Perhaps humanity's ability to thrive in this rciless universe owed sothing to a constitutional inability to take threats seriously for more than seventy-two hours.
The alien incursion had barely ended. An Aeldari Aspect Warrior was still at large sowhere outside the Hive. And the upper nobility of Hive Tenebris had decided that what they really wanted to do was divide the remaining prisoners amongst themselves.
Kian found out through Reynaud, who called while Kian was mid-training session in the Sanctum.
"Brother, I need to tell you about this, it's absolutely unhinged—"
Reynaud's voice had the barely-contained energy of a man whose social circle had just done sothing worth talking about for years.
"So. You know that Count — the one with the estate in the upper Spire. He spent two point five billion Agri-Scrips on one of the female Aeldari prisoners. Took her ho."
Kian waited.
"He's dead. Pelvis. Complete structural failure."
Kian pinched the bridge of his nose.
He had seen it coming, in the abstract. The Aeldari looked superficially humanoid — tall, lean, elegant. What people tended to miss was that the elegance was underpinned by a body density two to three tis that of a human being. The muscle-to-volu ratio that allowed an Aeldari warrior to move at speeds a human eye couldn't track was the sa ratio that made any kind of physical confrontation between the species deeply asymtric.
A human noble trying to overpower an unwilling Aeldari captive was, in practical terms, attempting to do sothing inadvisable with a very unhappy large predator.
The Aeldari also held a profound cultural contempt for humanity — "primitive fauna" and "unclean lesser species" were among the more polite descriptions in their lexicon. The idea of physical intimacy with a human ranked, for most Aeldari, sowhere between deeply offensive and categorically inconceivable.
An unprepared human in an enclosed space with an Aeldari who had decided enough was enough.
Fractured pelvis was the optimistic outco.
Reynaud was still going.
"There's an old saying — you can work a field as hard as you like, the field doesn't break. I am here to tell you that saying is no longer operative. I have new information.
So of the female nobility pooled resources. Five billion total. They bought the male Aeldari prisoner between them. And then—"
"Stop." Kian held up a hand that Reynaud couldn't see. "We are very close to content that gets this serialisation terminated. New topic."
"Fair. Fair enough."
"My actual point," Kian continued, "is that these people are going to get themselves killed. The warrior is still out there. The Aeldari don't reproduce quickly — centuries between generations, each life precious. She has spent three days watching her crewmates be tortured, burned, and now this. Whatever calculus was keeping her patient is going to run out."
Reynaud made a sound of comfortable indifference. "What are they going to do, stay ho and develop good judgnt? These people haven't had a real consequence in twenty years."
"Speaking of which — our world is twenty-plus years behind on Imperial tithes. When the collection fleet eventually shows up and demands back paynt in one lump sum, every noble on this planet is going to be personally digging prothium trenches to make up the deficit. No ti for anything else."
They talked for another hour about nothing in particular before the line dropped.
Kian went back to training.
His fitness suite had upgraded to Level 2 — a sixty percent improvent in training efficiency, achieved mostly by purchasing proper equipnt after becoming a baron. He rotated through the regin without much structure: physical training to exhaustion, then psychic exercises until those fatigued, then back to physical. The discipline had been consistent for months now.
Current physical statistics: Strength 30, Endurance 30, Focus 51.
He noticed the changes in practical ways. His reaction ti had compressed to the point where, in focused shooting drills, he could consciously track the flight path of a pistol round leaving the barrel. Not catch it — but see it. The ntal clarity that ca with the elevated Focus score made everything sharper.
He had started benchmarking himself against Astartes in his spare ntal ti, which he acknowledged was probably not healthy.
He'd never seen a Space Marine in person, but the pre-transmigration sources he rembered described them in rough terms: vertical leap of four tres from standing, sustained sprint speeds around sixty kilotres per hour, overhead press exceeding one tonne. His own clean-and-jerk had reached eight hundred kilograms — a number that felt impressive until he thought carefully about what those Astartes figures actually implied.
The published descriptions were conservative and probably outdated. Gas Workshop had a long history of quietly revising capability upward. The "over one tonne" figure almost certainly referred to awkward, non-optimised lifting — an irregular object grabbed under field conditions. A Space Marine performing a proper barbell clean-and-jerk with good form was probably looking at one and a half to two tonnes, possibly more for a veteran.
And the Geneseed. The Astartes carried a gland that continuously produced enhancent hormones, compounding their capabilities over decades and centuries of service. The oldest Space Marines were categorically more dangerous than newly-inducted ones.
Kian could press eight hundred kilograms once before his muscles gave out.
Nine-to-one odds, he concluded with genuine humility. If I et an Astartes in a bad mood, I die in under a second. Probably nine tis.
He added weight to the bar and kept going.
The vox crackled during a set that had his vision going grey at the edges. Reynaud again. The tone had changed.
"The Confessor is dead."
Kian set the bar down.
"How."
"Soone nailed him to an Imperial aquila shrine. Several hundred nails. His skin was removed and placed over the statue's head. The blood was used to write things on the statue that I'm not going to repeat because I am standing near a shrine myself and I don't want any complications."
Kian was quiet for a mont.
"Anyone else?"
"They're still counting."
He had known this was coming. Three days ago, standing in that field while the Confessor delivered his oration, he had felt the faint psychic signature in the treeline. Still. Watching. Processing.
The warrior-self didn't act on emotion. It calculated. It had watched the Confessor spend two hours driving nails, then another hour with a scourge, then the burning — and it had run the numbers on fifteen lta charges and decided the outco was unfavourable.
Then it had watched the nobles divide the remaining prisoners.
Then it had waited one more day, perhaps to be certain, perhaps to plan.
Then it had moved.
Kian sat on the edge of the weight bench and thought about what ca next.
The warrior-self would not stop. It would work through the list of people who had hard her crewmates, one at a ti, for as long as it took. Surgical, patient, and completely invisible to any detection system the PDF had available.
Unless soone gave it a reason to stop.
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> spat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you
User Comments
0 comments from readers