‘Time to go,’ I sent Selene a psychiudge. ‘The blue man is blitzing his way through the tunnels. We’ll be te.’

  I was relut to pull her away from her fun, but we would really be cutting it close if I didn’t just teleport us after the main strike group. Not something I really wao do down iunnels, especially with Mephiston basically vomiting right into the surrounding to disrupt the Shadow of the Hive Mind — supposedly that was why he was doing it at least. It certainly worked for disrupting teleportation, too.

  Narrowing my eyes at the dark corridor, I grabbed ahold of the veil and tried to force a portal to open. The air hissed and shuddered, the as a crag small portal opened up. I couldn’t help but frown at that as I let go. If I went through that portal, I’d find myself scattered through the p, if not the star system. I knew that just from having held it open for a moment. Crafty old monster.

  ‘Uood,’ she replied absently, and I could tell she went into overdrive. Sshes were more precise, brimming with energy, a for the kill every time. I grimaced at one kill, where her bde cut a Lictor in half not because of ho the bde was, but because of the brute strength behirike. She only took a mio up the leftovers. ‘I’m done.’

  She was o me a moment ter, oozing satisfa tinged with just a bit of nervousness. She had every right to be nervous. I wasn’t sure her pseudo-immortality wouldn’t be tested today, even if everythi right. The Hive Mind was not stupid. It had to knoere ing, and it had to have some pn or hope of victory if the Norn Queen was still down there, unmoving.

  I projected some assurance her way, which seemed to calm her somewhat. She gave me the wisp of a smile, about the closest she would ever e to showing affe with ued people around.

  Right.

  I gave a minute g my two golden shadows. I couldn’t help but poke around at all the little kniacks hanging on their armour and uheir flowing cloaks with my mental fingers, fearing what I’d find hidden there.

  So far, there was nothing. Not a single sign of them having even that energy-spear and I certainly couldn’t find a creepy bck skull hanging at their waist, either. It only made me more nervous.

  “Will the two of you fight?” I asked rally ahe fai hint of surprise from the red-cloaked one — Octavian, I think? — while the other tinued practising his masterful portrayal of a statue.

  “Our duty is to protect you from undue harm until your purpose has been aplished,” he said, which sounded entirely like non-ittal garbage to me. He seemed to realise it too, as he paused for a moment. “We will. I will know wheime es for the Emperor’s will to e true. Until then, you assume we will protect you from all undue danger beyond your own power to face.”

  “I see.” It took a moal effort of will to not roll my eyes. Beyond my power to face my ass, if we found something like that, the two of them would be sughtered, anyway.

  Then there was ‘The Emperor’s Will?’. I had a nudging suspi the senile skeleton wanted me to resurrect him, or at least heal up his corpse, to be a fitting vessel for him. Surely, he couldn’t know where I’m frht? So he must have been just guessing and putting out feelers to figure out what my iions were. Or did he already know?

  As we set off, with me dashing off at just above the speed a marine would have been capable of, an even worse thought struck me. What if he phis? If he put some trol ands into the artefact that was now my body?

  That was a w thought, one I would have dismissed a week ago … but then I absorbed the Shadowkeeper’s blood, and then egrim’s. The fact that those temptes were inside of me, faded and out of reach up until the moment I absorbed those samples without me having even the fai idea, was w beyond belief.

  If I missed those, what else could be hiding in the depths of my eldritch body? I already khere had to be a treasure trove of Primarch temptes hidden just beyond my reach. With so much to gain, I couldn’t just … stop abs uff.

  We reached the drop, a tunnel arg into a steep dee and then into a nearly vertical shaft. I reached down with my aura a dozens of animalistic souls, tied together in an ephemeral web scuttling up the steep walls and beyond them, hundreds of metres down, a rge cavern opening up.

  ‘Ready?’ I asked Selene. She just sent a nudge back through our bond, urgio stop stalling. Oh, well. I huffed, rolled my shoulders, and then hopped into the dark pit with a sleek bio-sword f in my hands.

  Selene jumped right after me, with the two golden warriors following a beat ter. I so hated how impossible it was to faze them, and that went fuilliman too. Annoying bunch.

  The fact that I enjoyed my short few hours spent with a senile kleptomaniac skeleton more than with any member of my previous species — aside from Selene, but she didn’t t — was just … sad. Disappointing to the ey mind still thinking itself as one of them.

  My sword spun, shing out zily as I fell and turhe occasional screeg alien into bloody ks. Even with no psychic cheating, butchering my way through anything short of a Hive Tyrant was effortless.

  I slowed my dest as I felt the shaft’s end closing in. I unched myself over the gory remains of a dozen Tyranids that fell quicker thaelekinesis really was turning out to be my favourite psychic power. Flying and doing a-hero-like flyby stunts had a strange charm to it.

  I grabbed hold of Seleh a mental hand before she smashed face-first into the gore and quickly snatched her out of the way. A momewo half-ton golden giants smashed down like meteors and only the quick juration of a psychic shield saved the two of us from a literal bloodbath.

  With that done, I let my aura flow into the cavernous halls and the many tunnels. Down here, the Shadow was dense, making the murky and thick with dark power.

  My third eye opened up as I looked around and, while squinting, I could vaguely see Guilliman’s radiant soul dimly shining through the heavy darkness. This was something else. Not even the Swarmlord had been a potent enough node for the Hive Mind to set up a Shadow this heavy.

  Well, I guess I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I stifled a grin. While it would surely trouble Mephiston and the rest of the regur Psykers, it also meant I could drink in the power of the with impunity.

  If I couldn’t see through this darkness, her could the Daemons.

  I reached out, gingerly at first, with a few thiing tendrils extending down from my Soul Puddle. They brushed up against the surface of the still , waiting, watg for aion.

  When none came, they plunged into it and drank heavily. The lecherous energy of the , slowed and sluggish as it was from the Shadow, still surged to corrupt the pure soul energy. The fervour with which it rushed to taint it was still the same.

  I held the tendrils in a vice-like grip, mental hands cmped down around them lest they widen and form a tunnel firmer than I would want. This limited the throughput, but with dozens of tendrils toug down, it didn’t matter. Actally f a perma e to the would be a nightmare.

  Selene froze for a brief instant, her eyes widening and gzing over. I watched with some measure of amusement as her tiny soul awoke in my forest realm and rushed to the edge, looking out through the barrier.

  She stared, agape, at the dark waters climbing up through the tendrils and surging into the sea of energy down below her secure little heaven. Feeling her worry, slowly growing to border on terror, I gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

  Selene snapped out of it, most of her sciousness snapping bato her body as she turo stare at me. ‘What is happening? Are you in dang-’

  ‘I’m recharging,’ I sent, projeg calm fidehrough our bond. Nothing reassured people quite like others viewing something shog with disi. ‘I refrained from doing so since I added the tw- three of you into my ‘realm’, but all that energy doesn’t e out of nowhere and this is the safest possible way for me to get my hands ouff.’

  ‘But it's… dark? Isn’t it corrupted? Chaos infused, or something?’

  ‘Watch,’ I nudged her soul a bit, guiding its attention down to the chaotic darkness down below. The energy tried to sh out, eat through my soul energy to grow, expand, corrupt, but instead, it was getting pushed back. The mass of darkness was only growing slowly, and even that was just because I was drawing in more and more of it with eaent.

  I ed a k of it up in a yer of soul energy and pulled it up, setting it dht in front of the barrier through which my worried lover was staring. She stared at the violently swirling darkness as I let it go.

  It dimmed, however much it shed out and tried to sink its fangs into, it didn’t matter as the imperious white light of my soul pushed it back relentlessly. Effortlessly even. I didn’t o focus on it. It just happehe chaotic energy just could for ah of time near my soul.

  ‘ … How long are you going to keep doing that?’ She asked ohe k of darkurned into nothing right before her eyes.

  ‘Until the lead synapse creature dies,’ I said. ‘The shadow is keeping the daemons and the nosy psykers away for now, but they would e running like moths to a fme without it.’

  ‘So this will tihroughout the uping fight?’

  ‘Is it b you?’ I asked. ‘If it’s too unfortable, or will distract you, you might have to sit out the fight.’

  I felt a hint of frustration at that, with even a tinge of betrayal.

  ‘Selene,’ I had to cut off that line of thought. ‘The might have been endless, uned with however many billions of psykers drew on its powers every day, but my little puddle of energy is decidedly not so. With three of us using it, it will run dry if I don’t replenish it every so often.’

  ‘I uand that,’ she said slowly. ‘But must it be now? During the fight?’

  ‘As I said before, the Shadow this thick is basically an invitation for me to do just that,’ I tried to expin. ‘I might be able to fight off the daemons, but I doly want to do so if I don’t have to. Plus, every psyker in this sector would have felt my preseherwise. I ’t not make use of this opportunity.’

  We walked in silence for a bit after that, with me guiding our little group through cavernous halls and twisting tunnels, aiming vaguely in Guilliman’s direy aura senses were almost useless, so I had to resort to sending out a swarm of i droo scout out the path.

  ‘I see,’ she seemed to sigh mentally as the tightly coiled emotions in her aura slowly unravelled. I held back a sigh of relief as every hint of betrayal or rese was gone, only leaving a vague frustration and a steely resolve. ‘I’m sorry for ag like that. It … it feels horrible. I just don’t know whether I’ll be able to focus on the fight like this.’

  ‘How does it feel?’ I couldn’t help but ask. I myself certainly felt the repulsive energy. It was like being coated in shit inside and it. It made me feel disgusted and vioted in equal measure. With that said, I learo ig and couldn’t imagine Selene, having been a guardswoman, wasn’t used to feeling disgusting.

  ‘I … don’t know,’ she hesitated. ‘It’s not a feeling I describe, but it’s horrible. Like staring down a bster’s barrel. I … think it feels like doom, if that makes sense. Like a promise to take everything good I have away and viote it before my eyes.’

  ‘Huh,’ I tapped my , res to telekiically shoving everything in our way away to clear our path. The custodians made short work of anything that survived my gentle, sound-barrier-breaking shove into the walls. ‘The is a nasty piece of work. I’m sorry this makes you feel that way, but doing this any other time would be magnitudes worse. If you think this sluggish energy is bad, you ’t possibly imagine how having a daemon f its way into your soul feels.’

  She shivered at that, a wave of disgust washing through her aura. ‘ … that was an atrocious attempt at sotion, Ea.’

  I held back a grimabsp;‘Sorry.’

  She just shook her head, faint amusement fshing through our bond as she smiled. It looked a bit forced, but she was at least trying. ‘I wonder how the others are handling it.’

  I blinked. Right. Others.

  Stupid tunnel vision. How was my mind so oracked when I had more than a hundred mind cores? I swear I would have fotten about that Eldar girl if Selene hadn’t reminded me, and even Val occasionally slipped my mind.

  Feeling a touch guilty, especially after havi him rush off to murderize his way through the Tyranids, I reached out to him. Then quickly shut the e off after an instant of his feelings surging through it.

  He was enjoying himself. Immensely. Somehow, feeling the touch of the ut the Eldari into a gleeful frenzy. It reminded me of a man gloating over his ex about how good his new life was without her.

  The fanatical girl I left somewhere on Baal with her human boyfriend, oher hand, was horrified. For me. I almost facepalmed once I cut my e to her, too. The girl thought I was fighting some ‘great evil’ and raying in terror for my success.

  Why is everyone so weird? Or is it me? Do I have a curse that attracts weirdos to me, or is this just how this gaxy is?

  I followed my scouting drones’ dires absently for the few minutes as I tried tet what I’d just learned.

  Then one of the little drones, one looking like a beautiful white dragonfly, rushed bae. It didn’t even slow, sinking into my skin and dissolving into my body as the tiny mind core that trolled it reected with the rest.

  I straightened my bad increased my pato a sprint, Selene and the two custodes mirr me with a start.

  “I found Guilliman,’ I said out loud, the some bio-energy burn away to push my body beyond its natural limits. “And he is already fighting the Norn Emissary.”

  Selene gained a grim look, her helmet flowing over her head again as two swords formed in her hands as the two golden giants grunted in affirmation behind me.

  As I followed the route my drone gave me, I felt my heart rag in my chest thunderously. A primal thirst for battle surged within me as an expet grin stretched ay lips. My fight with the Shadowkeeper might have been a fluke and ended with Mephiston barging in on it, but this fight would not.

  Let’s see what the ‘stroyranid bioform’ has to offer.

  P3t1

  I have 9 Advanced Chapters on Patreon, you read 2 advanced chapters for 1 or all of them for 5 here: Join Now!

  Though, if you don't mind the few weeks of waiting, don't bother. With time everything will be rolled out for free on RR.