Chapter 54: The Great Devourer?

Pitter-patter~ Pitter-patter~
Cascading raindrops battered against the portholes, and before long, large pools of water had accumulated in the hollows of the Dawn’s outer deck.
Terrifying, isn't it? It actually rains in outer space.
Arthur stood before the window, gazing slightly dazed at the dust-cloud-filled star system.
'Are we still in the Warp?'
He turned his head to glance at Aglaea beside him.
The Inquisitor was also staring blankly at the scene outside.
Arthur felt somewhat bewildered; he was curious as to what kind of cosmic phenomenon this actually was. Did the laws of physics really possess such a magical side?
"Aglaea."
"My Lord?"
Aglaea withdrew her gaze.
Her expression was exceptionally grim.
"This phenomenon," Arthur pointed to the rain outside the window, "could you explain it to me?"
"This is a special phenomenon where the Warp and reality overlap. It usually occurs at Mandeville points, signaling that powerful Warp entities might be paying attention to this place. It is a precursor to the Mandeville anchor collapsing into a reality ulcer."
Swiftly picking up her small notebook to jot something down, Aglaea replied.
Having undergone long voyages through the Warp, she understood that these ancient warriors valued efficiency above all. While her speech lacked none of the due courtesy, she cared little for cumbersome formalities.
"Several of them?"
Aglaea's shorthand pen tip pierced the parchment, the ink trembling and casting a faint glow beneath the stars, resembling tiny, swimming silver parasites.
"Multiple."
Because the gaze of every single Warp entity was intensely sharp and terrifying—the molten iron tempest of the Brass Citadel could burn through void shields, and the blood-crystal hail of the Palace of Pleasure would implant illusions directly into parasitic brains.
Were it not for the constraints of other forces, it would not manifest merely as harmless rain. They wouldn't be standing here so calmly right now; instead, they'd be down on the lower decks clearing out plague zombies.
"However, the impact caused by this particular anomaly is far more harmless than recorded texts suggest."
After describing the causes of the rain in detail to Arthur, Aglaea added another sentence.
"......"
Entering this universe and immediately encountering bad news.
The gaze of Warp entities—who else could it be aside from those four.

***

Withdrawing his gaze, Arthur noticed that the purity seal pendant at the Inquisitor's neck was spinning frantically.
Squeak—creak—
A teeth-setting sound echoed as the hull suddenly tilted by 45 degrees.
Instantly steadying the hilt of his sword, the runes on the power sword flared with bright light.
Arthur used a single arm to support two stumbling crew members. Through the now upside-down observation window, he saw tens of thousands of raindrops weaving a glowing neural network across space, each droplet reflecting entirely different nightmare landscapes:
Some enveloped burning Perfect Cities, some contained the four-armed monstrous figures of Gluttony, while others were precipitating tombstone inscriptions from the ancient history of the Eldar Empire.
Aglaea tore down a servo-skull. This voiceless skull shrieked at that moment, its optical sensor continuously playing execution footage from an unknown era.
"Order all fleets to close their portholes! Execute immediately, violators will be executed."
Aglaea drew her bolt-pistol and blasted the servo-skull, which had already begun to sprout flesh, feeling a secret sense of relief that she still had the habit of backing up her information.
"Promptly seal the hatchways and restore Warp-travel status."
Romulus reacted swiftly, ordering the ships to maintain their sealed status within the Warp while simultaneously relaying this command to the entire fleet.
The astropaths on board were currently managed by Ramses, and with the existence of a safehouse, the security of communication could be guaranteed.
The moment the portholes closed, the entire warship seemed completely isolated from the outside world as it began to regain its balance.
"Are these historical images of the past?"
Arthur looked toward the somewhat listless Aglaea.
"Huh?"
Aglaea's face was full of confusion.
"......"
It seemed others couldn't see them.
Arthur turned his head to look at the bridge crew who had averted their gazes from the start yet remained listless, as well as the pensive Transmigrators.
Or rather, could only entities unaffected by the Warp witness them?
"I saw the Word Bearers."
The Word Bearers—these fallen Chaos Space Marines always appeared alongside various heretical rituals.
"Are you certain, my lord?"
"Their Legion-era livery, I wouldn't recognize it wrong."
To be honest, Arthur hadn't recognized what those burning ruins were at first, but seeing the Word Bearers brought it back; it was most likely the Perfect City.
"That hardly counts as good news, my lord."
Hearing Arthur's reiteration, Aglaea couldn't help but massage her brow, though she chose not to question it.

***

After all, she was well aware of the identity issues concerning these lords.
If what projected from that rain just now was history, it meant the Grand Inquisitor's ritual had already begun.
Moreover, the enemies of the allied fleet likely included the Word Bearers, alongside other foes.
Pity that her lifespan was limited and she knew little of four-armed heretical worship or Eldar history.
From a mystical standpoint, it meant that specific individuals within the ritual's sphere of influence had established a connection with the Warp, thereby manifesting those historical images.
Aglaea silently watched the charted route on the holographic projection, her fists clenching nervously.
The allied fleet had received the Dawn's timely warning, and subsequent ships emerging within the Mandeville point maintained direct pathways with the outside world, thus evading the influence originating from the Warp.
As the entire fleet pulled out of the Warp, gradually entering the interior of the star system and moving away from the pustule of the Warp, that absurd rain finally paused.
The laws of realspace manifested once more; the bodies of water began to freeze into ice, and the tremors of the warships shattered those chunks of ice before casting them away.
Yet all of this still added a heavy emotion to everyone's hearts.
"Can we contact the homeworld of Pierd?"
Romulus inquired.
"Negative."
The Vox-priest reported: "Ever since entering the Pierd sector, the vast majority of astropaths within the fleet have lost their operational capacity, becoming extremely unstable. Meanwhile, Pierd's homeworld has not responded to our broadcasted identification codes."
"Unstable?"
Romulus found it hard to understand. These psykers, rigorously screened by the Emperor, were somehow plunging into instability en masse.
"Specific symptoms?"
"Mental instability, madness. Based on preliminary judgments from his ravings, his soul encountered something in the Empyrean; he keeps muttering that he can't see."
Romulus pressed his lips together. This hardly looked like the prelude to a Chaos invasion.
He turned his head to look at Ramses.
"There is something in the Warp; I can no longer see the Astronomican."
Ramses, who had spent the journey assisting the Emperor in fishing people out, had just withdrawn from the Warp and stated it quite bluntly.
His out-and-about psyker projection had just been batted apart by goodness-knows-what, and now he had to buy a new one and hide it in the safehouse.
"It's not Chaos."
Arthur stated affirmatively.
In fact, the Transmigrators were quite familiar with this phenomenon.