Chapter 32: Scavenger
"You've finally faced the truth of this universe." Night Haunter's mocking voice resonated through Konrad's consciousness.
"Our father's nation will eventually fall into corruption and decay, disintegrating under the power of the Warp."
Konrad frowned, listening. In an instant, visions flooded into him, cascades of futures, all leading to ruin.
The Imperium of the 30K Era was founded upon peaceful communication.
Lion El'Jonson, Horus Lupercal, Ferrus Manus, and Fulgrim each encountered treachery during efforts to bring isolated human civilizations into Imperial Compliance, whether through diplomacy, negotiation, or restrained overtures before force was unleashed.
Though such betrayals nearly cost them their lives and shattered fragile talks, the early Imperium still believed that unity through peaceful compliance was possible, and that war was not always the first or only answer. And what had come of it?
Chaos corrupted Fulgrim and Horus. Chaos cast Leon into a ten-thousand-year slumber. Ferrus fell. The other Primarchs, Dorn, Guilliman, Vulkan, and Corax, had each prioritized humanity's survival above all else. Yet their fates were either disappearance or Warp-induced catatonia.
Furthermore, in the 30K era, the Imperium extended aid to refugees. It was rational then, open-minded, a progressive civilization. Then the Emperor fell gravely wounded upon the Golden Throne, and even Malcador, the truly capable High Lord, perished during the Heresy. Only then did the Imperium of Man begin to corrupt and degenerate.
Had there been no Chaos, the Emperor would have activated the faster-than-light Webway and evolved human genetics using the Primarchs as templates.
Malcador and other Immortals loyal to the Emperor would have assisted. Guilliman and Dorn could have employed their construction expertise. The Imperium would not have completely rotted away, becoming the dark and fallen empire of distant millennia.
Konrad spoke. "Chaos caused all of this. Yet you blame the Emperor, who only wanted to save humanity."
Night Haunter didn't recognize himself in this timeline. He was more like Corax—but fundamentally, still himself.
"He made me this way! A monster."
"Without Chaos, he would have created us and nurtured us with patience. You wouldn't have become a madman. Imagine yourself growing up at the Emperor's side."
"Shut up!" Night Haunter snarled. "You're too naive."
Konrad had no time to consider what Night Haunter was saying. Daemons of Warp demanded his full attention.
The Scavengers commander stood before Konrad. These were Wayne's forces against the Warp, and also warriors who hated Wayne. All of them were Untouchables, purchased by Wayne.
Ship after ship brought Untouchables and the modified construct made of bones, Nostramo, making them members of the Wayne Group, forcing them to fight alongside Wayne.
Many Untouchables respected and served Wayne loyally, but within these ranks, many lived harsh, isolated lives.
Most, by some miracle of fate, found a home, a connection, family, a community, after a lifetime of struggle with their condition as blanks. And just when they thought life would go on such, they came, Wayne's hounds, sniffing every blank in the entire sector, which even the imperium would find hard to do; they dig up graves, separated families and conscripted men and women, young and old, some....were just infants or even in the womb, when Hounds came and abducted them all.
Imperium didn't use AI like Wayne did; perhaps they could do the same.
Collectively, most blanks were thankful to Wayen for a decent life compared to others, but some grievances, when known, were hard to forget, even when you knew why the man did it. After all no one liked a tyrant, even a kind one.
...
Grayson watched as far as his eye could, tens of thousands of demons slaughtering every mortal in the entire Hive City. Even the black-armored security forces couldn't stop them. Nostramo's complex terrain made the use of heavy weapons infeasible at that scale. Now they could only rely on infantry to fight the demons.
"I shall be truthful, sir, because I don't have high hopes today." Standing as the Scavengers commander, Grayson spoke to Konrad.
"I hated Wayne. My parents died because of him. If that was not enough, his hounds dissected their bodies for their flesh and bones, all for just suspicion that they would be the same as me. Their remains were used to extract components for weapons. And left us alive, alone in a world we didn't know, to be his war machines."
"So what do you think now?" Konrad asked solemnly
"Nothing has changed, Sir. I wished for him to be dead from the day I knew him, and it will be so till my dying breath...Sigh~." Grayson took a deep breath to measure his words and spoke.
"Can you understand how we feel, sir? We hate him to our bones, yet we are grateful for the life he has given us. Our children talk about him as if he is a messiah, and we can't even deny it."
"Your father has reached heights he couldn't be bothered by our hatred for him. He only told me that, 'for the future of all humanity, some things are necessary. You can hate me, you can curse me, but you must fight for the future.' ....And here we are."
The Scavengers were the leading force in this war. Their numbers for an entire planet-wide daemon incursion may seem small, but as elite troops with over a decade of training, they carried the best the entire Wayne Group could produce. Each of them standing here was immune to all direct Warp's attacks.
Their gathering in the tens of thousands was enough to counter the daemons' flames in the Material Universe.
Grayson, the Wayne Group's strongest Blank, led an assault team composed solely of elite soldiers and Scavengers. The pressure he felt now was unimaginable. This was the first time this group truly realized Wayne had been right, that demons really existed in this world.
"I really want to curse right now. Wayne is a mu'fucking bastard, no doubt in that. He bought us, turned us into commodities, forced us to become his Soldiers, and now he says, 'I'm a guardian of humanity.' Ahh~ guardian my foot, it's so ironic, it's stupid." Grayson took a deep breath.
"I hate him.... But I will fight for him, I can't tell you how pissed from my ASS I am right now. Forgive my words, Sir, but Wayne, your father, is truly the bastard of bastards,...Haa~.....but god be damned, he had to be humanity's savior."
Konrad heard every word; he didn't mind the insults Grayson had thrown at his father before they even introduced themselves. For now, he was more concerned with the daemon incursion; at the same time, his heart was filled with guilt and sadness for Grayson and his man, who had suffered at his father's hands, all the more because he genuinely wanted to see his father as a man of humanity.
The other Scavengers remained silent. How could they have imagined this whole daemon operation would be real?
All their lives, many had believed it was just another way for Wayne to brainwash them into his servitude, like many others.
As a blank, they could not even feel the mystery that lay veiled in the shadows.
And if that was not enough, the only one who could now protect Nostramo was, in fact, The Tyrant, but also a guardian of humanity.
....
Konrad studied the Scavengers, noting the complexity in their hearts. He realized his father always had various plans ready to counter the Warp. Now his disappearance didn't affect the deployment of units. The entire world was methodically counterattacking.
The Primarch's target was the enemy commander, a Great Daemon, an Owl demon covered in white wings that seemed to drink light. Its eyes, too many eyes nested within eyes and spinning in opposite directions, watched the newly arrived contingent of Primarchs and their subordinates. The air tasted of copper and ash.
"Konrad," the Owl spoke, its voice smooth as silk. "Do you think the Wayne Group is just your father and that accursed bloodline of his?"
It was like an ancient myth of Nostramo, an immortal daemon god born of accumulated sin, not of humanity but of a single bloodline. The extraordinary vitality of the Wayne bloodline, how many sins had it taken to achieve such resilience for a daemon feeding on only one bloodline's debauchery?
"I myself shared blood with your father, for I am the manifestation of the Wayne family's sin and darkness. Only when the last Wayne dies can I be destroyed."
"What do you mean?" Konrad demanded. Living under Wayne, he had always heard good things about his grandparents, so he assumed the other Waynes were also the same. After all, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and a saint like Thomas cannot appear out of nowhere without a better upbringing than most on this planet.
"Oh. Look. At. You." The daemon laughed mockingly as it looked at Konrad. "It's simple. Your father's ancestors, in pursuit of immortality and absolute power, subjected the entire world's population to their hideous experiments and then modified their own bloodline."
Sergeant Drell spat inside his helmet, hands trembling on his weapon, not from fear, but rage.
"They promised salvation to the desperate," the Owl continued, circling them slowly. "Medicine. Food for starving children, and then they flayed them, recorded every scream, because the Waynes discovered suffering could be measured, weaponized."
Its voice grew excited. "They fractured souls, split them into pieces, each fragment still screaming. A man would experience his own vivisection from twenty bodies at once."
The daemon's wings spread, and faces became visible in the membranes, thousands of screaming faces.
"They kept humans in perfect agony for days until the soul crystallized. And they ate them, Konrad. Consumed crystallized souls to achieve pushing their natural lifespan indefinitely."
"The Waynes are dead, only my father lives," Konrad said coldly. "What you say is a bygone era, an ancient history."
"Oh, HoHo HOO~ oh is ti really, did I not hear what I said, boy, I. Am. Wayne." The Daemon spreads its wings, a hundred souls sufficient against an invincible wall, trying to free themselves.
"Those experiments birthed ME," the daemon said. "Born from a Wayne woman modified into a gateway between reality and the Warp. For nine months, she screamed as I tore my way out piece by piece, wing, eye, beak, splitting her ribcage. Oh She's still alive, still birthing me in an eternal loop. Hihihi..."
"And since that day, the Waynes' atrocities became fuel for my power, or shall I say my master's. Hihihihi hahahhhahahhah!
Konrad's jaw clenched as his eyes flashed with disgust. "Then you're just another deranged man," Konrad said. "You are Nothing special on Nostramo."
The temperature plummeted forty degrees in a heartbeat. Frost spread across the armor. Reality bent, ground rippling, sky twisting into impossible geometries.
The Owl's form cracked, split down the middle. Light poured from the fissures, and for a moment, Konrad saw what existed beneath: something vast, something in too many dimensions.
The Scavengers staggered. One fell to his knees, blood trickling from his nose. Vox-channels screamed static.
When the Owl spoke, its voice was layered, nine voices, ninety-nine, all speaking in terrible harmony.
"NOTHING. SPECIAL." The words hit like physical blows.
The daemon's head rotated completely around, neck cracking and reforming. Its wings spread impossibly wide, each feather now an eye reflecting a different burning world.
"Let me tell you what I am, you ignorant child." The Owl snapped back to normal. Temperature rose as reality settled, but the air still tasted wrong.
"I made Wayne reach their peak," the daemon said quietly. Millennia of unrestrained cruelty. TRILLIONS tortured for every living second of agony till their death on altars of Chaos gods. I fed on it all. Every scream. Every plea. But it wasn't enough. No, no, NO Not for me."
"When the Waynes were not enough, you know what I did? I became the architect of a million cults in this galaxy. Oh, that sweet smell of desperation, begging, writhing, gnawing of those poor souls in hell reated by waynes, praying for some power in the high sky to answer their CALLLLLLL..."
"And the god answered, wearing the mask."
"I surpassed my creators! I tortured those useless Waynes. I turned life's hell on earth. I tortured the concept of hope itself. Made victims participate in their damnation. Fight for it. Bleed for it. Hope for it!
And my master loved it. Every liberation, change. Every new society, change. Every betrayal, change!"
Its voice grew contemplative
"I tasted something they never could, a bloodline consuming itself. Cruelty so pure it became sublime, diluted, I have grown bored, of feasting on something again and again and AGAIN." The Owl's eyes gleamed with madness. "The Waynes gave me everything they had. They reached their limit. But I had not reached mine."
Konrad felt cold crawling up his spine. What could be worse than torturing trillions, world upon world, over millennia to their death? "What did you do?"
"I decided to surpass them," the daemon said, voice rising with sermon-like intensity. "Since the Fall of Humanity, since the Dark Age when mankind's empire crumbled, I've been building. Thousands of worlds under Wayne subjugation, and I became the architect of their salvation."
Its voice grew warm, intimate.
"I appeared as a hero. Liberators. Fought beside them for decades, centuries. Bled with them. Mourned their fallen. Learned their names, their dreams."
"You're lying," Konrad said, as words hissed from his mouth, fury donning his face as he foresaw what this daemon did,
"Oh, Am I?" The Owl looked gleefully at mortals before him, his eyes dawning on Grayson, "Am I, Ha-Ha, HAAAAA~? "
"On Astrium VII, I was Brother Luminous, the Angel of Liberation." The daemon's voice changed, became softer.
"Forty-three years I fought beside the resistance. Knew every fighter by name. Sergeant Kael, who lost his wife. Young Mira, who became the finest sniper. Commander Thrace, brilliant tactician." The Owl's eyes grew distant. "I held the leader's daughter as she died from poison gas. Elise. Seven years old. She asked if her father would be proud that she was brave."
Its voice cracked. "I said yes. Promised I'd end the Wayne tyrants who killed her. And I KEPT that promise."
In the daemon's wings, Konrad saw images, fortress burning, banners falling, prison gates opening, as man charged with fervour rising against tyranny in an epic tale, if only it were true...
"We stormed their fortress together. Ten thousand freedom fighters and their Angel. Tore down the Wayne banners, liberated the camps, stood in the square as the last governor faced judgment."
The Owl's voice became hushed, reverent.
"It was beautiful, it was BEUTIFUL, oh, the hope in their eyes, the joy, the love in the air, the HOPE for the future, HU-HU-HIHIHIH-.... Children played in the streets for the first time. Lovers planned weddings. Sergeant Kael found his daughter alive after five years. They had won."
The daemon stood perfectly still. "And then I gathered them all in that square."
The temperature dropped again.
"In front of the plaza in FRONT, of the entire world I braoasted what should have been our victory, but it was not, not not not noott~ Why was it not, oh poor them, HIHIHHA-HA-HA."
"On that day, I shed the face of an angel and took on true form as a devil in hell. Told them the truth: 'The Wayne tyrants you fought? I was their progenitor. Your suffering? I designed it. Your liberation? I allowed it. Every drop of blood, all according to plan.' And then.....RA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA, HA-HA-HA-HA," The daemons gleefully laughed, they screamed, ran, fired, shouted, and Kael, oh poor Kael, I gave his daughter back, and I took her away in just a day."
Grayson's weapon hummed to life, and so did others.
"Wait," Konrad commanded.
The Owl giggled. "Hihihi... The looks on their faces. The incomprehension. Sergeant Kael is holding his daughter, both staring. Young Mira's rifle is dropping. The moment hope died and despair rushed in."
Its voice rose to ecstasy.
"OHHH And Elise's father, he was a clever one, he understood first, that his daughter died believing in me, that her last words were a prayer to a lie, that what she saw in her last breath was not her lover mourning her but the truth, the sad truth, that it I the artchitect of their suffering, HA-HA-HA-AHH~."
The daemon's form began to swell.
"I devoured them. Every single one. A million freedom fighters filled with great joy, victory falling in absolute despair. The flavor of hope shattered so completely... beyond anything the Waynes ever achieved. Hahahhhahahhah!"
"How many times?" Konrad's voice was ice.
"A million worlds, Konrad. Different faces, many names. On Tertium IX, I married one of them, had children, and devoured my family first. On Kratos Prime, built an army over sixty years, revealed every tactic was designed to deliver them to me." The daemon spread its wings. "All the gods they worshipped, all the heroes they followed, all me. Always me."
Its voice cracked with manic joy.
The Owl's head snapped as it practically teleported in front of Konrad and the Scavengers, who, in a fraction of a second, retreated dozens of feet, weapons humming.
Konrad raised his hand, gesturing for no one to attack. He wanted to hear more, and the Scavengers wished to listen, just so they could hate Wayne even more and curse his entire bloodline if they managed to get home.
"Are you scared? Hihihi, poor little boys, hahahha!" The daemon laughed as its head became of indescribable proportion. Konrad and the Scavengers saw thousands of souls wailing, their faces etching every inch of the daemon. "Those humans yearned, hoping the god would save them. Hehe... That god was I, and I hunted and would hunt down every Wayne. My master gained power from it, acquiring a completely new aspect."
It suddenly stopped, head snapping back to normal size.
"Who is your master?" Konrad demanded.
The Owl smiled, a smile of infinite satisfaction.
"The Lord of Change, Tzeentch. The master of the Warp. The architect of fate itself."
...
Konrad didn't know what that name meant, if any. He didn't even understand what he heard; he was for scavengers; they all heard daemons speak, but through their it was as if a gust of wind had distorted the word, leaving just gibberish.
Konrad was about to speak when, in the next second, darkness enveloped him. Psionic energy mixed with various materials engulfed the northeast of Hive City One. Through the power of matter and darkness, a Tzeentch domain slowly appeared. The daemons of the Warp cheered for it, for their master had become serious, as if feeling something stirring a storm.
Untouchables are inherently invulnerable to Psyker powers, but Psykers and demons are not fools. They counter Untouchables by picking up large rocks or tanks and throwing them, turning Psyker power into physical attacks. Through this method, Psykers can kill Untouchables.
Now, to ensure victory, the daemons directly manifested weapons through the power of Tzeentch in the Warp, then used physical means to throw tons, even tens of tons, of rocks to attack the Untouchables.
Grayson frowned at this situation. The opponent had directly erected a tower at least a thousand meters high, with a sheer ninety-degree incline.
"The enemy just spawned a tower at least a thousand meters high, and it's incredibly difficult for us to climb out. And getting inside, to be honest, is a bit hard."
"What do you mean?" Konrad asked.
"The Psyker power created a large-scale high tower. If we enter it, it will only collapse."
"Wouldn't that be go-" Konrad's head snapped as he studied the tower more deeply, and he noticed the energy conduits outside the high tower.
Once the Psyker power maintaining it was lost, the tower would collapse and disintegrate, causing a massive explosion that would destroy at least thirty percent of Hive City One.
"Damn it." The enemy wanted the Untouchables to be unable to accompany him, thereby forcing the Primarch to enter the high tower alone to face the Great Daemon.
"If that's the case, then I'll—"
"Then what, Konrad?" Wayne's voice appeared in the command system. "The enemy clearly wants you to go in and face the endless daemons of the Warp. Do you really think you can fight on enemy grounds?"
"Don't be in such a hurry, Konrad. Don't get carried away heairng some old stories from daemons of Chaos. Don't abandon the bigger picture for your emotions or honor."
BOOM!
A loud noise of sound barrier came, as Black nanomachines instantly descended from the sky like a galaxy falling from the heavens, washing over the demon high tower and obscuring all Psyker power.
In an instant, the high tower disintegrated. The energy conduits of the original Hive City were about to self-destruct, but before that, the black nanomachines devoured the energy conduits, using the energy within them as a new power source for the nanomachines.
Wayne, shrouded in black and red light, appeared before everyone.
The Scavengers looked at the black nanomachines around Wayne, their hearts filled with mixed emotions, as these machines had once been their ancestors or parents.
Wayne frowned, looking at what was revealed after the high tower disintegrated. It was the Wayne bloodline's family crest.
The next second, violent Warp energy surged in the wilderness. Tzeentch seemed to have been prepared. Hive City One was merely a diversion, and what was in the wilderness was what Wayne needed to face.
[End of Chapter]