Primal Fear (III, The Birth of Roboute Guilliman)
As Astropath, Mariel has served her sole lord, Roboute Guilliman, for nearly half a century. ♤🎃 ♥😳
For Astropath, this number is almost unbelievable. The vast majority of them are prematurely aged, a necessary price to pay for becoming Astropath.
It may sound cruel, but they themselves knew this—to put it somewhat blasphemously, to the Imperium, they were, in fact, an indispensable and precious consumable.
The most direct evidence regarding this matter can be found in the captains of the voyages.
Before each voyage, every captain would do their utmost, negotiating and repeatedly requesting permission from the Astropathic Court to bring more Astropath onto the ship.
The reason is simply to be able to "replace" them if something goes wrong. After all, no one can guarantee that they will make it to the end of the voyage unscathed, so the captains must have a backup plan.
Therefore, Mariel's long service can undoubtedly be regarded as a miracle, but in reality, this miracle is man-made. The reason she has been able to live to this day is only because of a magic circle whose designer's name has been erased, but this does not diminish its power.
It was it that shielded Mariel from the Warp, and it was also it that somehow protected her fragile soul from the damage she suffered each time she sent out astromes—yet now, she felt that her death might be imminent.
The reason is simple: it's because of what she "saw".
Mariel had already lost her sight, and the aftereffects of the soul-binding ritual had even caused her to lose a small portion of her sense of taste. However, for a well-trained and experienced Astropath, these were not problems.
She could still perceive most of the things she wanted to see. Therefore, she could certainly see the monster with her lord's face on its head. She could not only see the thing squatting on the ground eating, but she could even see its face clearly.
To be honest, it was a flawless face, without wrinkles from fatigue and pain, without the frost of years of fighting, with eyes as bright as the blue flames of a plasma engine, and golden hair as radiant as the midday sun.
Such a perfect and divine face was now covered in blood, its mouth agape, greedily licking the shattered flesh from the ground, its long tongue scooping up every tendon and nerve stuck in the bone, its greed disturbing to the point of being unsettling.
Just a dozen minutes ago, these people were living beings, loyal Astropath, an entire choir. Now, they are nothing but bloody corpses.
Mariel even believes she may be the only survivor in the choir.
As soon as the riot on the ship began, the Astropath, following Roboute Guilliman's orders, entered a meditative state, intending to relay news of the attack on Macragge's Honour to the nearest fleet.
To Astropathic Communication, they had to be completely focused and in an absolutely quiet environment. However, just an hour later, the gates of their base were forcibly ripped open.
Roboute Guilliman walked in, covered in blood, with bits of flesh and skin clinging to him.
The Astropath stared in shock at their lord, speechless. Only a few sensed something was wrong, but it was too late. They could only watch helplessly as the monster charged into the crowd, slaughtering and feasting.
The only reason Mariel survived was by luck; the monster was too busy eating to pay attention to her, giving her a free hand to use a simple psionic spell.
She swallowed a mouthful of bitterness, her throat bobbing, when a familiar thought suddenly surfaced in her mind. The Chief Astropath turned her non-existent eyeballs and, through her senses, spotted a choir member still alive amidst the pile of corpses.
He was ripped in half by the monster, his internal organs scattered all over the ground, but he was not dead yet, still struggling to breathe, though his scattered lungs had stopped contracting.
His mind was shattered, leaving only the most basic will to survive and fear of Roboute Guilliman.
The chief Astropath took a deep breath.
She was short, and even if she breathed with all her might, she wouldn't make much noise. But the monster, which was hundreds of meters away from her, suddenly raised its head, stared intently at her, and then rushed towards her on all fours.
Its steel-sharp nails were embedded with bits of flesh, leaving wet handprints in its wake. Its speed was astonishing; Mariel's psychic senses couldn't even catch a glimpse of it.
The chief Astropath's heart sank. At this moment, all she could see was darkness and one after another, ever-expanding crimson handprints. In just two seconds, the handprints stopped in front of her.
She barely managed to suppress the urge to scream.
However, despite arriving before the Astropath with superhuman agility, the monster did not immediately strike, but instead displayed a simple look of confusion.
Seconds later, it looked around, twitching its nostrils and sniffing the air like a wild beast, trying to find Mariel's trail. Little did it know that the diminutive Astropath was now standing right beside it, motionless, its eyes glowing with a faint blue light, holding its breath, its heartbeat frozen.
Half a minute later, the beast, which had devoured too much flesh and blood but was still ravenously hungry, finally turned around and left the spot, returning to its hunting grounds to feast, leaving Mariel standing there.
The chief Astropath's very soul seemed to freeze. If she had been a fraction of a second too late to activate her spiritual energy, she would probably be torn to pieces by that thing's hands by now.
Mariel watched without moving as the thing continued to devour flesh and blood, holding her breath even more carefully.
Despite being the chief Astropath, she wasn't particularly skilled in offensive magic. Even back when she was undergoing the Soul Binding Ritual within the Astropathic Court, where she was also learning how to use psychic energy, she wasn't outstanding in this area, and her talent wasn't exceptional either.
If it weren't for her unwavering faith, probably none of those schools of thought would have allowed her to study there.
However, her faith was both her strength and her weakness. The only school she was able to enter was called the Codex Astartes, which specialized in teaching Astropath with strong faith how to combine faith with psychic energy to inspire others.
As Astropath underwent a soul-binding ritual, Mariel can amplify the power of faith through her faint connection with the Emperor. With the aid of psychic energy, she can fill those who share the same faith in the Emperor with courage.
Ordinary people only need to stand next to her to become strong and lift heavy objects they couldn't lift before. With courage, they can ignore pain. This power is also effective on Astartes, and even more so.
The only problem is that the Codex Astartes faction doesn't have many straightforward killing spells. The few spells that Mariel has learned are either complex rituals with great power and long durations, or exorcism and purification arrays that require the combined efforts of several people to complete.
In other words, the only psychic magic she can rely on now is the most basic psychic lightning.
Mariel didn't think she could defeat the monster with it.
She stood there, her expression growing increasingly tense as time passed. The general psionic spell she was currently using had a time limit.
When the time is up, if she intends to maintain her current "invisibility" state, she will have to cast the spell again. Mariel has no doubt that those few seconds are enough for her to die several times over.
"What should I do?" the chief Astropath asked himself anxiously.
She had to inform her lord of the situation here, but this also required her full concentration.
Interstellar communication is never a simple matter. Even the leading masters of the various schools within the Astropathic Court need several seconds to achieve real-time communication within the ship, let alone a student like her who is only good at one subject.
However, Roboute Guilliman had to be informed of the choir's near-total annihilation. Mariel was not an expert in warfare, but through years of exposure, she had come to understand the essence of war: any war is, in reality, an information war.
The Lord of Macragge is currently unaware that they failed to send a distress signal, which will undoubtedly have some impact on his tactical objectives.
The Chief Astropath accepts death, but never a meaningless one; she will never be a burden or stumbling block to the Macragge's Honour and Roboute Guilliman.
She was deep in thought, completely unaware that the bloody monster was gradually changing its feeding habits. This was against their instincts; these beasts were always incredibly greedy and would not let go of anything they could eat.
But now, it is no longer so greedy; instead, it has begun to be selective, searching for the brains of the choir members amidst the piles of flesh and blood.
It uses its fingernails to pry open the skull, dig out the brain, and then wolf it down. Or it simply uses its tongue to roll away the eyeballs, bite open the eye sockets, and suck the brain along with the blood plasma.
It didn't even let the crumbs under its fingernails go to waste, sweeping them away with its long, scarlet tongue. Suddenly, it transformed eating from a hearty feast into a meticulous and patient selection process, even acquiring the virtue of not wasting food.
Marian should have noticed its strangeness at that moment, but the chief Astropath was so preoccupied with "thinking" that he failed to notice it in time.
She didn't realize that this mindless, soulless beast of instinct was undergoing a change. She also didn't know that this was her only chance.
She will weep bitterly about this after she dies.
But what about the monster? It should have been driven by instinct, greed, and a hunger like its kind. But now, after devouring so many Psyker brains, a strange thought arose deep within the beast.
This thought was not instinctive, but rather originated from its brain—or more precisely, its newly formed brain.
At this very moment, in the flickering candlelight of the last remaining candle in the Astropath's meditation room, its forehead began to swell, its bones creaked, stretched its skin, and made veins bulge, as its brain slowly took shape inside its skull.
Every piece of brain tissue it swallows is being altered under the manipulation of some force, transforming into an extremely intelligent mind—a kind of intelligence possessed by only a handful of people in the entire galaxy.
In the present day, they are revered as demigods, but ten thousand years ago, most of them would have been called Primarch.
The monster knew nothing of these things, at least not for now. It simply listened to the soft throbbing of its brain within its skull and couldn't help but let out a low growl.
After a while, it raised its right hand and, driven by a curiosity that hadn't existed just a dozen seconds earlier, tapped its forehead.
In an instant, a burst of sparks bloomed in the darkness.
In a daze, the monster even heard a chorus of birdsong.
The birds flew around him in the darkness and spoke politely.
"You are not a monster, you have a name."
"Your name is Roboute Guilliman. You are the sole monarch of the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, the king of this place. People worship you fervently and revere you as a god."
"Many of them consider seeing you their life's purpose. You are a great being, completely different from these mediocre mortals. You were born tall and handsome, strong and healthy; in fact, you were born to dominate them."
"Roboute Guilliman?" he murmured, uttering his own name.
The chief Astropath looked at him with a horrified expression, only to meet a pair of deep blue eyes that were looking over at him.
The monster, naked, strode towards her with steady, confident steps. His footsteps pounded heavily against the wall, echoing repeatedly, gradually becoming distorted by the smell of blood.
Mariel's face turned even paler, not for any other reason than the change in the footsteps. They were no longer footsteps, but another sound, a name softly called out by a creature in the darkness.
"Roboute Guilliman!" they shouted.
At that moment, something in the darkness quietly shattered, like a fledgling breaking its eggshell, or some evil creature bursting from its grave.
The monster stopped in front of her, looking down at her.
Even though the spell hadn't worn off, Mariel knew she'd been discovered. Before she could say or do anything, a hand grabbed her neck.
The monster lifted her up and looked at her calmly, its expression exactly the same as that of Roboute Guilliman, whom Mariel knew.
She finally screamed in terror, trying to resist, but it was too late. Two fingers were plunged into her empty eye sockets, reaching the back of her brain, and then gently stirred.
After a while, the limp corpse was casually thrown down.
The monster opened its mouth, put the brain matter from its finger into its mouth, and tasted it gently.
The chorus of birdsong still echoed in his ears, endlessly recounting his life story. The more they spoke, the more he understood himself, as if a dried-up corpse, stripped of flesh and blood, had regained a robust body—a sense of fulfillment that deeply fascinated him.
His thoughts began to clear and become more agile. A few minutes later, he even took the initiative to ask the birds a question.
"Why did my father betray me and my brothers?" he asked, bewildered. "Why did he make us serve those foolish mortals?"
He was met with a shrill, ear-piercing laugh.