The vast tides of psychic energy surged around the gradually forming vortex, endlessly washing over the nine asteroids that were resonating at a specific frequency.
Within the raging Sea of Souls, countless threads that should have remained invisible now appeared in half-material form. They tangled together, clung to one another, and influenced one another, forming a web known as fate.
This was the power of destiny itself. This was a fixed end created through carefully arranged coincidence. It had written a new ending for everything caught within it, forcibly dragging every thread that should have gone elsewhere toward a specific conclusion.
This power was sacred, because it was itself part of the laws of the Immaterium, shifting and rippling with the breath of all things.
This power was also evil, because it forcibly twisted time and space, cause and effect, and toyed with the fate of mortals as if they were nothing.
But whatever its true nature, it was a force beyond anything the mortals aboard the Spear of Destiny could resist.
The dark-yellow, elegant hull was already beginning to twist and split under the merciless pull of the vortex, while the engines, straining at full reverse, spat out desperate flames of overheating light.
The ship was like a moth caught in a spider's web. The harder it struggled, the more tightly it became entangled.
Under the effect of that array, one woven from the very powers of the highest heaven, a single human destroyer simply had no strength to resist the malice of the Sea of Souls.
The immense vortex slowly took shape, and at its center, amid the twisting psychic storm, a vast funnel-shaped abyss gradually appeared, like the mouth of some monster waiting for the metal tomb packed with offerings to fall into its gullet.
Solomon's eyes were bloodshot with winding veins. With a low roar, he endured the soul-rending laughter around him, tore one of the armrests off his beloved captain's chair, and smashed the corrupted cogitator into scrap.
As the cogitator died a physical death, the shrill laughter echoing through the broadcast system gradually weakened.
Ordinarily, corruption of this kind, the kind that seeped into electronic systems and machine structures, could not be removed in a short time.
But thanks to the mechanical isolation Solomon had insisted on earlier, most of the Spear of Destiny's systems were no longer linked together.
So when the lead cogitator, the one that had been contaminated by that strange force, was destroyed, the daemon's maddening laughter could no longer spread through the broadcast network.
Once the broadcast system fell silent, the bridge crew slowly recovered from the shrieking torment.
"Can we use lateral acceleration to break free of the vortex?"
Solomon took a deep breath and asked in a cold, steady voice.
"Impossible. The pull is already close to exceeding our acceleration limit."
"And the vortex's attraction is still increasing."
"If we keep trying to brake against it, the ship will probably come apart under the strain before long."
The crewman stared at the instruments with hollow eyes, his voice hoarse with despair.
Hearing that answer, Solomon stood in silence at the bow of the bridge, staring at the enormous vortex howling soundlessly ahead.
That was the vortex of fate.
A suffocating pressure closed in on him from every direction. The unbearable weight made his throat twitch with pain.
The sensation, like someone squeezing shut the artery in his neck, felt faintly familiar.
He slowly closed his eyes.
...
The little model ship from his childhood fell into the pool. He reached out, trying to pull it from the whirlpool, but he could not reach it.
He looked up and saw a face as greedy as an abyss itself.
That face was screaming, roaring:
"You useless thing, you bastard..."
"You are nothing. You can do nothing..."
No.
The boy calmly stared at the face, now showing a trace of shock.
Just as he had done many years ago, he raised his hand and pushed it away.
I do not need your denial.
The boy pulled himself upright.
I know who I am, and I know I can do it.
A beastlike shriek rang in his ears, but he ignored it completely and leaped into the whirlpool after the little ship.
...
After laughing to its heart's content, the daemon turned to look at the mortals around it who were staring at it in terror.
A cruel curve rose at the corner of its lips.
It had not rushed to reveal its blasphemous true form. If it had, anyone who looked directly upon it would have been torn apart instantly in both body and soul by the horrors of the Warp.
In other words, that would have been far less fun.
What it wanted to see was what choices mortals would make when faced with true despair.
Every person chose differently in such moments, and those variations were precisely what it most wanted to witness.
"You probably have about three hours left before you fall with this ship into the endless abyss."
To make sure no one misunderstood the situation, it thoughtfully used psychic force to send its voice directly into the ears of everyone on the lower deck.
The moment they heard that sentence of doom, their expressions all changed in different ways.
No one questioned its words, because the ship was already shaking violently enough to make their hearts tremble, and that unnatural pressure had already begun to settle over every soul aboard.
This was the cruelest kind of suffering: to watch yourself step closer and closer to death while being unable to change anything.
In those circumstances, even breathing became torture, because the oldest rhythm of counting time had become a funeral bell.
Many people began to crack mentally. Wailing and screams echoed through the dark lower decks, spreading like a plague.
In an absurdly short time, it had become a living hell.
The daemon looked at the crowd sinking into terror, but it still was not satisfied.
When faced with death, humans either collapsed into chaos or gave themselves over to madness.
So far, all it had seen were meaningless cries. It had not yet seen the indulgence or violence that should erupt in the face of certain doom.
So once again, it whispered temptation into everyone's ears.
"If you're all going to face the same ending anyway, doesn't that mean you can do whatever you want now?"
"Come. Let out the desires and hatred you've kept buried inside."
As the daemon mocked and prodded the panicking crowd, helpfully telling them that they were now free to indulge whatever they wished, a lasbolt suddenly shot at it from behind.
But sadly, in the Warp, a daemon's body rejected the rules of physics. In this place, conventional weapons and the idea of gunfire simply had no meaning against such blasphemous beings.
Though the shot had done nothing, it still enraged the daemon.
It was the one controlling the fate of this ship. It was the master of these mortals.
Who dared to be so bold as to resist the great will of destiny?
Its head twisted a full one hundred and eighty degrees, its blue slit-pupils fixing themselves on the resolute figure in the long coat behind it.
(End of Chapter)
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