Chapter 292: Departure
With his personnel arrangements complete, Kian spent the remaining ten days at the Sanctum training.
The Ork warship was a different kind of mission from anything he'd done on this planet. Orks were pure combat instinct given a body. Every one of them would take one look at a non-Ork and charge in screaming. He needed to be as sharp as possible before he stepped through that airlock.
He ran every drill he had: deadlifts, squats, bench work, sprints, agility sequences. The problem was that his physical attributes had hit their ceiling. The body was fully developed. More training maintained what was there but couldn't push beyond it.
Training was addictive regardless. A day without it felt wrong.
After a long session he sat on his cot and turned over the three soul stone necklaces in his hands. He'd been carrying them since the duel without deciding what to do with them.
"War trophies. Hang them up somewhere."
He looked around the Sanctum. The Emperor's shrine was the obvious choice: a miniature Gothic cathedral in form, all spires and arches with a gold statuette of the Emperor at the centre. The spires were perfectly shaped for hanging small items. He draped all three necklaces over them and stepped back.
The system chimed immediately.
The Emperor has noted your offering of three xenos souls. He regards your value with greater interest.
New mission issued: eliminate 1,000 xenos threats to the Imperium. Reward: Emperor's Shrine upgrade recipe, Level 3.
Kian stared at the notification for a moment, then broke into a wide smile.
The last time the shrine had generated a reward, it had been after he used it to kill a daemon, which had earned him the golden lighter. Now the Emperor was asking for a thousand xenos kills. And the Ork warship had twenty thousand Orks aboard.
The reward was also fully described in the notification this time.
Soul Sanctum: Individuals who consume food or drink produced by the shrine will have their souls marked by the Emperor's psychic resonance. Upon death, marked souls will not be claimed by the Ruinous Powers. Instead, they will be drawn to the nearest Emperor's Shrine and given sanctuary.
Coverage radius: one complete planetary body.
Kian read it twice.
In the 41st Millennium, death was rarely clean. Human souls, loosed from their bodies, drifted through the Immaterium until something found them. Daemons collected souls the way other predators collected prey: for consumption, for entertainment, for the raw power they provided. The Emperor could intercede for the truly significant, but He was one consciousness sustaining the Astronomican and holding back the Warp simultaneously, managing a million worlds. He couldn't catch every soul.
A Level 3 shrine changed that equation for an entire planet.
The practical implications kept expanding the more Kian thought about them. A shrine on every inhabited world in the Imperium would starve the daemon legions of their primary food source. One man, one fast ship, a million worlds, a million shrines. It was theoretically achievable. It would take a very long time, but it was achievable.
And for Kian personally: the Soul Sanctum was a respawn point. The system confirmed it explicitly. Death followed by resurrection, with the nearest shrine as the emergence point rather than the original Sanctum. Put a shrine aboard a starship and he could transit between orbit and surface by dying and resurrecting. Put shrines on multiple planets and he could move between star systems the same way.
The manufacturing requirements for a Level 3 shrine were not yet visible, but he suspected they would not be simple. He'd find out when he completed the mission.
The ten days ended. The Captain sent word that the shuttle modifications were finished. The Aquila was docked near the ventilation shaft access point, fuelled and ready.
Kian loaded a cargo hauler with weapons, medical supplies, ammunition, food, and equipment, drove it to the surface, and began transferring everything into the shuttle's hold.
Shiv and Little Joel helped with the loading, both of them wearing the expressions of people watching a friend walk into something they wouldn't survive.
They didn't know about the resurrection mechanic. As far as they were concerned, their boss was flying alone into a derelict Ork warship with twenty thousand Orks aboard.
Kian couldn't explain the truth, so he settled for something that was at least emotionally true.
He put a hand on Shiv's shoulder.
"You've been with me from the beginning. Of everyone I have, you're the one I trust most. I'm naming you Warlord of the Underhive: full authority over every military and administrative matter down there. I'll be back in about a month, which happens to be my birthday. I want to come home to a conquest."
Shiv straightened up, visibly moved.
"Boss. I will give you something worth celebrating. I promise."
Kian turned to Little Joel.
"The private regiment and the surface territories are yours. When I come back in a month, I want to see a hundred thousand square kilometres of productive land that looks like a second city worth living in."
Little Joel snapped upright.
"You have my word, my lord. Long live the Second Hive."
Everything said that needed saying, Kian stepped into the shuttle, sealed the hatch, and lit the drives.
The craft climbed vertically through the ventilation shaft, cleared the Hive's upper atmosphere, and was gone.
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