The docking umbilical of a Black Ship is a gateway to a unique kind of hell. As the great hatch of the Silent Vigil irised open, it was not a sound or a sight that greeted them, but a feeling. It was a psychic wave of pure, condensed misery, the silent, overlapping scream of twelve thousand captured souls. It was the smell of fear, the taste of despair, and the chill of utter, hopeless loneliness.
The Deathwatch marines visibly recoiled, their iron wills battered by the sheer, raw despair. Canoness Celestine's retinue began to chant litanies of purity, their faith a flickering candle against a hurricane of sorrow. Even Varrus and Kael, accustomed to the grim realities of their trade, grew still and somber.
Rimuru, however, simply stood at the threshold, his expression turning from one of curiosity to a deep, profound sadness. He could hear every one of them. The frightened child who didn't understand why their dreams kept setting things on fire. The old man who had hidden his foresight his whole life, only to be discovered. The nascent telepath, driven mad by the cacophony of a billion minds. They were not witches or heretics. They were just people, cursed with a power their universe had no safe place for.
"This is the Tithe," Varrus said, his voice a low, grim whisper. "A grim necessity. Left untrained, each one is a potential gate to the Warp, a doorway for daemons. Here, their souls are given a final, terrible purpose. It is a kinder fate than what awaits the unsanctioned."
They were escorted through the cold, sterile corridors of the Black Ship by silent, black-clad wardens. The walls were lined with null-fields and suppression runes, designed to smother psychic power and emotion. Finally, they arrived at the heart of the vessel: the Choir Chamber.
It was a vast, cathedral-like cavern, but there were no pews or altars. Instead, the chamber was a forest of thousands of crystal and iron pods, arranged in concentric circles. Within each pod was a human figure, ranging from a young child to a withered elder, floating in amniotic fluid, their heads shaved and covered in a network of wires and psycho-conductive thorns. They were all connected to a colossal, arcane machine at the center of the chamber, the Psycho-Conductor Engine.
This was the power source. A choir of twelve thousand captive, suffering souls, their psychic potential harnessed to be used as a battery.
Canoness Celestine looked upon the scene with a grim, pious acceptance. "Their souls will be spent to fuel a holy pilgrimage. It is a glorious, if tragic, martyrdom."
"A regrettable but necessary expenditure of a vital resource," Varrus stated, his voice devoid of emotion.
Rimuru looked at the thousands of pained, unconscious faces, and his expression hardened. He turned to the two Imperial leaders, and the sadness in his eyes had been replaced by a cold, quiet fury that made even the Lord Inquisitor pause.
"No," he said, the single word a quiet detonation in the miserable silence.
"What?" Kael asked, taken aback.
"I said no," Rimuru repeated, his gaze unwavering. "I asked for a power source, not a sacrifice. I will not burn the souls of children as fuel. That is the act of a tyrant, not a king. We will find another way."
"There is no other way!" Celestine retorted, her fervor rising. "This is the only power great enough! It is their sacred duty!"
"Their duty is to suffer because you lack the imagination to find a better solution," Rimuru shot back, his voice still quiet but now laced with an authority that silenced the Canoness. He walked towards the central Psycho-Conductor Engine, placing a hand on its cold, arcane surface.
"I do not need to consume their power," he said, his eyes closing as he reached out with his own senses. "I only need to borrow it. They are not a fuel to be burned. They are an orchestra without a conductor."
He pushed his own will into the machine. It was not a forceful intrusion, but a gentle, calming presence. He connected his mind to the chaotic, screaming chorus of the twelve thousand psykers. He felt their terror, their loneliness, their madness.
And he offered them silence.
He did not control them. He did not invade their thoughts. He projected his own aura of absolute, unshakable order and peace into the heart of their storm. He became a great, silent, unmoving mountain in the center of their mental hurricane. He gave them an anchor, a focal point, a single, clear note of tranquility to hold onto.
The change was instantaneous and profound. The psychic screaming that had suffocated the chamber ceased. The palpable aura of despair vanished, replaced by a feeling of profound, sleepy peace. For the first time, perhaps in their entire lives, the twelve thousand captive psykers were not afraid. Their chaotic, uncontrolled power, once a thousand individual shrieks, now began to harmonize, drawn to Rimuru's conducting will. Their output synced, their frequencies aligned, and their collective power coalesced into a single, stable, and unbelievably potent river of pure psychic energy.
The Psycho-Conductor Engine, which had been straining under the chaotic load, now hummed with a smooth, powerful resonance. The energy readouts on the nearby cogitators soared past their theoretical limits, the Tech-Priests in the chamber letting out bursts of frantic, astonished binary.
Rimuru, acting as the conductor, then gently drew upon that vast, harmonized power, channeling it through his own being and into the waiting systems of the Obelisk and the Phase-Resonant Array. It was a process of borrowing, not taking, of conducting, not consuming.
Varrus, Celestine, Kael, and Arken stood in stunned, absolute silence. They were witnessing the impossible. He had taken the Imperium's most grim and terrible tool, a machine of suffering, and in a single moment of compassionate power, transformed it into a symphony of peaceful, willing cooperation. He had not only refused to perform their necessary evil; he had proven it was never necessary in the first place.
And in doing so, he had achieved an energy output ten times greater than the machine was ever thought capable of producing.
The process took less than an hour. The great array was fully charged. The journey's fuel tank was full.
Rimuru gently withdrew his presence, leaving the psykers in a state of calm, dreamless sleep. He opened his eyes and turned to face his shocked audience. He looked weary, not from the exertion of power, but from the sheer, profound sadness of what he had just witnessed.
In his mind, Ciel's voice was a crisp, clear confirmation.
<
Rimuru looked at the Lord Inquisitor, the Canoness, and the others, his golden eyes holding a new, unreadable weight.
"The preparations are complete," he said, his voice flat. "It is time to take the first step home."