Warhammer: Striving to Be a Grinding Man

Chapter 129 Judgment of Ashes (Final)

The three welded doors were cut open. The last door fell down, and a dark pink light surged from the end of the utility tunnel.

Valeria stepped across the threshold. The Stormtroopers deployed behind her, their explosive guns pointed into the darkness. Eleven battle nuns followed silently behind her, their power armor boots landing precisely on the metal grille, each step perfectly in sync with her rhythm—after so many years of fighting side by side, they needed no words.

Isa Velen walked in the middle of the group with her eyes closed, while the collars of the twelve psionicists glowed with a dark red standby light.

"Sister," Isa's voice was soft. "It's laughing."

Throughout her two centuries of warfare, she had heard this kind of "laughter" far too many times. It was not the roar of a demon, but the last vestige of "truth" squeezed from the depths of a follower of Tzeentch's throat before he was consumed by his own lies.

The walls on both sides of the corridor were no longer metal. Countless shattered mirrors grew out of the walls, and runes changed shape like living blood vessels—3, 6, 9, repeating endlessly, like a never-ending calculation machine.

A Stormtrooper saw himself firing at his comrade in the scope. He didn't pull the trigger.

Another member saw himself kneeling before the Chaos Space Marines in the mirror. He continued forward.

The mental barrier module deep within the frontal bone activated the instant the dark pink light touched the edge of consciousness. The temperature of the titanium alloy chip jumped from the baseline to the warning line. Someone was knocking on the door. The knocking came from the inside of the skull, like a downpour hitting a tin roof. It was Tzeentch's "whisper"—not a command, not a temptation, but countless contradictory "truths" simultaneously flooding the brain, causing your reason to crumble in the process of trying to distinguish truth from falsehood.

Valeria saw it too. In the mirror, she stood in a strange palace, her chainsaw sword raised above her head, blood dripping from its blade.

The person lying at her feet was wearing the crimson robes of the governor of the planet Amighiddon. She didn't look at him and continued forward.

The nuns behind her also saw the visions in the mirror—some saw themselves lying in the ruins of the sanctuary, others saw their chainsaw sword piercing their sister's chest. No one faltered. The nun in the silver shroud was never disturbed by visions—

Their faith is demonstrated through actions, not words.

Her boot sank into bone. A human femur, gnawed clean. She broke it, and kept walking. Hundreds of human skeletons lay piled at the corner of the corridor, skulls with empty eye sockets. These bones were offerings to be served—Grom's kitchen needed meat, but that meat was no longer human before it reached the table.

At the end of the corridor stood a double door of fine gold. The door was half-open, letting in a dark pink light.

Valeria pushed open the door. The corridor was wide, with marble floors, and most of the crystal chandeliers were broken. Some of the imperial statues had been overturned, and others had their heads smashed. Her boots echoed on the marble floor.

From the depths of the passageway, a one-armed old man emerged from around the corner. He wore the uniform of a nobleman's servant, had gray hair, and his left sleeve was empty. He saw Valeria, stared at the rose emblem, and then knelt down—the trembling one feels only when hope is suddenly seen after all hope has been lost.

Valeria walked past him. "Stay here."

The Audience Hall was once Invernus's most magnificent room. The stained-glass ceiling depicted emperors conquering the galaxy, and the floor was covered with handmade wool carpets. Now, the dome is blackened by warp energy, and most of the stained glass is shattered. The carpet is soaked in blood, feeling like walking on a rotting sponge.

The walls were inlaid with mirrors. The mirrors reflected images of von Kirska feasting, praying, and lying on an operating table covered with runes.

The runes transformed into numbers—3, 6, 9—in a recurring cycle. Von Kirska's face in the mirror sometimes appeared young, sometimes old, sometimes with extra mouths and eyes, and sometimes back to normal. Tzeentch's "gift" was unstable; mutations occurred repeatedly in the mirror and were repeatedly erased, like an experiment that would never end.

Von Kirska sat on the throne. The throne was welded with armor plates, and explosive muskets were embedded in the armrests. His crimson robe gleamed with a greasy sheen, his hair was neatly combed, and his face was powdered. He was smiling.

"Three doors. Three locks. Three paths. You think three is enough?"

Valeria did not answer.

Von Kirska stood up. He didn't look at Valeria, but at the scenes of feasting reflected in the mirror, at the naked men and women, at the distorted runes.

"They thought surrendering was their way out." His voice was soft, as if he were talking to himself. "They didn't know, I just opened the door."

He turned his gaze back to Valeria.

"You've come in. That's enough."

Valeria stared at him. The Imperial Navy's initial report attributed it to the officers' cowardice—a quartermaster named Cullinan had given the order to surrender. The Silver Shroud Order's intelligence network had listed Cullinan as a target before the war broke out; he was the governor's confidant and controlled the ammunition supply. There was another document in the encrypted dossier, its name blacked out, leaving only a blurred stamp.

"The Imperial Navy's report says your quartermaster betrayed you," Valeria said.

Von Kierska laughed. "The Imperial Navy can't even find out who Cullinan's quartermaster is. They think a quartermaster can make the entire hive lay down its arms? Do you believe that?"

Valeria did not answer.

"Of course you don't believe me." His smile remained unchanged. "So you've come to confirm."

His gaze fell upon the mirror. The streets of Shangchao were reflected there. The grey-green tide surged in from the horizon, seemingly endless.

The reports from the lookout posts kept going offline.

"Do you know when people surrender? When they're defeated? No, it's when they feel they can't win no matter what. When they feel that resistance will only lead to a worse death. When they feel that maybe surrendering will at least allow them to live."

The scene reflected in the mirror changed. Officers were arguing in the command center. Some slammed their fists on the table, some threw down data tablets, and one, after a long silence, said, "The governor has already signed it."

"There was no violence, no torture, no chaotic whispers. Just a group of people crushed by fear, who, after weighing the pros and cons, chose what they thought would be the option with the least loss. They thought they could live by laying down their weapons. They had no idea what was being cooked in Grom's kitchen."

Valeria's voice was as cold as ice water. "They thought the Greenskins would surrender."

"Greenskins accepted." von Kirska's smile remained unchanged. "Meat. Or, before that, living meat."

Another mirror. The barracks of a nobleman's private army. A sergeant with a scar on his face tore up a surrender order. "I won't surrender. Haven't you seen how the greenskins treat prisoners?"

Behind him, some stood up. Some sat down. Some quietly slipped out the back door. Fear had gnawed away reason.

That night, the private soldiers, armed with flaming muskets, stormed the mansion, attempting to prevent a surrender. They were stopped outside the audience hall by the governor's guard. The battle raged for hours. Explosive shells riddled the walls, and chainsaws left slashing marks on the marble pillars. One by one, the private soldiers fell.

The surrender order was issued. The greenskins arrived. Grom led the surrendering officers and guards into the kitchen. Civilians were herded into the slaughter line.

Valeria looked down at the dried bloodstains on the carpet. The bloodstains radiated outwards from the center of the hall, like some kind of radial pattern. They were marks of carnage, not of battle.

"It took one evening to kill them all," von Kirska said flatly. "It took one morning to drag them out."

Valeria's fingers tightened on the chainsaw hilt for less than half a second.

Von Kirska spread her arms. The runes in the mirrors began to tremble violently, and the numbers turned into gibberish. Dark pink light burst forth from each mirror.

"Invernus was not defeated; it was sacrificed."

His gaze passed through Valeria and looked into the void.

"Cohen Severus. He hurled the Titans from the orbits, dragging Invernus off the altar. A tear was ripped in the tapestry of the Shapeshifter."

He laughed. There was something chilling in that laugh—no anger, only excitement.

"Do you know what the Lord of Change thinks when He sees His tapestry torn apart? He won't be angry. He'll find it even more interesting. A new line, a new variable, a new tool has entered His chessboard."

He withdrew his gaze, staring at Valeria, his lips twitching slightly, more like confirming something than smiling.

"Fortunately, the governor isn't here. It's just you and me."

A ripple began to stir deep within the mirror. Dark pink light coalesced in the air to form a finger—a twisted, excessively long finger, its joints bent in the wrong direction. Arms, covered in blue and pink scales. A face, without a mouth, containing only one enormous eye with countless pupils.

Pink demons burst forth from the mirrors. A dozen or so surged out simultaneously from different mirror surfaces. Their bodies twisted, deformed, and reassembled under the laws of the physical universe, screaming contradictory phrases—"Truth is falsehood," "Death is life," "Door is wall." It was Tzeentch's whisper, not a command, but countless contradictory "truths" flooding the brain, causing your reason to crumble in the process of trying to distinguish truth from falsehood.

More dreadlords followed. Blue ones, smaller and faster, emerged from the shadows of the pink dreadlords. But they lacked the pink dreadlords' frantic chatter—they complained, muttering something in a low, drawn-out tone, as if weary of their own existence. The process of the blue dreadlords being "born" from the pink corpses filled them with resentment; they cursed everything—the Imperial soldiers, their own pink brethren, and the universe that wouldn't allow them to die peacefully.

Valeria's chainsword hummed as she swung it, cleaving the first pink dreadlord in two from shoulder to hip. It exploded in mid-air in a cloud of dark pink smoke, from which came a shrill screech—laughter, not a scream. From where it had been split, two blue dreadlords emerged from the smoke, one grumbling, "Here we go again," the other muttering, "It's always the same." They grumbled as they lunged at the nearest fighting nun.

The Stormtroopers' bomb guns opened fire. The bombs exploded on the pink dreadlords' bodies, spraying puffs of dark pink blood. The dreadlords darted between the lines, their sharp claws slicing through the terracotta plates of their power armor. A Stormtrooper was simultaneously pounced on by three blue dreadlords, their claws piercing the seams of his neck armor, blood gushing from the gaps. His comrade kicked one of the dreadlords away and dragged him back to the front lines.

The moment the blue demon touched him, the attacked team member felt an intense itch on his left arm—not just an ordinary itch, but an itch that felt like the muscles beneath the skin were rearranging and the bones were changing shape. The temperature of the mental barrier module jumped to the red alert line, and the titanium alloy chip emitted a short, sharp screech as the newly formed, non-human scales were suppressed.

Eleven battle nuns simultaneously raised their explosive guns. Precise bursts of fire, each shot exploding the head of a ghoul. They spoke not, not even breathed. The muzzle flashes, shimmering in the dark pink light, left streaks of orange-red light, the rhythm as steady as a metronome.

The mental barrier module emitted a sharp alarm deep within the frontal bone. The knocking turned into banging, and someone outside screamed to come in. The door remained closed.

The nuns of Valeria subconsciously maintained a subtle distance from the psionic squad—not intentionally, but an instinct etched into their very bones by countless battles: a witch is a witch, no matter who she serves. They wouldn't refuse to fight alongside them, but they wouldn't put their hands in fire without feeling the heat.

Isa's psionic squad formed a circle, twelve of them back to back, a psionic barrier arching above their heads. The pink dreadlord crashed into the barrier like a moth to a flame, emitting a piercing scream before exploding. Isa's nose was bleeding, and blood seeped from the corner of her eye.

"Too many————"

"Hold on." Valeria didn't turn around.

Deeper into the hall, more mirrors began to writhe. The number of demons had not decreased. For every one killed, two more surged out of the mirrors.

Valeria's left hand rested on the left side of her breastplate. Her fingertips touched a slightly recessed compartment—a storage pocket forged from adamantite, embedded in the lining of the terracotta armor plate, sharing a sealed structure with the power armor's life support system. She pressed the release button. The compartment sprang open.

A folded piece of fabric slid out—an icon of the Silver Shroud, a fragment of Sister Sylvanas's shroud. Older than any weapon, yet more deadly. For two centuries, it had been embedded in her breastplate, accompanying her on countless battlefields. She had used it at the Gates of Cardia to fend off the curses of the Chaos sorcerers, and during the purification of Ophelia VII, to dispel the whispers of the warp. It had been used many times, each time in a place where no living person witnessed it. The nuns of the Silver Shroud never proclaimed the power of the relic; they only demonstrated the results of their actions.

Valeria unfurled the fabric. A silvery light seeped from the fibers. It was a light older than cold white, the light of the battle nuns during the Great Crusade when they first raised their chainswords.

Light fell on the pink freaks' bodies, causing them to scream, curl up, and explode into ashes as if burned. Light fell on the mirror, causing the writhing of the runes within to hesitate for a moment, and the freaks' shrieks to become momentarily disordered. Light fell on the Storm Assault Team members' foreheads, and the temperature of the mental barrier modules dropped from the warning line—the source of the pressure had been cut off.

The marks of faith on the foreheads of the eleven battle nuns lit up simultaneously. Silvana's shroud was not only a relic of Valeria, but a relic of the entire Silver Shroud Order. In the relic's light, they found greater power; their slingshots became more accurate, and the fire of their faith burned even more fiercely within them.

But within that light, the psionic team's barrier contracted slightly. It wasn't the relic repelling them; it was the light of faith that made them instinctively feel a certain oppression—before the Emperor's pure will, all psionicists felt like intruders into the temple. Isha lowered her head, not looking at the light.

"Sister-in-chief—this is—"

"Silvana." Valeria didn't look down at the relic. Her gaze was fixed on von Kirska's face. "She's watching."

A crack appeared in von Kierska's smile. His chessboard was being dismantled from the outside, and his pieces were being wiped off the board by this ancient light.

His voice turned shrill. "What is that—what is that thing—"

Valeria did not answer. She took a step. The light of the relic spread a silvery path before her. The tentacles stopped at the edge of the light, like hands reaching for a furnace, retracting the moment they touched the flames. The mirror began to crack, splitting from the center, and a pale pink light leaked from the cracks, then went out. The number of freaks began to decrease—their source had been cut off.

Isa's voice came from behind, no longer trembling. "The barrier has stabilized. It's the sacred object suppressing the source of the contamination."

Valeria walked up to von Kirska. The chainsaw sword was already activated, its teeth spinning freely. She didn't speak.

Von Kirska stared at the relic in her hand. The light reflected on his face, and the dark pink runes faded from his skin, as if bleached. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he swallowed it back.

The blade sliced ​​in from the left shoulder, cleaving downwards and to the right, piercing the chest cavity. A cut at the waist. Serrated edges bit into silk, into skin, into bones corroded by years of chaos. Blood gushed—dark pink.

von Kierska's upper body slammed to the floor. Her eyes were open.

Valeria looked down. The chainsaw was still spinning, and blood dripped from its blade onto his face.

She didn't sheathe the chainsaw. She placed the relic over von Kirska's face. Silver light fell on the traitor's corpse, and the dark pink blood began to fade. It was a denial of him—a denial that he had ever lived, a denial of his sins, a denial that his existence had ever had meaning. Dark pink light leaked from the cracks in the corpse, like pulled threads, dissipating one by one. Tzeentch's mark was erased.

Valeria retrieved the relic and re-inserted it into the hidden compartment of her breastplate.

"The traitor is dead."

Isa collapsed to the ground, blood dripping from her nose onto her robes. She looked up at Valeria's retreating figure, her lips moved, but she didn't say "thank you"—she knew the High Priestess didn't need her thanks. All she needed was for the psionicists to do their jobs.

A young battle nun approached from the flank, her gaze lingering on Isha's face for a moment. There was something in that gaze—not hostility, but scrutiny. Her elders' experience told her: a psionicist is a psionicist, and a witch is a witch. Sylvanas's relics could suppress chaos, but they wouldn't change this fact. She looked away without uttering a word.

Isa lowered her head.

"The palace at the top of the tower. That person's lips are exactly the same as his."

Valeria's grip on her sword tightened slightly. She recognized that face. From the moment she was a young battle nun, first perusing those files that could never be traced back to their origins, she knew that face was there.

She doesn't need evidence. She just needs to remember that face.

She glanced down at the corpse, then turned away.

She walked out of the audience hall. In the passageway, the one-armed old man was still kneeling. He looked up, saw the blood on her body, saw the dragged corpse behind her, his lips moved, but he didn't ask.

Valeria walked past him. "The traitor is dead. Drag him out and hang him at the gate of the mansion."

The old man pressed his forehead to the ground again. Behind him, the other servants emerged from the hiding room and knelt one by one on either side of the passageway. No one spoke. Only sobs that had been suppressed for too long.

The battle nuns walked through the kneeling crowd, their boots clattering on the marble floor, without slowing down or looking back.

Valeria didn't look back. She walked past the kneeling people, into the gallery, into the darkness.

The cannon fire from the direction of Shangchao grew increasingly intense. Countless battles had taught her: never assume that what you've seen is all there is. The Lord of Change's gaze never ceases with the fall of a single piece. It's merely a change of thread in the tapestry.

She stepped into the darkness, her chainsaw sword slung back at her waist, the blood on its blade slowly drying in the emergency lights. Behind her, the footsteps of the psionic squad and the battle nun maintained a delicate distance—not too close, not too far, just enough to coordinate when needed, and just enough to draw a line when necessary.