Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes.

Chapter 155 Ten Thousand and One Deaths (4) The Gambling Game and the Solving of Mysteries
"So when did this journey start?"

Calvin sat upright in his seat, seemingly listening attentively to what the others at the meeting had to say.

But the countdown on the iris and the flowing data in the Titan database proved that his attention was not here.

The report from the navigator in the memory arrived in 3 minutes, and the record about Tingus in the backup of the Titan database in the battleship server was finally downloaded.

Bishop Klein's speech was still going on, Calvin clicked on the icon of the file marked as top secret in the background of the cold mechanical and electronic sound:

+Name: Tingus Time Corridor+
+Security Threat Level: Very High+
+Status: Incomplete+
+Publisher: None——The Tingus sector has completely lost contact and is suspected to have fallen.An emergency decision was made by the Supreme Council of the Tribunal to replace the Holy Hammer Order branch in the Tingus sector to issue tasks.

+ Release date: 720.M37+
+Execution date: 720-745.M37+
+License Level: Black+
+ Name/Code Name: The Third Guardian Shaper, Grand Master Natirik, 1 Templar Knight under his command, and 10 members of the Guardian Shaper Order.The list is as follows...+
+Mission Objective: Check the status of the Tingus sector and deal with suspected pollution. ++Priority Quest; Transfer and Retrieve the Relic Sword of the Oath+
+ Feedback: The star language Tingus sector network disappeared, and the survey ship reported that it was impossible to go to this area, and there was nothing above the original coordinates.It is suspected that there was a large-scale warp space storm in this place.Another note: The Devil's Tribunal task force has been confirmed to be missing...+
+WARNING: THIS FILE IS NOT TRANSFERABLE+
+WARNING: This file cannot be copied+
+Warning: Destroy after reading+
The cursor in the iris quickly slid across the text description, Calvin directly turned to the middle of the page number, and found the part he wanted most:
+Executor: Natirik+
Click the cursor, and as expected, the page linked by the name is blank, only the avatar is displayed.

Theoretically, the Titan's archives only have the information of the gray knights who died in battle. Any active gray knights will not have any background information except for the new name after they officially enter the service. This is the iron law of the gray knights. (Calvin is a special case, and his name has proven to be irretrievable.)
This is the Titan's protection for every gray knight who has not yet been confirmed dead, so that the only soul coordinates of the gray knights-the real name has no chance to be stolen by the demons during their lifetime.

Although the information cannot be queried, having an avatar is actually enough.

Calvin looked at the familiar body and face on the head portrait that he had used for nearly ten years, and finally confirmed his guess.

And when he saw this face, Calvin finally opened up to him the memories that did not belong to him...

It was a failed mission, and Natirik and his squad were lured by the machinations of the Tamper Lord and ended up staying there forever.

The evil god used the fall of the entire Tingus sector as a bait, and led him and his comrades into the eternal time maze that had been prepared.

The cultists and demons sacrificed the lives of tens of billions of people in the Tingus sector, and sent Tzeentch's artifact, the Time Prism, into the real universe.

With the help of this artifact, the Prism, the Daemon projects himself into 999 different mirror images that exist at the same time.

And the great demon himself, with the help of the artifact, turned into a part of the spiritual energy in this space.

It tried to creep into the Gray Knights' souls with every psychic recovery they had in battle.

After all the plots and traps were ready, they spent more than ten years deliberately leaking the news of the fall here, and then waited for the arrival of Natirik and his brothers.

The narration belonging to Natrik gradually dissipated, and Calvin's first-person perspective memories began to appear piece by piece:

"Trap! This is a trap aimed at us!"

Templar Lorenzo reminded Natrik loudly, otherwise his voice would not be able to pass through the sound of the magic tide and the rain of bombs.

"Take the brother who can walk! Attack the church and move forward!"

Natrik roared angrily and executed the Keeper of Secrets in front of him, but with more demons following him, he seemed so powerless...

"I need your cover to finish us off, brothers."

Under the tall and dark vaulted porch of the church, he said with a heavy heart to those comrades who were destined to no longer follow him.

"We understand." They replied.

"You will be abandoned and most likely killed in battle."

The sadness in Natirick's voice could still be felt by Calvin even through the barrier of time.

"We understand." The injured gray knights replied firmly, they didn't want their existence to drag down the progress of the whole team.

"Bless the emperor, we will meet again under his seat..."

The pressure of the task is in front of him, and the unknown pollution must be dealt with. The situation does not allow him to hesitate. After he finally chose to leave this sentence, he turned around and led the team away...

Calvin blinked, how similar all this was to his experience in the dream, or he already understood the meaning of himself in this space.

In echoes of this time, he played the role Natiric had once been.

And everything he experienced was exactly the experience of the gray knight's great mentor who disappeared in time.

"We have to separate, the pollution here is worse than we thought!"

This is the voice of Natiric outside the upper palace of the hive.

Already vaguely aware of the strangeness in his body, after dismissing Templar Lorenzo and some Gray Knights, he looked for a reason to dismiss the team members around him again.

"But you can't go to the top floor alone! Since it used to be the seat of the court, there must be a group of demons around it!"

From the beginning of the recruits, the members of the direct squad who have served under Natrik's command are obviously worried about the safety of the Grand Instructor, but how can they be more stubborn than the Grand Instructor who is determined to go his own way?

They were finally on their way to the top nest when they were thrown away by Natirick, who was already determined to die.

This also confirms what happened to Calvin before...

The experience further down is similar to Calvin's own battle experience, nothing more than one battle after another.

The difference is that Natrik is far from Calvin's unscrupulous capital, and he is really on the verge of dying here every time he fights with the big devil.

Natiric ultimately succeeded and failed.

He successfully found the sacred object "Sword of Oath" hidden in advance from the secret warehouse of the Holy Hammer Order branch on this planet.

But he was also a failure.

During his ten-year fierce battle, the big demon finally found an opportunity to dismantle himself bit by bit, and then penetrated into Natirik's body, and finally merged into a demon in his soul. Egg:
A seed that represents the corrupted fate of Chaos.

What a great cause!Ever since the Gray Knights were born, the gods of Chaos have been seeking ways to corrupt them.

But thousands of years or more in the Warp passed, and they found nothing.

And now!A gray knight's soul has been eaten away!

Except the core will is still resisting!Dom can almost declare his own success!
It is only one step away from completely cracking that secret!
Only the last step is left!This gray knight will become its unprecedented gift to the tampering lord!
And this is not an ordinary gray knight, but a gray knight who bears the name of the great mentor of the first eight original people!
As long as the most core will can be captured, it will be able to crack the secret of the gray knight's incorruptibility!

As long as you can conquer that will!It can present the glory that all the gods will look at for its lord!

Whenever he thought of this, the great demon was extremely happy, and he could even imagine himself being favored by the Lord and becoming the most glorious existence chosen by all the gods.

But Natrik's tenacity far exceeded its expectations.

Two thousand years have passed in the real universe, and I don't know how long it has passed in the subspace and time corridor.

Konatrik's resistance continued, his remaining soul steadfast and vigilant, never letting up.

"Of course you can destroy me, but you don't want to conquer me!" Said the last fragment of Natiric's soul.

It cannot be conquered, let alone simply destroyed.

This is a difficult problem facing the Great Demon that makes it distressed. Of course it is easy to destroy this remnant soul that can only be placed in the sword of the oath, and it only needs to break the sharp sword.

Once this sacred relic symbolizing the honor of the chapter is destroyed, Natiric, who has no other thoughts, can give up his own existence.

And if he is really allowed to perish like this, the artifact that Tzeentch painstakingly planted and the entanglement of the millennium time will become a complete joke in the face of this kind of sacrifice...

This is a dead end, Natirik is destined to be impossible to escape, and the Daemon cannot succeed.

They all need an accident to change this stalemate that has been deadlocked for thousands of years.In the end, the big demon made a bet with Natirik in desperation:

Bet that the person chosen by Natirik can accomplish ten times all the achievements and great achievements of Natirik in the corridor of time.

And under the constant threat of losing oneself, one can still finally choose the same, or even more noble sacrifice...

The gods and chaos are witnessing their oath together at this moment, and even the balance of the power of fate hidden in the end of the universe is rarely accompanied by this.

This is the truth of Calvin losing his divinity, and it is also the reason why he was replaced by the local demons despite being a higher-dimensional existence.

His soul and divinity have never been deprived, nor can he be deprived, but only veiled by the balance of fate.

Natiric won, as Calvin turned the blade on himself.

The reflection in the water is not only the last photo of his existence, but also the last attempt of the big demon under the witness of the gods and the power of fate.

But this last interference was also ignored by Calvin. While completing a battle ten times the previous record of Natirik, he resolutely put himself on the final altar as Natirik wished.

Ten thousand and one deaths, the last, was Calvin himself.

Ten thousand and one deaths, the last, was also Natiric's redemption.

On the day when the oath was fulfilled, all the gods and demons left after witnessing it.The tampering lord also lost interest and looked elsewhere.

The devil who failed the bet and made his lord embarrassing in front of the gods, need not mention what will happen to him;
As the winner, Calvin was naturally presented with the second largest bargaining chip on the table - the Sword of the Oath.

As for the biggest bargaining chip——Natirik himself, he chose to perish silently the moment he broke free from the shackles.

The meeting aboard the Wraith Redeemer continues.

Lord Mechanical Bishop Klein, who disagreed with Calvin, couldn't understand the former's abnormal silence.

It was the third time within 5 minutes that the mechanically modified detection array swept across Calvin's body.

The latter is obviously still stuck in some matters other than the meeting, and the green data slightly reflected in the iris is flowing, so that everyone who notices around him chooses not to disturb.

The red countdown in the upper left corner of the iris has come to an end, and the moment Calvin has been waiting for will come:

+ 5 +
+ 4 +
+ 3 +
+ 2 +
+ 1 +
Countdown to zero!
He held his breath and waited for a few seconds, and finally found that everything around him was normal and nothing happened.

The navigator still sat firmly in his seat, and there was no unexpected situation that Calvin remembered.

The post-battle summary meeting on the unnamed planet is still going on, only the personal screen in front of the seat is marked with the current location of the Revenant Redeemer—the Vestibular Gus Sector (disconnected).

The cursor in Calvin's eyes froze for a few seconds. He carefully recalled the last memory in his mind, and then clicked on the black and gray option that was confirmed dead behind Natrik's name status.

+confirmed death+
+Name: Natirik+
+Position: Sacred Hammer Order - Third Order - Guardian Shaper, the 26th Grand Tutor+
+ Encoding source: ***********+
+Authority traceability: Lord of Titan II: Calvin+
+Evidence: Relic-Sword of the Oath-Recovered+
+The Founder: The Gray Knights - Calvin+
+confirm submission+
+Confirm again+
Inside the system, the name wrapped with silver irises to show its glory followed his click to confirm, and finally flickered several times on the screen, and then dimmed forever.

With the update of the data in the database, according to the program, the mechanical bell of the chapel of the Wraith Redeemer began to ring spontaneously.

The sound of the turbulent bell was low and sad, and the news of Natirick's death was spread throughout the entire battleship through the ship's radio.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked towards the direction that was at the top of the battleship.

Although the names of the specific war dead are not known, the meaning of the bell is never wrong.

That is telling the departure of a hero who is destined not to be publicized; it is also proving that the children of the emperor are still inheriting his vision and silently guarding the defense line of the human empire.

The chief astronomer on the strike cruiser sent out the encrypted message in his hand with a serious face, and the psionic networks leading to Terra in the Storm Starfield began to be activated one by one.

At each node that received the message, the psionic choir began to sing hymns in unison.

At the expense of burning myself, they use their concerted efforts to break through the barriers leading to Terra in the warp, and then pass this precious message across.

　Update ahead.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)