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Chapter 263: The Space Wolves: Something's Wrong, Something's Nine-Tenths Wrong
🕑 Added 2025-10-26 10:07:05 +0000 UTCChapter 263: The Space Wolves: Something's Wrong, Something's Nine-Tenths Wrong
"No flaws. I can't see any."
"Can a temporal acceleration field be used like that?"
"That's a reaction only a Primarch can have. I advise you not to learn it."
"Can't we just perform the surgery ourselves?"
"Then the question is, who's the surgeon?"
"..."
The room fell silent. The Wolf Priests looked at each other.
In the Priests' Sanctum of the Fang, a group of Wolf Priests, who also served as Apothecaries, were studying the report submitted by the Wardens of Steel. The Wolves would certainly not just hand over their most precious treasure to someone they had only known for a few days. So, at the call of the Great Wolf, these priests had reluctantly put down their horns of Mjod and had begun to use their professional skills to determine if the proposed medical plan was feasible.
After a few days of research, and with one of them even cutting off his own hand to test it, they had found that there was indeed no problem.
"No problem!" a group of Wolf Priests muttered to each other.
The biggest problem was that there was no problem. Why would an outsider be so nice to you for no reason? Are you my father?
"It's not impossible," Ramesses shrugged on the side. The feast was still going on. According to the Wolves' tradition, this victory celebration would last for thirteen days. And if there were no urgent matters after thirteen days, some companies would continue to feast.
But the four of them couldn't stand it. They had found Logan and had begun to discuss the relevant matters. Even after twenty years, their sense of time had not changed. Romulus was coordinating the technicians and equipment from the forge-ship. Karna had taken the Angels to go drinking with the mortals. Arthur and he were here, communicating with the Wolves, showing off their technology, and doing the preliminary work for technology transfer.
But the dogs had gotten smart. They had to test every piece of good meat for a long time. Arthur had a good temper. He did not.
One of the Wolf Priests was stunned. He knew he had just been taken advantage of.
"Hurry up. The fleet has a heavy schedule. We might not even come back to Fenris on our return trip," Ramesses couldn't help but shut the other up and urged, "Even if I'm not your father, I'm your uncle. I won't harm you."
"..."
The many Wolf Priests felt the resentment, and they also knew that the Primarch's patience had been worn thin. To be honest, the Wolves were very conflicted. On one hand, they wanted to free Bjorn. After all, the old wolf's pain was real. On the other hand, with all the historical issues, they were really not sure if they should give their trust.
"Great Wolf, we still have the Ancient's data. How about I try it on myself, and then see if the lords can save me?" a Wolf Priest asked. He was the one who had cut off his own hand to cosplay Bjorn at the beginning. His hand was still growing back, and was currently encased in a mechanical device.
'How willful!' Logan slapped the Wolf Priest on the back of the head. Really, what do you think a Primarch is? The fact that they were willing to give the data and the actual cases was already a great show of face. Even if you have doubts, you can't force a Primarch's hand like this, can you? Just because they give you face, you're going to treat them like a sucker?
"I'll take the data and ask the Old Wolf," he said, taking the series of data submitted by the Wolf Priests, and then prepared to leave. Before leaving, he glared at the Wolf Priests again. "You guys, behave yourselves."
"Mmm-hmm~" The replies were very perfunctory.
Logan shook his head, and apologetically hammered his chest to Ramesses and Arthur, then left. They had no choice but to be cautious. This was Bjorn.
Bjorn the Fell-Handed. The most sacred Dreadnought in the Imperium, the oldest of the old even among the Dreadnoughts. He was the only member of Leman Russ's personal Wolf Guard who had been left behind when Russ had gone into the Eye of Terror. Whenever he told the later Wolf warriors this story, every warrior could taste the strong, bitter pain of rejection in his words.
For an Astartes, the most painful form of bullying is when your dad goes on a boarding action and doesn't take you. And for a ten-thousand-year-old Dreadnought, the most painful form of bullying is when your dad takes the entire Wolf Guard to a fight and just leaves you behind. My pain is greater than yours! Bjorn was fully qualified to say this to any Astartes.
Especially now, witnessing the happy family of the Dark Angels next door, where those familiar old faces would from time to time bring their newly cultivated juniors to the vicinity to toast the Wolves, and by extension, him. It was as if they were saying—'Hey, Bjorn, how come you've gotten so weak after ten thousand years? How did you end up in a Dreadnought?' 'Where's your dad? Where are your brothers?'
Blood pressure rising...
Bjorn lay flat on the fur-covered floor, and suddenly had an out-of-body experience. The entire Dreadnought looked a little dead. The surrounding wolf-pups looked at the completely negative-state Venerable Dreadnought, and gathered around, not knowing what to do.
Someone thought the old man was unhappy because he had seen the Dark Angels, and on a whim, had grabbed the nearest Ultramarine and had gone to the fighting pits. Someone thought the old man was brewing a new story, and was chanting the sagas by his side to give him inspiration. One idiot even thought the old wolf hadn't had Mjod in a long time, and was trying to pour it into the seams of the Venerable Dreadnought's life-support sarcophagus, and was slapped to the ground by his Great Company's Wolf Priest.
It was like a circus.
"Old Wolf! Old Wolf!" Just then, the Great Wolf Logan pushed through the chaotic wolf-pups and came to his side.
"Let me lie down for a while," Bjorn said listlessly from his horizontal position. Seeing it was Logan, he said, "Later, I'll give you a list. When those guys are put in a Dreadnought, you have to wake me up." He had to be the first to mock them.
Compared to other Dreadnoughts, which became more and more difficult to awaken over time, Bjorn was rather unique. He could wake up whenever he wanted. And at the dawn of every new century, he would be awakened once at a feast. Aside from a few unlucky ones, there were very few who had not heard his stories.
From the time he had fought Magnus, who was invading Fenris in the 32nd millennium, he had felt something was wrong with him. Even when his body was sleeping in the stasis field, he could vaguely feel the state of the entire Fang, and would awaken when the Wolves needed him. Perhaps that was why the Wolf King had left him behind.
'I don't think they'll be going into a Dreadnought.' Logan, who had just finished reading the 'body re-cultivation technology' submitted by the Wardens of Steel, muttered, and leaned in close to the Venerable Dreadnought's observation window. "The lords have a way to get you out of the sarcophagus and restore your body."
He had already had the Wolf Priests carefully analyze the detailed plan. For now, they couldn't see any problems. In fact, a lot of them had a look of sudden enlightenment. And this was a promise from a Primarch, and there were a series of cases personally handled by the Primarchs. He was here to ask for the Old Wolf's opinion.
"What's the mortality rate?!" Bjorn suddenly came to life, sat up, and asked with surprise. In the Great Crusade era, he had encountered a lot of strange things. He had heard of such technology, but the mortality rate was very high. He was not surprised that a Primarch could pull it out. Russ had even mixed the Canis Helix and the surgery together to allow the people of Fenris to better adapt to the Space Wolves' gene-seed.
Logan waved his hand, and the surrounding wolf-pups识趣 dispersed. He then handed over an pict-device.
"One hundred percent—" Bjorn felt as if he had heard a sound from heaven.
"—survival rate."
On it was a recording of the Primarch performing a public surgery. Bjorn even saw a guy who was just a brain. Hilarious. They can even save that.
"Oh," Bjorn sat back down on the ground. "Then you handle it."
"So we're doing it?" Logan asked again, seeing Bjorn in his half-dead state. To be honest, he really hoped Bjorn could recover. It was impossible before, but now there was hope. A few Wolf Priests had even looked up the data, had checked Bjorn's fatal wounds, and had been planning to die in the same way to see if the Primarchs could really save a person. He had had a hard time holding them back.
"Do it! Do it!" Dammit, a fool not to take a freebie.
Compared to Logan's caution, Bjorn was much more nonchalant. If the Primarchs wanted to kill him, fine. If they brought him back to life, it was a bonus. What more could he ask for? If the other party really came with malicious intent, then the Wolftime would be at hand, and Russ would surely return. It was a win-win.
But just as Bjorn was following Logan out of the feasting hall and to the medicae-bay that the Wolf Priests usually used to hone their skills, Arthur was already standing at the operating table. On the table was a Wolf Priest with more than half his body missing.
"..." Logan immediately looked at Ramesses.
"He went and asked Arthur, and Arthur agreed. And that's that," Ramesses briefly explained the reason.
"My apologies. Forgive our spectacle," Logan said solemnly.
"It's fine. It's all fatherly love," Ramesses said with a grand wave of his hand. "He can be saved."
"On behalf of the Space Wolves, I apologize to you!" Logan immediately saluted, then his grim old face immediately swept over the crowd. The Wolf Priests all instinctively looked away, a guilty look on their faces. It was a Space Wolf specialty, to always be able to confuse you on a certain matter.
"Krom, you will remain with the Ancient," Logan said, pointing to an apprentice who could not participate in the decision-making. He then said to the others, "The rest of you, with me!"
Under the leadership of the Great Wolf, the Wolf Priests obediently followed behind him. Before long, the sound of a heavy object hitting flesh, and a strange wail, could be heard faintly from outside the door.
"Awoooo-hooo-hooo—"
