Under the leadership of the veteran elite soldier Kaelen, this bizarrely assembled squad—a two-meter-tall giant in power armor, a heavily armored Ogryn mountain of flesh, plus an ordinary human—actually managed to slip through layer after layer of security like ghosts.
They exploited the blind spots in patrol routes, timed their movements between sweeps of the searchlights, and even held their breath while passing within less than ten meters of a Chaos sentry mech. It was practically a miracle in the history of tactical stealth… or every single one of these Chaos cultists was blind.
By the time they finally snuck unharmed into the monastery's inner corridors, Slacker was completely dumbfounded.
"How the hell did we pull that off?" he muttered, staring at the guards behind them who still hadn't noticed anything. His face was full of disbelief toward reality itself. "Did someone install a cognition filter on those patrols? Or are you secretly a genuine Raven Guard hiding among the Star Claws, sir?"
"Good question. I'd like to know too," Harkismond said, scratching his helmet with a puzzled grunt. "My armor makes this much noise when it rubs together, but that metal lump back there somehow didn't hear a thing."
"Keep quiet and move," Kaelen whispered sharply, though even beneath his helmet his expression was full of confusion. As an Astartes, he had never encountered such a… "cooperative" enemy defense system.
The three continued deeper into the monastery.
The rest of the journey went so smoothly it was almost absurd. Corridors that should have been packed with traps and ambushes were completely empty. There wasn't even a demon guarding the place. Before long, they arrived at the great hall in the monastery's core.
This had once been a chapel, but it had now been desecrated beyond recognition. The floor was carved with intricate ritual circles radiating foul odors and purple-black light. Dense Warp energy surged through the air like tangible mist, creating a suffocating sense of oppression.
At this point, even Kaelen felt things had gone too smoothly. It was like a carefully staged play waiting for its actors to arrive.
A notification flashed across Harkismond's game panel:
[Mission Objective Updated: Destroy the Warp Resonance Ritual Array]
He hefted the giant club in his hand and eyed the formation cautiously.
"So what now?" he asked. "Throw a melta bomb into it? This thing looks pretty flammable and explosive."
"A worthwhile suggestion. Simple and effective," Kaelen replied as he pulled a disc-shaped melta bomb from the magnetic clamp at his waist, his thumb already pressing the activation switch.
Just then, Harkismond noticed that Slacker wasn't looking at the ritual array at all. Instead, he kept glancing nervously around the dark corners of the hall.
The Ogryn asked curiously, "Did you drop something?"
"No," Slacker whispered, shrinking his neck slightly. "It's just that… according to standard plot logic, this should be about the moment when the villain boss stationed here starts clapping and says 'well, well, well' before stepping out of the shadows."
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The instant he finished speaking, slow, crisp applause echoed from the darkness at the front of the hall.
"Excellent… excellent…"
A Chaos Sorcerer slowly emerged from the shadows. He wore power armor engraved with complex runes and carried a twisted staff. A cold, arrogant smile spread across his face as he spoke in a theatrical tone:
"Truly impressive. I never expected the False Emperor's lapdogs to include a master of psychic mysteries. To think you managed to bypass all thirty-six psychic alarm systems and twenty-seven layers of Warp labyrinth seals I laid down, and arrive here without making a sound…"
Harkismond and Slacker exchanged blank stares.
What alarms? What labyrinth seals? Didn't we just walk straight in?
Kaelen, however, reacted instantly.
He had no interest whatsoever in listening to villain monologues. The moment the Chaos Sorcerer revealed himself and started posing dramatically, Kaelen hurled the already-activated melta bomb like a cannon shell straight at him.
"Die, heretic!"
The melta bomb screamed through the air toward the sorcerer's face. But the Chaos Sorcerer was clearly prepared—or perhaps simply far stronger than Kaelen had anticipated.
With a contemptuous expression, he merely raised one hand and clenched his palm toward the incoming bomb.
"A cheap trick."
The melta bomb, which should have erupted into a miniature sun of superheated destruction, froze in midair.
Then the horrifying thermal energy and explosive shockwave were forcibly compressed by an invisible force before rebounding back with even greater violence.
BOOM—!
A visible wave of energy blasted backward and slammed directly into Kaelen.
The power-armored Space Marine didn't even have time to dodge. It was as if he'd been struck head-on by a battering ram. His entire body flew backward and smashed violently into the wall behind him, sending rubble and dust exploding everywhere.
When the dust settled, the Space Marine was half embedded in the wall.
Harkismond's huge face filled with terror. He dropped his shield with a loud clang and shouted toward the wreckage:
"Commander! Commander, don't die! If you die the mission automatically counts as failed! I don't want my score deducted!"
"Shut up—I'm not dead yet!"
Accompanied by the screeching whine of servomotors and the clatter of falling debris, Kaelen painfully pulled himself free from the wall.
Although the chest plate of his power armor had been scorched black and deformed, warning lights flashing wildly across his retinal display, the resilient Astartes still stood firm.
At that moment, chaotic metallic crashes and roaring voices echoed from the corridor outside the hall.
Clearly, the explosion had completely shattered their stealth. The guards were rushing toward them in droves.
Kaelen shook his dizzy head and made a snap decision.
Pointing at Harkismond, he roared:
"Big guy, forget about me! Take your shield and hold the doorway! Don't let those heretics interfere here!"
"Oh! Okay, sir! Leave it to me!"
Harkismond picked up the massive tower shield again and lumbered toward the hall entrance like a bulldozer, blocking the only passageway.
Watching this scene, the floating Chaos Sorcerer made no move to pursue them. Instead, he regarded the intruders with renewed interest.
"I must admit, your arrival startled me for a moment," the sorcerer said, stroking his staff with pathological arrogance in his voice. "After all, this ritual array is a magnificent miracle. It is extraordinarily precise, every part interconnected."
"No matter how many souls are sacrificed, when the sacrifice occurs, even the movements of the stars and the tides of Warp turbulence—all must follow strict requirements."
He spread his arms and gazed ecstatically at the glowing runes beneath his feet.
"You could say this ritual itself is a perfect plan with rigid specifications for every single component, like the most intricate clock. Even the slightest error—a delay of one microsecond, or a discrepancy of a single gram of soul mass—would cause the entire plan to fail completely."
The hall fell silent for a moment.
Slacker, who had been hiding behind a pillar, poked his head out and finally couldn't resist commenting:
"This ritual sounds like it was designed to fail from the beginning. With a fault tolerance this low, don't you Chaos engineers build any redundancy into your systems?"
The Chaos Sorcerer's elegant expression froze. The corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably.
"I almost forgot. There's still one irritating little insect here."
He snorted coldly. Without even chanting, he casually waved one hand.
A purple-black psychic shockwave instantly formed and swept out like a giant hammer.
"Holy sh—"
Slacker only had time for a short scream before the irresistible force blasted him through the air.
This time there was no power armor or Ogryn muscles to cushion the impact. As a mere human, he smashed into a stone pillar like a rag doll before crashing heavily onto the floor.
Crack.
The sickening sound of breaking bones echoed through the hall.
Agonizing pain instantly flooded his nervous system. Slacker felt all sensation vanish from the lower half of his body.
Status alerts exploded across his hud panel:
[Critical Injury]
[Paralysis]
[Spinal Fracture]
He wasn't dead yet, but he could only barely prop up his upper body with his elbows. Everything below his waist had gone completely numb.