Warhammer Cultivation: Cultivating the Tao Te Ching in the 40K Universe

"Just last Standard Month, during a top-level live-fire exercise conducted by the Ninth Legion on the main planet 'Baal,' Lord Saint Gilles faced a simulated orc war behemoth from the battlefield 'Ulanor'..."

Marcus Aurelius did not continue speaking.

Words seem utterly inadequate to describe that "loss of control" that would move even the gods. He simply remained silent, taking a small, undecorated data plate made of an unknown black metal from his ancient power armor gauntlets and gently placing it on the stone table.

“Words can lead to misunderstandings.” For the first time, the Imperial Guard instructor’s voice carried a hint of genuine weariness. “But data will not. Dean Kane, please… witness it for yourself.”

Hector didn't ask any further questions. He simply channeled a gentle stream of true energy into the cold data panel. A small, yet incredibly clear holographic projection instantly unfolded on the stone table.

That was not an ordinary battle record, but the most authentic "battlefield replay" reconstructed by the highest-level surveillance probes of the Imperial Guard, which captured data from several different angles simultaneously and underwent billions of data reorganizations.

In the video, the great angel, in that simulated battle, at the moment when he tore that war behemoth to pieces, his eyes, which should have been filled with compassion and nobility, were briefly and completely replaced by a pure, indiscriminate crimson, filled with endless bloodlust!

Immediately following, an audio message, decrypted to the highest level and originating from the Ninth Legion's internal communication network, was played simultaneously. It was a roar that didn't belong to Saint Gilles, filled with extreme pain and ecstasy, like that of an ancient beast...

Although the out-of-control scene and the terrifying roar only lasted for a mere 0.3 seconds in the video, they were forcibly suppressed by Saint Gilles' godlike willpower.

But the crack had already appeared.

That cage, built of "divinity" and "reason" to imprison wild beasts, is already...unable to bear the weight.

“So, we have come.” Marcus Aurelius’s voice was like a final verdict. “After Lord Saint-Gilles confessed his deepest fears to the Regent, we have come here.”

“This is not an official order, child. This is more like… a private plea for help.” Marcus looked at Hector with a gaze that was no longer that of an instructor scrutinizing a student, but rather that of an ancient, solitary guardian looking at another person, perhaps a kindred spirit, who could walk alongside him.

"The Empire cannot afford to lose another 'son.' Especially... him."

As Aurelius finished speaking, his voice heavy with expectation, Saint Gilles finally, slowly, raised his face, which was as handsome as a god's.

"Inner demon..."

His voice was hoarse, yet it carried a strange, poetic rhythm, as if every syllable was imbued with the inexhaustible sorrow deep within his soul.

"...You call it 'inner demon.' It's a very precise word, child. So precise...it sends shivers down my spine."

For the first time, his deep blue, sky-like eyes looked directly at Hector, and there was no longer the pride of a Primarch, nor the condescension of a mortal.

It was an equal gaze, full of pleading, from the "patient" to the "doctor".

“It is not a simple genetic defect, nor is it merely a psionic curse. It is ‘alive.’” Sanguires’ voice trembled slightly, as if he were speaking of his closest and most deadly “brother” with whom he had coexisted for centuries. “It resides within my heart. It is not a raging beast. It is more cunning and more…cruel than any beast.”

"It feeds on my 'love'."

These words, like a heavy hammer forged from extremely cold ice, slammed down on Hector's Dao heart, which had long been calm and still due to the completion of his Golden Core!

“Whenever I see my offspring, those brave, noble angels who regard me as their father and god, charging fearlessly into enemy lines to protect unarmed mortals; whenever I spread my angelic wings beneath the most desperate sky to save a world about to be consumed by war…”

"That spontaneous, purest 'love,' the desire to protect everything, will become its most perfect nourishment. Under this warm nourishment, it will become stronger, more... hungry."

"Then it whispers to me."

Saint Gilles slowly closed his azure eyes, as if unwilling to look at this world full of pain and injustice any longer.

"It tells me that protecting is inefficient. Sacrifice is foolish. True 'love' should be to completely erase all 'enemies' that may threaten what you love, along with the traces of their existence, from this universe."

"It will show me a series of tempting, bloody scenes. In those scenes, I am no longer the compassionate angel. I am the judge, the purifier, the... terminator. With the purest, emotionless violence, I will thoroughly burn away all the aliens, all the heretics, all the... 'imperfections'. The entire galaxy, under my wings, will achieve an absolute, cold, and painless... 'peace'."

“And my offspring will become the sharpest blade in my hand, the executioner of this great ‘purification.’ They will no longer feel pain, nor fear death. They will be with me, immersed in that eternal, glorious… ecstasy of slaughter.”

For the first time, his face, as handsome as a god's, revealed a complex expression that mixed extreme pain with a hint of...morbid, seductive longing.

“I am resisting it. I am waging an endless war against it with all my will and with every bit of power the Emperor has given me. But I am about to lose, my child.”

He slowly opened his eyes. His deep blue eyes, as clear as the sky, were bloodshot, and filled with a kind of weariness that seemed to be about to be completely swallowed by a storm.

“My greatest fear is not death. I have long ago seen in that inescapable nightmare that my golden wings were mercilessly broken by a pair of the closest, dark hands (the original ending in my prophetic abilities).

His voice was calm as he revealed a secret that could overturn the entire empire.

"What I fear is that before that day comes, I will become the monster I hate most..."

"What I fear is that I will personally transform my noble and valiant Ninth Legion into a... beast legion that is more bloodthirsty and more insane than any Chaos (the originally prophesied warband)."

He looked at Hector with a look of fanaticism, as if he were grasping at the last straw.

“I have heard about you, Hector Kane. I have heard how you helped your lost brother, Logar, find his ‘self’; I have heard how you defined ‘harmony’ for the proud artist, Fugrim. They were both tormented by their own ‘inner demons.’ And you, with your ‘path,’ have shown them a completely new direction.”

"So, here I am."

He slowly rose from the stone bench, his tall, holy figure appearing so fragile, so...helpless at this moment.

He, this great angel, the Emperor's most perfect creation, gazed intently at the mortal before him with his azure eyes, as blue as the sky. It was not a condescending look, but a gaze cast upon a new, unknown wisdom, full of solemnity and expectation, after exhausting all the methods of the gods.

“I do not ask you to ‘heal’ me. Because I know that this curse has long been integrated with my blood and my soul, inseparable.”

"There is only one answer I am seeking."

His voice, though hoarse, had regained the dignity and decisiveness of the Primarch.

"Tell me, how does your 'path' coexist with this beast?"

“Tell me how to become its master, not… its slave.”

"Tell me, how, in that never-ending storm of blood and fire, for myself and for my descendants, to find that... that final thing that will prevent us from utterly succumbing..."

"—Anchor point."

Chapter 162 The Legacy of Baal

Concise yet weighty.

Hector listened quietly, watched, and felt the pain that would move even the gods. He knew that conventional advice and philosophical debates would be utterly ineffective against the angel's already riddled-with-holes soul.

He must see the "roots".

So, when Aurelius finished speaking and the entire stone table fell into that suffocating silence once again, Hector did not say another word. He simply slowly raised his eyes.

The next moment, his dark, calm pupils, which were as still as an abyss, underwent a shocking change!

In his left eye, all the light vanished, transforming into an eternal night that could devour everything, representing "yin" and "end."

In his right eye, a warm, brilliant, platinum sun, like the first star at the beginning of creation, representing "yang" and "vitality," ignited!

In an instant, the entire world in Hector's eyes was "rewritten." The surface of reality was stripped away, revealing a more real inner world constructed from countless cold, shimmering blue lines of "laws"!

Supernatural Powers – Understanding the Dao and All Things!

This was a completely new, law-level divine ability he had developed after advancing to the Golden Core stage, a power that allowed him to actively "intervene" in reality, a power that transcended the passive "observation" technique of "Qi Observation"! He no longer merely "saw" Qi. He could directly "deconstruct" the underlying principles governing all things!

In the horrified "vision" of Marcus Aurelius, the silent, golden-mountain-like instructor of the Imperial Guard, he saw that the mortal merely glance at Saint Gilles calmly. That single glance was like an irresistible "decree" from the very source of the universe, instantly proclaiming the "illegitimacy" of all his power!

In Hector's view, Saint Gilles, the great angel, was no longer the demigod full of compassion and nobility.

He transformed into a golden sun on the verge of collapse, being swallowed by its own light...

What a magnificent, yet heartbreaking, sight it was!

Hector "saw" that at the core of Saint Gilles' existence was a vast, boundless golden ocean of light, constructed from the purest "love" and "protection"! That ocean was so warm, so sacred, filled with the most selfless and profound dedication to the human race.

Within it flows the blood he shed in countless desperate wars to protect mortals; echoes the compassionate requiems he sang for fallen warriors after each victory; and embodies his purest loyalty—his willingness to dedicate everything to the Emperor and the Empire for a brighter future!

This golden ocean is the source of Saint Gilles's status as an "angel." It is the only ever-burning beacon of "hope" for the Empire in that dark universe filled with nothing but war.

However, it is precisely in the deepest part of this seemingly perfect ocean, filled with sacred radiance, at the most blazing and brightest "origin"—the core of the "sun"—

Hector saw... a thorn.

A... a jet-black, slowly rotating "thorn of law" constructed from the purest, solidified "hatred" and "anger"!

That thorn was not from abroad.

It sprouted quietly from that golden ocean itself, from that purest "love" and "protection," like the most vicious and incurable cancer cells. Then, it frantically absorbed the power of that ocean, constantly growing stronger and more distorted, until finally, it grew into the hideous and terrifying form it is today!

Hector's Dao Heart, like the most sophisticated logic engine, instantly discerned the origin of this "thorn." His divine sense, following the dark lines of law, flowed upstream, piercing through the mists of time, returning to the very origin of all the tragedy...

What he saw was not a grand battlefield filled with demons and betrayal.

What he saw was a desolate red desert shrouded in radiation and poison.

Baal. The homeland of angels.

He saw a young Saint Gilles, who had just reunited with his great father, full of ideals and hope. For the first time, his golden wings unfurled beneath the red sky filled with despair, like a divine light of salvation.

Then came a task that was perfectly right for the Empire, but incredibly cruel for the angels...

His task was to "purify".

He led his first group of "Holy Blood Angels," who had just emerged from barbarity and ignorance, to purify his homeland and completely wipe away the mutated tribes that had become twisted and corrupted due to tens of thousands of years of radiation and isolation from this planet, paving the way for the arrival of the empire.

That should have been a simple, one-sided conquest.

But when the young angel saw those so-called "mutants" for the first time, his heart, filled with pure "love," was pierced with pain for the first time.

They are monsters. Their bodies are deformed and ugly from radiation; their minds are savage and bloodthirsty from prolonged despair.

But they still have human blood flowing through their veins! Their genetic sequences are more than 99 percent similar to those pure humans he needs to protect! They were just born at the wrong time in the wrong place, a group of pitiful creatures abandoned by fate.

Hector could clearly "see" the most tragic "struggle between heaven and man" that no one knew deep within the soul of the young Saint Gilles, in that glorious war that was defined by the imperial official history as the "Purification of Baal".

He saw it: when a Holy Blood Angel used its chainsaw sword to cleave a mutated human infant, still in swaddling clothes but already covered in scales and claws, in two along with its mother, a fleeting, undisguised, intense pain flashed in Saint Gilles's azure eyes.

He heard it: when those mutant tribes, just before being completely wiped out, did not roar like beasts, but instead used their long-degenerated and distorted ancient Terran language to utter the most primal plea for survival to the sky, Saint Gilles' golden heart convulsed violently as if it had been stabbed by an invisible blade.

"To protect... I must... perish?"

Chapter 163 External Illness is Actually a Mental Illness

A primal paradox, filled with self-doubt, like a most venomous and poisonous seed, quietly took root at this moment in the deepest part of his pure ocean of light, filled with "love" and "protection."

This is the true source of the "sense of betrayal".

It wasn't a betrayal from the outside world. Rather... in the face of cruel reality, in order to fulfill his grander "love" (protecting humanity), he was forced to commit the most painful... self-betrayal of his more fundamental "love" (protecting all life)!

And at that very moment, in the very heart of that golden ocean, which was shrouded for the first time in the shadow of "self-doubt," that pitch-black "thorn of law" quietly took root, its roots filled with deadly poison and evil!

From that moment on, the cruelest and most unsolvable paradoxical cycle was constructed within the soul of this angel.

The more he loves his children and the more he wants to protect them, the clearer and more intense the pain and self-doubt stemming from the red desert of Bal and the slaughter of his own people will become.

And that anger, that anger at its own "imperfection," will in turn become the perfect nourishment for that "thorn of law," making it thicker, more ferocious, and more... thirsty for blood!

This is the truth behind "thirst for blood"!

It is the most vicious "inner demon" born from Saint Gilles' greatest "virtue"!

It is a never-ending self-war in the name of "love"!

Hector could even "see" that at the tip of that pitch-black "thorn of law," just like a budding, most alluring black lotus, a vague future vision filled with the meaning of "end" and "death" was slowly coalescing.

In that scene, he saw... the siege of Terra, the golden throne, and a massive warship called "Soul of Vengeance," filled with an aura of betrayal and blasphemy.

He also saw that the great angel, knowing he was going to die, still rushed towards his once most beloved brother, who had long been swallowed by darkness.

Finally, he saw it: those snow-white wings, mercilessly broken. That golden heart, brimming with love and protection, was brutally crushed by a gigantic claw burning with chaotic flames.

And that pitch-black "thorn of law," which had already grown to its limit, suddenly erupted in that instant!

It transformed into a crimson "blood howl" filled with endless rage and resentment, fiercely piercing back into the genetic seeds of the entire Ninth Legion and all the descendants of the Holy Blood Angels!

This curse, this pain, this never-ending war, has become an indelible mark in their blood...

A trickle of crimson blood, tinged with a faint golden light, uncontrollably spilled from the corner of Hector's mouth.

His strange eyes, one like eternal night and the other like a star, temporarily returned to their ordinary blackness because they could not bear the heavy "cause and effect".

He had only glimpsed a corner of that predetermined tragedy, yet his Dao heart, which had long been indestructible due to the completion of the Golden Core, felt an unbearable, tearing pain!

One can only imagine the unspeakable, eternal torment that Saint Gilles, as a witness to this tragedy and the source of this curse, was enduring.

For the first time, Aurelius's deep, steady voice carried a hint of genuine worry! His massive figure, like a golden mountain, appeared instantly beside Hector, one hand firmly supporting his shoulder, which swayed slightly from exhaustion.

Across the stone table, a complex expression flickered in Saint Gilles's deep blue, sky-like eyes.

"...You saw it?" His voice was hoarse, yet carried a sense of relief and calm, as if a traveler burdened with a heavy secret had finally found someone to confide in.

Hector did not answer immediately.

He simply picked up the cup of tea, which had long since cooled, and drank it all in one gulp.

The tea soup, imbued with a sense of tranquility, was like the gentlest spring water, slowly calming the turbulent ocean of his true essence that had been violently turbulent after he had glimpsed the secrets of heaven.

Then, he slowly raised his head.

He looked at the great, tormented, and self-destructive god before him, whose dark, abyss-like eyes held no sympathy, no pity.