Scholar and Warrior

On the other side.

The boarding Slayers had already fought their way to the engine room and wiped out every crew member inside.

The Cunning Hounds' warship would be completely crippled.

But the Slayers hadn't damaged the engines. They wanted to keep the ship.

With no ship and no crew, they would be nothing but cannon fodder to be thrown into battle among the Red Corsairs, with no other choice but to stay.

To seize control of the ship, more Slayers stormed aboard in Boarding Torpedoes.

The Hound Clan's mortal auxiliaries were no threat at all. They had already surrendered before even a hundred members of the Slayer warband had boarded.

Now the Slayers had gathered together and were heading for the Navigator's location, ready to capture him and keep him for their own use.

"Blow the hatch!"

One of the Slayers ordered his companions.

"The Fierce Angels aren't even here. What gives you the right to order us around?"

"But... I do want to do that too! Damn it!"

"We think so too!"

The Slayers came to an agreement. The hundred or so of them exchanged glances and nods, and finally two stepped toward the hatch with bombs in hand.

Just as they were about to plant the bombs, the hatch suddenly opened.

A man who was clearly a Space Marine, but wore no armor, walked out.

Strangely, he held a book in his hands, his eyes fixed straight on its pages. He didn't even glance at the Slayers as he said lightly, "Don't blow up the hatch. I have valuable books here."

"Give us your name!" one Slayer roared. "We don't kill nameless nobodies!"

"Ahriman."

He turned a page.

"But you warriors would do better to call me Scholar."

"Besides..."

Ahriman kept his eyes on the page.

"I do kill nameless nobodies."

As the words left his mouth, frost crept over the corridor walls.

Some kind of psychic spell had been cast, without leaving any trace.

In the span of a breath, every Slayer turned to dust.

Only then did Ahriman raise his head and blow gently.

A gale howled through the corridor, sweeping the dust of the dead away.

Ahriman closed the book and turned back into his quarters.

The floor was covered in symbols and lines, with various objects arranged across it.

If Lu Jin had been there, he would have realized that Ahriman was preparing a ritual.

Ahriman spoke a series of obscure, incomprehensible words.

Blue light flickered through the quarters. The floor beneath the ritual circle rippled like waves, then bulged like a womb being squeezed, as if something were about to be born from within.

The blue light spread throughout the quarters.

Then throughout the entire ship.

The puppets the Cunning Hounds had fashioned from other warbands and four Fierce Angels shrieked in the blue light, gradually turning to dust. Their souls were kneaded together in the Warp, serving as the ritual's materials.

This was the Cunning Hounds' true purpose. They weren't trying to create puppet warriors; they were helping Ahriman complete one part of a grand ritual.

In the blue light, Ahriman's body turned to dust, then gathered into a suit of armor.

Its horned helmet was its most distinctive feature.

Perhaps this armor was Ahriman himself.

When he looked through the porthole at a planet, still bathed in blue light, the ritual moved on to its next location.

Blue light flashed into being.

Lu Jin and the Fierce Angels suddenly fell from the sky and hit the ground.

They got to their feet and looked around. Everything in sight was blue crystal.

The entire surface of the planet had turned to blue crystal.

Thinking back to what had just happened... They had only felt their consciousness scatter for a moment. When they came to again, they had fallen from the warship onto the planet's surface.

"It's him!" Ninos pointed ahead.

Lu Jin looked over, but saw nothing.

The next moment, a blue rift stretched open in midair, and a Space Marine floated out of it.

"Ahriman?!"

Lu Jin cried out inwardly.

The distinctive armor alone was enough to tell him who it was.

Azak Ahriman.

A Chaos Space Marine, chosen of Tzeentch, a pawn—and a rebel.

Ahriman's Psionic Power was immensely strong.

He had disarmed Ninos and the others with a single move, capturing them without giving them a chance to fight back.

Ahriman floated in the sky, looking down at the ground. When he saw that Ninos still hadn't been transformed, he decided the Cunning Hounds' leader was useless.

He raised a hand.

Once again, Ninos was helpless as psychic power slowly lifted him into the sky.

The Fierce Angels aimed their Bolters at Ahriman and opened fire.

Lu Jin leaped into the air with all his strength, then hurled both his weapons.

The Bolter rounds, Battle Axe, and Warhammer all stopped in midair and turned to flying sand.

Even the Bolters in the Fierce Angels' hands crumbled to dust.

"Knowledge is the greatest good; ignorance, the greatest evil."

Ahriman looked down at the helpless people on the ground.

"I grant you the right to know."

"First, this is a ritual. Second, you are its materials. Your Chapter Master, Ninos, is the key."

"Lastly, watch."

As far as Ahriman was concerned, his brief explanation was the last kindness he could offer those about to suffer misfortune.

As he'd said, knowledge was the greatest good. To value knowledge was to be good, and to learn the truth before death was a mercy.

Lu Jin picked up a crystal and threw it at the sky.

The Fierce Angels followed suit, grabbing crystals and shouting curses at Ahriman.

But it was only the desperate struggle of cornered beasts. The crystals they hurled still turned to dust in midair.

By now, Ninos's eyes had rolled back, and blue was gradually replacing the distinctive white glow of his psychic power.

The planet's surface shuddered, and mountains shifted.

A bone-chilling atmosphere spread across the entire planet.

Beyond low orbit, Huron ordered his fleet to approach the planet and begin orbital bombardment, hoping to put an end to the ritual quickly.

The Black Heart King assumed the ritual was aimed at him. Chaos had been tempting him for a long time, and forcing him into its grasp now didn't seem impossible.

But the crystals reflected the orbital bombardment back, and it struck the warships' Void Shields instead.

Even Huron, who commanded an entire fleet, was powerless against what was happening on the crystal planet.

Lu Jin knew they were inside a Warp Rift. If they were outside it, Ahriman surely wouldn't have this kind of power... But right now, they were truly helpless.

Lu Jin stopped throwing crystals and forced himself to think calmly about Ahriman, trying to remember what he cared about.

Then he spoke. "You..."

The instant he got the first word out, Ahriman glanced at Lu Jin.

His mouth vanished from his face, and psychic power silenced him.

The surface continued to change.

Vague shapes appeared in the crystals' reflections. Lu Jin and the Fierce Angels saw strange silhouettes flickering all around them.

Then blue flames sprang up, and countless strange creatures appeared within them.

"Daemons!"

One of the Fierce Angels, who had seen Daemons before, shouted.

The moment Lu Jin saw the creatures, he recognized them as Daemons.

Daemons were creatures of the Warp, servants of the four Chaos gods.

Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh each had their own Daemons.

And those Ahriman had summoned were surely Daemons of Tzeentch.

Perhaps Ahriman's psychic spell was meant to bring a horde of Daemons into the Maelstrom.

As for why he was doing it... Perhaps he meant to aid Abaddon, who was preparing the Thirteenth Black Crusade.

"Kill him!"

"Don't kill him!"

The shouts rang out from within the flames.

A huge, two-headed Daemon stepped through the fire, Sceptre in hand. Its blue feathers trembled as its two bird heads stared at Lu Jin and spoke contradictory words.

Both statements were meant for Ahriman.

Ahriman looked at Lu Jin. Though he didn't know why the Daemon had said that, he still decided to kill him.

It only took a thought.

Lu Jin stared at Ahriman. He wasn't afraid, but he had no idea what to do.

As his armor began to turn to shifting sand, and his skin started to crumble...

Ahriman suddenly shuddered, as if he'd seen something. He whipped around and roared at Weaver of Fates Carlos, "Quick, pray to the Changer of Ways—"

A sudden, thunderous noise drowned out the rest of Ahriman's words.

The two-headed Tzeentch Greater Daemon Carlos, whom Ahriman had summoned, had already vanished at that first shudder, before Ahriman even turned around.

Huron stood before the flagship's porthole, staring down at the crystal world.

Suddenly, the stars gathered into a massive crimson axe, which struck the planet in the blink of an eye.

Mountains collapsed, and tectonic plates shattered.

The axe blade split the planet's crust, exposing even its core to Huron's view.

Chunks of land scattered across the planet's surface.

It was like someone splitting a ball of earth with an axe.

Except the axe was nearly as big as the planet, and the ball of earth was a real planet.

When the axe blade struck the ball of earth, soil would fly everywhere. Now, at this very moment, what flew out was the land and mountains of an entire planet.

The blood-red axe vanished.

The planet was knocked off course by the blow, leaving a trail of crustal debris behind it.

The planet left its orbit around the star, the ninth in the system, and collided with the eighth. Both planets were destroyed, and only the debris was captured by the star, forming an incredible astronomical spectacle.

Somehow, sound traveled through the vacuum.

Only after a long time did it reach Huron's fleet.

The thunderous noise pierced the portholes, cracking even the warships' specially reinforced windows. Everyone heard the sound of the planet breaking apart.

And then...

A roar.

The roar brimmed with boundless fury and hatred, and everyone who heard it felt an impulse in an instant—an urge to kill.

But the urge gradually faded, and the stronger a person's will, the faster it passed.

Nothing terrible happened.

After the roar, a hearty, booming laugh rang out. It could be heard everywhere in the Maelstrom.

It was the satisfied laughter of a Chaos god, venting his fury.