Chapter 32: The Sound of a Snap
The two descended from the tower. Kian didn't head for the road; he went straight for the forest, prowling through the carnage he'd just witnessed. He picked up a fallen autogun and checked the chamber.
The Psyker, still jittery, thought Kian was arming himself for a betrayal. He began to pool the cold energy of the Empyrean; the grass around his feet began to crystallize with frost.
Kian didn't even look at him. He just slung the rifle over his back and ran toward the next one. He wasn't looking for a fight; he was looking for profit.
He moved from corpse to corpse with the clinical eye of a seasoned looter. He ignored the rifles shattered by the psychic storm or those with rusted bores. He only took the "Exotic" and "Military-grade" frames. By the time he was done, he had seven rifles strapped to his frame.
The "Hoarder-Rat" in his soul was screaming. There were at least fifty more functional rifles in the dirt. Leaving them felt like a physical wound. He turned his gaze toward the curious, hovering Psyker. There's my heavy-lift transport.
"Carry these," Kian commanded, piling ten more rifles into the Psyker's spindly arms.
The Psyker didn't resist. In his broken mind, carrying these heavy iron "sticks" meant he was following the man who brought the Silence. If Kian was taking him to his "Nest," he would carry a mountain if he had to. In the Psyker's world, as long as the Daemons weren't screaming, he was invincible.
Kian added a scavenged rebel rucksack to the pile, filling it with twenty full magazines and twenty fragmentation grenades.
The total load was a staggering sixty kilograms. Kian's vision flashed with a Yellow Weight Warning, and he felt his spine groan.
"Ugh... alright. Move out!"
The trek to the Great Ventilator was a test of endurance. Kian would sprint until his stamina hit zero, then trudge at a crawl until it refilled. He was panting like a dying grox, but he refused to drop a single gram of loot. This was the true "Extraction Shooter" experience: the slow, agonizing crawl to safety with a bag full of gold.
The Psyker, however, was moving with eerie grace. He didn't seem to feel the weight at all, thanks to a constant, passive telekinetic shroud.
"Friend," Kian wheezed, stopping to wipe sweat from his rebreather. "The Sanctum is still thirty kilometers away. If I carry this myself, we'll get there by next year. You've got all that space-magic... do something useful."
The Psyker tilted his head. Without a word, he extended a hand. Kian felt a sudden, gravity-defying lightness. The sixty kilograms of metal on his back suddenly felt like a bag of feathers.
Kian let out a long sigh of relief. "Alright. Now we're talking. I'm starting to really like you, freak."
"The wind... it is so quiet around you," the Psyker whispered.
They talked as they moved. Kian found out that "Silentium"—the name he gave the Psyker—was entirely self-taught. Or rather, "Daemon-taught."
"I can focus the air until it shatters stone," the Psyker explained tonelessly. "I can catch the lead seeds your people throw. I can even step upon the air for a short time."
"And the 'Skin-Ripping' trick?" Kian asked, genuinely curious.
"The Never-born told me that everything has a different 'weight' in the mind. The bone is heavy; the meat is light. If I pull only the light things and push the heavy, they separate. The Daemons told me to do it to children so I could hear the most beautiful screams."
Kian shivered. "That's dark, buddy. But think about the practical applications! If you can separate substances by density, you could strip the gold right out of the ore! Or if you can pull moisture out of things... you could dry my laundry in five seconds! Do you have any idea how long it takes for a shirt to dry in the Underhive?"
The Psyker blinked. He had been used as a weapon of terror and a plaything for Daemons, yet here was a man asking him to perform industrial mining and laundry services. The sheer absurdity of it settled the Psyker's mind further.
Finally, the rusted silhouette of the Great Ventilator appeared in the moonlight. They reached the "Hardened Floor"—the extraction zone.
Kian stopped at the edge of the metal plating. He began taking the rifles off the Psyker and strapping them back onto his own body. His knees buckled under the sudden return of the weight.
"Alright, Silent One," Kian panted, his spine popping. "You've done well. We're almost at the finish line."
The Psyker looked at the dark tunnel of the ventilator. "Your nest is in there? I will follow."
Kian smiled, a predatory, mischievous glint in his eyes. "Tell me, Silentium... have you ever seen a man disappear in a Flash?"
The Psyker looked confused. "A flash? Like lightning?"
Kian's smile widened as the green countdown over his vision hit 0:03.
"Watch closely. This is a trick I learned from the Space King."
0:02.
"Wait for me here. I'll come back with the Sanctified Oil in a few days. Don't wander off, and try not to murder any more PDF companies while I'm gone."
0:01.
"FLASH!!" Kian yelled.
Snap.
In a sudden, violent distortion of light and sound, Kian Voss and sixty kilograms of Imperial weaponry vanished into thin air.
The Psyker stood frozen. He lunged forward, his blood-stained hands grasping at the empty air where Kian had stood a second ago. There was no heat. No psychic residue. The man was simply... gone.
A second later, the first faint whisper of a Daemon returned to his ear. He left you... he lied... the Silence is a dream...
"NO!" the Psyker screamed, a massive psychic shockwave erupting from his body.
The ground for fifty meters around the ventilator shattered. Boulders were pulverized into dust. The Silent One fell to his knees, howling into the night.
"KIAN VOSS! COME BACK! WITHOUT YOU, THE VOICES... THE VOICES ARE SO LOUD!!"
[EXTRACTION SUCCESSFUL: LEGENDARY RATING]
Total Loot Value: 112,000 Agri-Scrips.
New Contact: [The Silent One (Rogue Psyker)].
Status: Mental Trauma (Kian), Existential Crisis (Psyker).
Kian reappeared in the Sanctum and collapsed face-first onto the cold plasteel floor.
"One hundred... twelve... thousand..." Kian wheezed into the metal. "I'm rich. I'm so throne-damned rich."
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you