Chapter 88: Such a Beautiful Creation!
"Impossible! Even if I die, I won't let you succeed!"
Soli Vette straightened, a Trueborn of the Eldar, unyielding before his enemies. "Even if you humiliate me with whips, torture me with cruel punishments, play with me as you wish, I still won't take you there. Give up on that idea."
"Oh? Is that so?"
Francis raised an eyebrow, drank from Angron's blood reservoir, and gestured calmly. "Go torture him."
Soli Vette's eyes lit up with sudden, desperate hope. "Come on! Hit me!" His voice pitched high with anticipation.
But when the whip fell, he felt only pain. No stimulation. No pleasure.
The branding iron pressed continuously against his flesh, and there was only agony. When strange creatures surrounded him in that room, he felt himself being violated, yet still couldn't feel even the slightest gratification.
Soli Vette's face drained of color. He screamed, "What did you do?! Why can't I feel anything?!"
"Give me back the stimulation! Give it back!"
All that remained was boundless pain as his soul drained away, an exquisite torture for someone like him. He could feel himself dying, piece by piece, unable even to find solace in sensation.
Francis sat with his eyes closed, savoring the moment. "Increase the intensity. He can still take it."
"No!" Soli Vette roared, his voice raw with desperation. This numbness was worse than death; even death's thrill had been stolen from him.
"I surrender! I surrender! I'm willing to take you there!"
In less than three hours, the noble Eldar warrior had broken completely. Now he piloted the warship obediently toward Commorragh, skillfully avoiding dangers, navigating passages with the ease of someone who knew them intimately. When faced with countless branching paths, he found each entrance to Commorragh as though guided by instinct.
The Soul Drinkers watched with obvious admiration.
"Primarch, you truly are the Empire's unparalleled genius!" one warrior said. "To find a way to Commorragh so quickly, my admiration is like a surging river, endless."
"No wonder the Primarch deliberately crashed the warship! It's truly chilling to think about the strategy involved."
Francis rubbed his nose. The truth was far simpler: he'd been driving too aggressively when he first rushed into the Webway, crashing directly into the passage wall.
Afterward, the plan had formed naturally: the Webway was simply too vast. On his own, he'd get lost and waste weeks circling back on himself only to find everyone gone upon emergence.
If he was going to reach Commorragh, he needed guides. And to get guides, he needed to capture Blood Reavers.
As he was considering this, strange shadows caught his attention. They glided through the Webway's light streams at impossible speeds, too fast to track clearly.
All the Soul Drinkers became vigilant, but the Eldar warrior showed little concern.
Then the shadows began closing in on the warship.
A low growl entered everyone's ears, creatures communicating in an incomprehensible language. The first monster emerged: a gigantic void insect with multiple twisted limbs and eyes glowing with eerie phosphorescence. Its body was translucent, rippling with internal movements.
The captain didn't hesitate. He opened fire immediately.
Laser cannons and missiles streaked through the narrow Webway, striking the creature directly. But instead of dying, the monster split rapidly into several smaller entities that continued advancing on the warship.
More monsters emerged from the surrounding void. Their forms varied wildly: some resembled giant energy worms, others glowed like phantom fish, and others seemed composed entirely of pure psychic energy, abstract and geometrically wrong.
The warship's weapons were powerful enough to keep them at bay, but barely. After a grueling struggle, they finally managed to shake free.
Francis's expression darkened. This Webway was far less hospitable than he'd expected. There were no maddening whispers, true, but the passages teemed with strange parasitic creatures, mindless, senseless horrors. In some corridors, even the Eldar captain's eyes revealed apprehension he couldn't quite hide.
"Even if we open the Webway," Francis said quietly, "can it truly solve everything?"
The question lingered unanswered as they took several turns and finally arrived at Commorragh.
The moment they entered, Francis and his crew felt it, a profound chill mixed with awe. The sight of this extradimensional city was breathtaking.
Giant spires floated in the void while crimson and purple lights flickered faintly through the darkness. The streets varied wildly in width; some were enormous void corridors wide enough for entire fleets, others as narrow as blood vessels, permitting only single-file passage.
Shops and encampments lined the streets, each glowing faintly and selling goods that defied comprehension: souls, cursed weapons, alien specimens from star systems light-years distant.
Fallen Eldar walked these streets in dizzying variety. Some wore crystal-studded robes with twisted smiles carved into their masks, their naked servants pierced and chained, dragging luggage through the crowds.
Others had fully embraced pain's aesthetics, their bodies fused with mechanical prosthetics and biological modifications, twisted limbs scraping against stone with grating metallic sounds.
In more secluded alleys, enslaved creatures labored or waited as sacrifices for the gladiatorial arenas.
They landed at a trading port. Francis used the control gauntlet he'd prepared to manipulate the Eldar captain, who approached a Dark Eldar, bloated, grotesque, so heavily modified with mechanical augmentations that he scarcely resembled an Eldar at all.
"Why are you back so soon?" the creature asked suspiciously.
"We encountered creatures during our last venture," Francis replied smoothly, patting the fat Eldar with his control gauntlet hand. "We're just reviving our people."
Instantly, the creature went rigid under control.
"Take me to the Blood Reavers," Francis whispered like an unbreakable command.
The Dark Eldar moved mechanically in one direction, guided by instinct. From his consciousness, Francis extracted what he needed: a name, a place, 'the Coven of the Flesh Prophets.'
The hall was constructed from living material. Viscous green liquid flowed continuously down the walls, dripping onto the floor with faint hissing. The stench was overwhelming, a mixed miasma of countless creatures being modified and tortured simultaneously.
In the center stood a massive workbench surrounded by piles of alien remains, many still twitching, recently dead, or not yet completely expired. The air itself seemed to pulse with wrongness.
Before Francis could fully process what he was seeing, a low chuckle emerged from behind the workbench.
"Hehehehe~ Young Trueborn, what brings you here? Are you interested in these corpses as well?"
A tall, skeletal figure emerged from the darkness. Urien Rakarth.
His face was pale as death itself, as though it had been torn apart countless times and reassembled incorrectly. Limb-like appendages writhed across his back, adorned with surgical instruments and experimental devices that clicked and hissed with purpose.
"We're here to revive our comrades," Francis said, stepping forward.
Urien's eyes narrowed with predatory interest. "Hehehehe~ I smell something exceptional on you. If you give it to me, I'll help you revive them."
He tapped the workbench, and dozens of Blood Reavers materialized around him. Despite their heavy cloaking, the bloody scent on them was unmistakable.
The Soul Drinkers tensed, ready to attack.
Francis pulled a bio-armored gauntlet from his armor and threw it over. "Will this suffice?"
Urien caught it, inhaled deeply, and his eyes lit up. He bit off a piece of the tissue, closing his eyes as he savored the sensation.
"Hmm? Not bad at all. Quite rare, actually."
"Leave the people here," Francis said. "We'll revive them and come back."
"No!" Urien's eyes snapped open. "I won't treat them here. I need ten people to take with me for treatment."
Urien's previously narrowed eyes widened slowly, his murky gaze fixed on Francis, trying to see through him. "Oh? Hehe~ Young man, you're not here to save people, are you?"
"Does that matter?" Francis pulled an Eye Cannon from behind him and threw it over. "How about I add this?"
Initially, he'd planned to start a chaotic fight, but observing Urien's obsession with flesh modification, Francis realized some things didn't require violence at all.
When Urien caught the Eye Cannon, genuine surprise bloomed across his face. He tasted it, analyzing the genetic technology, something completely different from anything the Eldar possessed.
"Hehehehe~ You have quite a few treasures on you. Didn't your elders teach you that important things should go to important people?"
As Urien opened his mouth to continue, Francis roared, "Attack!"
Instantly, all the Soul Drinkers activated their control gauntlets, seizing every Blood Reaver around them in coordinated silence.
Simultaneously, Soul Drinker Number One's massive eye revealed itself, staring directly at Urien with hard, psychic control.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then tears appeared at the corners of Urien's eyes, genuine, crystalline tears.
"It's beautiful," he whispered. "This is the first time I've ever seen such a beautiful creation."
The Soul Drinkers exchanged confused glances.
But the Blood Reavers around them understood perfectly. They, too, felt it, the embodiment of beauty made manifest. Their eyes fixed on Soul Drinker Number One with fanatical reverence.
"What is its name?" A rare flush appeared on Urien's corpse-pale face.
"Soul Drinker Number One," Francis answered.
Urien closed his eyes, tears streaming freely, and whispered like a prayer: "Soul Drinker Number One..."
[End of Chapter]