The Reality Warper's Battle

At the entrance to the hall, Rowan swept his gaze back and forth, taking in the gruesome scene before him.

An extremely fierce battle had clearly just taken place here. The dome, floor, surrounding walls, and support pillars were all covered in bullet marks and blast scars. Numerous white-haired Sisters in Power Armor lay strewn across the ground, their corpses mixed together with those of Chaos warriors clad in power armor.

At a glance, Rowan saw that very few of the bodies remained largely intact.

He could not help but feel a headache coming on.

"Looks like I got delayed too long on the way. I was one step too late..."

Still, at least he had saved one loyalist Sister—and she had even been a badass who had solo-killed a Chaos Astartes in Terminator Armor. So he had not arrived too late after all.

"...This is just a mortal?"

The Chaos Space Marines were not nearly as composed. The tactical lenses on their helmets scanned this suddenly appeared enemy over and over, yet they still detected nothing unusual about him. He did not even appear to be carrying a weapon.

But the invisible force-field shield around the Sister Superior was clearly connected to him.

When faced with an unknown danger, all Astartes—whether from the Imperium or Chaos—basically had only one response!

Like a group of the most precise machines, the Chaos Astartes instantly raised their Bolters in unison!

The next moment, gunfire erupted!

The Bolters used by Space Marines could fairly be described as hand cannons in caliber, and their power was naturally beyond anything mortal weapons could compare to.

Unfortunately for them, from Rowan's perspective as a Reality Warper, this volley was not much of a threat at all.

The Global Occult Coalition's field manual listed three requirements for successfully executing a Reality Warper.

[Speed], [Surprise], and [Violence].

[Speed] meant that an execution operation could not take more than one second from beginning to end. Reality Warpers had extremely fast reflexes, and if an attack was even slightly too slow, the target could easily react.

[Surprise] was required because a Reality Warper's abilities allowed them to rapidly adapt to any known threat. Therefore, an action team should attack at a moment the target did not expect, or use a feint to conceal an ambush from another direction.

[Violence] was easier to understand. The greater the attack's power, the better. Overload the limits of what the Reality Warper's abilities could withstand as much as possible, and kill them instantly to stop the target from continuing to think. (Note)

Clearly, the Chaos Astartes' volley had failed to meet any of those requirements.

Every bolt underwent an extremely bizarre deviation mid-flight, as though the vectors governing them had been altered by some unknown force.

Around Rowan, fist-sized craters were immediately blasted into the dome, floor, and walls, yet he himself remained completely unharmed.

"Ranged attacks are ineffective?"

As biological weapons created by the Emperor, superhumans enhanced through nineteen surgical procedures, even though they had already turned their backs on the Imperium and humanity, the Chaos Astartes' combat instincts and reaction speed remained swift.

Half of them continued providing suppressive fire, while the other half instantly drew their melee weapons, stamped their feet down, and charged straight at their target.

Unlike the other Chaos Gods, Slaanesh's blessings made the Chaos Astartes even lighter and swifter than before, like a gale sweeping across the surface. A distance of only several dozen meters was nothing to them—they could cross it in an instant!

The problem was that the target's face reflected in their eyes seemed to be... smiling?

"Heh. It's not like I came all this way without preparing anything."

On the way here, Rowan had discovered that Machine Spirits were genuinely useful. He had collected quite a few high-powered weapons and thoroughly soothed them with his Reality Warping Ability, keeping them in a state of great delight.

With a thought, the optical camouflage field that had been covering his surroundings was withdrawn, revealing one dark gun barrel after another.

There were a full thirteen weapons floating beside Rowan like drone cannons: Plasma pistols, Melta cannons, Autocannons, Heavy Bolters, Hellguns... All of them turned as one, pointing murderously at the charging enemies.

???

Before the Chaos Astartes could react and take evasive action, the Machine Spirits of every gun immediately roared, unleashing their fury upon the Enemy of Mankind at a rate of fire that utterly defied reason!

The next moment, amid the torrent formed by the dense barrage, all the charging Chaos Astartes were quickly melted away in the most literal physical sense, like dew beneath the sun.

Perhaps Astartes blessed by Khorne could have charged through by relying on resistance that reduced ranged damage. Perhaps Astartes under Tzeentch could have pulled out some special psychic spell to escape the barrage... But unfortunately, Slaanesh Space Marines, who mainly invested in reflexes and speed, had no good solution in a situation with no room whatsoever to dodge or maneuver.

Of course, perhaps if Lucius the Eternal, Slaanesh's chosen, had been here, he could have woven an impenetrable net with his magnificent swordsmanship and intercepted every round. But unfortunately, none of these Chaos Astartes were such a powerhouse.

Fortunately, the sacrifice of those War Band members who had charged at the front slightly hindered the outrageous barrage, allowing the remaining Astartes to use their astonishing reflexes to immediately find cover.

After that, as though they never needed to reload, the endless barrage pinned everyone firmly behind cover. All kinds of Plasma, Melta, and shells streaked overhead, and no one could raise their head to return fire.

At this rate, they would merely die a slow death!

With the Astartes' combat experience, this thought immediately appeared in everyone's mind.

At the signal of a Chaos Sorcerer who had become the next battle commander according to the chain of succession, two Warp Talons bearing twisted marks immediately tore open the Veil and began a Warp jump.

"Oh?"

Rowan immediately sensed a strange energy erupt behind him. The Veil between the Warp and reality was torn open, and a rift was about to take shape...

Then Rowan reacted, turned around, grabbed the not-yet-formed rift with his bare hand, and forcefully swung it toward the ground.

The two Warp Talons that had just teleported over were evenly fused with the Ceramite floor beneath their feet and died on the spot.

Huh?

Using a psychic spell to successfully witness this scene, the Chaos Sorcerer was utterly dumbfounded.

How had the other party interfered with psychic teleportation just now?

He grabbed a Warp Rift with his bare hand?

How did he do that?

If Rowan had heard the thoughts from the other side just then, he definitely would have said:

"It's just Reality Warping. Amazing, right?"

Reality Warpers were just that subjective. I Think it works, so it works!