Chapter 29
Helena sipped her coffee, looking at the purple-haired girl in front of her. "What are you doing here?"
"Do you like Wayne very much?"
"For a mortal opponent, he's still quite interesting for now." Helena never liked this youngest member. "As a junior, you still have a lot to learn."
"Is that so? I have something to tell you. Wayne is already fifty-six years old."
"He looks like he's only in his twenties, and besides, it's very easy for a noble like him to have a life-extension surgery."
The purple-haired girl played with the Eldar skull in her hand, consuming the souls of some Eldar.
The Wayne bloodline issue originated from the ancestors of the Wayne Family and only brought longevity. It was like the Fenrisians' cold resistance, a result of genetic modification, which was common in the Dark Age of Technology.
Wayne gained power and status through his cooperation with artificial intelligence and extreme violence, not through his bloodline.
"The Wayne bloodline underwent modifications in the past, giving them a natural lifespan of over two hundred years, but they would still die of old age. Wayne himself detests biological modification, so he naturally wouldn't undergo it."
Helena frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Given Wayne's methods and your level of affection, as a god who controls love and emotion within the Warp, I can tell that you and Wayne will play together for thousands of years before getting bored. But before you get tired of Wayne, he would long be dead of old age."
Helena's eyes widened instantly. She honestly haven't thought of this, but anyways what did it matter? When he died, his soul would naturally... Of course, damn it, the other would definitely not let her have her way, especially with Wayne's soul.
"I understand." Helena waved her hand, dismissing the girl in front of her. "It's been nine years. It's time to activate it. Besides, how could he possibly die of old age?"
How could there truly be such a thing as a lifespan limit? Before Wayne died of old age, she would have already grown tired of him, or perhaps even played him to death.
The Warp contains everything. This is the most common knowledge among Chaos Cultists, but the Warp has never contained everything. Neither the mysterious power of the Tower of Babel nor the law of the Material Universe of the Star Gods.
And not all universes have their heroes. This world is undoubtedly fallen and dark. In the past ten thousand years, humans have cruelly abused their fellow beings, and the Aeldar have gone even further into inhumane pleasure. Thousands of years of human and Aeldari atrocities led to the current era, and Wayne, born within it, is also an embodiment of darkness and depravity.
Few individuals named Wayne turn out this way. Most Waynes still try their best to be normal people, but he has already fallen into it, consolidating his position through utterly ruthless atrocities.
In the blink of an eye, nine years had passed since Konrad arrived on Nostramo. Wayne had, through various means, taken absolute control of 14 percent of world land and indirect control of more than 60 percent of the world's population and land.
The remaining regions were still resisting, hoping that Wayne would make some concessions so that the nobles there could survive.
But in the regions annexed by Wayne, the nobles were either put on trial or sent to Nostramo's moon for construction.
The reason Wayne was able to occupy various regions so easily and quickly was that the lower nobles and warriors did not want to be tortured to death by Wayne, especially the minor nobles, who were already exploited by those above them and had little power in their hands.
They were also expected to fight and kill Wayne for the sake of the great nobles. They were not nobles under the blessing of chivalry. They were a group of selfish people to begin with. Faced with a powerful enemy, they naturally chose to surrender.
After all, working on an alien planet was also a standard Wayne work condition: housing, food that met Wayne's standards, eight to twelve hours of work per day, and one day off per week.
These conditions were enough to make nobles and their warriors give up resistance, especially those warriors who, upon comparing salary standards, realized that surrendering meant a pay raise and increased rest time.
Their object of service changed from minor nobles and great nobles who couldn't protect themselves to the planet's greatest, the last of the Wayne bloodline, the group leader, Wayne. They thought about it and realized they had nothing to lose.
Anyway, they were originally responsible for noble security work and were not within the total scope of the Wayne Group's purges.
With the people below surrendering, the great nobles, especially those who had given up their grassroots power, quickly realized that their subordinates wished Wayne would come here. Collateral members of the family calculated that their problems were not enough to warrant being put on trial, and the life they lived was oppressed by powerful great nobles, so it was better to join Wayne.
Rather than being obsequious all year round, Wayne's offered life was better, and they could even work on an alien planet, which might be much freer than staying here. At least Wayne provided them with good housing conditions and quality of life. Besides having to work, there were no other problems.
Between death and busy work, they chose work.
When they realized that Wayne's silent annexation was complete, they had no chance to resist. Some chose to end their own lives, some were arrested and brought to justice, and some died in mad resistance.
No matter what, Konrad had no chance to fully display his abilities. The opponents, under Wayne's oppression, were already ashen-faced and simply did not want two Waynes to torture them together.
....
The Primarch yawned boredly. The group was extremely busy with recent expansion matters, and Wayne had only tasked Konrad with security issues because one case was crucial.
"999 missing children?"
The accompanying guard nodded. "Yes, these situations have occurred in ninety-nine regions. Should we inform your father?"
Konrad thought it must be the nobles wanting to go down fighting, or they intended to blackmail Wayne with the children, as this world was not completely safe yet.
"No need. He's been working overtime intensely lately. So many nines? This case is interesting. I'll handle it. Let's go!"
Konrad sprang into action, leading the second-generation Protocol Department troops to investigate. With cameras covering the entire world, they discovered the children were taken by blue cultists. Konrad quickly found the gathering point of the missing children.
He led his guard deep into the Hive City's underground, only to see a mass of corpses. All the cultists seemed to have mutated, their bodies unnaturally leaning towards owls. Those cultists who failed to survive the mutation all died here, their bones emanating the aura of the Warp.
As the Primarch led his team deeper, whether it was the cultists or the original mutants, almost all of them died here. Some of the bones gathered and wove into an owl.
"What is all this?" The Primarch had originally thought this was just a simple cult operation, but now it seemed nothing was simple.
Konrad frowned, looking at everything before him. The Wayne Group occupied Hive City Five, and his team had arrived at the edge of Hive City One.
He was instantly struck by a splitting headache. Infinite Warp energy converged here, and the Primarch felt his psychic powers losing control. The accompanying mortal warriors had no time to react before being directly twisted and mutated by the psychic energy into Chaos monsters. They wailed, losing their souls.
Konrad staggered backward.
Konrad realized he had underestimated everything here. He had not realized that Chaos had invaded here.
What is Chaos? Konrad unconsciously knew this word, as if by instinct.
"Konrad." Helena appeared before the Primarch and smiled slightly. Her dark eyes gazed at Konrad. "Long time no see. I told you I would temper you. Are you worthy of Wayne now?"
"Who exactly are you woman?"
"You are not worthy to know my name, at least not the current you. I could forcibly twist you, but that would be too boring. Hive City One, as Nostramo's oldest Hive City, has billions of humans. Can you save them?"
"What do you mean?" Konrad took a deep breath, trying to alleviate his pain in this way. "What do you want to do?"
"I'll be honest with you. There are millions of cultists here, well-armed, who will rush to the surface to kill people, opening the Warp gate through slaughter and transformation. Then daemons would feast on billions of souls, quite a sight it would be.."
The woman lowered her head. "And what you need to do is simple, very simple: just break out and save people. After all, Hive City One's armaments are equally powerful. It just lacks a qualified commander. But the quetion of hour is Can you make it through?"
The Primarch's mouth opened wide, taking the deepest breaths possible. He realized this woman just wanted him to control the Warp's power and break out of here.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because your father loves you. If you change destiny and please me, you can also make Wayne rush over regardless of everything. Then those damned artificial intelligence will not be able to activate in time. You are Wayne's greatest weakness. Now, control yourself."
Helena walked closer step by step, bending down to look at Konrad's face. "How utterly boring."
The Primarch instantly erupted in fury. He had been waiting for Helena to approach him. He reached out and grabbed Helena's neck, his other hand seizing the woman's body, then with a forceful pull, he tore her head off, along with her spine. Blood splattered everywhere. The next second, an endless stream of cultists stormed along the blood-soaked path. Their only goal was to serve the Owl.
Helena emerged from another angle, watching Konrad, who was still trying to control himself.
"I forgot to tell you, the game begins when you kill me. It seems you're ready."
Konrad watched the mutated monsters running past him. The frequency of their actions grew higher and higher. The Primarch felt his essence rising, tearing apart his physical body. Psychic prophecies flooded into his eyes illogically. He felt blood flowing from his nose, as if his brain could not bear the rise of a god.
A Primarch's normal awakening of power would not be like this, but the forced awakening of power was harming Konrad. His eyes could not see the present, only the future, and the future was a chaos, with only an endless number of daemons laughing madly throughout the galaxy.
Despair was consuming Konrad. He had to control himself. He had to become his true self.
"Son, we all have a monster inside us. The question is whether to control the monster or become the monster." Wayne's voice echoed deep within Konrad's heart. "If you can't control the monster, try to become one with it, because the monster is us, and we are human."
"Father, I understand."
Konrad took a deep breath, feeling his soul. In this place abundant with Warp energy, it was like a true Warp domain. Konrad looked at his other self.
Night Haunter.
[End of Chapter]