Chapter 121: My Son?

One hundred and sixty-nine devout, unmutated pure Cadiaans chanted aloud the prayer written by Zhou Yun.

They and the thirteen leading Battle Sisters each held three blazing candles, their flames flickering with their loud prayers.

“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”

“For forty thousand years of Humanity, the Stormblood Legion!”

“Support the Emperor, exterminate the vermin, fifty-five days in the Underworld!”

“No rain from heaven, earth parched and cracked, the vermin’s eyes all turn red!”

“Angels grieve, descend together to spread the Dao!”

A powerful, uniquely flavored song rose from behind the lines.

General Drostron turned, bewildered, toward the sound; Lena’s eyes were equally confused.

As their singing rose, wisps of smoke spiraled from the candle flames, drifting and hovering in the air, thinning the barrier between the Warp and reality.

“Haa!!!”

The Brain Tyrant sensed something, letting out a shrill roar, its immense psychic power hurling the collapsed statues on the battlefield into the air.

Shattered stone became missiles hurtling toward the Cadia warriors.

Yet before those missiles could strike the Astra Militarum, they halted abruptly midair.

Lena used her psychic power to resist the Brain Tyrant’s fierce assault.

She forced herself to stand, feeling the sacred script tattooed on her cheek grow faintly warm.

With the strange prayers and songs of the Astra Militarum behind her, she sensed the Warp more clearly than ever before.

She could even perceive a beam of light moving toward Asford, growing brighter with each passing moment.

“Could it really… work?!” Lena muttered in disbelief.

She suddenly remembered Zhou Yun saying he was an Angelic Chosen.

Lena was the Emperor’s Chosen, and Zhou Yun truly seemed to be an Angelic Chosen too.

“Not me, then. Only I’m fake.”

Lena’s eyelid twitched, but she knew there was no time to dwell on this.

The white light slowly surging from the Warp was amplifying her psychic power and weakening the Brain Tyrant’s.

She had to hold the line!

“Not xenos! Not Chaos! Chant the Sacred Words of the Prayer!”

“Burn the yellow talismans! Offer incense smoke! Summon the Primarchs of all caves!”

Seeing the white light in her vision grow clearer, Zhou Yun knew the Astra Militarum’s prayers were taking effect—he shouted aloud too.

The monstrous, towering Hive Tyrant possessed formidable psychic power and sensed the rising white light.

“Roar!!!”

It bellowed and charged straight toward Zhou Yun, who was calling forth the winged figure from the light.

The Tyrant understood: Zhou Yun was the center of this change. If it broke him—

Sssshhh!

A smell of burning flesh erupted from the Tyrant’s left shoulder, halting its advance instantly.

A searing laser shot from the ruins of surrounding buildings, striking precisely at the Tyrant’s left shoulder, unprotected by chitinous armor.

In the ruins, the Laitrin sniper Hobien Bai Lu gripped his specialized laser sniper rifle.

He and the remaining Laitrin snipers had hidden in shadows, waiting for the final moment to protect Zhou Yun and the Cadiaans as they completed their prayer.

“Champion, count this one for me,” Hobien Bai Lu chuckled.

Half his body, corroded by the drifting spore cloud, was rotting into bloody ruin.

One after another, precise, searing lasers erupted from the ruins, all aimed at the Tyrant’s exposed left shoulder.

These attacks inflicted no real damage, but they successfully delayed its advance, giving Zhou Yun his opening.

“Hearts united, hard work pays off! Turn into soldiers in the Warp!”

“By the Immortal’s art, we shall sweep the vermin clean!”

The prayers of the Astra Militarum, Battle Sisters, and Zhou Yun merged into one chorus.

The smoke spiraling from the candles spread across the entire battlefield, like an endless tide of mist.

Reality grew hazy; brilliant golden light erupted from the candle flames.

This miraculous sight instantly lifted the morale of the Astra Militarum—they felt boundless strength surging within them.

“Cadia stands unbroken!!!!” General Drostron roared, leading the emboldened Astra Militarum in a charge against the vermin horde led by the Tyrant’s guards.

For a moment, the Imperial side seemed to reignite hope.

“The Second Empire’s Emperor commands! Stormblood Legion, advance!”

“Drive every vermin demon out of the Underworld!”

“Chicken dumplings, hit them all—crush the vermin without effort!”

“The Great Devourer trembles in fear; Tyrant warriors vanish!”

“Destroy the hatching pools, pull out the fine hairs, urgently wreck the bio-ships!”

“Wipe out every last vermin demon—Angels shall rule the galaxy!”

General Drostron stared in wonder at the increasingly brilliant white light in the sky.

The light radiated boundless holiness—like the sun, like a furnace, like an eternal hope.

!. Read

It actually worked!

Though Zhou Yun’s prayer included words Drostron didn’t understand—“chicken dumplings,” “Angel Sauce,” “Second Empire Emperor”—it clearly summoned a great angel!

“Most hateful, venomous beasts! Devouring our flesh!”

“Blood boils! Fifty-five days in the Underworld!”

“Black rage erupts! Fifty-five days in the Underworld!”

As the prayers of the one hundred and sixty-nine pure Cadiaans reached their peak, a brilliant white light, like a furnace’s flame, erupted in midair.

The light bathed the entire battlefield, spreading across the vermin-infested ruins of the city.

“Haa!!!” The Brain Tyrant shrieked in agony—its surrounding psychic energy began to dissolve and retreat, like dew evaporating under bright sunlight.

The Cadiaans on the battlefield involuntarily raised their heads, gazing upward with reverence at the radiant white light.

“Saint Guilliman above,” General Drostron whispered.

“The Archangel,” Lena murmured, stunned, watching the winged figure slowly take shape within the light.

Was Saint Guilliman truly manifesting on this battlefield?!

“Huh?” Zhou Yun blinked. He felt something strange, faintly.

He had the feeling… the feeling… something was approaching him, drawing near to something deeper, more fundamental within him.

Something luminous, bright, and alluring.

Unable to resist the temptation, Zhou Yun instinctively reached out and lightly grasped at the approaching thing.

“Huh?” The winged figure within the light let out a confused cry.

The brilliant white light in midair shuddered violently; a metallic blue began rapidly spreading across it.

“What the—?”

The winged figure within the light—now the winged figure within the blue light—stared in bewilderment:

“What the hell did you just do?!”

Zhou Yun blinked, bewildered.

Mephiston stared in disbelief at the scene before him.

As his consciousness searched the dark shadows of the Warp for a path to the Underworld system, he suddenly saw a brilliant, dazzling white light pierce the darkness.

Within the light, he glimpsed a faint, indistinct figure.

The figure bore wings of pure white, like solidified light, radiating the serene fragrance of incense; chains of pure silver hung from his wings, gleaming brilliantly.

Mephiston felt the power emanating from him.

Like the sun in the desert at noon—radiating blazing heat and divinity within the light.

Mephiston’s heart pounded; he felt something within his soul being called, yearning to fly toward the figure.

“Saint Guilliman?” Mephiston whispered the name.

That ancient, mysterious warrior always appeared when the Blood Angels faced their most desperate battles.

Some suspected he was the lingering soul of Saint Guilliman after his death at Horus’s hands; others believed he was Azrael, the captain of the Blood Guard ten thousand years ago; still others thought he was Saint Guilliman’s former shadow-warrior.

Mephiston only knew the holy figure possessed Warp nature.

But he soon sensed something was wrong—he had seen Saint Guilliman’s figure on the battlefield before.

This figure was different. It was purer, more absolute—a Warp creation of greater essence.

And Mephiston saw: beside the figure, a smaller one was entwined.

That one wore a golden Saint Guilliman mask and armor of pure gold—that was Saint Guilliman.

Mephiston felt dizzy.

If this nobler, brighter figure was not Saint Guilliman, then it could only be…

Mephiston immediately wrapped his consciousness in powerful psychic energy and followed closely behind the pure white figure.

The bright light radiating from the figure dispelled parts of the Warp’s shadows, revealing the turbulent sea beneath.

Where the pure white light shone, the barrier between the Warp and reality had thinned—so thin it was on the verge of shattering.

The figure within the white light slowly extended its hand, cradling the Saint Guillenene swirling around it, preparing to cast it into the boundary between reality and the Warp.

Melphistone faintly understood: such events must have occurred many times before. It was this figure, again and again, casting Saint Guillenene into reality to help the Blood Angels overcome peril.

A resonance from the depths of his soul made Melphistone’s body tremble slightly.

If one were to ask which Astartes Chapter today had the deepest bond with the Gene-Father, it would surely be the Blood Angels.

For most other Astartes, the Gene-Father was but an ancient legend or a tourist attraction.

But the Archangel linked his soul to every Blood Angel through the Black Rage.

“Father?” Melphistone asked involuntarily.

The winged figure within the white light turned its head slightly toward Melphistone.

It seemed hesitant, yet after a moment, it spoke softly: “My son————”

The figure’s voice suddenly cut off.

Melphistone’s eyes widened instantly.

He saw behind that radiant figure a far larger shadow emerge.

A vast, blue, metallic-gleaming shadow extended a massive, circular hand toward the figure he suspected was his Gene-Father.

(End of Chapter)