The Emperor’s Angel of Death

"Oh, what a wondrous little thing.→"

Sitting in his office chair, Karyan, unarmored, crossed his legs, staring with great interest at the wriggling mass of silver metallic worms inside the glass bottle in his hand.

Then, he closed his eyes, and the movements of the worms inside the glass bottle gradually slowed down.

But suddenly, they violently intertwined, and slammed against the bottle's opening, actually breaking it open directly, and extended infinitely like a rubber band, darting out from the narrow space that confined them, landing on the massive desk with a thud, then wriggling one by one towards Sorkarion, re-curling into a ball of silver metal.

At this moment, Karyan reopened his eyes.

"This thing used to have some psychic components, but after you handled it, it's hard to say. Based on your description, I'm more inclined to believe that they were originally unconscious warp energy entities. The person who invented it is indeed a genius, because this thing undoubtedly possesses neural networks, signal transmission, energy transmission, and self-defense awareness simultaneously. Let me make a bold assumption, a warship, only needs it, and that daemon engine you described that combines with these worms, to be able to operate on its own without any crew. This is quite a terrifying thing. Even warships bound to daemons find it difficult to make all systems as convenient as normal. The nature of daemons is chaos and destruction. Prolonged possession by daemons will change and corrode the warship's own systems, but this system can maximize the preservation of the original warship's performance, avoiding many troubles brought by daemons. Amazing, amazing.→"

"Its creator calls himself the Lord of the Soul Forge."

"Hmm, I know this place."

Karyan picked up the water glass beside him, took a sip of water, and cleared his throat.

"Before even the Black Legion existed, I often cooperated with the tech-hereteks of the Dark Mechanicum, sometimes acting as their mercenary to solve some troubles for them. As experts in daemon engines, they were very eager for the Soul Forge, even calling it a sacred site. Some tech-heretek sects even believed that the 'Dark Omnissiah' sat at the core of the Soul Forge, where there are endless rotating pipes and cables, incessantly operating equipment, and gales formed by magma and steam. Only the greatest and most knowledgeable sages have the opportunity to visit there, to obtain a few words from their Dark Omnissiah. Strictly speaking, I have always been skeptical of this rumor, or rather, I have never believed it could be a god. At most, it's just a slightly more powerful daemon. However, from your contact with it, it should be somewhat more powerful than a daemon, but still not reaching the level of a god. I speculate that it should be an entity related to the mechanical domain. This kind of thing may not be strong itself, but it can create a lot of trouble, like those tech-hereteks."

Sorkarion shrugged.

"In any case, I have already offended it, and it is also clearly supporting Huron. The key now is, do you think this thing is safe to use?"

Karyan nodded.

"Safe, no problem at all. This is a good thing. Even without the support of a daemon engine, it can allow the warship's subsystems to be highly integrated. This is a qualitative leap for improving the warship's combat efficiency. You also know that the Empire's warships are often like a giant raft pieced together from large planks, and each plank has to have its own paddle. Because there is no developed intelligent command system to integrate the subsystems of each part, relying solely on the machine spirit is like a giant beast with a hundred-meter body controlled by a walnut-sized brain, which will inevitably appear somewhat sluggish. Moreover, once one part of the scattered cogitator arrays is destroyed, it basically declares that part of the subsystem completely finished. This thing can make up for this shortcoming, and can prevent a critical node from being breached or destroyed, causing an entire area to lose control. This makes piloting a giant ship as simple as paddling a canoe."

As he said this, Karyan thought of something and lightly clapped his hand.

"That's right, that Abyss-class that should be almost finished being built, it really needs this thing. The Abyss-class is not only large, but also has a lot of subsystems. In the past, the Word Bearers were sunk as soon as they left port. An important point is that they simply did not truly control their warships. I even suspect that they didn't even know how many blast doors were on their ship before they set sail, which also indirectly proves that this powerful warship is not so easy to use. And this thing, precisely, can greatly reduce the difficulty of using this super warship, and also reduce the number of crew members, thereby reducing the volume of the living quarters, freeing up more space for the warship to configure more weapons or equipment, killing two birds with one stone."

Sorkarion raised his right hand, and the ball of silver worms floated at his fingertips. He stared at these wondrous creations and said softly:

"I have only recently begun to learn how to use them. Before, I had been sealing them in an obsidian container. I got about a whole container of worms from that derelict ship. Ditrian studied them for a year without drawing any conclusions, so I let him give up. Now I am able to establish a connection with them and control them, but I still don't know how to make them proliferate. If I can't find this key, then there's no point in using them, because this quantity is not enough to control a twenty-kilometer giant ship."

Karyan thought for a while and gave a suggestion.

"Something created by a warp entity, then it is likely a projection or separation of its own power. That is to say, its proliferation signal or source is likely to be psychic energy, but after you—"

He didn't finish his sentence, and narrowed his eyes.

An odd symbol appeared in front of Sorkarion, and at the same time, the worms at his fingertips began to expand, or rather, if you looked closely, you would see the worms beginning to split.

When the symbol disappeared, the ball of worms had expanded to the size of a normal person's head, previously it was only the size of an adult male's palm.

Karyan then sighed meaningfully:

"Sorkarion, you have become more powerful."

"You should know what's going on, why sigh."

"I don't actually know as much as you think. I only know that someone arranged for you to see the Void Dragon beneath Mars, but I don't know the changes you have undergone. However, that feeling just now, similar to psychic energy, is really a bit strange..."

"Similar? I always thought it was psychic energy."

Karyan shook his head.

"Ninety percent similar, but Sorkarion, you must understand one thing, psychic energy comes from the power of the mind, its essence is closely related to the warp, and the warp itself is an ocean of emotions. Any psychic energy must carry emotional color, the difference is only in strength. This is also why many untrained psykers will have their psychic energy go berserk once they have severe emotional fluctuations. Even the most skilled wizards and warlocks, when using psychic energy, it will definitely permeate emotions, it's just that skilled wizards know how to hide it, know how to improve their state of mind, which becomes the key to controlling psychic energy. But even so, it is impossible to erase and hide the emotional color of psychic energy. A skilled psyker can definitely feel it. However, your power just now had no emotional color at all, so do you understand what I mean?"