bullyxtreme Chapter 352: A New Trial
Chapter 352: A New Trial
Chapter 352: A New Trial
The afterimages of Kahn's fleet still burned in the orbit of Baal, while Russell knelt before the Emperor's statue deep within the Temple of the Holy Blood Angels. The last rays of the setting sun shone through the stained-glass windows, gilding the Emperor's face with a blood-red edge. The "Blood Drinker" in his hand leaned against the edge of the altar, the newly formed Imperial Maxims on its surface flickering with the flow of psionic energy.
"Three hundred and twenty-seven axe strikes, forty-nine psionic clashes, seventeen deadly moves..." Russell's blood-scabbed fingers traced combat data on the ground, then he suddenly chuckled. Beneath his shattered shoulder armor, the wounds corroded by the Khorne emblem were regenerating at a visible speed—the new flesh glowed with a faint golden light, as if miniature hymns were chanting between the cells.
Dante's footsteps echoed in the empty temple. The old warrior removed his eternally worn Blood Mask, revealing a cracked yet smiling face: "To have withstood Karn, a Primarch-level warrior, for so long, this feat is worthy of being etched into the Wall of Honor." He kicked the blood-stained fragment of the Khorne's emblem at Russell's feet. "Back in the Battle of Baal, I was cleaved into a medical bay by three axe blows from Karn."
罗素没有回头，指尖抚过&34；饮血者&34；上新浮现的箴言——**&34；风暴淬炼羽翼，而非折断&34；**。铲刃映出他逐渐褪去青涩的眼眸：&34；您说过，真正的胜利是让敌人承认你的成长。&34；
Dante's laughter startled the bronze eagle statues perched on the dome. The dust scattered by the mechanical creations as they flapped their wings resembled stardust in the setting sun: "So Kahn left a challenge?" He picked up half of a Khorne scepter, its blood god runes annihilating each other with the Emperor's Proverbs. "Mephisto's expression when this thing was sealed into a psionic container was more interesting than when he swallowed a Nurgle."
As the last rays of sunlight were swallowed by the starry night, the eyes of the Imperial Statue suddenly gleamed. From the gaps in Russell's shattered armor, newly formed psionic patterns resonated with the statue's radiance, projecting a blurry illusion onto the dome—the twelve-winged Saint Gilles and the blood-soaked, berserk Angron, overlapping with the figures of Russell and Kahn in some kind of karmic cycle.
"The seal on the Tomb of Saint Gillespie has been lifted for you," Dante said, fastening the Blood Mask once more, his voice suddenly solemn. "But remember, you have never been defeating Kahn or Angron..." His fingertip touched Russell's heart, the clanging of armor echoing through the temple for millennia—"It is fear itself."
As Russell rose, the sparks from the shovel blade scraping the ground, under the Emperor's gaze, vaguely formed the image of Kahn's furious face. He raised his weapon in the direction the Chaos Fleet had retreated in the sea of stars, uttering a vow and a chuckle simultaneously: "How big of a shroud should we prepare next time?"
…………
Russell stood at the entrance to the Tomb of Saint Gilles, with the crimson desert of Baal behind him and a hundred-meter-high pale stone gate before him. The gate was etched with reliefs of twelve-winged angels and blood descendants, each feather inlaid with fragments of star cores—the remains of stars collected by the Holy Blood Angels during their millennia-long conquests, now gleaming with a cold blue light in the twilight.
Arya's psionic staff illuminated his path one last time: "Even the Curator of the Think Tank couldn't pass the third trial. If you get beaten up by the illusion of Saint Gilles and cry, I won't be using psionic powers to wipe your tears."
Carleon's wings swept across the stone gate, stirring up a storm of ancient dust: "Remember, the Primarch's test is not combat..." He pointed to his heart, "It's to let you see what's hidden here."
The stone gate turned to dust the moment Russell touched it. He stepped not into a tomb, but into a battlefield suspended in the void—the burning Terran palace crumbled beneath his feet, the fleet of the Sons of Horus blotted out the stars like a swarm of locusts, and in the center of the battlefield, the twelve-winged, blood-stained Saint Gilles confronted the fallen Horus.
"Why have you come?" Saint Gilles' voice came from both the past and the present.
&34; To learn how not to be you. &34; Russell's answer made time stand still.
The illusion of Saint Gilles dissipated, and Russell suddenly found himself burdened with twelve metallic wings. Each feather weighed as heavy as a mountain, and beneath his feet lay an abyss. The storms of the warp howled in his ears, and the wails of countless fallen Holy Blood Angels seeped from the wings:
"Company commander, why did you abandon us?!"
Saint Gilles is dead, what do we fight for?
Russell's knee shattered under the weight, but he clutched a feather that tried to pierce his heart, letting it tear at his palm: "My sins... I will bear them myself!" Golden psionic energy erupted from the wound like magma, melting the metal wings into real flesh and blood—and as he soared across the abyss, what fell behind him was not feathers, but the Emperor's Proverbs reborn from the ashes.
…………
Deep within the tomb, a sea of blood surged forth, each drop reflecting Russell's deepest fears: Kahn's axe cleaving through Arya's psionic barrier, Kalion's wings carbonizing in the warp flames, Baal turning to rotten earth as the plague worms devoured him...
A throne rose from the center of the sea of blood, and Saint Gilles, in his black fury form, reached out his hand to him: "Only by accepting anger can you sever the causal chain."
Russell's "Blood Drinker" pierced his own left eye—in the excruciating pain, the illusion of a sea of blood shattered like a mirror. He plucked boiling golden psionic energy from his eye socket, molding it into a new pupil: "My rage... is only fit to pave the way for hope!"
…………
As Russell stepped into the heart of the tomb, the sarcophagus of Saint Gilles was disintegrating into particles of light. The Primarch's phantom, wielding a blood-stained greatsword, pointed it at Russell's brow: "Now, ask your real question."
How to kill something that cannot die? Russell's shovel reflected Kahn's maniacal laughter.
Saint Gilles' sword suddenly turned and plunged into his own heart: "You should ask...how to make the raging live in fear."
The sarcophagus vanished completely, replaced by a floating pale dagger—the broken blade of "Atonement" that Saint Gilles had shattered during the Battle of Terra. As Russell grasped the hilt, all the wounds from the trials began to resonate, channeling the holy blood power accumulated over millennia in the tomb into his body.
A strange phenomenon occurred on the surface of Baal: all the weapons of the Blood Angels automatically unsheathed, pointing towards the tomb and emitting a war-like hum. Dante gazed at the flowing golden aurora in the sky, a slight smile playing on his lips beneath his mask: "Looks like someone has angered the Primarch..."
Meanwhile, far away in the Eye of Terror, Kahn suddenly crushed the skull goblet in his hand. His eyes reflected a rare anomaly in the Blood God's domain—countless Khorne demons were growling uneasily in Baal's direction.