18 – A Light

18 – A Light 999.M41 Undetermined time || The Warp; Imperium Nihilis ||"Anything yet?" asked Selene Voss, Rogue Trader extraordinaire and the Captain of The Wanderer. "...no..." said the navigator, wheezing and panting in exhaustion as he focused his powers, his eyes were bloodshot and he was kneeling on the ground. Selene sighed, it felt like they only engaged the Warp Jump a day ago but she knew time could get fucky in the Warp, the Geller field would hold for a bit more but she was losing hope. The emperor's light faded before they could leave this hellish space and now they weren't sure where they would end up if they left. It wouldn't e so bad if she didn't know how perilous it could be to miss the mark by even a few hundred lightyears, those blue Xenos built their empire around here and so did the murderous robots she definitely shouldn't know about. She'd order her men to disengage the Warp jump if the navigator couldn't find anything in the next few minutes. It was better to die at the hands of Xenos than whatever the Geller field was made to keep out. Her mind was in shambles, she knew many things most in the imperium didn't and would find rather heretical but she still believed the emperor to be a god. And yet his light is no more, what the fuck happened? The Navigator's eyes snapped, "I GOT SOMETHING!" he shouted, the machinery attached to his neck instantly sent the coordinates to the pilots. "Target those coordinates," Selene ordered without any of her facial muscles displaying her elation, "Disengage Warp Drive as soon as we get there!" She now turned her gaze on the Navigator, nearly passed out on the floor. "Did the Astronomican return?" she asked the frail man. "No..." he wheezed, "I don't know what it was, a bright light lit up the Warp for a moment but it disappeared soon after." "Are we going towards a Xenos psyker navigator?" asked Selene, glaring down at the man. "No, captain," his arms trembled, "I don't know what it was but it felt different from any other psyker I've felt, more clear and pure." "Doesn't matter," Selene said, "We'll see what it is," she murmured to herself, "can't be worse than a Necron Crown World." Now that the high from not getting my soul ripped apart by demons was mostly gone I had to think about the ramifications, I'd just connected to the Warp and I know that just my presence purifies the Chaos taint from in and returns it to how it was before the War in Heaven. That was both good and bad, I didn't have to fear getting corrupted or possessed by demons but my existence would be an existential threat to them. Demons could be killed but only a very few select people could manage it, like the emperor for example with his flaming sword. When their enemy could kill them it turned life from a game into a fight they could die in to the demons and I was more than certain that they loathed the notion of it. They fancied themselves as above mortals and dying was a mortal thing. Purifying the Warp would be an impossible task for me, I could siphon off a bit and purify that for my own needs but that'd be it. I wasn't sure how this would affect demons but since the remains of one were demolished by this I was sure it'd hurt them, what I wasn't sure about was whether they could rip my soul apart before it does any substantial damage. Psychic bullshit and Warp sorcery were always outside of my interests, I liked tech-oriented factions more, and as such I only knew a few things about them. This little knowledge made it apparent that what I was doing was different from how human psykers used the Warp, they had set powers like mutants from Marvel and could only use those, like pyrokinesis, telepathy, astropathy, and stuff like that. I needed someone to learn from, someone that maybe knew how to make the most out of my powers and wouldn't scream 'Heretic' and call the black ships right after. There were ways to make sure they'd be more favorable towards me. The easiest would be just ripping the knowledge out of them but if I could get my hands on a genestealer or a mind shackle scarab the Necrons use...that would be great too. I still wanted to find the office of the governor if it wasn't blown to bits yet but I would also need to think about ways to lure a random ship to this planet. Anything less than a Astartes chapter would be manageable but I'd need to keep myself hidden or act like a human. Even Lictors could fall to concentrated artillery fire but I think I remember a squad of space marines killing one too. Plus I've lost most of the Lictor's psychic abilities but I hope my own natural one stemming from my eldritch body will make up for those losses. Now that I think about it, would the hivemind be able to reach me if I am disconnected from the Warp? No, probably not but I wasn't willing to risk it unless necessary, a fear aura, weak mind reading, and psychic senses weren't worth it in my book. If I got a handle on my own psychic power it'd be easy to replicate those, I hope. I banished those trains of thought to the back of my mind, it was time to get moving. The floor was fucked beyond reason and so was the stairway leading up to the final floor but that wasn't much of a problem. I reached out with a tendril shot from my finger and pulled myself up like it was a grappling hook, I landed on the upper floor with a grin. I always loved doing that in games but it felt even better in real life. The floor was surprisingly intact if you ignored the parts where explosions from the previous floor collapsed the floor of this one. The obnoxiously decorated walls, flooring, ceiling...well everything was covered in a faint layer of dust which would probably make the owner of this place seethe if he wasn't too dead to care at the moment. I smelled no blood on this floor, though it did drift up here but I could tell it didn't originate here. There might still be something useful here then. I strode through the rather open floor, disregarding room after room, they had a bit of a personal feel compared to the rest of the floors but it was still the same ostentatious taste as the rest. I personally preferred modern architecture or even the super clean and economical style people associated with sci-fi architecture. Did any of the species in this fucked up galaxy even build stuff like that? Maybe the Tau, they built to impress but they at least had taste, unlike the Imperium with their obsession with gold and skulls. Necrons still had that Egyptian death robot vibe that while cool was intended to terrify people, not awe them. Maybe Eldar architecture would be somewhat alike too, expedites liked to incorporate nature into their buildings like the good little space elves that they were but I wasn't sure how craftworlds looked from the inside. The rest of the factions would be a waste to even think about, Orks and architecture in the same sentence was a contradiction in itself. As I was walking leisurely I decided to try the only application of my newfound psychic energy that I could. I pulled on the tether connecting my body to my soul and a small stream of pure soul energy started dribbling into my physical body. It was a touch less recipient to my whims like this, making it evident that my soul must be what it likes and not my new body. Weird but okay, though I wasn't sure what I did to achieve that. The energy flowed through my body, being both there physically and not. I could feel it pass through my muscles and organs but it never hurt, I just knew it was there and it didn't cause any internal injuries as it passed through my cells. For now, it did nothing, just following my whims about flowing from one part of my body to another. Making myself stronger and faster would be the most unoriginal thing to do, wouldn't it? The energy latched onto that thought, drying into my body and doing just that. With my eldritch perception of my physical self, I could easily tell what it did, it infused my cells, connecting them together and strengthening them. It helped muscles contract easier and break harder, reinforced my bones, enhanced my organs so they wouldn't rupture under the increased pressure, and last but not least it strengthened my whole neural network. I could feel my already fast mind race even quicker, thoughts that took half a second ow took only a tenth of one and I could tell even my Lictor-based reflexes were enhanced. I used the neural network of the bioform in my human form too just to give myself an edge, I also enhanced my organs and bones with it as a template so I was only a human in looks and maybe in the brain. I didn't want to lose my emotions and stuff, Lictors had no need for those but what use would all this new power be if I couldn't enjoy wielding it? Nothing. I felt insignificant amounts of soul energy leak into my body to keep up the effect so I canceled it after a bit of testing, I could tell that the more energy I fed into this the stronger and faster I'd become. I'm really broken. Isekai stories came with the MC being an overpowered cheat, after all, the only problem was that in this galaxy everyone has cheats. For all I knew the Necrons would explode the sun in this solar system because their diviner got annoyed with me in the future and decided to time-travel back and fuck me over. Orikan would be a pain in the ass to deal with, probably the biggest in the galaxy. I should keep things amiable with Necrons if I can, let's not tell them about my ability to remake Necrontyr bodies if they gave me some samples. Psychic stuff is easier than I thought. I was under the impression that it required years of study and severe self-discipline to use any sort of psychic powers but that might be because most people also had to keep any unwanted assholes out of their bodies and stuff like that. I began thinking, what other powers did I remember psykers having? Telepathy was the basic one but I couldn't test that without test subj- people around, next would be telekinesis and pyrokinesis, wouldn't it? And let's not forget the bread and butter of any warlock worth their name, Eldritch Blasts. Would Psykers be Sorcerers or Warlocks? Most likely Sorcerers tapping into demonic powers or Warlocks for the Emperor? Nah, other species had psykers too. With that distracting thought out of the way, I pulled on my reserves a bit and guided a small glob of energy into my fingertips. Burn! I ordered as I pushed them out of my body. I felt the heat before I saw it as the soul energy burst into white flames a little larger than my nails. They remained there for a second before disappearing with a puff of white smoke. I was considering moving the 'find a psychic mentor' down my priorities based on how easily it came to me. It wasn't even instinctual, the energy just bent over backward to facilitate my wishes, I told it to burn and it did, as easy as that. My initial objective got pushed to the back of my mind, no matter how much I tried to calm myself doing space magic was intoxicating. I loved sci-fi but I didn't hate fantasy either, quite the opposite actually. In a sense, this galaxy was just perfect. A blend of things I love the most and a chance at being something far greater than I ever could have imagined. Time to practice some magic.