Decapitation Successful

"All of you, sing praises to the Holy Machine and pray to it! It heals our broken bodies, it will mend our shattered souls!"

The members of the Adeptus Mechanicus aboard the Golden Ram heard Pavian's call.

Chants in the name of the Holy Machine began to echo through the warship, slowly growing unified.

SCVs scattered across the vessel stirred as well, moving without orders to repair the mangled mechanical bodies of the tech-priests and engineers.

And Gao Yi's projection in the Warp descended with his own power—the power to purify and devour Warp energy.

The Warp force fueling the endless proliferation of the Corrupted Code began to slowly transform into Psionic Crystals in Gao Yi's pocket.

Gao Yi was stunned by the haul of Psionic Crystals. 50,000? A full 50,000?

The sudden influx of Psionic Crystals left his body struggling to adapt to the surging power. As he looked at the alloy handrail he had crushed in his grip, he realized his physical strength had grown far more than all his previous gains combined.

As the Corrupted Code multiplied and split, it also replicated that Warp energy.

A single strand of code might hold only a trace, but countless strands stacked together amounted to something considerable!

And with its ability to proliferate lost, the Corrupted Code began to be deleted.

For these tech-priests, the time felt endless.

In their world of consciousness and data, they fought against the Corrupted Code with the power of the Holy Machine.

Segment after segment of blasphemous code was purged, and the tech-priests' self-awareness began to regain dominance.

The profane knowledge in their minds started to dissipate; the indescribable visions shattered.

Before their eyes, the real world returned.

When the last fragment of Corrupted Code was deleted, their consciousness fully reclaimed their bodies.

Seeing the SCVs standing before them, the tech-priests fell to their knees. Their faith grew firmer than ever. What had been only a nascent branch of the Adeptus Mechanicus was now truly born, their conviction solidified.

Gao Yi also noticed that these tech-priests could now share vision with him, just like his warp-jump units!

But it wasn't entirely good news. Originally, Gao Yi's Warp projection had been insignificant in the endless Warp, unnoticed by any Chaos God.

But after clashing with Vashtor, this minor Chaos God of the Warp had taken notice of him.

Gao Yi knew he was now on that bastard's radar...

And according to the universal law of smile conservation—

Smiles don't disappear; they just transfer.

So if Gao Yi smiled, someone else was about to cry.

Zesta was in full breakdown mode. He had clearly sensed the Corrupted Code he created begin to replicate and spread, successfully invading the processors of these tech-priests.

But why? The code had all vanished, and the power from Vashtor had left him too.

Now, all he wanted was to escape. Without even a word to Canto, he headed straight for the elevator.

Canto seemed to sense something was wrong.

"Zesta! I curse you!"

Canto drew the bolt pistol at his hip. If he was going down, Zesta wasn't getting off easy!

But before he could pull the trigger, he found every implant Zesta had installed in him had shut down.

Now, he couldn't even blink.

"I installed all those powerful implants for you. Did you think you could use what I gave you against me?"

Zesta blasted a laser through Canto's head. Canto had outlived his usefulness.

The soldiers of the Sureyas Dynasty on the ship saw their Rogue Trader murdered and immediately opened fire on Zesta.

But every bullet and laser was blocked by a Deflector Shield.

And every counterattack from Zesta was lethal.

Arc Weapons turned victims into charred crisps; soldiers wielding Chainswords were reduced to nothing by Melta fire; the most agonizing were those bisected by axes, left to writhe in pain as they died.

Within moments, the Bridge held no living soul but Canto.

"Such fragile flesh."

Just as he was about to finish off Canto and head for the shuttle he had prepared, a bullet struck Zesta's Deflector Shield.

Then the round erupted with an energy pulse.

Under that shockwave, the Deflector Shield simply failed?

"My shield?"

The moment the shield dropped, a Locking Round struck his body. He found himself frozen in place, just like Canto before him.

Norris decloaked and appeared before Zesta.

Taking in the corpses and the two immobilized figures, Norris spoke into his communicator.

"Captain, mission complete. Canto is dead. The enemy ship has lost all command capability. There's also a tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus here—he killed Canto. Internal conflict. I sense corruption on him."

Norris had already been lying in wait before Zesta made his move. He only chose to strike after watching Zesta kill off all the crew.

Otherwise, it might have cost him some extra effort.

Zesta stared at Norris before him—he hadn't sensed the man at all. The Combat Suit on Norris's body was flowing with the light of psychic power.

When had the Imperium trained warriors like this?

Zesta wasn't ready to give up yet. As the effect of the Locking Round gradually wore off, his body began to shift slightly.

But Norris had no intention of giving him any chance. He holstered the C-20A, drew his Psionic Glaive, and walked over to Zesta.

"Don't move. Wait for the great Captain's arrival."

Then Norris disarmed Zesta's mechanical limbs.

Down on the Lower Deck, Damon's fight was over. They had held back the Forge Fiend's advance, and with more and more Rangers arriving as reinforcements.

Under a barrage of Melta Grenades, even a demonic machine as powerful as that could only meet its end on the spot.

"It's over! Canto is dead!"

"Dead?"

"Yes, and we've captured the source of the Chaos corruption alive."

Ian couldn't believe it. How much time had passed? The enemy ship should still have plenty of soldiers aboard, right?

Ian had originally thought the Boarding Party Gao Yi sent out were sacrificial pawns—that after destroying key facilities, they'd be overwhelmed by the sheer number of troops on the enemy vessel, and the final outcome would be decided by the warships. But now he was being told that boarding party was the decisive force?

How many could he have sent in? The enemy ship had at least several thousand soldiers. Not only did they win, but they also decapitated the command?

At this moment, Gao Yi and his dynasty rose several more notches in Ian's estimation.

He was already planning to reassess the Mongert Dynasty in his report.

Even at a certain cost, he had to win them over.

"Ian, can you do me a favor?"

"You need my help?"

"That's right. Use your Inquisitor status to help me persuade the remaining enemy ships to surrender. Their Rogue Traders have been subdued, so their will to fight probably won't last much longer."

"The Inquisition cannot interfere in disputes between dynasties."

"This is no longer a dispute between dynasties. And I'm not asking you to do it in my name—do it in the Inquisition's name. Tell them their Rogue Trader violated Imperial law by contacting heretical knowledge! Order them to lay down arms and submit to inspection!"

"If that's the case, I can help you."

Gao Yi knew that if he said it himself, the loyalists among the enemy ships might still resist.

But if those words came from an Inquisitor, the nature of the situation changed entirely.

Gao Yi didn't want to fight meaningless battles. Rather than chasing down and destroying the enemy ships, he preferred to capture them. Every vessel was worth a fortune—not to mention the Frigates, but that Tyrant-class Cruiser alone was enough to skyrocket his strength.

Every Cruiser was an immense treasure for any Rogue Trader dynasty.

Few dynasties could afford to lose a Cruiser.

Sure enough, when the communication request was sent to the enemy ships and the crew saw it was an Inquisitor, they chose to believe it for the time being. Dynasties like Suarez's, which had risen recently and lacked deep traditions, also had fewer fanatical loyalists.

Only one stubborn Frigate chose to resist. But it couldn't escape, couldn't win, and eventually sank into the void.

"What a shame. Even if it was just a Frigate."