Slaughter. Blood. Death.
A blade tore through flesh, and the souls spiraling into damnation screamed with urgency—
An urgency to drag everything they saw into a crueler, darker hell.
Heretics fled. Xenos howled. The daemons—
Where were the daemons?
Arthur, caught in a meditative trance, listened to the sound of disruptor fields flaying flesh apart.
It was horrifying, nauseating even—but instead of fear or panic, all he felt was… calm. Maybe even satisfaction.
No need to dwell on a bleak future. No need to face the terrifying present.
Just keep killing. Slaughter these monsters, these beasts. Carve open this hellscape with blade and shield.
For a moment, you are the master of everything around you.
He suddenly understood the Orks. And even Khorne.
In this universe, being able to enjoy killing?
That might just be a blessing in disguise.
Arthur didn't care where his expert combat skills came from. He focused on the enemies before him.
His flowing, seamless swordplay—equal parts offense and defense—was perfectly suited to these tight corridors.
Each swing brought up a neat little number in his vision, ticking ever higher with every kill.
Did I really kill that many...?
A brief moment of doubt passed.
The sword, having just danced through the enemy ranks like art, halted in mid-air.
And Arthur now faced a new problem.
Before him stood a stranger.
A Space Marine clad in finely crafted blue power armor. About the same height as Arthur, holding a multi-barreled melta gun[¹] hooked up to an ammo pack on his back.
Above his jump pack gleamed a glowing iron halo, set with the symbol of Omega (Ω), shining brightly in the gloom.
He held one hand up in a defensive posture. Just a centimeter away, Arthur's blade had stopped mid-swing, its flickering blue disruptor field gently grazing the surface of his gauntlet.
"… …"
They locked eyes.
BOOM!
The melta fired—superheated metal streamed down the corridor, clearing the space in an instant.
Arthur's power sword glanced off the halo. A Chaos sorcerer who had teleported in was instantly pinned to the wall. Arthur's next strike split him in two—
—along with the Genestealer that lunged right behind.
Clang!
Ceramite armor scraped together as the two stood back to back.
"Arthur?"
The Ultramarine asked—in Chinese.
The familiar tongue of the Dragon's Homeland snapped Arthur out of his battle trance.
With a brain enhanced by transhuman augmentation, he processed the situation instantly:
He remembered the armor behind him, shield-bashed a heretic mid-leap, and knocked several cultists flat with the shockwave—
Then cautiously replied:
"Romulus?"
Romulus—his best bro in all things Warhammer.
They'd fought side by side from Darktide to Space Marine 2, from Warhammer Fantasy all the way into 40K. Childhood friends.
And this color scheme? Romulus's favorite.
"Yeah."
The Ultramarine gave a small nod. Then he tapped something on his bracer.
A glowing 3D map popped into Arthur's vision.
"You go first. I'll cover you. Follow the corridor—watch your step, don't fall to the lower levels."
"Got it."
Both understood the kind of universe they were in. Neither spoke each other's real name.
Arthur stepped forward.
Romulus casually tossed his melta aside. When he raised his hand again—a heavy bolter appeared in his grip.
Arthur blinked.
"You get blessed by a Chaos god or something?"
As precise explosive shells sailed past, Arthur couldn't help asking while handling the tougher monsters.
Anyone who knew Warhammer would recognize this ability—this was Warp-tier stuff. Like Vashtorr the Arkifane[²] giving you a "special gear set." What kind of loyalist Astartes can just switch weapons on the fly like this?
"Blessed?"
Romulus laughed.
"It's thirty points. You can buy it too."
"…Huh?"
Bullets rained toward them in a straight line. Arthur frowned, raised his shield, and covered Romulus instinctively.
"You seriously haven't noticed anything off about yourself?"
Romulus tossed a krak grenade and wiped out a gunner in a fortified nest, then continued:
"There's a stable zone in the Warp. Your kill count goes up when you kill soul-bearing things. Haven't noticed the daemons you kill stay dead?"
Arthur froze.
Now that he thought about it—after downing a few daemons at the start, he'd only seen xenos and heretics come at him. The daemons had been avoiding him.
And everyone knows—daemons don't die unless something eats them in the Warp. There's almost no way to permanently kill one. Nothing but death scares a daemon.
"…Uh."
They continued moving forward. Inside his helmet, Arthur made an awkward face.
"I just felt like hacking stuff up, you know? Figured I got dumped into a literal hellhole—I might as well drag a few things down with me.
I mean, come on—anyone who crosses into Warhammer and doesn't cry like a baby has nerves of steel, right?"
He sounded embarrassed. But clearly, this wasn't his fault.
"…Khorne would love you."
Romulus sighed, then gave a deeper explanation:
"I'm not totally clear on it either, but here's what I've gathered—we have some kind of domain in the Warp. Like a personal safehouse.
Killing soul-bearing beings increases our strength. The number you see represents that.
And we can spend those points to affect reality. Like summoning weapons or creating stuff from thin air."
"…Bro, are we becoming actual Warp daemons?"
Arthur bisected an Ork crawling up from the lower level. He glanced at his score—yep, it ticked up again. His face twitched.
He couldn't rule it out.
So far, what he knew was: he'd transmigrated, landed in a pretty decent setup. He might be a Fallen Angel[³], but he was a Space Marine—and he seemed to have some kind of cheat.
But knowing the Warp? This "cheat" probably came with strings attached.
Wouldn't be funny if he left the Warp and the whole system just stopped working.
He even started wondering if his best bro had been replaced by a daemon. A disguised quest-giver to guide him toward some evil plan.
Yeah… that was possible too.
His grip tightened slightly. Arthur grew just a bit more wary of the man behind him.
Now that he thought about it, his own reactions had been abnormal—
He'd adapted too quickly to the gore. Slashed his way through monsters without much revulsion. That wasn't normal. That was a red flag.
"We'll figure it out after we get out of the Warp."
Romulus shook his head. From a logical standpoint, he doubted anyone could just "buy" a Space Marine body with a few kills. Even the four Chaos Gods couldn't pull that off easily—if they could, they'd have taken over reality ages ago.
But right now… wasn't the time to get into that.
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