Chapter 232: Childcare Robot

"Yes, yes."

"I am Mephiston, I am the Lord of Death."

Listening to the cunning Horus's words, Zhou Yun couldn't help but smile.

Though he didn't know why it and that Dark Angel were unaware of his existence, they clearly mistook him for Mephiston.

The cunning Horus's expression stiffened slightly, as if suddenly realizing something.

"You're not Mephiston? What are you?!"

But before the cunning Horus's voice had even faded, Zhou Yun appeared before it in the blink of an eye.

BOOM!!!!!

The fist clad in the Superman glove clashed with the cunning Horus's claws, while Zhou Yun's other hand silently pressed the mechanizer.

His arm instantly turned to liquid, coiling like a snake around the cunning Horus's arm.

The gene-thief chieftain, grown to its absolute limit, let out a muffled groan as its arm withered in an instant, as if all moisture had been drained away.

But it didn't matter————

The cunning Horus's arm restored itself almost instantly, its body surging with immense power.

Not merely the strength of the Great Devourer's parasitic demi-god body, but the Warp entity—composed solely of hatred, curses, and revulsion—was blessing the cunning Horus.

It was the collective emotion of countless beings over ten thousand years.

They hated Horus, who had launched the Great Betrayal; they cursed the name Horus Lupercale; they despised his treachery.

Yet these very emotions granted the cunning Horus power.

"I accept." It rumbled to the Warp entity.

The Dark Angel, born of pure hatred, had no true intelligence, yet still gave an instinctive response to the cunning Horus.

Hatred took root in the cunning Horus's heart; it let out a low roar, a burning desire to consume all surging within.

Of the Eight Paths of Chaos, this Dark Angel likely belonged to the domain of Corruptive Destruction.

There, only madness-inducing terror, pure longing for annihilation, and the urge to crush all into dust existed.

Yes, for ten thousand years, in the eyes of all beings, Horus was a destroyer.

The cunning Horus roared, its profound destructive intent manifesting; a dark, deep, insane illusion spread outward from it.

As the chieftain of the gene-thief clan, it was the core of the clan's psychic link; its fabricated illusion spread into every gene-thief's mind.

Primitive and chaotic destructive urges wove into the illusion; roars echoed from the gene-thieves' mouths.

"Wolf God! Wolf God! Wolf God!!!"

The gene-thieves charged toward Zhou Yun, churning the muddy swamp into waves.

Yet at that moment, countless blades of light slashed through the void, tearing apart the gene-thieves nearest to Zhou Yun with wounds appearing directly within reality itself.

A two-meter-tall Ogryn had emerged from the ruins of the swamp, guarding Zhou Yun's side.

Mephiston hurried to Zhou Yun's side.

In their original plan, neither had anticipated that Horus would overcome cognitive distortion.

So Mephiston moved first, seeking possible locations for Horus's corruption ritual, intending to set a psychic teleport trap to send Horus straight into Zhou Yun's fourth-dimensional pocket the moment he revived.

Who knew this cunning Horus had overcome cognitive distortion and forged an agreement with the Dark Angel of the Warp, fusing with it in a relatively equal manner.

Upon receiving this news, Mephiston rushed here at maximum speed.

The cunning Horus noticed Mephiston's interference; its claws clenched into hammers and swung down violently.

Mephiston raised his silversteel longsword to block—but the immense impact shook him violently.

He was being suppressed by this monstrous creature—not merely physically, but spiritually and psychically.

The Dark Angel fused into this beast was born from Saint Guilliman's death, a part of his Warp essence, the source of black fury.

Mephiston even felt layers of terrifying black feathers slowly covering him in the Warp.

"So you're the real Mephiston? Pretending to be an Ogryn?"

Mephiston's appearance startled the cunning Horus slightly; it then confirmed through Warp perception that this Ogryn was in fact a descendant of Saint Guilliman, a powerful psyker.

Excluding the possibility that Saint Guilliman and some psychic mother Ogryn had made a mistake and overcome reproductive isolation,

It could only be the true Lord of Death, Mephiston, disguised as an Ogryn.

Yet the cunning Horus merely sneered—Saint Guilliman's descendant could never—

"Nova Cannon."

Suddenly, Zhou Yun's voice rang out from afar; the subatomic whistle echoed.

"What?!"

The cunning Horus was startled, only to see Zhou Yun's arm firing a searing subatomic projectile like a cannon barrel.

It was the Nova Cannon, only mounted on Leman Russ tanks.

The cunning Horus instinctively tried to dodge—but as Zhou Yun fired the subatomic projectile, he pressed the mechanizer again.

A two-meter-wide force field erupted from his fingertip, instantly engulfing half the cunning Horus's body.

It froze mid-air—the Stasis Field.

The subatomic projectile screamed—half the cunning Horus's body shattered.

The seven-to-eight-meter-tall beast howled in agony, its mangled torso heaving upward as it glared at Zhou Yun.

"Turning your body into liquid nanobots to drain moisture?"

"Firing subatomic projectiles and Stasis Fields bare-handed?"

"Are you a relic Iron Man from the Golden Age?"

Even as it spoke, the beast's body rapidly healed, the Dark Angel in the Warp continuously pouring power into the cunning Horus.

"Golden Age Iron Man?"

"Incorrect. I am a childcare robot from the twenty-second century."

Zhou Yun grinned in reply, glancing at Mephiston.

The two exchanged a brief glance and immediately agreed on their next plan:

Zhou Yun would hold off the cunning Horus; Mephiston would prepare a psychic teleport to send the cunning Horus into Zhou Yun's fourth-dimensional pocket.

"Twenty-second century childcare robot?"

The cunning Horus frowned in confusion; it didn't quite understand the term.

Yet it slowly raised its massive body; under the Warp's power, its form had mostly healed.

Layers of dense black feathers grew over its former wounds, horrifying to behold—a cloak woven from death and destruction.

Not just it—those gene-thieves standing beside it underwent similar mutations, sprouting more and more strange black feathers, their bodies becoming increasingly deformed.

The gene-thieves roared the name of the Wolf God, trampling the viscous swamp as they charged toward Zhou Yun, Mephiston, and Lokken.

But Zhou Yun calmly reached into his fourth-dimensional pocket and slowly withdrew a device.

Hallucinations swirled before the restaurant owner's eyes, attempting to corrupt its mind.

It was the call from the gene-thief chieftain—the restaurant owner understood: a new chieftain had been chosen.

A new cognitive distortion would envelop all gene-thieves; all could once again lose themselves in it, forgetting all pain.

It could see the vision within the hallucination:

A glorious age, where it would become part of the Great Crusade fleet, marching alongside the Warmaster to conquer the entire galaxy.

Burn the galaxy.

A whisper echoed in the restaurant owner's ear.

Burn the galaxy. Burn the galaxy. Burn the galaxy.

In its daze, it saw several figures enter its restaurant.

Sometimes they were like itself—cunning Horuses; sometimes they were noble Astartes warriors waiting for new recruits to awaken.

Searing pain flared in the restaurant owner's chest.

It clutched the ornate bolter tightly; the burning pain jolted it partially awake.

The cunning restaurant owner silently watched the three gene-thieves before it, already lost in the hallucination, waiting to join them—its own kin.

The cunning restaurant owner silently stared at the cursive engraving on the bolter: the Five Virtues.

"I must focus, so my own will not be crushed by my Master's wrath."

The restaurant owner whispered, raising the bolter to its own head.

Its action startled the three gene-thieves.

But the restaurant owner's lips involuntarily curled into a smile.

"I must be humble, knowing my own baseness."

"My blood and flesh are born of aliens; my soul dwells in blasphemy."

"Purity and nobility are false; only virtue is true."

The restaurant owner slowly lowered the bolter from its head—and then—

BOOM!!!

The bullet roared; one of the surrounding gene-thieves' heads exploded.

"The Winged Guilliman is false; the Warmaster is false."

"Only virtue is true."

The other two gene-thieves roared at the restaurant owner, lashing out with their vicious claws.

But in their eyes, the restaurant owner saw madness, agony, and fragmentation.

They had once seen the truth; even now, having willingly embraced another layer of illusion, the pain of reality still tormented their souls.

The restaurant owner sighed softly, and his other two arms also picked up weapons.

"I should have shown mercy; death would have granted my brethren release."

(End of Chapter)