I'm in Warhammer, please don't praise Doraemon

Chapter 696 Luther and Lord Cipher

Azrael saw the dark green figure, sinister, strong, and terrifying. Just a glimpse from afar filled Azrael with a fear that ran deep in his bones.
The lion Ryan Al Johnson appeared before him in the deep tunnel of flesh and blood, so suddenly and inexplicably.
Azrael was almost instantly certain that this was the Hive Will repeating its old tricks, and that the special brain worm named Maranthai's Calamity was trying to bewitch his mind, lure him, and devour his soul in this way.

So, the former leader of the Dark Angels hesitated for only two seconds before drawing the blade from his waist.

Before Harrel, who was beside Azrael, could react, Azrael darted around to the side of the figure with the speed of a black cat in the forest, and crouched down silently.
Harrel noticed this scene and saw the lion as well. He wanted to stop Azrael, but remembering that it was Azrael who had seen through the illusion woven by the Calamity of Maranthai last time, Harrel hesitated for a moment.
In that instant, the lion standing in the tunnel of flesh seemed to sense Azrael's presence. He slightly turned his head, about to look behind him.
opportunity!

Azrael growled, and the blade in his hand, sharp as a cat's fangs, pierced straight towards the lion's body.
The lion turned its head, its reaction speed faster than Azrael's sword.

Those gloomy eyes hidden beneath the dark golden mane locked onto Azrael's body in a fleeting instant.

In an instant, Azrael felt as if a thousand rough obsidian blades had pierced his body; intense pain seared every nerve ganglion.

His expression trembled slightly. He recalled his childhood, when he was a caveman child on a cold planet, hiding beneath the snow, waiting in the dead of winter for the thick-furred wild beasts of the snowfield, and all he held in his hand was a short dagger made from the teeth of wild animals.
He had done this many times before; he wanted to win back the furs his tribe needed for the winter.
But he failed that time.
Perhaps the old beast was too cunning, or perhaps his young body trembled slightly from the cold; in any case, he gave himself away just before he made his move.

The beast of winter stared down at him with its gloomy, cunning, and ferocious gaze, as if it wanted to tear his body apart inch by inch to see his warm internal organs.
The feeling then was similar to this moment, yet completely different.
Azrael could sense that the gap between him and the man before him was far greater than the gap between him as a child and that snow monster.
Azrael fought desperately to kill that snow monster back then, but he has no chance of killing this man now.

Bang! ! ! !

He slapped Azrael's helmet on the head.

Azrael's head and body flew backward, crashing heavily into the fleshy walls of the corridor of flesh.
Azrael's mind was in chaos, and dizziness swept over his entire body. He felt as if the part of his brain that controlled balance had been precisely destroyed by the lion's slap.

A bitter smile flickered across his lips at that moment.

How could it really be a lion? That slap just now—without a doubt, it was the real lion, Ryan Eld Johnson, the First Primarch, the Emperor's eldest son.
He had just actually drawn his sword at the lion; Azrael could sense the rage emanating from the lion.
How could a lion not be furious that an Astartes dared to ambush him from behind as soon as he entered the battlefield?

"No!" A figure stood between Azrael and the lion. Horel raised his broadsword and stood directly in front of Ryan El-Jonson.

What surprised Azrael even more was that Harrel's sword-wielding posture was completely different from before, yet it felt strangely familiar to Azrael.
That's the starting stance of Caliban's swordsmanship.
"My offspring." The lion's tone was unwavering, filled with certainty.

"Ah, Azrael, feeling dizzy, opened his mouth slightly, looking somewhat bewildered and surprised, but upon closer reflection, he realized that this was not unexpected."

“Sorry, brother, I’ve gotten used to being wary. I’ve hidden the fact that I’m just like you. I’m also what those younger people call a ‘fallen angel’.”

No, we're actually different. I'm not a fallen angel. To be honest, Azrael would rather be just an ordinary fallen angel passing by right now.
"Get out of the way." The lion drew its longsword, which surprised Azrael.

Could it be that, in the lion's fighting instinct, Herrell is a worthy opponent to draw his sword against?

The Sword of Loyalty hurtled through the air, so fast that it made Azrael's scalp tingle.

But Herrell raised his longsword, tilted the blade, and bent his legs slightly, thus dissipating the power of the lion's sword and blocking it.

"Oh?" The lion's voice rose slightly, as if he had noticed something interesting.

The swords clashed several times at incredible speed, and the lion's smile grew increasingly clear.

And yet, Herrell was actually fighting the Primarch with only an Astartes body.
The lion slightly raised the sword in its hand, and with an extremely subtle change, seized a momentary flaw in Herrell's swordsmanship, causing Herrell to retreat two or three steps.

“So it’s you, my little brother.” The lion seemed to recognize Herrell, and his tone softened.

“Herel, my name is now Herel.” Herel bowed his head and stood guard before Azrael: “My lord, he did not intend to swing his sword at you. The swarm had used illusions to deceive us, and he mistook you for an illusion.”

“Why be so tense, Herrell?” The lion nodded slightly. “Since my return, my offspring have raised their swords at me countless times, and I am no longer so angry.”

“I just wanted to verify his identity,” the lion said, his voice lowering slightly and becoming somewhat profound.

Herrell hesitated for a moment, then gently moved aside.

"Take off your helmet," the lion commanded Azrael.

Azrael's body stiffened for a moment, then he did not move.

"Take off your helmet!" The lion's words carried an unquestionable force this time.

Azrael shuddered, his arms trembling slightly as he raised them, placing his hands on either side of the helmet and pulling it upwards—

click!
Azrael's helmet was stuck on his head. Ryan's slap had deformed and twisted Azrael's helmet, and now it couldn't be pulled off.

But the lion's gaze remains sharp as a knife, leaving no room for doubt.

Urged on by those gazes, Azrael struggled to remove his helmet, and after some hesitation, finally managed to pull it off slightly.
Azrael was drenched in sweat; he had a premonition that if he took off his helmet, he might...
Azrael's chin was slightly exposed.
"Luther?" Just then, as if sensing something, Ryan suddenly turned around and called out to the person behind him.

Seizing the opportunity, Azrael quickly put his helmet back on his head.

Ryan El-Johnson turned around and looked behind him. His shadow was writhing in the flesh and blood tunnel. A familiar aura emanated from the shadow. A breeze stirred in the forest. His meticulously maintained steel armor shone like a mirror, reflecting the lush green trees. A steed, darker than night, crossed the cold stream. Its master stopped in a clearing in the forest. He lowered his head, revealing his face with black hair, black hair, and a black beard.

“It’s a child!” the knight’s squire shouted at Ryan.

"No." The knight looked at the boy in the woods. "He's a hunter! And he'll be a knight!"

“I never imagined then that you would be my son, my brother, my father, my monarch, and my enemy.” As if stepping out of Ryan’s memory, Luther smiled and stood in the shadows, speaking to Ryan.

“Traitor,” Ryan growled.

“I did betray you, Ryan.” Luther looked at Ryan with a sorrowful gaze. “I was so foolish. I was filled with jealousy, jealous of the glory you achieved. I was excessively curious, preserving the Chaos Codex of the Sirius Knights. I was hopelessly pedantic, hopelessly obsessed with the past. I was enraged and lost my mind; rage consumed my reason.”

“I thought I could master the power of the four gods and control the warp, but instead I have been controlled by the gods and used to persecute you.”

“But Ryan, you haven’t really made an irreparable mistake.”

"You remember, right? At the last moment, I broke free from the gods' control. I... I didn't kill you. I realized I was heading towards madness."

Luther's face showed pain:

“But Caliban fell apart at that time. It wasn’t me who destroyed Caliban, it wasn’t me who seriously injured you, you know that.”

“You have already pardoned many people, why can’t you pardon me as well?”

"O lion, I beg you. I beg you to let me return to your side."

Luther opened his arms slightly towards Ryan.
Hele took a deep breath, turned his head, and looked behind him.
The man with two pistols at his waist, a hood, and a greatsword on his back was standing behind Herrell.
“Sefer,” Herrell uttered the name.
Lord Cipher—this title originally belonged to a special position in Caliban, where the person holding this position would abandon their past identity and name, existing solely as Cipher.

Now, the name Cipher refers specifically to the being before Hele, a fallen angel whose identity, origin, and purpose are unknown, who carries the Primarch's sword and wields two guns.

"Who exactly are you, and what is your purpose?"

Herrell had been hunting him for millennia.

"I exist for a mission, I exist to ensure that the final moment will not come."

"Everything I have done is for a greater will, for a grander goal, for the Emperor, and for the protection of mankind."

This is what Seifer once said to Heller, and now he is merely repeating it.

“If you want to know who I am, why don’t you come and see for yourself?” Seifer shook his hood a few times and stared at Herrell. “You can take off my hood yourself.”

Herrell couldn't help but take a step forward.

Azrael struggled to slash at the psionic tentacles. Astartes' healing abilities had restored most of the balance mechanism in his brain, enough for him to continue fighting.

The Maranthai Calamity was entrenched at the end of the flesh tunnel, which was closer to the eerie lighthouse. The Calamity's power seemed to have increased, and even the lion seemed to be disturbed and affected by its psychic energy.

Only Azrael escaped. Azrael felt that this was the will of the hive's doing. It seemed that last time Azrael's sword strike had created a flaw in the psionic illusion woven by Maranthai's Calamity, making the will of the hive wary of him. Instead of dragging him into the illusion, it used a dense array of psionic tentacles to deal with him.

As the lion's figure receded from Maranthai's peril, Azrael's heart pounded faster and faster.

Fugen let out a soft breath. Unlike Azrael, he chose to break into the fleshy spire from the other side, and the Hive Will also dispatched units specifically to counter Fugen.
It was a tattered cocoon, as if the creature inside had been forcibly torn from its shell and pulled out before it was even born, supported by grayish-brown fleshy limbs.

From the opening of the cocoon hung a twisted, mangled body, a form that combined features of a spider, a butterfly, and a human. It had eight pairs of limbs, its body withered, and a hideous, distorted face drooping from its swollen abdomen.

His abdomen swelled to a size of six or seven meters, covered with ugly insect eggs, among which one could vaguely see some biological embryos wriggling.

Fugen looked at that face, a face he knew all too well.

“Fabius,” Fugen murmured the name of the master of that face.
Fabius Bayer, the former chief apothecary and son of the emperor, was preyed upon and reused by the Hive Will. His will and his genetic sequence were fused with the Norn Queen by the Hive Will, creating the terrifying monster that Fugen sees before him.

Not only that, Fougen noticed that Fabius now possessed a genetic sequence in his blood that was similar to Fougen's.

The Hive's will fulfilled Fabius's grand ambition. The Tyranids reshaped Fabius using the Primarch Forgrim's genetic sequence and injected the freakish father born from Fabius's withering disease and his belief in creation into his body, shaping him into something resembling the Primarch.

".Fogen" rang out in a hoarse roar almost identical to Fabius's. The worm eggs in Fabius's abdomen began to wriggle and twist, and several figures began to emerge from them. Fogen sensed the presence of his brothers' genes in those embryos, but those gene sequences had all been distorted by Tyron, which made him feel nauseous.

What blasphemy!
A roar echoed in Fugen's mind.

“Fabius, Father,” Fugen said softly, “I have come to end your suffering.”

(End of this chapter)