Chương 24: Amongst the Angels of Death

"Who are you? No lies and no evasions. I need only the truth." Despite the gravity and seriousness of the situation, I was holding up perfectly. A smile was frozen on my face, and it seemed as if I wasn't sitting across from an armor-clad transhuman, sternly burning a hole through me with a gaze hidden behind red lenses. He didn't remove his helmet, meaning I couldn't read his facial expressions, but I didn't need to.

The Space Marine was, surprisingly, practically an open book, judging by his emotions, which I read through his aura. I have seen many souls, but not a single one of them was so full of hatred, anger, and blinding faith. Maria possessed similar qualities, but she, first and foremost, was a relatively good person. The Sister of Battle exterminated various xenos and daemons, and only stained her hands with the blood of heretics. But this individual, I suspect, has killed more people than I have met in both my lives.

I am no moral absolutist and I understand that sacrifices are inevitable, but when you sit in front of someone who has tens of thousands of lives on his account, whom he tortured with pleasure... questions arise. For example, how many of them were actual heretics, and how many were simply ordinary people who couldn't withstand the totalitarian regime of the Imperium? Because here, even a joke about the Planetary Governor can get you quartered or worse.

But for attempting to overthrow the corrupt officials living off billions of souls, they can call in a serious force like an entire Chapter of Astartes, who have a long history of cooperation with the Ordo Hereticus and the Ecclesiarchy. Right now, I was on a ship belonging to the sons of Dorn, and, I suspect, I was in an interrogation room. Not a torture chamber, not yet, but this is the first step toward it. There were grey walls without windows or colors, where only candles illuminated the room.

If you looked closely, you could see High Gothic symbols engraved on the walls. Because of all this, it felt as if I had ended up in an actual church. Furthermore, while I was here, prayers could be heard echoing throughout the entire ship every hour. And using my "soul reading," I noticed that literally everyone on this ship, aside from the servitors, is a fanatic who believes in the Emperor and is ready to commit any atrocity for Him.

"Just a ward of Jaya Neremor. Inquisitor Lord Zerbe handed me over to her for training, because he suspected I might be blessed with the Emperor's gift." The secret is to serve the truth from the right angle. The moment they catch me in a lie, truly massive problems will begin. The thing is, I'm not sure if they have any technical methods of determining truth and lies. I have no problem preventing the effects of any serums and poisons, but something more mechanized could become an issue.

And this way, I am telling the truth and only further confirming what they saw. And this only infuriated the Space Marine more.

"We will verify that. And now, tell me in detail what happened on the planet, and why the subject is in such a condition?" His voice reminded me of old Saviy, who died ten years ago. Inhuman and belonging more to a machine than a creature of flesh. But while the Tech-Priest's voice was synthesized, here it was obviously genuine. And only one emotion could be felt within it—cold, yet well-restrained hatred.

"It all started two days ago..." I began recounting a slightly altered version of the events that had occurred. Except I changed the study of psychic powers and working with the Warp to "training to control the blessing" and weapon drills. The Templar clearly didn't believe me, but, Emperor be praised, I have ways to prove it. Working with the light of the Astronomican turned out to be much easier than I anticipated. I channeled a massive amount of energy through myself, but noticed no consequences.

I didn't even vomit blood, and avoided gaining strange mutations. True, turning off "saint mode" was for some reason a bit more difficult than usual, as if it were convincing me not to do it, but I managed anyway. I adhered to the principle that if a Warp phenomenon asks you to do something, you must do the opposite, because the idea of following the lead of the Sea of Souls has never led to anything good.

The Templar listened to me carefully, yet interrupted every few sentences, asking trick questions, jumping from topic to topic, forcing me to repeat the same thing a dozen times, or even ordering me to retell everything from the very beginning. Because of this, a simple explanation of what happened from the desired angle took several hours. Fortunately, I had learned my lessons well and made no mistakes. Truly, mentalism is the most useful of the psychic disciplines.

Having finished speaking, I finally decided to take the initiative by asking a very important question.

"It would be desirable for us to reach the station on Lehida Eight, where my other mentor might be located, who can confirm my words and also tell you about everything that happened regarding the entity, things even unknown to me." The Astartes did not answer for a few minutes, sternly boring into me with his gaze. I did not yield to his pressure and stared straight into his red lenses myself. Our standoff stretched the silence a little longer. But he answered first; after all, I was the one who asked the question.

"Whoever was on that base is dead now. The void station was our first stop in the system, because we planned to get reinforcements from them and information on the state of affairs in the system. Except when we arrived, our ship was met only by the wreckage of the former base, cluttering the vacuum." Here, I admit, my smile faded for a second. I believed in Atreus's ability to defeat practically anyone one-on-one, except even he wasn't immortal. All it takes is one good shell hitting him, and nothing will save him.

After all, he wore no armor stronger than a knitted robe, so even an ordinary bolter could harm him. But at the same time, I somehow couldn't believe he could just die like that. That ancient relic had survived so much on his journey that some attack on a base couldn't be his end. I refuse to believe Atreus didn't have some sort of plan for this.

"Is it possible to check the nearest world for survivors? If anyone is there..." I tried to maneuver and find a solution, but my interlocutor was not inclined toward constructive dialogue or any bargaining.

"We will not waste time on that. Our Chapter needs to return to Pry, and since our mission is already accomplished, nothing detains us here." I had the idea to play off my request as a personal mission from the Emperor, except I doubted they would believe me. And if my image of sanctity fades, they might even kill me. Tell them Atreus is a Custodian? Well, I could, except I have no idea how the Black Templars would react to that.

I recall they once even killed several golden guards, and practically for no reason, at that. So it's better not to use that argument. My only hope lies with Jaya, but I'm not sure even she can convince these fanatics. Still, it's worth a try. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The following days were far from ordinary. I was stuck in a strange state of being either a local relic or a prisoner.

I was not allowed to speak with anyone besides my interrogator, who spent several hours daily trying to bring my true nature to light. Of course, he failed, which made him angrier with each passing day. Why did I have to get such a skeptical and persistent Templar? Has he even heard of false Living Saints, considering how he was interrogating me? If he simply believed in my sanctity and started following instructions, it would be an order of magnitude easier.

Besides the interrogations, there wasn't much to do on the Templar ship. I certainly wasn't going to practice my psychic abilities, because I wasn't a clinical idiot. Taking such a risk while under the supervision of the Astartes was criminally stupid. Although this Chapter dislikes psykers, no one in the Imperium can survive without them. True, the situation here was very amusing. There were literally only a few psykers on the ship: an Astropathic choir and a Navigator.

The former were weak and inexperienced, having only recently received the title. Furthermore, they were also religious fanatics, but of the category who considered their abilities a disgrace and punished themselves for them. I even noticed small whip scars covering most of the body of one of them. This specific individual was even afraid to say a word and only did what he was told. The Navigator, on the other hand, was clearly from a defective batch.

The consequences of selective breeding and even incest were evident on his face: disproportionate limbs, a deformed skull, paleness, and even several tumors. The problem with the entire three-eyed lineage is that because the Navigator gene is only passed on if both parents possess it, the great houses increasingly face the problem of degeneration. Honestly, there was nothing left for me to do but think and pray.

And I had to do the latter along with everyone else in the local space church built right inside the ship. This, by the way, was the most beautiful and curious place on this behemoth. A giant room, decorated in the colors of the Emperor and the Imperium: gold, red, and black. In the center, towering over everyone, hung a giant aquila, its wings covered in the script of some prayer. Beneath the symbol sat a massive organ, along with the place where the priests and preachers spoke.

You could easily see the fire in their eyes and the incredible conviction in their words. Curiously, these were ordinary humans, without modifications or implants, yet even the Space Marines listened to them. And that was all because they were true professionals at what they did, capable of sparking something even in me with their words. I didn't suddenly start believing in the divine manifestation of the Emperor, but I was definitely impressed.

I went there several times, and I must admit—the church of the Imperium is impressive like nothing else. There were no churches on Lehida, and I wasn't allowed into them on Scintilla due to my age, so this was the first time I had encountered such a place. Here, the Imperial style of brutalism and monumental structures fit perfectly. Simply by walking inside, you almost instinctively felt like a tiny bug standing before something infinitely vast.

And the sound of a choir of thousands of voices, reading a prayer in unison to the accompaniment of the organ, helped set the right atmosphere. Besides praying, I engaged in one other rather curious activity. I was not allowed to speak with the other members of this ship, but I wasn't forbidden from watching. After all, officially, I was not their prisoner. Therefore, I was able to observe the daily life of the Astartes. And it... turned out to be insanely boring.

Waking up, prayers, weapon drills, lunch, prayers, weapon drills, dinner, prayers, and that's it. I didn't follow them and just casually observed, but they didn't even leave their training halls for the majority of the time. We stayed in this system for another three days, as the engines needed time to cool down, and during this time I pondered what to do with Jaya. Of course, thoughts occurred to me to end the problem the simple way.

I had enough power to give her a stroke that would cause a quiet death in her sleep. The Templars wouldn't be able to detect my influence, and I could wrap the local simpletons around my little finger in a heartbeat. Except that meant losing an irreplaceable resource. A simply incredible source of information about the Warp, the secrets of the Imperium, and the local web of intrigue.

I may surpass the Inquisitor in raw power and lag only slightly behind in terms of control, but her knowledge of the Empyrean is incredibly valuable. At the very least, she had a creature under her control that I had never even heard of in both my lives. And her influence cannot be forgotten either. Jaya was so important that even without her rosette, a full hundred Space Marines were sent after her.

And these, by the way, are the elite among the elite, the Emperor's angels, who are thrown only into the hottest spots in the galaxy. Many worlds don't see them for millennia, preserving the history of the steel heralds of death in fairy tales and myths. And therefore, a full hundred is very, very serious. She either holds some extremely valuable information, the loss of which is worth all the costs, or she simply possesses incredibly influential acquaintances and friends.

I do not rule out the possibility that it's both. And considering my plans to survive and save the Imperium along with humanity, she will definitely be useful to me. At least initially, until more reliable allies appear. But making a deal with her... first, I need to get rid of the secrets and tear apart this endless knot of intrigue that is starting to annoy me.

I had the thought to say to hell with everything and fly to the other side of the galaxy, to Ultramar, for example, where life is an order of magnitude better, and try to start changing the galaxy there. Except crossing the galaxy isn't that simple, and I don't have a spare ship and crew lying around. But even if I find some Rogue Trader and brainwash him, I'll end up in a place I know practically nothing about. Whereas here I have connections, and generally have a good grasp of the local foundations.

Besides, I'm sure it's also full of its own intrigues there, but ones I would be unaware of. Jaya woke up a few days later. She was kept in the medical bay and was constantly monitored by Magos Biologis, except they could only observe the physical condition of her body. But what is happening inside her mind... was unknown to them.... I exhaled air that immediately turned to steam. I surveyed the world around me and whistled at its scale.

I stood in the middle of a seemingly boundless icy valley, where only the snow-capped peaks of mountains and frozen earth were visible. The snow crunched beneath my boots, and at first, I even enjoyed this almost forgotten experience. Except now was not the time for fun. I can lead the local half-trained psykers by the nose and perform minor tricks without their knowledge, but I can't keep pulling that off forever. And no matter how much time is accelerated inside the mind, it is not stopped.

And therefore, I need to hurry. I snapped my fingers and instantly took flight. Cold air surrounded me, but all it took was a thought to heat it to a more pleasant temperature. I ascended as high as possible, trying to reach the borders of this little world. And with every second, I only grew faster, until even the mountains became barely visible amidst the endless heaps of snow. And when I had almost reached the borders, I turned to face the ground and stretched my hand forward.

A single thought, and a small, barely noticeable spark appeared near my finger. Except with each second it grew and expanded, gradually turning into a massive fireball that quickly began to swell to colossal proportions until it resembled a second sun. Since I wasn't in the real world, but inside a mind, I could create practically whatever I wanted here with almost no consequences. I used to spend a lot of time working miracles in the realm of dreams, which was very similar to this place.

But as my skills developed, those phenomena ceased, and I began to enjoy ordinary sleep. Yes, you could train your abilities there, except I was still human and wasn't going to give up all the joys of life.

"Alright, alright, no need to get so heated. Let's talk, Gabriel." I snapped my fingers and instantly extinguished the flame the moment I heard the familiar voice. Jaya hovered in the air behind me, frowning as she looked at me. I simply smiled and shrugged slightly, indicating that I was ready to talk.

"It's about time. And this time, no lies and no evasions. I need only the truth."