Blasphemy

Rovi paid no attention to the cheers.

He turned around, feeling the cold sweat that had soaked through his back.

The battle had seemed easy, but it had actually been perilous.

If the monster hadn't fallen into the trap.

If the incendiary mixture had been even slightly off.

If the Defense Force had broken a little sooner...

Then Granary Seven would likely have become a city of the dead by now.

"Data analysis complete."

Priest Alpha came up beside him, his tone grave.

"The degree of mutation in this biological specimen reached the physical strength of a 'Quasi-Astartes.'"

"Without that Fire Trench, our conventional weapons wouldn't have been able to kill it before it broke through the defensive line."

"It was only a Scout."

Rovi took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "The Lord of Pestilence was testing our hand."

He walked over to the map.

Picking up a red pen, he drew a large X over the Eastern Sector.

"Now they know we have heavy weapons, and they know we have fire. Next time, they won't come charging in so carelessly."

"When do you think the next attack will come?"

"Soon."

Rovi looked up and gazed out the window.

Sunlight pierced the thick radiation clouds and fell upon this ravaged land.

The sunlight, which should have been warm and bright, now carried an eerie purplish-red hue.

He could feel the Amulet Fragment on his chest, which had long lain dormant, growing faintly warm.

The nauseating sensation of being watched.

It hadn't disappeared with the monster's death.

On the contrary, it had become even clearer.

It was as if something, from across the endless Warp, was watching with keen interest as the ants tried to defy their fate.

"Alpha, pass this down."

"Collect the charred corpses... I mean, the monsters' remains. All of them except the big one."

"May I ask why?"

The Priest's mechanical eye flickered.

"High in protein. We can't waste it."

Rovi spoke without expression.

"After being burned at such a high temperature, every virus will be dead. This is the best carbon-based fertilizer."

"Also, record the name of the Old Servitor who was blown up. Pay his family double the compensation for a fallen soldier. If he has any family, that is."

"Advisor."

Half a standard Terran hour later.

Buck pushed open the office's heavy blast door.

His face bore unmistakable fatigue, and his single eye was bloodshot.

He held a linen sack that dripped black liquid.

"When we were clearing away the big one's remains, we found this where its heart used to be."

He set the sack on the desk and cautiously pried it open with his dagger.

Inside lay a fist-sized, multifaceted crystal of a sickly emerald green.

It didn't seem like a lifeless object.

Instead, beneath the light, it throbbed rhythmically.

With every contraction, a trace of yellow-green vapor seeped out.

Something nauseatingly alive seemed to be gestating inside it.

Rovi's expression turned grave.

He didn't reach out to touch it.

Instead, he took a consecrated pair of long-handled metal tongs from his drawer.

The crystal gave him a terrible feeling.

It was as if someone were whispering secrets of rot and eternal life in his ear from behind a thin veil.

This was high-purity Warp Condensate.

Priest Alpha leaned closer.

The Augur Array on his back burst into a rapid, piercing alarm.

Red warning lights flashed wildly.

"Severe Ethereal Fluctuation detected. Readings exceed the safety threshold by 300%!" the Tech-Priest cried in alarm.

"Advisor, this is an unholy construct! According to the Basic Purity Codex, it must be immediately and utterly annihilated with Plasma Fire!"

"I know it's dangerous, Alpha."

Rovi firmly gripped the crystal with the tongs and held it up before his eyes.

Through its translucent shell, he could just make out shadows twisting and writhing inside.

If mishandled,

this thing could tear open a rift in reality at any moment,

turning the entire administrative building into a playground for Nurglings.

But if handled properly...

Rovi's mind raced.

The laws of thermodynamics from his previous life collided violently in his mind with this world's forbidden knowledge about the nature of the Warp.

Gradually, they fused into a bold plan.

Conservation of energy.

No matter how evil or twisted this thing was,

at its core, it was still a highly compressed and extremely unstable energy source.

It was constantly radiating Warp energy outward, trying to corrupt reality.

And this process of radiation

often came with an intense exothermic reaction—

like nuclear waste, which generated heat as it decayed.

If he could strip away its "corrosive" properties and keep only the pure "heat"...

"Seal it in a Double-Lead Lined Stasis Field Box, then inject it with highly concentrated Sacred Oil."

Rovi quickly constructed a conversion system in his mind.

"Then take it to the basement. Don't let it come into direct contact with any equipment. Suspend it inside the main cooling Water Tank of the 'Kais' server."

Seeing Priest Alpha's confusion, Rovi patiently explained:

"This crystal will keep releasing etheric radiation, raising the temperature of the surrounding medium."

"The Sacred Oil and lead lining can filter out most of the harmful psychic contamination, allowing only the heat to pass through."

"That way, the sealed box becomes a heating rod that never goes out."

Rovi pointed at the floor beneath their feet.

"It'll boil the cooling water in the tank. The high-temperature steam it produces can then travel through the Heat Exchange Pipe to the Fermentation Workshop, providing a stable temperature for the cultures to grow."

"So... boil water?" Priest Alpha grasped the core principle.

"That's right."

Rovi nodded.

"Use the power of destruction to nurture life, and the Lord of Pestilence's ashes to ripen the Imperium's crops."

Rovi spoke calmly.

His tone held nothing but an almost cold-blooded pragmatism.

"I think... as long as the end product is protein that can fill people's stomachs,"

"neither the one on the Golden Throne nor the one in the garden should mind this little bit of 'technical borrowing,' right?"

Priest Alpha froze.

His logic circuits seemed to fall into an infinite loop, emitting a faint whine.

Several seconds passed.

Only then did the red glow in his eyes gradually stabilize.

It turned a ghostly blue, the color of fervent devotion.

He slowly raised the hand that still retained its flesh.

He traced a cog symbol on his chest, the emblem of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

"To turn Chaos's disorder into the machine's order... This isn't just making use of it. This is taming it."

The Priest's voice trembled.

It brimmed with near-maniacal admiration.

"Your logic... is filled with a blasphemous yet sacred beauty. Praise the Omnissiah."