Chapter 898 - 897: Omegon, My Lord Saved You from the Xenos' Clutches, and This Is How You Repay Him

Aboard the Weeping Needle, the Tenth Chapter's flagship, in the flight deck control room.

Sasebo Tezuka , a member of Ramsey's Honour Guard, stood in a corner as the controller's voice announced.

"25th Squad, 9th Company, landing plan confirmed. Please proceed to the designated guidance rune."

"Please transfer control. I will take over the flight."

"Welcome home!"

Sasebo Tezuka, clad in his Cataphractii-Pattern Terminator Armor, held a blue-green filigree metal sphere in his left gauntlet.

He stared at the quivering ruby-red blood within, frowning as he watched three crimson 'serpents' suddenly spring up.

One, two, three. The blood-lines struck the same point within the metal sphere, and three emerald runes flashed.

Sasebo Tezuka noted the subtle differences in brightness as the emerald light grew more intense. He looked down through the viewport, locking onto three Alpha Legionnaires in black Mark IV power armor.

He committed the runes to memory.

Six hours later, the flight deck's blast doors closed one by one.

Sasebo Tezuka silently put away the metal sphere and walked to the door.

Cold mist billowed. The door slid open.

The pale-skinned operators turned to watch the Shadow of Order leave, feeling the temperature rise instantly.

They were Void-born, generations who had lived their entire lives aboard ships.

They were born on the medical deck, breathing the ship's filtered air.

They could navigate the ship's narrow corridors blindfolded, along paths traced by generations, and were finally laid to rest in small metal caskets drifting in the void.

Their features were flat, but they could detect the slightest change in the ship's atmosphere.

They looked at the temperature gauge as it jumped from 19.42 degrees to 19.58, then to 19.61...

The Reclusiam was located on the upper deck. High Chaplain Pat insisted that all Reclusiams of the Shadows of Order be placed at the ship's center, not in a corner.

The Weeping Needle's was directly below the bridge.

Sasebo Tezuka glanced at the Vissa chieftain at the door, immediately sensing that this conversation was different.

He had been to the Reclusiam before, speaking in a comfortable, peaceful atmosphere about his devotion to his father and his Lord, and his belief that death was an honor...

Blanks were unsuitable for conversation; they were guardians of secrets.

The door slid open. Sasebo Tezuka entered.

"Chapter Master."

"High Chaplain."

Ramsey, his face a mirror of their father's, nodded. "Euclidean Runes."

"By Your will." Sasebo Tezuka drew his chainsword without activating it, and tapped the ground rapidly, tracing lines.

Ramsey, the biomancer, watched the triangles, pentagons, and other shapes form under the influence of his spirituality. He felt his connection to the aetheric tides severed.

He nodded. "Good. You have fully mastered the Euclidean Runes created by my Lord."

"Most company commanders, even in other Chapters, haven't."

Except for the Eleventh Chapter, whose members had a superhuman understanding of geometric mysteries. Even many of their subordinates had mastered the Euclidean Runes."

"How many?" Pat, a psychic wyrmling on his shoulder, asked, his sharp eyes fixed on Tezuka.

Tezuka's instincts warned him that Pat's pale, gold-tinged eyes were unusually sharp.

They seemed to pierce his armor, revealing his hidden thoughts.

Tezuka forced himself to remain still. "Nine."

"Omegon!" Pat's roar, from beneath his black robe, was like a dragon's awakening.

"My Lord saved you from the xenos' clutches on Bar'Savor, and this is how you repay Him?"

"It might not be Omegon. It could be Alpharius. My Lord said there is another serpent's head in the shadows," Ramsey said, shaking his head.

"They have also infiltrated the other three Legions on the Murder."

"My Lord said that two years ago, it wasn't the rebels who killed the Kynoch Chapter and its six Titans of the 670th Expedition Fleet. It was them."

'The Cabal!' Pat roared silently in his mind. The heretics who blasphemed the Black Emperor must be purged.

"I will find out their purpose immediately."

He looked at Sasebo Tezuka . "Who?"

Sasebo Tezuka raised his arm, handing the datapad to the High Chaplain.

[Semeneo...]

Pat committed the names to memory. "I need some time. You two leave."

After they had left and the door closed, Pat approached the cogitator.

He rapidly input a string of runes. Lines of green text scrolled.

He tapped the screen, calling up the information he needed.

[Semeneo: Neophyte, 20th Squad, 9th Company. Recruited from the Chapter's designated recruiting world, Arzha, in the Solar Segmentum. Completed genetic modification and neophyte training in 994...]

Pat's obsidian eyes blazed, the fire growing with each line of text.

He whispered to himself, using a "Psychiatrist's" "Psychological Cue": "Calm."

When he placed his hand on the rune-keyboard, he had regained his composure.

The door slid open. He made another "Psychological Cue": "It's time."

"I need to sleep."

Pat walked into the inner chamber and lay down on the large bed.

The psychic wyrmling fluttered, landing beside the bed. It watched his abdomen rise and fall, his breathing growing slower.

In the hazy atmosphere, Pat the "Dreamwalker" became lucid.

Before him appeared a giant in dark green armor, holding a spear.

Pat pressed the activation rune. His crozius blazed with arcs of energy.

"Omegon!"

Bang!

Amidst the ozone smell, Omegon was crushed by the crozius.

Pat walked on. The dreamscape shifted. He was in the amphitheater, kneeling on the marble floor.

He looked up at the dais, at the golden light, at the False Emperor in his golden armor.

Pat rose, his fury at bowing to the heretic driving him up the steps, his crozius raised high.

"All gods are false! Only my Lord is true!"

"There can be no two sovereigns!"

"False Emperor, die!"

Pat's crozius struck the Primarch's armor. The energy field roared, tearing through the golden plates. Sparks exploded, and the heretic burst into a cloud of blood.

He inhaled the fading scent of blood, shattering the nightmare the False Emperor had burned into his mind at Nikaea. He felt his mind grow clearer.

Pat strode through the collapsing amphitheater, his crozius slung over his shoulder.

The grey mist stretched before him, a bottomless abyss.

But Pat, the "Dreamwalker," knew he had reached the edge of his own dreamscape.

He raised his arm, pointing at the mist.

The grey fog churned, revealing a staircase descending.

Pat walked down, his crozius on his shoulder.

Silence. Only the endless grey mist.

He walked for an unknowable time. Lights flickered around him.

A majestic, colossal figure appeared, boundless, its height unfathomable, its boots unseeable.

Golden wings beat, sending waves through the grey mist.

"My Lord!" Pat knelt, his devotion absolute.

He knew he was in the collective subconscious of the Weeping Needle, and that the majestic figure was a manifestation of the Shadows of Order's collective image of their Lord, not the Black Emperor himself. Yet his devotion was as deep as if he knelt before Him.

The "Dreamwalker," through the knowledge granted by the Black Emperor and his own experience, had come to understand the collective subconscious.

The conscious mind was an island; the subconscious, the part beneath the surface; the collective subconscious was the surrounding sea.

"One, praise the Black Emperor; two, He wields light and shadow..." Pat chanted to eleven, then rose, looking around.

Among the grey lights, an unsettling chittering echoed.

Builder-spiders used their shovel-like limbs to pull white substance from a Weaver's spinnerets, constructing white thorn-trees.

Flying spiders, their wings beating, descended from above.

"Three months of fighting have left their mark on the Shadows of Order's subconscious."

After this observation, Pat's eyes narrowed, focusing on a dark green light.

He walked forward. The light grew clearer, taking the form of a slimy serpent.

It was the size of the Black Emperor's finger, as manifested by the collective subconscious of the Shadows of Order.

Nine dark green shadows drifted around the serpent.

The "Dreamwalker's" eyes swept over them. He extended his spirituality. "Guiding Dreams."

The hazy images grew clear.

His gaze focused on one dark green shadow.

Aboard the Beta.

A deck officer shouted: "Confirmed hit on the Kent, the Solar Wind..."

"Full planetary bombardment..."

"Confirmed hit on the Bramales!"

Pat's eyes narrowed. He knew the Bramales was the 670th Expedition Fleet's battle-barge.

The dark green shadow vanished, replaced by another.

Namatjira pleaded: "Primarch! Please!"

Alpharius raised his boltgun.

Bang!

Ten Namatjira, the 670th Expedition Fleet's commander-in-chief, exploded into a cloud of blood.

The dark green shadow vanished, replaced by another, projecting an image.

"Antoine, I want you to infiltrate the Shadows of Order and uncover their hidden secrets," Alpharius commanded.

"Alpharius," Pat murmured, suppressing the golden light in his eyes.

He watched Antoine transfer from ship to ship, arriving on the Murder via a Luna Wolves transport.

The image vanished.

The "Dreamwalker," having gathered information through "Guiding Dreams," was about to "Modify the Dream" to force them to kneel and commit suicide, when he stopped.

"I should not act on my own. I must report this to my Lord."

....

If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.

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