Chapter 393: Slaughtering Daemons
"Kekekeke, humans! Is this really the full extent of your torment? I feel like I just had a lovely spa nap! Once I get out of here, I'll show you what real suffering looks like, kekekekekekeke!"
The daemon, limbless and bound into a massive metal sphere, let out a mocking laugh.
Bruno said, "This one was summoned by a Chaos cult. He led a major rebellion on a planet, twisted a mob of ignorant Chaos-worshippers into slaughtering each other, and caused fifty million casualties. If we hadn't caught it as early as we did, all thirty billion people on that world would've wiped each other out entirely. At that point, he'd have used the harvested souls of the dead to tear open a Warp rift and drag the entire planet into the Immaterium."
There were worlds inside the Warp itself. Some of them had come into being exactly that way.
As the Inquisitor explained, the daemon made its own gleeful declaration.
"Kekeke! It only would've taken ten billion deaths for their combined soul-strength to pull the whole planet into the Warp for me! The remaining twenty billion would've become my playthings. I'd have spent a century or two toying with them until every last one was gone, kekekekekekeke!"
The daemon's head, sealed in its glass case, let out another wave of arrogant laughter.
"This failure was my own fault, I moved too eagerly. Next time I'll take a slower, surer approach. I will drag a whole planet into the Warp, kekekekeke!"
"You bastard!"
Thane roared and lunged for the control console, slamming down on an electrocution switch. A brutal surge of current tore through the daemon, sending it into screaming convulsions.
"Awoo, awoo, awoo! Yes, yes, yes, more, give me more!"
Bruno decided that was enough and pulled Thane back.
"Lord Thane! Calm yourself! You're about to fry his physical body entirely, stop!"
Thane forced himself to stop. The daemon was charred black all over, and yet it still cackled with wild abandon.
"Weak little humans, is this really all you've got? You don't even have the nerve to torment me properly. How pathetic. Humanity exists solely to feed us, you know!"
Bruno turned to Kian, looking helpless.
"We've got over twenty daemons caught aboard this ship. Every one of them is guilty of monstrous crimes, each with over a million lives on their conscience, and yet we don't dare actually kill any of them. Daemons this experienced, once their souls reform in the Warp and return to reality, come back more cautious, more vicious, and capable of even worse devastation than before."
Kian looked at the daemon still snarling behind the glass and smiled.
"So this is what Lord Bruno really invited me here for."
He drew the Demon-Cleaver off his back, gave it a swing, and golden psychic flame roared to life along the blade.
Thane's eyes lit up instantly. He was practically in tears.
"Such blazing fire! Such pure power! Not even ten thousand devout priests praying together could produce power this clean!"
Bruno worked the console and opened the glass case.
"That's right, Count. Through certain special means, I learned you might be capable of killing daemons permanently. That's exactly why I invited you here. Please, Count, if you would. For the five million lives this one has on its hands."
Special means. What kind of special means, exactly? Probably meant this man had planted an informant somewhere in Trasolh's fleet. That was just how Inquisitors operated. There was plenty of internal rivalry, and planting spies on each other was common enough.
Kian said he understood, and stepped toward the daemon with the flaming blade raised. The moment the golden psychic fire touched it, the daemon let out a shriek, its skin smoking.
"Ah! The power of the Cursed One! No, no, stay back, stay back!"
Kian raised the Demon-Cleaver and brought it down in a single stroke, the blade splitting the daemon's skull clean open. After one final panicked scream, the daemon's soul simply dispersed into nothing, its body vanishing entirely from the metal cocoon, leaving nothing behind.
Bruno's eyes lit up with something close to religious fervor.
"So it's true! The intelligence was accurate! The Count really is a Living Saint! He truly wields the Emperor's own power!"
Kian glanced at the man's fevered expression and decided to keep going. He wasn't some backwater agri-world noble anymore. Some things could be brought out into the open a little at a time. Keep hiding everything forever, and a man would spend his whole life playing small. Now that he had Trasolh's protection, he could start revealing his abilities and assets to the wider galaxy, piece by piece. Coming aboard Bruno's ship was itself a kind of test run for that.
"Lord Bruno, any more daemons locked up? Want me to handle them for you?"
Bruno nodded, practically buzzing with excitement.
"Of course, Count. Please, follow me. Every one of them is drowning in crimes. Ending them for good would be the best possible outcome."
Kian went down the line, blade rising and falling, rising and falling, wiping out every daemon sealed in its metal cocoon one after another. The sight left Thane misty-eyed, his eyes actually welling up with tears. He envied Kian deeply. If only he could receive a blessing like that from the Emperor Himself. But there wasn't a shred of resentment in his heart. If the Count had earned this much of the Emperor's favor, he had to be a man of extraordinary refinement and holiness. A man like that was someone to learn from, not envy.
Blade rising, blade falling, Kian cleared out the entire daemon stockpile aboard the Inquisitor's fleet.
But when he reached the very last glass case, ready to execute the final daemon inside, Bruno stopped him.
"Wait, Count, don't kill this one. This daemon holds intelligence I need. I'm planning to keep torturing it for another fifty years until it gives up what it knows."
Kian stared at him, stunned.
"Fifty years? Interrogating a daemon takes that long?"
Bruno sighed, sounding genuinely worn down by it.
"You wouldn't know this, Count, but daemons are like this. Their wills are incredibly resilient. Getting real intelligence out of one takes interrogation measured in decades, not days."
As he spoke, Bruno worked the console, and the iron helm on the last cocoon split open, revealing a daemon with the head of a bird.
The bird-headed daemon looked over the assembled group and let out a wicked laugh.
"The sea of knowledge stretches endless and boundless. To draw from it, one must offer up a soul in sacrifice!"
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