Chapter 464: 462
The beautiful beach from a second ago had vanished, replaced by a ruined city.
More precisely, half of Kain's vision was occupied by a display showing the devastated city on the planet below. The rest showed the interior of his spacecraft's cockpit.
After returning to this world, Kain had been preparing to leave the planet when a sudden sense of wrongness exploded through his mind. His gaze immediately snapped toward the screen.
The ruined city appeared unchanged. The Astra Militarum was still organizing the survivors.
The Astartes had yet to leave as well. They were preparing to escort some of the Blanks away and deliver them to the Inquisition.
Yet as Kain studied the scene, he could tell that something was wrong.
He attempted to contact the Astartes squad through his communicator, but received no response.
It wasn't that the connection had failed. He could confirm that the signal had reached the quantum communication device carried by the Astartes. The signal couldn't be jammed, and it would arrive instantly regardless of where they were in the galaxy.
The communicator carried by the Astartes had been upgraded. The Archmagos had developed it from the paired communication beads Kain had previously provided from his spacecraft, allowing it to connect directly with the ship.
For now, however, its capabilities were still limited to something resembling a pager. It was primarily used to receive short, one-way messages from him.
The Astartes couldn't send detailed messages back, but they could at least return a simple acknowledgment signal proving they had received his transmission.
This time, there was no response at all.
Kain could clearly see the device attached to one of the Astartes. There was no reason they wouldn't have noticed his message immediately.
After observing the city for a little longer, he decided to disembark.
The instant he teleported outside the spacecraft, Kain's pupils widened. His entire body immediately entered its highest state of alert.
The ruined city before him had changed without warning.
Some anime portrayed the world as possessing two sides, the ordinary world and a hidden world beneath it.
Shakugan no Shana, for example, distinguished between the normal world and the isolated space created after a Fuzetsu was deployed.
The city had now undergone a similarly drastic transformation after being engulfed by some kind of domain.
It could no longer be described as mere ruins. It resembled a realm inhabited entirely by daemons, a genuine daemon world.
There had never been a red moon in the sky before. Now one hung overhead, bleeding crimson light.
The moon even seemed to be smiling. Its edges slowly curved upward in a mocking grin.
No, that needed correcting.
It wasn't merely a resemblance. The moon truly was laughing at them.
At the same time, Kain confirmed that both he and his spacecraft had been isolated from each other. He could no longer teleport back aboard.
Had he somehow wandered into the Warp?
No.
According to the knowledge bestowed upon him by the Great Sphere of Light, this was a daemonic domain manifested within reality.
A daemon capable of creating something on this scale had to be at least a Daemon Prince or a Greater Daemon.
This was trouble.
Kain immediately turned toward the source of a tremendous commotion in the distance. A battle appeared to be raging there.
He had no choice but to investigate.
As he traveled through the city, the numerous corpses and signs of prolonged fighting made him frown.
Some bodies had already been reduced to skeletons, something that should have required years of decay. Considering their enemies were daemons, however, it wasn't difficult to understand how it had happened despite Kain being gone for less than ten minutes.
The condition of several weapons and the marks left by the fighting told a different story. They didn't appear to have decayed merely because of daemonic power.
The signs were subtle, but it felt as though at least a week had passed.
That meant that while Kain had been away for less than ten minutes, the city had likely spent more than a week trapped inside the daemon's domain.
Perhaps it hadn't been an entire week, but the city had unquestionably existed inside this realm for far longer than ten minutes.
The daemon was capable of making time within its domain flow at a different rate from the outside world.
Kain leaped again, clearing a collapsed building and finally seeing the battle.
More than half of the Astra Militarum soldiers had seemingly "betrayed" the others. They were assisting the daemons in attacking the Astartes and the remaining loyal Guardsmen, turning the battlefield into a chaotic free-for-all.
There had been roughly a thousand Blanks in the city. Fewer than three hundred remained.
Without their presence, the Astra Militarum would probably have been wiped out already.
The Astartes were currently concentrating on the most dangerous daemon, fighting desperately to bring it down.
The creature stood approximately twenty-three feet tall. Its general shape could be described as Cthulhu-like, though far more twisted. Several irregular horns sprouted from its head. Some resembled those of a bull, others a ram's horns, while the rest looked like antlers.
Its warped face appeared to possess only a single eye, an enormous orb occupying half of its features.
Its mouth was located in the middle of its chest and resembled a monstrous death worm.
The creature continuously attempted to unleash various sorceries, but the magic crystals carried by the Astartes severely disrupted their activation.
The Astartes were also firing specialized magic-crystal rounds into its body without pause.
Blades embedded with the same crystals had been driven deep into its flesh. Their barbed designs prevented the daemon from pulling them free, leaving it bleeding continuously.
The Astartes had suffered horrific losses as well. Half of them had clearly been killed, while every surviving warrior was wounded. Even the least severe injury among them would have killed an ordinary Guardsman outright.
Both sides were desperately fighting over an egg-like object.
The daemons were protecting it as if they were waiting for it to hatch.
The Astartes were throwing everything they had into breaking through and destroying it. If the egg successfully hatched, everything would be over.
Once Kain understood the situation, he charged toward the egg without hesitation.
He knew there was only one way to escape their current predicament. They had to kill the master of this domain. Otherwise, leaving would be nearly impossible.
The domain's master was clearly inside the egg, which stood roughly thirty-three feet tall.
Bang!
Bang! Bang!
Orange muzzle flashes erupted continuously from the boltgun in Kain's hands, reducing each daemon that charged him to a cloud of blood.
Shunk!
There was a sickening sound of flesh being pierced.
Beside him, a claw punched straight through an Astartes warrior's back.
The warrior had rushed over and taken the blow for Kain. Otherwise, the claw would have struck him instead. Even Kain might not have evaded the sudden attack in time and would likely have suffered some degree of injury.
With Kain's arrival, the Astartes abandoned all concern for their own survival. They willingly sacrificed their lives to hold back the most powerful daemon and clear a path for him toward the glowing egg.
In the blink of an eye, Kain was close enough to reach it with a single burst of speed.
Boom!
He blasted a hole through the luminous shell and charged inside.
The structure surrounding him felt like the interior of some bizarre living organism.
At the center was an alien figure roughly seven feet tall.
Two enormous fleshy wings extended from its back. Those wings had curled around its body to form the glowing shell, making the creature appear as though it were incubating inside an egg.
(End of Chapter)
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