Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes.

Chapter 148 Destination and Ethics, The Meaning of Terra

The Revenant Redeemer left the planet.

But before that, the recovery work of the ground forces delayed it for a full fourteen hours.

For nearly the entire day, it and the warship transport airship that came after it were working hard to recover the surface equipment.

After all, except for personnel and some equipment that needs to be delivered with the army, most of the equipment and materials are released through short positions, and it takes far more time to recover than to release.

The troops on the ground are different from when they went there, and only occupy a small part of the capacity.

Soldiers who died in battle were only allowed to bring back a small number of belongings, so that they could be filed and filed when they returned to their home planet, and handed over to their relatives far away in batches according to procedures.

If they had, if they were alive.

Their dead bodies were collected, incinerated, and the ashes were kept at the gate of the webway ruins, under the temporary stone tablet built to commemorate the battle.Their names will also be engraved on this stele representing their courage and dedication.

The initial list of soldiers is easy to obtain. After all, this group of people has already undergone more than several years of training on Titan II before departure, and the information on them is relatively complete.

What is difficult to deal with is the specific verification work, because facing the demons of Khorne, most of the dead do not have complete bodies to identify.

Clearly this is not the first time the officer corps veterans have encountered this situation, and they offer simple but practical advice:

"Exclusion."

That's right, except for the unlucky ones who disappeared on the battlefield, and those who boarded the return journey alive, the rest is the list of those who died in battle.

The specific identification work is wasteful and unnecessary due to time constraints.

Anyway, it is impossible for them to be buried alone. Anyway, they were used to the crowded soldiers' dormitories before they were alive, and they would not refuse to mix with their comrades after death.

mixed together in various senses.

Calvin was sitting in his dormitory suite, reviewing the gains and losses of this battle alone in a quiet environment.

For complicated administrative matters, after he handed over his authority, no one came to continue to disturb him:

If there's any undecided idea or something that requires his presence due to diplomatic standards, Kim will come to him.

That's right, Jin, who was used as a tool to communicate with Nicholas, the real envoy of the Forbidden Army, has determined that he will not be able to return to Terra to serve his real master for the time being.

Under the arrangement of the Tower of Hegemony, he and the other five guards of the imperial guards became a special existence around Calvin, which was a kind of special surveillance that was better than guards.

Guard of Honor?Guard?Disciplinary enforcement force?

Both, or neither.Anyway, Calvin had never heard of a Primarch that could be successfully captured by a team of Custodians...

But accidents are accidents, and troubles are troubles. Calvin is extremely disgusted with this kind of unplanned existence.

"This is the treatment every Primarch and Imperial special character has."

The Captain Nicholas explained to Calvin that he himself will return to Calvin after completing his brief mission and returning to Terra to report on his duties.

This is also the condition for that warlord-level psychic power-the Titan Declaration of Truth to be acquired by Calvin without spending a penny.

"So I still have to say thank you?"

This is what Calvin wanted to answer when he heard Nicholas' explanation.

But as long as he imagined the Declaration of Truth on the surface waiting to be picked up by Titan's large transport barge, that lonely figure like a child, he decided to bear it.

After all, no matter how full the supply of armaments on the Titan is, the techno-soldiers in the miniature casting world would never have imagined that one day they would need to serve a complete warlord-level Titan.

Such abilities are definitely beyond the knowledge of a Techmarine Astartes.With their short hundred years of training in the Mechanicus, it is impossible for them to have the opportunity to come into contact with such top-secret information.

Mars regards the knowledge of these machine-god incarnations very seriously. Since the existence of the Titans, these core knowledges have been tightly held in the hands of the Titan Order. Even the Foundry General can only understand it, and has no right to spread it.

But the Forbidden Army is different. Their right to represent the Throne Court can bypass these links and directly mobilize the priests of the Dormant Order of Omens.

Anyway, if their driver can't replenish for a day, these priests have nothing to do for a day.

It is also one of the unshirkable responsibilities of the Throne Court to make these dormant units busy due to excessive personnel loss, isn't it?

After compromising, this part of the matter is considered to have a result.Putting it aside for the time being, Calvin began to view his soul's gains in the spiritual world.

Compared with ordinary mortals or demons, the emotions of alpha-level psykers are many times stronger.

But compared with the existence of the big devil, the importance of the former has to be retreated a little bit.Without him, Gein Damo, the existence of the gods who directly participated in the creation, was born with relevant fragments of authority in the soul.

This distorted fragment is the source of the personality and core charm of Damo as one of the thousands of incarnations of gods and thousands of faces.

It makes the Great Demon clear about his mission from the beginning of his birth. While sharing a certain aspect of the gods' diamond-like authority, he also exercises the Tao and righteousness represented by this aspect.

Maybe they are different according to their identities and rankings, and the completeness and size of the fragments they contain are also different; but there is no doubt that the presence or absence of such fragments is the only difference between the big devil and the ordinary devil.

But not every big devil has fragments, because not every big devil is a "real" existence.

They seem to be no different from those "real", but they may be just a projection in time of a certain destructive power blessed by the gods.

The relationship between demons is so chaotic and disorderly, the outside world has no way of knowing their complicated relationship, and mortals who try to study them always find that they are the one who is deceived...

Calvin did not study this.He is just using his unique "taste" to taste every harvest from the perspective of a predator.

Just like opening a blind box, if you open too many fake ones, you can always open them to the real ones; if you eat too many projections, the information of the projection owner—the real name—will be mastered by Calvin sooner or later.

This is also the origin of the real name of the demon recorded in the Demon Canon.

As long as there is a record of being killed once, even if it is not the deity, it will inevitably leak part of its real name.

The difference is that the handling method is different from other gray knights, Calvin will not choose to expel, but eat directly...

The remnants of demons and psychic echoes made him a lot more complete, and the fragments of the big devil's twisted authority-the real name were also waiting for him to savor.

That's what he thought, but the originally planned happy dining time alone was unexpectedly interrupted, since he saw the three gray knights who died in battle in the spiritual world... "!!! The emperor's toilet! You How come I'm here?"

Calvin looked at the three people standing at the gate of the city-state in his spiritual world, and he was in a bad mood!
Isn't this the promised soul returns to the throne?What's the matter with returning to me?

"You here? So this land and this city-state belong to you?"

Fer looked around with great interest, not surprised by Calvin's sudden appearance.

The same is true for Albrid and Natalio behind them, watching the crowd shuttle on the side of the road at the gate of the city with great interest.

The souls of the mortals around them didn't seem to be surprised by these three new existences. They seemed to be busy with their previous lives as if nothing had happened.

"We are not very clear about the specific situation, but it should be related to the seed you gave us."

Having seen enough details of the crowd, Fell explained to Calvin.

"At that time, we did have several choices, either to perish, or to respond to a distant call; or to be taken away by the devil as a trophy, or to move closer to you. Because of that seed, we felt that the last one would feel better. .”

"So you came to me?"

Calvin still finds it difficult to accept that this is definitely not in his plan, nor is it his original intention to establish this place.

Regarding the arrangement of these comrades-in-arms, he never planned to intervene too much.

But an accident happened like this. When he didn't take the initiative to display the power of redemption, these comrades who had been assimilated by him had tickets to come here after death.

This can be regarded as an accident, but Calvin knew that there must be some details that he overlooked.

What exactly is it?He turned around a few times, scratching his head in distress.

It can only be the soul!It can only be the soul!

In fact, without much thought, Calvin already understood:

So while assimilating the psionic energy, the psionic energy seeds he gave naturally affected the souls of these gray knights?
Logically speaking, there is indeed no problem, since psionic energy is the soul in this universe—that is, the external manifestation of aura.

Then the change in the state of spiritual energy should have been the incidental result of the changed spiritual energy, but Calvin has always misunderstood this, and the naïve effect turned out to be the cause.

So the question is, if this is true for these three, what about the other Gray Knights?
After they go to meet the end of their own destiny at some point in the future, will they also be pulled to this land because of his accidental intervention?
So in the future, should he be cautious about giving spiritual energy seeds?

After all, once this seed is given, it is equivalent to the other party signing a life-to-death contract for him.

And as the party who gave, is he also obliged to bear the corresponding responsibility?

Does he have this ability?
Can he afford the other party's hope?
Can he guarantee that he will not die in a certain battlefield?
If he, Calvin, died in battle at some point, what would these fighters who depended on him do?
This problem is still small, but limited to the scope of the Honor Guard.

But as long as Calvin thinks about the gene seeds that are about to be sent back from Mars, his headache will get worse.

The essential issue of the destination of the soul involved in belief, as well as the ethical issues of commitment and assumed rights and obligations, were all perceived by Calvin under this divergent thinking.

He found to his distress that he had to shoulder far more responsibilities than he had imagined.In the eyes of others, death is the end of life, but to him, it might just be the beginning of trouble...

He told these three comrades about his distress, and the three of them also became more dignified as he told.

Albride, who was finally the oldest, spoke up to offer Calvin their opinion:
"This is actually two things. The first thing is the responsibility you mentioned. You don't need to worry about it at all."

He turned to look at these people who were still living peacefully and said:

"Because the prerequisite for us to come here is to agree with your ideals and beliefs, so when sacrifices are inevitable, we also have the awareness to be with you. We are like this, and the gray knights of the future should also be like this."

"What about the second one?" Calvin decided to listen to him.

"As for the second thing..."

Albright looked at the other two people, and the three connected minds in the soul state completed the communication in an instant, and then looked at Calvin who was confused:
"I said child, since you were born (became a gray knight), you have been going back and forth between Titan and various battlefields. After decades, don't you really feel that you are missing something that you haven't completed?"

"Me? What link could I be missing?" Calvin was even more confused.

"You are missing a father! I mean to this day, you, the Primarch who is the genetic template of the Gray Knights, have not yet gone to Terra to meet His Majesty the Emperor!"

"Ah! Indeed. But does that have anything to do with my present problem?"

"Go and see Him!" Natalio said, he looked in the direction of Terra in the distance with some deep eyes.

"Go to meet him, meet the source of all of us and this empire. If you have the opportunity, it is best to talk to him, and he will give you a legal verdict. After that, no matter what the result is, you will not Then you need to worry about this ethical issue yourself.”

After hearing these words, Calvin fell silent. He also looked in the direction of Terra, and what he thought about was the hidden meaning behind the words of the envoy of the Forbidden Army he met at the post of adjutant:

Lord Trajan, commander of the imperial army, is eagerly looking forward to your arrival.Whenever you're free, be sure to stop by...

Is it really only Trajan who is looking forward to his arrival?
Or he himself didn't want to see the source of everything, whether the existence that took him in was really the holy emperor?

What does the emperor mean to his visitor from another world?

He has always been unwilling to think about this problem, and in a sense has been avoiding the existence of the problem.

Today, however, it appears that the issue cannot be delayed any longer.

In any case, there was a reason why he had to go to Terra once.

It is shameful to escape, but since avoiding can no longer delay the problem, he must not hide here forever and not face it.

Calvin took a deep breath, at least at the moment he knew what he was going to do next.

He needs to go to Terra, to meet the divine being, he needs to go to Terra, to see the place where all the stories begin.

　Two in one, ask for votes.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)