“Uand the world around you, the people under your and and your enemies. If you do, you will have the fual information o form viable pns as a leader.”

  It sounded simple, reasonable and made perfect sense. Which was why I couldn’t evee it. Selene was right, and I k.

  The part that bothered me still was where she said I never accepted this 42nd millennium Milky Way for how it is …. Because who would want to accept this shithole for how it is? It’s terrible in every ceivable way with only silver linings that barely mao take the edges off of its atrocious state.

  Evil Gods, maing aliens who want to e everything, pompous assholes who see humans as ants, psychotit robots who snuff out stars for shits and giggles, and the list goes on without me having eveiohe pile of garbage that became of humanity.

  I khat this pce was made to be grimdark. It was written like that. It was never supposed to be real, and I was never supposed to be forced to live in it.

  Did accepting how horrible it was, mean giving up on ever actually turning things around? If I became just another alien warlord, blessed with supernatural powers, would I just bee another bullet point on that previous list?

  I could bee an alien warlord unlike any other. I was fident that, if I ignored all of my worries and reservations, I could be a force to be reed with all by myself. Stars syphoned for an endless source of energy to power my limitless armies of mindless drohat were built based oes taken from the most powerful beings in this gaxy.

  Logistics would be my greatest oppo, transp my droo where they o be.

  I was fident in that … but which alien warlord wasn’t? And what happeo them? What remained of them?

  Nothing, but trophies on a wall and droll records in some Administratum libraries. Even the inus, a powerful psychic creature that mind-trolled the entire popution of 1300 star systems at once, is nothing but a memory with its skull paraded around by the Bck Temprs.

  I owerful, sure, but not anywhere close to powerful enough to even think about replig that feat.

  What killed it? A bunch ur Space Mariheir ons? Being absolutely deranged lunatid fanatical zealotry.

  Despite my fidence, I couldn’t help but fear that by some weird twist of fate, the same would be enough to kill me.

  Which was why I’d been trying to stay low and be careful. I didn’t have primarch plot armour, and not even just a regur one. Any random guardsman might just pull some bullshit McGuffey out of their ass that’s just perfectly primed to kill me.

  “ I get you something, honey?”

  I looked up at the sudden sound ing from above, propping myself up from the wooden table and gng at the matronly woman smiling down at me. After my talk with Selene, I’d Blinked dowside and decided the best pce to think and chew over my thoughts on it was in a rustic cafe.

  “Yeah,” I answered slowly, gng down at the menu she’d pced in front of me and a vaguely familiar entry caught my eye. “ I get one cup of this … tanna tea?”

  “You sure honey?” The woman asked, looking at my face, then down at the menu. “It has a … peculiar taste. A little too bitter for most of the more delicate ers around here.”

  “Huh, why’s it on the menu if it’s so bad you have to warn me about it?” I asked her, blinking away the lingering daze my previous brooding had left me in.

  “The owner loves the thing.” The woman shrugged. “There was this oeran who came here to pin every day he couldn’t drink his favourite drink this far from home, so we put it on the menu for him.”

  “I’ll give it a try,” I said with a smile, shrugging lightly as I leaned back. “Plus whatever you think will be a good pate ser afterwards. Might as well try it once.”

  “Sure!” The woman smiled, snatg up the menu. “I’ll be right back.”

  I watched her go, the my gaze pan around the faint little cafe. This city was oher side of the p, far from where Val had his battle with the Daemon Prince. Meaning, it was still calm.

  I watched people. The cafe was small, with just a few tables and had even fewer ers sitting in. A man in a dishevelled suit-like thing chugged his drink and shoved the food in his face hole like every sed speing was a waste of his time.

  At aable sat a young couple of what would have been high-schoolers if this was Earth. They were fully absorbed in their own little world and I could feel so mu love and lust radiating off of them it was almost … refreshing. Their emotions were so much less tainted by life experiehat they were just more raw than adult emotions.

  The fourth person other than me was a middle-aged man greying at the temples, nguidly flipping through a neer while taking a sip of some steaming co on his table every so often.

  They were all so familiar to me, with just a few tiny ges to the decor and clothes, I could imagihis cafe being just down the road from my apartment ba 21st tury Earth.

  A, it’d take me growing elongated ears and all these familiar humans would transform into something utterly alien to me. The humans I knew would have plimented my cospy. These humans?

  I looked at the balding man, my enhanced eyes log onto a bullet wound on his forearm and noting the straight-spined pose he sat in. He looked like he had a mppost shoved up his ass, but somehow, he made it look like he was fortable sitting like that.

  No, these humans would jump to attention aher scream in fear or attack me with spoons and forks. There was so much hate and fear cooked into them over the millennia, they would loathe me just for a slight difference.

  I … khat, but Selene said I didn’t truly believe it. That I had never internalised it, and that it made my reasoning somewhat deluded.

  I briefly sidered testing it, just ging into some alien form to see how they would react. Something non-threatening, maybe even cute. Would they really try to lynch me, if I did?

  “Here is your tea, honey.” The waitress came back, pced the warm mug down before me and then put a rger gss filled with a vibrant pink drink and ice to the side. “Fingleberry lemo’ll get even the persistent aftertaste of tenna tea out of your mouth with a few gulps.”

  “Thanks,” I said, putting on a smile as I gnced up appreciatively. Would she have screamed, or would she be one of the people lyng me? The answer would be a sihought away. She was a mere human so my telepathy would have little trouble browsing her mind.

  “You’re wele.” She hen slid over to the teenage couple who were waving her over.

  I eyed the steaming liquid suspiciously, knowing I could wipe the taste from my tongue even if the thing had acid mixed in. I shrugged and took a small sip. A grimace pulled at my face the very moment it touched my tongue. Not only was it steaming hot, but it also tasted like battery acid mixed in with the worst homemade beer ienbsp;

  I coughed, but swallowed the small sip anyway as my grimace deepened. I could have turned off my taste buds, but I felt it would be worth it to experiehe true taste of the abominable drink at least on my life. If I didn’t fuck up something, I was set to live until the st stars died out and the st anic beings died out, depriving me of the bio-energy I’d o tinue on. Experieng as much of the gaxy as it was now might be the only way some of these things would be remembered in the eons to e.

  Taking another sip, despite my better judgement, I decided there were some things that might deserve to be fotten.

  Putting the cup down, I grabbed the cold lemonade made of whatever a fingleberry was and took a deep gulp. It had a tangy fruity fvour like elderberries, but maybe a touch sweeter.

  As I ehe sourness being purged from my mouth by the fruity goodness, a strahought occurred to me. If this tenhingy was from another p, and a vetera requesting it, that meaoo would have to have been from some far-off p.

  But this p was ruled by a damned Daemon Prince, so how in the nine hells did a veteran from who knew where end up here? This part of the Jericho Reach was supposed to be rgely isoted from Imperial influence for the st few millennia.

  It just didn’t make sense.

  Or was I wrong? Had this p been quered by that crusade they had going on in the near past?

  Nah. They take worshipping this totally-not-Saneh goddess of theirs far too seriously. I didn’t even catch a single word being spoken of the Emperor since I came down here. They have to have been separated from the Imperium long ago … which makes this tea thing all the more weird. I’m like, 99% sure it wasn’t inally from this p.

  I gnced up and saw the older man with the neer looking over at me with a slight grin. On instinct, I caught his surface thoughts. He looked military-esque enough to be a veteran, but would he be the veteran whom asked for this atrocious drink to be served here?

  Despite his outwardly calm demeanour, when I poked my telepathiose inside his head I found a tightly wound ball of ay and fear. I could barely parse his regur thoughts as visions of his own gruesome deaths pyed out before his mind’s eye oer the other.

  The iing thing was, he saw himself being torn apart by daemons more often than not, or lynched by a mob in some others.

  He shuddered and snapped his gaze over at me, a smile on his lips and a frown on his eyebrows. I tilted my head, not b to hide my staring and gave him a beatific smile.

  His chaotic mess of a mind cleared up for a brief moment, and I finally found myself a name. Only my quick reflexes stopped me from dropping my gss as my eyes widened.

  Caiphas .

  That was his name, and I was shocked to find it so familiar. Of the few warhammer series I had read more than one book of, his memoirs were one of them. I gnced down at the atrocious tea on my table and finally made the e as to why its name sounded so familiar; the man loved this damhing.

  But what would a retired issar of the Imperial Guard be doing on this p the ass end of the Milky Way?

  Something to do with the Daemon Prince ruling it, I’d wager.

  As I watched him, he watched me and I quickly disengaged from his mind before it jumped to pces I’d rather not see.

  Still, this had my curiosity peaked, and I was ag for a distra either way. I’d have to somehow mollify Val and bring his dampened morale back up after the undue verbal beating I had given him.

  I still felt like he had been an asshole, but I agreed with Selene’s stan him being wired that way. I couldn’t expect him to just think like me without even expining to him my thought process … that is, if my thought process were even the right oo have.

  A few hundred deaths would have made the headlines ba Earth.

  ‘Strange alien es down from the sky, kills the President and massacres hundreds of civilians as it causes havo the surroundings.’

  I could almost see it on the news, ahe horrified voices of the newscasters. However, this wasn’t that Earth. Not anymore, and maybe it never had been.

  Pstering a flirty smile on my face, I stood up with my two drinks in hand and sashayed over to the undercover issar.

  “May I?” I asked, motioning for the seat, into which I slid into the moment he gave a gracious nod. “Thank you. I suspect you’re the one who cursed this menu with this atrocious drink?”

  “It is an acquired taste,” he said with a charming smile that hid his underlying suspis almost perfectly. I caught a wandering thought from him thinking I was some Saneshi entress trying to eat his soul. That was either the most fttering worry to be had wheing me, or the rudest. I wasn’t quite sure yet. “How may I help you?”

  “I am in need of a distra,” I fessed, a smile still on my lips. “Thought you might be able to help me?”

  P3t1