This is getting kiing. I had to restrain myself from boung about as my expectations for what y ahead ran high. As, two metre tall supersoldiers wearing half a ton of power armour usually didn’t strut around with a boun their steps like schoolgirls who just got their first kiss.

  As for why I was gettied? Well, the was ing like an angry soup of boiling waste right beh the veil and I could tell it wouldn’t be long before Daemons started to push themselves through. With goldie behind me, a hurong squad of Samanders and good old Trazyn already here, throwing in a bunch of what felt like Khornite Daemons was just going to be the ig on the cake.

  Or in simple terms: Shit was about to go down, and when it did, it would be going down hard. The best part was that I didn’t have to fear Khornite Daemons trying to py mind games with me, trying to trick me into getting captured or some such like I would have to with just about every other fa. They will just try to kill me, simple and easy. A bit like the Orks … am I losing my mind or am I really starting to like those dumb murderous mushrooms? Hmmmm.

  [Simutions fnitive aal readiness show a 15.221% improvement at the moment when pared to before ing across the Ork hrogg.]

  And how reliable are those? I rolled my eyes. Plus a bunch of other things happened in that timeframe … like I got more than a few opportuo rex.

  [The primary reason is highly likely to be just that. Rexation is important for mental health.]

  [It matters not whether that rexation es from iing with simple creatures that don’t require mind games aal gymnastics to speak with or from indulging your al desires.]

  I rolled my eyes again. My mind-cores could be so smart a so stupid at the same time. Really, they were simir to early AI models, just with far more putational power. I’m pretty sure not having Guilliman’s fming sword hanging over my head and going ur, i dates with Selene did far more for my mental calm than a bunch of Orks or ‘indulging my al desires’.

  [Perhaps. Do you wish to run simutions to check?]

  No, get back t on something useful. I bit back. How is my Emissary-sourced sword ing along anyway?

  [Initial tempte is ready for stru, though the cost is prohibitive and as such deemed a failure.]

  Define ‘prohibitive’.

  [ing your current top of the line Psyker Form would only provide enough bio-energy to make a downsized dagger out of the material.]

  Damn.

  [Indeed. Optimisation loops are currently running on all free mind-cores.]

  Nah, fuck that. It’ll do. I shrugged inwardly. I had bio-energy in spades and would only be getting more and more as time went on and I got my initial Ork farm started near eventual base. Even just what I had going on at the moment, ing Orks that died of natural causes. Like the rare ‘bullet-in-brain disease’. A terrible siess, that one.

  [Aowledged. Do you wish to proceed with the items on the list?]

  Give me a reminder, what did I have on The List again?

  [ 1.: Deciphering the Pariah Gene; 2.: Deciphering the Hrud Gene; 3.: strug viable on designs out of the emptes gained from the Primarch’s gene library … ]

  It went on and on for another minute before we came to the st item, which was some long fotten project about learning how to extract memories from dead brains correctly. Let’s just leave that one over at the end. Hmmm.

  I promised Zedev an upgrade to his fleshy bits when he swore to serve me, didn’t I? Get a tempte for that done first. The’s go with … try to e up with a material I make using minimal bio-energy that would work well as the material of my eventual base. Then do the same for a material that would work for Void Ships. Afterwards you jump back to the inal list and tinue from where you left off.

  [Aowledged. Proceeding … item #1 is plete. Proceeding to the item … ]

  I blinked in surprise as a streamliempte that would give a soft update to Zedev go unceremoniously dumped in my mind. That was quick, but then again, his fleshy bits were 80% human, 15% cer and 5% heavy drugs so his makeup wasn’t all that plicated. I’ll do the updates once I’m done here … maybe I could give something to Bob too, he’s been looking hel lost tely.

  Also, run a test and see whether I should do away with some of the levity I’m treating this situation with. I ordered, thinking that maybe the Ork’s aversion to taking anything at all seriously was rubbing off on me in a way I didn’t notice.

  [The greatest threat to you is still a Shadowkeeper kill team telep on top of you. We have no current ways to predict, divert or disrupt their teleportation aher are you deferong enough to defend against their energy-spears]

  [The sed rgest threat to your existence is likely a scheme of the God of ge or one of its servants.]

  [The threats currently known to us do not deserve much fear, but the threat of the two mentioned above should more than deserve you taking even this situation seriously.]

  Hmmm. That is true I suppose. I cycled some soul energy through my bones and had them lihere. That should be enough to throw up some quick protes.

  Gng back at the Custodian, just to make sure his instincts didn’t somehow detect what I’d just done, I also went about yering some protes over the insides of my skull. That was where I usually kept my eldritch flesh, so the skull was the most vital part of my avatars.

  I gave a mental nod once I was done, not even the Swarmlord’s sword could cut through the shielding I now had on my head. The Emissary would have managed, but that guy was a bit of an outlier. Its sword there in pure physical properties with the Emperor’s sword I’d wager.

  It obviously cked the fming sword’s more mystical and magical qualities, but that was whatever. I had a trusty staff for anything to do with ‘magic’, even if I’d been leaving the poor thing to gather dust tely.

  In my defehere was nothing powerful enough that warranted summoning it.

  “We have reached the first trial!” The captain shouted as we came to a stop before yet aitanic door seemingly carved out of bck granite.

  Whoever desighe pce certainly had a feel for the theatrics. The way the simmering magma streamed dowhe walls and how it cast long shadows over the protruding carvings on the door was majesti a ‘these are the gates of hell’ sort of way.

  “I like the decor,” I mentioo Trazyn, though my eyes roamed over the surroundings with a warihat wasn’t there before.

  “It is indeed quite … majestic,” Trazyn said. “In a primitive sort of way. Just about what I was expeg.”

  “Do you think these ‘trials’ of theirs will take long?”

  “Perhaps,” he said, a shrug somehow ing through his voice. “I have only minimal knowledge of the intricacies and specifics of their prophecies and such. But it shouldn’t take long. Their Primarch wasn’t known to be one for meandering.”

  Trazyn turned out to be correct, it barely took five minutes for the Samao solve whatever the trial was. The titanic doors split in the middle and slowly slid apart, apanied by the tortured sound of a thousand tons of granite dragged over the stone floor.

  The cavernous room revealed was beyond anything I would have expected. ‘Room’ didn’t do it justice. I could have parked my fake Cruiser iweeanic pilrs holding up the ceiling, and a dozen other copies of it for that matter.

  Down below the rovers of magma flowed nguidly, illuminating the entire cavern with that dim red light from before. The path we were taking thinned and ended a bit after the door in a sheer cliff, after which a hundred metre drop would nd us in a pool of va. Magma. It is called va only o’s outside the volo … I think.

  There ath leading down though, a tiny little stairway slithering down along the wall. It was a bit too small for a space marine in full power armour, and it certainly had nothing in the way of guardrails and handholds.

  “Advahe captain ordered. “Squad one move first, test every step for colpse and bolt the support beams into the walls as you go. Questions? No? Good. Move out.”

  ‘Squad one’ moved forward, all sp rge packs and bundled up corded wire ropes along with twe rifles that looked like gigantiail guns.

  They were all ected together at the hip by that corder rope, the first marine being some sort of a stress tester with the one behind him being the oh the first giant nail gun.

  I watched them go, they were careful at first but got bolder with each step that didn’t send one of them into the depth.

  The nail-marine pressed the barrel of his on up against the wall and fired. The gun itself let out only a sharp whistle as pressurised air discharged a nail, but the granite wall getting torn a new asshole shrieked like a pig getting sughtered.

  Still, the bolt was in, leaving only a metal hook poking out of the wall onto which they quickly secured the corded rope before moving on. Ohird step of the stairwell, they shot in another bolt.

  “Secure yourselves to the cord and go!” The captain ordered. “Sed squad, you are up!”

  Marier mariepped onto the graairs carved out of the wall, squished up against the walls. Holy, it was a bit ical seeing the giant armoured supersoldiers g to the wall like a bunch of scared children.

  Not that they were themselves scared, but they certainly looked it with how tightly they clutched the corded rope. Uandably too, since if any of them fell, their weight would have sunk them down to the bottom of the magma ke below.

  Then at st, it was my time to go. “How will you follow?”

  “After you,” Trazyn said nontly. “I need no seg, nor will they notice me.”

  “What about him?” I motioo the Custodian still standing guard o the door.

  “He didn’t notice us till now,” Trazyn shrugged. “I sincerely doubt it’ll ge.”

  “Why don’t we just go forward,” I offered. “I could fly us down, or to anywhere in this cavern.”

  “Truly?” Trazyn hummed, though I guessed it was mostly for show. Nes no doubt developed personal anti-gravity tech that would allow him some flight capabilities too. “Would you wager he’d be quiough to stop you if he noticed something out of pce? Like you flying off per say?”

  “Perhaps,” I said evenly. “Though I doubt he has any ranged onry worth noting. He’ll be left behind stewing in his failure. Again.”

  “Again?”

  “Why do you think he is so salty?” I shrugged.

  “Let us do that then,” Trazyn said. “I am in no mood to hike a dozen miles on those stairs if I help it. We explore the cavern in the meantime while we wait for them to get down and show us the way.”

  *****

  OctavianFocus, discipline and loyalty were some of the main aspects that were at the core of Octavian’s being. His will never faltered, his foever waned and his loyalty was impossible to question. These were the characteristics of any Custodes, along with their superhuman physical and bat prowess that could only be eclipsed by a Primarch.

  They stood guard for turies over the Emperor without as much as a twit their facial muscles, so when a familiar prig sensation Octavian came to associate with his instincts going haywire he didn’t hesitate to act upon them.

  He whirled around, guardian spear levelled at the target his instincts were warning about. He didn’t hesitate even seeing that it was a Samahe ohat he reised as the marine who came to talk to him.

  Unfortunately for Octavian, his spear was baseline, outfitted not with a melta or an adrathic disiion beamer, but with a regur heavy bolter. Still, he fired.

  His aim was true, and at this dista was impossible to miss ahe bolt flew wide. Uurbed, Octavian rushed forward with his spear levelled at the marine as he once more squeezed the trigger.

  Regur people couldn’t even see a Custodian in motion, even marines would have trouble even keeping their eyes on Octavian with how hard he pushed himself at that moment.

  Three more bolts flew wide, then the fourth struck true just as the mariurowards him.

  Not giving his foe any room to breathe, Octavian on him with his spear pierg him all the way through.

  A nanosed ter, his brain caught up with him, analysed the data his senses were catg and cluded ohing: the power armour he had impaled was empty.

  His instincts lit up, and he kicked the shell into the distand off the cliff. It didn’t get even three metres away from him before it exploded in a white fsh of heat and shrapnel.

  Octavian ig, trusting his auramite armour to protect him, and rightly so. Not a single shrapnel even scratched him.

  He stared at the reg white arcs of energy, his eyes making out a small tour behind it.

  His spear came up once more, but an invisible force held his finger from squeezing the trigger once more. He caught a faint smirk and flowing white hair, and then the tour was gone, along with the force holding Octavian’s finger.

  He shot out six bolts in an array, letting them explode around where the form disappeared. Theopped, he had a faint urge to keep shooting or to smash his fist into the wall but he crushed it effortlessly.

  There was no point, his target was gone. Being wasteful with his limited ammunition would be tradictory to his goals.

  Still, his fist tightened around the spear’s handle.

  She is here.

  Without even thinking about going back to guard the entryway, Octavian kicked off the cliff’s edge and shot into the distanding a dozen seds ter with a crash on one of the dark isles in the magma rivers.

  The hunt begins now. His features hardened under his helmet. Now then, how do I go about this?

  He found himself a bit stumped at that question, as there was no going baow with his target being present. Perhaps I’ll have to resort to … that.

  P3t1