The Do of the brass council chamber cast mottled light and shadows. Karna helped Gabriel Seth to his feet. The warrior's power armor glead with a viscous, dark luster in the dim light, looking like an abyss ready to swallow everything whole.
The air within the council chamber seed to freeze. Only the candlelight flickered silently. Karna's gaze swept over every warrior present. Beneath their faceplates hid bewildernt and confusion, making them look like a group of lost children in the dark, waiting for soone to light the way forward.
Karna's gaze pierced through the veil of ti, as if he could see a scene from a distant era.
A scene of his kindergarten teacher telling him a story.
"Gabriel Seth, Sanguinius once said that although your guiding light, Ammit, was as savage as a wild beast, his heart still yearned for hope and beauty. That is exactly why he was able to attain salvation."
Karna's voice was deep and gentle, carrying the heavy weight of reminiscence. His fingers rested lightly on Seth's shoulder guard, as if transmitting so intangible strength.
Seth's helt dipped slightly, his power armor emitting a faint hum. His thoughts were pulled back to the legends of the Flesh Tearers' founder—Ammit.
That warrior, renowned for his savagery during the Great Crusade. That soul who found redemption under the teachings of Sanguinius.
"Thus, while he was an outstanding warrior, he was also a peerless artisan."
Karna continued, a trace of complex emotion coloring his tone.
Ammit, by the transmigrators' standards for evaluating a person, was truly a piece of work.
During the Great Crusade, the Imperium rarely provided humanitarian aid to enemy captives. Yet, during one such occasion, Ammit—back when they were still the Revenant Legion—bashed a captive to death with a rock right in front of a dicae nurse. Then he told her:
"Now he is dead. You haven't violated your duty. You may leave!"
And then he proceeded to gnaw on the corpse right in front of the horrified nurse.
Well, one could say it was a blessing that he hadn't started chewing on friendly forces yet.
Of course, after undergoing re-education by the Great Angel, Ammit managed to develop a sowhat complete personality. He learned that corpses were not for eating unless it was necessary to extract information, and he ca to view the consumption of the dead as a punishnt.
However, following the death of the Angel, the Flesh Tearers were relapsing into their past as ghouls at an alarming rate.
"I understand."
Seth responded in a low voice, sounding muffled through his respirator. He continuously recalled the founder of the Flesh Tearers, seemingly grasping Karna's point.
Everything the Great Angel said was right.
Karna's brows furrowed slightly, a flash of helplessness crossing his eyes.
"No, you don't understand."
His voice carried a hint of exhaustion, as if dealing with a group of children who had not yet grasped the basic concept of what it ant to be human, rendering them completely incapable of comprehension.
Are all you progeny of the Angel like little tadpoles? Do you just blindly swim after your mother the mont you see her without a single independent thought?
Karna sighed inwardly. He possessed the analytical skills expected of the transmigrators, well aware of the current state of Seth and the angels.
Most of them had absolutely no idea where this sorrow even ca from. They were simply caught up in a muddled empathy born purely from Karna's sheer charisma.
They didn't know the reason at all.
So Blood Angels were even regretting why they had upheld their chapter's virtuous teachings and refrained from attacking those blood thralls, allowing the Flesh Tearers to reap such an easy harvest.
"."
Arthur stood silently in the shadows, taking in the entire scene.
His black eyepieces absorbed the faint light of the council chamber, shielding his thoughts from all prying eyes.
The transmigrators' assessnt was spot on. The vast majority of Space Marines, especially the Angel's progeny, were nothing more than emotionally stunted children. Missing childhoods, fractured identities, and genetic flaws had caused them to forget how to be human after becoming warriors.
Next, Arthur turned his gaze toward Dante, who stood at the edge of the crowd.
The Chapter Master wore a rare expression of distress, his fingers unconsciously tracing the salt crystal emblem in his hand.
The only normal person here.
This inevitably reminded Arthur of Dante's history. A child born to a family of salt miners, raised surrounded by his father's love, who wanted to bring a better life to his family but never saw his father again.
The silent knight pondered, recalling various examples, including that of Yulia.
From the Regent Guilliman at the top to the countless ordinary people full of bright spots at the bottom, their universal difference from everyone else in this universe seed to be that they had a healthy, functioning family.
'Now we're really just babysitting.'
Arthur lanted internally, forwarding the organized information and raw data to Romulus, signaling his good brother that it was ti to start working overti.
The materials for a preschool education curriculum could already be drafted. He felt that this group of angelic progeny was only fit to learn from such basics.
"Gabriel Seth."
The candlelight in the brass council chamber cast dancing shadows across Karna's gold and red armor. His right hand was tightly gripped by Seth. The warrior's knuckles were stark white from the strain, as if he were clinging to his final salvation.
Karna frowned slightly. His left hand gently patted Seth's shoulder guard, the collision of gleaming gold and ceramite producing a sowhat muffled clunk.
"You need to study harder."
Karna's voice was gentle yet carried an undeniable firmness. His gaze pierced through the faceplate, staring directly into Seth's eyes, trying to find a single shred of clarity amidst the turmoil.
"Yes."
Seth responded in a low voice. It sounded thick, choked with a mix of tears and snot, but his eyes blazed with a fanatical light.
Karna tugged his right hand slightly, trying to pull away, but Seth only squeezed tighter.
He sighed helplessly. His left hand patted the warrior's shoulder guard again, like soothing an anxious child.
"I will be watching you all. I will be paying attention to your progress."
"If you manage to find your salvation, then you shall be free to soar. If you ultimately cannot change, then you should burn on the battlefields against the enemies of humanity."
His voice echoed through the council chamber, the candle flas wavering slightly from the vibrations.
The image of the "Tears of the Angel", the Destroyer squad, suddenly surfaced in Karna's mind. For a severely self-destructive force like the Flesh Tearers, there seed to be no future more fitting than this path.
"Yes."
Seth nodded again, his voice carrying a trace of poorly concealed excitent.
Karna's gaze hardened slightly, a wave of resignation washing over him.
He could see through to the true essence of things, and right now, all Seth was thinking about was charging into battle alongside Karna and ultimately eting a heroic, glorious end.
To him, that sounded absolutely perfect. It had to be that way.
Hsss...
'I really need to fix these angel brats in the future.'
He made a ntal note to have Rases place a marker on the souls of these guys later—the kind that could yank them right back even if they died, Karna thought with a touch of dark amusent.
'Don't even think about dying so easily. Until I've drilled the core virtues of morality into your thick skulls, you'll have plenty of chances to die.'
'You don't want to change?'
'Fine. But don't expect a single word of praise or a gold star.'
'My dear angel, you wouldn't want to just sit on the sidelines while watching the other angels lose themselves in the praise and gold stars from their elders, would you?'
"I will leave the rest to my companion. Co find once your reformation is complete."
Having said that, Karna swiftly retracted his hand. His movents were crisp and decisive, almost as if he were fleeing. His strides were steady yet rapid. The crimson and gold armor flashed in the candlelight, and in the blink of an eye, he vanished into the shadows of the council chamber.
"Mhm."
Seth kept nodding dumbly, entirely subrged in the halo of Karna's charisma, as if he hadn't yet snapped out of the feeling of being watched.
Smack!
That was until a precise, heavy strike from behind hit his nerve node. His body instantly stiffened before he slowly collapsed, his armor producing a dull thud as it collided with the floor.
"Huh?"
Seth's consciousness drifted in the darkness. In his daze, he felt as though he had been relocated to a brightly lit operating room.
The blazing white lights stung his eyes, making it impossible to open them. Everything around him was bathed in a blinding halo.
This made him feel extrely uncomfortable.
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