Emperor's Chosen? [The contract went through; signing on Monday, time for you guys to invest]

The armor-piercing rounds fired by the Chaos warband could tear through greenskin armor and penetrate an Astartes' ceramite power armor. Forget catching one by hand—even if ten men stood in its path, a single bullet could punch through all their chests without losing any power.

Stupid lackeys of the False Emperor.

Offer up your worthless life to your foolish False Emperor.

But that bullet seemed to have struck something hard.

It let out a dull sound.

Dang!

The round fired from the bolter vented scorching gun smoke through the gaps between Cisrain's fingers.

Cisrain opened his hand.

The small bullet was clenched in his palm.

He squeezed hard.

Peng!

The modified armor-piercing explosive round detonated in his hand, but he showed no reaction at all. It didn't hurt?

"Hm?"

The mortals suppressed by psychic power slowly raised their heads.

They looked at the back of the heavy silver-and-gold power armor, as well as the mortal soldiers behind him holding their guns.

"The Emperor's... angels have descended to my side!"

"The Emperor! The Emperor has sent someone. My loyalty has been tested."

"Catching bullets? Just cheap tricks."

A Chaos warband member raised his automatic bolter carbine and fired at Cisrain.

Another Chaos warband member sent out a psychic call into the Warp, preparing to summon Chaos thralls.

Facing someone ruthless enough to take on an entire Chapter, they had no desire to throw their lives away here. Better to send those Chaos-corrupted mortal servants forward to die.

They had long discarded all honor and duty, long abandoned the lifelong obligation of an Astartes—to die for loyalty.

Qiang!

A Tier 1 force-field shield appeared around Cisrain and his soldiers.

The carbine rounds struck the force field but could not penetrate it.

Cisrain stood at the front as though he alone could hold back an army.

"A void shield? Are you only capable of hiding behind a shield, mortal?"

Yet the mortals' capture guns could penetrate the force field, firing net after net.

The soldiers following Cisrain—or rather, his researchers—

As researchers assigned to survey Ozrax, they had all been equipped with excellent weapons, as well as biological capture nets for catching local lifeforms for sociological or weapons research.

"Fight me one-on-one, mortal!"

The two Chaos warband members were driven mad by the researchers' capture nets.

The nets were not particularly strong.

But they were exceptionally humiliating.

Every time they tore free, another net came flying in to slow them down.

It made them feel like ancient overlords being endlessly harassed and toyed with by a pack of monkeys wielding spears.

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

More beams of light descended from the sky.

More researchers followed behind them.

They gradually surrounded the enemy.

The researchers looked at the Chaos cans as though they had found something novel. As researchers, they had endless interest in these strange-looking creatures.

As for Cisrain, while contact with Chaos might corrupt his researchers, he possessed the Stellaris template. The entire structure of society was transparent to him, so he had no fear of Chaos corruption. By studying Chaos, he could gain psychic technology points and even reverse-engineer weapons specifically designed to target Warp psychic lifeforms. So even with the risks, it was acceptable.

Besides, once he completed his exploration of this world's alien technology, he could obtain the Synapse Condenser. As long as he acquired its technology, everyone could become his researchers and continuously provide him with technological ideas.

If he wanted to survive in Warhammer—

Biology needed technology points, weapons needed technology points, psychic power needed technology points, and the Colossus Project needed even more technology points.

He lacked ideas!

A duel?

Sure.

Cisrain strode toward the two Chaos warband members.

The two Chaos warband members kept getting caught in the nets. The moment they struggled free of one, two more appeared. A group of mortals had stripped these agile Chaos warriors of the mobility they took such pride in.

"Trash. Can you only hide in the back?"

"Trash, stop hiding in the back. If you've got the guts, fight me one-on-one. I'll take all of you by myself."

"One-on-one? Hahaha, is this idiot really going to duel our governor? This thing doesn't look very smart."

"I want to dissect him and study him."

"Maybe we can reverse-engineer something from him."

Hearing them mutter among themselves, the Chaos warband members—who had never endured such humiliation—were instantly consumed by fury.

"You're courting death!"

"Stop wasting the capture nets. Go capture research subjects with more value." Cisrain walked toward the Chaos warriors.

Seeing Cisrain advance, the other researchers hurriedly warned him, "Governor, don't damage them too badly. We still need to haul them back for study!"

"Governor, go easy on them."

Cisrain had finally gotten the chance to come out. Back on the planet, he had to rise at three every day to handle the research reports sent from across the world, then attend meetings to discuss the next research directions for the stations. He had internal meetings to hold, laws to announce to the public, and endless chatter to endure from the cabinet, finance department, military, necromancers, chief scientist, and chief diplomat.

He had finally gotten out.

At last, he did not have to listen to those people nagging anymore. Naturally, he had to relax a little.

One benefit of the Stellaris template was—

Once Cisrain acquired a template, he could directly undergo genetic ascension.

So-called genetic ascension meant pushing the human body to the limits of what its genes could bear.

And he achieved it as a pureblood human. If one judged these modified Astartes warriors by the powerful cloning branches of biotechnology in Stellaris, it would become clear that whoever performed their genetic modifications definitely knew nothing about biology.

Cisrain walked up to a Chaos warrior, who had just torn free from seven or eight capture nets.

The Chaos warrior was already burning with rage and looking for someone to vent it on. Cisrain had walked right into him. The warrior raised his right arm and feinted, making Cisrain think he was about to fire.

Then he drew the Blade of Corruption from his waist and stabbed at Cisrain.

Dang!

Cisrain directly seized the arm holding the blade. He grabbed the arm holding the pistol as well, forcing its muzzle toward the warrior's own head. The Chaos warrior looked at Cisrain, disbelief flashing across his helmet display.

Such strength?

Was this guy human???

Peng!

The restrained Chaos warrior did not react in time. He fired a shot that hit the Chaos warrior beside him, then pressed the other gun beneath his own chin.

Peng!

Cisrain gave him no time to think and pulled the trigger.

One shot blew his head apart.

Then Cisrain kicked him dozens of meters away, sending him crashing through a church. The other Chaos warrior who had been shot was just raising his carbine.

But in the next instant, no one knew when Cisrain had taken the first Chaos warrior's Blade of Corruption. He plunged it into the second warrior's chest.

The Blade of Corruption seemed to carry some kind of curse.

The Chaos warrior stabbed through the chest quickly began to writhe in agony.

Cisrain flicked the blood from the Blade of Corruption.

He felt as though something was inside it.

"Hm?"

"It's actually a cursed object with a daemon inside?"

Could an ordinary Chaos warband obtain something like this?

Obviously not.

After killing two Chaos warriors, Cisrain felt somewhat dissatisfied.

Only two Chaos warriors.

Couldn't they send a few more?

He had not even warmed up.

"Governor! My Governor! Why have you personally gone to the battlefield again? How many times have I told you—"

"You cannot be so willful. If anything goes wrong, how am I supposed to answer to the Gamma Empire?"

A white beam of light came from behind.

A little old man in a protective suit, not even as tall as Cisrain's knee, came running over.

This was Brown Hoken, Cisrain's chief scientist back on their homeworld.

With a grizzled beard, hunched back, white lab coat, and glasses that looked somewhat like Einstein's.

Outside, the Warp had answered the call sent out earlier by the Chaos warband.

Human: "Our troop casualties are too high."

Greenskin: "What are troops?"

Necron: "What are casualties?"

Dwarf: "What is high?"