Chapter 336: Breaching the Barrier
Most human warships possessed the capability to enter the Warp. The Immaterium was the domain of the Dark Gods — without proper protection, a ship entering that space was essentially delivering a buffet to the daemons.
Hence, humanity had developed the Gellar Field.
Activate the Gellar Field during Warp transit, and the barrier would repel the vast majority of daemonic intrusions.
But the Gellar Field wasn't infallible. Cunning daemons could find gaps in the barrier and squeeze through, intent on slaughtering the crew inside and dragging their souls into the abyss.
Kian suited up in his heavy powered armour. As the unofficial chief deputy — technically off the books — he needed to make his first patrol count.
Cigarette clenched between his teeth, greatsword across his back, retainers falling in behind him, he set out.
The transition from realspace into the Warp wasn't something ordinary people could perceive, so long as the Gellar Field held.
But Kian was a psyker. The instant they crossed over, he felt the Immaterium's energy wrap around him like a second skin.
To put it crudely: if he could normally throw ten psychic shockwaves, right now he could throw twenty.
Perhaps that was the silver lining of Warp transit for a psyker — channelling psychic power became dramatically easier.
Kian led his squad through the warship's narrow corridors. Apart from armed patrols like theirs, the passages were deserted.
The moment a ship entered the Warp, all personnel were ordered to their quarters. Doors were to remain open at all times so security teams could check on occupants at a glance.
Outside of authorised personnel, anyone caught wandering the corridors would be shot on sight.
They hadn't been walking long before reaching the lower decks — the crew habitation levels, home to the thousands of spacers who lived their entire lives aboard the vessel, families and all.
Kian moved through the corridor, occasionally glancing into the compartments lining either side.
Four or five square metres of living space. Seven or eight people crammed inside. An entire family.
Every one of them saluted as he passed, murmuring "my lord."
These people had never set foot on a planet. They were born on this ship, raised their children on this ship, and their children would grow up to become gunners, helmsmen, and security personnel.
Only when the vessel they'd inhabited for dozens of generations was finally destroyed would the cycle end.
"AAAGH!!"
Kian was still taking in the realities of shipboard life when a scream erupted from a compartment up ahead.
"Something's wrong, mrow! Go check it out, mrow!"
Nova, trailing the patrol from the rear, barked the alert. Kian was already moving.
They reached the compartment. A grown man was pressed into the far corner, trembling.
The moment he saw the armed patrol, he jabbed a finger at the floor. "It eats people! The floor ate someone!!"
Kian looked down. The deck plating was perfectly ordinary steel. Nothing visually out of place.
But there was blood along the edges. A lot of it.
Silentium appeared at Kian's side, faint sparks of psychic lightning dancing behind his eyes. He spoke quietly:
"It's a wild daemon. It squeezed through a gap in the... that field thing.
The barrier stripped away most of its essence on the way in, leaving it severely weakened. It can't move — it's fused with the ship's physical structure."
Kian listened to the analysis, then activated his own Warp-sight.
Golden light flickered in his irises. Through that lens, the ordinary deck plating revealed something twisted lurking inside — a warped, malformed entity embedded in the steel.
It was weak. But it was excited.
It was thrilled to have found a gap in the Gellar Field and wriggled its way into a ship brimming with delicious souls.
Nova stayed in the corridor outside, watching Kian with an appraising eye. She wanted to see how the new recruit handled this.
Kian thought for a moment. He picked up a thick steel pipe from the corner of the room and walked toward the centre of the deck — toward the daemon fused into the plating.
He stamped down with one foot.
The cowering man screamed: "WATCH OUT!!"
The instant Kian's boot was about to make contact, the ordinary deck plate split apart, transforming into a gaping maw bristling with fangs.
The mouth was large enough to swallow a man whole. On either side of it, two bestial eyes gleamed with greedy, vicious hunger.
The daemon's jaws snapped shut, trying to bite through Kian's leg and drag his body down into its gullet.
But Kian was faster. He yanked his leg clear in a blur.
Then, in the fraction of a second before the jaws closed, he jammed the thick steel pipe sideways into the daemon's mouth.
CRACK.
The daemon tried to bite down — and discovered, to its bewilderment, that it couldn't. The pipe was wedged between its upper and lower jaws, holding them apart.
Kian stepped back. Under everyone's gaze, a grotesque, twisted mouth now sat embedded in the middle of the steel deck, jaws forced open around a pipe.
Nova walked in, visibly impressed, and peered down at the thing. "Oh! You caught a daemon! What are you going to do with it?"
Kian considered. His eyes met the daemon's — those two bestial pupils flanking the gaping maw, staring up at him from the floor.
Slowly, Kian's grin stretched from ear to ear.
He stepped forward and loomed over the creature.
On the ground, the daemon's eyes looked up at Kian, and for the first time in its existence, it felt something entirely new: dread.
Its instinct was correct. Because in the next moment, Kian reached down, unlatched the groin plate of his armour, and made a small adjustment.
A stream of liquid arced neatly into the daemon's open mouth.
Everyone present froze. Nova stared at Kian in open-mouthed disbelief.
The daemon, realising what was happening, contorted in outrage.
"GKKKK—!!"
Its jaws strained against the pipe, desperate to bite through. But having lost most of its essence squeezing through the Gellar Field, it didn't have the strength. The pipe held.
All it could do was endure the indignity.
Kian finished, gave it three shakes, reattached his armour plate, and turned to his retainers.
"Come on, lads. We've been walking forever and I haven't seen a single toilet. Lucky us — found one right here."
The squad considered this. Fair point, actually. It had been a long patrol. One by one, they crowded around the daemon and followed their commander's lead.
A dozen men's worth of output filled the daemon to capacity. Its throat gurgled with howls of incandescent fury.
Kian cupped a hand to his ear in a pantomime of careful listening.
"What's that? You're not thirsty? You're hungry? Hey, anyone need to take a dump? Give our friend here something solid."
Nova backed out of the compartment in horror.
"You're a monster, mrow!"
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