Warhammer: Black Emperor

Chapter 885 Reading Ninglu's Biography by the Fireside

001.M31.

The flagship of the Space Wolf, the Herafunkel, is piloted by navigator Gianluigi Belissau aboard the monorail.

The train roared to life and sped past the Star Language and Astrology sections.

He didn't get off at the Navigator's Sanctuary, but continued onward.

Along both sides of the main channel, every few hundred meters you can see a huge stone carving, the base of which is covered in dirt from various worlds.

They are the only remnants of the ruins left behind in the world traversed by wild wolves.

The train slowly slowed down, and a masked wolf warrior in a split leather suit entered Gianluigi's world.

Belisarius observed them with great interest, just as he had seen when he first arrived at the Glory Queen-class battleship.

But now he can distinguish each wolf by its leather coat, which is more distinctive than Astartes' face.

The gray leather jacket with its fiery red stripes is like a raging fire in wartime, but cold and silent in peacetime.

The gray leather jacket features a spiral pattern, as turbulent as the wind and as cold as ice.

……

The train stopped at the command spire, and Belisarius slowly rose, carrying a thick book, and disembarked, heading towards Leman Russ's throne room—the Hall of the Wolves.

He walked down the narrow corridor leading to the Wolf Hall, where familiar wolf servants—the wolf guards—emerged from the same dwellings built of enormous ivory tusks and nodded in greeting.

Belisar walked through the suffocating heat emanating from the brazier, flames exploding in his eyes, burning them upwards.

He reached the end of the corridor and looked up at the giant python coiled around the huge round, ivory-shaped gate.

It opens its mouth wide and bites its own tail; this is a deliberately depicted image of Ouroboros, which is an eternal symbol in ancient Terra.

Suddenly, the wild beasts arranged among the monster carcasses came to life, emerging from the vast Fenris Ocean encircled by scales.

The gaping maw lunged at Belisarius, while the Navigator raised his left arm, trying to tear the silk ribbon from his forehead.

The cold tentacles wrapped tightly around his arm, and he shivered as his arm froze instantly.

Belisarius's consciousness grew slower and slower, as if he were buried under an iceberg.

His breath hit the door and condensed into drops of ice water.

suddenly!
Belisarius's eyes suddenly shot out two golden beams of light, and the monster was instantly annihilated, its icy tentacles disappearing.

He wiped the cold sweat from his face. He knew that without the soul-binding ritual and the Emperor's reinforcement of his mind, he would have already fallen into the warp-space anomaly.

He couldn't help but feel envious, thinking, "I really wish I could be like Vischer, drinking mandrake tea as if it were a delicate beverage."
Belisarius was able to buy mandrake from other imperial worlds outside of Nimrod's territories at high prices.

However, the quantity is scarce, and he also has to compete with the Star Speakers, so he can only drink it on a limited number of occasions.

He didn't have the money to have a drink with the wolf king every time he met him.

[The navigators cannot live without mandrake, and the star whisperers are now also moving closer to Nimrod.]

As a navigator, Belisarius was not at all surprised that so many families sided with Nimrod.

The fleet of "Shadow of Order" possesses a vast array of star maps of the northern and eastern galaxy, a tempting prospect for any navigator.

Flamini further invested heavily in the joint development of the new district of Collonide, completely binding many families together.

Apart from the Belisarius family, almost all the Navigator families own assets or have shares in multiple worlds of Colony.

Flamini's approach not only solved the huge funding and resource gaps, but also utilized the networks of many nobles such as the Navigator, the Star Speaker, and Paiyak to solve the sales problem, selling products such as the wine from Mill Star and the termite excavator from Hurricane Star at high prices to many imperial worlds.

It was even more impossible to exchange with the "Shadow of Order" through the Legion. Ever since the Lord of Winter and War were defeated by Nimrod in Durand, the beasts such as the Kraken of Fenris had been regularly hunted and sent to Vostonia.

Belisarius couldn't understand: did the defeat of the Wolf King mean he would forever owe Nimrod something?

Lord Phenus also lost; he had only forged a suit of armor.

Moreover, on that erased planet, the Wolf King was defeated by Nimrod again, but without paying any price.

It's even stranger that the Wolf King hasn't made any further statements regarding Nimrod or the "Shadow of Order."

The constant whispers of the warp in his ears tempted him to explore its dark secrets, but he dared not touch them.

He feared the secrets the wolf king hid, and he also feared falling into the trap of warp predators.

Belisarius gathered his thoughts and pushed open the door.

He stepped into the Wolf Hall and felt as if he had entered a hibernation cave.

There are no lights here, as if we have left a human settlement.

The brazier and resin torch are the only light sources here.

The rune priests, adorned with primitive bone runes, scrutinized him like priests from a barbaric tribe.

Belisarius walked toward the bone throne carved from animal skeletons, and the navigator sensed that the light around him had changed.

The storm howled. "Gianluigi, the wolves welcome you back."

The wolf guards, their faces covered in leather masks, laughed heartily. Several of them wore helmets shaped like wolf skulls and held aloft goblets filled with mead.

Ruth's words pulled Belisarius back to the primitive cave, to the ancient times when humans ate raw meat and drank blood.

"Lord Ruth has fulfilled his mission and brought back Nimrod's biography."

Ruth rose from between the two giant wolves, one black and one silver, who were lying prostrate on either side, and took the book.

"Serve Gianniqui a glass of mead!"

He sat back down between Freddie and Gerry, his icy blue eyes fixed on the cover.

Shadow King

[That's quite apt; his true colors are hidden in the shadows.]
Nimrod and Ryan are both potential candidates for Warmaster, and neither of them expressed any obvious dissatisfaction after Horus became Warmaster.

But Ruth was keenly aware of Ryan's desire for that position; he believed that as the Primarch of the First Legion, he deserved to be the leader of his peers and command his brothers to continue the Great Crusade.

Ning Lu's attitude was very strange; he didn't care about the position of War General at all.

There are only two possibilities: one is that he is loyal to his father and doesn't care about fame or fortune at all; the other is that he doesn't want the position of war general, but wants to be the seal holder.

The fire crackled in the stove as Russ quickly flipped through the pages, trying to find the hidden answers.

Page after page of Bonzmann No. 11 paper flew past his eyes, and his fingers stopped.

After listening to Lewis von Valentius's briefing, Nimrod immediately decided to lead his army to liberate the Collonid Abyss.

He wanted to liberate billions of humans enslaved by the Metu Xenomorphs, and at the same time, he astutely realized that although the Klonid Abyss was located in a remote area, the entire star system possessed immense value and the potential to grow into an Imperial sector.

Rus's icy blue eyes narrowed. "[Sure enough, Ninglu took the initiative to propose liberating the Abyss of Colony, not only to liberate the billions of enslaved people.]"

He saw the value of Colonid, and his son Flamini was indeed quite capable, having developed a remote imperial frontier into a thriving new district in just over 130 years. Soon, it should be officially reorganized into the new star district of the empire.

Nimrod's Vostonia sector has been officially established, giving him control of two vast sectors, as well as the smaller Osiris sector and the Necromonda subsector...
Ruth silently continued reading, paying particular attention to Nimrod's ideas as described in the book.

Nimrod is indeed skilled in governance, even more so than Guilliman. If one were to choose a leader among the brothers, he would be the most suitable.

What he wanted was not the position of war commander, but the power to combine military and political authority.

But the current empire does not have such a position.
The Terran Council controls the Empire, but the power to wage war remains in the hands of the War Council, led by the Warmaster. There is overlap between the two in terms of recruitment and logistics.

The Warlord still has a say in some political affairs. Although the Terra Council supports the development of the Ministry of Military Affairs, the Warlord still makes the decisions on conquest.

[He wouldn't possibly want the father's position, would he...?]
Ruth shook his head with a smile. Although Nimrod was ambitious, he was loyal to his father and could not possibly have such an absurd idea.

He put down his book and looked at his chief rune priest, Kova.

"My Broken One, have you figured out what plot Amon is trying to pull using Hauser?"

Kova walked over with his twisted and contorted body. His strange right arm was as thin as a reed, even thinner than that of an ordinary person.

His body, encased in specially made armor, lacked any of the strength of the son of Ruth.

He was thinner than any of the Astartes, and didn't even seem like someone who could have lived through childhood in the world of Fenris, the land of the dead.

Wherever he went, the wolf servants spat on the deck.

They dared not disrespect this incredibly powerful priest, but rather, the filth of the lower realm was more likely to creep closer.

They were driving away impurities according to tribal customs.

Aside from the wolf pack, others would assume that Kova earned the title of the Broken One because of his twisted and contorted body.

But in reality, his title comes from the illness that plagued him since birth; he was always on the verge of death until the full father came to Fenris.

Although Quan's father was unable to cure the disease, he stopped its progression.

"He longed to acquire our knowledge, as is evident in the fact that Magnus's descendants always had an inexhaustible thirst for it."

When the historian Kasper Ansbach Hauser arrived in Fenris, Kova discovered the filth lurking within him, Magnus's Primarch servant Amon.

No one doubted Kova's words; his skill in weaving lifelines was unparalleled, enabling him, despite his frail physique, to accomplish two great miracles:

He survives to adulthood in Fenris; he passes the "Mokhai Trial" and becomes a Space Wolf.

"But in the shadows, the stench of his scheming has permeated the entire underworld."

"Long Fang has been trying to figure out what it is, but his skill in weaving life lines is not enough to determine what it is."

Long Fang is the Fenris title of Ulfru Heolos, the third-ranked rune priest.

Hauser has always been with the Third Company, in the sight of Bjorn, who has grown into a Grey Hunter.

“I want you to keep an eye on him; he might be up to something in Nicaea,” Russ said, staring at Kova.

“Yes, my alpha wolf.” Kova bowed, his thin frame bowing.

The mechanical prosthetic limbs of Oshel Wardmaker, the rune priest of the Fifth Company, creaked. [Sanchez, Nimrod, the All Father will pronounce your crimes of witchcraft in Nikkaia!]
(End of this chapter)