Boarding Action

Having witnessed Rowan's display, the three of them were clearly completely stunned.

"Truly... an incredible miracle."

Lucia made a prayer gesture, her face lighting up with joy.

Never before had she seen such hope for the future of the Imperium of Man. She even felt like weeping because of it.

The Inquisitor also cast aside the last trace of doubt in his heart.

The Chaos Gods could never possess such might. If the evil creatures and Demons within the Warp all had this kind of ability to shape matter, the Imperium of Man could never have endured until now.

"If there were any followers of the Adeptus Mechanicus among us, upon seeing this scene, they would surely cry, 'Omnissiah above us'..."

No, if that Adeptus Mechanicus priest had been just a little more rebellious... it would not have been impossible for him to shout, "Omnissiah beside us," on the spot.

Drawing on her extensive experience dealing with that group from the Adeptus Mechanicus, she silently thought to herself.

However, one question still remained unanswered.

"Then how did you bring me back from my state of uncontrolled psychic power before?"

Sibyl asked.

"That is another one of my abilities. At a certain cost, I can transform others into Reality Warpers."

Rowan took some time to briefly explain the principles behind the transformation, then summarized, "However, because the Reality Strength allocated to you is too little—only a tiny fraction of my baseline reality—the strength of your Reality Warping Ability is extremely weak. It is merely Level One. All it can do is give your thoughts a little more tangible force."

"When dealing with influences originating from the Warp, this low-Reality-Strength power can be quite effective. But if you want to alter material in reality as I do, you are still far from capable of that."

After hearing Rowan's explanation, the three of them fell into thoughtful silence.

"Of course, we can discuss that later."

Seeing that no one had any further questions, Rowan did not continue discussing the details of his abilities. He immediately turned the conversation to the main matter. "Our top priority now is to deal with the threat of the Chaos War Band. The enemies who boarded this cruiser have mostly been dealt with, but their Strike Cruiser is still lurking in the void."

"We must deal with them at once. If the enemy notices something is wrong here and chooses to open fire and destroy the ship, that would be troublesome."

"Indeed, that is correct."

Drawing on his experience after becoming one of the Emperor's Eyes, Leonardo replied, "However, the chances of that are actually very low. After those Chaos Heretics betrayed the Imperium, their resources were already scarce. They cannot possibly casually discard so much equipment, including Terminator Power Armor. They will only continue deploying boarding torpedoes here rather than directly destroying the ship."

But to Lucia, who had received the Emperor's command and regarded Rowan's safety as more important than anything else, such a reasonable analysis could not persuade her.

She immediately retorted:

"Even so, who knows what those Chaos madmen might do? We have sufficient forces now. The best course is still to launch a Boarding Action against their ship and purge those vile Heretics once and for all. Only then can we eliminate the problem completely."

"True, but how are we supposed to get aboard that ship?"

Everyone frowned slightly.

"I have a way."

Sibyl suddenly spoke.

"Oh?"

The other three immediately turned their eyes toward her.

"Now that I have perfectly mastered the vast psychic power of an Alpha-level psyker, I can cast any spell at will, and with perfect stability. There is no need to worry about Warp backlash. As long as I wish it, I can open a Warp Rift and teleport all of us onto the enemy ship."

"That can't be right, can it? With Warp teleportation across such a long distance, how can you ensure the destination is accurate? What if you send us into the void or inside a wall?"

"Don't worry. I have already solved that problem."

Sibyl pointed at the many corpses lying on the ground. "Among the Heretics slain earlier were some wearing Terminator Power Armor. The Warp teleportation devices on their armor recorded the destination coordinates of their ship's Teleportation Chamber. With that, I can complete the targeting."

"Good, we'll do it that way!"

Rowan immediately made the decision. "Make preparations first. Then we depart at once!"

At this moment, aboard the [Blissful Angels] Strike Cruiser.

On the Bridge.

"...What are those fools doing? Why haven't they replied yet? Tell the Astropath to immediately use short-range psychic communication. Tell them that if they are done, they should hurry up and send the signal. Stop dawdling around in search of thrills!"

Within the vast space filled with all manner of blasphemous artistic creations stood a Chaos Space Marine whose body had been grotesquely enlarged by countless blessings of Chaos, towering like an iron tower.

His limbs had become twisted, while a cloak made from countless overlapping layers of human skin hung from his body. Yet rather than giving off its original stench of blood, it emitted a strange fragrance.

His power armor was covered in symbols associated with Slaanesh. The face exposed because he wore no tactical helmet was pale, twisted, utterly mutated, and devoid of life. It had long since ceased to resemble a human face.

This was the Chaos Lord of the Blissful Angels War Band, as well as a Dark Apostle skilled in all kinds of Warp rituals.

The Chaos Lord swept his gaze across everyone on the Bridge, then berated one of the Chaos Astartes.

"Did you hear my command? Hurry up and do it!"

Everyone on the Bridge fell silent, too frightened to provoke him. After all, no one knew what unimaginable torture defying his orders would bring.

The Space Marine who had been singled out immediately reacted.

"Yes!"

Then he strode out of the Bridge and vanished from everyone's sight.

The Chaos Lord continued to frown, gazing through the viewport at the target drifting silently in the void—the Lunar-class Cruiser.

Naturally, he was not worried that reinforcements would arrive.

In the Chaos Lord's eyes, the Imperium he despised might appear vast, but it was nothing more than a giant with feet of clay.

The various Warp rituals at his command were enough to sustain prolonged Warp travel. Even if reinforcements came to aid the cruiser, he had nothing to fear.

Besides, he believed he held the advantage in naval command, and he had deployed an outright excessive number of elite Astartes during the Boarding Action. Taking an ordinary cruiser should have been effortless.

But where, exactly, had things gone wrong?

A faint sense of unease rose within the Chaos Lord, and he even began considering whether he should conduct a divination.

Just then, a figure came stumbling toward him.

The Chaos Lord slowly turned his head and saw a mortal maid with a lovely face, draped in a flowing cloak, staggering closer.

The exposed skin not covered by her cloak revealed that her body and face had been carved with all manner of Warp symbols. Anyone versed in Warp runes would immediately recognize their meaning.

They were ritual runes directly linked to a certain kind of Slaaneshi Daemon.