Chapter 392: The Daemon Hunter's Collection
Afterward, Inquisitor Bruno and the Living Saint Thane took Kian on a tour of the Admonition.
The Admonition was a Sword-class Escort, a well-balanced design capable of handling most missions on its own. But this particular Sword-class frigate was outfitted to the absolute maximum, every macro-cannon and lance battery slot filled, giving it firepower closer to what you'd expect from one and a half ships its size.
The crew were elite from top to bottom, too. As Kian walked the corridors, he noticed even the support staff wore power armour. And this wasn't ordinary armour either. Every suit was etched edge to edge with scripture and layered with Purity Seals.
Along the ship's passageways, there was a chapel every kilometer, a statue of the Emperor every hundred meters, and a statue of some saint every ten meters. Every stone-plated bulkhead was carved with litanies, and candles burned in every corner. Ecclesiarchy attendants drifted past constantly, swinging censers, heads bowed, murmuring scripture as they walked.
If Kian hadn't known this ship belonged to an Inquisitor, he'd have mistaken it for an Ecclesiarchy pilgrim vessel.
Bruno explained as they walked.
"Our ship sometimes has to enter the Warp itself to pursue certain daemons. Our longest hunt lasted ten years, chasing down a daemon that had murdered a Planetary Governor and wiped out half the population of a hive city, in retaliation for that. We finally ran it to ground and tore its soul apart completely.
A voyage through hell that long demands unshakable will. Every soul on this crew is a steadfast warrior."
Bruno said it with obvious pride, and Kian nodded along, genuinely impressed. As far as he could tell, the ship really was steeped in a faint, persistent thread of the Emperor's psychic presence, and that alone gave it some real resistance against Warp daemons. In a universe this shaped by belief, unshakable will really did translate into genuine spiritual resilience.
Bruno led him next to a special chamber, sealed behind thick layers of ceramite. The plating was covered edge to edge in scripture, and two armed, robed attendants stood guard at the entrance, power armour on, staff in one hand, scripture in the other, murmuring without pause.
"Count, I think you'll find what's in this room quite interesting."
Bruno worked the control panel at the entrance. The heavy door slid open, and they stepped inside.
The moment Kian crossed the threshold, he felt a ripple of Chaos energy, agitated and restless, quickly beaten back down by the scripture-saturated hull around them.
He looked around with real curiosity. This was clearly some kind of vault.
Bruno led him to a containment field where a strange-looking gun rested.
"Count, we recovered this from a Daemon Engine. Speak your enemy's name aloud, pull the trigger, and that person dies instantly, no matter where in the galaxy they are."
Kian studied the weapon with real interest.
"That's a hell of a thing. Sounds like some kind of rules-weapon. The cost to use it can't be small."
Bruno nodded.
"To kill a soul, you need a bullet made from another soul. If there's no bullet loaded, pulling the trigger turns the user's own soul into the round instead."
He led Kian to the next container, which held a strange book.
"This is the Book of Bargains, taken from some unknown daemon. Open it to the first page, and it reveals the answer to whatever you most want to know. But at the same moment, the single most valuable piece of knowledge in your mind vanishes, traded away in exchange."
Kian let out a low whistle.
"Lord Bruno, from what I know of daemons, they never make a fair trade."
Bruno nodded.
"Exactly right, Count. What's unknown is always the most precious thing there is. If you're trading known knowledge for unknown knowledge, how much known knowledge would it even take to cover the cost?
This book once belonged to a Magos who'd lived five hundred years, a man of tremendous learning, tormented his whole life by a single unsolved mathematical problem. To finally crack it, he opened the Book of Bargains.
What he lost in exchange was everything he knew. Every scrap of it. Including basic biological instincts like walking and speaking."
Kian said, "Now that tracks. My guess is the book decided that everything that Magos knew, his entire five hundred years of learning, still wasn't enough to cover the price of that one answer. Damn thing, if you're not going to pay out the trade fairly, don't take the man's knowledge at all. Reduce him to an infant and not even tell him beforehand? A daemon's a daemon. Filthy things."
Bruno moved to the third container, where a sword rested.
"This is a blade a daemon once wielded. We recovered it after killing the thing. Whoever uses it grows stronger and stronger, but the price is that once you take it up, you can never put it down again. The sword fuses with the wielder's flesh, and it demands a liter of fresh blood every hour. If the wielder can't find an enemy to kill fast enough and feed the blade through its own edge, the hilt starts draining blood straight out of the user's body instead."
Kian said, "Oh, I know this one. A sword-daemon, basically. Speaking of which, Lord Bruno, surely a Daemon Hunter like yourself doesn't just collect daemon relics without ever actually catching a daemon?"
He asked it honestly. As interesting as these artifacts were, they were still just dead objects. A live daemon was so much more fun. Nothing sounded quite as good as one screaming after you put a blade through it.
As the saying went: the Ordo Hereticus produces heretics, and the Ordo Malleus produces daemons.
Bruno led him to the darkest, most heavily secured chamber on the entire ship. Several large glass containment cases stood inside, plastered with Purity Seals and psychic suppression equipment. A handful of attendants stood nearby, holding psychic amplifier staves, scripture clutched in their other hand, reading without pause. As they read, a distinct psychic charge radiated off them, channeled through the amplifier staves to suppress whatever twisted shapes waited inside the glass cases.
Those twisted shapes were daemons. Every one of them had had its limbs removed, its body pinned in place with steel restraints, its head sealed entirely under a massive iron casing. Wrapped up that tightly, not a scrap of skin was visible anywhere. They looked like metal cocoons.
Bruno stepped up to one of the glass cases and worked a device on the metal platform beside it. The iron helm sealing the metal cocoon's head split open, revealing a twisted, daemonic face underneath.
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