in his gauntlet, covering Zoran's wrist.

Dantioch's guess is correct. This is the flight port of the Hrud people, with the sky directly above them. Anticipating the coming crisis, these Hrud people were also escaping by boat at this time, and the boarding ramp was especially busy.

"Go grab one!"

"Both of us?" Zoran asked in disbelief, and then strangled a nearby Hrud to death, snatched the opponent's weapon, and failed to find the trigger position. He simply used it as an iron rod and swung it as hard as he could. Any enemies it touches are smashed into the ground.

"Fuck, who else could it be?" Dantioch glanced around, picked out a miniature ship whose hatch had just opened, and not many Hrud people had yet boarded it, and climbed on it first.

Zoran followed Dantioch behind and smashed another stasis grenade. The Hrud screamed and were torn apart.

At the critical moment of survival, these cavemen gave up trying to confront the two hell-raising Space Marines who were not afraid of life and death, and rushed towards the remaining ships. Zoran turned around and entered the ship, following the battalion commander into the driver's cab - thanks to this being a fairly standard miniature ship, it had a similar structure to several ships the Iron Warriors had captured.

Zoran quickly cooperated with Dantioch and began to turn on the dozens of complex switches, and nervously checked the factors that determine life and death, such as fuel and door airtightness, until the engine suddenly roared and then entered stable operation. .

"It's yours, Captain," Zoran coughed, "but why is Hrud Port underground?"

"Sit down," Dantioch ordered sternly, "Stop talking!"

Zoran held on to the bulkhead and slowly sat down halfway before falling to the ground.

The sergeant forcibly disconnected the nerve connection, removed part of the armor, took out some active injections from the malfunctioning injection module, and planned to inject himself. After taking out the potion, he found that he could not lift his hand again.

"Don't look back, battalion commander." He said with difficulty.

"What can't you see?" Dantioch cursed, not having time to look away from the dashboard for the time being. He didn't trust the alien ship at all, but now he had no choice.

The view ahead began to rise, following other Hrud ships, and their ships continued to approach the sky.

Dantioch leaned on the instrument panel and took a few breaths, feeling a little relieved. Just as he was about to turn around, the spacecraft suddenly violently bumped and reversed, throwing the battalion commander and the sergeant against the bulkhead on one side.

The scream of time caught up with Hrud Port.

"Perturabo bless you," Zoran whispered hoarsely. A white light suddenly appeared in front of his eyes. The broken reflections were distorted on millions of levels of time and space. The pictures were squeezing and replacing each other as they expanded. He was unable to resist and fell into thinking. The faults were swallowed up in the whirlpool of time and space.

——

A dull throbbing.

First there was some noise, the trembling of fingers, as cold as touching a stone cooled from the embers of a volcano, tingling as if the fingers were not yours.

But who are you?

Then came the sound of wind. The wind surrounds your closed eyes, leaving white scratches like the afterimage of light, but colder and harder, rolling across your sore eyeballs. A fire of pain burned beneath the eyes, inspiring fragments of color. This pain is everywhere, lurking in your throat and leg bones, torturing your fragile consciousness.

After a while, you realize that the wind is your breath. The pain in the fingers comes from the condensation of blood. breathe. This word jumped into your brain. Your lungs squeeze out bit by bit the color of the wind, the color of the airflow, the color of iron, the gray of steel.

That is your identity, your being, your source of life.

You are steel.

Your insides are made of flesh and blood, and are like a hollow broken steel frame, letting the cold air scream and reverberate inside, peeling off iron filings and rust.

You can't open your eyes, and there are double buzzes in your ears. One is high, which is the echo left by the alarm in the ship, and the other is low, which comes from your body, your surging blood vessels, and your simultaneous heartbeat. .

Your heavy body and stubborn skin wake you up, lift you up from the dull sleep, lift your consciousness to the surface of the cold world, listen to the real wind passing through the corridor, from the bellows of the air circulation system inside the ship It flowed out hissingly and returned to the ventilation port, carrying the unstable tar smell of the equipment and the heavy breathing of your battalion commander while disassembling the machinery.

"Are you awake?" The battalion commander noticed your abnormal trembling. He asked hurriedly, almost blurting out, and then fell into suspicious silence, shaking his head at his own illusion.

His disappointment is almost inertial, quick and without pause. It seems that he does not really have confidence in your recovery and is accustomed to his own misunderstandings. He continued to repair the machine in his hand. It was a vague block, iron-colored, looking very worn, and a little weird, as if it should not be a product of human beings.

The battalion commander suddenly drew his knife and cut an iron wire that was tangled by mistake.

You tried hard to do something to attract his attention. Your eyelids opened a little. You didn't have a helmet. Your helmet was taken off, and together with your armor, it hung on the wall of the ship, like an air-dried Shaking like grass. Your fingers were straining, and there was a small scraping sound as your nails grazed the steel beneath you.

The battalion commander confirmed your action. He stared straight at you, appearing as a rough shadow in your unfocused pupils. He swept away the hair in front of his face, got closer to you, and observed your trembling eyelids.

"Ah, you're awake." He took a breath, pretending it was no big deal, "I thought you were going to sleep until you starved to death, Zoran."

Zoran opened his mouth, but couldn't say a word. His tongue and throat were extremely dry, the result of a month in coma. Dantioch got him a half-cup of water from the water purifier and prepared to take care of his warrior.

"No..." Zolan made a sound in his mouth and tried to sit up. The macroscopic manifestation of this move was that his skin temporarily became a little tighter.

Dantioch slowly fed Zoran some water. "There is no nasogastric tube, so you drink first." The battalion commander said, and his image became clearer in Zoran's blurred vision.

He wore a simple robe made of tarpaulin, nails and copper wires. His hair was half black and half gray, and his face had clear grooves. A beard roughly trimmed with a knife surrounded his classic serious expression, just like every time. It was the same as when they won a battle, which Zoran was very familiar with.

It's just that he is no longer a young general.

Dantioch stared at him twice, squatted down in the middle of the small cabin floor again, and continued to repair his iron box.

"You continue to rest." The battalion commander said vaguely. As soon as he finished speaking, Zolan fell into coma again.

When Zoran woke up for the second time, the first words he said were "You choked me."

Dantioch paused for a moment while pouring water for him.

"Lower your head," he said, his voice thick, "and look at your hands."

Zoran moved while lying down, but still didn't have enough strength to push himself up. He sighed, his lungs roaring like broken bellows.

"I know...cough, you cut off my hand, battalion commander." Zoran looked up at the string of shaky knotted light bulbs on the ceiling, "I didn't even think about drinking it myself. Just can you please be slow?" "Hello?"

Dantioch glared at him: "You'd better shut up now."

Zoran laughed so hard that he was out of breath, and Dantioch's threat had no follow-up. Zoran moved his eyes and scanned his surroundings. He was still inside the small Hrud spacecraft, surrounded by a pile of components removed from various metal products. The energy stone he put into his bag was sealed in a stasis field modified from a stasis grenade, and hung properly next to the light bulb.

Not far away, the instrument panel was beeping, and a row of instruments were flashing red alarm lights. The covers of several wires were peeled off, and the metal wires inside were roughly twisted together, becoming dangerous and illegal lines. Typical teaching for transformation.

Zoran probably understood where the buzzing in his head these days came from.

Smooth planes reflected his current face, a little too wrinkled for a Space Marine, his hair a little too white, his eyes not sharp enough, tattered like a piece of cold butter thrown into a blender.

Zoran looked at it for a while, then laughed to himself again.

"Stop laughing," Dantioch couldn't stand it anymore and waved the wrench in his hand at him demonstratively, "If you keep making noise, you might as well sleep a little longer."

Zoran stopped laughing. "You look at least a thousand years old, or fifteen hundred, bro."

Dantioch hit Zoran hard on the head with his wrench.

Zolan grinned and took a breath, "Sit up for me, battalion commander?"

Dantioch held his armpits, carried him to a position near the bulkhead, and sat down opposite him.

"You had some serious injuries to your body," Dantioch said. "I removed your arm and one of your lungs."

Zoran looked down and saw that there was indeed a long scar running through his chest in the center of his wrinkled skin. Thinking that their daggers would be turned into powder in the entropy field, Zoran gave up thinking about what Dantioch had cut him.

"We..." He breathed, the movement was a little too big for him for a while, "Where are we?"

"Hrud spaceship." Dantioch took his iron box and answered without raising his head.

"No, I mean - both of us -"

"Satrada Abyss, Ancient Gain Sector," Dantioch replied, and the hands that were fiddling with the wires on the iron box stopped, "The spaceship hasn't gone too far yet."

"Then...ahem, let's go back and look for it..."

Zoran coughed violently, his internal organs whining in pain. He fell uncontrollably to the side, and Dantioch immediately came over to right him, silently helping him calm down.

"Father is not here," Dantioch said quietly.

"Ah...it's okay. After all, we have no reason to keep our father waiting here." Zoran optimistically put on a wrinkled smile after finishing coughing, "How long have we been floating?"

"A month."

"Then I guess we have to go to the funeral monument," Zoran said. "When you go back, help me go to the Masons' Club and ask if my brother-in-law is crying behind my back."

He moved on the spot and repositioned his leg, which was so painful that it was almost numb. "Have you not contacted the empire yet, boss?"

"No." Dantioch looked away and looked at the dark universe outside the porthole.

"I see you have already made a signal bird with your bare hands?" Zoran asked tentatively.

Dantioch placed the iron box in his hand between the two of them.

"You're right," the battalion commander said calmly, his fingers curled into a hollow fist at his side. "It's a pity that I didn't receive any signal from the Imperial channel."

"Didn't the Empire maintain an official immigration office in the Satrada Abyss?"

Dantioch glanced at him. "I guess I kept it."

"Then...ahem, then why..."

"Because the Hrud haven't moved to the Satrada Abyss yet." Dantioch's voice echoed in the small room, hitting the surrounding metal parts and hitting Zoran's heart hard. The echo echoed loudly, echoing word after word.

He realized the meaning behind Dantioch's words, and his originally fluent language began to stutter, "You mean, time has gone backwards..."

The battalion commander looked away.

"I detected the distribution map of planets in the nearby star area, which basically matches the battlefield of Satrada Abyss where we fought previously, but I was unable to find the planetary defense system and nests built by the Hrud people, and there was no fleet battle left behind. Traces of the galaxy here...are more primitive and uncontaminated by aliens."

He paused for a moment and said slowly: "According to the empire's detection, the Hrud people moved here at least two thousand years ago in 845.M30."

Zoran felt his breathing stop temporarily, his headache rapidly intensified, and the unusual weakness hit his spirit instantly.

He reluctantly continued. He had never felt so powerless since he joined the Iron Warriors: "So, we were bombed... into the Satrada Abyss more than two thousand years ago?"

"I think so," whispered Dantioch. "This is the old night here."

There are no clarion calls for the Great Crusade. There is no starlight. There is no guidance from the Emperor.

Apart from isolated worlds, regressive technology, troublesome aliens, technological barbarians, psychic empires and other unpleasant things... and maybe some sparks of civilization hidden in dark corners, there is nothing left of the old night.

And they have nothing. A small boat without supplies, two elderly warriors - one of whom is disabled.

There is no legion. No armor. no target. There is no road.

"Then..." Zolan said slowly, "Is there any way for us to go back?"

"Yes," said Dantioch, "it's a bet that Space Marines live more than three thousand years—"

The battalion commander's self-made siren suddenly sounded harshly, and Dantioch stood up abruptly, almost missing his waist.

He grunted, rushed to the edge of the instrument panel, clicked a lot of buttons, and pulled the bars he needed one by one.

The next second, the spacecraft immediately accelerated forward and rushed out, throwing Zoran to the floor.

The sergeant remained silent, held it in for a while to regain his composure, and shouted: "What's wrong, battalion commander!"

Dantioch took a picture of the launch command, and a stream of gunfire surged out from the muzzle of the simply modified alien ship. It accurately tracked the small ship that appeared under surveillance, exploding a string of broken metal scraps in the universe. .

He squinted his eyes and waited until the boat was completely torn apart. Then he breathed a sigh of relief, moved his waist, swayed back to Zoran, and helped the fallen sergeant up again. That serious face still flashed with cold anger, as if the flames of war were reflected on this aging face, burning blazingly.

"We are not the only ones who arrived two thousand years ago, Zoran." Dantioch said in a deep voice, "We are not the only group of lucky ones who escaped. However, there is no record of this group of Hrud in the known history of the empire. human existence.”

Zoran understood Dantioch's allusion, and a smile mixed with pain gradually appeared on his face. "That's because we're going to kill them all, right?"

"Our mistakes brought the Hrud back to the old night, so we have to make up for our mistakes." Dantioch said, "In this way, when we meet the Primarch again, we are still qualified to say, Pei The warriors of Turabo never live up to their time.”

He added: "I have killed four ships of Hrud."

"Your Majesty, Grand Battalion Commander," Zoran laughed out loud, "Compared to your past achievements, this is so small that it's not worth being proud of, right?"

"If you continue to laugh, I won't go scavenging in that ship," Dantioch threatened.

Zoran glanced down at his belly. "I won't starve to death for a while," he said cautiously. If he still had his hands, he would choose to pat his belly.

"I mean, I'm not going to look for materials that I can use to make metal prosthetics."

Zolan took a breath of air: "Battlemaster, do you still know how to make prosthetic limbs?"

"I haven't learned anything," Dantioch admitted readily. "If you have any adverse reactions after receiving the prosthetic limb, you have to trust your Astartes physique. Also, don't use honorifics."

"What, I must not have woken up. Now we must be in our spacious infirmary, with pleasant sling bottles, lying in the middle of the clean hospital bed, waiting for the pharmacist to take care of our injuries..." Zuo Lan babbled and closed her eyes again.

Dantioch looked at him for a while, then patted the sergeant's broken shoulder, quietly returned to the driver's seat, and skillfully piloted the spacecraft, preparing to fly towards the wreckage that had just been destroyed.

"Hey, battalion commander." Zolan's voice suddenly sounded.

"Yeah." Dantioch responded, he knew that this boy - this old guy was not asleep.

"We will definitely see the Iron Warriors again, right?" Zoran murmured. "Can you go home?"

"Of course." Dantioch replied firmly.

Zoran made no more noise, and this time he did fall asleep.

——

"Is this an inhabited planet?" Zoran took the pair of symbolic prosthetic legs that were not connected to the nervous system and propped himself up by the porthole of the boat. "I mean, real humans?"

Looking at the star map in his memory, Danti Okobi had to speak honestly: "I don't know. But they responded to our signals."

Without the guidance of the navigator's family, this small boat drifted in the storm of the old night. After encountering several radiation rays that disrupted the magnetic field, the other Hrud boats that fell into this time became the stars in the sea. The only type of road sign - there are some systems in the Hrud fleet that can sense each other.

At first, their hunting went very smoothly. No one in Hrud suspected that in the cockpit of another ship with the same origin as theirs, there were only two enemies who were bent on hunting them down.

Relying on this surprise, Dantioch destroyed three more Hrud ships in the first year of wandering, and scavenged supplies from those ships to repair and repair his own ship. More military configurations that the Iron Warriors are accustomed to gradually transform the boat into the appearance of the Iron Warriors.

Zoran once joked with him and asked him whether a small alien boat with all the screws replaced could still be considered the original alien boat.

Dantioch asked him to first find parts that were not from the alien ship to replace and refurbish, and then discuss the issue.

The hunting in the second year was no longer so smooth. Firstly, the number of Hruds fleeing here decreased. Secondly, the ships they modified became increasingly deviated from the original appearance made by the Hruds. This led to the suspicion of aliens.

The good news is that Zoran's condition is completely stable and everything is normal except for the lack of hands and lungs. Now he temporarily takes on the role of observer, helping Captain Dantioch with the little things he can. In addition, Dantioch refused to feed him with his own hands and cut out a thin tube to use as a straw for him.

As for more trivial problems of personal survival, Dantioch showed great kindness and put all the craftsman knowledge and creativity he had accumulated in the first half of his life to help the sergeant solve them one by one using scientific and technological means.

It was now their third year of wandering in the universe. In addition to missing their former comrades and the respected Perturabo, they began to miss humanity itself.

Zoran leaned against the window and stared excitedly at the approaching planet. "I think that's the spaceport, Commander."

"I think you're right, Sergeant," Dantioch said. "Perhaps the stagnation of human technology is also beneficial."

"The spaceport two thousand years ago looks almost the same as it will two thousand years later," Zoran laughed, patting the window frame clumsily with his metal hand, "I hope they don't have the same skinning hobby as the night ghosts."

"Then, it is indeed time for our names to be engraved on the memorial stone." Dantioch replied pretending to be serious, adjusting the communication channel.

The languages ​​​​of the two sides are very different. The uncoded language can only display a bunch of gibberish for both parties. The camp commander tried for a while and simply started to draw pictures using mathematical formulas and sent them to the other side, hoping that the other side would understand mathematics and basics. Semiotics.

This time the attempt was successful, although Dantioch was not sure whether it was because he understood what they meant or because of precious humanitarianism.

Through some primitive communication methods engraved in human blood, Dantioch finally figured out that this was a planet that traded marine products with a few nearby planets. It retained a certain amount of space navigation skills, but the technology was roughly the same as that of Pei. Olympia before the advent of Turabo was flat.

Human beings did not welcome these two tall, middle-aged and elderly humans very much. They vigilantly examined the scars on their bodies, tested their danger as warriors, and placed them on a relatively remote ocean island.

Dantioch used their technical knowledge to help the locals repair some ancient machinery and, of course, draw house plans. At this point, the Iron Warriors are really familiar with the road.

"If I were a few hundred years younger, I could challenge one of their armies." Zoran smiled and boasted to Dantioch, taking advantage of the fact that the locals couldn't understand his language.

"Don't let us lose our food supplies," Dantioch warned his men. "Besides, they sent us materials to repair the spacecraft."

After that, Dantioch used the simple language he had learned in the past two days to politely thank the boy who had been helping them deliver food every day. The language he had learned was about two greetings, some expressing thirst and hunger. Thirsty vocabulary, broken grammar, and the most classic local swear words.

After a conversation, the boy told them his name was Marshon.

When Dantioch and Zoran mentioned things in the universe, he often seemed to feel something in his heart. He looked at the two star visitors expectantly, with the most primitive yearning of mankind for the vast world in his eyes.

After the one-month rest, the battalion commander decided to leave.

Considering that he had to take care of the entire ship and deal with Zoran Anderson on his own, he was really overwhelmed. With careful words and a restrained attitude, Dantioch politely asked if anyone in the local area was willing to go with them. Do some auxiliary work as a crew member.

Marshon and a dozen of his companions rushed out of the crowd, eager to grab Dantioch's legs and let him take them away. All these children are orphans.

"But what is the name of your ship?" Marshon asked curiously, raising his neck to look at Dantioch's stubbled face, "You have never mentioned it."

Dantioch paused slightly and turned his head to look at Zoran.

The sergeant nodded at him: "It's all up to you, old captain."

The old captain sighed: "Come on, crew. This ship is the Odyssey."

"Then where are you going?" Marshon asked.

"I never stated the target location, yet you all followed me. There is no discipline." Dantioch said calmly, their ship was really short of people, and this was the first time he had been like this since he participated in the Great Expedition. Communicate lovingly with mortal children.

People here don't know Space Marines, and they happen to have no mission against humanity. They were suddenly themselves again since the Emperor's Astartes.

Although he looks too old, he is actually still a young warrior of several decades. Even though he has experienced hundreds of battles, he still inevitably feels novel when facing areas he has never been involved in before.

"It's the same wherever you go, old captain," said Marshon. "Go to the stars and go far."

Zoran knelt down. His metal arms made the crew very curious and they couldn't stop staring.

"Ahem...we are going to two thousand years in the future, is it far enough?" Zolan asked.

"That's enough!" Marshon grinned cheerfully.

One hundred and fifty years later, Marshon's life span first came to an end. He looked at the scene outside the porthole in deep space and passed away in pain.

In his lifetime, he assisted two Space Marines in completing three long-distance pursuits against the Hrud, which was considered an excellent record among the legion's auxiliary forces.

Over the next twenty years, the first mortal crew of the Odyssey all died one after another.

Dantioch greeted all of this silently, taking a rare look in the mirror as he packed away the crew's urns.

He still looks like the sturdy old man from the beginning, almost unchanged.

"Old Captain," Zoran walked slowly behind the battalion commander, looked at the urn shelf that Dantioch had newly vacated in a cabinet, and shook his head: "It would be great if there were black paint and yellow paint."

Zoran's face has aged slightly faster than him. Nearly two hundred years ago - or two thousand years later - the injuries he suffered in the Battle of Hrud never received proper medical treatment. In his own words, He said that his survival to this day was entirely due to the "blessing of the Emperor's genetic technology."

Sometimes Dantioch thought that Zoran would die tomorrow from the pain, and sometimes he thought that Zoran could live forever.

"I'll do it next time I have a chance." Dantioch took a step back and observed the shelf he had repaired. "I'm going to take a look at the dishes in the ecological recycling cabin."

"I'll go too," Zoran said.

——

In the 270th year, while pursuing the Hrud ship, the Odyssey strayed into the territory of the attacking aliens, which led to a sudden space battle.

Dantioch exhausted all his sailing ability in his life, and finally escaped from the encirclement in a lone boat and returned to the vast star field, where he had a chance to breathe.

"How many Hrud ships are missing?" Zoran asked.

"There are five left," Dantioch answered, "but they are all far away."

"Seriously, we should capture an Astropath."

Dantioch looked at Zoran with strange eyes: "The two of us are going to conquer the whole family of navigators?"

"But we don't know the road," Zoran crossed his metal arms across his chest. "Even after eighteen hundred years, we still won't be able to find our father."

"Live until then," Dantioch replied.

Father, Perturabo, Iron Warrior... It has only been more than two hundred years, but when I mention these words that have been buried deep in my heart, it feels like a lifetime ago.

“We can always go home,” Zoran said with a smile.

"Is your home Olympia or Terra? You are a Terran."

"It's the Iron Warriors fleet, dear old captain."

Dantioch shook his head, silently remembering the location of this aggressive alien's lair in his mind and placing it on his hate list.

——

One Terran Time morning in the 410th year, Zoran's mechanical hand announced the beginning of a long strike with a loud creaking sound.

The battalion commander studied the cause of the damage to the mechanical arm for the sergeant, and finally reluctantly came to the answer - the source was nerve necrosis at the end of the residual limb of Zolan's arm.

"I'm not a neurological expert," Dantioch said with a tense expression, "It can't be cured, it's hopeless."

Zoran stared at his hand for a while, and then said slowly: "Okay, battalion commander. Is there any compensation?"

"What do you want?" Dantioch asked. "The Odyssey is so big."

Even though the ship had grown a lot from the original Hrud skiff, even the crew had been dead for two rounds, and the shelves of urns were half filled, each box inscribed in the language of their respective home planet. Engraved with the names of these mortals.

Now is the time when they are searching for the third batch of crew members across the galaxy.

"Give me a promotion, battalion commander," Zolan pretended to be pitiful, but unfortunately it didn't suit his old face. "I have worked hard for five hundred years, and I am still a sergeant."

"Wrong," Dantioch said without mercy, "You have only done a mere fifteen hundred years of work. You should encourage yourself, follow Perturabo's example, and keep moving forward into the future."

"Your Majesty the Emperor, then I have to live for another fifteen hundred years!"

"Don't tell me you can't do it, Sergeant."

——

The problem with Zoran's arm turned around ninety years later. The two wandered around the universe, drifting with the flow, and finally bumped into a human civilization with sufficiently advanced technology.

Compared to planets where most technologies have been lost over the years, or civilizations have been lost to barbarism, the civilization of that pocket empire is amazing, whether it is the overall technological advancement or the internal peace indicators, to put it bluntly—— Even slightly better than the later empire.

"Thank you for your help, Interex," Zoran unaccustomedly moved his upper arm that had just regained consciousness and the mechanical arm that was perfectly connected to the nervous system. "We will always remember you."

After some friendly negotiations, they secured a complete set of body repair surgeries, and both of them had never felt so healthy and long-lived in hundreds of years.

The two's excessive age has earned them more trust from the Interex people. After all, age often represents the accumulation of wisdom and knowledge, and the reduction of the threat of combat.

The Interexians accepted their thanks and expressed in musical language that they were willing to help their fellow humans who also originated from Terra, not to mention these two warriors who were not contaminated by "Kaos" - —The Interexians firmly regard that kind of thing as their enemy.

"Excuse me, where are you from?" the Interex man asked politely.

Dantioch calmly stroked his beard: "I wonder if you are interested in learning about a country that also yearns for peace and human unity."

"Speaking."

"Although it does not exist today, in the future 1,500 years later, the Sky Eagle will soar across the world. That is the human empire we serve - more specifically, we belong to the Iron Warriors Expeditionary Legion."

"We will remember the Iron Warriors from the Human Empire." The Interex people said solemnly. "When we meet again the next day, we will welcome you with good gifts."

They have lived in the Interex Federation for more than ten years, and their interactions with the locals have become increasingly harmonious.

This was one of the most unforgettable things during their long journey. Even after they left, sitting in the cabin that had been refitted by the Interex people, Zoran and Dantioch would still mention that civilization from time to time. surviving federation.

Of course, there is also the Centaur commemorative statue presented to them by the Federation.

The Interexians will create a centaur-shaped mobile combat platform to form a centaur warrior, which is extremely mobile. In addition, the crossbows in their hands can shoot through ceramite, the secret of which is unknown.

——

Around seven hundred years ago - their clock was broken once due to long-term careless use and the wear and tear of the harsh preservation environment, so they were not completely sure of the time. Dantioch and Zoran chased the last one. An escaping Hrud ship traveled half the galaxy, and finally caught the ship in an area that might be the Extreme Star Field.

After wiping out the last ship of Hrud enemies, Zoran slumped in his chair, looking exhausted, slowly breathing in the clean air and looking up at the ceiling inside the Odyssey.

"Are we done with our mission, Battalion Commander?" Zolan asked, his gray hair reflecting the cold light of the lighting.

Dantioch turned on the sun lamp and appropriately increased the indoor ultraviolet concentration.

"Forget it," he said, his voice hoarse, as if it had been polished with a thousand pieces of sandpaper, "But the oath is not fulfilled."

Zoran was silent for a while, looking at his pair of metal prosthetics, "There are a lot of oaths, battalion commander, which one do you want to say?"

"Live," Dantioch said solemnly, "We swear to live, sergeant."

"Of course," Zoran put down his metal arm and his voice became firm again, "It's made of steel inside and out."

The following year, they were on a planet and argued a thousand times with the locals that they were not messengers of God.

Even if they helped the locals drive away an invading alien force, they were still just human warriors.

The local people responded with a smile, then built temples for them, made stone statues, and worshiped them all day long.

The stone statue has an old face, resolute brows, and deep eyes. The white hair and beard are hanging loosely. The robe reaches the ground and floats slightly as it approaches the surface. The posture is solemn and holy, as if it has passed through the ages, which is exactly in line with the human condition. A race's time-honored stereotyped memory of prophets and enlighteners.

Dantioch tried to tell them that he was from the Human Empire and was just a human warrior belonging to the Iron Warriors. Soon he was transformed in the temple into "the exalted saint of the god of steel and craftsmanship."

The two Iron Warriors fled, hoping that a thousand years would erase this false worship. Otherwise, Dantioch might have to explain to the unflappable Primarch why there was a planet named Zonpetula. Beau is the god of steel and craftsmanship.

——

In the 890th year, the two of them passed by a beautiful planet that was completely blue and green with lush vegetation, and felt that the surrounding galaxy environment was very familiar.

When the angle of the planet turned towards the Odyssey, Dantioch was stunned for a while.

"What's the matter, battalion commander?" Zolan asked while coughing, his white hair shaking tremblingly. Even after Interex's medical treatment, he still only had two lungs.

Dantioch was silent for a long time, pointing to the white bulge in the center of the planet.

"That's Mount Teleforth, Zoran." He said softly, his eyes hidden in the wrinkles widened slightly, trying to see everything there clearly. "It's this kind of texture, this kind of shape..."

Zolan only felt a wave of complex feelings running through his body, mainly sourness and supplemented by sighs. Having traveled with Dantioch for nearly a thousand years, he had never seen the battalion commander showing such emotion.

"That's Olympia." Zoran said, staring at the Primarch's home planet, his nose sore for no reason.

"Olympia," Dantioch murmured, as if he was afraid he was disturbing the silence.

His old and wrinkled fingers pressed against the cold porthole, stroking the texture of the mother star in the air. When he was about to touch the eye-catching mountain, he suddenly retracted his fingers and stood still, not daring to touch it again. The snowy peaks slowly turned to the other side of the planet.

Zoran looked at Dantioch and felt that time suddenly reappeared at this moment, entangled so obviously with the old man, like a ruthless snare, tightening the giant fishing net.

The past and future on the timeline, and the future and past in their long lives, are exactly intertwined in Olympia at this moment.

Thousands of years later, Barabas Dantioch will be born on this green and peaceful planet. Thousands of years ago, Barabas Dantioch returned home.

The long river of destiny starts here and flows through here, looping around like this, the water flow is endless.

"Go down and take a look?" Zolan suggested.

Dantioch slowly shook his head, as if he had suddenly aged many years.

"The Primarch has not yet arrived in Olympia," he said, "and I have never been associated with this place. Why should I suddenly visit this planet and disturb her remaining millennia of peace?"

"What are you worried about, Barabas?" Zoran asked.

Dantioch smiled and left from the porthole, almost tripping over the debris on the ground. "Let's go."

——

When Zoran passed by the urn shelf, his weight accidentally shifted while he was walking on the wall. His leg had been broken once before, and he had yet to find a human planet with good medical conditions. Since then, Dantioch had to pick up Zoran from all corners of the Odyssey when he fell.

Ten minutes later, the two old men squatted on the ground, moving slowly, keeping the senses in their brains stable, and picked up the mortal urns that had been sealed perfectly in the first place.

"I'm thinking about something, Battalion Commander." Zoran said holding a pile of boxes.

"explain."

Zoran's expression became hesitant, and the wrinkles on his face were so severe that they were almost wrinkled mountains formed by years of geological movement.

"I was thinking..." He choked, and heard his lungs once again make a hollow, high-pitched roar, "I was thinking, when we go back..."

"What's wrong?"

"After we go back, well, what else can we do?" Zoran lowered his head and looked at his steel arms. Recently, these arms have finally reached the end of their useful life and have become less flexible.

"What's the meaning?"

"I mean... look, Battalion Commander, we are so old... we can't see clearly, our hearing is declining, and our legs are shaking when we walk..."

"That's because you were shot in the leg."

"Yes, I know, I know everything," Zoran whispered, his words full of hesitation and a hint of painful fear, "but I am no longer a warrior. My father deserves a better warrior, not... "

He coughed violently, making a thick gasping sound in his throat, and the two remaining lungs twitched in his chest.

"I've never done anything well, Commander. It's you who took care of me... I've been able to get to where I am today."

Dantioch didn't say a word, just put his hand on Zoran's shoulder.

"I don't want to," Zoran coughed and squeezed out his voice, "I don't want Lord Perturabo to see...a 3,000-year-old man with blurred eyes, missing hands and lungs, and half of his legs and feet... Daying "Chang, I don't want this."

"How can there be an old man with such a childish temper as you?" Dantioch said. "When the time comes, I'll ask the Father of Genes to get you into Fearless."

Zoran gritted his teeth, causing his gums to bleed.

"I know." He sighed in defeat. "Can you choose the most comfortable fearless one? Don't worry about those complaints, of course I want to live. We made an oath."

"We swore to live, sergeant," the battalion commander said.

——

In the early 1,300s, the old men participated in a battle to expel aliens from the Sirzati sector. With their military qualities and long-term combat experience, they could almost be said to have completely guided the entire battle.

As expected, they were treated with great courtesy and admiration, and Dantioch couldn't help but feel that the Primarch was able to face endless praises from various planets without changing his expression, and he was worthy of being their genetic father.

The specific image of Perturabo has long been slightly vague in the memories of the veterans. The specific outline is like a sculpture of sand and stone, eroded and peeled off in the long winds of time, leaving only the most basic blocks and surfaces. Lines, and those unforgettable impressions.

"Not for fighting," Perturabo's voice echoed lonely in their ears. After all the fifth batch of crew members passed away, the two did not recruit new mortal crew members. "Not for the honor."

"For the Empire," Dantioch whispered to himself, following the words of the original body. From these distant words, he could always hear the beating of his own heart. "For humanity. As within it. As outside it."

More than two hundred years later, they passed through Sirzati again.

At this time, the Sirzati sector was already in ruins, with long stretches of yellow sand and strong winds. The ruins of civilization stretched across the planet like scars. Under the excessively high radiation index, the world was left in deathly silence.

Everything they had done for Sirzati was gone and no longer existed.

After their departure, some military forces within Sirzati were boosted by the mobilization to jointly resist the aliens, and two main forces gradually formed and became tit-for-tat.

After that, things become simple. Destruction is always a thousand times easier than construction.

"Fortunately, killing a group of aliens at that time was not a wasted trip." Dantioch said, "What do you think?"

Zoran stood in the middle of the wasteland, holding on to a raised ruined wall, his white hair fluttering in the wind.

"Wearing strong armor, with a heart as strong as steel." Zoran said, straightening his back, "No matter how much real steel remains in this aging armor; no matter how the world changes, no matter how the country rises or falls, steel will be for you. And fight.”

Dantioch took up Zoran's words. His voice was hoarse and unpleasant, they were too old to be able to bring out the passion in their tone.

"We are the eternal steel warriors. No matter why the enemy exists, we fight until there is no more left. If our bones fade with the years, if our achievements are defeated by the torrent of time, our armor will still exist, telling the story The will of the Legion speaks of the perpetuation of the battle.”

"Everything will come to an end in the future, and time will reach its end in countless distant thousands of years. But before night, there still need to be dusk, noon, morning and sunrise. Steel shines in the light and reflects the sun."

"Steel begets strength, strength begets will, will begets faith, faith begets honor, honor begets steel. This is the unbreakable litany."

——

Three years later, Zoran woke up one day and found that his legs would not allow him to stand up. His whole body seemed to be sinking to the bottom of the Odyssey, and he was exhausted to the extreme.

He was sleepy, and everything in front of him was like an afterimage, but he seemed to be waiting for something new to come, and he didn't want to fall asleep again no matter what.

Over the years, he seemed to be waiting for just that thing to come. Maybe it had already come, maybe it was waiting at the door, watching when Zoran would get out of bed and walk towards it with bare feet. The wind blew in from outside the door and poured into his empty chest, filling the vacancy in his lungs.

Suddenly, his fear reached a peak, and was quickly replaced by a good sense of relief, playing with his aging heart and tying the weak heart strings.

His teeth were chattering, his forehead was hot, and his arms were a little cold. The pair of metal arms seemed to have encountered something colder than cold iron. They pressed heavily on him, making him unable to move. He was extremely cold, the wind was blowing against his heart, and his blood vessels were wandering on their own.

No...he wanted to say, no, no. Here he lay, this familiar place to him, the place where he had lived for a thousand and five hundred years, was now a strange house. The bed he was lying on turned into a strange bed, rejecting his presence. This doesn't belong to him, and he doesn't belong here.

who is he? Ah, he's not quite sober, so it's really hard to remember. He lies here...his hands are intact, his breathing is smooth, his legs are light. What instrument is he installing for the Entropy Field? What is it? He couldn't remember at all...

Some white light flickered, and the stone escaped from under his feet... A green thing hung on the ceiling... He once wore iron armor, and now there is a long scar on his chest... How did he die? How did he stop breathing? Ha... night is here... you all go out, battalion commander, don't look, don't look back, battalion commander... what can't you see? I am very old and seriously injured. The wind has come out of my bone marrow, and it doesn’t look like a piece of steel at all...

He doesn't know... He lies down for a while, and there he is, wearing iron armor... Battalion Commander, close the door, don't let father come in, don't let them come, don't be sad, he is fine, he can jump out of bed tomorrow , running through the Cheorwon's triple loop... Father, Father, where are you...

See me, I beg you, see me, father... I swore an oath, we swore to live, sergeant, the battalion commander said... Steel inside and out, a prayer of steel... Iron armor is immortal... Father, I miss you, Perturabo... I'm sorry... I was wrong... I'm sorry, I made the oath, only five hundred years...

Sorry, I'm lost, please meet me...

A pair of hands seemed to grasp his shoulders, and his breathing gradually weakened. The light of day gradually became clearer and brighter in his eyes.

The sunlight shines into his dissipated world, like the reverberation of a beautiful dream.

The battle raged, and the Hrud's cannon exploded in self-protection in the distance. Zoran raised his eyebrows in the helmet, quickened the movement of his hands, pressed down the throttle, and concentrated on adjusting the instrument used to collect the entropy field parameters.

Soon, he raised his head, patted the dirt on his hands, and smiled triumphantly at the battalion commander Dantioch.

"I've got it done," Zoran said, "Let's retreat and go back to the Cheorwon."

——

Probably more than 1,900 years ago, Dantioch finally encountered a psyker who could see the light of the Star Torch.

At that time, he was walking on a street with a survival backpack on his back and a suit of armor, not only to cover up his aging image, but also to let the armor support his weak body.

Unless he needed some necessary supplies, he rarely left the Odyssey, because every takeoff and landing would cause him great pain.

The psyker's eyes literally glowed when he saw him.

When he came up, he grabbed Dantioch's hand, restrained his excitement and asked: "Excuse me, do you know the Great Crusade? Do you know the glory of the Emperor? Can you see that beam of light? No, I'm sorry, but you The armor he wears looks too much like the Emperor's Angel..."

The gears of time suddenly got stuck, and the self-circulating river returned to one direction.

Dantioch endured the pain in his aging shell, grabbed the psyker, and turned his back on the guest. His voice was as thunderous as thunder: "I am a warrior of the Emperor, how dare you offend me like this!"

The psyker almost knelt in front of him in the street.

"Where are the past and present?"

"Thirty thousand years, eight hundred and forty-five seasons..."

"In the name of the Emperor, I immediately order you to show the way for those galloping across the sea of ​​stars." He ordered.

"Yes, sir, where are you going?"

Dantioch's mouth opened slightly, and he was stunned for a moment, suddenly feeling that the world was in a trance.

He sighed, and the familiar words traveled through time and space, returning gracefully.

"Satrada Abyss."