The transition from realspace was a sickening lurch, a feeling of being turned inside out and squeezed through an infinitely small point. To the hardened sensibilities of the Adeptus Astartes, it was a familiar, if unpleasant, necessity of galactic travel. To Rimuru, it was a fundamental violation of reality.
The viewport of the Thunderhawk was no longer a window into the cold beauty of space, but a swirling vortex of impossible colors and screaming, half-formed shapes. It was a canvas painted with pure madness. But the visual chaos was a pale shadow of what he could feel.
His Universal Sense, which had so easily mapped the physical labyrinth of the Space Hulk, was now overwhelmed by a tidal wave of raw, metaphysical data. This was the Warp. The sea of souls Corvus had spoken of. And it was not a sea; it was a tempest of rage, a maelstrom of despair, a hurricane of insatiable lust, and a devious whirlwind of mad ambition, all churning together. The "four loud voices" were no longer distant whispers but the deafening roars of the storm itself, each one a foundational note in a symphony of damnation.
Closer, scratching at the very edge of his perception, were smaller, sharper hungers. Billions of them. The daemonic entities Corvus had mentioned. Rimuru could feel them, a legion of incorporeal predators drawn to the tiny spark of life and order that was their ship. They swarmed the vessel's Geller Field, the 'reality bubble' that Ciel had instantly identified as a piece of miraculously advanced technology. They clawed, bit, and shrieked against this shield, their impotent fury a constant, grating pressure on the soul.
For the first time since his reincarnation, Rimuru felt a profound sense of disgust. His entire existence, his philosophy, was built on order, reason, and mutual benefit. This place was its antithesis. It was entropy given a malicious consciousness.
He glanced at the Ultramarines. They sat rigid on the metal benches, their hands resting on their bolters. Their stoicism was a mask, a discipline honed through a lifetime of war. Corvus sat with his eyes closed, his helmet resting in his lap. Rimuru could sense the psychic effort the Librarian was exerting, his mind a fortress of litanies and faith against the insidious whispers that bled through even the Geller Field.
"This is the hell you spoke of," Rimuru stated, his voice quiet, devoid of its usual cheer.
Corvus opened his eyes. They were strained. "It is the price of travel. The price of empire. We endure it, as humanity has for ten thousand years."
"It is born of emotion, isn't it?" Rimuru mused, his golden eyes fixed on the vortex outside. "All this rage, this ambition… it is the echo of mortals."
"It is a perversion of it," Corvus corrected grimly. "The Archenemy takes the noblest of passions and twists them into damnation. Courage becomes mindless slaughter for the Blood God. The desire for knowledge becomes mad sorcery for the Architect of Fate. The will to endure becomes rot and despair for the Grandfather of Plagues. And the pursuit of joy becomes the most wretched depravity for the Prince of Excess." He shook his head, a deep weariness in his expression. "There is no purity in the Warp. It takes, it twists, and it consumes. It is why we must have faith. Faith in the Emperor is the only shield that can never break."
As he spoke, the red tactical lights of the troop bay flickered violently. A sound like a thousand nails scraping down the hull screeched through the ship, accompanied by a wave of unnatural cold. For a fraction of a second, the Geller Field wavered.
In that instant, hell looked in.
Brother Valerius cried out, swatting at a spectral, multi-jointed limb that had phased through his pauldron. Sergeant Cassian roared a curse, his bolter aimed at a corner where a face of screaming despair had momentarily manifested in the shadows. Corvus's head snapped up, a trickle of blood running from his nose as he fought off a direct psychic intrusion.
Rimuru perceived it all with perfect clarity. He felt the breach in reality, a tiny pinprick in the ship's shield. He felt a daemonic entity, a thing of pure hunger and desperation, try to force its way through.
Before the creature could fully manifest, a silent, invisible wave of pure order radiated from Rimuru. It was not an attack, but a simple enforcement of reality, a command from his Ultimate Skill, Covenant King Uriel, that "space will behave as it should." The pinprick sealed. The spectral limb vanished. The face in the shadows dissolved.
The lights steadied. The screeching faded. The incident was over in less than three seconds.
The Space Marines were breathing heavily, their weapons still raised. "Field integrity restored," the pilot's strained voice announced over the vox. "The Emperor protects."
They all knew how close they had come. A full breach, even for a few seconds, would have been their doom. None of them, not even Corvus, noticed the subtle, calming intervention that had truly saved them. They simply credited the machine spirit and their own faith.
After what felt like an eternity but was only a few days of subjective time, a jarring, violent lurch signaled their return to realspace. The nauseating view in the viewport was replaced once more by the familiar sight of stars. But one star burned brighter than the rest. It was their destination.
As they drew closer, Rimuru saw it was no star, and no planet. It was a fortress carved from a colossal asteroid, a jagged, menacing silhouette bristling with lance batteries, macro-cannon emplacements, and torpedo tubes. Docking arms extended like the talons of a great metal raptor, and the entire structure was adorned with the iconography of the Inquisition and the skull of the Adeptus Astartes. It was not a port; it was a weapon, aimed at the heart of an unfeeling galaxy.
"Watch Station Vigil," Corvus announced. "The first line of defense against the xenos threats of the Jericho Reach."
The Thunderhawk navigated the station's defenses and descended into a cavernous hangar bay. The moment the ramp began to lower, bathing them in the harsh, white light of the bay, Rimuru could feel dozens of eyes on him.
Lining their arrival path was a reception committee unlike any he had seen. They were Space Marines, but their armor was matte black, their left arms and pauldrons rendered in gleaming silver. Each warrior's heraldry was different, denoting a dozen different founding Chapters, but they all bore the same symbol: the 'I' of the Inquisition. This was the Deathwatch.
Astartes who had sworn a long vigil to hunt and slay the alien. The Imperium's foremost experts on the xenos.
A Marine in heavy Terminator armor, his face a mask of grim scars, stepped forward. A Captain, by his markings. He ignored Corvus and his Ultramarines completely, his gaze locking directly onto Rimuru with an unnerving, predatory intensity.
"Librarian," the Deathwatch Captain's voice boomed, amplified and laced with cold iron. "Your astropathic message was… irregular. Identify the asset. Now."