M41.890

Keeper of Secrets fell into deep thought as it sifted through the information in its paste-like brain. At last, it spoke.

"Do you mean that War Band called the Blissful Angels?"

"That's right. Their Chaos Lord is also a Dark Apostle. He made a deal with me. He needs my help with his ascension, and in return, every Astartes soul in his Chaos War Band—except his own—will belong to me after death, as part of my collection."

The fallen Sister rested her chin on her hand and narrowed her eyes.

"But I clearly felt a Space Marine die just now, yet his soul didn't come to my chambers as our pact decreed."

"What a pity."

Keeper of Secrets looked regretful. "Otherwise, we'd have another toy to play with."

"Never mind. There's no need to worry about it now. It's only one soul."

Miriael sighed and waved a hand. "Who knows? Only the Lord of Pleasure probably knows where that soul went."

She was used to things like this by now.

After all, in this universe, souls failing to reach the god they worshipped was nothing unusual. There were simply too many possibilities.

They might have been killed and beheaded by a Daemon of Khorne, died beneath some relic weapon, or had the Chaos Lord interfere somehow. The possibilities went on and on.

"Never mind. I'll contact that Chaos Lord later and find out what happened."

As a fallen Sister who worshipped Slaanesh, she cared only about her own pleasures and sensory delights now. She couldn't care less about such matters.

Elsewhere, aboard the ship.

Rowan, of course, had no idea what was happening in the Warp.

He glanced up at the Genestealers and spoke.

"I have no quarrel with you. Why not send someone who can speak for you, so we can exchange information?"

Rowan had a plan.

As the Great Devourer's vanguard in its invasion of the Galaxy, Genestealers retained some of their hosts' self-awareness to a certain extent. But in essence, they were no different from the hive mind's Gestalt consciousness.

In other words, killing their psychic creatures that served as command nodes could still throw them into disarray.

First, he'd see if he could trick the leader of these Genestealers into showing himself!

Unfortunately, the answer was a hail of gunfire from Autoguns, Lasguns, Bolters, and all manner of other weapons.

"Fine. I knew it."

Every bullet was stopped or deflected about two meters from Rowan.

With a mere thought, he altered the physical properties of the air around him, making it nearly as hard and tough as high-strength alloy. Unless a shot could penetrate two meters of solid steel, it couldn't break through this Rigid Air Shield!

"One, two, three... Forty-three surviving Genestealers in all."

Rowan stood motionless amid the hail of bullets as he counted the enemies before him.

He could see where every enemy was, but he had no intention of repeating his earlier trick.

No matter how much potential he had, he was still only a lowly Level 2 Reality Warper. The range and strength of his reality warping were both limited.

Rowan knew very well that he couldn't simply wipe out every enemy with a single thought. He could crush them one by one, but that would take too long.

However, his knowledge of Warhammer gave him a more efficient option.

In the midst of the hail of bullets, Rowan beckoned, and the Bolter left behind by the Chaos Space Marine rose into the air and flew into his hand.

An invisible hand swept over every inch of the weapon. The Bolter began to tremble, and an unknown liquid even seeped from its muzzle as it made a faint clicking sound.

The Machine Spirit was pleased, boy!

Facing the enemy, Rowan raised the Bolter. He didn't bother to aim, but simply pulled the trigger.

"BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!"

The gunshots blended into a near-continuous roar. The Bolter fired at a rate and capacity far beyond its normal limits, spitting out nearly two magazines' worth of ammunition in a short time without the slightest pause.

Its muzzle swayed ever so slightly, and every round struck the Genestealers' bald heads with the precision of an aimbot. Dozens of bright sprays of blood burst open, splattering blood and brain matter across the ceiling.

The Genestealer commander had the worst of it. His personal force-field shield drew especially heavy fire, and an absurd number of bolts were poured into him, smearing him across the floor. There might have been more Steel-Piercing Bolter Rounds than flesh left in the pile of gore.

Rowan released the trigger, and the Bolter finally stopped firing, almost reluctantly. Not a single living thing remained standing.

Surprised, he pulled out the magazine and checked the remaining ammunition. There were still nearly half a dozen rounds left.

That powerful?

He'd only used his Reality Warping Ability to negate the recoil and weight, then let the Machine Spirit do as it pleased. He hadn't expected such a good result!

"Anyway, it's finally quiet. Now I can figure out where I am."

A few minutes later.

After successfully extracting memories from the Chaos Space Marine's head, Rowan got the information he wanted.

It was M41.890. There were still more than a hundred years before Abaddon, the undefeated Warmaster, gave Cadia the ultimate send-off. That blue-skinned guy hadn't woken up yet to lead the Imperium to greatness once more, either.

Of course, that didn't mean Rowan could live in peace and quiet. In the dark closing years of the forty-first millennium, the nearer the Great Rift's opening drew, the more frequent the galaxy's great clusterfucks became.

The Badab War, the World Engine War, the Second Armageddon War, the Pandorax War, the T'au Empire's Sphere Expansion, the Second Tyrannic War, the Third Tyrannic War, the Third Armageddon War, the war in the Orpheus Sector...

Low EQ: What the hell is this place?

High EQ: A vibrant age, where all things compete to flourish!

Rowan was currently in a star system in the Sol Sector. The Imperial World there had started having trouble with Orks, and the problem was growing worse by the day. Even an Armageddon Steel Legion force dispatched to help after receiving an Astropathic Message couldn't contain them.

Perhaps because the system was in the Sol Sector, the Imperium responded much faster than usual. A thousand Battle Sisters from the Order of the Martyred Saint and two standard Astra Militarum regiments answered the call. Aboard a Lunar-class Cruiser, they soon arrived in the system.

But just as they emerged from the Mandeville Point, a Chaos War Band called the [Blissful Angels] ambushed them in a carefully laid trap. Large numbers of Chaos Space Marines stormed the cruiser in Boarding Action torpedoes, and a fierce battle began.

Worse, one of the Astra Militarum regiments had already been almost entirely infected by Genestealers. The Chaos invasion exposed their disguise, and a three-way clusterfuck erupted.

This sort of situation was simply too common in Warhammer. Rowan wasn't surprised in the least. He didn't even feel like making a snarky comment.

Now that he knew his situation, he quickly made up his mind.

"My top priority is to meet up with the loyalists aboard this ship. I don't want to try taking on an entire Chaos War Band by myself, and I don't want to try surviving alone in space."

Rowan gathered some potentially useful weapons and explosives from the battlefield. Following the Chaos Space Marine's memories, he headed toward the main battle.