I'm giving you tomorrow's chapter early because I have to go to court at the same time it's uploaded.
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"Shit… shit… shit…," I muttered as I watched a Bloodthirster of Khorne advancing toward us.
That abomination had no business being in such a minor portal. It was absurd. The ritual wasn't even complex; they had simply tortured a psyker. None of that justified the presence of a Greater Daemon aboard a transport ship drifting in the void.
The colossus moved its axes impatiently as it stared at me like a marked prey.
The lesser demons had already been wiped out by my Ghosts, and some of them were preparing to engage the monster.
"Stop. It's too much for us. Withdraw from the fight," I ordered the operatives surrounding the daemon.
"My lord, the monsters have stopped coming through. We can—"
"It's a damn order. Abandon the ship by any means necessary. That thing can kill us all," I shouted over the comms. Within seconds, everyone began their retreat.
The daemon never shifted its gaze. It seemed to ignore everything except me. It extended one of its axes toward me, almost inviting me to approach.
I stayed still, making sure my Ghosts were leaving. I couldn't defeat it, but I could buy time. The Dominion couldn't afford to lose its best living weapons by trying to expel a Greater Daemon.
I immediately fired several psionic bolts from my right hand, aiming for its eyes. It annoyed him, though he raised his axe to deflect the energy. Anyone else would have been reduced to ashes—but for him, it was little more than a distraction.
The beast roared with such force that the ship's hull vibrated, then charged at me with a speed no human could ever match.
Fortunately, I wasn't bound by human limitations.
With two movements as fast as his, I dodged the sweeping strikes of his axes.
The daemon kept swinging with brutal speed, each cut leaving a sharp hum as it ripped through the air. Every time he missed the blow that should have cleaved me in half, the sound reverberated through the entire chamber. All I could do was dodge and buy as much time as possible.
I counterattacked too, though it was little more than symbolic. My blades got caught between his armor plates and that thick, tank-like flesh. They cut—but barely. Whenever I tried to push deeper, he immediately retaliated with another barrage of strikes.
Minutes passed in that frantic dance as I did the impossible to avoid his charges.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the psyker still feeding the portal. I used one of the daemon's movements to slip between two panels, and when he finally lunged at me, seeing I had no escape, I blinked into the Void. I reappeared just above his head.
He reacted almost instantly, but I managed to drive both blades into his eyes before he hurled himself against the wall to shake me off. I used his shoulders as a platform and jumped backward, landing on the metal floor and sprinting straight toward the psyker to impale him once and for all.
While I ran, I felt the air shift. The daemon moved even faster than I did. I sensed him suddenly at my right, his face contorted with pure rage.
"Fuck," I managed to say before he kicked me with absurd force. Several ribs snapped as I flew across the chamber and smashed into the wall.
"Ahg…" The air left my lungs. My visor lit up.
"Pain inhibitors at 98%."
A second later, the daemon was on top of me, raising his axe to decapitate me. I entered the Void reflexively and emerged behind him just as his strike obliterated an entire section of the ship.
"You son of—" I tried to say before he launched at me again. I could no longer dodge all his attacks. He swung relentlessly and even used his legs to try to crush me. I was barely staying alive.
With no way to keep buying time for my Ghosts, I had to abandon the chamber. I blinked again and emerged in another room, collapsing to my knees.
"Shit…" I growled while channeling my powers to regenerate as fast as possible.
"Right… the ancestral winds…" I muttered as I activated a technique learned from the protoss. I tried to draw in the winds, and felt the pain suppressors easing as my body began rapidly healing—muscles reknitting, bones resetting into place.
The daemon's roar ripped through the corridors. Something enormous tore through multiple layers of metal, and the wall of the room I was in split in two.
The Bloodthirster had found me.
Without giving me a single second, the daemon charged again. I tried to exploit his one vulnerable point: the head. I blinked and reappeared right above him, grabbing his horns as I tried to drive my warpblade deep into his skull.
I managed no more than a centimeter before he opened his maw and blasted fire upward to shake me off. With a violent beat of his wings, he propelled himself into the ceiling, rising so fast I had no time to react as I tried to force the blade down.
I felt my bones shatter and my muscles tear as my back slammed against the metal, but I kept both hands locked on his horns, pushing the blade with everything I had.
The Bloodthirster continued smashing me against the ceiling with increasing force. Pain began to break through. My visor showed the inhibitors had exceeded their maximum threshold—they could no longer contain what I was feeling.
I had no choice. I tore the warpblade from the daemon's skull and blinked away, landing several meters back before crashing to the floor.
I lay there gasping, body numb, riddled with damage: broken bones, torn muscles, internal bleeding. I could barely stand. I invoked the ancestral winds again to start regenerating.
The sound of my body rebuilding itself was grotesque. Muscles weaving under the skin, bones snapping back into place, blood clearing from my lungs as the winds stitched every wound shut.
"Lord Regent, evacuation complete," someone said through the comms.
"Good…" I muttered, moving slowly as I continued regenerating. "Once I get out of this damn ship, I'll order every one of our vessels to fire on it. Because… shit, he found me." I added through the communicator just as the presence drew near again.
I activated my cloak in case it helped, but even then it didn't lose my trail. Its eyes stayed locked on me.
I kept running through the corridors without losing a second. I crossed a graveyard of depressurized corpses and sprinted straight toward the hangar.
When I arrived, I saw ships torn apart from the earlier bombardment. But one still looked operational. I climbed in without thinking and started fiddling with the controls.
"Shit… I don't know how this garbage works… ignition… this has to be it… no, it's not… this?"I slapped buttons randomly."Come on, damn it, how hard can it be to turn you on?"
I kept pressing until the engine roared and the ship vibrated. I gripped the controls tightly and tried to lift off.
I didn't get far. The ship tilted violently. The Bloodthirster had appeared behind me, grabbing it like a toy. In seconds it ripped the fuselage apart and forced half its body inside.
I fired psionic bolts into its eyes. It roared in fury but kept tearing the ship apart with its axes as if it were tin foil.
"I'll have to try my luck with the other hangar," I muttered while escaping again, slipping through rooms to try to lose it.
The pressure of the portal returned. I followed that presence, dodging exploding panels and collapsing beams as the daemon tore through everything to reach me.
I finally made it to the portal. The bodies of the lesser demons had vanished; they had likely been pulled back into the Immaterium.
Without wasting a second, I decapitated the psyker with the warpblade. I felt the warp presence weaken immediately, like the portal was drying out.
"Good… damn it… I won…" I said, looking up at the ceiling, almost laughing.
The Bloodthirster's roar cut my celebration short. That monster had no intention of leaving quietly.
I heard metal tearing with every wall it smashed through to reach me. One after another until the last one exploded inward.
The daemon appeared, spewing fire as it advanced against the pull of the portal trying to drag it back. But it still maintained a fierce hold on this place. It wasn't going to fade easily.
It kept resisting the pull of the Immaterium, more rabid and unhinged than at any earlier moment.
I had already learned the hard way that I couldn't defeat it. Not in speed, not in reflexes, and certainly not in strength. All I had left was to exploit the one real advantage I possessed: the Void.
For what felt like an eternity, the ship was reduced to a silent husk, the structure devastated as the daemon chased me through airless corridors and slaughtered anything alive left in sealed rooms.
Only when I noticed it slowing down, its movements becoming imprecise, did I understand what was happening. It was struggling to remain in this plane. Its presence in reality was weakening. Its axes had almost no weight behind them. Finally, I saw it lose stability, dragged toward the collapsing portal—
And vanish.
I remained standing only through willpower. I was exhausted, my head throbbing from overusing my psionics.
"This is Hendrik… someone delete the damn footage of what happened…" I said as I dragged myself into a still-sealed room.
"Lord Regent, you need evacuation," someone answered over the comms.
"Lord Regent?" another echoed.
My strength finally gave out as the adrenaline drained and the combat drugs faded.
I lost consciousness. I don't know how long passed before the doors opened and a squad of marines entered, illuminating me with their CMC helmet lights.
"We found him… he's alive," someone said before everything went dark again.
I woke up surrounded by voices.
"He's physically fine. No injuries, no fractures… nothing. He was just extremely malnourished and dehydrated, as if he hadn't eaten in days—strange, considering we have records of him eating heavily before the fight… we pumped him full of supplements and fluids," a medic explained.
I tore off the tubes and equipment attached to me.
"Uh—he can't do that, Lord Regent. We don't know what's wrong yet…" another medic said, trying to reconnect everything.
"I'm fine… just tired," I said, sitting up on the cot and staring at the floor. "How long was I out? I need a battle report and—"
Kurt cut me off.
"Take a damn second. I don't know what happened in there, but you almost died," he said sharply.
"Died? Come on, I'm perfectly fine," I said, gesturing at my fully regenerated body.
"Everyone out. NOW." Kurt barked, clearing the room. He made sure no one was left to listen.
"What? You think you're my mother now? Because I can fix that quickly," I joked, mimicking the gesture to activate my psi blade—but of course I didn't have it.
"Hendrik… you erased all your Ghosts' footage. Even your own. But you didn't erase your vitals," Kurt said.
"Knew I forgot something," I muttered.
"Your inhibitors were maxed out—pain and stress at critical levels. Your heart was beating like it was going to explode. That doesn't happen for no reason. What happened in there?" Kurt demanded.
"Believe me, Kurt… I'm doing you a favor by not telling you," I answered, watching him analyze every datapoint.
"And you think hiding information from your admiral is a good idea? Something almost killed you. If something can kill you, it can kill all of us. You're the Dominion's most lethal weapon, and you barely managed to survive… whatever that thing was. I need to know if it's an Imperial super-weapon.A Imperial Ghost operative?"
I sighed."Wow… so many questions. I just hope I don't regret this. It was a demon. A Greater Daemon."
Kurt stared at me like I'd spoken in another language."A demon? I don't see any drugs in your blood," he said, checking the monitor.
"It's the truth, you idiot," I growled.
"A demon? Like the old cult myths? Embodiments of evil and all that?" Kurt raised an eyebrow.
"Yes. I read its mind. They feed on emotions—rage, lust, greed… whatever. The more people know about them, the stronger they become. That's why I didn't want to tell you. Because now… they might take interest in you."
Kurt swallowed."…And how the hell do you fight something like that?"
"No idea. The Ghosts can resist their temptations, so at least we understand part of their nature. You can train operatives to resist. But every time someone learns about them… it strengthens them. There is no right answer."
Kurt fell silent for a few seconds before speaking again."Hendrik… I don't know if you already knew. I doubt it—you're too smart not to suspect it. But I confirmed something. We aren't in the year 2528… we're in the year 38,899."
I feigned surprise."How?"
"I found calendars on Agria and thought they were local. Then I checked the logs on the merchant ship… and they all match. and here every ship we've captured now has the same calendar. We traveled to the future," Kurt said gravely.
"Well… shit… how the hell are we supposed to avenge Mengsk now?" I said, pretending frustration even though I already knew the truth.
"I don't know. But I already informed the others. We'll see what happens next."Kurt left the room.
"Damn…" I muttered as I stood up from the cot.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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