Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes.

Chapter 10 Change and Thinking

Bad news always travels faster than the wind.

About a month later, Calvin had the opportunity to understand the true meaning of this letter through the internal reference materials of the Star Language Court.

The Wandering Orchestra, the place where Calvin's life began in a certain sense.

Not long after the start of the new tithing journey, they encountered a storm from the Warp at the edge of the Tempest Sector.

And following the storm came a whole fleet of interstellar pirates.

In the fierce gang-jumping battle, more than 85% of the crew members of the Wanderlust were damaged.

The Sisters of Silence group headed by the lady was interrupted by the Chaos Space Marines who broke through the wall from the flanks during the decapitation campaign against the opposing wizard.

The lady and her nuns all returned to the throne, and only Cassin survived because he was seriously injured and unconscious and failed to participate in the operation.

All Marines were killed.

From the captain onwards, all the commanders in the ship were killed.

The weapons team, including the gunnery sergeant, was killed in action.

All members of the Astropath and Navigator team were killed, and she was the first to die.

The astropaths foresaw the brutality of this battle before the crisis came.

She sacrificed herself and forcibly sent a request for help to the nearest star field segment defense fortress and the interstellar communication public channel in the warp space storm.

In the hope that any troops that may exist will go to the rescue.

And the price is her soul.This thin lady, who had been silent for many years, tried her best to send out a message for help.

The soul that lost the last bit of psychic protection was completely exposed in the greedy subspace, and was immediately torn apart by the demons who came up.

But her efforts were not in vain.

At the most critical moment of the battle, only sporadic resistance on the bridge remained on the entire hull, the engine power had been completely lost, and the entire hull had been captured by the pirate's gravitational claws, ready to be towed to the pirate base in the asteroid belt.

A company of Astartes patrolling the sector and receiving calls for help finally arrived.

With the strong support of this new force and the threat of the sectoral fleet coming at any time.

The pirates gave up their original goal of capturing the entire Wanderlust and gradually retreated from the ship.

After this battle, less than [-] of the crew of the Wandering Band, including the mechanical slaves on the lower deck, survived.

This kind of battle may be too tragic in our eyes, but it is inconspicuous in the territory of the empire where wars are everywhere.

To some members of the High Lords Council, the governing body of the Empire, he could only represent the departure of a familiar name.

In the eyes of the unrelated Ministry of the Interior, this can only be a series of cold numbers.

But it is different for Calvin. In a sense, this spaceship, which has only lived for a month, is his hometown in this life.

And the deaths of those who represented his first acquaintances in this world had a huge impact on Calvin.

Finally, he is no longer like a paper boat drifting in the long river of fate, he just floats with the current.

Calvin began to have a desire to participate in this world. He hoped to understand the consciousness of those old people who died when they fought to the last moment.

So in addition to training, Calvin had a new activity place - the library.

Unlike most, his aim was not to write books on psionic lore.

What he wants to know is the history and culture of this empire.He wants to know the past and present of the country he lives in.

Calvin didn't want to follow the crowd anymore, he wanted to take the initiative to understand something he didn't know.

He wanted to live on as a soldier with honor if he could, so he needed a reason.

Reason, this is the first lesson he was taught as a soldier in his previous life, and it is also the motivation for him to fight for it all his life:
"My generation, why are you fighting?"

The literature and history section of the library is sparsely populated.Probably because the young people here always pursue power too utilitarianly.

There are not many traces of borrowing books here, and many books have been placed here, and no one cares about them.

In the quiet bookshelf and borrowing area, there are only two people.

Besides Calvin, another borrower was sitting right in the middle of the borrowing area.

But what Calvin didn't know was that he was able to come here to read these books that were not accessible to him at the level of confidentiality, all thanks to this stranger in front of him who read quietly.

Under the dim candlelight, his taller body than Calvin was as motionless as a sculpture.

Only the servo-skull floating next to it makes a little noise occasionally when the pages are turned.

This is a tall silver-haired old man in a simple gray robe, his angular appearance is hidden in the hood of the jumpsuit.

He always reads quietly by candlelight alone, but the feeling of reading is different from other people's thirst for knowledge.

When the old man sat and read quietly among the books with the history of the empire, a strange feeling made him merge with his surroundings.

As if he himself was part of that heavy history.

This is probably a person full of stories.Calvin thought of it occasionally when he was distracted.

The footsteps of Calvin, who has been reading and accessing books for a long time, are all over the bookshelf and reading area.

Perhaps there were too many passing opportunities, and when the old man occasionally raised his head to meet Calvin's gaze, he occasionally nodded politely.

But most of the time, the old man just sat there like that, quietly existing here as if from ancient times.

And Calvin himself was slowly getting rid of his inner impetuosity while reading, and began to be surrendered by the charm of this ancient empire that was growing and full of disasters and sufferings.

The ten-thousand-year development history of an empire composed of a single race is also a history of war and a history of survival.

With the chronicle as a text carrier, when Calvin was unfolded like a scroll, there was no doubt that he was conquered.

For the first time, he knew that in this universe, there were so many alien species and disasters, and within the scope of the Milky Way, there were so many civilizations and wars, and human beings just wanted to survive, that's all. difficult.

In the tens of thousands of years of history, there are too many heroes who burn and dedicate themselves to the survival and continuation of this race and this empire.

There are also too many tragedies recorded in documents that no one cares about with the same indifferent words.

In the process of reading, I learned that the old and feudal management of the empire made Calvin spurn.

But it was the same or even worse environment, which let Calvin know that it was not that his predecessors were not wise, and this was just a last resort compromise with survival and continuation as the first goal.

Hundreds of millions of people live and die by him.From the perspective of a bystander, how magnificent and ruthless the history of the empire is.

Among them, the biography of the Emperor himself fascinated Calvin the most.

Calvin was a soldier, he could understand the emperor's contribution to the empire; Calvin was just a soldier, he couldn't understand how the emperor could be so selfless.

Dedicating his life to the country and nation he loves is the limit of what Calvin can do.

But completely abandoned ego, without any personal feelings.Even according to many records, those decrees from the emperor himself can be seen through in the eyes of Calvin, who has undergone nine years of compulsory education, and there are rules to follow.

It is an iron law that any empire must use military force as the center of power during the period of expansion.

And when the country transitions to the maintenance period, the transfer of power centered on the civil service system is also the general trend.

But suppose the ruler of this empire does not want to shed too much blood in the cruel transfer of power.

Then there must be a person who can stabilize those meritorious nobles: he must be strong enough, must be charming enough, must have a broad enough vision, and must even have the consciousness that he is destined to sacrifice himself.

And the cruel thing is: this person just cannot be the master himself.

Take such a person, not only his closest comrade-in-arms, but also the eldest son who is most like himself and his favorite.

Send the altar called right with your own hands, and watch his doomed death in the painful struggle.

Whatever the outcome, it was far beyond Calvin's comprehension.

He couldn't help thinking, is the emperor inhuman?Or does the Emperor not understand human nature?

No, when he gets along with his beloved children, the affection he shows does not seem to be fake.

So if the emperor is human, how can such behavior be explained?Does he not love his children?

No, of course he loves his children, but he loves this country, this race even more.

Calvin asked himself, empathy, can he do it?

He may sacrifice himself without hesitation, but what about his children?What about relatives?
Can you convince yourself to put them on the altar with your own hands?Just for this empire composed of countless humans?What about himself?
The answer is of course no, he can't.

These things, just seeing the brief written records, already made Calvin feel very heavy.

So in the eyes of the Emperor, how does he view these inescapable problems?
Calvin frowned, lowering his head to think while hastily putting down the books in his hands, preparing to leave the library.

After all, a restaurant that is open for a limited time will not understand Calvin's sorrow and sorrow.

"You seem to be a little puzzled, my child." This was the first time Calvin heard the old man's voice after being in the same room for so long.

Following this deep and powerful voice, Calvin stopped, raised his head, and looked towards the center of the reading area. In the golden candlelight, the silver-haired old man spoke to him calmly.

　On a whim, I want to take this opportunity to discuss the humanistic content of this IP other than war, and I don’t know if everyone will be interested in watching it.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)