Chapter 54: The Great Devourer? |
Crackle~ crackle~
Rain poured against the portholes with a rush of sound. Unnoticed, rainwater had pooled in the recesses of Dawn’s outer deck.
Terrifying, isn’t it? Rainfall in the vacuum of space.
Arthur stood before the window, staring at a star system cloaked in dust clouds, momentarily dazed.
‘Are we still in the Warp?’
He turned to glance at Aglaea beside him.
The Inquisitor was also staring out in a trance.
Arthur felt a bit lost, curious about what sort of cosmic phenomenon this was. Could the laws of physics really be this bizarre?
“Aglaea.”
Aglaea withdrew her gaze.
Her expression was grim.
“This phenomenon.”
Arthur pointed at the rain outside the window.
“Can you explain it to me?”
“This is a rare overlap between the Warp and realspace, typically occurring at a Mandeville Point. It signals that a Warp entity may be watching this location, and is a precursor to a Mandeville anchor collapsing into a realspace ulceration.”
She quickly picked up her little notebook and began scribbling notes as she replied.
During long Warp voyages, she understood these ancient warriors preferred efficiency. While courteous, they didn’t bother with unnecessary formalities.
“Sirs?”
The tip of Aglaea’s rapid-writing stylus pierced the parchment, ink trembling under the stars as if small silver parasites were wriggling through it.
“Multiple entities.”
Because every gaze of a Warp god was sharp and terrifying—the molten iron rain from the Brass Fortress could melt a void shield, and the blood-crystal hail from the Palace of Pleasure implanted parasitic hallucinations in one’s brainstem.
Were it not for the restraint of other forces, this would never manifest as harmless rain. They wouldn’t be standing here calmly—they’d be down on the lower deck cleaning up plague-ridden corpses.
“But the impact of this anomaly is far milder than recorded cases.”
After detailing the cause of the rain to Arthur, Aglaea added this point.
“......”
Just arriving in this region of space was already bad news.
If Warp entities were watching, who else could it be but those Four Piles of sh*t?
Arthur turned away from the window and noticed the Inquisitor’s holy seal pendant spinning wildly at her neck.
Screech—creaaak—
A grating sound sent a jolt up their spines as the ship suddenly tilted 45 degrees.
Arthur immediately grabbed his power sword, runes along the blade flaring with light.
With one arm, he propped up two fallen crew members. Through the now-upside-down observation window, he saw tens of thousands of raindrops weaving a glowing neural network across space.
Each drop reflected a completely different nightmare scene:
Some held burning Perfect Cities, others contained grotesque four-armed gluttonous figures, and some revealed tombstone inscriptions detailing ancient Eldar empire history.
Aglaea ripped off a servo-skull—one without a vox-emitter—and it was screaming. Its electronic eye was playing some old execution footage from an unknown era.
“Order the entire fleet to close all portholes! Immediately! Anyone who disobeys will be executed!”
Aglaea drew her hand cannon and blew apart the servo-skull that had begun growing flesh. Thankfully, she had backups of all its data.
“Seal the hatches. Resume Warp travel immediately.”
Romulus reacted quickly, ordering the ship to maintain its sealed Warp-travel status and relaying the command to the entire fleet.
The fleet’s astropaths were under Rameses’ management now, and with a safe house in place, secure communication was assured.
The moment the portholes sealed shut, the entire warship seemed completely isolated from the outside world and began to stabilize.
“Were those images from the past?”
Arthur looked at the now-weakened Aglaea.
“Huh?”
Aglaea looked confused.
“......”
So no one else saw it.
Arthur turned his gaze to the bridge—those who had averted their eyes from the start now looked exhausted, and the transmigrators wore pensive expressions.
Perhaps only those unaffected by the Warp could see them?
“I saw the Word Bearers.”
Word Bearers—those corrupted Chaos Space Marines always turned up at heretic rituals.
“You’re sure, my lord?”
“Legion-era paint scheme. No mistaking it.”
Honestly, Arthur hadn’t recognized the burning ruin at first, but once he saw the Word Bearers, it clicked—most likely the Perfect City.
“That’s not exactly good news, my lord.”
Hearing Arthur’s account, Aglaea rubbed her temples. She didn’t bother questioning him.
After all, these lords... she knew their identities quite well.
If those rainwater visions were indeed historical, then the Grand Inquisitor’s ritual had already begun.
And among the enemy forces facing the joint fleet, the Word Bearers were likely involved—along with others.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t lived long enough to learn much about the Four-Armed heresy or Eldar history.
From an occult perspective, these visions indicated that some individuals within the ritual’s area of influence had connected to the Warp, triggering historical imagery.
Aglaea stared anxiously at the fleet’s route on the holoprojection, fists clenched tight.
Thanks to Dawn’s timely warning, the joint fleet ships arriving at the Mandeville Point maintained open routes for direct contact with realspace, avoiding Warp corruption.
As the fleet fully exited the Warp and gradually entered the star system, moving away from the Warp’s ulcers, the absurd rain finally ceased.
Realspace laws reasserted themselves—liquid condensed into ice, and the warship’s vibrations shattered the ice, which then drifted away.
But a heavy mood lingered in everyone’s hearts.
“Can we make contact with Pield’s capital world?”
Romulus asked.
“No.”
The choir priest reported: “Since entering the Pield sub-sector, most of the fleet’s astropaths have lost functionality. They’ve become extremely unstable. Furthermore, the capital world has not responded to our identifier code.”
“Unstable?”
Romulus frowned. How could psykers verified by the Emperor Himself fall into mass instability?
“Symptoms?”
“Mental breakdown, insanity. Based on preliminary assessment of his ramblings, his soul encountered something in the High Heavens. He keeps saying, ‘I can’t see anymore.’”
Romulus pressed his lips together.
This didn’t resemble a Chaos incursion.
He turned to Rameses.
“There’s something in the Warp. I can’t see the Astronomican anymore.”
Rameses, who had been assisting the Emperor in soul-rescue efforts, had just returned from the Warp and stated it plainly.
His psychic projection had just been smacked apart by something unknown—he’d need to buy a new one and stash it in the safe house.
“It’s not Chaos.”
Arthur stated firmly.
In fact, this phenomenon was all too familiar to the transmigrators.