Chapter 148 Destiny and Ethics, the Meaning of Terra
The Revenant Redeemer left the planet.
But before that, the ground troops' recovery work delayed it for a full fourteen hours.
For nearly an entire day, it and the battleship transport airship that arrived subsequently worked hard to recover surface equipment.
After all, except for personnel and some equipment that need to be delivered with the army, most equipment and materials are released through short warehouses, and it takes far more time to recover than to release.
The troops on the ground were different from when they left, occupying only a small part of the transport capacity.
Soldiers who died in battle were allowed to take back only a few belongings with them, 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 still alive.
The bodies of those who died in the battle were collected, incinerated, and the ashes were kept at the entrance to the Webway ruins, under the temporary stone monument erected to commemorate the battle. Their names will also be engraved on this stone monument representing their courage and dedication.
The initial list of soldiers was easy to obtain. After all, this group of people had been trained on Titan II for more than several years before departure, and the Redeemer of the Souls had relatively complete information on them.
What is difficult to handle is the specific verification work, because we are facing the demon of Khorne, and most of the dead do not have complete bodies for identification.
It is obviously not the first time that veterans of the officer corps have encountered this situation. They gave simple and feasible suggestions:
"Exclusion."
That's right. Excluding the unlucky ones who were missing on the battlefield and excluding those who made it home alive, the rest is a list of those killed in action.
The specific identification work seems wasteful and unnecessary due to time constraints.
Anyway, it is impossible for them to be buried alone. Anyway, they were used to crowded soldier dormitories during their lifetime, and they would not refuse to mix with their comrades after death.
Mixed together in every sense of the word.
Calvin was sitting in his dormitory suite, reviewing the gains and losses of this battle alone in a quiet environment.
After he handed over the complicated administrative affairs, no one came to disturb him anymore:
If he really had any undecided decisions or if there was a diplomatic issue that required his intervention, Kim would come to him.
Yes, that's right, Jin, the tool used 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.
He and the other five Forbidden Guards, under the arrangement of the Tower of Hegemony, became a special existence around Calvin that monitored more than guards.
Honor guard? Guards? Discipline enforcement force?
Either or neither. Anyway, Calvin has never heard of any Primarch that can be successfully arrested by a team of Custodes...
But accidents are accidents, and troubles are troubles. Calvin seems extremely disgusted with this unplanned existence.
"This is the treatment that every Primarch and special figure in the Empire has."
This is what Captain Nicholas explained to Calvin. He himself will return to Calvin again after completing his short mission and returning to Terra to report on his duties.
This was also one of the conditions for Calvin to acquire the warlord-level psychic power, the Titan Declaration of Truth, without spending a penny.
"So I still want 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 waiting for recovery by Titan's large transport barge on the surface, that child's lonely figure, he decided to endure it.
After all, no matter how complete the supply of armaments on Titan is, the technical sergeants on the micro-forging world never imagined that one day they would need to serve a complete warlord-level Titan.
This ability is definitely beyond the knowledge of an Astartes Techmarine. In the short period of a hundred years of training in the Cult of Mechanicus, it is impossible for them to have the opportunity to come into contact with such top-secret information.
Mars is very attached to the knowledge of these machine-god incarnations. Since the existence of Titan, these core knowledge 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 power to represent the Throne Court can bypass these links and directly mobilize the priests of the still dormant Order of Omen.
Anyway, if their pilots cannot be replenished for a day, these priests will have nothing to do for a day.
Getting these units that have gone dormant due to excessive personnel losses to get busy again is one of the unshirkable responsibilities of the Throne Court, isn't it?
After struggling to make ends meet, this part of the matter finally came to fruition. Putting that aside for the moment, Calvin began to look to the spiritual world for the benefits of his soul.
Compared to ordinary mortals or demons, the emotions of Alpha level psykers are countless times more intense.
But compared to the existence of the Great Demon, the importance of the former has to take a back seat. Without him, existences like the Great Demon, in which the gods were directly involved in creation, are born with relevant fragments of authority in their souls.
This twisted fragment is the source of the individual and core charm of the Great Demon as one of the thousands of incarnations of the gods.
It makes the great demon know his mission from the beginning of his birth. While sharing a certain aspect of the diamond-like authority of the gods, he also exercises the Tao and righteousness represented by this aspect.
Maybe they have different identities and orderings, 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 ordinary devils.
But not every big demon has fragments, because not every big demon is a "real" existence.
They seem to be no different from those "realities", but they may just be a projection in time of a destructive power blessed by the gods.
The relationship between demons is so chaotic and disordered. The outside world has no way of knowing their complex relationship, and mortals who try to study them always find that they are the one who has been deceived...
Calvin doesn't study this. He is just tasting each harvest from the perspective of a predator, using his unique "taste".
Just like opening a blind box, if you open too many fake ones, you can always find the real ones; if you open too many projections, the information about the owner of the projection—the real name—will be grasped by Calvin sooner or later.
This is also the origin of the devil's true name recorded in the Devil's Tome.
As long as there is a record of being killed, even if it is not the real person, it will inevitably leak part of its true name.
The difference is that the treatment method is different from other Gray Knights. Calvin will not choose to expel, but to eat directly...
The remnants of demonic and psychic echoes made him much more complete, and the twisted power of the great demon—the fragments of his true name were also waiting for him to savor.
That's what he thought, but the planned pleasant dining time alone was unexpectedly interrupted. After he saw the three gray knights who died in the spiritual world... "!!! The emperor's toilet! You guys!" Why are you here?"
Calvin looked at the three people standing at the gate of the city-state in his spiritual world, and he felt bad!
Isn’t this the promise that the soul will return to the throne? What does it mean to come back to me?
"You here? So this land and this city-state belong to you?"
Feier observed the surroundings with interest and was not surprised by Calvin's sudden appearance.
The same was true for Albride and Natario behind him. They were watching the crowds passing by on the roadside at the city gate with great interest.
The mortal souls around them seemed not surprised by the appearance of these three new beings. They acted as if nothing had happened and were busy with their lives as before.
"We don't know the specific situation, but it should be related to the seed you gave us."
Fell explained to Calvin, having seen enough of the details of the crowd.
"We did have several options at that time, either to die, or to respond to the 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 option would be better. ”
"So you came to my place?"
Calvin still found it a little hard to accept that this was by no means part of his plan, nor was it his original intention of establishing this place.
He never intended to interfere too much in the arrangements of these comrades.
But an accident happened like this. Before he took the initiative to use the power of redemption, these comrades who had been assimilated by him with psychic powers had tickets to come here after death.
This could be regarded as an accident, but Calvin knew that there must be some details that he had overlooked.
What exactly is it? He turned around a few times and scratched his head in distress.
It can only be the soul! It will only be the soul!
In fact, without much thinking, Calvin already understood:
So while the psychic seeds he gave assimilated the psychic energy, it naturally affected the souls of these Gray Knights?
Logically speaking, there is indeed no problem, since spiritual energy serves as the soul in this universe - that is, the external manifestation of spiritual energy.
Then the change in the state of spiritual energy should have been a by-product of the change in spiritual energy, but Calvin has always misunderstood this, and naively regarded the effect as the cause.
So the question is, if these three people are like this, what about the other Gray Knights?
After they meet the end of their destiny at some point in the future, will they also be dragged to this land because of his unexpected intervention?
Then will he be cautious about giving out psychic seeds in the future?
After all, giving this kind of money is equivalent to the other party signing a life-to-death contract for him.
As the giver, does he also have the obligation to bear corresponding responsibilities?
Does he have this ability?
Can he afford the other party's hopes?
Can he guarantee that he will not die on a certain battlefield?
If he, Calvin, dies in battle at some point, what will these warriors who rely on him do?
The problem is small now, confined to the confines of the Honor Guard.
But whenever Calvin thinks about the gene seeds that will be sent back to Mars, his headache gets even worse.
The essential issues of the soul's destiny involved in faith, as well as the ethical issues of commitment and rights and obligations, were all perceived by Calvin under this divergent thinking.
He was distressed to discover that he had far more responsibilities than he imagined. Death is the end of life in the eyes of others, but for him, it may be just the beginning of trouble...
He told his troubles to these three comrades, and the three of them looked more and more solemn as he told them.
In the end, Albride, the oldest, spoke up to provide Calvin with their views:
"This is actually two things. The first thing is the issue of responsibility you mentioned. You don't need to worry about it at all."
He turned around and looked at these people who were still living peacefully and said:
"Because the prerequisite for us to be here is to agree with your ideals and beliefs. Then when sacrifice is inevitable, we will also have the awareness to be with you. This is the case for us, and the future Gray Knights should be the same."
"What about the second one?" Calvin decided to listen to him.
"As for the second thing..."
Albride looked at the other two people. The three people who were connected in the soul state completed the communication in an instant, and then looked at the confused Calvin:
"My child, since you were born (since you became a Gray Knight), you have been going back and forth between Titan and various battlefields. Decades have passed. Don't you really feel that you are missing some link that has not been completed?"
"Me? What link am I 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 it have anything to do with my current problem?"
"Go and see Him!" Natario said, looking deeply in the direction of Terra in the distance.
"Go and meet Him, the source of all of us and this empire. If you have the chance, it's best to talk to Him. He will give you a legal ruling. After that, no matter what the outcome is, you will not I don’t need to worry about this ethical issue anymore.”
Calvin fell silent after hearing these words. He also looked in the direction of Terra, and what he was thinking about was the hidden meaning behind the words of the Imperial Army envoy he met at the adjutant post:
Lord Trajan, the commander of the imperial army, is eagerly looking forward to your arrival. Please come whenever you are free...
Is Trajan really the only one looking forward to his arrival?
Or maybe he didn't want to see if the source of it all, the existence that took him in, was really the sacred emperor?
What does the Emperor mean to this 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.
But today, it seems that this issue can no longer be postponed.
No matter what, there was a reason why he had to go to Terra.
It's shameful to escape, but since escape can no longer delay the problem, he must not hide here all the time without facing it.
Calvin took a deep breath, at least now he knew what he was going to do next.
He needed to go to Terra to see that divine being. He needed to go to Terra to see the place where all the stories began.
Two in one, please vote.