On Christmas Eve, Steelling City seemed like a bright gem in the dark night. Devout Christians rushed to the church in the city named after the Virgin Mary and the Child or the Apostle to attend services. When the bell rang, Steele
Spirits gather around the home's sizzling oven and holographic Christmas tree to open gifts.
The Mengsk family's resort estate on the edge of the northern mountains is brightly lit. Servants wearing Santa hats celebrate the holidays with their employers. Laser detectors scan the courtyard and residences every tenth of a second. Umo Yang's intelligence
Drones patrolled the sky like midnight snacks.
In the martial arts room, there are training swords and open iron swords on the sword racks. On the wall are warning words left by Augustus's grandfather of the same name. One of them was one that Augustus repeatedly recited when he was a child: A man of integrity.
A true king should fight against the oppressed, and a true king should protect his loyal people.
Augustus, wearing a white training robe, was practicing swordsmanship with his swordsmanship instructor. Both sides held a wooden cross sword with a guard, which was the sword of the Korhal Lancers in the colonial era.
After saluting, Augustus twirled the wooden sword in his hand, stepped out with his feet, and stood firmly on the wooden floor like a mountain, while his swordsmanship instructor maintained the same posture as him.
"Do you remember what I once taught you?" Augustus' swordsmanship instructor was a middle-aged man with an Asian face and dark pupils.
"Augustus Mengsk, the eighth month of the twelve months is named after him. He is upright and brave, not vain, and was born to walk on the road of greatness and glory." Augustus
As he spoke, he stared closely at his mentor's eyes and the hand holding the sword.
"Do you still remember the words he left for you?" the instructor asked.
"Defend noble ideals or fight for the oppressed. A noble person always stands firm in the face of tyrants who dominate the weak. Those who abuse power will be punished by heaven and earth. Honest people will not stand idly by and allow such evil to exist." Austria
Gustus replied.
"Your character has proven that you will be the Lord of Korhal." The mentor said: "You and your father are true Mengsk."
"What about Arcturus?" Augustus asked.
"No, he is not that kind of person." said the tutor.
Augustus was ready to strike, as if he was about to swing his polished sword forward at any time. But in an instant, his mentor reversed the blade and slashed diagonally towards Augustus at a tricky angle.
The person blocked easily after a beautiful turn, and the two white figures slashed, blocked, spun, and stabbed...
"Your reflexes, speed and strength are not as good as before. You were supposed to be the lion of Korhal or the wolf of Stirling that I trained, but now, why are you so weak that you are not even as good as a sixty-year-old man?"
." The tutor sent Augustus back a few steps with a powerful blow.
"Even if you are in a military camp, you should not relax your requirements on yourself."
"I am too slack." Augustus gasped, his long gray hair falling limply on his forehead due to sweat: "I am weak from wasted practice."
"Then you should work harder until you can easily knock me down again." In the memory of this elder whose body has begun to age, Augustus began to follow him to practice swordsmanship, politics and politics when he was six years old.
philosophy.
When he was a child, Augustus was not nearly as strong and powerful as his elder brother, but he was very hardworking and perseverant, and also showed amazing talent in learning. Augustus was excellent in all aspects, but he used to always
Arrogant and conceited, this is also the reason why he entered the rebellious stage prematurely.
However, although the mentor was puzzled by Augustus's decline in swordsmanship, he had undoubtedly washed away his glory and became steady and restrained.
Augustus wielded the training sword in silence, and he was gradually regaining the feeling of the past. In his memory, when Augustus was sixteen years old, he could already hit the vital point of his mentor with one blow or use his youthful strength to
He is physically capable of knocking off an opponent's sword, and he can skillfully use more than a dozen cold and hot weapons, knocking down a defensive adult man in a matter of seconds with his bare hands.
For nearly ten minutes, Augustus kept slashing or blocking, until there was a sudden knock on the door of the martial arts room.
Conor Ward came in carrying a Gauss rifle. There was a black skull on his exposed forearm: "Augustus, Umoyan Ambassador Aline Pasteur is looking for you."
"He should have stayed in Umoyan to reunite with his family." Augustus bowed to his mentor and put the training sword on the stand: "Why don't you invite him in."
"He was followed by a Umoyan soldier." Ward said: "That man made me feel uncomfortable."
"Since Aylin brought it here, it doesn't matter."
Soon, Aline Pasteur, who was still wearing a dark suit, walked in with a blond young man wearing a tight-fitting light blue combat uniform.
The circuit emits a silvery white light.
"Augustus, this is the warrior you want." Aylin looked at Augustus proudly: "A powerful psyker, a super warrior."
"Very good, but...why is there only one person?" Augustus looked at the psyker Aylin was talking about and found that he had long curly black hair and deep eye sockets.
The bridge of his nose was high, and his light blue eyes showed a melancholy look, and he seemed to have no energy.
"We have very few psychic warriors, and most of them have to serve as mentors for new students. But don't worry, there are still three outstanding shadow warriors who will come to Korhal IV in January next year." Aylin smiled at him.
explain.
"In Umoyan, people don't think of psykers as aliens. We call these brave warriors the Shadow Guards, because they are the shadows that guard the elected parliament and the people."
"Nice to meet you, I'm..." Augustus did not show the fear and disgust that a Tyranid often has for psykers, but walked over and shook hands with the other person.
.
Although Augustus wanted a psyker who was only loyal to himself, the trained psykers of the Tyranid Federation were all under the control of the federal government, so he could only settle for the next best thing.
Let’s talk about solving the upcoming ghost agent assassination incident.
"Augustus Mengsk, the fighter for freedom, the Wolf of Mengsk, the military leader of the revolution." The Shadow Guard said: "I can see your bright and great heart."
"No, I'm just an ordinary person." Augustus was about to ask the other person's name, but the latter had already spoken.
"We have only one name, and that is Shadow Guard." He then smiled again: "Of course, you can call me Marcus, this was my name when I was in Tarsonis."
"Marchus, thank you for coming all the way here to protect me and my family." Augustus paused, and the other party expressed his inner doubts.
"You are very curious about my psychic level, because the assassins of the Federation will probably be the highest level ten." Marcus said: "In terms of the Federation's PSI psychic rating, I should only be at level eight, but I
Brought psionic shielding field generators and laser anti-cloaking devices specifically designed to deal with psykers."
"Sorry, I think you should wait for me to say what I want to say, otherwise it will sound like you are talking to yourself." Augustus smiled and said: "I have another question. I heard
Psykers are all mind readers, so I'm curious how much you can detect other people's thoughts."
"Typically, we can only detect superficial emotions, such as what you are trying to say and what you are trying to do." Marcus replied: "If you want to get into the deepest thoughts, you can do that.
, but it takes a lot of time. People are complicated, and you can never understand all of a person’s thoughts.”
"You don't have to worry about me probing your thoughts. The psychic shielding device we brought can block telepathy, which is mind reading." Suddenly, he smiled.
"You thought of torturing corrupt officials and finding traitors and those with disloyal intentions in the revolutionary army."
"It's not assassination and massacre, which is good."