Chapter 441: The Little Butcher's Nail is Also Cute

The entire cargo hold shook violently, as if an earthquake had erupted in the endless void surrounding the void ship, threatening to drag the freighter into the cracks of reality itself.

Kahn leaned into the narrow gap between the cargo, the trembling metal crates constantly striking his head, making the Butcher's Nails in his skull buzz, and causing his brain to throb with pain.

Anger, an unbearable surge of anger, welled up from Kahn's brain.

This was the only emotion the Butcher's Nails allowed.

This terrifying psychic surgical implant, produced in Nuln, pierced directly through a person's brain, constantly devouring brain tissue, stripping the host of empathy, the ability to feel joy, and every emotion except anger, leaving the host only with bone-chilling pain, which could only be slightly alleviated when they were angry.

After the Blood God blessed Kahn, the effects of the Butcher's Nails were further enhanced.

The bloodlust and anger generated within would directly devour Kahn's soul, masking all pain and hesitation, allowing Kahn to constantly push every muscle to its limit in his rage, unleashing a slaughter power of extreme bloodiness.

For the past ten thousand years, Kahn had been addicted to this rage.

But not now.

Kahn ground his teeth, the veins on his face bulging and throbbing.

Anger, anger was trying to devour him; he felt his brain being constantly gnawed by the Butcher's Nails.

No, not yet, it is not time yet.

The demon sharing Kahn's body surged out from his flesh, its tentacles piercing into Kahn's brain.

This demon could not help Kahn dissolve his anger; as a demon born from the waves of emotion, it was more skilled at stimulating those extreme emotions rather than eliminating them.

The demon merely awakened the only emotion hidden deep within Kahn's brain that had not yet been swallowed by the Butcher's Nails and the Khorne blessing besides anger.

That emotion was hatred, total hatred, hatred for Arbas.

Besides hatred and the anger granted by the Butcher's Nails, Kahn's soul contained nothing.

The surge of hatred overwhelmed the anger of the Butcher's Nails, temporarily allowing Kahn to control his body and preventing him from being swallowed by rage.

For the sake of revenge, Kahn had to remain calm.

"You are about to break."

The demon evaluated in a warning tone:

"The Blood God has blessed you, filling your flesh with unparalleled power; the immense regenerative ability within allows you to slaughter endlessly without ever knowing fatigue."

"But this blessing is also cruel; precisely because of the regenerative ability the Blood God granted you, your brain has grown completely and totally fused with the Butcher's Nails; the Butcher's Nails have replaced much of your nervous system and become a vital part of your brain."

"When you accept slaughter, when you accept the massacre, this can maintain a certain balance, preventing the nails from killing you directly."

"But now that you suppress your anger and restrain the slaughter, the Butcher's Nails will, according to their original design, constantly gnaw and erode your brain tissue until they kill you completely."

"I know!!" Kahn roared lowly, crying out in pain: "Just like my father!"

"I once wanted to approach my father, get close to my father, and feel what he felt."

"This was the pain he once experienced; he fought against it too, but he failed."

The demon ignored Kahn's low roar and simply continued speaking on its own:

"If you continue to refuse to sink into anger, you will die sooner or later; at most, you will die in eight months."

"The Blood God's tolerance is not infinite; the freedom he gave you has a countdown."

"I did not expect his tolerance to be infinite." Kahn ground his teeth, took a deep breath, and his tone slowly calmed down.

Then he looked at the demon coiled around him.

"You are close too; you have eaten too much," Kahn said softly.

This demon parasitic on Kahn had constantly devoured the bodies of many other demons.

The emotions and concepts constituting those demons were mostly completely different from its own.

But to gain power as quickly as possible, it ate them anyway.

Whether it was Tzeentch's Changer of the Ways or Nurgle's Great Plaguebearer, it swallowed them all into its belly.

These different, even opposing, emotions and concepts constantly clashed within its body, causing problems for its existence.

"I died long ago," the demon said dryly, laughing: "The day Arbas killed Angelth, I died."

"Arbas's ritual dagger was forged from the Blade of the Enemy that killed Horus; it can kill or corrupt the greatest heroes."

"A small demon like me was directly corroded down to its very existence by that dagger."

"If not for the last remnant of emotion left by Angelth, and my own desire for revenge, I would have long ago been shattered and dissolved into the Warp; upon reassembling, I would no longer be the me of now, but a slave of Arbas."

Kahn nodded heavily, saying nothing.

He knew the demon was lying.

The ritual dagger certainly possessed strange power; Arbas had indeed relied on the ritual dagger to escape from his grasp back then.

But the demon parasitic on him still had the option to abandon Angelth and flee back to the Warp when facing the ritual dagger.

But the demon chose to live and die with Angelth, accompanying Angelth until the very last moment; because of this, Kahn trusted him.

Just then, the entire cargo hold shook again with a violence so intense that it made Kahn's nails ache.

"We have already breached Terra's atmosphere," the demon attached to Kahn stated.

This was the reward Kahn had demanded from Abaddon.

Abaddon, through the Alpha, helped Kahn open a route, allowing Kahn to infiltrate Terra and go before the Emperor.

The journey was not exactly peaceful, after all; since the Great Rift opened, the entire galaxy had turned into a chaotic mess.

Kahn secretly helped this freighter repel three human pirate attacks, two Eldar pirate attacks, one Dark Eldar raid for slaves, a group of Orks who happened to pass by on an asteroid, assassinated several Gene-Stealers who had infiltrated the crew, killed a Lictor clinging to the outside of the cargo bay, forced back the Sons of the Emperor warband "Thunder Sons," and repelled a daemon incursion in the Warp.

After a stronger tremor, the freighter slowly stabilized, clearly having docked at a spaceport on Terra.

According to the plan, this vessel would dock at the Wall of Eternity Spaceport, and the supplies within would be transported into the Imperial Palace of Terra.

The inspectors had already been infiltrated by the Alphas; as long as Kahn hid inside a cargo crate, he could blend into the palace.

Kahn could only trust Abaddon and the Alphas for now.

He leaned tightly against the cargo crate; the demon attached to his body writhed, flesh stitched together from different corpses extending from Kahn's body, wrapping Kahn layer by layer.

Then this flesh writhed again, a layer of scales rippling across its surface; subsequently, the scales became faint and indistinct, carrying Kahn into the gaps between light and shadow.

This is a demon parasitic on Kahn, having gained this ability after devouring the Likat that was lying outside the cargo hold.

Compared to the original, it is naturally far inferior, capable only of forcing the motionless Kahn to barely achieve optical camouflage.

"You still complain? If it weren't because I once belonged to the Greed Dissolution Domain, you wouldn't even have this camouflage to use."

The demon parasitic on Kahn grumbled as it spoke.

The cargo crate began to sway and move; both Kahn and the demon on his body displayed the utmost stillness.

But gradually, Kahn sensed something was wrong.

This feeling had no basis; it was simply Kahn's judgment, honed by years of war and slaughter, reacting, making him vaguely smell the taste of traps and betrayal.

Could it be that Abaddon truly dared to deceive him?

The suppressed anger deep in Kahn's heart slowly surged forth again.

He feared neither deception nor lies; no scam was something anger could not counter.

Go kill, that is all. Go kill, that is all.

Encounter a trick and resist; resist means to kill.

He slightly clenched the chainsaw-axe blood seed hidden beneath the demon's flesh and blood.

Mere Alpha could not stop this chainsaw axe inherited by Kahn from the Primarch Angron.

A slight vibration came; the cargo hold stopped and was placed somewhere.

Kahn held his breath and focused his spirit; he was ready for battle, and the Butcher's Nails on his head began to buzz.

"Kill!!!!"

Kahn let out a low, hoarse war cry; his body, like a human battering ram, crashed heavily against the cargo hold door.

The sound of steel straining and twisting rose; two heavy steel doors were violently knocked open by Kahn, deforming fiercely in the process.

Blinding light flooded Kahn's eyes; everything around him suddenly became bright, making Kahn, who had been hiding in the dim cargo hold for some time, quite uncomfortable.

Then, Kahn saw the light source.

Pure white wings slowly spread; beneath golden hair were gentle eyes looking at Kahn with a smile.

Beside him stood a man wearing blue-and-gold interlaced power armor, his face resembling an ancient monarch's stone carving.

And between the two was a mortal of smaller stature with a semicircular pocket on his belly; he was looking at Kahn with great interest.

Buzzzzzz——————

The Butcher's Nails on Kahn's head buzzed.

This was a terrifying sound, the symbol of the World Eaters' rage.

But for some reason,

in this room, before these three people,

the buzzing sound emitted by the string of Butcher's Nails on Kahn's head seemed a bit cute?

The Butcher's Nails, it's fine; even small ones are cute.

"By Saint Doraemon!"

Kahn was still immersed in the anger and confusion brought by the Butcher's Nails and had not reacted.

But the demon parasitic on his body directly half-climbed out of Kahn's body and immediately performed a loyal and standard Aquila salute to Zhou Yun:

"Little Demon has drifted through the Warp for half a life, serving no clear master."

"Only a single fistful of a loyal, red heart burning ceaselessly for humanity."

"Today, seeing the countenance of Saint Doraemon, I finally know this heart should repay you!"

"If you do not disdain it, I wish to be adopted as a Divine God!!"

"Loyalty!!!"

(End of Chapter)