Chapter 241: Harvesting
The pistol round, redirected by Kian's psychic working, had hit the body with the impact of a Lumberer-pattern Heavy Stubber round. The wall behind received the remainder as metal fragments.
The cost: modifying a round's kinetic energy from zero to heavy-weapon levels required overwriting physical reality at the warp level. The more dramatic the modification, the more mental fortitude it consumed. That single technique had drained him substantially.
He sat on the floor with his head in his hands and waited for the vertigo to pass.
In an actual combat situation this would have killed him several times over.
Silentium said: "Psychic ability can't be overused. The drain manifests as dizziness, then blackout. We're fortunate — with the sanctified protection you've been providing, we don't face warp backlash from overextension. Unsanctioned psykers without that protection are in a much worse position. Overextend, lose concentration for a moment, and a daemon walks straight in."
Kian filed this away. He now had two resource pools to manage — physical and psychic — and emptying either one was a combat-ending event. Right now his psychic capacity was low enough that the practical applications were supplementary at best. For actual fighting, conventional weapons remained the primary tool.
Silentium taught him the lightning lance last.
"The principle is continuous output — sustained psychic energy directed as a beam rather than a burst. Your reserves are limited enough that you'll be feeling it after a few seconds. The rebel psyker collapsed because he pushed well past his threshold, leaving his soul undefended."
Kian asked: "Anything else?"
"Not for now. These four — gravity, psychic shock, kinetic null field, and sustained beam — are the fundamental techniques. Everything more advanced is an extension of one of these. We're self-taught, which means we work it out as we go. You have me to learn from, at least. I had ten years of trial and error with no guidance."
The elevator came. They burned the bodies, cleared the observation station, and rode back up.
On the way, Silentium said the session had been genuinely valuable — seeing several unfamiliar daemon types had given him new directions to explore. He wanted to spend time in isolation working through the implications.
Kian told him to keep his experiments contained and not to detonate the distillery.
Silentium said he was interested in exploring illusion and mental influence techniques — the Slaaneshi daemon's ability to generate compelling false perception had shown him that psychic ability didn't have to be purely kinetic or destructive. A whole domain of subtle application existed that he'd barely considered.
Kian approved the research direction with the standard conditions: sanctified substances on hand at all times, a secure location away from inhabited areas, all evidence cleaned up afterward. The Imperium maintained dedicated organisations for finding and collecting unsanctioned psykers, and Silentium's relationship with those organisations would not be pleasant.
Back at the Sanctum, Kian examined his new capabilities properly.
Beyond the mental fortitude increase and warp resistance, the Emperor's mark had given him something additional — a specific potency against daemonic entities. He raised his hand experimentally, and a small bloom of gold psychic fire manifested in his palm. He could shape it consciously, directing it with thought.
He let it run over his knuckles, covering both fists. Gold flame, daemon-bane, walking.
Then he drew the Power Sword and directed the fire onto the blade.
The Power Sword became a flamberge of gold psychic fire.
He looked at this for a moment.
Then he produced a lho-stick, held it to the blade, and lit it off the psychic flame.
He exhaled slowly, watching the smoke drift toward the ceiling.
This is acceptable.
Kian returned to the regiment's position on the road some time later.
The wider war had continued without him. The PDF advance had pushed seven hundred kilometres at its main line of effort, with the most aggressive units reaching over a thousand. The early momentum looked decisive on a map.
It wasn't.
The harvest of seized food coming back through the supply line was thinning. Battle reports were including units destroyed in their entirety — not individual casualties, but regiments gone. As the front expanded across continental distances, the rebel advantages that hadn't been relevant in the initial breakthrough phase began asserting themselves: numerical superiority, knowledge of terrain, genuine popular support in the communities the PDF was trying to hold.
Improvised devices everywhere. Guerrilla columns that appeared, struck, and dissolved. Night attacks. Harassment of resupply lines. Ambushes timed for the moments when PDF units were tired and spread thin.
Several rebel formations had grown in capability during the fighting — absorbing equipment and experience from their engagements with the PDF, developing tactical competence, acquiring something approaching a reputation. Some PDF units, on hearing which rebel force they were facing, had retreated a hundred kilometres without making contact.
None of this particularly affected the 109th. The front line was a thousand kilometres away. They were still guarding a road. At this distance, the war was a radio broadcast.
What it did mean was that the planetary military staff had lost track of them entirely. The senior combat formations had long since stopped responding to directives. The 109th was farming, collecting road tax, and generally operating as an independent entity — and nobody in the command structure had noticed or cared.
Which was why, when the first planted crops came in and Kian went forward to supervise the harvest, no one from the upper levels appeared to take anything.
The fields were his.
[End of Chapter 241]
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-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