In the dark and silent sea of stars, the black void stretched out like a great sable carpet, wrapped around countless worlds of every imaginable shape.
And at this moment, deep crimson folds had appeared across that black cloth.
Like ripples spreading through water, silent fractures as crisp as shattering glass spread outward together with the tides of souls.
In the next instant, a twisted vortex tore open the veil, and from that wound linking the other side to reality, a massive and imposing ship emerged from the dark red depths, though its hull was strangely scarred and damaged.
Its heraldry gleamed beneath the endless starlight, declaring its honored identity.
The Blade of Retribution, seat of an Inquisitor.
At this moment, deep within the decks of that Inquisition cruiser, in a hidden sub-layer deck that no external scanner could ever find, was where Inquisitor Darklyde resided.
This was an area known as the Black Cells, where the prisoners judged by the Order of the Ardent Blade to be heretics, or potential heretics, were confined.
And the only reason they were still clinging to life was because the interrogators believed they might know something useful.
Just like its name implied, this place was darkness beneath the light of the Inquisition, a darkness cloaked in the authority of the Emperor.
Here, any act of cruelty, no matter how inhuman, could be justified in the name of the Emperor and thereby granted absolute righteousness.
Normally, the filthy work of interrogation and torture was left to professional interrogators. An Inquisitor only needed to read their reports, or question prisoners whose mental defenses had already been broken.
But Darklyde had strong practical instincts and a fierce sense of self-reliance.
He also believed that information passed from mouth to mouth was inevitably tainted by subjective distortion, and that the loyalty of interrogators could never be fully guaranteed.
Therefore, only intelligence extracted by his own hands could truly be trusted.
It was precisely this conviction that allowed Darklyde to repeatedly uncover crucial information and earn a nearly flawless record.
Recently, however, that conviction had run into a rather frustrating obstacle.
...
"I don't know anything else... just kill me..."
"I really don't know them... please... have mercy..."
"By the God-Emperor... you're the real monsters!"
Darklyde walked the corridor of the Black Cells with a grim expression as cries of agony echoed all around him.
Under normal circumstances, he treated these pitiful screams from heretics as relaxing background music.
Today, they only sounded irritating.
Because once again, it was time to interrogate that xenos...
Click.
With the opening of the deepest cell in the Black Cells, wavering light spilled into a dim chamber.
Under the flickering glow, a slender and elegant figure hung in the air like a roasted bird suspended on hooks.
If not for those unmistakably long ears, most people would have mistaken her for an extraordinarily beautiful human woman.
Hearing Darklyde's approach, she opened her pale green eyes.
Though her long lashes shaded her narrowed gaze, Darklyde could still see the contempt and mockery hidden within it.
The smell of xenos blood, carrying a strange fragrance in the air, reignited his anger.
Not long ago, his cruiser had collided head-on with this xenos vessel in the Warp.
At first, seeing how battered their ship looked, he had assumed it would be an easy victory.
Instead, the enemy had proven far stronger than expected. His Crusaders had taken horrific losses before barely managing to break those dark green armored xenos, who could turn invisible and hurl razor-sharp darts.
In fact, if the enemy had not already seemed to have fought a desperate battle against some far more powerful force, Darklyde's side might well have been the one destroyed.
Still, after that battle, though the cost had been terrible, the spoils were considerable.
Setting aside that strange black stone device for the moment, the weapons and armor of those xenos alone were already valuable trophies.
And so, out of his conviction that anything placed in service to the Emperor became an act of loyalty, he had his subordinates modify the appearance of that xenos equipment slightly before distributing it among his apprentices and Crusaders.
"Damn xenos. Today, I am going to make you talk."
Darklyde spoke through clenched teeth.
As the cell door shut again, the sounds of flesh being struck and pain being forced back into muffled groans blended into the endless wailing outside.
...
Darklyde breathed heavily, then angrily shook out his numb, aching arm.
He had used every favored method of memory recovery the Inquisition possessed. He had injected dose after dose of compounds that should have been lethally excessive.
And yet this xenos, though visibly weakened, still looked at him as if he were filth.
Just as he grit his teeth and decided to let her recover for a few days before resuming the interrogation later, a dull knock sounded at the cell door.
He took several deep breaths, then slowly rose and opened it.
And then he saw a mountain of documents.
More precisely, a person carrying a mountain of books and files.
"Master, I found it. One of the Ordo Xenos records mentions this type of xenos."
A crisp and soft female voice came from behind the stack.
Then, driven by curiosity, a small head wearing a pointed hat peeked around the side of the pile as she spoke.
The moment she saw Darklyde's blood-covered face, she jumped, and all the materials in her arms scattered across the floor.
Darklyde looked at the youngest of his apprentices with weary resignation.
"Lina. Tell me what you found."
He stopped the little apprentice, who had hurriedly bent down to collect the scattered files, and spoke in a low voice.
"Ah... right. It's like this, Master. In the service record of a Lord Inquisitor from the Ordo Xenos, there was mention of a kind of xenos that is fast, highly dangerous, and extremely capable in combat."
"He said they usually operate in small groups, fight in a highly flexible way, and are very cunning."
"If I remember correctly, the official designation he gave them was Dark Eldar."
The moment Lina said those words, the xenos who had remained silent the whole time suddenly jerked violently.
The null-forged chains restraining her clattered loudly as she thrashed against them.
Lina's attention was drawn to the movement, and when she looked up, she met the xenos woman's savage glare head-on.
Seeing fear appear on his young apprentice's face, Darklyde frowned, then barked in a harsh tone,
"Lina, we are supposed to make heretics fear us, not the other way around. Do you understand?"
Lina swallowed and nodded, then continued trying to recall the file.
"That Lord Inquisitor also said these xenos are arrogant by nature. They look down on other intelligent species, but in truth they are depraved and base, obsessed with their own desires and delighted by torment."
"So, Master... could this xenos be one of those heretics you mentioned, the kind that worship corrupted pleasure?"
At those words, the bound Eldar finally snapped.
As she struggled wildly against the null-chains wrapped around her, she roared out the first sentence she had spoken since being taken prisoner, using the language of these monkeys:
"By Asuryan's blood, that's complete bullshit!"
(End of Chapter)
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