Who Asked You?
"Ah… the artistry of these notes… this soul-stirring tremor…"
The lead Noise Marine—who had once styled himself "Lord of the Exploding Note and the Endless Echo"—was currently immersed in a psychedelic climax incomprehensible to sane beings.
His fingers frantically roamed the distorted sonic blaster cradled in his arms. Each pluck of the strings sent a tingling pleasure shivering down his spine.
In his vision, the world before him was no longer material.
The golden statue (Kolquan) would shatter beautifully under the weight, and the agonized wail of its near-collapse would be the most exquisite melody.
"Even the most vulgar mortal… must kneel before this perfect symphony of pleasure!"
He closed his bloodshot eyes, savoring the tingling sensation of the sound waves reverberating through his bones.
Behind him, the heavily built Marine carrying a massive organ-backpack was injecting vials of stimulants mixed with Slaanesh-tainted blood into his body, his hands pounding the keyboard with a series of deep, rumbling bass notes.
This was a symphony dedicated to the Prince of Pleasure.
Amidst this deafening roar, no other sound could penetrate.
Until—
"Alas—"
A long sigh, filled with boundless regret, disdain, and a sense of "hopelessness beyond redemption,"
was inserted into the perfect melody without warning.
This sigh was not loud compared to their performance, but it pierced the thick barrier of noise cleanly and precisely, driving directly into the ears of every Noise Marine.
It even echoed multiple times.
The lead Noise Marine's eyes snapped open.
His fingers froze on the strings for a moment.
Even the burly Marine smashing the piano keys froze, a discordant, questioning drone emerging from the continuous wall of low-frequency noise.
How could any sound possibly drown out the sonic blaster?
"Who? Who dares interrupt the performance?!"
The leader shrieked angrily, as if he had just been asked to recite the Lectitio Divinitatus in a Slaaneshi concert hall.
His gaze pierced through the dust cloud of the hall, locking onto the tiny figure standing behind the golden giant.
Lars Valanta.
The planetary governor's second son was currently gripping the portable vox-caster tightly with both hands, his knuckles white from the force.
His legs were still trembling uncontrollably, and his trousers still reeked of urine.
But on his face hung a peculiar expression.
It was a mixture of fear and scrutiny—the kind of pained disdain a "seasoned connoisseur of high society" feels when seeing a pile of garbage displayed on his family's shelf.
"It is you! What do you wish to say, mortal!"
The Noise Marine pointed his weapon at Lars, an even more explosive sound wave converging at the muzzle.
But Lars did not back down.
Or rather, the backing from Eileen and his disgust for these tasteless "guests" made him temporarily forget the threat posed by the thing in front of him.
"I said…"
Lars took a deep breath and, speaking into the vox-caster, shouted in the tone he usually used to reprimand unqualified musicians:
"You call this… a performance?"
Even the most frenzied Noise Marine was stunned.
Only the echo from the vox-caster continued to reverberate.
Lars stretched out a trembling hand, pointing at the burly Marine carrying the organ.
"Hey! You! You big oaf over there!"
"Your bass G is completely off-key, you know that?!"
Lars looked utterly devastated, as if he had heard an insult to his ears (which it truly was).
"Even an amateur like me could hear it! Where is your sense of rhythm? Did your backside eat it?"
"This should be syncopation! It should be lively! It should be bouncy! Is that playing an organ? It sounds like sawing wood! The kind of wood that has been damp and rotting!"
"Even the worst funeral band in the most remote village of Estuarte has better coordination than you Ogryns! It is a complete mess! A total disaster!"
The largest organist—a Chaos Space Marine who had fallen ten thousand years ago, whose music had shattered the guts of countless Loyalists—
now had his tube-riddled face frozen in a blank expression, as if he had been fed a mouthful of ordure.
He looked down at his hands, then at the mortal opposite him.
"I… I sang off-key?"
He muttered unconsciously.
A wave of self-doubt washed over his heart, a heart that yearned for artistic perfection.
Before they could react, Lars's fire had already shifted.
"And you lot!"
Lars's gaze swept over the group of warriors in garish pink power armor, his expression shifting from disgust to nausea.
"My God… God-Emperor above… who designed your outfits?"
"This cheap, garish bright pink? Paired with black leather? And those aesthetically offensive gold chains?"
Lars covered his eyes, looking like a man saying, "My eyes are unclean."
"This color scheme is something even underhive scum from the last century would not be caught dead in! It is so tacky! So vulgar!"
"Do you not know anything about 'color saturation' and 'visual balance'?"
"Look at the leather you are wearing… the rough cuts, the unfinished edges! Even an Ogryn would curse you for insulting his eyes!"
"Even if it is vulgar and boring, there is a limit! You are practically blaspheming the word 'fashion'! You are violating aesthetics!"
"Vulgar! Boring! It is a fething eyesore!"
"Pfft—ahahahahaha!"
Eileen, hiding behind Sicarius, could not hold back and burst out laughing.
The Noise Marines opposite them…
Their movements froze completely.
For the offspring of the Third Legion—the Emperor's Children—the root of their depravity lay in their morbid pursuit of "perfection."
They styled themselves as artists of the senses, believing that every kill, every scream, was a masterpiece dedicated to the Prince of Pleasure.
They were accustomed to the unbearable ecstasy brought by the enemy's wails and despair.
"Uncool"? "Tacky"? "Lack of taste"?
These words were like poisoned daggers, piercing their fragile yet inflated egos.
"Aaaaaahhhhhh, enough!!"
The lead Noise Marine trembled violently. His face, which had been pallid for millennia, miraculously turned a deep, livid purple, and the metal rings on his forehead rattled loudly.
"What do you know! You lowly ant! Reptile! This is avant-garde! This is clearly art beyond mortal comprehension!!"
"Art?"
Lars sneered.
He sounded as familiar as if he were critiquing a mediocre musician invited to his home.
"That is it? Art?"
He pointed at the leader's nose.
"Especially you! The one yelling the loudest!"
"Stop yelling! All right?"
"Your voice has no penetration, no emotional resonance! Just an annoying 'loudness'!"
"Do you know what this is?"
Lars racked his brains and finally found the most vicious metaphor.
"It is like… a constipated male duck! Quacking wildly at the pond during its mating season!"
"Completely unskilled! It does not even use the most basic vocal resonance!"
"Lack of technique, lack of soul, pure garbage existing solely to create noise!"
"If I were your employer, I would pay you to stop—to keep quiet about how my ears were violated by your 'music'!"
"BOOM——————!!!"
If the previous assessment was at most a dagger, then this sentence was a bomb, exploding directly in the mind of that Noise Marine.
For a devotee who considered "contributing his voice to the chorus of Slaanesh" as the meaning of existence, this was a denial of his very being.
"Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!"
The lead Noise Marine let out a superhuman shriek, powerful enough to shatter plasteel.
The pleasure of enjoying art crumbled instantly.
It was replaced by a rage that had lost all reason.
"BULLSHIT!! You are slandering me out of thin air!!!"
"How can something that is not in tune be considered… out of tune!!!"
Then came a long string of incomprehensible and inappropriate language, things about "avant-garde music of *****" and "the sweet ***** road."
"You stupid, aesthetically bankrupt, damned mortal insect!!!"
"I will tear you to pieces! I will flay you and use your skin as drumheads! I will pull out your intestines and use them as strings!!! I will make your soul scream for eternity!!!"
"Kill him! Kill him!!!"
"For the perfect melody! For the honor of the Prince of Pleasure!!"
"Roaargh!!!"
All the Noise Marines were blinded by rage.
They no longer cared about maintaining formation, nor about using the sonic wall to suppress the golden Custodian.
The burly organist even tossed his instrument aside, drew two massive, hook-shaped warp-scimitars, and charged forward.
A dozen or so Chaos Space Marines, like a pack of rabid dogs whose tails had been stepped on, brandished their weapons and pounced wildly toward Lars's location.
They had only one thought in their minds:
Kill that foul-mouthed mortal!
Chop him into mincemeat! Now! Immediately! Right now!
"It is over! I have messed up!"
Lars watched the horde of monsters surge toward him like a tidal wave, the vox-caster in his hand falling to the ground with a clatter.
His earlier air of connoisseurship vanished instantly; his eyes rolled back, and he was about to faint again.
Sergeant Varo, quick as lightning, grabbed Lars by the back of his collar and dragged him back behind cover like a dead grox.
Zzzzz—Boom!
Several deadly warp-amplified sonic beams struck the spot where Lars had just stood, blasting the floor to dust.
"Suppression lifted!!"
Sicarius abruptly stood up, his eyes gleaming.
[Now!]
Old Huang's voice boomed like thunder in Eileen's mind.
[They are desperate, haha! Those lunatics probably have not wanted to kill a mortal this badly in ten thousand years.]
Eileen did not need Old Huang's reminder.
She immediately deactivated her faltering psychic shield, waving her small hand forward sharply, pointing at the leader who was still screaming at the front.
"Uncle Cohl! Get him!"
The Custodian, who had been passively taking hits like a fortress enduring the crashing waves, moved in an instant.
The red electronic eyes beneath his helmet erupted in a terrifying burst of crimson light.
"Your performance…"
Whoosh—
Cohl vanished from his spot.
Only a golden streak of lightning remained in the air.
The speed was too fast—too fast even for an Astartes' enhanced vision to track.
The lead Noise Marine was still roaring madly toward Lars and Varo in front of him, his sonic blaster still charging.
Suddenly.
He felt a flash of golden light before his eyes.
He instinctively tried to turn his weapon.
But a voice like a death sentence rang out close to his face:
"…is over."
Whoosh!
A dazzling blue arc of light flashed.
The magnificent sonic blaster, treasured by the Noise Marine and linked to his very being, was severed in two like a withered branch by the Custodian's guardian spear.
The cut was smooth, sparks flying.
The lead Noise Marine's pupils contracted sharply.
In his vision, the spear that had severed his weapon did not stop.
It continued its downward arc.
Wreathed in a disintegrator field, it also severed his throat.