Chapter 106: Electro-Priests, Techno-Barbarians, and Tyranids
Omega, noticing the blue man avoiding his gaze, guessed that this self-proclaimed Fulgurite Electro-Priest had something to do with him. "Tell me what's going on. If you don't explain it clearly, your Electro-Priest Brotherhood won't get a single credit of funding in the future!"
The blue man, who depended entirely on Omega's funding to maintain the "Motive Force" cult, panicked. After a long hesitation, he said, "Magos Omega, you know the grudge between us and the Fulgurites."
"Hmm, get to the point!"
"After the Fulgurites on Teyedan were all wiped out, my brothers and I were, of course, very happy. But after a while, we started to feel a little lonely."
Hah, you brutes, Omega rolled his eyes.
"So, after your fleet was established, our Brotherhood, after some discussion, decided to send a group of our most daring and capable elites to join your fleet. On the one hand, to spread the faith of the Motive Force, and on the other, to share the Motive Force with more people."
You just want to zap people, Omega rolled his eyes again.
"We've shared a lot of the Motive Force, and we've also gotten a lot of new brothers. But we always felt that something was missing. Later, I figured it out."
"What did you figure out?" Omega asked, a little curious. He wanted to see what kind of bizarre answer this weirdo would give him.
"We were missing the Fulgurites! An Electro-Priest Brotherhood without the Fulgurites is incomplete. The Corpuscarii and the Fulgurites each represent one side of the duality of the Motive Force: release and absorption. We, the Corpuscarii, represent release, and the Fulgurites represent absorption."
Watching the naked blue man speak with a pious expression, Omega's face twitched. "So you just found a person and forcibly converted him into a Fulgurite Electro-Priest, so you'd have someone to bully and fight again? You have a lot of nerve, blue man! What do you think my fleet is?!"
The blue man, his little scheme exposed, and seeing Omega about to blow it out of proportion, quickly explained, "No, no, he was a volunteer! After I told my brothers my idea, they also thought I had a point. So, when we were recruiting new brothers, we would let them read the doctrines of both the Corpuscarii and the Fulgurites and let them choose for themselves. And it turns out that we Corpuscarii are just better than the Fulgurites. They all chose to join us. Only this kid insisted on joining the Fulgurites."
"You're full of scrap!" the bullied young Fulgurite Electro-Priest, having recovered, pointed at the blue man and cursed.
Omega's face was dark. He was already planning how to deal with the blue man who had dared to lie to him. If he dared to lie now, wouldn't he be plotting a coup in the future? Was he also planning to convert him, Omega, into a little Electro-Priest? He had to strike hard. He gave the young man an encouraging look, signaling him to tell all the grievances he had suffered, how he had been kidnapped and forced by the blue man. He, Magos Omega, would surely restore justice to the Cogboy fleet.
With Omega's backing, the young man's courage grew. He strode forward and, with an imposing air, completely overwhelmed the faltering blue man. He pointed his index finger at the blue man's nose and said, "You shameless wretch! What do you mean, you gave the new recruits a choice? The 'choice' you gave them was to stuff our Fulgurite doctrine under the table! If it weren't for the protection of the Motive Force that let me see the true scripture by chance, when would our Fulgurite faction ever be rebuilt? Ptooey! You hypocrite!"
Omega's eyes widened. He opened his mouth and let out a silent "Huh?!"
"You're the one who's full of scrap! What damned true scripture? It's just right for propping up a table leg!" The blue man, enraged, the circuits on his body beginning to spark. But he had forgotten who was beside him.
"Both of you, shut up!" Omega roared. He could see that this Fulgurite Electro-Priest was also a little crazy. "I don't care about the grudge between your two factions. On my ship, from now on, there will be no infighting! None! Do you understand?"
The big leader was angry. The two, who had been at each other's throats, had to stop. Then the Fulgurite said to Omega, "Honored Magos Omega, it's not that I want to fight with them, but that they are too despicable!"
"And no bullying the few with the many!" Omega added.
"Err—Magos, that's not the kind of despicable I mean. Instead of letting them squander the Motive Force everywhere, it would be better to release it to me, for me to collect and store. The main thing is that the shameless blue man is holding onto the activity funds you allocated to the Electro-Priest Brotherhood and won't give them to me, so our Fulgurite faction can never grow."
Hearing this, the blue man immediately became anxious. "You're the only one, what do you need funds for? Has Magos Omega been starving you? Magos, look at how ungrateful he is! I was the one who did his modification surgery, and he doesn't even know how to be grateful!"
"Alright, in the future, a portion of this allocation will be given to you. But since you are few in number, this resource will not be much. We'll see how it goes in the future," Omega said with a headache. He wanted to leave quickly, to get away from these psychopaths.
"Thank you, Magos Omega," the young man said. The blue man beside him pursed his lips but said nothing more.
Just as Omega was about to continue his fantasy journey, he suddenly remembered something. He asked the blue man, "Where did you get the Fulgurite's doctrine and technology?"
"After the Fulgurites on Teyedan were all wiped out, I collected all of their things."
Alright, an Electro-Priest is also a Tech-Priest, also a cog-head. It's normal for them to have a few sticky fingers! So normal!
"Sigh, I'm so disappointed—"
Omega, lying on the bed of the "Adventurer's Inn," was staring at the ceiling. Reality was so harsh. Adventurers without magic and various magical items were completely different from his fantasies. Although he had complained that those Korsa who had voluntarily been modified were techno-barbarians, it was only here that he truly understood what a techno-barbarian was.
No one knew what Omega was feeling when he saw a group of disheveled, filthy Korsa, carrying melee weapons and high-tech weapons on their backs, with some of their limbs and organs replaced by ferocious bionics, holding the disemboweled bodies of Greenskins, parading past him with their barbaric and crude behavior and their pungent body odor. "So disillusioned. How are you going to compensate me—" Omega said to the ceiling again.
The Korsa, with their barbaric hunting culture, had polluted Omega's fantasy. The fantasy-style buildings were defiled with the terrifying, air-dried heads of various animals. There were animals, Orks, and even humans. For these human heads, the person in charge here had explained to Omega that it was "better to guide than to suppress." To make these savages obey, they had to accept some of their customs, such as revenge duels, and letting them wear the heads of their enemies as decorations. As for the ferocious bionics that defined the violent aesthetic of these techno-barbarians, it was entirely the Korsa's own doing. Although they had no technology to modify these bionics, that didn't stop them from decorating them with their traditional crafts, painting tribal totems with mineral pigments, and adding patches of glue, fangs, scales, and claws. The Tech-Priests were too lazy to communicate with these difficult-to-communicate-with savages over such matters.
The fantasy style Omega had been expecting did not appear. What was before his eyes was a town that even a follower of Khorne could perfectly blend into and quickly disappear in. After repeatedly confirming that there were no suspicious cults here, Omega finally decided to stay the night, to make up for his regret by staying in an "Adventurer's Inn." But even the best inn here, for a little cog-head who was used to a life of luxury, was still too terrible. So Omega had insomnia.
Omega, who had been staring at the ceiling all night, now planned to go and find the Inquisitor, to see how the free-range Greenskins were doing. His current thought was that he had to go sooner or later. A short pain is better than a long one. After he was done with the disgusting things, he still had the "main course" of the ruins waiting for him.
Omega, who wanted to finish the "main course" as soon as possible, did not dawdle like he had the past few days. He directly summoned an airship and headed straight for the Inquisitor's fortress. When the airship arrived, the moment he stepped out, he saw Fenni, who had been waiting for him, and a formation of Space Marines.
"Long time no see, Magos Omega."
"Haha, my sense of time is a little messed up. I feel like I just saw you not long ago."
"You've been alone for too long. You'll get used to it. It seems you've already solved your problem, Magos."
"Hmm, this time I've prepared a surprise for Gorgon. How did you guess?"
"I thought you would come yesterday. Who would have thought you would have the mind to stay a night in the hunting town? It's hard for me not to guess."
"Err—"
Omega, learning that Fenni had waited for him for a whole day, was a little embarrassed. But the Inquisitor did not mean to blame him. Seeing him awkwardly scratching his temple, she took the initiative to help him out. "You've been locked in your lab for so long. you should get out more. Look, you're not as witty as you used to be."
"Haha, I've gotten used to talking to myself. Let's go. Show me around your place. Tell me about these free-range Greenskins. You don't know, when I went to Louis's place, I almost had the fleet burn it to glass."
"The situation there is indeed a little unexpected. Come with me," the Inquisitor said with a smile, gesturing for Omega to follow her.
As they walked deeper into the fortress, Fenni did not immediately introduce her situation here. Instead, she gave Omega a brief overview of the joint fleet's progress. "Gorgon is now only two baits away from reaching us. We don't have much time left."
"Any unexpected changes?"
The Inquisitor, hearing his question, nodded and then shook her head. "The plan is going relatively smoothly. Although Gorgon has tried to disperse its tendrils a few times, it has been stopped by the fleet. We can now basically confirm that Gorgon has fallen into the trap. The joint fleet has already begun to transport ground troops to Korsa not long ago."
"So, the fortresses and defensive positions that were built have already been put to use."
"Yes. But there is also bad news."
Seeing Fenni's serious expression and furrowed brows, Omega quickly asked, "Has Gorgon started to adapt to the joint fleet's mixed firepower?"
"Yes, it has started to adapt. The Ram-class and Razorfiend-class Tyranid bio-ships, their carapaces had originally evolved to be immune to the T'au's ion weapons, but now they are also starting to show resistance to our melta-weapons."
"Just melta-weapons?"
"That's what we've observed so far."
Omega, who had thought the situation might be worse, breathed a sigh of relief. Who would have thought that the macro-cannons he had always looked down on would, at this time, become the most effective and unanswerable weapon against the Tyranids?
"Fenni, you don't have to worry too much. I will prepare a special weapon for them against the Tyranids before the fleet arrives."