Chapter 241: 「The Psychic」

Alpharius pondered for a few seconds before speaking.

"Ferrus Manus will win this contest."

"This is not the same as the hunting trial on Fenris."

"That trial was for hunting Krakens; Ninglu and Leman Russ are both Primarchs, and they could both hunt any Kraken, so the deciding factor was who found the larger one."

Alpharius paused for a moment, recalling the scene on Fenris.

"Perhaps it was luck that favored Ninglu, or perhaps his perception was keen, allowing him to find a larger Kraken."

"Ninglu might have won that victory, but this time is different."

"Excavating ruins tests technology, and Manus and his men have the advantage in this regard; this is not something luck can compensate for."

The Emperor's eyes flickered, his tone profound.

"Perhaps, Ninglu will win the victory yet."

The Eleventh Legion's ships took off, flying toward the zone covered in toxic clouds.

The landing craft descended slowly, and through the viewing windows, the Order Shadows saw the ruins below, filled with ancient metal equipment and stone structures of unimaginably large proportions.

They keenly sensed that there seemed to be hazy, shadowy figures below.

Ninglu knew that the Medusans called this area the "Shadow Land," a cluster of ancient ruins.

In Medusan legend, this place was a gathering ground for ghosts and tribal spirits.

The landing craft landed slowly, and Ninglu led the group off the deck.

He said to the group: "Techmarines, study the equipment; the rest of you, maintain Jingjie and familiarize yourselves with the environment."

Ninglu then said to Adams.

"'Psychic,' it is up to you; go and question the ghosts, ask them for the largest, oldest, and most precious ruins."

Ninglu thought that the ghosts Adams questioned might not necessarily know the situation of the entirety of Medusa.

But they could serve as mediums, as materials for Ritual Magic, to find the most valuable ruins on Medusa, so he sent a Mind Pulse to the "Psychic."

"Bring back the ghosts you encounter."

"As you command, Father."

The "Psychic" checked the Spirit Crystals he had crafted.

These crystals were in the catacombs of the Fourth Legion.

The catacombs of the Fourth Legion were built on the Legion flagship Grave, a Relic-class Warship bestowed by the Gene-Father.

At that time, Adams was still a Sequence 8 "Gravedigger," and in order to master the power bestowed by the Gene-Father, he had conducted extensive research into the death cultures of various races.

During this process, he had an idea.

The bodies of battle-brothers who died fighting for the Gene-Father deserved to be buried in a graveyard.

The Death Lord finally decided to emulate those Rogue Trader families and construct a catacomb on the lowest deck of the Grave, to bury those dead battle-brothers who could not be interred in Dreadnoughts.

After becoming a "Psychic," when he used psionic crystals to create containers for spirits, he would go to the catacombs alone to complete the crafting there.

He named his creations Spirit Crystals.

The crystal in his hand radiated a dim green light throughout.

Some of the crystals had scales stuck to them, while others were covered in feathers, and all of them were affixed with strange blood-colored symbols.

Adams left the group alone; the highly intuitive "Psychic" followed his instincts and walked toward the south.

In the ears of the "Psychic," a series of fragmented, overlapping whispers came from ahead, as if countless invisible people were debating.

The "Psychic" walked about two kilometers and stopped.

He felt that within the metal Machines, in the shadows of the stone ruins, and in every dim corner, pairs of eyes were watching him!

A smile appeared on the "Psychic's" cold face, as if ice were thawing.

"Ghosts wandering here, come out."

The "Psychic's" voice was low, soft, and ethereal; his voice was hazy, as if it had merged into the surrounding wind and shadows.

His voice lingered like mist, the source of the sound seeming to come from another realm, accompanied by a faint echo.

A blurred figure, unable to control itself, was the first to crawl out from a metal Machine.

In the eyes of the Medusans, he was a transparent phantom.

But in the eyes of the "Psychic," his body was exceptionally clear; he wore a red worker's uniform and carried an iron shovel.

One figure after another walked out from the metal Machines and the ruins.

Some were charred black all over, while others held blood-stained arms...

Under the sky of Medusa, which had been devoid of light since ancient times, the spirits walked out.

Faced with this horrific scene, the "Psychic's" face was not as cold as usual.

A smile hung on the corner of his mouth as he asked the ghosts.

"Among you, whoever was the earliest immigrant, take a step forward."

None of the ghosts moved, and a charred ghost said in confusion.

"Am I an outsider, or was I born here?"

"..."

Four minutes later, a ghost wearing fine clothing said loudly.

"I remember now, I was the first to come here!"

"When we found this world, we followed the Old Terra naming convention and called it Steneros."

He followed the "Psychic's" words and took a step forward.

As if a memory switch had been triggered, several more spirits walked out from the ranks.

"After you, who came here first?"

The "Psychic" determined the era of all the ghosts by asking them one by one.

Medusa did not use the Terra method of timekeeping, and the people struggling to survive in this cold world of frequent volcanic eruptions had not established a way to commemorate time either.

Subsequently, the "Psychic" asked again.

"Where is the oldest building nearby?"

Under normal circumstances, the older the ruins, the more lost ancient technological items there might be, and the more precious they were.

He did not ask about ruins, because the current ruins might have been factories or other buildings in normal use during the era of the ghosts.

"Point it out to me."

Over a hundred ghosts pointed in different directions, among which twenty-five ghosts pointed in the same direction.

Among them was the earliest one, the ghost of the nobleman wearing fine clothes.

The "Psychic" walked up to the nobleman ghost and asked, "How far is that building from here?"

After thinking for a while, the nobleman ghost replied, "Fifty-nine kilometers."

After asking all the ghosts about the oldest ruins they knew one by one, the "Psychic" recorded the locations on a Data Slate.

He then separately asked them about the largest and most valuable buildings they knew of.

The "Psychic" asked cautiously, "What about the oldest ruins you know of?"

The ghosts turned in different directions again, and he was surprised to see the nobleman ghost looking in another direction.

【If he remembered correctly, and the statement was accurate, then the ruins he knew of existed on Medusa even before humans arrived.】

Through questioning, Adams recorded the oldest, largest, and most valuable ruins known to the ghosts separately.

Two categories with three types each, a total of six, were recorded by him on the Data Slate in different colors.

After finishing the recording, Adams also selected sixteen out of the hundred-plus ghosts.

This was all the Spirit Crystals the "Psychic" carried on him; he did not reserve any because there were another one hundred and four he had made in the crates on the Transport Ship.

"You, come here."

The "Psychic" pointed his finger at the nobleman ghost, who did not hesitate and immediately moved his feet to walk over.

The "Psychic" raised his hand, his Spirituality spreading toward the ghost in front of him, while he chanted an incantation in the Dunn Language.

"I summon in my name, commanding the ghosts wandering this place to be driven by me and reside within the crystal in my palm!"

Following the incantation chanted by the "Psychic," a gray-green light enveloped the nobleman ghost.

Before he could even speak, an invisible and irresistible force pulled him toward the green, scale-covered crystal in the "Psychic's" palm.

Accompanied by a cry of alarm, a gray human face appeared in the green crystal, the face identical to the nobleman ghost.

The "Psychic" bound the selected ghosts into the Spirit Crystals one by one.

No ghost ran away, and no ghost resisted.

The "Psychic" looked at the other ghosts and said.

"Thank you for your cooperation, go back."

The ghosts turned around and walked toward where they had come from, and the "Psychic" also returned the way he came.

(End of this chapter)