He Is Watching You

As the words fell, Iron Father Wayland entered from outside the room.

"I heard movement and detected high-energy readings. Has something happened?"

The Iron Father held a bolter, his electronic voice crackling through his helmet.

"Nothing, just a minor issue." Lox didn't elaborate, brushing it off as a small problem.

"We can help. An Astartes is the most experienced warrior, and that's what you lack." The Iron Father's voice carried immense confidence, instilling a strong sense of safety.

He took a few more steps, his power armor thudding heavily against the floor.

Nykona looked up, his black eyes fixed on the Iron Father's gait. He sensed something wrong—the footsteps were far too... heavy.

Though an Astartes wore bulky ceramite power armor, they could move in utter silence to close in on an enemy for an assassination when needed.

Wayland kept approaching, extending his bionic arm toward Lox.

Lox eyed the Iron Father's advance warily and immediately stepped back. Beside him, Nykona had already melted into the shadows, drawing his power sword in an instant.

The disruption field hummed to life as he swung, the crackling blade barring the path of that iron hand.

"Nykona! What are you doing? I saved you on Isstvan V, and this is how you repay me?" The Iron Father barked as Nykona blocked his way.

"You're not Wayland!"

The Son of the Raven's only reply was a merciless slash. The power sword, wreathed in its energy field, severed Wayland's arm without hesitation.

Metal snapped, internal cables spilling sparks and oil. Wayland's face twisted in disbelief, staring at Nykona as if seeing a long-hidden traitor.

Nykona's sword looped through the air, striking from another vicious angle—this time aimed straight at the Iron Father's head.

"Stop! Nykona!" Even Lox thought Sharrowkyn was overreacting and tried to call him off.

As the power sword's disruption field pierced the Iron Father's optic lens, a flash of blue-violet light exploded. Wayland's form warped and twisted, transforming into a four-limbed monster draped in a deep blue robe, its face hidden entirely within its hood.

One hand gripped a staff of trickery; the other summoned pale, magical flames that leaped onto the staff, blocking Nykona's power sword.

"What the hell is that thing?!"

Lox watched a towering Astartes warrior morph into a swift, deceitful creature and couldn't help but cry out.

The arc emitter controlled by his cogitator quickly melted under the creature's searing flames, but several arcs still pierced its robe. Any organic should have been reduced to ash by those arcs, yet the monster's speed didn't falter.

Nykona and Tassa flanked Lox, one ahead and one behind. The Son of the Raven's twin power swords danced and flashed, weaving a curtain of blade-shadows. The disruption field shredded the fiend's robe, slicing off one of its arms in a flash.

"It's one of those damned Word Bearer things! Malice from the Warp!"

Nykona Sharrowkyn instantly connected this creature to those summoned by Word Bearer warriors on the Isstvan battlefield.

Those Word Bearers possessed by Warp entities—strengthened in body and soul by the Warp's corruption—were called Possessed Marines by the traitors.

The Possessed could slaughter their former brothers with overwhelming superiority, surpassing their cousins in speed, strength, and defense.

But most of the Possessed had already fallen to the Raven Lord, Primarch Corax of the XIX Legion, beneath his Lightning Claws.

Salamander Tassa raised his power hammer high, slamming it down at the daemon with unmatched fury. His wide, heavy strikes, paired with the Son of the Raven's swordplay, pinned the enemy's movements.

The Salamander in power armor stood like a mountain before Lox, the wrath of Nocturne blazing within him.

One still, one swift; one slow, one fast—the power sword and power hammer worked in perfect harmony. The bond forged on the Isstvan battlefield shone through in that moment.

The Warp-spawn under siege let out a sound that unsettled mortals. It realized it was tangled up with two annoying Astartes. That wouldn't do—it had a mission.

It shrieked, unleashing its Warp-flames. Those flames, utterly unlike those of the material universe, were deadly attacks that could sear a human soul directly.

Brutal force churned the air. The gleaming disruption field on the power hammer caught one of the magical flames, and the machine's mournful cry rang out—the weapon's machine-spirit plunged into agony.

The Salamander felt the machine-spirit's pain. His crimson eyes locked onto the enemy, driving it relentlessly into a corner.

Nykona's mind held no excess emotion. He simply swung his sword—swung, swung, swung—until more and more blade-shadows tore the enemy apart. Under the full assault of a sword-master, the Warp-creature called the Changeling was finally shredded to pieces.

It watches you

A maddening shriek and laughter. Lox heard a cackling whisper at his ear, and then the creature's body burst into flames, burning away at an unstoppable pace into a pile of cold ash.

"We didn't kill it. It escaped."

Nykona's voice cut through.

"Good thing we were by your side."

The Salamander set down his hammer. Though he was an Apothecary, he was also a battle-hardened Astartes warrior.

"Did you hear something?"

Lox turned, puzzled. Nykona and the others shook their heads.

"That was a daemon from the Warp. We saw what they could do on Isstvan V."

"Thanks. If not for you, I'd be done for." Lox shuddered.

"I've heard of travelers who went through Warp travel, claiming daemons lurked outside the Gellar Field. Some who were too curious and answered the daemon's whispers vanished into sealed spaces."

He didn't know what would happen if that daemon touched him, but facing that unknown presence radiating evil, his heart had pounded with violent dread and terror.

Lox was a Perpetual, but he'd seen little of the supernatural. He knew there might be other Perpetuals like him, but he'd never met them.

He wasn't unique—though rumor had it most other Perpetuals were Psykers, wielding power akin to magic, while he was utterly ordinary.

Apart from living long enough and seeing enough, Lox considered himself to have little in common with those other Perpetuals.

The disturbance aboard the starship was quickly quelled.

But when the true Father of Iron realized some daemonic impostor had been masquerading as him, the furious warrior immediately ordered his battle-brothers to remain on constant alert.

This was an affront to the Sons of Ferrus!

Lox, for his part, learned his lesson. He realized the Emperor had good reason for creating the Astartes—melee weapons like power swords dealt far more damage to Warp entities than arc weapons controlled by machine-spirits.

He speculated that this might be because the concept of daemons in human civilization had always been associated with fire and blade, granting such mystically charged weapons greater potency.

After that harrowing ordeal, the Red Alert finally sailed smoothly to its next destination.

Four standard Terran days later, the Warp voyage at last reached its end.

"All hands, prepare for translation out of the Warp. Brace for impact!"

With a violent flicker of unreality, the laws of two realms interwove once more.

Lox felt the familiar sensation of withdrawal. When he opened his eyes again, what lay before him was no longer the chaotic, lawless ocean of the Warp, but a star system filled with celestial bodies.

Only those who had experienced Warp travel could truly appreciate how stable and orderly the material universe was—here, every atom obeyed the constraints of physics, each moving along its prescribed orbit.

A colossal star radiated light and heat without cease. This sun, in the prime of its life, was remarkably stable, and it was this very stability that had nurtured the thriving scene before them.

After departing the Mandeville Point, the Red Alert set course for a planet that reflected the star's glow. It shimmered with a vibrant pale blue, and faintly, countless tiny points of light flickered across its surface.

This was the result of starlight falling upon transport ships and reflecting onward.

With the naked eye, one could see a magnificent orbital ring encircling the planet, gleaming in the sunlight like intertwined ribbons.

Countless spaceports docked dozens, even hundreds of colossal vessels. Like leafcutter ants, shuttles ferried supplies from the planetary surface to the orbital docks, and from there to the great warships.

"After ten thousand years, I've finally found something familiar. In my time, planets like this were everywhere—space elevators, orbital rings, and incredibly convenient interplanetary transport."

Lox sighed with emotion, but it was clear they had arrived at the wrong place. This was not their destination, Terra.

The machine-spirit's star charts showed their current position was still in the eastern reaches of the galaxy. By decoding the dense web of radio communications in space, he finally learned the name of this thriving world: Calth.

Nykona peered through the starship's viewport, rapidly cross-referencing his memories. The superhuman memory of an Astartes soon allowed him to name the largest vessel in the spaceport.

"That's the Macragge's Honour, a Gloriana-class Battleship of the XIII Legion, the Ultramarines. By the Emperor, we've arrived in the Five Hundred Worlds."

The Macragge's Honour stretched twenty-six kilometers in length. Its hull was clad in ceramite and plasteel armor, while countless broadside cannons and lance batteries bristled among its Gothic architecture, gleaming like the fangs of a predator.

Around it orbited eighteen silver-hulled battleships, each the size of a town, along with even more troop transports, cruisers, and vessels of the Adeptus Mechanicus.