Alas! I Have Another Idea!

"Give it to me, don't move!!!!"

The Voice of Temptation spewed from Lena's mouth.

Lena unleashed almost all of her Psykana power onto Nama Karl.

Facing Lena's all-out assault, Nama Karl was slightly stunned.

No power emerged from the book in her hand.

The Master she had sought for decades did not respond.

She had been abandoned.

Nama Karl realized in a daze.

She was no longer useful to the Master.

All that echoed in her ears was mockery:

"Just as planned, everything is proceeding according to plan!"

"Gahahahahaha ho ho ho!!"

The Master's mockery rang in her ears.

Then, flames, lightning, and a Psykana hammer struck her.

Nama Karl barely had time to let out a few cries before she was burned into a charred corpse.

"Where is your Master?!" Lena said through gritted teeth, "I have the Emperor's protection, what do you have?"

Lena fiercely kicked the charred corpse and turned to look at Zhou Yun.

"Zhou Yun, you..."

Lena froze.

She had thought that killing Nama Karl would cut off the corruption.

But Zhou Yun was still clutching his head, leaning against the wall in pain, spiral numbers reflected in his eyes.

His entire being seemed to be being eroded bit by bit by the blasphemous entities in the Warp.

But Lena could also faintly sense that Zhou Yun had not been completely corrupted; his will, a certain power within him, his very self, were resisting the corruption.

Lena placed her hand on Zhou Yun's forehead, projecting her consciousness into him.

"Zhou Yun!!!" Lena's voice echoed through layers upon layers of numbers.

She tried to transmit her consciousness into the depths of Zhou Yun's mind, to pull him out of that vortex of numbers.

But the moment Lena's Psykana probed in, it was entangled by the constantly changing numbers.

Her Psykana disintegrated in an instant.

Lena could only anxiously watch Zhou Yun in the depths, separated by the vortex of numbers.

She vaguely saw a white light covering Zhou Yun, and a round, blue figure reflected in the Warp.

Just then, Lena heard the sound of pages turning.

She turned her head and looked behind her.

Nama Karl's cheap, black-bound book had opened silently.

Lena was stunned for a moment.

The book had survived her Psykana bombardment completely intact.

She immediately realized that this book was the source of the corruption.

The book opened silently, and the numbers on it, like small, dark blue insects, crawled out from the pages.

They swirled in the air, forming a distorted, shifting vortex.

Lena heard a mocking laughter, like that of a bird or a human, from the other end of the vortex.

Some entity was about to force its way into the material universe through the vortex opened by this book.

"The distance is too great, my Psykana cannot reach you immediately."

"If we were in a chapel, or if you had a squad of Blood Angels by your side, I could expel this corruption at once."

The winged figure in the white light said in a low voice. His pure white wings transformed into a barrier, attempting to protect Zhou Yun.

But perhaps due to the vast distance, his form wavered like a rootless duckweed in water.

"Where am I supposed to find a squad of Blood Angels for you?"

"Wait, that book should be the source of the corruption. As long as it's destroyed."

Zhou Yun, enduring the dizziness from the depths of his soul, managed to lift his head.

He saw Nama Karl's black book open a vortex made of numbers.

Something seemed to be emerging from beyond the vortex.

Lena raised her hands, praising the Emperor as she unleashed her Psykana in an attempt to close the vortex and destroy the black notebook.

But the notebook remained unharmed, and the vortex spun faster and faster.

"It cannot be destroyed. The notebook is the source of the corruption, and it exists by virtue of those it has corrupted..."

"Everyone who has unraveled the mysteries of those numbers and been corrupted by them supports the notebook's existence."

"Unless all the corrupted are purified, the notebook cannot be destroyed."

The winged figure in the white light spoke, looking at the black notebook.

To destroy the notebook, the corruption must be purged. To purge the corruption, the notebook must be destroyed.

A clever closed loop had formed a cage, trapping everyone within.

The winged figure in the white light looked at Zhou Yun, who was painfully resisting the corruption.

In his eyes, Zhou Yun's form was becoming inhuman.

At times, layers of blue feathers appeared on his body, and at other times, they were replaced by a round, blue metallic shell.

Zhou Yun's reflection in the Warp, his essence in the Warp, was fighting for control of his physical body against Tzeentch's corruption.

But Zhou Yun had not yet truly recognized his own essence, nor had he seen his place in the Warp.

The Warp is a realm of the mind; if you do not recognize the power you possess, that power itself will be as if it does not exist.

Zhou Yun was currently only passively resisting Tzeentch's erosion and could not hold out for long.

"Go to the church!"

The winged figure in the white light shouted at Zhou Yun:

"Go to the nearest church, the one with my statue. My power can be transmitted there more effectively."

"The nearest church is three blocks away,"

Zhou Yun gritted his teeth and said:

"And that church is already tainted by Tzeentch!"

Even if that church were fine, Zhou Yun in his current state couldn't possibly reach it.

This was Tzeentch's plan.

It had probably started decades ago when Nama Karl donated money to sponsor the church.

Nama Karl believed she had found the true deity in mathematics, but in reality, she had fallen into Tzeentch's trap.

Year after year, she taught mathematics to young children, sowing seeds of corruption with numbers that represented Tzeentch hidden within.

Every nine days, she prayed to Tzeentch in the church, a place where the barrier between reality and the Warp was thinnest.

Countless corrupted children prayed day and night.

Finally, tonight, in District Nine, they used those corrupted children as sacrifices to open a numerical vortex leading to the Warp.

What lay beyond that vortex?

A Greater Daemon? A Lord of Change?

But to destroy that notebook, all the corrupted must be killed, even Zhou Yun, who was on the verge of corruption.

Or, the simplest method: destroy District Nine entirely.

"No."

Zhou Yun looked up at Lena, who was desperately channeling her Psykana to suppress the vortex.

His mind raced. Perhaps Tzeentch's corruption had enhanced his intellect.

An idea popped into his head.

"I... I..."

Zhou Yun, enduring the dizziness and the pain in his head, shouted at Lena:

"Lena!"

"I have an idea!"

"Huh?" Lena turned her head, looking at Zhou Yun with a bewildered expression.

"Throw that damned notebook to me!!!" Zhou Yun roared.

Lena nodded vigorously.

She chose to trust Zhou Yun's idea.

Although she couldn't destroy it, moving the notebook didn't seem difficult.

Lena channeled her Psykana and tossed the cheap, black-covered notebook to Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun caught the notebook and looked at the constantly rotating numerical vortex on its cover.

From the other side of the vortex, laughter, like that of a bird-human hybrid, echoed incessantly.

"Laugh? Laughing at your mom? Blue-haired freak!"

"See if this is part of your plan!"

Zhou Yun decided to take a gamble, betting that his golden finger was reliable enough.

He shoved the notebook into the Fourth-Dimensional Pocket on his stomach.

"Item: Book of Variable Numbers"

[Origin: Shield of Hades System - Planet Asphodel - Fortia City District Nine]

[Evaluation: A notebook corrupted by Tzeentch, filled with numbers.]