Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

This is the thirtieth millennium after the death of Jesus.

The Milky Way, the Extreme Starfield, Olympia, Lokos, and under the cliffs of Prygia.

Deep in the dense forest, there are few people.

The smooth silver-plated copper plate is placed in the dark box, the dark box is placed in the dark box, and the indoor lighting is adjusted to the optimal ratio of light and dark.

"A long time ago, in the Europa region of Ancient Terra, a craftsman invented daguerreotype photography..."

Someone was whispering to himself, debugging the machine.

Within the frame of the ancient shooting technique, an unwilling boy is pushed into the camera, with a faint anger burning in his ice-like blue eyes.

If this flame can break through the shackles of idealism, it will surely ignite the dense spiky green leaves around him and the fence surrounding the wooden house.

"Photography? You're not going to make it." The boy's teeth rubbed against each other.

"Oh." Outside the scope of the camera, a cold male voice sounded at the same time as the collision of panels inside the camera obscura. "You think I care?"

The boy was determined to resist.

He stepped over thorny vegetation, his bare feet on gravel and dry earth. His skin was not tough enough to be damaged by foreign objects, and the short grass scratched his ankles, but it was not enough to scare him.

"Damn it." A low mutter.

Another man appears in the camera. He is tall and thin, with messy black hair. He wears black clothes and black trousers that are different from the local loose bright robes and is tightly tied to his limbs with straps of the same color.

He put his arm firmly around the boy's shoulders. An inexplicable energy restrained the boy's actions.

A string of ice crystals formed on the grass, the cold air crept into the camera obscura, and the daguerreotype began to operate.

"I had to record this extremely important moment, and this camera was the only prop I could make with my bare hands. The inhuman boy falling from the cliff... It is a rare thing for thousands of years for a camera to capture such a wonderful scene. ”

The man explained coldly, it was difficult to read any valid information from his face.

The boy could not help but associate the malicious vortex of stars staring at him from the sky with this nameless man, even if his logic could not make any assumptions that could be recognized by his proud rationality.

He forced himself not to look at the man's hateful mean face and ignore the cold hands on his shoulders.

The camera captured the boy's face again, stubborn and cold, like an unforged iron stone.

"I..." A short syllable came out of the boy's mouth, and the remaining words were swallowed up by pride.

The man asked: "You don't like it?"

The boy didn't want to answer. Any question that reflected his vulnerability made him feel like he was being forced to expose a part of himself—the part he hated the most.

The corners of the man's mouth lifted up briefly and never dropped.

The long exposure requirements of daguerreotypes made him decide to remain still, but this did not prevent him from speaking. It was too easy for him to say anything.

"If you can't answer, I'll think you like daguerreotypes." There was a characteristic arrogance in his tone. This disgusted the boy.

arrogant.

The boy chewed the word with disdain.

He hates this man.

The only reason why he can currently endure his evil deeds is because he cannot defeat the opponent in terms of strength.

"I still don't have your answer," the man said lightly. "What? Suddenly you can't understand what I said?"

The tip of his tongue suddenly curled up with a fine hiss, combined with a caressing breath. The boy easily recognized that this was one of the more ancient languages ​​on the planet, and the semantics were consistent with the previous question.

Before he had time to be proud of his knowledge, the man came to the next language without stopping, crisp, fast, combined with countless accents, like an iron wire hitting a two-edged tuning fork.

The boy frowned. He understood, but he didn't understand how anyone else could understand such an ancient language - he thought something must be wrong.

The man's fingers were as cold as iron. The boy began to find the scenery around him abominable.

The high cliffs were abominable, the shrubs and gorse were abominable, the dark green olive leaves were abominable.

He didn't originally hate the planet he was on now, but the man had single-handedly changed him.

In the sky, the gaze of the vortex of stars was ignored by him as usual.

Then came the third language. Too much tongue snapping and an upturned coda make it frivolous. Then there is the fourth one. The fifth type.

enough. the boy thought.

But the man's provocation did not end.

The boy takes some self-deceptive comfort from the knowledge that the man's mouth will appear blurry and ridiculous in the daguerreotype later.

Sixth language. Older and more complex. From another planet that humans have ever set foot on. Even a boy must dig out the knowledge map of the language from the bottom of his memory.

The semantics have not changed. But the boy couldn't stop reinterpreting it, he couldn't admit defeat.

The seventh kind.

The boy felt that the whole world was starting to shake centered on the man's hand on his shoulder. He wavered, deciphered half of the text, and spent the rest of the time telling himself that he was indestructible steel.

The eighth type. A tonal language rich in meaning, with more meaning than structure, many function words, weak grammar, and loose logic - of course he can understand it, but...

"Enough!" the boy screamed in High Gothic. "What do you want to prove? What do you want from me?"

Anger overcame everything. He used all his strength to break free. This was the first time in his memory.

But this is also because his memory began thirty minutes ago, when he was about to climb up the cliff, but he slipped and fell because of the laughter of the man in black beside him.

Then he was led by the nameless man to the wooden house where he lived alone, far away from the city-state in the distance, isolated from the white-gold soldiers and bronze doors, saying goodbye to the streams and stepped reservoirs in the village, looking at the triple walls of the palace wall and the triple spires on the top of the tower, and taking damn silver plate photos with him here!

Who is he? How dare he do this to me!

The response he received was the man's sudden relaxation and a contemptuous snort: "We finally started talking."

In the camera, the man crossed the grass and stretched out his hand wrapped in black cloth to the camera.

The silver plate was taken out, and due to insufficient exposure time and the overly active subject, the details on the entire silver plate were blurred.

The boy found that before he had time to mock, the low temperature rolled over the silver plate, and the unknown energy directly engraved the photo of the two people with the highest precision and amazing accuracy.

A trace of pleasure flashed across the man's face, which meant more provocation to the boy.

"Well, I think it's good." He said, "You look like a bad boy, but that's not what I want to worry about. Tell me your name?"

"Perturabo." Perturabo said very quickly, "This is my name, I won't change it, I don't know its meaning but I will find it. You can't change my name."

"What makes you think I want to change you? Just because I took a photo with you? Oh, maybe it can't be considered a photo. This is the disadvantage of landing on an extremely backward planet and not being able to hand-carve a chip. The technique invented by my friend more than 30,000 years ago, I can remember the general idea."

The man's smile naturally hung on his face, diluting his cold scrutiny.

He raised the engraved silver-plated copper plate in his hand. At this time, the boy's name was engraved on the lower right corner of the silver plate, and a blank space was left.

"Perturabo, I am a fair person, so I will give you a reward."

I won't accept it. Perturabo thought indignantly that in his imagination, the man had died ten thousand times in the most painful way, but in reality, the only way he could resist was to refuse a reward.

Wait. Wait. He knew that he would grow extremely fast, his knowledge would always naturally emerge in his mind, and he was born extraordinary. If the man left him here, he would kill him sooner or later.

The man placed the silver plate flat in front of his eyes, looking at it, and said calmly: "You can name me."

"What?"

"This is my reward for you." Compared with paying attention to observing the boy's injustice and indignation, the man seemed to think that the silver plate in his hand was more important.

Perturabo could hardly bear this humiliation. Before thinking about why the man had no name, he gave an insulting answer.

"Karnas." He cursed, which was the name of an organ in High Gothic.

The man laughed in surprise. "I won't accept it. Don't you consider changing it?"

"Morse." Perturabo retreated. He gave another word that was equally bad, but much milder.

The man nodded. "Death?" He repeated in the eighth language he had tried earlier, and carved the word Morse into the gap on the silver plate.

"You may go now, Perturabo." Morse put away the silver plate and turned away grimly.