Emperor: Why Didn't Magnus Have This Kind of Brain?

"How is that possible?"

Romulus said instinctively.

Inside the cramped, dim warship, a single Drukhari could easily inflict casualties on multiple Astartes.

Forget the Expeditionary Fleet's few hundred Astartes—even an entire Carcharodons Chapter couldn't handle it in five minutes. With the Expeditionary Fleet's numbers, there was even a chance they would fail.

If the Black Templars' main force were here, that would be another matter. With at least five thousand Black Orks, even Lelith, the Queen of the Arena, would be hammered flat and dragged off to the pyre.

"Yeah, how is that possible?"

The Chaplain also found it difficult to understand. Clearing out these rootless xenos was not actually difficult. They only needed to concentrate their superior forces and gradually chew through the areas the xenos occupied; they could naturally take them down in short order.

The Mechanicus Ark was such a massive vessel that even if the Forge Core had been destroyed by the Drukhari, the damage inflicted should not have been enough to render the ship combat-ineffective.

But five minutes...

He believed that either the Archmagos had changed his mind at the last minute and intended to give them an impossible task so he could abandon the deal.

Or this ship was so important to him that he could not bear any risk whatsoever.

In the end, unable to withstand Aglaia's insistent demands and the Chaplain's divination results, the Expeditionary Fleet dispatched two combat squads to launch a raid. Only after suffering heavy casualties did they manage to capture three commanders alive, intending to obtain enough intelligence.

The highest-ranking one was locked inside a sealed container. The other two had still refused to speak even after being interrogated by an Inquisitor.

Now, the conflicts that had been building within this group had reached an extremely serious point.

As the Chaplain spoke, Romulus finally sorted out the sequence of events.

Aglaia was convinced by the omen and demanded that the Black Templars spare no casualties, but her own abilities had already disappointed Marshal Orlando, who no longer intended to pay for such an absurd decision.

The Chaplain, meanwhile, had divined through the Emperor's Tarot and hoped to secure the aid of the Deathwatch and the Carcharodons in an attempt to fulfill the Archmagos's demand.

Cawl himself, however, had taken a highly ambiguous stance.

Before encountering the Drukhari, the Archmagos had offered extraordinarily generous payment. Yet after the Drukhari boarded the ship, he became exceptionally conservative, directly abandoning the planet he had been willing to reach at immense cost.

"What do you think?"

Romulus began asking his companions for their opinions.

"Don't look at me. I can't kill them all in five minutes."

Arthur shrugged when he saw Romulus looking as though he wanted to say something.

"Even with Karna and Tyberos, it'd be the same. If the others assaulted alongside us, the casualties would be too high."

"...Is that so."

Romulus really wanted to say that was not what he had been asking, but it was still impressive that Arthur believed he could cut down all those Drukhari by himself.

Of course, he himself had no desire to micromanage this kind of encounter. After all, it was a whole group of Drukhari lurking in the dark.

He was not a Primarch. No matter how formidable he was, he could not guarantee that more than a hundred people would all react in time. His usual training focused on breakthrough operations alongside heavy armored units; this sort of high-speed assault, fighting the Drukhari blade-to-blade at close quarters, was asking far too much of his brain.

"Karna..."

He had barely opened his mouth when he saw Karna's expression, which plainly said, Of all people, you're counting on me? He simply shut his mouth.

"..."

Romulus looked from left to right and suddenly realized that there did not seem to be many useful brains in this team.

"Hey, why not ask the all-purpose wizard from the Transmigrators' squad?"

"You have a way?"

Ignoring Ramesses's self-mockery, Romulus asked.

"I have an idea, but I need to try it first—also, you don't mind touching the Warp, do you?"

"I don't."

Romulus added, "But Arthur can't."

"That's enough. Stay here. I'll go pick something up."

Ramesses turned and headed straight back to the Thunderhawk that had carried them here. Within seconds, he dragged down a coffin wrapped in chains.

"See if you can connect to it."

Ramesses knocked on the iron coffin.

Romulus glanced at the coffin's surface, which was covered in Purity Seals, and understood. He directly synchronized part of his senses with it.

Then the scene before his eyes changed.

The most obvious change was that he seemed able to see living beings' souls.

The Chaplain and the Sisters beside him were enveloped in a faint golden mist, while Archmagos Cawl resembled a broken cloud.

Especially when his gaze fell upon the sealed iron box, he saw a distinct soul, clear enough to trace its complete outline, curled up inside along with the movements of its physical body.

It felt as though an extra layer had been added to his field of vision, complete with a strangely colored filter.

"What is this?"

"A hand-crafted Slaanesh Daemonhost."

Ramesses replied, "Looks like it worked pretty well?"

"More than pretty well."

Romulus's gaze swept toward the depths of the cabin, where souls like radiant lights drifted about, laying every part of themselves bare.

He turned back, and the filthy pink filter over his vision finally vanished when it met his companions.

"I think I understand why, in novels, a single Slaanesh Daemonette can wipe out an entire slaving party."

Against an opponent who could see straight through you, without an absolute physical advantage, any struggle would end in death.

"Are you confident now?"

"I am, but I'll still need the Sharks' help."

Romulus nodded, tacitly accepting that Ramesses had taken advantage of everyone.

"Commorrites react way too strongly, after all. We'll still need to surround and kill them. By the way, you've already completed your research on daemon possession, so why not use it directly on an Astartes?"

A Slaanesh Astartes would be even more precise when smashing Eldar. Back then, Commorragh, the Drukhari Webway hub, had been tormented terribly by Lucius, Slaanesh's Chosen.

"Bro, those are daemons. Do you seriously expect them to obey you?"

Ramesses could not help rolling his eyes. Experiments had shown that the Daemonhost and they shared control of the body. Essentially, it was like installing another Warp operating system into the flesh—then it would be a fight over the controller.

"You do know daemons aren't really afraid of death, right?"

"Of course."

Romulus nodded. This was actually a common misconception among Warhammer fans: they assumed that when daemons faced powers capable of killing them permanently, they would obediently submit.

But honestly, in the Chaos Gods' Great Game, permanently dead daemons could fill mountains and seas. Even Greater Daemons could be tossed in by the truckload, yet these things had never seemed afraid of dying.

Naturally, they understood the instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm, but death really could not be used to control them. If they were stuffed into Space Marine shells and sent into battle, any disaster they caused for the Transmigrators would be impossible to clean up.

In Realspace, what could truly restrain daemons were instead daemon contracts tied to Warp power, capable of forcibly controlling their actions.

"And don't even mention daemon contracts to me. With a brain like mine, where I got talked out of half my savings the first time I met the Emperor, don't let me touch that stuff."

Sigh—

If a certain wise Thousand Sons Primarch from ten thousand years ago had possessed your brains, the Emperor would probably have had the Webway connected all the way to Andromeda by now.