Time had passed since Gerhard became the sole ruler of Ludos Prime and the technical Ork Warboss of the remaining Orks. No one appreciated his decision not to kill all Orks, and instead take up the mantle of 'honorary' Warboss. It was absolutely ludicrous. Only Lencillus didn't outright voice his thoughts and listened to what Gerhard knew about the Xenos.
He understood, but even if that was true, he wasn't content with how Gerhard allowed them to remain as they were. But Gerhard hadn't. He sent the Orks out of the Hive and told them to prepare for their departure. After that, he collected as much of their blood and spores as he could, for later research. The rest, he burned and made sure that only Orks would spawn on Ludos Prime from those who were now seeing him as their Warboss.
The insane bonus of this was that instead of being temporary, the Blessings of Gork and Mork were now permanent. He seemed to be seen as a worthy Warboss for this ramshackle of Orks. The question now was, what would happen if he showed up on Cadia with a band of Orks, after having visited Arraissa?
Since then, Gerhard had spent his time salvaging the most valuable and useful technology he could from the Hive and the Orks who had stolen everything. The most important ones were the Shokk Attack Gun, the Tellyport Blasta and the Void Shield.
Armed with this new tech, Gerhard entered his Instant Dungeon with the 10:1 time dilation again and went about understanding and improving them so that he could use them later.
Even with time dilation, it took Gerhard a long time to figure everything out, and his science skills levelled up tremendously in the process. [Engineering], [Programming], [Warp Manipulation], [Biology Mastery], [Chemistry Mastery], [Mathematics Mastery], [Physics Mastery], [Sword Mastery], [Firearms Mastery], [Martial Arts] and more.
Martial Arts (Passive/Active) Lv. 57
| EXP: 0.00%
| A high-level combat skill that allows near-complete control over the body in combat.
| Movements, reactions and attacks are executed with precision, efficiency and minimal delay.
Effects:
Passive:
| +74% unarmed damage
| +62% reaction speed in close combat
| +58% movement efficiency (footwork, balance)
| +50% dodge and counterattack timing
Active:
| +148% unarmed damage
| +100% attack speed
| +95% reaction speed
| +35% damage reduction in close combat
| MP: 25/min
---
But that wasn't all. Gerhard was punching Adamantium walls like a lunatic ever since he created the [Divergent Fist]. He knew that the skill was powerful, not only for hand-to-hand combat, but also when using weapons.
Divergent Fist (Active) Lv. 33
| A close-combat technique that creates a delayed second impact by desynchronizing physical force and energy flow.
| The user's strike lands first, followed by a secondary Mana shock a fraction of a second later.
Effects:
| First Impact: 100% Physical Damage (STR scaling)
| Second Impact: 100% Mana Damage (INT scaling)
| Delay between hits: 0.3 sec
| +30% guard break chance
| -10% enemy reaction speed for 0.5 sec after hit
| +20% chance to trigger a third micro-impact
| Combo attacks gain +10% damage
---
It was clear to Gerhard that if he levelled up Divergent Fist and his Mana manipulation, he might be able to create an even more powerful skill. But that would most likely take time and lots of training.
And maybe a bit of luck as well.
Gerhard rebuilt the 'Hulk Buster' and significantly improved it. Enough to soon be able to call it the MK. VI-H. But he didn't spend too much time on that project, for he was on somewhat of a timer.
How did he know that?
Well, he found something else in the highest of hte Spires during his excavation.
The Emperor's Tarot.
The Emperor's Tarot, or Imperial Tarot, was a pack of seventy-eight psychoactive liquid-crystal wafers that were linked to the thoughts or prophetic visions of the Emperor. The Tarot was commonly believed to have been designed by the Emperor himself and was used throughout the Imperium as a form of divination.
Now, normally, Gerhard would not touch something like that. But he was the Gamer and as such... well, it was broken.
Tarot Card Reading (Active) Lv. 1
| EXP: 0.00%
| MP: 1000
| Tarot Cards are a well-known tool for fortune-telling. It is not exactly known when they came into being, but they've been used in occult practices since ancient times.
| Because of their mental power, those who use the magic have gained the ability to see the future using tarot cards.
| Consuming Soul Stones may or may not increase foresight.
--
The skill was, of course, ridiculous. The only reason Gerhard even gave it the smallest of attention was that it was a mana-based skill and not a Warp-based one. If he knew anything, though, it was that messing with time and fate and the like, as well as luck, was NOT what he wanted to do.
In this reality, there was a very nasty Chaos Power that specialised in this and most likely already knew of Gerhard since he increased his LUK. But because he was the Gamer, he could turn this otherwise dangerous thing into a blunt skill.
He still used the skill once, though, and what he got was the Tarot: The Despoiler.
Needless to say, the 13th Black Crusade was most likely already underway. So Gerhard had to get a move on.
The second time, Gerhard got: The Acolyte.
This could either mean that he was off to a weak start or that he made very little progress. It was basically useless, unless Gerhard wanted to waste a lot of time theorising about it. So he simply got back to work.
He understood and recreated a Void Shield in a much smaller form, even integrating it into Gustav. He would later add it to the MK as well. VI-H 'Hulk Buster', but only after he had time. Because right now, apart from the spaceship that should take them off-world, Gerhard was working on a much more important set of items.
He didn't slack off on sparring with Hestia, Lencillus and the others, though, as he wanted to push his DEX stat beyond 100, and after several days, he finally managed to do it, gaining another special skill for doing so.
Basically the same as with the other ones, adding +15% to his DEX stat.
.
Liora and Kaelen were sparring with Sera Vahl, who had taken to swordfighitng. She would teach them what she learned about using a sniper rifle, while they taught her close-quarter combat.
It was a way to pass the time while they waited for Gerhard and Hans to finish their massive projects.
'...'
It was hard, very hard, to be exact, Hestia thought. She was doing the most basic of things, which was eating, and still, it was the hardest thing she had ever done.
Never had she come closer to breaking her vow of silence than in these very moments.
If she hadn't already vowed, she would have moaned, that's for sure. The food was darned good. It was so good in fact, that even Lencillus, a former Custodes and ancient, almost slipped up and groaned in delight after tasting what Gerhard had created.
He had taken too cooking after the Sisters of Silence and the Custodes had arrived. He already started growing more plants from the seeds he had started all those months ago, but he truly became skilled later.
Now, he was incredible.
"It is hard to believe that a man could have so many talents," Lencillus said.
'It's like Liora said, he seems to have been born with all the talent there is.'
"I suppose that's one way to put it. Then again, I find it hard to get a read on him after all this time."
'You have doubts?'
"It was the fight against the Orks that brought back unpleasant memories."
'The Black Legion? Or shedim?' Hestia asked.
"No. From a time when the Black Legion didn't exist yet."
'...'
Hestia didn't know what he meant, as the Black Legion should have existed since...
"It was the Lightning Claw with the Storm Bolter on it... and then the height."
...
'The Archtraitor.'
"Yes."
'You fear history will repeat itself?'
"How glorious he was, how incredibly charismatic, how... perfect. And yet, he fell the hardest and burned the galaxy."
Lencillus stopped talking, lost in his thoughts of millennia ago. He was old, very old, some might say too old, but he was still here, not in a sarcophagus of a venerable Dreadnought. He hadn't been that injured.
He had always been convinced that his duty hadn't ended, despite the doubts that had started to creep in. His and his brothers' greatest shame and failure, and still, he couldn't die. The thought of Horus Lupercal angered him.
So Lencillus asked himself whether this was the reason He hadn't allowed him to go yet. Was it for this reason?
It had to be, after all; He had sent that dream to them and ensured that Lencillus would be sent.
But what good did his experience truly do? He found himself not plagued by the stagnation the Imperium has fallen into, and even rather open-minded, but Gerhard made it hard.
What did 15 thousand years of experience even matter in the presence of someone who spat on the rules of the galaxy on a daily basis?
Not out of spite.
Mana, that word that seemed to be the single excuse of Gerhard when he did what shouldn't have been possible. He created space-time dimensions, created resources out of thin air, could learn any skills if he tried, broke so many physical laws, without even touching the Warp...
But Lencillus couldn't find even a hint of Chaos in him. On the contrary, he seemed revolted and disgusted by Chaos and saw it as one of the most obnoxious enemies they had.
He was always planning, always improving himself in some way.
Yes, Lencillus thought to himself, if anyone was capable of fixing what the Primarchs had destroyed so carelessly, it would be Gerhard.
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
A sudden beeping of Hestia's special vox channel pulled Lencillus and the others back to the present. The leader of the Arraissan Sister of Silence's enclave looked at the special comm-link, which was only for absolute emergencies.
And as she read what was written, her eyes widened in shock.
.
-- Planet Arraissa --
- Some time earlier -
Tanau Aleya was a Witch Seeker within the Sisters of Silence. She had been found, raised and trained by Atarine Hestia, who had founded the enclave on Arraissa.
It was not a comfortable existence. The women were trained, sometimes brutally. Hestia hadn't been driven by a sense of benevolence. That's not why she saved fellow 'Blanks' and trained them hard. She was driven by a relentless sense of duty rooted in ancient doctrine. It was their duty to the Emperor, as one of his talons, so that's what they should do even now.
Some of the girls or women who found their way into the convent on Arraissa died soon after. Sometimes from exhaustion, sometimes because they took their own life.
Those who survived, though, grew stronger in both mind and body. They learned about the galaxy; some of those were secrets that could have been the death of them, had they ever spoken about them outside of their walls.
That didn't mean that life in the enclave was a harsh and bitter one. Before they took the vow of tranquillity, they spoke with one another, gossiped and even laughed, as regular human beings did. Those bonds persisted even after they took their vows. That was due to Thoughtmark, which was, in its truest form, a rather expressive form of communication.
...
Sister Atarine Hestia had managed to keep the enclave supplied with equipment and staff to aid the Sisters in their mission, and to pay the necessary tithes and bribes to keep the leadership of Arraissa at bay. They had to be secretive.
Aleya was a very passionate woman, though, who could not help but rage against the Sisters of Silence's current disorganised and isolated fate. She was most angry with the Imperium, which she blamed for having abandoned her and the rest of the Anathema Psykana. And she wasn't entirely wrong about that.
After Hestia had destroyed the Circlet Cult in the shipyards of Eyrinan V, she and four of her Sisters finally took the leap of faith and travelled to Ludos Prime to search for what Lokk, their Astropath, had been informed of by none other than the Emperor himself.
Or so they had hoped.
Hestia and the others met Gerhard and Lencillus and went through all that chaotic mess, which Gerhard was mostly responsible for. Aleya, on the other hand, experienced a different kind of Chaos.
.
Aleya had been sent alone to the void station Hellion Quintus to hunt down a Cultist linked to the Circlet, which Hestia destroyed. She was efficient and effective, killing all of the cultists. Before she could leave, however, dread overcame her after she grabbed a communication device from the Cultist's dead hands.
Displayed on the broken device was a member of the Black Legion, who had been communicating with the Cultists, and the device kept repeating the last few seconds of their conversation. Though Aleya could not understand most of it, one word stood out — Arraissa.
She was shocked, worried and mostly angry and rushed back as fast as she could. But when she arrived, it had already been too late.
The Black Legion had already invaded Arraissa, and while the world as a whole had been struck, the Sisters' enclave had been the main focus of the Black Legion's attack.
...
The Black Legion was currently the largest warband of Chaos Space Marines. It was formed after the defeat of the Sons of Horus during what is known as the Horus Heresy, roughly 10,000 years ago, at the very end of the Great Crusade. Ezekyle Abaddon founded the Black Legion near the end of the Legion Wars.
Ezekyle Abaddon, commonly known as Abaddon the Despoiler, was the Warmaster of Chaos. He was the former First Captain of his Primarch Horus Lupercal, the Archtraitor.
The Black Legion comprised a significant portion of the former Sons of Horus, along with Traitor Astartes from various backgrounds. Unlike simply considering themselves successors to Horus and his Legion, the Black Legion views itself as a new army that aims to continue the Long War and succeed where Horus had failed.
So why had they invaded Arraissa? Why did they target the Sisters of Silence specifically?
The reason for this was the very nature of the Sisters. They were blanks, and as blanks they possess a negative presence in the Warp that drains its energies toward their void-like soul and make them anathema to all things related to it, especially daemons, Chaos and of course Chaos Spacemarines.
So they had to go. And they did.
The final Black Crusade, the 13th Black Crusade, was already underway, and they didn't want anything to stand between them and their ultimate goal.
...
Aleya found herself under pressure now. She reached the comm-station with its annihilated transmitters. She walked across the floor, found dozens of destroyed pieces of technology items, and found a local-range emitter that was still just about functional. Using her knowledge of such things, she restored power to it from a half-empty cell. With the little charge the cell had left, she had the local emitter broadcast a ciphered warning to others who might still be alive, to stay away from Arraissa.
And that message was received by Hestia at that moment. The reason she hadn't been notified about the attack on Arraissa was that someone or something had made sure that didn't happen. The wheels of fate were turning and making sure that things went as they were supposed to.