Prospero and the Black Knight

Soul-Eater Bees were psychic creatures that existed half in the Warp and half in reality. These bizarre lifeforms could travel between reality and the Warp, were drawn to psychic fluctuations, wielded terrifying psychic attacks, and could project their eggs into mortal brain tissue.

During Old Night, civilizations on many worlds had been destroyed after sudden psychic awakenings drew swarms of Soul-Eater Bees. The most famous example was Prospero, homeworld of the Primarch Magnus.

The instant Zhou Yun noticed the term "Soul-Eater Bee" in his memories, he instinctively suspected that this world was Prospero.

The archaeologist's memories surged forth as well, confirming it.

Prospero... Tizca, the City of Light... the Crimson Son who had fallen from the sky... Magnus...

This was an era after Magnus had landed in Tizca, Prospero's last city, and begun leading the Prosperans. Most of the Soul-Eater Bee swarms had already been exterminated, but this archaeological expedition had been terribly unlucky to encounter one of the remaining swarms.

Really... hm?

At that moment, Zhou Yun felt his psychic precognition activate.

He saw the near future, clear and certain—the archaeologist's psychic power had merged with his own, granting Zhou Yun the psychic gifts of three bodies at once.

At the very least, he was now at Level 9, Theta-Extreme. He might even have reached Level 10, Eta—the peak level attainable by mid-tier psykers under the Inquisition system, perhaps even enough to qualify as a Librarian seed for Space Marine recruitment.

Beyond that, Level 11, Zeta, was the realm of high psykers. On most Hive Worlds, only a handful of people might be born with the talent to reach that level over several decades, and only one or two would ultimately achieve it.

This strengthened psychic power, coupled with Prospero's thin Veil, caused Zhou Yun's precognitive gift to activate automatically the instant it sensed danger...

He saw the Soul-Eater Bee swarm, a vast swarm pouring in from every direction and descending on Zhou Yun... No!!

The archaeologist's memories surged forth again. He remembered... Soul-Eater Bees tracked psychic fluctuations. He had just used Level 10 Eta psychic power for precognition, so he had obviously already...

Zhou Yun saw his own future death.

A frenzied buzzing suddenly rang through the air. That bizarre sound spread across both the Warp and reality, piercing into Zhou Yun's body.

A metallic taste filled Zhou Yun's mouth, blood streaming from his lips as his eyes caught sight of the hungry swarm, their crystalline twin wings gleaming.

Some of the swarm crawled out from the shadows. Some emerged from Zhou Yun's blind spots. Others simply appeared out of nowhere.

The hideous creatures spread their six slender limbs and lunged at Zhou Yun with filthy, crystalline hooked feet. Disgusting jelly dripped from their swollen heads, which resembled human brains, falling across razor-like mouthparts and compound eyes that reflected Zhou Yun's image.

This damned precognition... It had gotten him killed again.

Piyang's, precognition really was the most harmful ability in this galaxy.

"Get lost!!" Zhou Yun roared, activating the Telepathy School's psychic voice of compulsion and forcibly planting the command—get lost—into the Soul-Eater Bees' minds.

Yet the Soul-Eater Bees merely retreated half a step.

Not good... These things seemed to share a hive mind. Telepathy School powers weren't very effective.

As if to confirm Zhou Yun's suspicion, the Soul-Eater Bees beat their wings in unison and charged at him.

The hunter's skills from Caliban made Zhou Yun react at once. He moved, vaulting over a collapsed colonnade beside him and brushing past the mouthparts of a Soul-Eater Bee.

At the same time, his mind rapidly dug useful information out of the archaeologist's brain...

Drawn to psychic radiation. Capable of long-range teleportation. Their stingers could pierce nearly any kind of armor. They could project eggs into a victim's brain without contact. By merely vibrating their wings, they could release psychic waves that drove people mad... And they were a swarm enemy!

Zhou Yun's expression froze. A hunter's judgment told him—these were absolutely trash monsters, the kind that could sit at the same table as Caliban Beasts.

He immediately concluded that this body would be hard to save.

Even Jaghatai Khan, the White Scars Primarch of later years, along with the Primarch's Keshig Guard and the famed Qin Xia, had needed to expend considerable effort when facing a Soul-Eater Bee swarm...

The air before Zhou Yun trembled as several Soul-Eater Bees teleported directly in front of him, their sharp claws stabbing toward him.

Zhou Yun's pupils contracted sharply, and his arm instinctively swept forward.

An invisible force surged from Zhou Yun's hand. The Soul-Eater Bees hovering before him were violently pulled together. They let out piercing wails, then their carapaces burst apart, slime splashing everywhere as limbs scattered in all directions.

Falcon School. Telekinetic Crush... The name of that psychic technique abruptly surfaced in Zhou Yun's mind.

This was a... Telekinesis School psychic technique?

It was one of the archaeologist's skills. That archaeologist specialized in Falcon and Brightwing—that was, Telekinesis School and Biomancy School powers.

Zhou Yun flung both hands outward. The telekinetic field formed by his psychic power compressed into thin blades, invisible and impossibly sharp, slicing apart the Soul-Eater Bees that came near him in an instant.

Falcon School. Psychic Blade.

Here, Prospero's Veil was so thin that his psychic power could be unleashed to its fullest extent.

On Macragge, his Psychic Blade would have been no stronger than an ordinary blade. Here, however, it was as sharp as a monomolecular edge.

Two Soul-Eater Bees teleported behind Zhou Yun, into his blind spot. Their sharp claws stabbed at his back, yet they only scraped a shower of sparks from his body.

Brightwing School. Steel-like Body.

This Biomancy School power instantly raised the hardness of Zhou Yun's skin to the level of steel.

Lightning formed of bio-energy surged from Zhou Yun's fingertips and pierced through the bodies of the two Soul-Eater Bees.

Zhou Yun slowly exhaled a breath of foul air. Though venting psychic power like this felt refreshing, he also understood that this body was about to die.

This was the limit... Everyone in the archaeological expedition had been psykers, and several possessed psychic power comparable to the archaeologist's. Yet they had all still died miserably at the hands of the Soul-Eater Bees.

That was mainly because the Soul-Eater Bees possessed an impossible-to-defend-against ability... Zhou Yun felt dizzy, his head throbbing as though something were crawling through his brain tissue.

Soul-Eater Bee eggs. Those insects could project their eggs directly into a victim's body out of thin air.

Once injected with such eggs, it was practically an incurable condition. Even with the medical standards available after the Imperium arrived, it would be difficult to heal.

Still, this body had already given Zhou Yun many gains.

First, there was its formidable psychic power and systematic psychic techniques, including Telekinesis School and Biomancy School abilities.

Second, Zhou Yun had memorized this planet—Prospero's location—and had already fixed his gaze upon it from the Golden Throne. If a suitable body appeared in this world next time, Zhou Yun could enter it immediately.

After seeing in his precognition that the eggs in his brain would eventually kill him, Zhou Yun stopped, raised his middle finger at the surrounding Soul-Eater Bees, and sneered.

Psychic power began gathering in his head. He was going to detonate it and blast every Soul-Eater Bee near him into the sky.

If Zhou Yun's psychic power had not been linked to the Golden Throne, then on Prospero, where the Veil was so thin, he might even have blown some Warp daemons into existence.

His head exploded with a boom. Scorching psychic power surged in every direction as the Soul-Eater Bee swarm screamed. One Soul-Eater Bee after another had its brain tissue burst into fierce flames, and they fell from the air into the sand...

Deep within the ruins, the grotesquely bloated queen bee let out a scream. The deaths of so many Soul-Eater Bees linked to her will had inflicted considerable harm upon her as well.

She shrieked, cursing that shameless human... But then, Zhou Yun's former location was reflected in her compound eyes.

After Zhou Yun detonated his psychic power, a figure faintly emerged within the howling psychic vortex...

In the library atop Tizca's pyramid, a red-skinned giant in golden robes suddenly raised his head from an ancient parchment scroll. An image was reflected in his eyes...

He saw it. He saw a psychic force tear open the Veil and allow something to enter Prospero's wilderness.

It was a powerful being—not as powerful as him, but far beyond the mortal realm.

The giant's mind-body rose free of its shell and arrived at the ruins in the blink of an eye. Floating in midair, he looked down at the dead Soul-Eater Bee queen.

A knight clad in power armor as black as night, wreathed in blazing flames and wearing a golden laurel wreath around his helmet, stood with one foot atop the queen bee's deformed head.

He pulled a black blade from the queen bee's head, then slightly lifted his face to look at the giant floating in the air.

That was no living being...

"What are you?" the giant demanded.

The Black Knight said nothing. He merely turned into a cloud of ash and slowly scattered through the air, as though the force sustaining his existence had been completely spent.

Sensing that power, all manner of light flickered in the giant's eyes.

"Father?"

"Or... my master?"