It was obvious that they were both ignoring the glowing figure of Horus, even though Horus would normally be the center of attention, with only the Archangel Sanguinius to rival him.
But only people with the same aura will be attracted to each other. Among the bright and glorious brothers, it seemed that neither side expected the existence of the other.
In Horus's private Primarch meeting room, the half-worn Moon Wolf flag and the Double-headed Eagle flag were hung together, the light golden carpet covered the entire floor, and the woven single sofas were placed in the room in a casual manner, but all faced the projection equipment in this small room.
Horus turned on the projection equipment, and their target galaxy immediately appeared in front of everyone. Horus took a deep breath, then turned around with a smile.
Mortarion sat silently on one of the sofas, maintaining the necessary silence, like a sculpture.
The Death Lord's armor was a pale, dull bone white, with some faint marks visible on it, and his armor was also empty and without any superfluous decoration -
For some Primarchs this would have been unbearable, but Mortarion cared little for these imperfections, his sunken eye sockets hidden in the darkness of his hood, leaving no one ever able to guess what he was thinking.
Under Mortarion's mask, he made breathing sounds like a dying man, making people feel that he was suffering from some kind of cruel torture all the time. Horus guessed that it was caused by the poison gas in Mortarion's mask, but he really couldn't understand Mortarion's self-mutilation behavior.
And Coze sat on the sofa in an awkward and disturbing posture, as if the sofa was made of nails and thorns.
But Horus was sure that the sofas in this room were made of the most comfortable material, and even a naked baby would fall asleep immediately on these soft sofas.
The Lord of Night was wrapped in midnight-cold iron armor. At the end of the armor, where the fingers were, the sharp blades flashed a ruthless light. Countless skulls were pierced on Curze's armor with iron guards, looking at Horus in emptiness and pain.
Some traces of dried mucus filled Curze's long hair, making the Primarch's black hair messy, and Horus could even see some unknown lumps in it.
But compared to Mortarion who hid himself completely, Curze showed his whole face. His skin was a terrifying ice-white, his entire face was bloodless, and his lips were blue mixed with the dark brown color of dried blood.
Horus looked at his two brothers, which gave him a strange feeling. The two people who were incompatible with each other in the Primarch on weekdays actually had a hint of symmetrical similarity at this moment. To make a rather inappropriate analogy, Mortarion and Konrad Curze, which reminded him of Guilliman and Dorn.
In short, both Primarchs looked very much like corpses, the difference being that one was a tuberculosis corpse that had been buried in the earth for many years, while the other was a corpse of excessive blood loss that had been refrigerated in an ice cellar for many years.
Well, Horus said to himself in his heart. It must be admitted that even Horus felt a little tricky.
Although the situation was still not as difficult as it was at the banquet, Horus was relieved.
Horus tried to make his tone as light as possible. He looked at the two brothers who were obviously not going to speak first.
"Before we start, we can get to know each other and become familiar with each other so that we can cooperate better in the future."
The Luna Wolves had worked with both Legions individually before, so it was clear that Horus was referring to Mortarion and Curze getting to know each other.
The Lord of Night raised his eyes, which were hidden in his tangled hair, completely dark, and looked at Horus with a melancholy look.
He saw a broken puppet, engulfed in uncertain flames, roaring and tearing the sun apart.
He was no longer Horus.
Brothers turned against each other. He opened his mouth,
"Conrad Curze, Night Lord."
A soft hoarse voice sounded, which made everyone else's eyes focus on Koz.
"Mortarion, Death Guard, Lord of Barbarus."
Curze glanced in Mortarion's direction.
He saw the garden, the high walls climbed by vines and maggots, the knees forced to kneel, and those who pursued suffering ultimately got tragedy.
Another person who is helpless.
Sadness and a broken feeling overtook him once again. Nightmares were like mottled ghosts on the wall at midnight. Justice and redemption were nothing but illusions in his mind, and they clamored to tear him apart.
"Conrad?"
Horus' voice woke him up, and Curze shook his head roughly, motioning for Horus to continue his introduction to the goal of this mission.
This is a fairly prosperous pocket kingdom with a certain galaxy defense capability, but the main population of the entire country is still concentrated on its main star, and its technology and military are highly developed.
Faced with this human civilization, the Empire repeatedly sent its peacemaking ships, but this human civilization resolutely refused to surrender and imprisoned the Empire's peacemaking personnel.
Curze listened to Horus's long speech nonchalantly. His hopeless brother still believed that this civilization had hope, and Horus hoped to negotiate with this civilization.
Horus insisted on peace talks. He advocated first taking down the civilization's off-planet defenses and then trying to deploy troops to force them to surrender.
He delivered a long speech on "Why there is hope for this civilization". It was full of clichés and nothing new. Curze was sleepy and bored. He began to recall the screams of those skinned people, but unfortunately, in Horus's boring meeting room, those shrill pleas for mercy became dull.
Horus, Guilliman, and Dorn, those high-sounding guys, they don't understand that mercy and forgiveness will only lead to corruption, and only ruthless judgment can bring order and justice.
Fear breeds justice, pain breeds fear.
Curze could already imagine Horus's scolding and disappointment in the subsequent battle when the Night Lords used the Dreadblades to bring their enemies to submission.
These guys who care about form. Why don't they face the fact that a small amount of blood is exchanged for a large number of sacrifices? Is it what they want to see that their descendants are sacrificed in large numbers
They just don't want to face up to their sins like Curze did, they don't want to admit the war crimes they have committed.
".If they do not accept our request for peace in the first phase, then the Legion can land in the east of Continent No. 3, where their transportation artery exists. Cut it off and continue to put pressure on them. They will not last long, at most three standard Terra moons—"
"No," Nosing's ghost spoke softly, "three standard Terra weeks at most."
Horus was stunned.
"The enemy still has the main transportation routes in the south, they won't be so fast."
The Wolf Shepherd's voice gradually became quieter, and he seemed to know what Conrad wanted to say.
"Hand over this densely populated transportation city on this important road to the Night Lords. Do not use radio waves to block their communications. They need witnesses."
Koz uttered his words softly,
Horus looked at Konrad Curze seriously. The wolf god's brows were already furrowed.
"Conrad, let's not talk about anything else for now. How can you be sure that the people here will submit? Instead of igniting deeper hostility and war intentions towards the Empire?"
Mortarion, who had never fought with the Night Lords, obviously did not understand what the two were talking about, but because of his good first impression of Curze, Mortarion remained silent.
Reality will prove him right.
"According to the climate of this planet, three weeks is enough time for the corpses to emit a wonderful smell. If we pile the corpses high enough, the deeply fermented smell will flow along with the monsoon and spread fear to the cities that have not yet been lost."
Koz put his hand in front of his face and took a deep breath intoxicatedly, as if he had already smelled the smell of the pile of rotting flesh. Turbid pus flowed out of the empty eye sockets.
"They will surrender soon, before their supplies run out."
Koz said casually, and Horus seemed to hear Koz's low, sneering laughter.
"You can't—"
Mortarion raised his hand, indicating that he was about to speak.
"If we just want to let the corpse ferment, the Death Guard can provide viruses to make the corpse decay faster and emit a stronger smell, which can further shorten the time."
The Lord of Death said matter-of-factly,
This time, Koz's snorting laughter echoed throughout the entire conference room. The Lord of Night almost laughed out loud.
"Mortarion, my brother, thank you for your kindness. Now we can conquer this civilization within two weeks."
Under the cloak, wrinkles gathered around Mortarion's eyes, and Horus realized that Mortarion was smiling too.
Horus took a deep breath and raised his hand to draw the brothers' attention back to him.
He spoke as softly as he could.
"This is a highly developed human civilization, and there is no oppression here," Horus glanced at Mortarion quickly.
"This civilization is only developing, and they have not committed any crime," Horus looked at Curze this time.
"They," Horus took another deep breath, "deserve a war of greater glory, not terror and slaughter."
"Give me a chance. Their rulers are not incompetent. After realizing the true strength of the empire, they will soon surrender instead of continuing the war."
"My brother, Horus."
Mortarion spoke, in a voice that was hoarse enough,
"Precisely because their rulers are not incompetent, they will definitely fight the empire to the last moment before being completely crushed - militarily or psychologically."
"Only the incompetent will surrender. When faced with an external enemy, they will first unrealistically think of resisting in order to preserve their noble status."
“But after they truly realized the gap between the two sides, they were the first to surrender because they needed to maintain their [noble] status.”
Galasper's memories gradually surfaced, and when Mortarion's army climbed above Midnest, the management there panicked and tried to surrender.
Of course, Mortarion did not accept their surrender.
"This human civilization is a country built on the cult of personality of the family."
Mortarion pointed with his withered finger at the map behind Horus. Few people knew, even Mortarion himself, that the Lord of Death had amazing political sensitivity.
"The king is responsible to the people, and the people love their monarch. The whole country is thriving. Their culture will not allow them to surrender to a foreign enemy that has stained their country's blood. You need to break them up, break them down enough, until there is no possibility of resistance."
"Or make them fearful, so fearful that it overrides any other emotion."
Curze took over Mortarion's words, and the two Primarchs obviously reached a consensus on the topic of refuting Horus.
Unfortunately, Horus, who had sufficient qualifications, had an absolute status in front of these two legions. After realizing that the two primarchs were disobeying him and trying to conquer them in ways that displeased the Empire and the Emperor, Horus put away his initially kind face.
Now standing before them was the majestic wolf-god, Horus' eyes were staring at Curze and Mortarion sternly and intently.
"My brothers, I want you to realize,"
Horus spoke,
"The Empire sent us to this civilization with the intention of doing more than just conquering it."
"We are the liberators of civilization. We bring civilization, not death and oppression. The Great Crusade is a glorious liberation. We liberate humanity from the evil aliens and tyrants, not bring oppression to them."
This statement is very true, provided that they are the Luna Wolves, the Ultramarines, or some other glowing legion.
"They rebelled against the Empire. They are guilty, and if they are guilty they need to be tried."
Koz stared at Horus, his dark pupils without a trace of light, his canine teeth slightly bared.
"They need to realize that the end of resistance is death, and their horrific death will serve as a warning to the rest so that they can obey the rules."
Compared to the two who had a slight conflict, Mortarion calmed down. He remembered the rebukes given to him by Manus and Vulkan at that time, and also remembered Perturabo's brutality of even blowing up friendly forces.
The Lord of Death has realized that his brothers judge others based entirely on their personal preferences, and they even have different definitions of the Great Expedition.
Mortarion wondered what different lies the Emperor, the liar, had told his brothers.
After experiencing so much, Mortarion no longer cared about these arguments that had no impact on reality. The Lord of Death's eyes were fixed on the horrible future, and that was enough to make him tremble.
As for how to conquer this planet, he doesn't care.
As long as he could make sure the Death Guard didn't suffer heavy casualties due to poor tactics, Mortarion had no other opinion on the whole thing.
Unless this planet fits the label of "Psychic", "Oppressor", or "Alien".
Since this planet was just a simple human civilization and did not have the above three elements, Mortarion remained on the sidelines.
He listened to the debate between Konrad Curze and Horus with great interest, and the balance in his heart involuntarily began to tilt towards Konrad Curze.
No more.
I coded 6k today!
More updates due 3/14
(End of this chapter)