Chapter 903 - 902: Emperor, the Knights of Caliban Are Not Slaves

Caliban, Stoneledge region.

Zahariel returned to the tower in a daze as the black mist receded. He raised his right hand, looking at the potion the Black Emperor had given him.

Within the pitch-black liquid, pale specks drifted.

Held in his palm, it seemed to possess a strange power, gradually calming his turbulent thoughts.

Zahariel unshouldered his force staff, channeling spirituality into it to deactivate the "Euclidean Runes."

Then, he immediately followed the Black Emperor's command, preparing for the sacred ritual.

He awakened the terrifying memories burned into his mind: in the deep forest, a Great Beast, its jaws gaping, its cold teeth gleaming like blades.

Zahariel's pupils dilated, swallowing his eyes.

His two hearts pounded. Adrenaline surged.

His body grew faint. He vanished.

Whoosh!

He reappeared three meters away, as if teleporting.

Zahariel activated his Fear Sight, a gift possessed by fewer than ten individuals in human history.

In a single breath, he flickered between the Warp and reality.

On the other side of the mirror, he saw countless lights flash past:

Crimson predators. Oily, black tendrils...

Zahariel's eyes grew dark as he rose to the Third Level of the Magnus state.

In the next instant, the colors of reality grew sharp, reds deeper, blacks darker...

His eyes, deep as a Librarian's, searched through the thousand shimmering lights.

One second, two, three...

His gaze swept across a million lights, finally settling on a star-scattered night sky.

Since receiving the Black Emperor's power, his Warp-image had been Caliban's sky, veiled in darkness.

In the next instant, returning to the physical world, he lowered his state of mind from the Third Level of the Magnus state to the Second.

Countless voices clamored in his ears.

Caliban was whispering to him.

Using the Fear Sight again, he flickered back into the Warp, feeling a powerful pull, like a rope, drawing him towards the star-scattered night sky.

A whispering, murmuring chorus called to him.

He raised his hand. The Lion Sword appeared in his grasp.

Light flickered in his eyes. He flickered rapidly, as if a hundred figures were striking simultaneously.

Countless blades flashed, cutting down countless shadows.

He swept aside the Warp-creatures that sought to merge with his mind, falling into the star-scattered night.

A spiked head, extending from a serpentine body, lunged, its fangs like a woodcutter's saw.

A barbed tail lashed from a bull-like form, whistling through the air.

Zahariel's movements slowed as he entered the shadowy forest.

A placid atmosphere settled over him, his movements dragging, leaving afterimages.

He swung his blade again and again, cutting down one Caliban beast after another.

He felt the forest resist him, harder to traverse than a swamp.

His breathing slowed. His powerful body felt shackled.

His arm, swinging the Lion Sword, grew heavy. Strength drained.

He maintained his Fear Sight, flickering between the material and the Warp. He didn't know how long he had been fighting, when his gaze sharpened.

Click, click...

A massive shadow loomed over him. Its wings were thin and transparent, their edges rimmed with chitinous armor.

Its body was like an ancient Terran lion. Its long neck was as long as its body, and its spiked head clicked and snapped.

Whoosh!

A barbed hook, whistling, struck his chest. A memory flashed through his mind, overlaying the present.

A Great Beast! A Caliban beast that only he and the Lion had hunted.

Even the great Luther had never achieved such a feat.

He was about to swing the Lion Sword to strike the beast, when understanding came.

He raised his chest, his right arm extended, the sword pointing down.

The beast's barbed tail struck Zahariel's head.

Rumble!

A thousand lights exploded in Zahariel's mind.

"If this is your best move!" Nemiel mocked, dodging Zahariel's lunge.

"You better give up now!"

The memories lost to the surgical modifications were returning.

Zahariel and Nemiel were cousins, born weeks apart, from different branches of the same noble family. Their shared, sharp features and hawkish noses often led to them being mistaken for brothers.

Their connection ran deeper than their appearance.

They had trained together in the Great Order, relying on and competing with each other.

As the images flooded his mind, Zahariel knew he had, following the Black Emperor's command, found the key information of his Warp-reflection.

He raised his left arm and drank the potion.

As it slid down his throat, the pale specks exploded like fireworks.

"Ah!"

A burning golden light tore through his mind.

A dam burst in Zahariel's mind, releasing a flood of repressed memories.

The voice of Librarian Ishmael echoed in the darkness: "The conspiracy has failed. The conspirators are being interrogated."

"We will soon know who was behind the attack on us, and the assassination attempt on the Emperor."

Midias's voice followed: "Tell us everything. Leave nothing out."

"When did Yulit's plan begin?"

Zahariel looked at the shimmering figure at the door of the interrogation room, its face too bright to see clearly.

The Emperor's voice, like the roar of the sea: "He must not remember this."

"There must be no suspicion of dissent within the Legion."

Zahariel fell to his knees, his body trembling.

His memories, his loyalty, they had been forged.

He was overwhelmed by a sense of betrayal and violation.

"Emperor! Ishmael!"

"You altered my memories! You tampered with my mind!"

"A knight is not a slave. My choices should be my own."

Terrans might be swayed by that figure, content to be slaves to a throne. But he was Caliban-born a knight's loyalty was not that of a serf.

Zahariel threw the Lion Sword away, as if it burned him.

"The Lion... he knew. He allowed the Emperor and the Terrans to alter my memories, to force my loyalty."

"Caliban is nothing to the Lion, compared to the Emperor and his Imperium." Zahariel laughed, bitterly.

Of course. Caliban was just one world among millions.

The Lion was not Caliban-born. He was a Terran visitor. He was a Primarch, not a knight of Caliban. No wonder he had never returned after leaving.

He had exiled them without mercy.

The painful memories faded. Zahariel glanced at the Lion Sword, then bent and picked it up.

He stepped back into Caliban.

The newly advanced "Spirit Warlock" felt his enhanced spirituality, and remembered how the Black Emperor's power had shattered his false memories.

He knelt, his knees striking the ground. 'I am the Black Emperor's knight.'

'This is a path I have chosen, not a life manipulated for me.'

....

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