Roger Dorn leaves a trail of footprints on the red sand.

The wind and sand are blowing, the sky is falling, and the moon is still glowing faintly in the night. On this pitch-black curtain, which is thoroughly impregnated with ink, its presence is becoming stronger and stronger. It's been a long time since the day came, and the blood-red remnant sun.

Dorn understands that all of these landscapes are nothing more than a collection of abstract concepts.

For example, the red desert he is in is a symbol, a prison forged by something that humans cannot yet understand through the power of subspace.

Humans forge swords to kill their enemies. And the thing made a cage to torture him

However, Dorne was aware of something else.

He lowered his head and turned his gaze to the sand itself.

Two centuries ago, the red color of blood had vanished, and since then, the reality of the desert had begun to show its fangs to him.

At first, there was only a slight sense of disobedience, such as a soft whisper caught in the wind. Then, this perception of unreality began to intensify, and he began to hallucinate. He would see face after face he had never seen before as he carved his name.

Some were swarthy, some pale, some wore defenseless gowns, others wore ancient and primitive bronze armor. Spears made of stone, blood-stained and broken arrows, rusted blunt swords.

Dorne had only discovered who they were a century ago—the dead, the blood-red dead.

Tens of thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of years, millions of years . Countless victims who have been tortured by Blood Red for eternity in an endless time.

The corpses were grouped together, entwined with each other, blades piercing deep into each other's bodies. Bleeding forever, the wound has never healed. Their blood was a precious sacrifice to please the blood-red, so He did not allow them to heal or lay down their swords.

In other words, they are this piece of red sand.

Every grain of sand is a dead person.

They cried out in his ear, asking him to rush out of the desert with them, asking him to become their general. They even poured everything into the breeze and brought it to his ears.

They say that the blood red is gone, and the moonlight is waking them up. They also said that they had never been so free for a moment.

Then they pleaded.

Roger Dorn, be our leader, lead us in a vengeance against the brutal false god, plunge the blade into His heart, make Him suffer, make Him repent, and make Him understand that humanity is not a slave He can throw into the Colosseum at will.

Frankly, these words and truths are very appealing, but Dorne must refuse.

He's already a general, he's the genetic prototype of the Fist of the Empire, the Seventh Legion of the Human Empire, and he's a janissary of Terra, and he's already in charge. What's more, he now has another hope.

In the past, his hope was to persevere. And now, his hope was a second voice in the wind, a sound different from the murmuring of the dead, and the smell of promethium flames would prove that he was not hallucinating.

So, Dorne began to search, in the endless red sand, for a hope that could or could not exist.

It is important to know that hope is a dangerous poison, especially for a prisoner who is serving a life sentence. But he wasn't alone, he remembered all the names, new names

At this moment, for example, look, Roger Dorn stepped over a sand dune.

He moves his left foot and touches the ground, and he moves his right foot and touches the ground again. And so on and so on a thousand times. It's boring and monotonous to the extreme. But when he took his first steps, there was a name echoing in his mind

Yonetro.

He hadn't met Yonetro, but Yonetro had already introduced himself to him.

I am one of your sons, father. I come from the edge of the dark stars, and I have fought for the Empire and humanity for one hundred and twenty-two years. And now, I'm fighting for you.

The left foot falls, the right foot rises, and in the second step, a new name slowly emerges.

Eger Morukhorn.

I'm not a role model, and I don't have much honor, father. But I still wrote my name on the bone shard, not so that you would remember me, but so that you would remember my brother, your champion Dar Knowles. I promised to set foot on the land of Terra with him.

Names, names, namesPeople's names are the first things they can get after birth, sometimes given by their fathers, sometimes by shaving their cheeks and slowly pronounced in the gentle arms of their mothers.

For decades to come, the name will always be around, spread, and picked up by others. But the way Dorne learned the name of his son was through death.

He got these names from their corpses.

And those words came out of his heart right after him. It was as if what he had seen was not one corpse after another, but one after another loyal heirs who were so proud of him that they were not afraid to die.

They rightly introduced themselves to him.

How weird is this? But at this moment, Dorne's heart was at peace. He walked straight to the next hill, but the sky suddenly lit up with a golden light.

Dorne looked up and saw a twinkling star. He didn't understand what this new abstraction meant, but he didn't seem to need to either, because there were more stars being lit up.

One by one, the curtain suddenly brightened, the darkness faded, and even the moonlight quietly dissipated. The stars shone brightly, and then they began to burn, flow, and fade away. The pitch-black curtain was gradually ignited, torn to pieces in this sudden meteor shower.

Dorne stared at them in the distance, and a throbbing suddenly welled up in his heart.

His instincts began to shout loudly. It leaped hard, waving its arms and striking the boulders, creating a dull echo in his mind.

So Dorne knew they were here for him.

Coming from 10,000 years later, and then dying without regrets, just for the few seconds of this moment.

The light continued to shine, and the curtain was completely torn apart. The false truth dissipated in an instant, and a pillar of burning light appeared behind the curtain. The starlight rushed towards it, and everything took on a different appearance under its illumination.

The red sand beneath his feet turned into a boundless sea of blood, in which corpses floated and sank. The darkness overhead turned into a burning night sky in Terra, and the light of the spark filled the sky and illuminated every corner.

Dorne looked into the distance, at the boundless stone walls, only to see that they were weathering and melting. More than nine centuries of hard work are turning into burning embers that are passing away with the wind.

He took steps, in that direction, each step more determined than the last. He walked for thirteen minutes, and his perception of time came back silently—so, it was no more, no less, no second, a full thirteen minutes.

He approached a fairly intact wall and raised his hand to cover it. He slowly closed his eyes, countless thoughts boiling in his mind.

The first question that came was: How long have I been here? And then there is the answer, nine hundred and seventy-five years, nine centuries and seventy-five years.

Without any hindrance, the answer is immediate. Dorn smiled, silently, the wall collapsing with a soft touch like glass.

Then there was a human voice, and a solemn crash of armor, and an irrepressible deep breath.

"Roger Dorn." Konstantin Valdo stood behind the fence and smiled amazingly. "Long time no see."

"Long time no see, Waldo."

The escaped prisoner opened his eyes and looked at him, and at the group of Astartes behind him.

"Also, my first meeting, I'm Roger Dorn."

——

The first question to consider is, how long have we been walking?

We have come from other worlds, from the edge of the empire's borders. We have passed through man-made hell after man-made hell, and we have seen countless worlds burning, but we have not stopped. How many things did we give up to get home?

Think about it later.

We're here.

Robert Killiman drew his dagger, Angron clenched his axe, Vulcan wordlessly buckled his belt, Corus Colax rubbed his claws calmly, Conrad Coetze put on a mask, and Peturabor pulled down the lever.

The hatch was slowly pulled down, and the wind rushed into the boarding deck. The clouds burned, the night fell, and endless darkness surged over the surface. But another burst of golden light surged out from the depths of the clouds, entangled with the darkness on the ground like mist. They could no longer see a trace of Terra's former glory, and as far as the eye could see, there was only destruction and war.

So, here it is. The end of the journey.

So, now is the time. So, what else is there to say?

Robert Killiman looked up at his brothers.

"Fight according to the results of the discussion, brothers, okay? Our primary goal is to find survivors. ”

He began to repeat endlessly, what had already been said an unknown number of times, or rather, admonishment. The white hair on his forehead fell backwards in the wind, but his eyes shone like a furnace that had already lit a flame.

"We want to unite whoever we can find, even a wrecked servant, to contribute to this war after emergency repairs. Remember, don't go behind enemy lines, don't fight alone. We must be united. ”

"Did I mention that you're actually very verbose, brother?" Vulcan asked humorously.

The Lord of the Fire Dragons is smiling, he will step into the most terrifying hell ever, but he is acting with ease and naturalness.

"I think you've said that many times." Kiliman smiled too. "But I'm just trying to be a little more verbose, at least half as well as you. Isn't that possible? ”

"I'm okay with that." Angelon said. "You're both quite verbose."

The golden light surging from the depths of the clouds illuminated his face, and the wind whipped the butcher's nails, causing them to tremble, and the steel braids danced like silver snakes.

It should have been more brutal torture, it should have made the corners of his lips twitch, his muscles tremble, and his eyes widen and shrink nervously. This terrifying look was the most common expression he had along the way. But now there was only calm on his face.

"That's a hurtful statement, Angelang." Vulcan sighed deliberately and put his hand on the shoulder of the Nukerian. Killiman nodded to the side, also grimacing.

"You'd better write a book, Robert." Corus Corax naturally took over and made a joke. "Your rambling faults don't matter in a book, and you'd better keep our steel patient."

"I'm patient." The Lord of Steel said without looking back. "It's for the books, it's for you."

He was standing at the very edge of the boarding deck, peering down. The hammer was in his hand, and a tulip carved out of steel was pinned to the neck guard of his characteristic Terminator armor.

The edges of the petals are extremely sharp, and each petal has carefully carved natural patterns, but if someone can hold it up at a special angle and gaze from the bottom up, these lines will combine to form a name.

"yes, you're patient."

Conrad Coetzes nodded, giving his scoff softly behind the skull mask.

"You're going to jump straight into the fight, brother—oh, is that airborne chamber that just flashed past your legion? Ah, then I can understand that you should be impatient, Abo. ”

The primitives burst into laughter.

Peturabo still didn't look back, just let out a faint disdainful snort: "It was really my biggest mistake to get drunk and tell you this story that day"

"Perhaps." The Night King chuckled. "But, no matter what the problem is, you shouldn't continue to stand there. Come back, boss, and announce your orders. How about we sit in the same airborne warehouse? ”

Perturabo was silent for a few seconds, then slowly turned around, and in the solemn silent respect of his brothers, he slowly raised the hammer in his hand.

"Then let the war begin." He said. "For humanity, for the sake of Divine Terra."

Burning meteors smashed through the clouds and rushed straight across the sky behind him. Airborne pods painted in different colors are rapidly falling, Ultramarines, Salamanders, Midnight Blades, War Hounds, Death Wards, Raven Guards, Iron Warriors.

Astartes took on the strikers with terrible fury, as usual. The Legion's transports and gunboats followed, then the auxiliaries, and the immobilized tanks, armored vehicles, and mortals waited impatiently on the trembling decks to land.

Some are praying, some are meditating, and some are doing pre-war mobilization. Standard-bearers repeatedly polished their flagpoles, and infantrymen clenched their guns, toes bouncing inside their boots. The Mechanical Priest uses binary prayers to share the glory of the Ohm Messiah with every cathar and fighter servant who is about to go to war

Everyone understands where they are going and what fate they will usher in.

Except for one person.

Except for Orl Pesson, or Oraniz, or Oraniz, or rather, the commander of the 78th Infantry Company of the Osiris Panzer Regiment of the Otlama Auxiliary.

His heart pounded in his chest, and he felt the urge to vomit in his throat. The helmet he had received seemed to be a little too tight, and his temples were throbbing at each point, each beating made his brain swell and ache.

He pulled his sleeves up above his elbows, his fingers in his combat gloves were covered with sweat, and his gun was very good. Calmly and securely in his arms, bound by those two sweaty hands.

His lieutenant, a young man named Yorias, saw his nervousness, and he asked a question from the tremor of the deck from the rapid descent and the tremor of the bolts under the seat.

"Are you alright, company commander?"

Ur Pesson turned his head to look at him and replied stiffly, "No, I'm not good. ”

Of course he wasn't good—it didn't feel good for anyone who had to wear a heavy piece of stone around his neck when he was about to land for battle.

"I remember you were a battle hero, company commander." The young man blinked. "Why are you so nervous? We're going to defend Terra. ”

Stupid. Ur Person sighed, but finally didn't spit out the rude but helpless dirty word out of his throat.

Likewise, he didn't tell the young man anything else he was thinking. The other party was too young and enthusiastic, and there was no need to know what he was thinking.

However, he couldn't help but wonder: if even Terra needs to be defended, then how dangerous is the situation?

"I'm not a combat hero." Orr told him one by one. "I'm just a retired veteran who survived the Battle of Cowes, a wretched wretch."

"However, the commendation given to you by Master Kiliman clearly states that you performed valiantly in the battle of Cowes, killing the enemy—"

"—I didn't kill anyone, they crashed into it and died." Orr interrupted wearily. "Look at me, Yorias, do you think I look like someone who shoots and kills?"

He raised his hands, and the trembling fingers fell into the young man's eyes, and his expression fluctuated rapidly, and some doubt flashed in his eyes.

Orr chuckled, yes, that's it, kid. Throw away your unnecessary fantasies as soon as possible, I'm not a hero, I just want to

He took a deep breath, his thoughts interrupting for a moment.

A bolt of lightning crossed his mind, and he instinctively foresaw what was going to happen. For tens of thousands of years, Orr's instincts had never been sharper—at least not since Verdun.

With a quick movement, he tore open the six seat belts, reached for the emergency safety valve on the ceiling, and jerked to his feet with the help of it. The gun in his arms fell naturally, and it was bound by the lanyard and slammed into his thigh, causing a burst of pain that threatened to leave a bruise.

Yorias stared at him, as if he had no idea what was happening, but Ur Pesson knew. In this moment, no one in the world knows better than him what is going to happen next.

The first second passed, and he turned around, and the porthole, which was filled with golden light, was shattering from the tremendous pressure.

The second passed, and Urr Pesson shouted: "Everyone hurry up!" ”

His voice was ridiculous in some kind of terrible shrill chirp, and he wasn't sure how many people had heard him at this moment, but he had to shout.

Like in the third second, shouting loudly, like he was about to spit out his lungs.

"Don't be stunned, idiot!" Orr Pesson roared and reached out to hold Yorias, and the young man struggled in confusion, but Orr's strength was so great that he was pinned to his seat.

What happened next can be summed up in two words, one is explosion, and the other is darkness.

In the last second, the fourth, before darkness came, Ur Persson grabbed the gem on his chest with his right hand.

It was also rubbing his sternum, bringing weight and pain. Logically, he should have thrown it away, but he didn't. He pounced on Yorias, protecting him, and crushing the gem under him.

In this moment, he didn't think about anything.

And then there is darkness, endless darkness.

Based on your comments, the chapter titles will be updated to include just numbers, so that they can be easily flipped through. This chapter is 5.3k, and there is another chapter of 5k, which I will serve as soon as possible.

(End of chapter)