Chapter 114: Karna: Brother, the Rest is Up to You
The vaulted ceiling of the brass council chamber cast mottled shadows. Karna helped Gabriel Seth to his feet. The warrior's power armor, in the faint light, gleamed with a viscous black sheen, as if it were an abyss that swallowed all light.
The air in the council chamber seemed to have frozen. Only the candle flames swayed in silence. Karna's gaze swept over every warrior present. Behind their faceplates were hidden confusion and bewilderment, like a group of children lost in the dark, waiting for someone to light their way.
Karna's gaze pierced the veil of time, as if seeing a scene from a distant era. A scene of his kindergarten teacher telling him a story.
"Gabriel Seth," Karna's voice was low and gentle, heavy with a trace of reminiscence. "Sanguinius once said that your guide, Amit, though as savage as a beast, still yearned for hope and beauty in his heart. It was for this reason that he was able to attain salvation." His fingers rested lightly on Seth's pauldron, as if transmitting some invisible strength.
Seth's helmet was slightly bowed, a low hum coming from his power armor. His thoughts were pulled back to the legend of the Flesh Tearers' founder, Amit. That warrior, renowned for his savagery during the Great Crusade, that soul who had found salvation under the tutelage of Sanguinius.
"So, while he was an outstanding warrior, he was also an unparalleled artisan," Karna continued, a complex note in his voice.
Amit, by the transmigrators' assessment, was quite a character. During the Great Crusade, in a rare instance of the Imperium providing humanitarian aid to enemy prisoners, Amit, who was then with the Revenant Legion, had, in front of a nurse, bludgeoned a prisoner to death with a rock, and then said to her, "Now he is dead. You have not violated your duty. You may leave." Then he began to gnaw on the corpse in front of her.
Well, at least he wasn't eating his own comrades, so that's a plus?
Of course, after being re-educated by the Great Angel, Amit had developed a complete personality, learning that, except when intelligence was required, corpses were not to be eaten, and viewing the act as a punishment. However, with the death of the Angel, the Flesh Tearers were rapidly regressing into their "Revenant" past.
"I understand," Seth replied in a low voice, muffled by his respirator. He kept recalling the founder of the Flesh Tearers, seeming to understand Karna's meaning.
The Great Angel is always right.
Karna's brow furrowed slightly, a hint of helplessness in his eyes. "No, you don't understand." His voice was tinged with weariness, as if he were facing a group of children who had not yet formed a concrete concept of what it meant to be human, and were thus completely incapable of understanding.
Are all you sons of the Angel tadpoles? You see your mother and you just follow, you don't think for yourselves?
Karna sighed inwardly. The transmigrators all had the necessary analytical skills. He knew what state Seth and the other Angels were in right now. Most of them didn't even understand where this sorrow was coming from. They were just blindly empathizing due to Karna's charisma. They had no idea of the cause. Some Blood Angels were even regretting that they had upheld their virtue and hadn't attacked the blood-thralls, letting the Flesh Tearers get off so easily.
"..."
Arthur stood silently in the shadows, taking it all in. His black lenses absorbed the faint light in the council chamber, blocking any prying eyes.
The transmigrators' judgment was correct. The vast majority of Space Marines, especially the sons of the Angel, were emotionally stunted children. The loss of their childhood, the schism of their identity, the flaws in their genes—all of it had made them forget how to be human after they had become warriors.
Arthur then turned his gaze to Dante, at the edge of the crowd. A rare look of trouble was on the Chapter Master's face, his fingers unconsciously stroking the salt-crystal sigil in his hand.
The only normal one.
This made Arthur recall Dante's story. The child from a family of salt-farmers, who had grown up surrounded by his father's love, who had wanted to bring a better life to his family, but had never seen his father again.
The silent knight pondered, recalling other examples, including Yulia.
From the Regent Guilliman down to the various ordinary people who shone with brilliance, the one thing they all had in common, that set them apart from the rest of the universe, seemed to be that they had a stable family.
'So we're babysitting now,' Arthur remarked internally. He sent the information he had compiled, along with the original files, to Romulus, signaling his good friend that it was time for some overtime. The pre-school curriculum could now be written. He felt that was the only thing these sons of the Angel were fit to learn.
"Gabriel Seth."
The candlelight in the brass council chamber cast flickering shadows on Karna's crimson-gold armor. His right hand was held in a death grip by Seth, the warrior's knuckles white from the force, as if he were holding onto his last salvation.
Karna frowned slightly, his left hand gently patting Seth's pauldron. The clash of auramite and ceramite made a low, muffled sound.
"You need to study more," Karna's voice was gentle but held an unquestionable firmness. His gaze pierced through Seth's faceplate, looking directly into his eyes, trying to find a glimmer of clarity in that chaos.
"Yes," Seth replied in a low voice, muffled by the mixture of tears and snot in his throat. Only his eyes shone with a fanatical light.
Karna's right hand tensed slightly, trying to pull away, but Seth's grip only tightened. He let out a helpless sigh, his left hand patting the warrior's pauldron again, as if comforting an anxious child.
"I will be watching you. I will be watching your changes."
"If you find your own salvation, then you will be able to fly free. If you are ultimately unable to change, then you should burn on the battlefield against the enemies of Mankind."
His voice echoed in the council chamber, the candle flames flickering with the vibration of the sound waves. An image of the Destroyer Host, the "Tears of the Angel," suddenly appeared in Karna's mind. For a Chapter with such a strong self-destructive tendency as the Flesh Tearers, there seemed to be no future more fitting than this.
"Yes," Seth nodded again, a hint of undisguised excitement in his voice.
Karna's gaze hardened slightly, a sense of helplessness in his heart. He could see the true nature of things, and right now, all Seth was thinking about was being able to go to the battlefield with Karna and ultimately die a glorious death. For him, this was perfect. This was how it should be.
Hiss~
I really have to turn these Angel-brats around in the future.
Making a mental note to have Ramesses put a mark on these guys' souls later, the kind that would let him pull them back even if they died, Karna thought with a dark cunning. Don't think you can die so easily. Before I've灌輸ed the Five Virtues and Four Graces into your brains, there will be plenty of chances for you to die.
Don't want to change?
Fine. Praise, gold stars—you won't get a single one.
My dear Angel, you wouldn't want to just stand by and watch the other Angels lose themselves in the praise and gold stars of their elders, would you?
"The rest, I will leave to my partner. Come and find me after you have completed your modifications."
With that, Karna quickly pulled his hand back, his movements clean and decisive, almost as if he were fleeing. His steps were steady but swift, his crimson-gold armor flashing in the candlelight, and in the blink of an eye, he had disappeared into the shadows of the council chamber.
"Yes," Seth was still nodding dumbly, immersed in the aura of Karna's charisma, as if he had not yet recovered from the feeling of being watched.
THUMP!
Until a precise, heavy blow from behind struck a nerve-cluster. His body instantly stiffened, then slowly toppled over, his armor hitting the ground with a dull thud.
"Huh?"
Seth's consciousness floated in the darkness. In a daze, he felt himself being moved to a bright operating room. The brilliant white light was so bright he couldn't open his eyes. Everything around him was shrouded in a blinding halo.
It made him very uncomfortable.
(End of Chapter)