He awoke in an illusory curtain of light, feeling as complete as he had ever been.

It's a strange thing—wholeness, for most living things, is a concept that is taken for granted like the basic resources that sustain their lives. It's like being born to breathe air, but if it weren't for the sudden drowning, I'm afraid no one would realize how precious air is for human survival. In the same way, if a person has not experienced a defect, he will not rejoice in his own wholeness.

He couldn't remember when he had experienced a defect in the past, but the sense of relaxation and pleasure that wholeness had brought him was still vivid.

For a moment, he couldn't think of anything. The data, the records, the knowledge, the theories, the past experiences and the ability to think were all still in his mind, but his dull mind could not extract the really useful parts from this messy mass of things, and straighten them out of the cocoon. He did remember everything, but at the same time, he couldn't remember anything.

In this brief period he was just him, giving birth to a pure joy in his own wholeness. However, happiness was short-lived, and the primordial-level thinking ability awoke from a brief hibernation in defiance of his own will, and the ability to process information came online again, beginning to straighten out the huge archive room in his mind that had fallen into disrepair and accumulated dust.

Then he remembered: he was Motarian, the champion of Barbarus, the Fourteenth Primordial, the Lord of the Death Guard, a contradictory aggregate. He was a human being, but he clearly surpassed him in all functions; He spits on psionic energy, but he has a considerable psionic talent himself; He longs to save, he longs to rebel, but he only loses again and again, and submits again and again to power and power.

In the midst of unprecedented clarity, he realized how ridiculous his life really was. Some of them recognized this from the perspective of a third person, while the larger part felt almost maddening pain as a result. For a moment, he even thought about death.

But he didn't really go crazy, and he didn't really die. Mentally, this is indeed a big blow, but it can't completely defeat a primordial body. And in the moment he thought of death, he suddenly realized that he was indeed dead—and that it was impossible for a dead man to die a second time.

Motarion's own tenacity worked where he didn't want it to, even if he himself wanted to go mad and give up control of his consciousness to escape the torment. But he couldn't.

The past flows inexorably through his eyes regardless of his own wishes—point to point, line to line, event to event, error to error. Under this quiet, indifferent, and indifferent light curtain, he was forced to recall all the bits and pieces of his life, sweet successes were fleeting, and the sourness of failure always remained in them.

In the midst of such torture, he unconsciously cursed loudly and began to curse others. Curse the Emperor, curse all other beings who have rebelled against his will, curse the alien adoptive father who has abused and tormented him at the beginning of his life. He cursed everything he could think of, as if his failures in life were caused by them.

Once again, he tried to hide in the cage of self-deception, telling himself that it was not his problem, in order to escape the mental pressure. But this time, he failed. A strange force forced him to look inside himself and focus on the real source of the problem – and that was often himself.

"This must be the Emperor's psionic trick!" Under the pressure, he shouted frantically, "Cursed rotting corpse on the throne!" Don't try to crush me with this method! ”

"That's true—I mean the psionic tricks." Another gentle voice responded to him, "But he doesn't want to break you out with that." On the contrary, he wants you to pull through. ”

"Who's talking!" Motarian roared.

At the same time as he asked such a question, a bright figure immediately appeared around the area that seemed to be empty except for the light. He seems to be unstable in shape, and his ethereal figure is sometimes high and low, but there is always one feature - the white and graceful wings behind him will never be mistaken.

"St. Giles." There was obvious resentment in Motarian's tone, "Even the Archangel of Radiance is now going to pretend to be a ghost in front of his own brother?" ”

"I'm not pretending, I've always been." The humanoid light that was about St. Giles said, "It's just that I'm incomplete, and I'm only immersed in my own world, and I don't notice me." ”

A little stimulation from the outside world diverted Mortarian's attention from the fight with himself, and the negative emotions of shame, pain, and grief caused by self-torture subsided a little.

"You know, I'm quite envious of you." St. Giles spoke in a mild tone, as if Motarian had not spoken ill of him, as if the Great Rebellion had never happened ten thousand years ago—as if they had been brothers who had gathered together in the middle of the Great Expedition, sitting at the same table and chatting, "I want to complete my soul a day sooner, but...... Ay. ”

Motarian didn't know why the other party said this, but that didn't prevent him from sneering and sneering: "And then, like me, forced to relive the life of a loser?" Oh, I'm sorry. The whole life is extremely bright, you don't want to be afraid of this, right? ”

The betrayer laughed viciously in his agony, but St. Giles acted indifferent, as if the other had never said such a word.

"It's a necessary process." The Archangel emotionally and emotionally explained, "You have been separated from your own soul and essence for too long, and in the time of reuniting, all the elements must be reunited. In this process, you have to scrutinize, dissect, confront and understand the whole of yourself – past experiences, strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures. Only then can your body, mind, and spirit be recast again, and your 'wholeness' will be a true wholeness. ”

"These idealistic deceptions." Motarian angrily accused, "Our common father just wanted to torment me with this." ”

"Then you're to blame him. You don't understand the truth of good medicine, and some rehabilitation procedures are indeed accompanied by intense pain. St. Giles was so reassuring.

But in the next sentence of the archangel, there seems to be some schadenfreude that cannot be concealed: "What's more, this is far from being called 'torture'." ”

Motarian became alert: "What did you say? ”

"I mean, when you're back to being truly whole, it's just the beginning." St. Giles spoke in a brisk tone as if he were singing, "You don't think that for more than 10,000 years since the Great Rebellion, the sins you have committed against the entire galaxy have been undone, do you?" ”

The glorious human form pointed in a direction, and Motarian followed the other man's gesture to look there, or rather, cast his current limited perception in that direction—

—a path that would pale before it for any language, appeared before his eyes.

That route is laid out with blood and fire, pestilence and death, corruption and pain, the wailing of the innocent, and the curse of the vain. It represented the karmic obstacle he had created, and the path was wide and straight, unconcealed, but even for the original body, there was no end in sight. It seemed to be smooth, but Motarian instinctively knew that if he dared to approach it, the spirits or obsessions that suffered because of him would rush up and try to tear him to pieces.

"When you are whole, you are qualified to walk this path; And when you have completed this path, you will have the qualifications to return to the physical universe as the original body, as the son of the emperor. "Of course, it doesn't matter if you decide to go straight to it now, but it's no different from suicide." Not...... Or maybe that's a way out? It's up to you. ”

Obviously, although the archangels seem to be friendly, they are only "looking" after all.

"You've always said you've been the toughest brother of us. If you can't complete this trial, I think the rescue of the other mutinous brothers will almost be stopped. St. Giles said in a relaxed tone, "Rika Fujimaru is a good man, and our father also has some too delusional tolerance for his son. These two people joined forces and insisted on doing this, and I really couldn't persuade them. But if you fail here, I'll have some new and stronger corroboration to refute this thankless plan. ”

He didn't go on, but Motarian seemed to hear the next sentence: "I'm looking forward to it." ”

"Don't stress too much," St. Giles continued, "we all know it's hard to accept yourself completely, and if you fail here, no one will laugh at you." It's normal to think about dying out of pain and despair - even though you and I are dead, I won't say anything more about your decision if you think it's better to be torn apart by the victims of your crimes—"

Angry, Motarian struggled to wave his arm towards the golden light: "Go away!" You birdman! ”

It was only then that he realized that the limb he was trying to dominate was a gray mist, and St. Giles had already laughed and left in some kind of psychic way, not knowing where he had gone.

Motarian knew that the other party was deliberately provoking him, and provoked him. But it was true that a raging anger grew from the remorse, shame, and fear in his heart, and the hunting ground burned, and once again ignited his desire to live.

I will endure. Motarian thought bitterly.

I'm going to put up with all of this, and then, when I can get out of this damn place, I'm going to find St. Giles again and punch him hard at his artwork face.

——

After unleashing all his forces to fight to the death, the Lord of the Plague paid a terrible price.

In terms of results alone, He and some of His followers survived. Nurgle's realm remained, unerased from the endless chaos, but its power had inevitably diminished, and the gods' beloved garden had been shattered and desolate after a fierce battle.

With the vast majority of his plague fleet currently heading to Otlama for a war where victory should have been within reach, the defenses of his base camp had been weakened, otherwise, the Emperor's Dream alone, even if it was the Emperor's own supreme masterpiece on the engine of war, would not have been able to inflict such serious damage on a god's Chaos Realm.

But now it's too late to regret it, it's already happened. Even if Nurgle had swept up a subspace storm in his outright grief and almost succeeded in keeping the great warship in his own realm - alas, it was still a little short.

At the most critical moment, there were endless ravens flying out of the sky. No one knows where they came from, or where they eventually disappeared. But they did completely obscure the supposedly unobstructed view between heaven and earth in the Nurgle Realm for about two seconds, and in those crucial two seconds, a warship larger than the Queen of Glory-class battleships vanished into thin air.

It was clearly some help from a third party in addition to the two in conflict, but the weary Nurgle had no time to tell who it was or what it was. The god of plague now wanted nothing more than to return to his ruined palace and weep in mourning with the remaining children.

After this battle, he undoubtedly fell to the bottom of the great game points ranking, and those plague ships that had been sent out probably had no hope of returning to the dynasty. And that raises more problems: while his realm doesn't seem to be much intrusive beyond the gardens and palaces, it just looks like it looks like it will soon be noticed by the other players on the board that Nurgle's realm lacks defenses, and when the time comes, they'll just swarm up like vultures and devour the unprotected areas of his realm farther down. It's all a tragic future foreseeable.

The loving father returned to his chamber in despair, not surprised to find that all his servants were silent. He was ready to go back to his favorite little terrace for a while, where the view was always the best. Although the sight of the devastated garden now only pained Him, Nurgle felt the need to make a clear note of his loss.

— and then immediately after, he noticed that something was wrong.

"Where's Isa?" The voice of His wrath was like thunder. Instead of wandering through the chambers with grief, he appeared directly in the room he loved most—the cauldron where he had cooked the plague and imprisoned the goddess of life of the spirits.

The cage has been opened, and the prisoner has escaped. The room was empty, littered with traces of spells and psionic powers, and everything else was burned, flooded, frozen, distorted—destroyed in all sorts of forms of energy.

Strongly offended, Nurgle cast a spell, but he soon discovered that all clues were erased, all records destroyed, and there was not a trace of traceability, either in time and space, or in the records of possible life itself.

Amid the angry and mournful roar of the plague god, a tiny, multicolored hummingbird feather slowly fell from the top of the cage.

The new chess player has acquired his original chess pieces.

Miwoo (none)

Lie down peacefully .jpg

(End of chapter)