Seraphs of the Emperor’s Judgment

Chapter 205: Awakening

Whenever Faya recalled the events of that night, aside from pure terror, there was only profound remorse.

Actually, he hadn't been the only one to escape that night; Bodri had also broken free. That tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus had managed to tear his bonds largely because he had undergone certain combat-oriented augmetics long ago.

But they hadn't made it very far before those insurgents blocked their path.

"In the name of the Emperor, where do you think you're going, sorcerer?"

The one in charge of their abduction was a muscular, bald man. It was him who had led the group that cornered the two priests in the alleyway.

He let out an evil laugh and walked straight toward them, his four lackeys following closely behind, crossing the confined space of the alley together.

"Be good and raise your hands. No sudden movements, or I absolutely cannot guarantee your safety."

"You stay right there."

Bodri threw off his red robes, revealing robust muscles and the electro-dischargers embedded in his chest. Then, he smashed his fists together forcefully, causing a shower of sparks to erupt from his brass knuckles.

"You garbage! I'll show you exactly the consequences of offending the Omnissiah!"With that declared, he charged straight at the kidnappers.

"Deal with him."

The leader commanded his men. They immediately lunged forward, attempting to tackle Bodri and pin him to the wall. However, the exact moment they made contact, they were violently electrocuted, convulsing wildly before each of them was smashed to the ground with a single punch.

Yet the bald leader did not seem the least bit concerned. Instead, he simply dashed past them, his eyes glinting fiercely with murder.

"If he isn't the sorcerer, then it can only be you."

Operating purely on instinct, Faya turned and fled.

There was practically no illumination in the alley. He staggered frantically through the semi-darkness, but the sound of his pursuer's approaching footsteps rapidly caught up to him.

From here, he could hear Bodri's roars as he fought, followed by his shouts when he explicitly realized he had been abandoned.

Faya didn't look back; his mind was entirely focused on escaping because he knew exactly what these kidnappers truly were, and they stood absolutely no chance of winning.

But the pursuer still caught him, seizing the back collar of his robes and sending him stumbling heavily.

The bald leader's heavily scarred fist smashed into his shoulder, dragging him against the base of the wall before violently shoving him into a pile of dirt.

"Fucking monster!"

The bald leader spat, viciously driving his fist squarely into Faya's gut.

The frail priest doubled over instantly, the air forcefully squeezed from his lungs. Desperately trying to find his footing and catch a breath, he instinctively grabbed onto a nearby water pipe, only to be immediately shoved back against the wall.

"Without your master, you're absolutely nothing, aren't you?"

He grabbed Faya's short black hair, forcing the terrified priest to look back down the tunnel behind them.

A monster was currently in the midst of butchering Bodri. It was a Purestrain Genestealer, completely unfazed by those electrical shocks.

Bodri was pinned to the ground by it, and before his screams could even cease, the creature's massive claws had already torn open his chest and violently ripped out his bloody internal organs.

A sudden overwhelming surge of shame and fury welled up within Faya, completely catching his stuttering breath in his throat.

"Where did all your sorcerer powers go, freak?"

The bald leader sneered, turning his head so the two were face-to-face.

His heavily scarred visage looked utterly twisted deep within the shadows, resembling a non-human xenos—which, in truth, he actually was.

"Speak! Exactly where is your master hiding!"

The bald man raised his heavily scarred fist, thoroughly preparing to teach Faya a harsh lesson.

But accompanied by a furious, rage-filled roar, Faya unbelievably grabbed him instead. Sensing the imminent crisis, the Purestrain Genestealer spun around, preparing to leap away, but was precisely frozen in place within the exact same instant.

Time within the small alleyway seemed completely frozen, with everyone's movements halted exactly where they had been the second prior.

Only Faya remained entirely unaffected.

His own eyes began to physically burn, glowing with a bizarre, scorching luminescence, as his roar completely transformed into a feral snarl.

"Your soul belongs to me, you xenos bastard!!!"

With seemingly impossible, supernatural strength, Faya tightened his grip sharply. The bald man's bones clamped within his hand snapped completely with a sickening, wet crunch.

A surging tide of agony and nightmarish imagery was violently forced straight into the very will of this bald xenos hybrid.

Meanwhile, the Purestrain shrieked as it abruptly ignited with supernatural flames, instantly turning into a dripping, melting human torch.

Following that, Faya simply let go of the bald man—the man's willpower had been utterly and completely ravaged. He collapsed fully to his knees, his face horribly contorted, his eyes completely vacant and unseeing.

He fled from the area, following the passages in his memory back toward his living quarters. However, he knew deep down that after what just happened, it was utterly impossible for him to return to his former identity. Still, he desperately wanted to take a few things with him and somehow provide an explanation for his three dead colleagues.

Facts ultimately proved him correct. Following the Departmento Justitiae's interrogation the very next day, he vividly realized it would be exceedingly difficult to continue hiding himself. Consequently, he had no choice but to utilize incredibly unpracticed psychic techniques to mentally manipulate the interrogator into releasing him, before immediately fleeing toward the mining sectors without a moment's delay.

He dared not take the main thoroughfares, using a hidden path instead. Throughout the entire journey, entirely muffled sobbing constantly echoed throughout the extremely cramped rat-tunnels.

The path was exceptionally narrow, offering practically no room to even secure a proper footing. He had to squeeze through the vast majority of the twisting sections completely bent over, long before it finally expanded into the much larger shafts of the secondary mining sectors surrounding it.

That was exactly the place Faya wanted to enter: Mining Sector 14.

If he had actually been given a true choice, he honestly would have much preferred prison cells and shackles over getting completely lost inside the pitch-black subterranean world.

But his life was no longer entirely his own.

He grabbed a battered, dilapidated lumen lamp from a discarded basket near the rat-tunnel entrance. Its flickering light was now his absolute only companion, and he felt absolutely certain that, with every passing second, the shadows were relentlessly encroaching upon its incredibly feeble ring of illumination.

His shoulders were constantly scraped raw by the tunnel walls, and occasionally he was even forced to push the lamp ahead of himself through the cold, incredibly damp dirt, frantically squeezing downward in the thoroughly suffocating, confined spaces.

He pressed onward, desperately trying not to think about the highly claustrophobic walls or the crushing dirt constantly pressing against him.

He could still vividly hear Bodri's screams exactly when he abandoned him. That horrifying noise, intertwined fully with the pure shrieks of the xenos, continuously echoed throughout his very mind.

For a fleeting moment, he felt as if he had actually gone blind. However, when his vision subsequently returned, he shockingly realized that the sight had not been his own.

Bizarre, entirely alien images forcefully barged into his retinas, looking like painfully elongated, limb-mutated glaring phantoms—the visual aftershocks of a brilliant lightning strike left firmly behind.

He clearly heard a jarring, metallic clatter of laughter echoing absolutely madly throughout the entirely dirt-packed corridors.

Something had explicitly come for him.

He had to completely leave, completely out of here, before it ultimately found him.

He felt thoroughly convinced that he was likely going to die, or perhaps even worse. As a result, another completely muffled sob violently burst forth, echoing intensely down the cramped rat-tunnel.

It was precisely at that moment that an entity explicitly answered him.

A thought brazenly intruded straight into his mind. It sounded exactly like a fractured voice, the very same rattling clatter that frequently spoke to him during the darkest hours of the night—a bizarre, yet entirely non-aggressive, whisper.

Keep walking.

It explicitly urged.

"I can't go on."

Faya spoke aloud, wiping his nose with his sleeve, which instantly became stained completely with blood.

"They're coming for me."

There is still time, come to me, now, I will keep you safe.

Faya somehow managed to obey, completely forcing his thoroughly exhausted limbs to function as he pressed through the stifling semi-darkness. He walked incredibly slowly, thoughtlessly dragging himself onward, entirely as if the very suggestions in his mind had thoroughly spread into the absolute rest of his body.

What continually spurred his movements forward was a completely transcendental willpower.

Ultimately, he fell directly out of that agonizing tunnel and plummeted into the secondary mining shaft. Though his physical body burned intensely with sheer exhaustion, being entirely covered from head to toe in incredibly sticky, grey sludge.

Very well, my agent. It is now time to completely cast aside your past identity entirely, and wholeheartedly return to your faithful flock.

Some kind of profoundly bizarre willpower forcefully compelled Faya to completely stand back up, utterly ignoring the agonizing pain in his limbs. There, resting quietly entirely on the ground, lay a raven mask and a feathered cloak.

Faya stood completely stunned for a moment, not truly knowing if he really wanted to bid a final farewell to his extremely profound past.

But he explicitly had no choice. The very moment he donned that mask, the profoundly weak, thoroughly feeble Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Priest Faya simply ceased to exist entirely.

He thoroughly transformed into a midnight-black phantom, staggering continually downward along the incredibly earthen corridors. Before completely leaving, he decisively placed his lumen lamp right at the entrance of the rat-tunnel, entirely without ever looking back once.

Behind him, that lamp explicitly flickered once, and then entirely extinguished.