Gazing at the ever-victorious flagship, Zhou Ye knew that even though it was crewed by daemons antithetical to humanity, a direct confrontation was no guaranteed victory.
However, charging headlong into the fray was out of the question. Zhou Ye would not allow himself to be trapped in the Imperium Nihilus, cut off from the extensive network of Star Rails he had painstakingly constructed. That was an absolute impossibility.
Besides, in the short time he had been observing, the spatial rift had already shrunk considerably. He had no idea how long a battle with that vessel would take. Given the uncertainty, a reckless advance was unnecessary.
That thing was strongly correlated with the Golden Fiend's power. His own growth rate was faster. Therefore, Zhou Ye wasn't worried; there would be an opportunity to deal with it eventually. For now, it was better to be a bit more conservative and avoid capsizing in a ditch.
Moreover, the bellowing laughter of Khorne was already threatening to pierce through space and smack him in the face. Zhou Ye remained on high alert, anticipating their next move. Thus, while one part of his mind directed the holy boarding action, another maintained constant contact with Klee back in his fortress.
"What's the situation? Are any units cut off on the other side of the rift?"
"Captain, according to the latest statistics, only the Lamenters have lost contact. However, since you already had them equipped with Gellar Fields, it shouldn't be a major issue."
The Gellar Field. Zhou Ye had eventually installed them. After all, he now controlled thirty worlds and his influence radiated across a hundred more Imperial planets. The number of psykers was simply too high to ignore.
Zhou Ye had no shortage of psyker "batteries." He simply locked them away in the stasis fields of his Imaginary Cells. Those cells were almost completely severed from the Warp—not entirely, or they would be a null-zone, but close enough. While psykers were intrinsically linked to the Immaterium, Zhou Ye had effectively replaced their main water pipe with a capillary. Combined with the stasis fields, there was no risk of them causing trouble.
These individuals were then distributed among his various fleets. If they were ever forced to travel through the Warp, they could activate the Gellar Fields. As for the psykers themselves, all were unsanctioned, and not a single one was innocent. Those who hadn't yet had a chance to cause mayhem were detained under similar conditions; one group served as batteries, the other was temporarily sealed away, though a portion of the latter had already been put to use.
If the Star Rail network continued to expand, Zhou Ye could even begin creating his own unique psionic units. It was a necessary evil. In this universe, psykers were born with a form of original sin. While Zhou Ye didn't despise them, he certainly couldn't let them run loose.
As for handing them over to the Imperium? What a joke. He hadn't paid a single Throne in tithes; he wasn't about to start handing over psykers.
Zhou Ye marveled at it. The Imperium was truly a boundless treasure trove, always providing a steady supply of the various workhorses he needed. So, being trapped in the Dark Imperium wasn't a catastrophic problem. He would deal with it once he found a way to link his network to that side.
"No matter. With Aslot in command, they can fall back to Baal if worst comes to worst. Now that the Great Rift is open, time is on their side there. Besides, the Cicatrix Maledictum has opened ahead of schedule."
With that, Zhou Ye dismissed the file, temporarily shelving the issue. He then turned his attention to another matter. He wasn't overthinking things like Guilliman; the pressure from the current situation was simply too limited to warrant his full attention. Zhou Ye was practically coasting. His honor guard, the Living Saint, and the Black Templars were more than enough to handle these boarders.
Compared to that coward Abaddon, the surging tides within the Warp were what truly concerned Zhou Ye. He couldn't quite figure out what Khorne was planning. While the Golden Fiend's methods were disgusting, he had successfully shielded Zhou Ye from Khorne's power, causing significant interference. Sending these Khornate Berzerkers to lay a hand on him was clearly an exercise in futility. Zhou Ye needed to redeploy his assets accordingly.
With the opening of the Great Rift, the entire galaxy had been thrown into chaos. The hundred or so Imperial worlds under Zhou Ye's influence were descending into turmoil. He had no choice but to disperse some of his forces to handle it. This Warp-born corruption had to be purged. If it was allowed to complete its sacrificial rituals, entire worlds would be lost to anarchy. In that case…
"Activate the hidden units," Zhou Ye commanded softly.
When not on missions, Zhou Ye's Space Marines generally lived among mortals, many even holding other jobs. The Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors, for instance, were civil engineering experts, with some even teaching at Zhou Ye's Academy of Civil Engineering. As for the Emperor's Children, it went without saying: if an entire company was deployed on a mission, the food quality across the entire city of Trailblaze would plummet by several orders of magnitude.
But among them was a special contingent, a group of Space Marines uniquely crafted by Zhou Ye.
The Grey Knights.
The Emperor's final gift to the Imperium of Man. All of them were psykers, humanity's final bastion against the corruption of Chaos, the last act of mercy before a world was consigned to Exterminatus. They had never failed in their duty; not a single one had ever turned traitor. They held records of banishing Daemon Primarchs, their glorious achievements far surpassing even the Custodes. Even their creation cost was exorbitant, exceeding that of many Custodians.
Zhou Ye had adopted a similar strategy for this world. And just as the Imperium's Grey Knights were expensive to create, Zhou Ye's version was not so much expensive to make as they were to maintain.
First, Zhou Ye would select psykers who had not yet been tainted by the filth of the Warp. Then, he would subject them to a violent, forceful Imaginary Baptism. This process was different from what even his own Custodes endured. Due to their nature as high-level psykers, their "capacity" was immense. Zhou Ye would completely scrub away their connection to the Warp and fill the void entirely with Honkai energy.
This meant they became Zhou Ye's true Deathsworn.
They possessed terrifyingly destructive power. The presence of just a few of them, without the intervention of top-tier entities, could push back an entire Daemon Tide.
But that wasn't their primary purpose. First, their combat abilities consumed a vast amount of Imaginary energy, so Zhou Ye deployed them with extreme caution, typically only in the most chaotic of warzones. Second, they were all linked to Zhou Ye's Thousand-Person Theater and carried another crucial piece of equipment: a converter. Their sole purpose was to capture and convert more daemons.
Thus, Zhou Ye had given them a very special moniker: the Demon Hunters.
Their gene-seed was also unique, belonging to no Primarch. It was sourced directly from Zhou Ye himself, the only way to ensure they could withstand the maximum strain. The only step up from this would be for Zhou Ye to create Honkai Beasts from scratch, an absolute drain on his energy reserves.
Like the Grey Knights, they rarely interacted with others. Even other Space Marines only knew rumors of their existence. When deployed to other worlds, any Imperial citizen who saw them would almost certainly have to be eliminated. Zhou Ye only sent them into the heart of a Daemon Tide, a place where no ordinary human could possibly survive. If one was found, they were undoubtedly compromised. A normal person thrown into such an environment, even a Cadian, would not be able to resist. It had nothing to do with willpower; the raw power of the Warp would physically twist them. In that state, a resilient mind would only be a curse, forcing them to watch their own agonizing mutation. A bullet would be a mercy. Therefore, no pity was required. Kill, kill, kill.
And so, with Zhou Ye's command, these warriors, permanently stationed within the Thousand-Person Theater, began to don their armor. Zhou Ye's original purpose for creating them was to deal with the Ork Space Hulk; the sheer number of daemons within would have taken him ages to capture one by one. This task required their coordinated effort.
At his order, these special warriors now entered the teleportation nodes. Their boarding actions were different from others. While others jumped between two ships, they jumped between planets, even star systems. This was their other unique ability, and the very reason Zhou Ye employed them: they could perform a direct Star Rail Jump without needing any vehicle.
Not even Ashira, clad in her armor, could physically teleport directly to various nodes on the Star Rail. The instantaneous pressure from the Imaginary Space would be terrifyingly immense. Only they, as near-pure extensions of Zhou Ye, could withstand it. This was the secret to how Zhou Ye maintained tight control over his domain and its hundreds of radiating worlds.
Their numbers were scarce, less than two hundred in total. But now, to prevent Khorne from stirring up trouble, Zhou Ye had deployed them all.
---o---
A listless Konrad Curze watched as Zhou Ye's entire fortress stirred to life, countless figures assembling. A strange, gentle smile touched Curze's lips; his madness had subsided a great deal.
Just then, he heard movement behind him.
Over a hundred brand-new Night Lords stood before his eyes, leaving him completely stunned.
"The time acceleration has reached its limit. It cannot be used again for a short while," Apothecary Beta muttered at his side. Zhou Ye had pushed the speed too far, causing a degree of backlash that would prevent him from reaching that level of acceleration again anytime soon. But it was a minor issue. This temporary super-acceleration was meant for occasional use, and what it had already accomplished was enough.
Over a hundred newcomers, their eyes clear with a touch of foolishness, stood before Curze. They were now honored Space Marines, but this was only the beginning. They still needed to accumulate experience, and the fastest way to do that was in the Memory Battlefield.
And so, under Curze's dumbfounded gaze, the new recruits were herded into the training simulation.
Then…
Holt Beckett (Source: Night Lords): Failure.
Freyne Stuart (Source: Night Lords): Failure.
Carlisle Edwin (Source: Night Lords): Failure.
Konrad Curze stared at his batch of fledglings, then at the scoreboard above. He finally snapped.
These new Night Lords gave him a feeling of pure, unadulterated foolishness. While he despised the criminals who once filled his ranks, he couldn't stomach these... university students. It was simply too embarrassing.
"My brother protected his people too well," Curze cursed under his breath. It was now up to him to personally teach these pups what it truly meant to be a Night Lord.
---o---
Meanwhile, in Quintus Hive.
A massive rift tore open directly above the hive city, the whispers of the Warp growing clearer than ever before.
Aiswei'er slowly closed her eyes, and a vast barrier of light expanded outwards, protecting a large portion of the hive. But this was all she could do. She was not the Emperor, and the power of the shard was finite.
Soon, countless mortals descended into madness under the incessant whispers. The wastelands outside the hive dissolved into utter chaos. A terrifying plague manifested from thin air, causing the flesh of anyone it touched to slough off their bones. Yet the fallen flesh did not die; it fused and mutated, and the polluted, multi-colored earth bloomed with a grotesque vitality not seen in a thousand years. A blood-red mist spread, and countless gang members and scavengers entered a frenzied state, slaughtering one another in a spray of blood and skulls.
Fortunately, thanks to the barrier, the upper and middle hives remained relatively stable.
"My lady, it is not safe here. Please, come with us," a shadowy figure materialized beside her. The arrival of such a personage had naturally drawn attention from all quarters. Her protectors had already thwarted dozens of assassination attempts from cultists, genestealers, and even rival factions within the Ecclesiarchy.
"He says: 'It is not yet time. With Curze's abilities, he should be close to finding him. Now, I require an answer.'"
"But my lady," a Custodian replied, his voice laced with worry, "even the light of the Astronomican has been extinguished."
The Custodes were deeply concerned. Once that beacon went out, the entire Imperium would shatter. All ships navigating the Warp would lose their way. Worse, the faith of countless Navigators and Astropaths would be crippled.
"He says: 'I must await that person's reply.'"
The Custodes fell into a stunned silence. Their divine mandate was to protect this Living Saint, but now they faced the pressure of an entire planet on the brink of collapse. They couldn't reveal their true identities; the sudden appearance of a Custodes squad would raise too many questions and incite a frantic scramble among certain powers to capture her.
---o---