Chapter 229 Extra: The Wizard of Oz Catachan
Chapter 22 The Wizard of Oz Catachan
——The story of HH40k Lion King waking up in the wrong world line and place——
The surface of the giant tree is covered with rough and tough bark, and deep shadows are crisscrossed, as if hiding some unspeakable secrets. The thick branches twist slightly, and the branches are abnormally elongated, with sharp thorns, ready to extend deadly tentacles to passing travelers at any time.
The ground under the tree is covered with messy and twisted bushes. Like the giant trees, the bushes are extremely tough, and the branches are full of thorns, pulling each other endlessly. The soil where these bushes and giant trees are rooted is covered with green moss, as if it is pregnant with the mystery of eternal reproduction of life.
He smelled an indescribable and disturbing smell in it.
This smell seems to suggest that these trees are not just silent lives, they are more likely to be hidden predators. Every tree is quietly spying on every creature passing through their territory with their silent and terrifying existence.
The wind swept the breath of the forest, with an ominous low hum, telling the ancient stories and hidden dangers of this land. The land was soft like a swamp, full of sharp stones and irregular protrusions, forcing him to move forward carefully.
The air was filled with a strong, suffocating mixture of rotten earth and the hot biological smell of unknown beasts. The branches and leaves of the trees swayed and hissed in the wind. The trunks were too ancient and alive, more threatening than any behemoth he had faced.
He felt a vague and profound understanding of the true nature of this forest, which was similar to the forest he once owned, but still different. He still couldn't be sure of the true appearance of these trees.
His eyes wandered in this dangerous place, and he felt an unprecedented alert in his heart. His hand naturally touched his waist, and a long sword fell into his palm.
A rare uneasiness and hesitation enveloped the surface of his soul, which was a feeling he had never experienced as a knight.
Sunlight shone through the dense canopy of trees, dappling the ground. He took a deep breath, trying to find a clue, a trace in this chaotic environment in the interweaving of light and shadow.
He didn't belong here. He knew it clearly. Although he might be the one who was most familiar with jungle life among his brothers...
He suddenly remembered his brothers - who were they? What kind of people were they?
He tried to find answers in the mist of memory, but every thought was like a fallen leaf swept away by a storm, elusive. The battles and quarrels they had experienced together jumped into his mind, but the specific faces and voices gradually faded, like phantoms in the morning mist.
Although he was full of doubts and frustrations, he decided not to let these feelings take over him. He never allowed himself to indulge in helplessness.
His eyes turned to a faint trail deep in the forest and decided to follow this route, just as he did when hunting. He walked through the intricate forest path, and the armor made a slight clinking sound in the bushes.
Suddenly, the strange silence in the air was broken by a strong sense of danger. He instinctively drew his sword to fight. Several trees around him suddenly attacked him with their twisted, thorny branches, launching an offensive with a terrible desire to entangle and devour all life.
Loyalty, a noun jumped into his mind when he grasped the hilt of the sword.
The blade collided with the branch, making a crisp metallic sound. The blade cut into the branch, and a handful of highly corrosive thick green juice splashed out, corroding and melting the ends of his white hair. This battle was so unusual that it exceeded all his expectations.
His memory was vague during the battle, and he was sure that he had a lot of things to remember, but his memory gave him the only answer of hunting, like now, hunting.
More rustling sounds approached him, and the air was filled with further threats. There were unidentifiable plant thorns and dormant beasts attacking him in coordination, coordinated with the roar of giant beasts in the distance and the strange sound similar to toads. He stepped on the bodies of the dead who were eaten alive by the vegetation, and his armor was severely damaged by the attack that seemed to come from the planet itself.
And the battle was still long.
The dense forest suddenly made a strange sound, and a man appeared like a ghost, covered in steel, with his body uncovered, like a man of iron.
Above his raised hand armor, the edge of the muzzle flashed coldly, and a shot of the hand cannon shattered the branches wrapped around him without hesitation.
"Lion." The iron man called him, his tone strange and deep.
He jumped back suddenly, climbed on the branches to stabilize himself, and met the eyes of the visitor from a high place.
At that moment, all the grievances and contradictions of ten thousand years ago reappeared like a gust of wind, and pictures flashed alternately. The relief of escaping danger was swallowed by the pain of the past, and a strong anger suddenly rolled up in the lion's heart. The disputes and betrayals in his memory raged like a crazy storm, deception and betrayal surged at the same time, and the memory became clear.
His hand tightly grasped the hilt of the sword, and the tip of the sword trembled slightly in the air, ready to stab his former brother at any time.
"Perturabo." Lionel Jonson's eyes widened, and he pronounced the name of the traitorous follower in a tone of biting his name, instantly blaming the danger he encountered and the inexplicable awakening on the Lord of the Fourth Legion who had shamelessly deceived him - those borrowed gun muzzles had made the loyal blood of the Salamanders and Raven Guards flow on Istvaan V. "What are you going to do, traitor!"
The Tin Man approached the tree where he was.
"Are you serious?" Perturabo said, his voice was cold and unusual, but somehow, it didn't contain much malice. "You accuse me of being a traitor? Abandoning the Imperium of Man, abandoning Caliban, and coming late after everything was over, but you are still proud of your choice, Lion?"
"Nonsense!" Lion roared, and his memory flashed, and a scar cut across his heart.
Yes, he had no intention of abandoning the Empire, but after the end of the Horus Heresy, he asked himself countless times whether his decision was appropriate. He wandered outside Terra, Chemos, Nuceria, and Barbarus, one battle after another tore apart the home planets of the traitors one by one, and the Dark Angels scattered across the galaxy, hunting the enemies of the Emperor.
But is this really what he should do?
Perhaps he should unite the six wings into one army, return to Terra to participate in the siege? Perhaps this would save his father's life from the desperate final battle of the Spirit of Vengeance?
"You are not as loyal as you think, Lionel Jonson." Perturabo said.
The words of a traitor hurt his mind so much, and the Lion was annoyed, but he had no way to refute it. When Rogal Dorn alone sent the Emperor to the Golden Throne, the Lion's failure could never be refuted. The shame of dereliction of duty was branded on his face and soul, accompanied by endless pain and sorrow. This pain almost offset the anger of reuniting with his rebellious brothers, and he tasted a trace of cowardice that made him disgusted.
"How can you say this?" Lion said contemptuously.
Perturabo paused for a moment, and the iron mask reflected the light of observation and thinking. Lionel Jonson commented on Perturabo's strange armor, imagining how the armor was wrapped in a body corrupted by Chaos, and was shocked by the protection and attack power of this new armor.
"A thousand years have passed, why are you now in the territory of the human empire?" Perturabo's words were filled with an emotion close to self-questioning.
Then, Perturabo stretched out his hand to him, with the hand cannon pointing downwards and the empty palm facing upwards. His tone was gentle and distant, which was very different from the gloomy and suspicious Lord of Steel in Leon's impression. Doubts rose in the lion's mind.
"You don't belong to this world, Leo. Come down and talk." Perturabo said, taking off his helmet. His image was also very different from what Leon remembered. In short, Perturabo not only had no tendency to suffer from Chaos corruption, but even had enough black hair to blend into the cables among the pipes on his head.
"In case you don't know, this is Catachan in the 32nd millennium, so we should return to camp as soon as possible."
--
"The secrets of the Battle of Terra are still not fully revealed, and this is all I can tell you."
Perturabo said, walking between the wooden ladders and rope-pulled hanging boards in the jungle, carefully using a silenced portable cannon to clear the plants and insects that were ready to eat people, trying not to disturb any vegetation.
Even a Primarch would not like to enjoy the air, sunshine and poisonous needles shot by two-meter-high thorn grass in the forest of Catachan.
"Sadly, we don't think it's a good thing to make everything public to all mankind. For the stability of the galaxy and the reputation of the Legion."
"Including the reputation of the Dark Angels in this world?" The Lion asked, and he felt so strange to discuss these things with Perturabo.
"To be honest, I appreciate your decision." The Lord of Iron gave an answer equivalent to default.
"But I can't appreciate yours," the Lion said, not admitting how many times he wanted to pierce the Terminator's power system with his sword when he was next to Perturabo, peeling off his defense like a hunter in order to cut his throat.
Perturabo's existence was the most obvious proof of his countless failures, even if this Perturabo was too different from the one he knew.
"Then kill him for me," Perturabo said, meeting the Lion's unexpected eyes, "I hope he pays for everything he has done. Through some means, I have seen how he has killed his offspring, killed his relatives, and betrayed the Empire and humanity."
The lion said nothing.
"Although I don't know why you have become old, I can see that your soul has not aged yet," Perturabo said.
Their journey should not be too long, but in just a few minutes, the Lion's sword has cut off several fungal suckers that attacked the two primarchs and sharp petrified crystals that were sharp enough to pierce armor. When he was almost carried away by a hanging vine, Lion roughly understood why Perturabo left the camp fully armed.
Although the smell of the campfire was close, it took them several times longer than the normal walking speed to barely reach the edge of the camp.
The first thing that greeted them was a strange bullet, aimed directly at Lion's head, which was quickly blocked by Perturabo's hand. The lion's hand had already grasped the hilt of the sword, and then he found that the person holding the gun at him was even a toddler.
"This is not fun." Perturabo said calmly, "Put away the gun, child."
The child did not seem to fully understand what Perturabo meant until a mortal officer yelled at the child, and the child stood at attention, put away the gun, and ran away in small steps.
The officer was short and strong, with a small half of his face covered with scratches and missing the left half of his body. After the officer strode towards the primarchs, her gender became clear.
"How can I help you, sir?" the officer asked, speaking quickly but carefully. The face cast by the red handkerchief was not only fearless, but also had a kind of cunning behind determination. Suddenly, a scream of some predator swooping and circling was heard outside the camp, and the officer didn't even bother to take a look.
"Prepare us something to eat, Lieutenant." Perturabo said, "Issued from the next military pay."
"Okay, sirs." The lieutenant said, bending his right hand unconsciously, feeling the powerful servo-assisted system of the newly replaced power fist.
Perturabo motioned the lion to sit side by side with him by a puddle in the camp. The turbid water surface was still enough to reflect the unfamiliar wrinkles on Lionel Jonson's face. He felt that he was turning into another strange and old lost existence, hiding from the aftermath of Horus's rebellion with all his failures.
He hummed softly, reminding himself that he had not regressed to an unacceptable level. His movements were still swift, and his striking power and stamina were still better than the weakest Primarchs he knew, but these tiny gaps still hurt him.
"You need to return to your world," Perturabo said, and his voice had remained the same since the Lion met him, confusing. "Do you know any way?"
"No clue. I hope my legion hasn't forgotten me," the lion said. "Maybe I will leave tomorrow, maybe I can't leave."
"When you go back, lead your legion to protect the empire, lion. Before that, you can fight with us for a while." Perturabo's eyes fell on the puddle, and suddenly the meaning changed, "No, I still can't forgive you."
The lion hesitated for a moment: "Same as you, Perturabo."
Perturabo stood up, and the Lion drew his sword again.
"No matter what you did in my world, or the mistakes you made here," the primarchs said.
"We need to fight." The Lion said these words, and his aging heartbeat suddenly became as strong as when he was young. He pulled a feral look, surprised and satisfied that he was still skilled enough. The illusion of weakness left him. "Resolve conflicts with force."
"This is the nature of weapons," Perturabo said slowly, adding a word, "Brother." His iron armor hummed, and the unchanging tone was emotional because of the meaning of the words themselves.
The shadows of the past flashed in their eyes, those unforgettable betrayals, misunderstandings and stubbornness. They must find a way to release.
"Catachan." The Lion whispered, savoring this word with a single syllable of the same as his lost home planet, and swung the sword forward, letting the jungle witness it all.
Reference: The Lion: Son of the forest