Qin Mo’s lips curled into a faint smile as he stared at Kalon.
"Unlock a psyker's collar?"he mused. "Are you sure about that?"
He wasn’t being coy.
He was being serious.
Psykers were dangerous abominations.
Walking catastrophes, ticking ti bombs waiting to detonate. The Imperium feared them for good reason—if an untrained psyker lost control, it was bad enough. But that wasn’t the true horror.
The real threat lurked beyond reality.
A psyker's soul burned like a beacon in the Warp, drawing the attention of the Ruinous Powers. At any mont, a whisper, a flicker of temptation, or a mont of weakness could transform them into puppets of Chaos, vessels through which the nightmares of the Immaterium could spill into realspace.
To remove a suppression collar?
That was suicide.
And yet, Kalon said it so casually.
"Worry not, mongrel,” the old psyker rasped. "Your leash stays coiled. Should I loose it, you will burn bright… and brief." His pupil-less eyes glead with cold certainty. "Die to the cult’s filth, or by my hand. Either way, you serve the Throne."
Qin Mo’s gaze shifted to Kalon’s staff.
A golden scepter, its tip adorned with the Imperial Aquila, radiating a faint aura of psychic power.
It wasn’t just an old man’s walking stick. It was a weapon.
"From this hour,” Kalon intoned, “you labor not with hands, but with waiting. Conserve your strength… for the pyre."
Then, without another word, he turned and left.
Burr lingered for a mont longer, glancing at Qin Mo with an expression that was neither pity nor contempt—just calculation.
Then he followed.
Qin Mo rolled his eyes and lowered his head, flipping open his journal.
It was one of the two things keeping him sane.
The first was reading his past records—mories of a life that felt more like a dream with each passing day.
The second was designing.
Weapons. Technology. Devices. Schematics filled the pages of his journal—so absurd, so plausible, all crafted with a precision that surprised even him.
He had never been a scientist. He barely understood calculus.
And yet, whenever he focused on an invention, the necessary knowledge surfaced in his mind like it had always been there.
"Maybe I’ve been blessed by Tzeentch," he muttered dryly.
A joke.
The first ti he had spoken that na aloud, he had imdiately regretted it. This was Warhamr 40K.
You didn’t say their nas unless you wanted to draw their attention.
Yet… nothing had happened.
Maybe it was because "Tzeentch" was just a translated na. Maybe it was sothing else entirely. Either way, since there were no whispers in his head, no daemonic claws raking at his soul, he had stopped worrying about it.
Right now, his mind was fixated on one design in particular—
A Gravity Shield.
A localized gravitational distortion field that rendered physical projectiles worthless. The wearer remained unaffected, but within a two-ter radius, gravity would spike a hundredfold.
Bullets would be crushed midair.
Shells would implode before impact.
A defense that nullified conventional ballistics.
The blueprint was complete.
Now, it just needed to be built.
And Qin Mo had already thought of a hundred different ways to do it.
"Perfect."
Satisfied, he closed his journal and let his gaze drift downward, toward a puddle at the bottom of the trench.
Technically, it wasn’t water—it was coolant fluid, likely from a malfunctioning lasgun, spilled by so idiot who hadn’t checked his weapon properly.
The liquid reflected his face perfectly.
Qin Mo admired his own reflection for a mont, then sighed.
"Qin Mo, you’re a damn genius."
But as he basked in his own brilliance, sothing flickered in the reflection.
Sothing small.
And getting bigger.
His expression froze.
"What the hell is that?"
His hand moved instinctively, reaching out to touch the puddle—
The mont his fingers brushed the surface, the object shuddered.
It wasn’t in the puddle.
It was above him.
"BOOM∼!"
A massive explosion erupted overhead.
tal shards ripped through the trench, sending bodies flying. A fraction of a second later, the thunderous roar of the blast rolled through the battlefield.
....
Every soldier, every prisoner, every soul in the sector jerked upright, their heads snapping toward the source of the blast.
The frontline trench was gone.
Their minds stalled.
Until the second shell landed—
Right in the middle of their position.
The detonation was instantaneous.
Ten soldiers—n who had been eating, resting, existing—were suddenly gone. Their bodies reduced to shredded, unrecognizable gore.
A jagged tal fragnt spun through the air, lodging itself in the ground at Burr’s feet.
“ARTILLERY!” Burr’s roar cut through the bedlam as he dove into filth.
Kalon, standing beside him, did not flinch.
Instead, he raised his staff—
And slamd it into the ground.
A purple energy field erupted around them, a shimring barrier of psychic force.
The first two shells had been ranging shots.
Now, the real bombardnt began.
The sky scread as dozens—no, hundreds—of shells rained down like the wrath of a vengeful god.
Blinding flashes.
Deafening explosions.
Agonized screams.
The trenches disintegrated under the bombardnt.
The PDF soldiers were completely unprepared—they weren’t even in cover.
Not that it would’ve mattered.
The defenses weren’t finished.
And now, they never would be.
Huddled within Kalon’s psychic barrier, Burr could do nothing but watch as his n were torn apart.
"How the hell are they shelling us?!" he demanded.
This was supposed to be the rear lines. The PDF was advancing downward, pushing deeper into the hive.
For the Evolution Cultists to hit them here—
They would have to already be behind them.
Burr shivered.
Whether they had punched through the front or sohow flanked them, the result was the sa—
Half the garrison was dead.
"We have to fall back!" Burr shouted. "Use your psyker powers! Order a retreat!"
"No."
Kalon’s voice was cold. His hollow eyes locked onto the thickening smoke.
Sothing was moving within it.
Figures.
Dozens. Hundreds.
The enemy was erging.
They weren’t just shelling them.
This was a full-scale assault.
A wave of cultist soldiers charged toward the trenches, weapons raised, their frenzied screams carried by the howling wind.
Burr’s blood ran cold.
A retreat now ant total collapse.
And in the Underhive, a routed force was as good as dead.
"That psyker!" Burr hissed suddenly. "That psyker! Find Qin Mo! Unlock his collar! Let him take the hit first!"
Kalon hesitated.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
"It… might be our only option."
His eyes closed as his psychic senses reached out—
But he was too late.
Qin Mo had already taken a direct hit.
He wasn’t dead.
But his body was riddled with shrapnel.
And if soone had thermal vision, they would see sothing impossible—
The heat from the explosion was flowing into him.
His flesh was absorbing it.
His wounds were closing.
But his mind, rattled by the impact, was still foggy.
Half-conscious.
Caught between wakefulness and dreams.
Qin Mo saw a vision.
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