Chapter 125: The Scourge of the Grandfather
As the flames caught, the woman let out a jagged, agonizing shriek. Kian didn't let her suffer. He raised his pistol and fired twice—one for the mother, one for the horse-headed infant. He left their bodies to be consumed by the fire, two more logs on a pyre that was quickly reaching the rafters.
The heat was becoming unbearable. Smoke, thick with the scent of roasted meat and Warp-rot, filled the room. Kian began to cough violently, his lungs feeling like they were being raked with sandpaper. He spotted a ladder leading to a roof-hatch and hauled himself up.
Equine Reach was a dense settlement. From his vantage point on the third-story roof, Kian looked out over a sea of timber shingles. He grabbed the remaining kerosene tins. With his Strength at 23, he didn't need to be precise. He simply hurled the fuel at the neighboring rooftops, followed by makeshift fire-bombs.
The village was now an inferno. Two massive fires were merging, turning the night into a hellish, orange noon.
Below him, the mob of Poxwalkers had gathered. They stood in the street, hundreds of them, staring up at him. They didn't try to climb; they didn't try to extinguish the flames. They just watched with that same, unnerving "politeness."
Kian looked toward the center of the village. Two hundred meters away was the village square. In the past, it would have held a statue of the God-Emperor. Now, it held a monument to a much darker master.
A six-meter-tall living statue made of fused horses, human limbs, and animal carcasses. It pulsated with a sick, rhythmic life, shaped into three overlapping circles—the unholy trinity of Nurgle.
"I'm already red-lining on the infection," Kian muttered, checking his status. "I'm not extracting through the woods. I'm going out in style."
He pulled out his remaining half-bottle of Sanctified Spirits. He didn't drink it. He poured the holy liquid into his two remaining kerosene drums and shook them.
"Let's see how you like the 'Emperor's Cocktail'."
Kian ignited a rag and began pouring the "Sanctified Fuel" off the roof, letting the burning rain fall directly onto the Poxwalkers below.
When standard fire hit them, they had laughed. But when the Holy Incendiary touched their skin, the screams were different.
The Sanctified Spirits didn't just burn their flesh; it burned the Warp-lie away. For a brief, agonizing second, the "Emperor's Clarity" shattered their mental filters. They didn't see a beautiful garden anymore. They saw themselves—rotting, maggot-filled corpses. They smelled the stench they had been exalting.
The mob erupted into a panic of soul-deep horror. They wailed, they clawed at their own skin, and they trampled one another as the "Holy Fire" ate through their corruption.
Kian used the chaos to leap from the roof. He hit the ground rolling, his 15mm stub-cannon barking as he cleared a path toward the square.
The square was a nightmare. The old stone statue of the Emperor had been toppled, smashed into three jagged pieces that lay in the mud. It was covered in filth and human-hide banners.
In its place stood the Flesh-Altar.
It was a mass of tumors and weeping sores. Tentacles and maggots writhed across its surface. Every animal head trapped in the meat was shrieking in a discordant, wet harmony.
Kian coughed up a glob of black blood. He looked at his hands; they were covered in weeping yellow pustules. His vision was turning a jaundiced yellow, and his fever was so high he could feel his brain simmering in his skull.
[HUD WARNING: VITAL SIGNS CRITICAL]
Total System Failure Imminent. Sanity at 5%.
Kian stumbled forward, his hands trembling as he doused the Flesh-Altar with his last drum of fuel. He struck his lighter, his fingers barely able to hold the metal.
SHRIT.
The Altar ignited. The living monument let out a sound like a thousand dying horses. The heads of men and beasts alike howled in unison as the "Sanctified Flame" began to liquefy the rot.
Kian couldn't stand anymore. The hundreds of viruses raging in his blood had finally won. He slumped against the base of a broken Emperor-statue shard, gasping for air.
From the smoke of the square, a figure emerged.
It was a three-meter-tall horror. Its lower body was that of a massive, bloated cyber-steed; its upper body was a humanoid torso fused into the horse's neck. It wore a tattered, oversized hat and held a rusted iron bell in its left hand.
The Belltower-Centaur looked down at Kian with an expression of weary, fatherly disappointment.
"Guest..."
The human mouth and the horse mouth spoke together, their voices a wet, resonant drone.
"We welcomed you. We offered you the Bounty. We gave you the Gift of Life. And yet... you are so naughty. You have broken the blossoms. You have burned the seeds."
Kian looked up, his face a mask of sores and yellowed skin. "If you... call this a garden... your gardener needs... a bullet."
The Centaur let out a sigh that smelled of swamp-gas. "Then we cannot let you run free. You must stay here, little guest. We will plant you in the earth until you learn to grow correctly. You will become a part of the family... forever."
Kian's vision began to shift again. The monster became a kindly old man on a horse. The burning village became a field of golden wheat. The screaming was replaced by a gentle breeze.
"Join us, child," the old man whispered. "Stop fighting the blessing. In this family, there is no winter. There is no pain. There is only the harvest."
Kian shook his head violently, biting his tongue until the copper taste of blood snapped him back to reality. The "beautiful garden" flickered and died. He was looking at a demon-spawn in a graveyard.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Lho-stick. He couldn't even light it—his hands were too weak. He looked at the broken piece of the Emperor's statue next to him.
"Hey, Old Man on the Chair," Kian whispered to the stone. "I talk a lot of sh*t about you when the sun is out... but when it comes down to the wire... I can see why you stayed. You're one hell of a stubborn bastard."
The statue remained silent, cold and regal even in the dirt.
Kian looked back at the approaching Centaur. He opened his industrial jacket, revealing the demolition vest. He gripped the master-pull cord.
"You want me in the family, you bloated grox-sh*t?" Kian snarled, a bloody grin splitting his face. "Then get ready... 'cause Papa is coming home!"
"FOR HUMANITY!"
BOOM!!!
☆☆☆
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