It was a beautiful morning.
Yuki dismissed his subordinates to let them rest and walked up to his living quarters, which had been renovated into a small villa. He closed the door behind him, pausing to brush his hand against a green plant near the entrance—a gift from Raziel, who called it a "token of acquaintance."
The interior was decorated in a modern style, devoid of any religious icons or the typical grimdark aesthetic of Warhammer. Anyone who saw this place would immediately doubt the owner's loyalty to the Throne.
Having spent some time rushing back, dawn had yet to break. Yuki skillfully retrieved a beer and what looked like a steak from a cryogenic storage chest. The beer was brewed from biomass, and the "steak" had been purchased from the black market.
Yuki pulled out a data slate. For some reason, after coming to this world, Yuno had lost her connection to her previous world, but she had managed to preserve a vast amount of data. With a bit of processing, this data could be imported into a data slate and used like an offline tablet. Furthermore, this data could only be deciphered by Tyranid units; Yuki had tested it—neither Eleven nor Ilia could see the images on the screen.
He sat on the sofa, drinking beer and watching anime. To be honest, who would have thought such a luxury was possible in the world of Warhammer?
Three hours later, Yuno still hadn't woken up. Having finished watching Alien and Prometheus, Yuki got up to find her. The bedroom followed a white-and-purple theme; Yuno loved this kind of opulent style.
At this moment, her sleeping posture was atrocious. Yuno was floating in mid-air, limbs dangling limply, her hair growing wildly until it almost covered her entire body.
"Yuno?"
The psychic call was far less destructive than the one Magnus the Red made ten thousand years ago, but it still caused Yuno to snap awake and crash heavily onto the bed. The mattress formed a deep crater. With her hair disheveled, Yuno rubbed her eyes and asked, "You're back?"
"Yeah, I'm back. A Succubus came knocking as soon as I headed out. Were you busy?"
"I'm busy every single second, but there's been a minor nuisance I've had to deal with lately."
As Yuno spoke, she reached out and tore off the excess length of her overgrown hair, then proceeded to change her clothes in front of Yuki without the slightest psychological burden.
"Hive Fleet Gorgon is pushing forward. I've given them more resources and units, even dispatched a small tendril of Leviathan as reinforcements, but time might be running out."
"Gorgon isn't finished yet?"
"It only started recently. We're still in the dominant phase, but you know how every battle goes: the Xenos show overwhelming superiority, the Imperium retreats step by step, the Imperium shows signs of exhaustion, the Imperium is on the brink of extinction, the Imperium turns defeat into victory, and finally, the Imperium delivers a victory speech."
Yuno spoke while sliding a finger lightly over her ear; a small earring appeared, hanging there perfectly.
"For some reason, whenever I learn about future events and try to change them, there's always a kind of resistance. The fleet I sent to reinforce Gorgon even ran into a Warp storm. Remarkable, isn't it?"
Yuki felt a sense of unease. "Are you saying there's a power forcing events toward a fixed conclusion?"
"Perhaps it's this universe itself. As you know, this universe possesses a subconsciousness of its own. Or perhaps it's because we are inherent parts of it. To change things, we need an outsider like you."
Yuno reached out. Yuki understood her meaning and stepped forward to help her fasten the garment around her waist.
Yuno complained while he tied the knot. "Doesn't that Imperium of Man want to kill all Xenos? To think they'd actually cooperate with the T'au Empire—that's just playing dirty. If they cooperated with me, I could at least raise them like livestock."
"In about a hundred years, another fellow will make a similar proposal to the Imperium."
"That Szarekh guy? Honestly, I have no idea what he's doing. I met him once before; he smashed one of my tendrils and ran off, leaving behind some of his colonies outside the galaxy. There's no need for that—they don't even taste good."
Yuno grumbled, "Does he really think he can save them through biological means? It's hilarious. And it's not like I can't leave a little something behind. I can't stop them if they run off with a few organisms. As long as they take a hundred million humans, that's enough for experimentation and breeding. There's absolutely no need to oppose me."
Yuki let go, and Yuno found the ornaments for her outfit, attaching them one by one.
"I'm exhausted, you know? Really. Can't anyone take pity on a hungry little Devourer like me?"
Yuno's muttering continued. She complained about everything: the Ultramarines, Chaos, the Galaxy, GW... Finally, all her grievances culminated in a single sentence: "Things in the Warhammer world are always so terrible."
Once Yuno finished getting ready—she never needed makeup, which saved a lot of time—the two headed to the dungeon. They passed by rows of corpses waiting to be tossed into the reclamation pools and arrived at a room specifically designed to hold psykers.
This room was a part of Yuno herself, a branch of the Hive Fleet on this planet. In other words, it possessed a true Shadow in the Warp generated by the Hive Fleet, which was entirely different from Yuki's crude imitation.
"Right here will do."
At those words, Yuki released the Succubus from his psychic dagger. The moment it was freed, the Succubus launched an attack at Yuki and Yuno. However, Yuno casually swiped it back with a wave of her hand.
"I hate Chaos. They aren't edible at all. But the annoying part is that their influence is impossible to ignore." She turned to the Succubus and said, "Yuki, help me ask—what did it see?"
"What did you see?" Yuki echoed.
The Succubus's body was extremely weak. Its power was no longer sufficient to maintain its existence in the physical world, yet under the Shadow in the Warp, it couldn't return to the Empyrean. It struggled to lift its head. "You... you are..."
Psychic energy was forced into its mind; Yuno only needed a moment of its hesitation. The Succubus's body exploded, leaving only half a torso behind as its knowledge was harvested by Yuno.
"Hmm... the Chaos contamination in the Underhive is even more severe than I imagined."
Yuno shared the information with Yuki, a look of displeasure on her face. "You understand the principle that two tigers cannot share one mountain, right? This planet is my prey. I will absolutely not allow other powers to lay a finger on it."
For the Swarm, nothing was more frustrating than discovering a planet was already claimed by Chaos during an invasion. Even if not fully occupied, encountering Chaos during the consumption process was more revolting than eating stones.
"I know. I will make this planet prosper, and then, I will gift it to you." Yuki put his arm around Yuno.
The dying Succubus, about to be erased from both the physical world and the Warp simultaneously, felt one last spark of pleasure at the sight.
"The Great Devourer... and a human. How interesting."