No One Needs to Worry

The ship's airlock roared open.

Karna stepped out under the gaze of countless scarlet eyes, then reached back to seal the gate.

Only when the lock was fully engaged and he had carefully checked the internal surveillance did he let out a soft sigh of relief.

Is this the pressure everyone else faces when dealing with the Black Rage?

"Brother Karna, what are you doing?"

Kahurangi's voice came from the side. He had finished his daily harassment of Ramesses and was on his way to find Arthur for a sparring session to settle the daily mission rewards.

He had simply heard that the Deathwatch had requested a sealed compartment as an independent space and decided to come take a look.

"It's just like the Grey Blindness that appears among your kind."

Karna pointed to his head.

"We are the same."

He did not shy away from the truth.

"Oh."

Kahurangi understood instantly.

There were definitely Blood Angels among this group, no doubt about it.

Their Chapter kept detailed records of every Founding Chapter, so precise that their various traits from the Great Crusade era were crystal clear—perhaps even more so than the histories held by Chapters that had suffered major upheavals.

Of course, these "Deathwatch" members were not simple either.

They were incredibly knowledgeable about the origins of the Carcharodons and their genetic flaws, yet as a Chapter active within the Imperium, they were surprisingly ignorant of the current state of the Imperium, lacking even a complete star map.

It was one thing to pull out a pile of chainaxes that were currently considered the exclusive property of Chaos traitors, but after carefully studying the current Imperium through the Sharks' database, their shock—that "how on earth did humanity become like this" expression—had left the Sharks whispering in confusion.

"I'm heading to the Arena, then."

Understanding the reason for the request for the warehouse, Kahurangi stopped dwelling on it.

After all, for the Sharks, the daily rewards were more important.

"Mm, I'm going to check the other warehouses."

Karna nodded, and both sides tacitly agreed not to continue the discussion.

He knew exactly what Kahurangi was rushing off for.

Ever since they boarded the Sharks' flagship, Ramesses had been unable to perform his usual Warp-based antics. Arthur, liberated and bored, had naturally sought out the Sharks for a fight, inspired by the idea of learning from them.

And learning, of course, required tuition.

Karna glanced at the storage data displayed on his arm; it had dropped significantly since the restocking yesterday.

It had only been a month-long voyage, and he felt like he had to find time to restock every single day.

"Let's see."

Karna looked down to switch to his memo list, preparing to bundle today's information to hand over to Romulus later, only to realize they had already exited the Warp.

"We should be arriving at our destination soon."

"The Sharks are here to pay the Grey Tithe. I heard there's a Prospector Fleet of the Adeptus Mechanicus from Mars over there; they originally intended to rush over to replenish strategic supplies."

In an area designated for the Deathwatch, Romulus, having finished a joint drill with the Astra Militarum, pulled open the isolation door.

Directly in front of him, Ramesses—who had finished dealing with Kahurangi and still didn't know what that Librarian was up to—was burning incense before a censer.

Recently, being on someone else's ship, he dared not stir up trouble, at most managing to fish for resources in the Warp, so he had to focus on a few specific projects.

Thus, after nearly a month of travel, Ramesses had successfully pulled an external line from the Warp connection between Karna and the Black Rage.

Now, Karna could share the line to channel the physical body of the Angel Scion, attacking any Horus within his line of sight indiscriminately.

The fewer people sharing the line, the higher the intensity of the Black Rage, and the stronger the explosive combat power; expanding the limit required further investment.

This directly resulted in a significant increase in the percentage of the small group's total harvest being spent.

"I suppose they aren't very interested in that matter now, are they?"

After bowing three times to the censer and muttering a few lines of archaic prose, Ramesses finally spoke.

"Of course not. After all, their weather-beaten equipment has been completely renewed."

Romulus found it amusing whenever he thought about the Sharks pointing at the Stormbird they had been gifted, asking if it could be exchanged for an equal weight of ammunition and other military supplies.

There was no reason to take back what had already been given, so Arthur eventually stepped in and offered them a way to earn supplies.

Bolter rounds couldn't be given in excess because it was a loss, but power weapons, volkite weapons, and master-crafted components were in abundance.

"These people seem to have accepted that they can get gear every day by fighting Arthur, and Arthur is happy to learn from them. Those are techniques passed down for ten thousand years, forged in mountains of corpses and seas of blood."

Romulus couldn't help but want to complain about the Carcharodons' pragmatism; they were like blood-crazed fanatics the moment they heard there was profit to be made.

Unfortunately, as time passed, the Sharks had less and less to teach. Currently, only the Captains, the Librarians, and Tyberos remained untapped. For the sake of the Chapter's future, the Captains probably hadn't had a good rest in a long time.

If not for the high cost of waking a Dreadnought, he felt these people would have dragged one out to serve as a coach.

"It seems our stretcher is evolving at high speed. I told you, besides the Soul Materialization ability, we must have our own unique traits. After all, the initial paint job we had when we landed wasn't just a random choice."

Ramesses cracked a joke, then pulled out three incense sticks and bowed toward the furnace.

He then began to mutter the classical Chinese text used for consecrating experimental materials.

"You still care about this?"

Having understood the meaning of the classical text, Romulus asked with curiosity.

Having seen the horrific state of the experimental grounds too many times, he genuinely felt that this guy Ramesses had a massive heart, while also finding it absurd that Arthur could watch it all for so long with a blank expression.

"You aren't involved in this field, so you don't understand."

Lifting his head, Ramesses' expression turned serious.

"I must use this method to maintain my reverence for life."

"Although I gave up on everything after graduation, my mentor always taught us that no matter what is on the lab bench, even if it's just a piece of devitalized limb, one must operate with a heart full of reverence."

"This line is something a medical researcher must strictly observe. You have to realize that the only difference between these bodies and normal humans is consciousness; the slightest transgression is the difference between an angel and a Demon."

"...It seems I don't need to worry about you."

Romulus fell silent for a moment, then broke into a smile.

He had always been somewhat worried about Ramesses' attitude of "I don't care about all that, if I have the ability, I'm going to exploit it to the fullest."

But now, sensing the other's mental state, Romulus knew he had been overthinking it.

"Just kidding, my friend was at least raised in a healthy family with a mother and father. You didn't think all rich young masters were self-centered playboys, did you?"

Ramesses replied with a boastful tone.

"You have to trust your good brother, don't act like a nagging mother. Of course, I don't mind more communication; after all, in this world, the only ones who can truly understand each other—"

He reined in his flamboyant expression slightly.

"Are the four of us."