This is the bonus chapter for reaching 700 Powerstones.
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Ten minutes later, Slater had completely ghosted his way to the outskirts of the settlement, his compact chainaxe resting heavy in his right hand.
He crouched low behind a crumbling rockcrete wall, scoping out the camp ahead.
The guards were an absolute joke.
Half of them were just leaning against the barricades, puffing on some god-awful, cheap lho-sticks that smelled like burning tires. Others were straight-up dozing on the ground. A few were completely MIA, probably slacking off in a corner somewhere.
Zero situational awareness.
Slater pulled back into cover and leaned against the wall.
His mind wandered to those guys. Those Chaos-faction players chilling in the Emperor's Children fleet. The ones spamming the regional chat, hyping themselves up with crap like "For the faction's victory!" and "All According to Plan!"
And then there was that guy, [All According to Plan].
Slater's eyes grew cold as he muttered under his breath, "Those dumbasses take this game way too seriously."
His gaze pierced through the ruins, landing on the spire of the Hive City that stabbed into the toxic sky.
"Faction victory, my ass... In this dogshit Warhammer universe, is there even such a thing as a faction victory?"
He thought back to the lore he'd been reading up on lately. In GW's canon, the Horus Heresy was bound to happen, the Emperor was going to end up strapped to the Golden Throne, and the Imperium of Man would plunge into ten thousand years of absolute grimdark misery.
So what if they actually won those so-called faction quests? Did they really think they could change history? Give me a break. You can't just patch out the cold apathy of human nature.
Slater slowly stood up, tightening his grip on the chainaxe.
"In a full-dive VR game like this, you play however the hell you want."
"We're the Fourth Scourge."
"And the Fourth Scourge is supposed to run wild and raise absolute hell!"
His voice dropped, growing colder and sharper by the second.
"Screw life and death, if they want smoke, they can get it! As far as I'm concerned, the only reason this game exists is for players to... wreck the Emperor, and wreck the four Chaos Gods."
"It's just a game. To hell with all that idealistic bullshit. I don't care how it started, and I don't care how it ends."
A fanatical, dangerous glint flared in his eyes.
"Just let the galaxy burn and call it a day."
"I'm just here for the thrills, the explosions, and the absolute carnage. Once I get bored, I'll just log off and quit. Fuck your victory conditions. It is what it is. If you don't like it, bite me."
Taking a deep breath, he started walking toward the completely defenseless settlement.
It was barely a hundred yards from the low wall. Slater kept a steady, unhurried pace. As his steel armor moved through the ruins, the occasional crunch of gravel beneath his boots rang out crystal clear in the dead silence.
The guards were so damn relaxed they still hadn't noticed him. That was, until he strolled right up to the door of the outermost dilapidated shack.
Suddenly, the door swung open from the inside.
A man stumbled out, clumsily buckling his belt as he walked. He was shirtless, his chest covered in haphazard, trashy tattoos, wearing the lazy, satisfied smirk of a guy who had just gotten off.
From inside the shack, the faint sound of a woman crying drifted out.
The man looked up and spotted Slater. He froze for a second, then scowled, looking the heavily armored, chainaxe-wielding intruder up and down.
"Who the hell are you?" His voice was raspy, carrying that rough, gravelly edge typical of Underhive scum.
Slater just stared at him, not saying a word.
The silence seemed to piss the guy off. He bent down, scooped up a rusted iron pipe, and weighed it in his hand, his tone turning hostile.
"You know whose turf you're on? This is Tepo Gang territory. You crossed the line, you hear me?"
Slater looked at the rust-eaten pipe. He looked at the man's aggressive, thuggish face. He listened to the quiet sobbing coming from inside the room.
And then, he laughed.
It was a faint smile, but it sent an inexplicable chill down the thug's spine.
"Turns out you're a piece of shit on top of it all." Slater's voice was deathly quiet. "Perfect."
He moved in a flash.
His body, tweaked and upgraded multiple times by the system, had long since blown past the limits of a normal human. Even weighed down by heavy steel armor, his speed was so absurd that the thug couldn't even process it.
The chainaxe roared to life with a psychotic screech. The man opened his mouth to scream, trying to do something—
Squelch—!
The whirring teeth tore through the air, and the man's agonized shriek followed a split second later.
The thug was instantly butchered, his consciousness plunged into eternal darkness. His mangled body twitched twice before going completely still on the ground.
What Slater didn't notice was that the exact moment he shredded the man, a microscopic wisp of crimson energy drifted up from the corpse and quietly seeped into his body. His physique seemed to undergo a very subtle, almost imperceptible shift.
Slater didn't care about any of that. He just looked down at the bisected corpse on the floor. He watched the pool of blood slowly spreading across the dirt.
In the darkness, his eyes began to glow with a faint, eerie red light.
Then, he turned his head and looked at the rundown shack a few feet away. The crying was still there. A woman's wails, mixed with a child's quiet sobbing.
Slater stepped toward the doorway.
His steps were painfully slow, his boots splashing through the puddle of gore with wet, heavy thuds. Reaching the threshold, he raised his foot...
Crash!
The rotting wooden door flew off its hinges, smashing against the interior wall and splintering into pieces.
Inside, under the dim, flickering light, a crude bedframe was pushed into the corner. Huddled together on the makeshift pallet of scrap wood were two figures.
A hunched, disheveled woman curled up on the mattress, trembling violently. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, her face streaked with tears and marked by several fresh bruises. She was tightly clutching a boy who looked to be around sixteen or seventeen.
Both of them were shaking like leaves.
When Slater kicked down the already-fragile door, the woman let out a terrified shriek and hugged the boy even tighter.
Slater just stood in the doorway, drenched in gore, his chainaxe still dripping with dark crimson fluid. He walked toward the wooden bed, step by step.
His heavy armor-clad boots hit the rotting floorboards with dull, thudding impacts. Every footfall felt like it was stomping directly on the mother and son's hearts. The woman was practically vibrating with terror.
But right then, the boy she was desperately holding onto violently tore himself free from her grasp.
He bravely stepped forward, throwing his arms wide to shield the woman behind him. His small frame looked impossibly frail in front of the blood-soaked giant that was Slater.
Staring up at Slater, who looked like a literal demon, the kid didn't take a single step back. His lips were quivering, but he stood his ground.
"D-Don't... don't come any closer!"
There was a certain... absolute resolve in his voice.
Slater stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at the kid. The boy's eyes were full of fear and anger. But more than that... it was a look of honor. Of fearlessness.
Meeting that unwavering gaze, and seeing the boy plant himself in front of the woman like a human shield, a faint glimmer sparked in Slater's own eyes.
"Hahahaha!"
He burst out laughing. The sound echoed around the cramped room, laced with pure lunacy.
"Heh. You've got honor and fearlessness in your eyes, kid. But it's a damn shame you don't have the power to back it up. Didn't anyone ever teach you not to play the hero when you're out of your depth?"
The boy's gaze flicked to the shredded corpse lying by the doorway, then to the revving chainaxe in Slater's hand. He brought his eyes back to Slater, his stare unwavering.
"Don't come any closer. Leave. Now." His voice was steady. "You made a lot of noise. The gang members protecting this place will be here any second."
Slater looked at him. Looked right into the fire in those eyes.
His smile slowly faded, replaced by a cold, hollow... disappointment.
"What a stupid little shit." His voice turned bone-chillingly cold.
Slater moved in a blur.
The kid only felt a sickening surge of agony in his gut before he was sent flying through the air. He slammed heavily into the dirt floor, his vision instantly starting to blur out.
In the final moment before his consciousness faded into nothing, the last thing the boy saw was his mother's face, twisted in absolute terror.
Slater stood over his ruined body, looking down. The kid's eyes were still wide open, still holding onto that spark of defiance. Only now, that spark was permanently frozen, devoid of life.
Slater's voice was ice-cold. "A weakling's conviction in this cesspool of a world is just a death sentence."
"Even talking... was a blessing granted by the strong."
"You don't get to bargain with the strong."
"Go play hero in hell."
Right up until his last breath, the boy couldn't understand.
Who was this guy? Why? Why did he have to kill them? Why was he so evil, just slaughtering people for no reason? Why was the world like this? Why did they have to live this kind of life?
He didn't know the answers, and he'd never get the chance to find out.
Behind Slater, an agonizing scream ripped through the air.
The woman on the bed watched the boy crumple to the ground right in front of her, and her violent trembling instantly stopped. The sheer terror in her eyes vanished, replaced by pure, unadulterated madness.
She threw herself at Slater, her hands frantically clawing at his steel armor as she shrieked, "You demon!! Give him back!!"
She hammered her fists against his plating, but it was completely useless. Her nails dragged across the metal with a sickening screech, snapping instantly against the unforgiving steel until her hands were a bloody, ruined mess.
Slater didn't flinch.
He just looked down at the hysterical woman, staring into eyes that were now burning with hatred and insanity. A smile crept onto his face—one utterly devoid of warmth.
Then, he grabbed her with his left hand and raised his right.
The deafening rev of the chainaxe filled the room again.
Squelch!
The cold, roaring teeth ripped through her. Her eyes were still locked in a dead stare... as Slater let go, letting her lifeless body slump to the floor.
He turned around and headed for the door. His frigid voice echoed slowly through the bloody room:
"The blood of the weak might not make for a proper sacrifice to the Blood God."
"But hostility doesn't distinguish between the strong and the weak."
"Anyone who hates me dies. I am the god here."
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