"Oh, so this is the legendary Black Sword? Mind if I take a look? Don't worry, I won't snap it."
The Emperor's Champion immediately swung his blade horizontally at Yuki, but the latter casually sidestepped it with practiced ease.
"It seems that in the visions the Emperor granted you, I'm not your ultimate objective. If I were, there's no way that strike would have missed."
"Silence, xenos."
Yuki didn't take offense. If anything, it was completely normal for these people to harbor a wretched attitude toward him. If a Space Marine were to suddenly act remarkably amicable, that would be the time for Yuki to start sweating.
After a moment of calculating deliberation, Hopper ultimately resolved to temporarily disengage, moving forward under a de facto non-aggression pact. After all, millions of Crusade soldiers were currently marooned within the active parameters of this sorcery; she had to answer for their lives. Endurance meant keeping a clear head and weathering the storm.
"Where exactly are we heading?"
"The local warp signature here is remarkably anomalous; it bears the hallmark signatures of realspace and the Immaterium seamlessly bleeding into one another. My calculation indicates we must locate the exact dimensional convergence point."
Yuki smoothly translated Yuno's silent observation on her behalf.
Hopper directed her gaze toward Yuno. She had known of this woman's existence for a long time—all the way back on Planet Ender, when Steev had first introduced the disguised Yuki, she had been designated as his partner.
Beyond that, she was a complete cipher. Looking at her now, however, she was clearly an apex authority within the hierarchy of the Swarm; after all, she possessed an absolute functional understanding of everything around them. In fact, she was highly likely the prime instigator who had systematically engineered Yuki's descent into xenos corruption.
Recalling the absolute oath she had sworn beneath the sacred icon of the God-Emperor—to completely purge Yuki with holy promethium—Hopper's gaze hardened with renewed conviction.
Yuno could not be spared either; the Emperor's divine flames would see her burned to absolute ash as well!
Newly minted objective firmly in mind, Hopper felt a sudden surge of hyper-stimulated fervor. The moment they breached this perimeter, she would immediately orchestrate a total assault to eliminate Hive Fleet Aether and Yuki's contingent!
Meanwhile, Yuki continued to relentlessly pester the Emperor's Champion of the Black Templars. He honestly found the aesthetics of the Black Templars' champion exceptionally sleek. The surrounding psykers, Librarians, and Scott of the Deathwatch all silently pitied the Champion for his sheer, unadulterated bad luck.
However, Yuki's subsequent observation caught them completely off guard.
"Do you harbor an aspiration to become a warrior on par with Sigismund?"
Whether it was because the title of the First High Marshal and Chapter Champion carried such immense structural weight, or because Yuki's tone unmistakably harbored a trace of genuine reverence, the Emperor's Champion—despite his simmering displeasure—offered a curt, brief response: "He remains the absolute exemplar for all who draw breath."
"I am well aware. After all, Sigismund comfortably qualifies as a legendary hero. Operating as a literal vessel for the Emperor's divine martial might, he was effectively peerless beneath the Primarchs—well, technically there were a multitude of specialized combat assets operating on that tier, but in the immediate epoch following the Horus Heresy, he was arguably the apex duelists below the gene-sons."
"A mere xenos aberration, harboring the sheer audacity to presumptuously lecture us on the historical legacy of the Imperium."
Yuno had been silently monitoring Yuki as he eagerly extracted operational and cultural details regarding the Space Marines' lifestyle. Only at this juncture did she choose to actively project her voice.
"Do not presume to dismiss Yuki's words. Every single metric he has articulated aligns perfectly with the objective historical truth."
"What exactly is that creature prattling about?"
As always, the baseline humans remained fundamentally incapable of deciphering Yuno's direct consciousness projection.
Perceiving the sudden spike in localized tension, Scott of the Deathwatch smoothly injected a strategic inquiry to redirect the focus.
"Your collective fleet has entered the galactic rim within a relatively recent chronological window. Furthermore, across the absolute baseline of Imperial strategic archives, the Tyranid species is designated as completely devoid of any capacity for diplomatic communication. Why do you possess such a vast repository of historical data, let alone the functional capability to execute complex dialogue?"
Confronted with what was an overtly telegraphed attempt to harvest intelligence, Yuki didn't bother to withhold the data. He answered with remarkable candor: "Because Yuno and I operate on an entirely separate paradigm compared to the standard hive fleets. As for your history... while the vast majority of your scriptoriums and official records bear a substantial divergence from what actually transacted, we possess specific methodologies to extract the factual components from the noise. You needn't worry yourself over the details."
"..."
The dialogue ground to a definitive halt. Yuno looked somewhat displeased by the exchange, a subtle shift in her emotional signature that Yuki caught instantly. He quickly routed a private synapse inquiry to see what was bothering her.
—You appeared to be enjoying that conversation quite thoroughly.
Yuno remained fundamentally incapable of communicating with baseline biological strains; her capacity for speech was restricted exclusively to entities operating on her precise tier or organisms systematically integrated into the synapse web.
—Those fellows are actively straining every nerve just to suppress their primal programming to execute a frontal assault against me, Yuki explained amusedly. If I don't seize this rare operational window to study them up close, I highly doubt I'll ever get another chance. Cut me some slack, I'm a Warhammer fan at heart.
—Hmph.
—Come on, don't be cross. Once we liquidate this anomaly, I'll let you take the top position.
—You certainly know how to arrange a comfortable bargain, don't you?
The architectural geometry within the great maelstrom was exceptionally intricate. The primary complication lay in the fact that standard mortal optics were entirely incapable of perceiving the roads and structural barriers constructed from raw warp energy; even the veteran Librarians could barely manage to register a vague, background sensation that a problematic variable occupied the path ahead.
Yuno, however, was a separate matter entirely. She could clearly discern the precise orientation of the conduits. Had Hopper and her vanguard declined to anchor their advance directly to Yuki's position, they would have inevitably become marooned within the labyrinth forever, completely incapable of locating the correct pathing.
Ultimately, the contingent converged upon the perimeter of a colossal spatial fissure. Across the gaping wound, thick networks of iridescent warp tendrils were continuously mutating and expanding, desperately attempting to stitch the fracture completely shut.
The Space Marines raised their bolters to initiate a suppressive volley, but Yuno's reaction speed comfortably outpaced them. With a casual sweep of her hand, an absolute wave of psychic suppression washed over the coordinates, causing the warp tendrils to instantly dissolve into nothingness.
In their place, however, a massive horde of warp daemons materialized on the grid.
The composition of the vanguard consisted primarily of Horrors of Tzeentch and Fiends of Slaanesh. Across several decades of unyielding active service, Hopper had grown intimately familiar with the combat parameters of these abominations. Fortuitously, a significant portion of the Space Marines anchoring this strike team comprised veteran Librarians.
The engagement erupted in a single microsecond. The psychic storm-craft and close-quarters mastery of the Astartes were unleashed upon the daemon ranks without a shred of mercy. Yet within a mere few minutes of sustained combat, a vastly more powerful warp signature began to consolidate within the rift.
Staring at the profile of the incoming entity, Yuki could only let out a weary sigh as a headache began to form.
"I can't quite determine whether we should count ourselves fortunate or profoundly cursed. It appears the Prince of Pleasure and the Architect of Fate are the solitary dark deities orchestrating this entire theater."
A heartbeat later, a highly familiar "person" stepped out from the rift.
Syll'Esske, the Soul-Forge Companion, had crossed paths with Yuki across several prior engagements.
The daemon immediately locked its multifaceted gaze onto Yuki, its tone almost conversational as it offered a smooth greeting: "It has been several decades since our last crossing, has it not? How has your existence treated you since then?"
"Can't complain."
Completely ignoring the frantic, bloody melee raging across the flanking perimeters, Syll'Esske addressed Yuki directly: "I have manifested here under the explicit commissions of the Prince of Pleasure. She expressed a distinct desire that your fleet remain securely within the loop. If you would simply exercise compliance, turn back, and resume your position within the boundaries of the sorcery, I would lack any functional justification to initiate hostilities."
"Do you truly believe there is even a microsecond of probability where that transpires?"
"Naturally not. Forgive me, Yuki, I merely wished to engage in a minor baseline of dialogue before the butchery commences. After all, it has been an age since our last meeting, and diving straight into a lethal engagement feels remarkably transactional. You remain an exceptionally amusing mortal—ah, my apologies, you can scarcely be classified as a mortal human at this stage of your evolution. At any rate... are your systems primed?"
Yuki scanned the immediate theater. Yuno was deliberately conserving her absolute baseline of power to answer whatever high-tier manifestation Slaanesh might choose to drop onto the field next, while Plague was currently occupied with systematically incinerating the massive waves of daemonic chaff. As it stood, he was the solitary asset available to lock down this named Greater Daemon.
He offered a firm nod. "Let's begin."
The moment the syllables left his lips, a devastating psychic shockwave unleashed by Syll'Esske tore cleanly through the space—where the localized physical laws had already been entirely overwritten—gouging an immense, smoking trench through the dimension.
Yuki was violently repelled several hundred meters by the sheer kinetic displacement of the blast. Before he could recalibrate his posture, Syll'Esske materialized directly within his immediate field of vision, its weapons already mid-arc.
"Come then! Let me personally witness the exact extent of your current evolution."