The Keeper of Secrets fell into deep contemplation, sifting through the information within its mush-like, warp-addled brain before finally speaking.
"Are you referring to the Chaos warband known as the Angels of Ecstasy?"
"Correct. The Chaos Lord of that warband is also a Dark Apostle, and he struck a bargain with . He required my power to aid in his ascension to daemonhood, and in exchange, the souls of every Astartes within his warband that perishes, excluding his own, belong to as my personal collection."
The Fallen Sister rested her chin in her hand, her eyes narrowing.
"Yet I clearly sensed the death of a Space Marine just monts ago, and his soul did not arrive in my bedchambers according to the pact."
"What a genuine pity," the Keeper of Secrets replied, a hint of regret coloring its tone.
"Otherwise, we would have gained yet another new toy."
"Whatever, there is no need to worry over such a minor detail right now, it is rely a single soul."
Miriael sighed heavily and waved her hand dismissively.
"Who knows, perhaps only the Prince of Pleasure truly understands where that soul has wandered off to."
She was not particularly surprised by this outco.
After all, within this universe, it was an exceedingly common occurrence for a soul to fail to return to its patron deity, and the sheer number of possibilities was practically endless.
It was entirely possible the Astartes had been decapitated by a Daemon of Khorne, slain by so esoteric artifact, or perhaps the Chaos Lord himself had tampered with the pact.
"Let it be, I will simply contact that Chaos Lord later and see what exactly is going on."
As a Fallen Sister utterly devoted to Slaanesh, she cared only for her own hedonistic pleasures and sensory stimulation, remaining entirely indifferent to such trivial matters.
anwhile, back on the Imperial vessel.
Rowan was naturally completely ignorant of everything that had just transpired within the Immaterium.
He raised his eyes to look at the throng of Genestealers before him and spoke.
"I harbor no hostility toward you, so how about we find soone capable of speaking and exchange so information?"
Rowan's calculations were quite shrewd.
As the vanguard of the Great Devourer's invasion of the galaxy, the Genestealers retained so degree of the infected hosts' self-awareness, but fundantally they were no different from the gestalt consciousness of the Tyranid swarms.
This ant that eliminating the psychic organism acting as their command node would still plunge them into total disarray.
He would first see if he could trick the leader of these Genestealer Cultists into exposing itself!
Unfortunately, the only response he received was a devastating hail of incoming fire comprised of autoguns, lasguns, and bolters.
"Right then, I should have known."
Every single projectile was abruptly halted or violently deflected at a range of precisely two ters around Rowan's entire body.
With a re thought, he had radically altered the physical properties of the air surrounding him, increasing its density and tensile strength until it was virtually indistinguishable from high-yield plasteel.
Unless their armor-piercing capabilities could breach two ters of rolled homogenous armor, it was completely impossible to shatter this indomitable shield of solid air!
"One, two, three... a total of forty-three surviving Genestealer Cultists, is it."
Rowan stood entirely unmoved amidst the storm of bullets, calmly finishing his count of the enemies before him.
Although he had clearly noted the position of every single hostile, Rowan had no intention of repeating his previous trick.
No matter how imnse his potential might be, he was currently still nothing more than a Level 2 Reality Bender, and both the range and intensity of his reality warping were severely limited.
Rowan was acutely aware that he was currently incapable of instantly obliterating all these enemies with a single thought.
He could certainly crush them to death one by one, but that thod was far too slow.
However, drawing upon his past knowledge of Warhamr, he possessed a much more energy-efficient alternative.
Amidst the torrential rain of munitions, Rowan casually reached out a hand, and the bolter left behind by the deceased Chaos Space Marine automatically flew into his grasp.
An invisible, massive hand instantly caressed every single component of the heavy weapon, causing the bolter to tremble violently.
An unidentifiable fluid even began to leak from the weapon's barrel as it emitted a series of faint, clicking sounds.
"The Machine Spirit is imnsely pleased, boy!"
Rowan aid the bolter squarely at his enemies without bothering to look down the sights, instantly pulling the trigger.
"Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!"
The deafening roar of the gunshots blended into a single continuous thunderclap as the bolter began to unleash a relentless barrage at a speed that utterly surpassed its normal firing rate and magazine capacity.
In a remarkably short span of ti, it fired what amounted to nearly two full magazines of mass-reactive rounds in a single breath, without the slightest indication of stopping.
The muzzle drifted naturally with a slight tremor, and every single shot seed guided by an aimbot, landing with pinpoint precision upon the bald, chitinous skulls of the Genestealers.
Dozens of brilliant, gory blossoms violently detonated in unison, splattering chunks of brain matter and fine mists of blood directly onto the ceiling.
The most unfortunate victim among them was the Genestealer Cultist commander; despite bearing a miniature conversion field, he received extrely enthusiastic, localized attention.
A completely excessive volu of bolt rounds was poured directly into his body, resulting in his physical form being evenly sared across the deck plating.
The sheer mass of the resulting minced at and blood was likely less than the weight of the diamantine-tipped bolts used to annihilate him.
Rowan finally released the trigger, and the bolter reluctantly ceased its roaring fire, leaving not a single living, breathing creature standing before him.
He pulled out the magazine with a hint of genuine astonishnt, glancing at the remaining ammunition to find that nearly half the bolts had not even been fired.
Was the firepower really this devastating?
He had rely used his reality bending abilities to completely negate the weapon's recoil and weight, allowing the Machine Spirit to perform entirely of its own volition, and he had absolutely never expected the results to be this spectacularly effective!
"Well then, it is finally quiet now, so let us see exactly where in the warp I am."
Several minutes later.
Having successfully extracted the necessary mories from the pulverized mind of the Chaos Space Marine, Rowan obtained the intelligence he sought.
The current year was 0.890.M41, aning there was still over a century remaining before Abaddon the Despoiler, the Warmaster of flawless victories, would unleash a mutually assured destruction event upon Cadia.
It also ant the blue demigod had not yet awakened from his stasis to lead the Imperium to greatness once more.
Naturally, this did not imply that Rowan could simply live out his days in peace and comfort.
In the twilight years of the grim, dark forty-first millennium, the closer they drew to the formation of the Great Rift, the more frequent and cataclysmic the galaxy-spanning conflicts beca.
The Badab War, the World Engine War, the Second War for Armageddon, the Pandorax Campaign, the T'au Empire's Third Sphere Expansion, the Second Tyrannic War, the Third Tyrannic War, the Third War for Armageddon, the Orphean War...
Low emotional intelligence: What kind of hellish nightmare is this place.
High emotional intelligence: A vibrant universe teeming with endless life and vigorous competition!
As for Rowan's current location, he was situated within a star system deep within the Segntum Solar.
An Imperial world within this system had recently suffered an Ork infestation that was rapidly escalating out of control, and despite receiving an astropathic distress signal, the Armageddon Steel Legion regint dispatched to assist had completely failed to contain the green tide.
Perhaps due to their proximity to the Segntum Solar, the Imperium's response efficiency had been drastically faster than usual.
A force of one thousand Sisters of Battle from the Order of Our Martyred Lady, alongside two standard Astra Militarum regints, had answered the call to arms, boarding a Lunar-class Cruiser and rapidly arriving in the system.
However, the very mont they translated from the Empyrean at the Mandeville Point, they had been ambushed by a Chaos warband known as the Angels of Ecstasy in a highly preditated attack.
A massive horde of Chaos Space Marines had utilized boarding torpedoes to breach the cruiser's hull, igniting a ferocious, brutal close-quarters slaughter.
Furthermore, one of the Astra Militarum regints had already been almost entirely subverted by Genestealers, and the sudden Chaos incursion had inadvertently shattered their masquerade, perfectly setting the stage for a chaotic three-way at grinder.
It could only be said that such an absurdly brutal scenario was entirely too normal within the confines of Warhamr, and Rowan felt absolutely zero surprise, completely lacking the desire to even complain.
Now fully aware of his precarious situation, he rapidly made his decision.
"My primary objective right now must be to rendezvous with the Loyalist forces aboard this vessel. I have absolutely no desire to attempt soloing an entire Chaos warband, nor do I wish to experience the thrill of trying to survive alone in the freezing void of space."
Rowan quickly scavenged the battlefield, gathering a few weapons and explosives that might prove useful to him.
Relying on the mories ripped from the Chaos Space Marine, he turned and began to make his way toward the primary warzone.
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