Chương 9: A Journey of a Thousand Steps

Only the Inquisitor, Atreus, and I were currently in the room. The Space Marine treated my protection with particular diligence, truly never letting me out of his sight without strict supervision. I tried to ignore him, which wasn't very difficult at the moment, as I was far more interested in what was about to happen. Namely, the first lesson in psychic arts that Lord Zerbe had decided to teach me.

He sat before me, having laid out on the table several amulets and cards bearing unknown, yet visually unpleasant, symbols.

"I will start from afar. You and I are psykers, and we would be absolutely indistinguishable from ordinary humans were it not for our connection to another dimension. It has a multitude of names, given to it by every people and civilization that has peered beyond the veil of reality. The Immaterium, the Empyrean, the Aether, the Sea of Souls, or even the Realm of Chaos. But most often, it is simply called the Warp." The Inquisitor looked and sounded particularly serious right now.

It was clear he understood the subject very well and knew a great deal about this place. I listened carefully, trying to memorize every scrap of information. Although I remembered a lot about the Warp from my past life, Zerbe obviously had to know an order of magnitude more. I might possess some rare or even forbidden knowledge, but he knew the fundamentals best of all.

"As my master told me, the Warp is our greatest gift and our greatest threat. It is a curse and a blessing, a hope and a nightmare. Every living creature in the universe that possesses a soul is inextricably linked to the Warp. It is a place of contradictions, where no laws exist, yet thousands of rules reign simultaneously. Space and time are unstable there, capable of moving and shifting however they please. This is due to energy freely flowing from one state to another and taking on the most diverse forms."

"The Warp is a reality of thoughts and emotions. The feelings of quadrillions of living beings influence it, just as a moon's gravity affects the tides of a planet. Once, an incredibly long time ago, it was a calm place where miracles occurred and no dangers existed. But with every living being experiencing negative emotions, the Warp changed. Wars, diseases, endless shifts, and hedonism overflowed it, creating something horrific.

As a result of an ancient war, negative emotions flooded the Warp, and thus Chaos was born." Even the mask could not hide how close this subject was to the Inquisitor. I suspected he had faced this threat directly dozens of times. His voice grew even colder and more devoid of emotion, sounding not much different now from Saviy's synthesized timbre.

"Chaos and the Warp are often considered the same thing, but that is far from the truth. Imagine that the Warp is an ocean, and Chaos is the salt within it. They are connected, but the Warp existed peacefully for a long time without Chaos, and it will continue to exist without any problems when Chaos disappears. It is unnatural and abhorrent to the nature of the universe, yet it is so resilient that getting rid of it currently seems impossible.

This is largely due to entities composed of pure Chaos, called the Dark Gods, each embodying an aspect tied to the lives and desires of mortals."

"They are, at their core, parasites feeding on the souls of the innocent. War and brutality. Disease and pain. The thirst for change and endless ambition. Pleasure and sadism. I advise against speaking their names, as it can attract a fraction of their attention, which is a very big problem." He placed four symbols on the table. They did not radiate Chaos, but they still looked unpleasant, embodying the marks of each of the gods and appearing simply repulsive.

"As a psyker, you need to know about Chaos, but you must absolutely never use it. Its powers are alluring and often seem like the best solution to any problem, but you must keep one fact in mind: all Chaos Sorcerers think they are the ones free of chains, capable of wrapping the gods themselves around their fingers. But in reality, they are just as enslaved as the rest of the cultists. Therefore, any attempt to outwit the representatives of the damned pantheon is doomed to fail." I could only agree with that.

This was particularly well illustrated by the fate of one of the Primarchs, who possessed a crimson mane similar to mine. The tragedy of Magnus the Red is one of the saddest in the history of this universe. A loyal son of the Emperor who, in an attempt to warn his father of Horus's betrayal, destroyed humanity's hope for a life free from the influence of Chaos. Ultimately, trying to save at least his Legion, he fell into the hands of Chaos and became merely another puppet of Tzeentch.

"But if they are so strong and powerful, how can we even try to resist them? If they truly feed on such common emotions like hope, do we even have a single chance at victory?" I tried to speak carefully, as if walking through a minefield. While I possessed knowledge from a past world, I needed to explain how I could possibly know it. Therefore, it was best to ask questions, utilizing my reputation as a child.

Moreover, believing in one's own omniscience is a very dangerous path, one that has led to the deaths of far too many intelligent, even brilliant people. Asking a question costs me nothing, but the knowledge might save a life someday.

"If Chaos could unite its forces, settle all disagreements, and strike the galaxy as a single fist, then yes, the End Times would come. But that is unlikely to ever happen. Chaos is inherently opposed to order, and consequently, their structure is highly unstable, meaning the vast majority of the Damned Gods' power is spent fighting each other.

Yes, daemons might possess the power to destroy entire worlds, and permanently killing them is practically impossible for an ordinary human, but at the same time, they are forced to eternally battle their own kind."

"Yes, the damned legions are led by Daemon Princes, but what good is their experience and cunning if they spend most of their time fighting each other? Chaos is the main threat to humanity, but simultaneously, it is the greatest threat to itself. The daemons have been waging war against one another since the first human still lived on ancient Terra." Zerbe, fortunately, did not scold me for the questions and answered calmly and deliberately. He laid out exactly why the daemons were objectively flawed.

And honestly, I really liked this approach. Although the Imperium is a heavily religious state, there were still people who relied on pure logic and facts.

"While we travel in the Warp, I will teach you the basics of Warp manipulation, but upon arriving at our destination, you will receive a specialized tutor. Sending you to the Scholastia Psykana, where other psykers are trained, is a bad idea, as they would turn you into a mindless drone terrified of using his powers. But I know certain teachers who can employ the necessary approach. Furthermore, Atreus has expressed a desire to teach you other subjects, including close combat, history, and other sciences.

Believe me, a mentor like that is a true rarity." Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The behemoth in the distance merely nodded. And I had no objections to this. It's foolish to rely on just one thing, and one should take any opportunity to acquire new skills, for you never know when they might come in handy.

"Excellent. Then let us move on to another topic." He reached for his belt and produced several more stacks of cards. However, the images on them were now completely different.

"Understanding the Warp is a journey of a thousand thousand steps. Some have spent entire epochs creating the most complex formulas and analyzing every psychic phenomenon, yet achieved less than shamans from feral or feudal worlds who rely solely on instinct. But they too can pass down knowledge for dozens of generations, painstakingly building a collection that some autodidact from a civilized world could compile in a couple of decades using a primitive scientific approach."

"Here is your first lesson: there is only one wrong way to comprehend the Warp, and that involves Chaos. All other methods have their place, being no better or worse than the rest. Different approaches simply yield different results. One can treat the Warp like a conventional science and learn one thing, but the path of those who view it as an unfathomable art will be closed to them.

The Immaterium, by its very nature, dislikes stability and is constantly shifting, altering itself under the influence of the thoughts and desires of souls." He spoke more actively and positively about the Warp itself than he had about Chaos. It was clear that this topic truly interested him and that he was highly knowledgeable about it. I leaned in closer, for this was what I had been waiting for the most.

"The foundation of everything lies in invocations. By plunging one's own mind into the Warp, one can scoop up the energy of the psychic ocean and shape it into practically anything. Most untrained psykers stop at this level, expanding the number of their abilities but not their depth. You, I understand, already know how to do this?" I merely nodded silently, not wishing to interrupt his speech.

"Then things will progress faster, but do not hope for too much. Whichever path you choose, studying the Warp takes time. Unless, of course, you wish to take a shortcut by selling your soul to Chaos. But even setting aside the sheer idiocy of such an action, they would hardly teach you much. Daemons love forming such contracts with mortals, but they fiercely guard truly vital knowledge."

"At best, they will sear a 'Sorcery and the Warp for Beginners' manual into the mind of such an idiot, containing only a few serious invocations that must be paid for with uncontrollable mutations, madness, and one's own sanity. Otherwise, the Chaos worshippers would be a threat to the daemons themselves and could potentially enslave them."

"You speak of the servants of the Ruinous Powers as if they are complete idiots, incapable of anything. But if that were true..."

"Then why are they such a massive threat? Remember this for the rest of your life: you can endlessly laugh at the Chaos worshippers and the idiot cultists, but you must absolutely never consider yourself the smartest or incapable of falling to their side. Yes, the majority of them are idiots, but there are many who would be smarter than you or I. But even they became slaves to the Damned Gods, because even if the soul of the brightest, purest being possesses emotions, it can fall."

"The Chaos Gods take your positive emotions and twist them in the most abhorrent ways. You believe and hope for a bright future? Then the Weaver of Destinies already has a plan to make you his plaything. Are you a valiant and noble warrior? Soon you will mindlessly bring skulls to the eternal throne. Happiness and love will lead to a fall into the hands of the Prince of Pleasure, and even apathy, an attempt to detach from all worldly feelings, is a road to the desecrated garden."

I could barely detect a trace of ancient bitterness in his words, yet he spoke so calmly. And that made it even more unpleasant. Even scarier.

"Even I do not deceive myself about this. Someday, perhaps in a hundred or two hundred years, I will either retire or begin sliding toward Radicalism. It is highly unlikely that I will become a common Chaos worshipper. Statistically speaking, I will more likely end up a mad old man, maniacally trying to exterminate the enemies of humanity. I will continue to kill heretics and banish daemons, but in the process, I will drown entire worlds in blood.

Only to see, in the end, nothing but ashes where everything I protected once stood." Zerbe spoke of total fatalism and the meaninglessness of his actions as if discussing the weather. I tried to keep a straight face and not show that anything was wrong, but occasionally I glanced at Atreus. He, however, continued to stand motionless, not reacting to the Inquisitor's words in the slightest.

"I am telling you this so you understand—none of us are without sin. Within all of us lie the seeds from which heresy can grow, and to uproot it means destroying emotions and the slightest desire to do anything at all. But if that were how the enemies of humanity could be defeated, such operations would be performed on a mass scale across all planets."

"This involves a purely practical approach: you would lose a part of yourself and become an entirely different personality, devoid of humanity and everything that made our species the masters of the galaxy. Chaos would be weakened, but without the desire for change, the state would permanently wither and fall into decay. Without valor and honor, we would lose our great warriors, and the removal of happiness and the joy of life would erase the motivation to work and serve the Emperor."

"And if you also remove melancholy and the belief in healing, you end up with a race of Servitors. And then it won't be Chaos, but some xenos species that will wipe out humanity, spread across the stars, and begin feeding the Ruinous Powers themselves." I digested this information while he laid out a new set of cards on the table. Instead of the marks of damned deities, these depicted Imperial sacred symbols. Lots of skulls and skeletons surrounded by gold.

I watched the cards closely, as they felt quite interesting in the Warp. A very faint influence, as if burned into them in the shape of signs unknown to me.

"Now then, invocations are the most basic level, the most popular among Chaos worshippers and untrained psykers. Higher-level psychic abilities are categorized into specific disciplines. Mastering even one is a sign of incredible talent and a great rarity. Pyromancy, Telepathy, Divination—one could spend centuries studying them, so do not even think about them for now."

"My acquaintance, who will be your future teacher, will give you the basics, but to delve deeper, you need to discover your specific talent. Right now, I will show you an elementary trick from Theomancy, the most common discipline. Tarot cards can only be used by trained psykers, and they are capable of providing a reading of the future—albeit a blurred one, but truthful nonetheless."

The Inquisitor's hands began to quickly shuffle the deck, after which he started laying them out on the table, staring at them silently. I scooted a little closer, curious to see what my future held. It felt rather strange to know that the future was, in a way, predetermined. But I wasn't entirely sure, which is why I was so eager to check. I waited for the Inquisitor to speak, but he just kept staring at them. I didn't understand the meaning behind the cards and only saw beautiful pictures.

But after about a minute, the Inquisitor grunted, gathered the cards, and began shuffling them again. I looked at him in bewilderment, but he didn't answer. He laid the cards out once more, beginning to examine them again. Interestingly, the pictures on the cards were completely different this time.

"This is... strange. This shouldn't happen." He raised his head, tearing his gaze away from the cards. He began studying me, while I sat there, unsure of what to do. Something had obviously not gone according to plan.

"This phenomenon requires study. The picture did not form, and the cards produced a random sequence." I simply shrugged, not knowing what that was even supposed to mean. The Inquisitor seemed to be deep in thought, but before I could process it, he began a new speech.

"It's fine. At worst, I'll figure something out when I return to the citadel. In that case, let us move on to another part of the lesson, a more boring but equally necessary one. The practice of meditation and clearing the mind is essential if you do not wish to slowly go insane over time. There are dozens of different methods suited for different people and different situations, so it is best to know them all. Listen, and memorize carefully what to do if..."