Taro watched the protected book floating above the stone platform, preparing to activate the melta bomb and place it beneath the platform. Anything involving psychic power was bizarre as hell; it was better to plant the charge right in its face.
But he sensed malice—an especially familiar malice—striking from behind him. It felt similar to that disgusting mining base: the same madness, the same painful spasms in his heart.
"Ugh!"
Dumb-Dumb rushed over and swung his ripper gun with all his strength, smashing apart the shadow that had tried to ambush Taro.
"Hehehe! I knew you people were risking your lives to get in here for a reason... Never thought you'd be hiding something this good..."
Taro felt his locked body become able to move again. Gasping for breath, he turned around and saw the bishop from the corridor standing before him once more, staff in hand.
The bishop's face no longer held any fanaticism or solemnity. Instead, every wrinkle was filled with a sinister grin.
With a raised hand, he sealed off the secret chamber with a barrier.
"Hehehe! We've labored over this for more than a century. How could we possibly let you interfere so easily..."
The bishop advanced step by step, while the shadows behind him swelled and churned.
"A daemon..."
Looking at the bishop, Taro understood why the Ecclesiarchy had betrayed them. Just as Inquisitor Omar had suspected, a daemon had infiltrated the Ecclesiarchy.
"Dumb-Dumb, he's stopping you from eating. Kill the bastard."
The enraged Dumb-Dumb roared and smashed his ripper gun toward the bishop.
The bishop did not dodge. He took Dumb-Dumb's blow head-on, then slapped his palm against the ceramite armor over Dumb-Dumb's abdomen. He left a handprint in the armor and knocked Dumb-Dumb back several steps.
"If I let vermin like you kill