"..."
Hearing this, Sokk fell into a deep silence. He had already realized what was happening.
This whisper was not some promise of glory, but the presence of blasphemy itself.
But he quickly thought of something else. When those old geezers on the council heard about the profits, every single one of them had been arrogant and condescending, treating that planet as if it were already in their grasp.
Now, the moment the situation turned sour, they sold him out in an instant.
At this moment, he felt an infinite resentment welling up inside him—resentment for these ungrateful, money-grubbing parasites.
And for that disgusting young man who enjoyed playing the wolf in sheep's clothing, who had lured him here, and for those running dogs of the False Emperor... the Astartes.
"I am willing..."
"Then submit to me, my Prince of Pleasure!!!"
In that instant, a grotesque aura erupted across the command bridge.
---o---
"The target's location is confirmed. Commencing boarding action."
At that moment, Zhou Ye slowly rose to his feet and stretched his back.
Then, taking his top-tier chef and bodyguard, Ashira, he teleported and departed.
As an aside, he had also temporarily changed his Chapter's livery. The Star of Trailblaze name could not be used for now.
This time, he changed the paint scheme to a cyan-blue, somewhat similar to the Ultramarines but not quite as deep.
Even if the livery was identical to the Ultramarines, it wouldn't matter. There were no strict regulations on this point.
Besides, Fulgrim himself had once mocked Guilliman, "Why are your sons so colorful?"
Zhou Ye was now very curious about who had written their Rogue Trader Warrant.
After all, the memories of the Oliveira family contained no specific information about the warrant itself; it seemed their memories of it had been deliberately altered.
They all had a missing segment of memory. The Callidus Assassin had merely locked her own memories away, not deleted them, which was why he had been able to retrieve them.
But this was a direct deletion, something he could not see.
So Zhou Ye was genuinely curious. He was even starting to suspect Horus.
Of course, even if it was, it didn't matter. As long as that piece of paper existed, he could alter it.
In any case, it was all irrelevant now. He had confirmed their position.
Soon, with a flash of light, Zhou Ye, clad in a suit of Artificer Armor, arrived inside a starship. Before him stood a massive door.
"Interesting..."
Looking at the door, Zhou Ye paused for a moment before letting out a chuckle.
This was the very same door Nurgle encountered in Plague Song. It was incredibly durable. Any weapon capable of destroying it would, if it scored a direct hit, also obliterate everything behind it.
Moreover, it seemed to be emitting a special energy field that blocked all perception of what lay beyond.
No wonder the squad he had sent ahead had stopped here and called for his support.
"A pity. This door couldn't stop Nurgle, and it can't stop me either."
With a faint smile, Zhou Ye placed his hand upon its surface.
"Analyze, Replicate, Deconstruct, Modify..."
As the Authority of the Herrscher of Reason activated, the door's secrets were laid bare in an instant.
Zhou Ye directly altered the door's material structure. Soon, cracks spread across its once-unyielding surface.
The next moment, the entire door crumbled into dust. He had directly reconfigured its atomic structure into something else entirely, rendering it useless.
With the door gone, the scene behind it was revealed, causing him to freeze.
It was not the lavish ship's cabin he had expected.
Instead, he was met with a blasphemous sacrificial altar. The bodies of the crew had been arranged in extremely twisted and sacrilegious patterns. All of them were still alive.
"Kill me..." a skeletal frame, its human form almost unrecognizable, whispered with a faint voice.
His body had been dissected, his blood vessels and meridians laid bare for all to see. By all rights, he should have been dead, but his soul was trapped within his flesh, offered up as a sacrifice to a profane master.
"Well now..."
Seeing this, Zhou Ye raised his pistol and fired a single shot, but...
Bang.
An energy shield blocked the bullet. Looking up, he saw Sokk standing there.
But Sokk had undergone a tremendous transformation. His body had suddenly shot upwards, his frame now rivaling the Primaris Terminators behind Zhou Ye. His flesh was twisted and warped.
He had stripped the flesh from his crew and sewn it onto his own body.
A wave of physiological revulsion washed over Zhou Ye, and he couldn't help but frown.
Slaanesh.
Honestly, of all the forms of corruption and mutation, Zhou Ye would rather face Nurgle than this.
At least with Nurgle, it was just disgusting. Once he sealed himself in his power armor and cut off the air supply, it was manageable.
But the works of Slaanesh... they provoked a genuine, physical revulsion in him.
Right now, all he wanted was to find a place to thoroughly wash his eyes. How did he stumble into this mess again? This turn of events, frankly, had caught him completely off guard.
"You have come..." a composite voice, seemingly formed from the throats of a dozen different people, emanated from Sokk's mouth.
It was as if a thousand voices were speaking at once. An ordinary person would have been corrupted in that single instant.
In response, Ashira and the Terminator squad behind Zhou Ye, along with a Centurion, immediately raised their weapons.
"Kill it."
Zhou Ye waved his hand. This was something he was not keen on handling personally for the moment.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
In the next moment, a torrent of munitions rained down upon the creature.
But the shots only bloomed into gory flowers of flesh on its body, and the gaping wounds healed at a visible rate.
"This is bad..."
This sight made Zhou Ye's brow furrow. This was no ordinary corruption. This required overwhelming force.
He drew his greatsword and was about to charge, but...
"Join me, and let us journey to the palace of the Prince of Pleasure."
In that instant, the space before the creature began to warp.
Zhou Ye flickered back to his Terminator squad's side, and the entire group teleported away from the warship.
He had sensed the distorted space and the unique singularity. The creature was trying to drag him into the Warp.
While Zhou Ye wasn't afraid, he had no desire to enter it.
In an instant, he was back on his own ship. Immediately after, all his boarding teams were recalled.
Zhou Ye slammed his hand onto the Hyperion's console, no longer caring about the energy expenditure. In the blink of an eye, they jumped tens of thousands of kilometers away.
At the same time, the flesh of the Warp surged forth and nourished the enemy fleet. In a flash, all the vessels were swallowed by a giant, unidentifiable globule of flesh.
Soon, a mass of flesh and cables approaching the size of a small asteroid appeared before Zhou Ye. One end of it was in realspace, while the other was connected directly to the Warp.
At that moment, a single term echoed in Zhou Ye's mind.
Space Hulk.
"So, Lord Captain, is this still part of your plan?"
Staring dumbfounded at the enormous fleshy tumor, before Zhou Ye could say anything, Ai-chan's voice chimed in his ear.
"Not a problem. This is part of the plan. Prepare an Exterminatus for me."
Looking at the Space Hulk, Zhou Ye's expression darkened.
Then, as if remembering something, he grabbed a piece of the Hyperion's hull plating and tore it off, restoring its appearance to that of a Battle Barge.
As for that... thing, Zhou Ye had no desire to touch it. He was already preparing a super vortex torpedo.
Frankly, with one end of it connected directly to the Warp, he really, really did not want to get involved.
"Lord Captain, it would be best not to launch it just yet. I can detect that the enemy fleet has only been adhered to the Space Hulk. The main body of the hulk is still in the Warp. If you use your super vortex torpedo now, you might tear open a small... Great Rift."
"SON OF A BITCH!!!"
Hearing this, Zhou Ye froze, then couldn't stop himself from cursing out loud.
He didn't dare use the Exterminatus now. He wasn't Abaddon. Tearing open a new Great Rift, even a small one, was not something he wanted to be responsible for.
After all, this sector was basically his backyard. He wasn't about to open something like that on his own doorstep.
"Looks like I either have to wait for that thing to emerge completely, or for the rift to stabilize."
A dark expression crossed Zhou Ye's face, but the situation wasn't entirely out of control.
The enemy flagship was merely fused with the Space Hulk. If he could board it, he might have a way to separate it.
This was part of the plan... probably.
---o---
Meanwhile, on Quintus Hive.
Warning... Warning...
Alarms blared across the entire Quintus Hive. The Space Marines, currently engaged in purging cultists and Genestealers, received a new command.
"Return to your vessels immediately. Disregard those entities for now. Leave them to the local PDF."
Inquisitor Chris stared into the distance, dumbfounded. His Warp-presence alarms were screaming at maximum intensity.
What in the Emperor's name was the Oliveira Dynasty doing? How did their fleet instantly merge with the Warp and tear open a spatial rift?
It was now slowly emerging from the Immaterium. Seeing this, Chris felt his breath catch in his throat.
If this thing was left unchecked, the entire sector could be contaminated.
This was no ordinary Warp catastrophe. Who had time to worry about the disorganized cultists and Genestealers down below?
Soon, Gabriel Seth of the Flesh Tearers, Asmodai of the Dark Angels, Metaurus of the Ultramarines, Mario of the Lamenters, and Marshal Quins of the Black Templars all stared at the sight before them, utterly stunned.
"All hands, prepare to advance on the Space Hulk."
Everything has its priorities. The sordid affairs of Quintus Hive were no longer important.
Whatever happened, the cultists wouldn't be able to conduct any special rituals in the short term.
But if this Space Hulk wasn't dealt with, it could detonate at any moment.
Emperor knows what was on board. It could very well corrupt the entire sector.
And... this thing was also a massive treasure trove. There were legends of an Emperor-class battleship being salvaged from a Space Hulk.
This thing was like a giant dungeon, where crisis and opportunity coexisted.
Soon, the combined fleet began to move toward its destination. They had to deal with this.
More importantly, Chris felt a daze wash over him, as if he had discovered something.
A golden figure was guiding him, pointing him toward that location.
And he wasn't the only one. All the Space Marines present, with the exception of the Lamenters, felt the same sensation—a giant in gold was guiding them toward something.
Asmodai saw the vision of an ancient Dark Angel. Metaurus saw an image of the Second Empire. Seth saw a distinct crimson light. As for the Black Templar... he saw it, but at the same time, he saw nothing.
"Emperor above, what is in there?"
This thought, with the exception of the Lamenters, was shared by all of them.
---o---
On another ship...
"Excellent. Has the spatial distortion stabilized? I want to launch a vortex torpedo. Running into Slaanesh worshippers is such damn bad luck."
Watching the Space Hulk slowly emerge from the Warp, Zhou Ye couldn't help but complain.
Just how big was this thing? Not that it mattered anymore.
Right now, he was contemplating how to blow it up. While he could hit it with a blast from the Authority of Finality, it would be a huge waste of energy. Besides, the other end was still connected to the Warp.
Who knew what sort of strange things one of his blasts might knock loose? So, Zhou Ye was debating whether to just launch a torpedo.
"Lord Captain, you know what's best."
"Might as well launch one, then..."
With that, Zhou Ye opened his command interface. He was planning to launch one just to see the effect. If it blew the thing up, great.
If not, it wasn't a huge problem.
But just as he was about to act...
"This is an Imperial Inquisitor. There is a special artifact on that vessel. Cease your actions immediately."
A message was received by Zhou Ye, causing him to instinctively pause.
"This is Asmodai of the Dark Angels. Guided by the divination of Librarian Ezekiel... I am here to assist the Inquisition in recovering the artifact."
"This is Metaurus of the Ultramarines. Guided by the divination of Librarian Tigurius... I am here to destroy... I mean, to assist the Inquisition in recovering the artifact."
"This is Seth of the Flesh Tearers. I am here to..."
"We are the Black Templars. We were just passing by, saw a Space Hulk, and came to have a look."
"..."
Staring at the incoming communications with a blank expression, Zhou Ye felt that, just maybe, only the Black Templars were telling the truth.
---o---