"For the Emperor, you damned thing."
Horne forcibly suppressed the fear in his heart and roared at the bastard trying to spark unimaginable chaos.
Enraged, the daemon let out a savage howl. With a single thought, its twisted psychic power latched onto the minds of the nearby mortals.
Horne's face flushed red, bulging veins crawling across his exposed skin.
A shrill scream tore at his soul, demanding that he submit to the blasphemous thing before him, or suffer the greatest torment in existence.
Around him, large numbers of lower-deck workers dropped like cut wheat, their faces warped by absolute terror.
The daemon grinned hideously and walked toward Horne with its knees bent backward in a grotesque posture.
It was surprised that this human could actually resist its foul sorcery, so it gradually poured more Warp power into the spell, wanting to see exactly how long he could endure.
Horne dropped to his knees in agony. The pain clawing at his soul and the blasphemous words echoing inside his skull continuously tore at his iron resolve.
Just as cracks began to appear in his steel-like will, he heard the daemon let out an uncertain growl.
The next moment, the unbearable pain vanished, replaced by a sense of oppression and hollowness that felt strangely familiar.
Horne raised his head, veins still bulging across his face, only to see a small figure standing between him and that blasphemous thing.
"A soulless one... disgusting..."
The daemon slowly stepped back, its warped face showing a trace of caution.
Its two eyes rolled in a bizarre way, then it seemed to think of something, and a twisted smile immediately spread across its face.
As it began a venomous chant, the corpses of those who had died beneath its sorcery rose from the floor.
Like walking corpses, they lurched toward Nia and Horne.
Horne fired at the bodies being manipulated by that foul power while keeping Nia behind him.
Even though their movements became far more sluggish once they drew close to Nia, their numbers still overwhelmed the laspistol in his hand.
They fought and retreated, while the daemon leisurely followed behind the shambling corpses, watching the pair with a twisted expression as they struggled to hold out.
Though its power was being suppressed by that little girl's powerful null field, it was still a terrifying being empowered by the Warp.
Thoroughly enraged, it would not grant those two the honor of being offered as sacrifices. Their end would come before this ship reached its final ruin.
When Horne stepped backward once more after firing, a wall stopped him cold.
Icy dread instantly spread through his entire body.
Looking at the endless wave of corpses before him, bodies that neither knew pain nor cared for death, he felt a deep, crushing helplessness.
The daemon split its misshapen mouth wide and laughed wildly. Under the nullifying effect of Nia's power, its indescribable true form gradually became visible, making its laughter even more horrifying.
Just as it was about to bring this little interruption to an end, a powerful set of footsteps thundered in from the distance.
In the next instant, the corpses behind it were blasted apart and scattered in all directions.
What followed was the sharp sound of a blade ripping through the air.
The daemon shrieked and twisted its mutated flesh aside, narrowly dodging a vertical slash that came down from above.
Its blue slit pupils locked onto the tall, slender, powerfully built figure.
A mocking smile spread across its gradually distorting inhuman face.
"The true offering."
That was how it addressed Gaia, who was glaring at it.
Gaia glared back at the revolting monster, ignoring its nauseating, twisted appearance because an overwhelming fury was raging inside her.
She had seen Mitchell, whose condition could only be described as horrific. Using what seemed like the last of his strength, he had told her to hurry to the lower deck.
She could feel it. The entire ship was in enormous danger.
And killing the thing before her, the one behind all of this, might save the Spear of Destiny from sliding into that vortex.
...
"If every other part of that chart is accurate, then we should be directly opposite the Jericho Sector right now."
Solomon opened his eyes and stared at the greedy vortex that seemed intent on swallowing everything, murmuring to himself.
In other words, if they could tear open a breach connecting to realspace here, they might be able to break through into the Jericho Sector.
But opening a breach in the middle of such a violent vortex was complete fantasy.
Unless...
"Head for the center of the vortex."
He suddenly spoke, startling the crew.
But he did not give them time to object.
"At the edges of the vortex, the attraction and repulsion are both extremely strong."
"But at the center, those two forces will briefly balance each other."
"If we trigger a jump in the center before that abyss fully forms, we might be able to resist the chaotic Warp forces long enough to create a breach into realspace."
"Miracles are born from desperate situations. If you do not want to sit here and wait for the end, then gamble with me."
"Just like Mitchell said earlier, moving forward may be our only chance."
Solomon's voice was calm and steady. It carried none of his usual rallying force, yet it held a determination strong enough to shake the soul.
The crew fell silent for a moment.
Then they made their choice.
At the stern, the engines that had been fighting in reverse suddenly shut down for a brief instant.
The whole ship immediately began to slip uncontrollably toward the center of the vortex.
Then an utterly insane scene unfolded.
Under those circumstances, the main engines suddenly flared at full acceleration.
Driven by blazing exhaust, the Spear of Destiny hurled itself without hesitation toward the forming bottomless abyss.
Almost instantly, the ship reached the very heart of the Warp vortex.
"Jump!"
Solomon roared as he pushed the Warp engines to full output.
...
Inside the Navigator Sanctum, a blood-soaked figure slumped in the command throne twitched uncontrollably, as if something were trying to burst out from inside his body.
As he struggled violently, the gemstone circlet on his forehead, soaked in blood, slowly slipped aside, exposing a psychic eye streaming tears of blood.
Mitchell, now little more than a blood-soaked wreck, let out a savage roar. His eyelids, glued together by blood clots, ripped open, revealing eyes burning with defiant rage.
"Fuck you. I do not want your knowledge. Get the hell out!"
He coughed up great mouthfuls of blood and bellowed with a twisted, ferocious expression.
In the next moment, the psychic force surrounding him moved in place of his already shattered arms and formed a psychic middle finger toward the Warp shadow boiling in front of him.
With the last of his strength, he poured his remaining psychic power into the Warp engine activation mechanism linked to the command throne.
...
The daemon toying with Gaia sensed all of this, and a distinctly human kind of tension immediately appeared on its face.
At that moment, the Spear of Destiny had reached the dead center of the vortex and, at the risk of being swallowed by the solidifying abyss, had fully activated its Warp engines in an attempt to tear open a passage to realspace from this relatively stable point.
But...
It was all futile.
The daemon burst into laughter once more, viciously mocking the ignorant resistance of the humans.
How could its plan possibly have failed to account for this?
The Spear of Destiny was indeed directly opposite the Jericho Sector, but the veil between realspace and the Warp had thickness.
If the veil at a Mandeville Point was as thin as a sheet of paper, then the location it had deliberately chosen was a wall.
A load-bearing wall, at that.
Very soon, these humans would realize that everything they had done was meaningless.
And that despair born from hope would be the final ritual completing this sacrifice.
...
In the Jericho Sector, a small ship of remarkably smooth and elegant design suddenly revealed itself from concealment in the void.
A feminine figure in dark green alien armor looked at the Warp-energy instruments, which had abruptly begun to fluctuate, and immediately issued an order.
"Just as the Seer said, the target vessel is on the far side of this point."
"Activate the Blackstone amplifier. Aim the lance at the designated coordinates."
"Let the primitive monkeys witness a strike that crosses the veil itself."
At her command, the prow of the alien craft erupted with dark green high-energy plasma.
In the next instant, a blast powerful enough to pierce the veil at that location slammed into the exact point that had been calculated in advance.
...
The conditions required to form a vortex of fate were extraordinarily strict.
The caster had to manipulate countless tiny strands of destiny in order to create enough coincidences to alter the direction of the greater web.
That also meant the spell had a fatal weakness.
Fragility.
The moment it was struck by outside interference, it would immediately collapse.
How long had it spent constructing this spell?
It could not remember.
After all, time had no meaning in the Warp.
But its destruction seemed to take almost no time at all.
The daemon stared at the dark green beam that had suddenly punched through the veil into the far side of reality.
It had not only struck the Spear of Destiny.
It had struck straight through its heart.
Watching everything it had painstakingly arranged collapse like a mirage, it let out a furious howl.
At that exact moment, Gaia seized the chance and drove her sword deep into the daemon's chest.
The daemon screamed madly and struggled with all its might.
"Who the hell threw that firecracker?!"
(End of Chapter)
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