Shape Guardian Spirit?

Zhou Yun let out a soft breath. Before his eyes, only the scenes atop the Golden Throne and on Macragge remained.

He gathered his focus and returned a sliver of his will to the Golden Throne. One portion locked onto Prospero's coordinates, waiting for the next body he could enter; another searched the Warp for other viable bodies; the rest remained within the body on Macragge.

Zhou Yun felt the psychic power within him. Compared to Prospero, Macragge's Warp Veil was absurdly thick.

Prospero's Veil was like a thin bubble that could be popped with a poke, allowing psychic power to pour forth almost without restraint. Macragge, meanwhile, was like a brick wall. Most of Zhou Yun's psychic power was wasted breaking through the Veil.

Though he had not used the archaeologist's body for long, its skills had remained and been inherited by the Scholar's body. In theory, as Zhou Yun received related stimuli, he could awaken more of the archaeologist's skills and memories.

The skills Zhou Yun had acquired so far...

The Falcon School, namely Telekinesis School psychic powers, including four psychic techniques: Telekinetic Shield, Psychic Blade, Telekinetic Crush, and Precise Telekinesis.

The Brightwing School, namely Biomancy School psychic powers, including four psychic techniques: Bio-Lightning, Steel-like Body, Cellular Control, and Warp Speed.

There were also several psychic techniques from Prospero, as well as... an innate psychic gift?

Zhou Yun froze for a moment. Most psykers possessed innate psychic gifts, such as bizarre good luck, a certain degree of mind-reading, or the occasional prophetic dream. These could hardly be called skills. Even without such gifts, most of them could be learned and surpassed through simple psychic training.

But some natural gifts were extraordinarily powerful.

For example, Zaharial, Librarian of the Dark Angels Chapter, naturally possessed a psychic gift called "Fear Sight." It allowed him to see scenes beyond the material realm with his naked eyes, perceive an enemy's inner nature from a higher dimension, and shift portions of his own flesh into the Warp to attack the enemy from within.

The archaeologist's psychic gift was... "Speech of Antiquities." By touching an object, he could see fragments of its memories, as though the antiquity itself were speaking to him.

An interesting ability, but it did not seem particularly powerful among the various psychic gifts.

Zhou Yun began examining the psychic techniques in the archaeologist's memories... No, wait. These techniques...

The longer he looked, the deeper his frown became. Earlier, he had said that the Inquisition's psychic arts were ten thousand years ahead of the present.

But... among the psychic techniques in the archaeologist's memories, many were at least eighty percent similar to those of the Inquisition—and Zhou Yun knew them.

As for those Zhou Yun did not know, they still felt very close in style to the Inquisition's psychic techniques.

No, it was not that Prospero's psychic techniques resembled those of the Inquisition. It was the Inquisition's psychic techniques that resembled Prospero's.

And... the Black Raven School corresponded to precognition, the Fire Phoenix School to Pyrokinesis School, the Brightwing School to Biomancy School, the Sky Owl School to Telepathy School, and the Falcon School to Telekinesis School... They were exactly the same.

Could it be that the Inquisition's set of psychic techniques had actually been the Thousand Sons Legion's psychic techniques from ten thousand years ago, with only minor revisions made over the millennia... No, not necessarily revisions. They might have been crippled instead.

For instance... Zhou Yun stared at one psychic technique with a strange expression.

The technique was called... "Shape Guardian Spirit."

The essence of this technique was to use the caster's own will to bind a wisp from the Warp and shape it into one's own guardian spirit...

Shape Guardian Spirit?

Was this not just summoning a daemon?

The Thousand Sons Legion would often use such "guardian spirits" in the future. Yet during the Burning of Prospero, many guardian spirits inexplicably lost control and went berserk, ultimately turning against the Thousand Sons Legion. It was difficult to say whether these seemingly gentle "guardian spirits" were truly safe.

And even if this thing was safe, would anyone truly answer if Zhou Yun summoned one from the Warp?

Or perhaps this really was shaping by nature, but the Thousand Sons' versions had merely been tampered with by Tzeentch?

Zhou Yun studied the psychic technique and felt that the second possibility was more likely. If so, he could give it a try.

He could use the psychic power born from faith to shape a guardian spirit, eliminating any need to worry about Tzeentch's influence.

Should he try it?

If there really was a Tzeentch daemon capable of slipping through the psychic power atop the Golden Throne, the only one Zhou Yun could think of was that Lord of Change's brat—the Changeling, who had put a Nurgling on Khorne's Brass Throne and secretly cut Slaanesh's hair.

If he truly tricked the Changeling into appearing, Zhou Yun would be more than happy to bring it to sit atop the Golden Throne. He would even be willing to take enormous risks, because while the Changeling might not be the strongest of all daemons, it was certainly the best at causing trouble.

Zhou Yun was not too worried about the guardian spirit being a trap. At worst, he could throw most of his will back onto the Golden Throne. He was getting used to the pain anyway. He just did not know whether daemons could handle that kind of intensity.

With that thought, Zhou Yun calmed himself and began studying the technique...

The first step was... to sense the surging currents of the Warp and let his will sink into the vast ocean...

Then, visualize his own heart and imagine the form the guardian spirit would take...

The form it would take... Zhou Yun pondered for a moment and thought of a fitting image...

Jet-black power armor... a golden laurel crown upon the brow... a sharp black sword... the Emperor's Champion...

Thinking of the future Emperor's Champion, Sigismund, he began pouring his faith-born psychic power into that image...

A mountain of bones stretched beneath her feet, as though every human in the world had perished and their corpses had been piled below her.

Scorching winds brushed against her face. Her white dress fluttered in the wind, burning in the wind, as though she were a drifting flame in this world of the dead.

A black sun hung alone in the heavens. No stars, no moon, no light. It was as though it were not a sun at all, but merely a hollow in the sky from which fire flowed.

She passed a corpse with all four limbs severed, clad in red armor, a raven helm, and a jump pack. The corpse murmured the names of the dead. The last name was Sanguinius. It still remembered the duty of the bearer of bad news...

She passed a skeleton wearing a helmet that left its jaw exposed, lightning and an eagle marked upon its chest. The skeleton spoke of the great work of unification, of the golden Emperor who had once fought beside them...

She raised her head and looked into the distance. Beneath that black sun stood a headless demigod holding a warhammer. The demigod gazed afar, toward that realm of debauchery, filled with hatred and sorrow.

She... she suddenly stopped and raised her head toward the distant Warp. She had heard a summons.

"My lord?" she asked.

But that summons had not been meant for her.

Following the direction indicated by the summons, she saw the black knight.

A silent black knight, a hollow black knight, a black knight like a weapon made pure.

Then the black knight's body was ignited by golden psychic power... a wisp?

Flames flashed across the black knight's body for an instant, then vanished in the next.

She watched this with a puzzled expression... Why had her lord summoned him for an instant, only to interrupt it?

She did not understand what had happened, but... her lord had summoned this black knight... summoned his champion.

This could not have been done casually. Her lord must have had profound intentions.

Had something happened where that summons originated? Had danger arisen there?

She did not know, but she resolved to fly there. Even if it took a long time, even if it would be difficult to pinpoint the source of that summons—

She would still go...

And so, Celestine spread her wings.