95 – Shadow Boxing pt. 3

95 – Shadow Boxing pt. 3

I gave Selene a quick rundown of what I knew of Psychic Blanks. Fuckers with negative souls that repelled warp energy, reinforced realspace, and made anything with even a fragment of psychic power in them loathe their very existence.

I could understand why, even if to a lesser extent, even if it affected me in an entirely different way than it did human psykers.

If a powerful Blank walked up to my face, I’d probably just be cut off from my drones or even my Avatar as I couldn’t exert my psychic control in their null-field from my Soul, but a regular human psyker would be stuck on the other side of the field, locked into their bodies without being able to call on their power and utterly separated from their souls.

I remember reading about psykers gouging their eyes and slitting their throats just so they wouldn’t have to live with the sheer discomfort and emptiness that losing their connection with their soul would induce.

Hopefully, I could avoid that.

Selene made me promise to avoid getting myself caught up in that field when I fought the Shadowkeeper even if I was sure — mostly sure, I was about maybe 70% sure if I rounded it up — that my soul-thread could withstand the suppression.

Stronger psykers on the level of Mephiston and such were known to be able to maintain their powers even under a null-field, though they were still weakened from its influence, and the Emperor was said to be able to directly affect Blanks with his Psychic powers which was fucking crazy. He could force power to manifest where reality itself fought against its existence.

Blanks had levels of powers though, just like psykers. It was a scale, psykers were on the positive side of it and Blanks on the negative with regular weak mortals right in the middle at zero.

That black skull the Shadowkeeper had was powerful, definitely in the upper ranks based on that scale. Still, Blank’s powers were supposed to stem from the negative nature of their souls ... so why did an obviously dead skull show those powers? Was it a stolen Necron technology masked as an arcane artefact? Or did they imprison the soul of an unfortunate Blank in that skull?

It would hardly be the worst thing the Imperium did, far from it.

Now it was time for me to see how I held up against the Custodian myself, with my Avatar and full power behind it. I decided to mention getting ready to bolt to Zedev and Val just so they would be prepared if we needed to leave quickly.

The latter just accepted my order, but Zedev said something that surprised me.

‘The fleet reached vox range,’ he reported through our telepathic channel, his mental voice coming through livelier than his vox ever could. ‘A communication channel hasn’t been established yet, as the signal is still corrupted by leftover radiation and warp energy, but it is becoming clearer and clearer by the minute.’

‘How long till they can have a conversation?’ I asked. ‘Does Dante know who is trying to communicate with them?’

‘He knows it is the Macragge’s Honor, but he remains in the dark about the one at the helm of it. It is doubtful he would even believe it if I told him.’

‘Right,’ I mused. ‘Alright, be ready to be teleported away if things go to shit. I’ll be wrestling with what could possibly be an advance party of the Fleet sent to hunt me down.’

‘Seems ... illogical.’

‘Maybe,’ I shrugged. ‘Either way, it is good to be prepared. I can’t fight a crusade fleet.’

‘Understood. Preparations will be made.’

The line cut off, and I thought I heard something ominous in his voice at the end, something I never would have caught if we had been speaking face to face with his vox speaker as our interpreter.

I shook it off. I had a Custodian to murderize ... or at least take a bit out of.

If he really was acting with Guilliman’s blessings, everything I was trying to do here could go to shit real quick. A sample of Custodian blood could be my grace prize as I ran away with my tail tucked between my legs.

Should I? For a moment my degenerate brain wandered. I could certainly do it, but should I? Make a fluffy tail for myself, I mean? I was always more into elves than catgirls and stuff, but they had a charm of their own. Maybe Selene would appreciate it. Thoughts for later.

I wrapped Selly up in a tight hug, squeezing her a bit for good luck as she huffed in what I could tell was mock annoyance. Then, laid a goodbye peck on her cheek before letting go.

She gave me a look again, one that held a promise in it for the future.

“I mean,” I twirled a lock of hair around my finger. “I know what you want. Probably do at least, but I don’t really know what it is. You get me? Like, would you enlighten a poor girl? Pretty please?”

I could tell he was feeling maybe the slightest bit put off. There was a word in this galaxy for the sheer primal dread, the mere sight of a transhuman put into regular humans. It was ‘transhuman dread’, very creative, yeah, but it got the point across.

No baseline human could resist this mental effect, and with the custodians being the crème de la crème of the transhumans, I — as an outwardly normal human, if you didn’t take into account my weird armour — should be shitting my pants and screaming in fright.

“Hand over the artefact,” he said. “And I will give you a painless death.”

“With that creepy spear of yours?” I hummed. “That thing gives a death as painless as a Drukhari Haemonculi.”

“So be it,” he said. Ignoring my comment like he did all the rest. “You have stolen from the Emperor of Mankind, and so you will die.”

He leapt into action without waiting another moment and I just shook my head in mock resignation, trying to hide the bloodthirsty grin spreading on my lips. It was madness, by old 21st-century Earth standards I was batshit crazy.

I could die here, I knew that, I could die for real here, but I didn’t care. Not only did I not care about the danger, I walked right into it. I could have teleported off planet, I was sure I could outrun this blocky Custodian and his hand-me-down teleporter, but I didn’t.

I stood right here and faced down what was, to most, death incarnate. When a Custodian accepted a mission, the Imperial bureaucracy preemptively stamped that mission as a success, such was their unbreakable faith in the strength of the Ten Thousand.

They were the Emperor’s finest servants, and doubting their success was akin to heresy. No, it was Heresy.

And I would be fighting not the weakest member of the Adeptus Custodes, not even an average one, but the best of the best. It tickled a primal urge deep inside of me, the threat of death and beating something so dangerous, so revered, to death.

He rushed at me, and my twin energies were already surging in my body, circulating and enhancing. I wasn’t pushing myself to the limit. Breaking apart my body like before would be stupid and I didn’t have an opportunity yet to test the threshold just yet. I’d have to be on the safer side with that.

Still, it was more than enough. Time slowed, not to a crawl, but to a sprint where it was a speeding train before.

His spear flashed out, drawing a large arc as it came down from above. I sidestepped it easily, slipping through his guard and hopping away as a fist came to crash into my stomach in retaliation.

“Just so you are aware,” I said, continuing to act casual. “I stole nothing. I am what was stolen.”

Even if he hadn’t confirmed it, I was about 99% sure of my theory being correct. It all fit together far too well to be wrong and while what I said wasn’t exactly true, it was the story I’d go with rather than me being some extra-dimensional spirit summoned into this galaxy by the sacrifice of a quadrillion innocent souls.

He ignored me, of course. Though I liked to think he was brooding over my words in that stubborn head of his. Can’t even have dramatic conversations with your enemy in this galaxy.

I plopped the helmet back on my head and quickly formed a bio-sword in my hand, a long-sword this time instead of the usual one-handed sword. Atiesh floated behind me through it all, ready to be used.

As my sword snapped to deflect a spear strike. Even as I was pushed back by the sheer force behind it, my trusty staff counterattacked in my place.

An Eldritch Blast burst forth and punched the Custodian right in the chest, making his sigils flare up and struggle as the nearly three metre tall man took a step back.

The sigils held out, but my sword struck again before he could recover. Not that it mattered. Instead of piercing his armour through the armpits, he twisted himself so my blade only drew a shrieking line on his chest plate.

I felt my heart thrumming in my chest, a useless action for the most part, but I liked the feeling of it. It made me aware of when I was anxious, angry, or excited. I didn’t know which I was at that moment. It could be neither or a combination of them all, but what I knew for sure was that I was alive. I felt alive.

I felt truly alive in a way I only felt a handful of times, all of which happened to be in this second life.

It was nice. For a moment, I felt like it was all worth it. An eternity in purgatory and a life that was no different before.

It was all worth it if I could have a life filled with moments like this.