The Spear of Judgement rose from Hive Primus not with the thundering defiance of an Imperial warship, but with the silent, inexorable grace of a falling shadow. From the main view-port of the bridge, Sung Jin-Woo watched Kryllus Secundus shrink below. The hive city became a scar, then a memory, on the face of a rust-red world. They ascended through the planet's toxic upper atmosphere, the polluted clouds parting before them like a final, deferential bow. Then, there was only the void.
The bridge was a cavernous, gothic cathedral of technology. Dozens of command thrones and control pulpits sat empty, their screens dark. In the Imperial doctrine he had assimilated, a ship this size required a crew of thousands. Now, it had only him, his Knight, ten terrified humans, and five unconscious super-soldiers.
The First Knight stood like a statue of midnight at the foot of the command dais. The silence was absolute.
Jin-Woo summoned Kasran. The officer appeared moments later, his face pale in the faint violet glow of the repurposed ship lighting.
"Lord," he said, his voice barely a whisper.
"This vessel requires a crew," the Monarch stated, his gaze still fixed on the starfield. "Your men are soldiers. They are accustomed to following orders and operating machinery. They will learn."
He reached out with his consciousness, not to Kasran's mind, but to the ship's central cogitator. He bypassed the litanies of activation and the ritual passwords, accessing the core data directly. With a thought, he unlocked the operational manuals, the control schemas, and made them accessible.
"The knowledge is now available to you," he told the officer. "Interface with these terminals. You will understand their function. Assign your men their duties. You are now my acting captain."
Kasran stared at the nearest console, a look of profound fear on his face. Hesitantly, he placed his hand on the panel. His eyes widened as the information flowed into his mind—not as a psychic intrusion, but as an intuitive, instantaneous understanding of the machine's purpose. The fear on his face was slowly replaced by a look of dawning, horrified comprehension. He was being taught the sacred rites of the Adeptus Mechanicus by the very heretic they had died opposing.
"Get to work, Captain," Jin-Woo said. "Prepare the ship for interstellar transit."
For the next hour, the bridge was filled with the frantic but focused movements of Kasran and his men. They moved from station to station, their military discipline providing a framework for their new, impossible roles. They brought auxiliary power online, verified energy levels, and, with trembling hands, initiated the sequence to activate the Gellar Field.
A low, bone-deep hum vibrated through the deck plates. Outside the view-port, a faint, pearlescent shimmer enveloped the ship, a soap bubble of reality in the stark vacuum. It was a fragile shield against an ocean of madness.
While they worked, the Monarch let his own senses expand. He felt the steady, controlled heartbeat of the plasma reactor, a caged star that beat for him. He felt the five potent, dreaming minds of the Ultramarines in the brig. Then he felt something else. A sealed, shielded chamber, psychically resonant and cold with disuse: the Navigator's Sanctum. The Sergeant's memories had told him that travel without a Navigator was blind, suicidal.
But he was not blind. Where they saw a chaotic storm, he saw a realm of souls and shadows. And the light of the Astronomican, the psychic beacon of their Emperor, burned like a distant lighthouse in his mind's eye. He would be the Navigator.
"Lord," Kasran's voice was tight with strain. "All systems are green. The Gellar Field is stable. We are ready to translate to the Immaterium."
"Proceed," he commanded.
Kasran nodded to a man at a helm console. The soldier, sweat beading on his brow, engaged a final rune.
Reality broke.
The starfield on the view-port was ripped open, revealing a roiling, nauseating tempest of pure color and raw emotion. The Spear of Judgement plunged into the wound, and the mundane universe vanished.
They were in the Warp.
The human crewmen immediately began to retch or pray, some doing both. The ship was filled with a constant, high-pitched whisper that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Faces of laughing, crying, screaming things appeared in the swirling chaos outside, their ghostly forms pressing against the Gellar Field.
Then, something in that non-space took notice of them. It was an ancient, powerful consciousness, a predator drawn to the pinprick of life. The whispers coalesced into a single, seductive voice that spoke directly into the minds of the crew.
The Gellar Field flickered violently. One of Kasran's men screamed, his eyes rolling back in his head, and lunged for the Gellar Field controls.
Before Kasran could draw his sidearm to deliver the Emperor's mercy, the Monarch acted. He did not move. He did not speak aloud. He simply let a fraction of his true nature, the cold, silent, absolute authority of the Monarch of Death, permeate the bridge.
[Command: Be Silent]
His will washed over everything. The seductive, daemonic voice was not just silenced; it was unmade, erased by a power antithetical to its very existence. The chaotic energies of the Warp were born of life, emotion, and souls. His authority was born of death, silence, and absolute obedience. He was a monarch of a different, more fundamental kingdom.
The psychic predator outside did not flee in terror; it simply ceased to be in their vicinity, repelled by a force as alien to it as a vacuum is to fire. The Gellar Field stabilized. The whispers were gone. The oppressive, maddening pressure vanished. All that remained was the silent, swirling chaos outside, which now seemed to keep a respectful distance.
The crewman who had lunged for the console collapsed, sobbing. The others stared at the Monarch, their faces a mixture of primal fear and something new: profound, unwilling reverence. Their prayers to the Emperor had been cries in the dark. His command had brought an absolute, unholy peace. In this hell, he was the only shield they had.
Jin-Woo stood impassively, his gaze fixed on the Sea of Souls. He now understood. This universe's greatest threats were not its fleets or its armies. They were the hungry gods and nameless things that swam in this very ocean.
An ocean which now knew it had a new king.