Damn it!
To be honest, Rawls wasn't too worried about Kain getting himself killed. If he really needed to, he could always disengage and retreat back to that flyer.
What Rawls feared was something else: the kid's impression of the Imperium was about to sour even further, and that meant the deal with Archmagos Biologis El-Emima might get cut off.
Rawls pulled something out and, without hesitation, tossed it into his mouth.
Back on the ship, the kid had handed it out and called it Earth Elixir—something to use when you were badly wounded.
They had medicae stimulants of their own, and they'd already used them.
This was the last vial left—his vial—so he swallowed it.
This…!
Rawls froze as the change hit him.
He'd expected it to be good. He hadn't expected it to be this good.
He pushed himself up, ready to charge back in—because the kid really did look more and more uneasy, like the traitor's words were sinking hooks into him.
Wait. That's…
Rawls stopped instead of intervening.
The kid was playing him.
He was pretending to waver—showing cracks on purpose—using that "shaken" act to lull the enemy, all while quietly setting a trap.
Rawls could tell it was a trap even though the traitor couldn't, because Kain's "mistake" was familiar: in the middle of trading blows, a "piece" seemed to shake loose from his power armor—something harmless-looking, something that didn't feel threatening at all.
Rawls had seen this exact trick back when they fought the Tyranids.
Kain would magnet-lock objects to his armor so they looked like part of the plating—then, in the chaos of melee, let them "shear off" like damaged outer plates flaking away.
So when the traitor finally stepped fully into the trap—
A burst of blazing orange light detonated.
"Ever hear the rule that villains die because they talk too much?"
Kain said it calmly, then pursued the bastard whose body had been blown half away by the melta charge.
His boltgun barked, hammering melta rounds into what remained, and the traitor's last half folded and ran like candle wax held to a flame.
Honestly, that Night Lords berserker type—he looked like all rage and no reason—but he wasn't easy to fool at all.
More than once he suspected the "fallen parts" were bait. And each time, Kain would deliberately act careless—until he took a heavy kick that sent him flying. The impact looked strong enough to rupture organs even inside armor.
For a moment, he "couldn't get up."
The traitor went for the kill, sprinting forward—
—and stepped on the "part" lying between them, the harmless-looking scrap that seemed to have blown off Kain's suit.
GG.
Kain's gaze shifted ahead. The balance of the fight had tilted so hard their way that the outcome was basically settled.
Then his eyes landed on one person.
The Ordo Xenos Inquisitor.
Kain decided right there: he was going to kill him.
He'd looked like he was being led astray, but really, it was the Inquisitor who'd been poisoned—whispered into suspicion by the Chaos Astartes, until he trusted Kain less and less.
By now, Kain could feel it—he'd made his decision.
A few figures were edging closer, "accidentally" closing distance. They were getting ready to move on him.
After all, even without Kain's interference, their side had the advantage now.
And sure enough—after Kain finished off the last of those Chaos Night Lords—those men walked toward him without bothering to hide it anymore.
Four huge suits of armor.
Four walking walls.
They didn't attack. The Inquisitor gave an excuse even he didn't seem to believe: they were "protecting" Kain, for his own safety.
Under the close escort of those four "bodyguards," they marched him to a secured site that looked like a ritual dais—about the size of a soccer field.
At its center stood a structure whose silhouette reminded Kain of a Rift Generator from an old strategy game he'd played.
That was what was sustaining the Warp rift—and trying to expand it further.
Deathwatch were hauling equipment up onto the platform, running a reversal operation on the tower—because, yes, it might as well have been a rift generator.
Meanwhile, several Dreadnoughts and most of the Astartes were pouring fire into the rift itself while daemons fought desperately to interfere.
When the tower's upper mechanism shifted from forward rotation to reverse, the jagged black "wound" that—seen from space—looked like a hideous gash across the planet's surface began to shrink.
That doorway between reality and hell—under the control of an accompanying powerful psyker—began to close like a surgical incision being stitched shut.
As the "flesh" on both sides pulled tight and pressed together, the wound started sealing.
And at the moment it fully closed and vanished, the psyker collapsed into a charcoal-blackened husk, falling without another sign of life.
The crisis was over.
But the air on the battlefield turned wrong.
Tense.
To be precise, there weren't many people truly standing with the Inquisitor.
And yet the reason no one moved was simple—
The sky.
A shadow slid over them—an Imperial warship.
The Inquisitor couldn't command Astartes, but he could command a warship. And the forces aboard, those directly under Inquisitorial authority, could obey him instantly.
"Now then, would you kindly come with us to the Inqui—"
He didn't finish.
The four "walls" standing around Kain suddenly swayed, like drunk men losing their balance.
"You…!"
The Inquisitor's pupils widened. He started to lift his boltgun toward Kain—
—and his brain felt like it had been struck by a sledgehammer, dizziness exploding behind his eyes.
No. Not the body.
The soul.
Kain had retracted his null field earlier.
Now he unleashed it again.
Bang—!
Did it hit?
The Inquisitor blinked, confused—then realized the smoking muzzle wasn't his.
It was Kain's boltgun.
The Inquisitor looked down at his hand.
It was gone.
"Stop!"
"Calm down!"
The Deathwatch commander and the Salamanders captain reacted at once. They couldn't stop the Inquisitor from being seized, so they could only shout for Kain not to do anything irreversible.
Killing an Inquisitor in the open—like this—was a direct slap in the face of the Inquisition.
That was beyond bad.
"I am calm."
Kain smiled, harmless as a saint in a mural, and hoisted the Inquisitor up like luggage.
The man looked terrified—like some aristocrat who'd come to the front to gild his reputation and had finally realized what war actually was. His whole body had gone slack.
Of course, an Inquisitor shouldn't be this "weak."
The truth was that he wasn't.
He was being subjected to unprecedented soul-shearing pressure—so intense he couldn't even scream. All he could do was convulse.
As for the four "cans" on the ground—Kain had simply tightened the radius of his null field until it covered only them.
And he hadn't hit them with full force all at once.
At first, it was barely noticeable. Then it rose gradually, like slow poisoning—until the dose became overwhelming and they toppled, swaying like drunks.
Kain slid one armored gauntlet off and extended his bare hand into open air, then reached out and touched the Inquisitor.
Right now, Kain was like a stone saturated with lethal radiation—except this "radiation" was abnormal. It propagated more easily through living, embodied creatures, while spreading weaker through the air.
A better description was poison.
A toxin aimed at the soul.
Entering this state took time—like a mage charging an ultimate spell. Until it was fully invoked, he couldn't move freely.
And once invoked, it couldn't be maintained for long.
Otherwise, he would've turned it on from the start and swept the battlefield.
Which meant it needed training—more practice, more refinement.
One day, he'd be able to "chant" while fighting.
And eventually—instant cast.
As for this Inquisitor…
He could go say hello to the Emperor.
The moment Kain's bare hand made contact, the Inquisitor's body seemed to split into three ghostly "vessels."
Everyone saw it—afterimages, overlapping silhouettes—
No. Not an illusion.
His soul was being yanked outward.
It didn't even finish being pulled free.
It was too fragile—like wet flour paste—
—and it shattered in an instant, dispersing into the air.
(End of Chapter)
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