"...Sothing feels wrong. I sll the stench of a sche."
Leonardo swung his Guardian Spear, the disruption blade flashing like a cot as it instantaneously severed the neck of a Chaos Space Marine, before speaking in a low, asured tone.
A bolt of psychic lightning arced past him, its blinding incandescence illuminating the dim corridor for a fraction of a second as it reduced the remaining hostiles to charred cinders.
The Inquisitor finished her sword-flourish and sheathed her force sword, imdiately adding:
"Correct. Based on my experience, the resistance mounted by these traitors is profoundly flawed. It is so conspicuously weak that it actively breeds suspicion."
It was absolutely true.
The sheer combat efficacy of Rowan's current kill-team ant that the vast majority of vessels in the galaxy lacked the capacity to repel their boarding action. This strike cruiser was naturally no exception.
However, that did not justify a complete abandonnt of resistance.
After exterminating the initial horde of Chaos cultists, Rowan and his retinue had anticipated that the subsequent defense cordons would offer at least so degree of challenge.
To their surprise, the subsequent waves of hostiles were comprised rely of massive numbers of cultists supplented by a sparse handful of Chaos Astartes. Such a composition might pose a lethal threat to a conventional boarding party, but regrettably, it failed to even marginally decelerate Rowan's advance.
Rowan turned his head, casting a glance at the Leman Russ Executioner main gun hovering beside him—still shrouded by optical camouflage, having yet to fire a single plasma sphere.
He stroked his chin, musing softly: "...It has been eight minutes since we breached this vessel. Yet, we have not encountered a single piece of heavy armor, such as a Helbrute or a Daemon Engine. It has been entirely comprised of baseline infantry units."
These delaying actions were completely devoid of tactical value.
It was entirely impossible that the enemy commander had not yet perceived the existential threat.
After all, his kill-team was carving a path of absolute slaughter down the most direct route to the bridge. If their presence remained undetected, the enemy command was catastrophically incompetent.
As they continued to advance, Rowan paused slightly and asked Cybia:
"Have you extracted the mories of the Chaos Space Marines we just executed?"
Cybia nodded. "I have, but I obtained no viable intelligence. They were rely acting upon orders from their superiors to intercept us; they were ignorant of the broader strategic picture."
"Very well. Then there are only two logical possibilities."
Rowan stated, "The first is that the Chaos Lord, recognizing the hopelessness of the situation, has already fled. He is highly likely fleeing on a shuttlecraft right this very second. As for the second possibility..."
He trailed off, leaving the second possibility unspoken, but the implication was blindingly obvious.
Everyone present instantly comprehended his aning.
"Either he fled, or he possesses absolute confidence in his ability to annihilate us upon the bridge, and thus deed the sacrifice of heavy assets in the corridors unnecessary."
Living Saint Lucia, her pristine wings radiating a faint golden light, spoke with absolute calm.
"Accelerate our advance. It appears we may actually face a genuine battle."
Rowan waved his hand.
The brief exchange concluded, and the group imdiately resud their high-speed transit through the ship's interior.
The path was not without obstruction, but the intercepting forces—whether in sheer numbers or martial quality—posed absolutely zero threat to the kill-team. They were unceremoniously flattened like re speed bumps.
Within the labyrinthine corridors, the roar of mass-reactive bolts intertwined with the crackle of psychic lightning. The path was effortlessly cleared, leaving only a trail of mutilated corpses in their wake.
Finally, after ascending a massive stairwell, they breached the uppermost command deck.
A short distance ahead lay the bridge, the absolute nerve center of any voidship. Destroying the bridge was functionally identical to severing the brain stem of a mortal; the catastrophic consequences required no elaboration.
And standing guard outside the blast doors of the bridge, bathed in the sickly crimson glow of warp-tainted luns, stood approximately twenty Noise Marines. Clad in garishly painted power armor and wielding grotesque sonic blasters, they were arrayed in a tightly disciplined firing line—a formation shockingly uncharacteristic of Slaaneshi Astartes.
This specialized caste of Slaanesh-worshipping Astartes were renowned for their devastating sonic weaponry. Every single sonic blaster, capable of shattering ceramite with concussive force, was aid dead-center at the corridor entrance, waiting in absolute readiness.
At this exact mont, a Chaos Sorcerer nad Batalia stood at the rear of the formation.
While subtly casting his psychic senses outward, attempting to pierce the heavy bulkheads and lock onto the coordinates of the intruders, he grumbled internally:
"That bastard Malvin... he certainly knows how to order people around."
Batalia had been thoroughly engrossed in his private quarters, ticulously experinting upon his fleshy "art pieces" to divine deeper anings of "aesthetics." Yet, he had been violently interrupted by a deafening vox-transmission from the Chaos Lord, forcefully commanding his presence here.
"Still, if my objective is rely to stall them for a few minutes, it should be a trivial matter."
The Sorcerer mused silently.
It is difficult for a mortal mind to comprehend that which it has never witnessed. Batalia truly could not fathom what kind of enemy could possibly breach the concentrated fire of twenty Noise Marines within the suffocating confines of a corridor.
Directed by the Sorcerer's will, the psychic tides surged violently outward, cascading down the corridor to seek out the intruders.
In the very next microsecond, his mind went entirely blank.
What in the immaterium is that?!
It felt as though his brain had been struck by a thunder hamr. A tsunami of roaring psychic energy erupted from the corridor ahead, violently repelling his own psychic probe with overwhelming force.
In the face of this apocalyptic psychic might, the esoteric sorcery he had spent nearly two centuries refining was effortlessly crushed, rendered as pathetic as a child's parlor trick.
"No! This is impossible!"
Robbed of his arrogance, Batalia instantly began to struggle for his very survival. He levitated off the deck, his entire form erupting with a frantic, pulsing pink-purple witch-light.
Yet, his desperate counterasures were entirely futile.
???
Hearing the sudden commotion, his Astartes bodyguards imdiately turned their heads. Seeing Batalia's expression suddenly shift into a state of placid, unnatural calm, his eyes now glowing with a bizarre azure witch-light, they were struck with confusion.
What is happening?
Tragically, this microscopic mont of hesitation cost them their final sliver of survival.
Batalia's flesh instantly turned ashen, resembling a withered husk, while a blinding radiance—one that even his power armor could not contain—began to hyper-condense within his core.
And then, a catastrophic detonation!
A hyper-violent shockwave erupted outward. In the ensuing fraction of a second, the blast swallowed every single Chaos Astartes, launching them through the air like discarded refuse and sending them crashing heavily against the bulkheads.
As the concussive force dissipated, the bruised and battered Noise Marines struggled to their feet. And there, standing directly at the epicenter of the detonation, was a towering figure clad in golden armor exceeding three ters in height, wielding a Guardian Spear.
We are dead.
This was the singular thought that flashed through the transhuman minds of every Astartes present.
And it was also the final thought they would ever process.
A minute later, Rowan and the remaining two retainers arrived, regrouping with Leonardo, who had bypassed the defensive line via a precise warp-jump executed by Cybia.
All resistance having been utterly cleansed, the four stood before the blast doors of the bridge.
Requiring no instruction, Cybia spoke first:
"Allow ."
She seamlessly engaged her psychic senses once more, her warp-sight effortlessly piercing the imnsely thick adamantium blast doors to observe the interior of the bridge
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