"God, I don't want to die…" I whispered, watching as the commissar gave the order to fix bayonets and was the first to rush into the breach. "But it looks like I'll have to…"
There would be no better moment for me to go out, so I swallowed and ran forward. The source of the infection resembled generators, while the followers of Nurgle were their conduits. The Plaguebearers were catalysts, after which all the muck was concentrated in the cauldron to create an unprecedented infection.
The Imperials were doing a pretty good job of exterminating the Nurgle followers, the mysterious guy promised to take on the Plaguebearers, and I shot up some of the plague incubators with a plasma rifle and was now running towards the last piece of crap hanging on the ceiling. It was pretty inconspicuous for a strategically important object of the ritual.
"And how do you set the detonation timer here? Damn it..." I muttered, standing practically in the open.
The only thing that saved me was that everyone else was drawing all the attention to themselves. However, the plasma grenade was a force majeure, I didn't know how many seconds it would take for it to explode. In the end, I had to spit on everything and just throw it up with all my might, hoping for the best.
My throw was surprisingly strong. I had already begun to forget that my new body actually belonged to a very well-built mercenary with a bunch of implants. The grenade quickly reached the incubator of the infection, pulsating vilely like a heart, after which it got stuck in the surrounding liquid. And then almost immediately exploded.
The roar was loud, the plasma grenades had devastating power and could destroy the most armored targets. This power was enough to blow up the incubator, but the ceiling couldn't withstand it either, and it flew straight at me.
I barely managed to jump to the side, then lay down and covered the back of my head with my hands. Fortunately, all the debris miraculously flew past, and the dangerous liquid, capable of melting metal, splashed out in the opposite direction.
"Lucky, lucky," I muttered, starting to slowly crawl to the nearest shelter.
"You're crawling in the wrong direction," a voice said.
— The ritual is disrupted, without incubators...
— We need to take Nurgle's artifact.
— Well, take it, I'm here...
- You will take him.
This time there was no hint of humor or lightness in his voice. He did not try to manipulate me, but simply brutally suppressed my will and effectively subjugated me. Only a small echo of Tzeentch's attention was riveted to this world, but even that was enough to turn a mere mortal into a slave. And I could not resist such power.
Swallowing, I began to make my way to the center, through the thick of the battle. There were explosions all around, squads of guardsmen and Nurgle's followers were running around every now and then, a couple of times I saw such vile abominations that even words could not describe them. The chaos was unprecedented and it was unclear who was winning.
"Your mother…" burst out of me when I approached the center.
All the Plaguebearers were lying around and showed no signs of life. Or rather, life was seething in them and giving birth to new types of diseases and viruses, but the Plaguebearers themselves had clearly died and become fuel for other life forms. In general, it doesn't matter.
What really mattered was the giant cauldron the Daemon of Nurgle had fallen onto. The lower half of its vile body was barely hanging on by a rag of rotting skin. Its guts and other entrails had long since spilled out onto the floor, but the Daemon was still alive. Its eyes moved slowly, following the swirling liquid inside the cauldron. Its job was to stir the stuff, but it was no longer able to do so. It was upsetting.
For the sake of peace of mind, I used my powers and turned the remains of the demon into coals glowing with rainbow fire, after which I staggered towards the remains and began to look for the artifact.
"You're looking in the wrong place," the voice suggested and put the guess right into my mind.
My gaze moved to the cauldron.
— No-no.
- At the bottom. We need to get it. At any cost.
— I'll look for some kind of ladle…
- There is no time. Almost everything will be dissolved, but I will be able to cover your hand with protection.
- No.
— Water. Bow.
Once again, the alien will weighed heavily on me. Tzeentch clearly needed what lay at the bottom. I also felt emotions that were not his. If I had the strength to resist him, then perhaps I could do the impossible and disrupt his plans. However, very few in this universe could resist a direct order from a Chaos god.
Swallowing, I began to slowly plunge my hand into the stinking liquid. It went deeper and deeper, began to burn from the inside with a rainbow fire, and from the outside it was simply absorbed by the acid. I immediately felt sick, because even though I was not breathing, the vile gases still entered my nostrils and corroded them. The hair from my head began to fall rapidly, and my hand disappeared up to my forearm.
Then I had to bend down even more, my ear was almost touching the liquid, but finally my fingers hit something.
"Grab it!" the voice cried.
And my fingers clenched even before the nerve impulses gave the order to the muscles. Then I abruptly tore the artifact away and fell back out myself, after which I screamed from incredible pain. The skin had long since peeled off my hand and right before my eyes the last pieces of muscle and tendons were falling off, leaving rotting bones.
And then the rainbow flame blazed up on my shoulder at full power and the fire separated the dead limb from my body, making me a one-armed cripple. The artifact was left lying on the floor, at first glance an ordinary medallion, except that it was too big. And what's surprising is that it looked perfectly clean and was not damaged. That liquid inside the cauldron could melt tanks, but not this medallion.
"What is this?" I asked, groaning as I picked up the medallion and began to crawl towards the exit.
- An extremely important artifact. It will be useful to us. I did not know that Nurgle had taken possession of it.
- Is there something you don't know?
- Shut your mouth.
And this time my tongue literally caught fire. Tzeentch was clearly not in the best mood. Somehow I crawled to one of the tunnels. Imperials were already running around, mining living supports made of roots and unseen plants. For some reason, no one paid attention to me and suddenly I realized what was going on. An impenetrable veil covered me. Tzeentch was so worried about my survival.
But as soon as I got close to the tunnel, the barrel of a bolt pistol appeared right in front of my face.
I didn't even have time to scream, and then froze completely. In front of me stood that same mysterious ally, who silently looked at me through the mask and for some reason did not shoot right away. Slowly he studied the medallion in my hand, clearly felt the aura of Tzeentch. In my field of vision came the extremely fresh corpses of the guardsmen lying in this tunnel.
And suddenly the mysterious ally put away the bolt pistol and, despite his lame leg, quickly disappeared into the darkness. The tunnel was straight, I tried to catch up with him, but I couldn't find him, as if there was a secret passage somewhere here. One way or another, I continued to run, because my life directly depended on the speed of running.
I stopped far, far away from the city, in the wilderness incinerated by deflected shells. There, huddled under a scorched and shrapnel-riddled tree, I allowed myself to exhale and suddenly realized how shitty I felt. My whole body ached, my legs and arms were covered in terrible abrasions and deep scratches, and my mind was under tremendous stress, which could not be relieved even by hard drugs. Completely exhausted, I passed out right there, still clutching the medallion in my hand.
But even in sleep there was no rest for me. My thoughts had never been my own, and now with Tzeentch's increased attention he had completely taken over my mind and dictated his own terms. Instead of the familiar images that should have flickered in the kaleidoscope of dreams, scorched earth froze before me.
I stood knee-deep in ash, surrounded by countless corpses. Many soldiers had died here, mere mortals, perhaps Guardsmen, but I couldn't be sure, the uniforms were so different. But in addition to their corpses, there were hundreds and thousands of Astartes bodies. The Space Marines had fought here in a battle of unimaginable proportions, and I couldn't imagine what kind of threat could have slain so many perfect machines of war.
I felt uneasy being in this place. Death and decay literally froze in the air, and a cloying bitterness for some reason was born on its own and turned into a lump in the throat, which was impossible to swallow.
"Where am I?" I asked, hoping that Tzeentch would explain everything to me again.
But he was silent, even though he himself had inspired this dream. He did not want to say anything, because it was to his advantage that my mind itself would give birth to a chain of thoughts. This was obvious.
I began to look around, stepping over the mutilated bodies. In addition to the warriors of the Astartes and mere mortals, there were gigantic machines, titans. With their firepower, they could crush entire worlds, and those that were slightly smaller were called knights and fought for humanity back in the era of the dark era. Masterpieces of the genius of the Mechanicus's thought also tore this earth with their tracks, mixing dirt with flesh. Well, and here I saw the bodies of daemons, vile spawn of the warp, inspiring nausea and fear of unnaturalness even after death.
"Never in my life has victory been won at such a bloody price," came a voice, but not Tzeentch's.
And although it was not a god who spoke, nor were his words a scream, but because of them the warp currents changed, such a huge will permeated every word. I immediately turned around and in the middle of the wasteland, on a mountain of corpses, I saw standing... a demigod, that was the word that suited him best.
He was taller than any of the Astartes, huge and strong, clad in armour whose generators sucked out all the heat around him, creating an aura of deadly cold. In his hands was a sword, the blade of which had become impenetrably black after tasting so many victims. The grey colour of the armour, the wolf's mouth on the banner and the Space Marines standing around, all of them tired of the battle.
"The Primarch and his legion. The Emperor created demigods and entrusted them with legions of the finest warriors in the universe to conquer and unite the galaxy," said the voice of Tzeentch. "The Emperor hated us. He thought he could defeat Chaos, but his plans went horribly wrong from the start. Perfect and overconfident, he paid for his hubris. And all those who cannot believe in his fallibility pay a bloody price to this day, continuing their mindless idolatry. How ironic…"
Leman Russ stood still. His indomitable temper was as famous as his strength. However, at the same time, he remained one of the most sincere and loyal of the Primarchs. Yes, he could do bad things in the heat of the moment, but he cooled down quickly and did not hold a grudge for long. This put him a step above other closed and sometimes extremely selfish demigods, but at the same time this trait became a hole in his soul.
The breach opened here, when a not so desired victory was achieved, which had to be forged at any cost, trampling all past ideals. On this day, Leman Russ understood that even demigods are mortal and full of weakness, and the Great Crusade will face many more challenges that will threaten the existence of the Imperium itself.
However, all such thoughts were quickly driven into a corner, for as a loyal son of the Emperor he had no right to doubt the actions of his Father. And raising his left hand to his face, Leman Russ looked at the medallion one last time, after which he threw it aside with anger and bitterness.
"Only we can cope with this task," he said so that everyone could hear him.
And an unshakable confidence filled the Primarch's entire soul, after which every Legionary followed their leader without hesitation, to do what must be done. For the good of the Imperium, for the Emperor, for all of humanity.
I immediately took a reflexive step forward, influenced by the aura of the primarch. I even slightly forgot who I was and what my goal was, I wanted to drop everything and join them. However, this strange obsession quickly passed, as soon as the primarch suddenly turned his head to the side and looked straight at me with his peripheral vision.
"Your mother!" I cried out in horror and hit my head on the tree that was covering me. "He saw me!"
My heart continued to pound, but after ten minutes I somehow calmed myself down. This was clearly the past or... the future? It didn't matter, because the medallion was in my hands one way or another. Which meant there was no sane way for him to look at me through space and time. No, it was just a nightmare, albeit an extremely real one.
"The past, it was the past," the voice in my head said thoughtfully. "Get ready, your goal is not yet complete. The medallion must be delivered to the altar."
— To what other altar?
- It shouldn't worry you.
- Then I won't go anywhere.
- Do you understand that I have the power to turn your life into endless hellish torment?
- I readily believe in your pettiness, but is it worth the potential benefit of me taking this medallion? It will be easier for you to explain everything to me.
- One question.
- Three.
"Shake on it," Tzeentch immediately agreed, since he had originally planned to agree on three, and he was also going to give a reward for the medallion he received, albeit not in this way.
— Who did the medallion belong to?
— To the Primarch.
- Why do you need it?
- To find out what happened that day.
- Who poisoned the mercenary whose body I entered?
And then Tzeentch fell silent. The first two questions did not surprise him at all, nor did the fact that I asked them in the most illiterate way, which is why the answers I received gave very little understanding of the overall situation. However, the third question flew like a rocket through heat traps. Tzeentch had expected this, of course, just not first and foremost.
- You're not that stupid. Or you're still trying to learn.
- You didn't answer.
- He poisoned himself.
Thus, I got answers to two questions at once. The first is that the mercenary did die and only after that I got into his body. When consciousness was just fading. It was the same last time. For now, all this can be attributed to chance, but the next reincarnations will show and prove everything.
The second answer was straightforward. The mercenary poisoned himself. It seemed strange to me from the very beginning. If they wanted to kill me, there were many ways to do it. After the first unsuccessful attempt, there should have been a second one. I was on their territory, had no connections, and had been framed many times. However, there was no repeat attempt. And as it turned out, Windoria is not such an important figure in this game. Her family probably just sent her away because she was more trouble than she was worth on Terra.
"Do you already know why he killed himself?" Tzeentch's voice suddenly became bitter, as if he was offended by my behavior and the fact that he had given two answers to one question.
"I only had three questions," I answered calmly, emerging from my hiding place under the tree.
- He killed himself because he was afraid that someone would take this happiness away from him. A boy from the slums, he ate rats, killed other children, stole and worked for bandits, after which he himself entered the criminal path. There was not a single ray of light in his life and with each passing day he fell deeper to the bottom. When the mercy of Vindoria descended upon him, he could not believe in this happiness... and could not cope with it. He understood that the day would come and this spoiled bitch would get tired of him. So he decided to die not in dirt and poverty, but in an expensive bed, next to a beautiful woman, because returning back to the bottom after such a rise would be much more painful.
"Yeah, whatever you say," I waved my hand, then straightened up and shook myself off. "Where to go?"
— To the east. To the mines.
Tzeentch rolled out this tirade for one simple and extremely petty reason - to hurt me. And he basically succeeded in this, as well as in refreshing Lex's memory, because after the story these moments surfaced in my mind by themselves. Yes, he was a scumbag, but I still felt sorry for him. And perhaps it was pity that was the most dangerous and painful feeling, which became my punishment for insolence.
However, I tried not to show it, although I couldn't hide anything from Tzeentch.
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