"Santar, DuCaine, Urien."
"My warriors have been struck down by you, one by one."
"Well done, Arcur Tona."
Ferris's tone was very calm, but considering the current situation...
"My lady, I—"
Arcur knelt on the ground, cold sweat beading on her forehead.
"The Gardinerians will not miss any opportunity to defy me, and you are just as arrogant as they are. Are you all here to remind me why I should not be weak?"
"That's not what I meant!"
"Your actions have already said everything!"
"Must you, at every moment, prove to me that my legion is fragile and my warriors are weak?"
"Or did you have to choose this moment to humiliate me? To humiliate the Iron Hands?"
The words were irrefutable.
Especially just a moment ago, when Arcur was still triumphantly shouting all over the place.
She fell into a bitter silence.
This is it. I'm really done for.
As for Kasjia at the side...
He was silently watching this good show.
Brilliant, so brilliant!
I love watching women fight the most!
"In that case, if you think our Iron Hands cannot bring you a challenge..."
"...then let me see your skills."
With an order from the Iron Hand, Ferris, several particularly rough, black iron pillars were erected in the training cage in front of the banquet hall.
A duel cage of that scale, Ferris had originally thought it was for duels between Dreadnoughts.
After all, the Iron Hands did have a lot of Dreadnoughts.
"This is a creation I left for my siblings."
Ferris said faintly.
"I had hoped to have a fair contest with them in here, but I was always refused."
Including Dorn, Fulgrim, and Vulkan.
Before, although she had seemed a little irritable, her anger was always measured.
The result of being angry for a moment was just being angry for a moment.
And only when she was truly angry could one see her cold, burning, calm fury.
Very terrifying.
Only at this moment did Kasjia have to be glad that he had fallen into Chemos, and not Medusa.
When Big Sister Fei got angry, she was really a bit too terrifying.
I kind of miss Fulgrim now, what's going on?
"Put her armor on her."
Ferris's tone was still cold. It seemed she had already declared Arcur's defeat, and was now just toying with a weak enemy.
Arcur walked into the duel cage with trepidation.
The shadow that Ferris cast on her was even larger than that from Santar in his Terminator armor.
This was an opponent she could not possibly defeat.
A bitter scream came from Arcur's heart.
But her body still stood in its original position, choosing to fight.
She could feel her body trembling with excitement.
The instinct of a warrior is to challenge the strong.
Just as her father had thought when he had challenged the Emperor.
Clang.
Arcur flew out and crashed into the huge iron pillar.
Even though Arcur had tried her best, trying to find an opportunity in the battle with her own skills, and had successfully hit a vital part of Ferris...
...but unfortunately, under the protection of her iron hands' liquid metal, all of Arcur's resistance was meaningless.
Soon, she was immediately sent flying.
Seemingly having achieved her effect, Ferris, after having taught Arcur a lesson, still walked down from the special training cage with an expressionless face.
She looked at the Iron Hands below her who were prostrate on the ground, not daring to speak.
Why could this group of guys never perform to her satisfaction?
Not only were they extremely dependent on her coordinated calculations in battle, but even their dueling could not be compared to the warriors of other legions.
Why could other legions have powerful warriors like Abaddon and Sigismund as their right-hand men, while their Iron Hands could only rely on her alone?
Was it because of her "mercy"?
[Weak and useless trash.]
[Perhaps it would be more valuable to replace all of their frail bodies with machines.]
[Even their brains are not needed. The precise calculations that a machine can perform are far greater than their ridiculous brain capacity.]
"You have shamed me again, my Iron Hands."
This time, no Iron Hand dared to retort.
"Perhaps I have been too tolerant of your failures, or perhaps you are just not destined to be strong."
"In any case, I am utterly disappointed in you, in Gardiner."
Ferris paused for a moment as she spoke, as if she was making some kind of decision.
She remembered the scene she had seen on the space hulk earlier.
Perhaps the future was correct.
[Mercy will only make you weak.]
[Only merciless steel can achieve eternity.]
It was better for the Iron Hands to become entirely mechanical steel than to live as weak, crawling humans.
She sighed.
"If a situation like this happens again in the future, then get ready for your mechanical modification surgeries."
After saying that, Ferris left the banquet hall without looking back.
"Hm?"
Wait, something's not right!
Kasjia stopped his hand from continuing to take snacks.
He had discovered an anomaly.
Kasjia had not originally intended to interfere too much with Ferris.
After all, as a die-hard loyalist, even with the vision that the Eldar Shadowseer had shown him, he did not believe that Ferris would be the one to start the Great Betrayal.
She had no reason to do so.
Kasjia had come to participate in the Gardiner campaign mainly to save the Sword Saint of the Emperor's Children, Arcur Tona.
Perhaps because of his arrival, the lives of a dozen or so of the Iron Hands' Primarch's personal guard and the Thousand Sons Librarian, Intap-Amal, had been saved. Everything was developing in a good direction.
Next, all he needed to do was to protect Arcur while she destroyed the enemy's orbital weapons and ensure her safe retreat in the battle for Gardiner. His study abroad career with the Iron Hands would be perfectly completed.
There was no reason for any changes.
But the sudden words from Ferris had plunged him into an ice cellar.
She was actually encouraging the Iron Hands to undergo mechanization, to remove their own flesh and blood, and to pursue the so-called "perfection"?
This shouldn't be happening.
Kasjia stood up anxiously, but he didn't know where to go for a moment.
Mechanization had always been a research direction for the Iron Hands, but Ferris should have been the one to prevent the entire legion from going crazy!
Even though she had a pair of indestructible iron arms, Ferris Manus had always believed that they were not her own hands.
If the Great Crusade were to end one day, she would definitely find a way to change them back to their original state.
She should have told her sons not to pursue the so-called "perfection" achieved by machines too much, so as not to alienate themselves into a kind of mechanical puppet.
Logically, the Iron Hands Primarch should be extremely opposed to the trend in the legion of preparing to replace all their limbs with steel, and should want to curb this bad habit.
(And then the Iron Hand who had set up the flag got his head lopped off.)
She shouldn't have become a promoter of this kind of thinking.
What on earth had gone wrong?
Kasjia was very anxious, but he had no clue.
Or rather, the sudden and unexpected situation had made him panic for a moment.
"Kasjia."
"I wonder if you have time to talk with me."
"I can guarantee that the following conversation will be extremely important for both of us."
Perhaps seeing that the banquet was over and the other finally had some free time, the Thousand Sons Librarian, Amal, finally found an opportunity to ask the not-so-good-looking Kasjia.
At this time, he had changed from his usual scarlet and shriveled sorcerer appearance, and everything about him looked no different from a normal Astartes.
This was the work of Kasjia's flame.
Amal was extremely grateful for this.
And not long after the Gardinerian assassination had occurred, he had independently tried to contact the gene-primarch of the Thousand Sons, the Crimson King, Magnus, through psychic communication.
He had to tell the other party as soon as possible about the way to suppress the flesh-change curse!
He had succeeded.
Without breaking the Webway, he had contacted his father.
Magnus was very excited about the information he had transmitted.
The flesh-change curse of the legion had always been the most troublesome problem for him since his return.
[You mean to say that this Space Marine from the Emperor's Children can eliminate the flesh-change curse?]
[It's the absolute truth! My lord, after being burned by his psionic flame, my body has now completely recovered!]
[Quick! Quick, get him to come to our Prospero!!!]
An extremely urgent shout came through the psychic communication.
Perhaps he was too excited. Amal felt that the other was so excited that he almost came out of the psychic communication.
It almost scattered Amal's soul.
[As long as he can solve our flesh-change curse, I can give him anything he wants!]
[Anything! Even if it means I have to kneel!]
Magnus, one of the only four Primarchs to kneel to his own son.
Angel/Fulgrim/Vulkan (kneeling to their sons): I will lead you to glory!
Magnus (kneeling to his son): Sob, sob, sob, Khayon, I'm begging you, please don't scold me anymore, I'm kneeling to you, thud, thud, thud—
"Is this your request?"
Following Amal to his private room, which was almost filled with books he had collected from all over the galaxy, filling the entire bookshelf.
"That's right. I, on behalf of the Thousand Sons Primarch, Lord Magnus, extend to you the most sincere invitation."
"The Primarch has suddenly encountered a very serious academic problem, and the flame in your hand happens to provide a feasible solution for him to solve the problem."
"If it really achieves the expected effect, the Primarch has promised to meet all your needs."
Of course, even if the Thousand Sons were a bit naive, they wouldn't go around telling everyone that their genes had a flesh-change mutation.
They used a very roundabout way to express their expectations.
But unfortunately, Kasjia had read the script.
Isn't it just that playing with sorcery too much has caused the flesh-change? Seriously.
And he even said he would meet all my needs...
Are you kidding me? If I ask you to turn Guilliman into a little loli, can you do that?
But this was indeed a good thing for Kasjia.
Currently, Magnus was still troubled by the flesh-change curse, which meant that at this time, he had not yet been deceived by the little blue sprites of the Warp. He was currently a red-eyed Ogryn.
The entire legion and the Primarch still had a chance to be saved.
And once the Thousand Sons were saved from turning traitor, and little Magnus didn't make any harassing calls, the Webway wouldn't explode.
And if the Webway didn't explode, the future of humanity would still have hope!
"I accept your invitation."
Kasjia said the words that Amal had been waiting for for a long time.
"But I must say that there are more urgent matters that we need to deal with at present."
"Urgent matters?"
What could be more urgent than lifting the flesh-change curse of the Thousand Sons?
Of course, Amal couldn't just say the flesh-change curse out loud.
Even if Kasjia knew everything, he wouldn't dare to say it rashly.
"It's the Iron Hands."
"Let me ask you, Amal. When you met Ferris, did you encounter anything strange?"
"Strange things?"
"Things that are beyond common sense. Sorcery, psionics, Warp influence, anything."
"In short, has Ferris encountered anything that is not quite in line with the Imperial Truth!"
What Kasjia said was a bit dangerous.
But for a Thousand Sons Librarian, they basically treated the Imperial Truth like toilet paper.
Ferris was not the kind of person who liked excessive mechanical modification.
She would never be more eager to replace everything with machines than those self-hating Iron Hands.
For her to have changed, it was very likely that she had been affected by some unknown influence!
"It seems... we did indeed encounter a very strange thing."
After a moment of contemplation, Amal seemed to have realized something.
"It was when I was still searching for reinforcements for the 413th Expeditionary Fleet..."
After the defeat of the Ultramarines Chapter Master Cicero in the ground battle, Amal, as a powerful psyker in the fleet, had decided to lead a small voidship to travel through the Warp and search for the support of other expeditionary fleets.
"In this process, we found Ferris's 52nd Expeditionary Fleet."
"That's normal, isn't it?"
"That's right, but the problem came after I boarded the 52nd Expeditionary Fleet."
"When I was reporting the battle situation of Gardiner to him, and had finally decided to inform the Emperor's Children fleet, that is, you."
"We encountered a space hulk during our Warp travel."
A space hulk?!
Kasjia felt that something was wrong.
The Iron Hand, Ferris, had encountered a space hulk...
In the surging Warp travel, not every ship could pass through the Warp smoothly.
Some wrecked ships would remain in the Warp forever, becoming drifting space hulks.
And due to the uncertainty of time in the Warp, sometimes a traveler would encounter some ships from the past or the future.
"And then?"
Kasjia felt that he was getting closer and closer to the answer to the problem.
"Originally, we wouldn't have bothered with this kind of thing, but that space hulk had the insignia of the Iron Hands."
"It was a ship from the Iron Hands."
"Driven by curiosity, we, along with Ferris and her personal guard, boarded that derelict ship."
She also wanted to see what the Iron Hands of the future would be like.
"I understand."
Kasjia's tone was low.
Most likely, it was at this time that she had been possessed by a daemon from the future.
In Kasjia's mind, a name that he was unwilling to mention but was most likely to appear, was now welling up in his mind.
An eternal nightmare that had always haunted the Iron Hands.
A daemon that guided all the Iron Hands to hate their own flesh and blood, and to desire to embrace a mechanical body without limit.
The Sapphire King.
-------
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