Chapter 472: 470
Amid a storm of ceaseless transformations, countless figures scattered through the air in every direction.
That wasn't all. A vast number of shapes resembling snakes, insects, birds, and beasts also dropped to the ground.
Some burrowed underground, while others fled in every direction.
With so many targets, how could anyone possibly identify the real one?
As for that bizarre human...
No. That thing couldn't possibly be human.
What in the Warp was it? How could a pocket of the Warp exist inside its body?
The daemon had to inform the Changer of Ways. This creature needed to be destroyed as quickly as possible.
It had a terrible premonition that this thing would become even more troublesome than mankind's Emperor. It might even bring earth-shattering changes to the Warp itself, the realm where daemons existed.
It had to be killed before it could mature.
"Huh?"
The daemon risked glancing back at Kain, only to freeze in disbelief.
A moment ago, his entire body had been mangled and soaked in blood.
Now, without any warning, every wound had vanished.
A horrifying chill swept through the daemon. It desperately accelerated, beating its wings and pumping its legs so violently that it almost tore them apart.
No, physical speed wasn't enough.
It had to use a spell.
There was no point conserving power anymore. Even if casting a higher-level spell caused its rank to fall even further, it had to forcefully teleport away.
The instant it attempted to activate the spell, however, the Warp energy spreading around it collapsed.
Its spell had been silenced again.
At the same time, its body was crushed beneath what felt like extreme gravity, sending it plummeting from the sky.
The countless duplicates vanished like mist before they could strike the ground.
"Damn it!"
That psychic-suppressing field had been deployed again, and it was three times stronger than before.
Escape was still possible, though. The daemon had already opened a considerable distance between them.
Steady itself.
Force its body under control.
Then keep flying!
Bang!
An oversized bullet streaked toward it.
Was the projectile loaded with crystals capable of absorbing Warp energy?
Was Kain attempting to disrupt it with that ammunition?
At this distance, the daemon could evade it.
It could...
Boom!
The bullet detonated before reaching its target.
The daemon had anticipated that possibility. It had expected the explosion to scatter fragments in every direction.
But what erupted from the projectile wasn't shrapnel.
A cloud of powder engulfed it.
The daemon screamed and crashed into the ground.
"Damn you!"
It cursed again.
Apparently, Kain's earlier struggle had been nothing but an act.
He had pretended his body was reaching its limit, filling the daemon with joy and allowing it to believe escape was possible.
That hope vanished the moment the special bullet exploded, dragging it back into despair.
The powder released from the projectile possessed unimaginable corrosive power against a Warp entity. It was even more terrifying than the energy-absorbing crystals.
The daemon recognized the substance.
During their battle, it had wounded Kain deeply enough to expose his bones.
That powder had been ground from Kain's own bones and loaded into the bullet.
He could have used it from the beginning, yet had deliberately waited until now.
That meant he truly had been toying with the daemon throughout their battle, revealing one hidden card after another without ever showing his entire hand.
"Wait! I can tell you some of the Changer of Ways' secrets! We can make a dea..."
Before the daemon could finish saying "deal," several nails punched into its body in rapid succession.
The resulting agony robbed it of its voice.
Under ordinary circumstances, something as tiny as a nail could never have harmed it.
Even if those nails had been enlarged a hundredfold and transformed into massive spears, impaling it like a pincushion, the daemon wouldn't have so much as flinched.
The problem was that these nails had also been fashioned from Kain's bones.
They possessed the same properties as the Warp-absorbing crystals, only far more powerful.
An even more intense chill permeated every corner of the daemon's soul.
The monster capable of killing an immortal daemon was already standing before it.
Kain had no intention of hesitating.
"My master, the Changer of Ways... I know its secrets..."
Its voice abruptly stopped when Kain thrust one hand directly into its open mouth.
A daemon didn't actually need a mouth to speak. It could produce sound through several different methods.
However, once Kain's arm entered its body, it began melting and eroding the daemon from within. Its soul dissolved, while its thoughts were churned into chaos, leaving it unable to form a coherent response through any means.
"Sorry. I don't want to know."
Even if Kain had wanted the information, he would never trust a creature like this, especially not one serving Tzeentch.
He produced another object resembling a smoke grenade and detonated it at point-blank range.
An even denser cloud of corrosive powder spread through the air.
During his recent surgery, Kain hadn't merely had the bone fragments removed from his body. He had also instructed the doctors to cut away additional pieces of bone so they could be incorporated into weapons.
Those pieces had been sent to A2 for processing.
As for the special ammunition created from them, Kain shamelessly plagiarized the name and called them Origin Bullets.
Shunk!
Shunk!
He drove nail after nail into the daemon's body.
It resembled a balloon that had been pierced with countless holes and was rapidly losing air.
At the same time, Kain tightened his "embrace," squeezing the balloon and accelerating the process.
In less than three breaths, the daemon completely melted away, like wax pressed against red-hot iron.
At last, it was dead.
Within the pocket of the Warp inside his soul, Kain sensed several projections belonging to the lives covered by his Untouchable field.
Those projections were so faint that they were on the verge of disappearing.
Kain fed fuel into them.
Less than a kilometer away, golden flames suddenly erupted from beneath a pile of ruins.
They vanished almost immediately.
One second later, the rubble shifted like a collapsing mountainside. A figure more than two meters tall burst free from the ruins.
It was one of the Astartes Kain had successfully resurrected.
Three had returned in total.
As for the others whose projections he could no longer sense, nothing could be done. Their souls had already been completely devoured and digested by the daemon.
Nevertheless, these successful resurrections proved that Kain had gained conscious control over the power to revive the dead.
That didn't mean he could start acting recklessly or stop fearing death.
He had come to understand several crucial limitations.
First, his body could never be completely destroyed.
As long as even a single cell remained, he could resurrect.
Second, the compressed "star" he created within his personal Warp space according to the Emperor's instructions, his Resurrection Coin, couldn't exist indefinitely.
It had an expiration date.
After approximately one week, it would dissolve and become nourishment for the Warp.
The only way to extend its lifespan was to provide it with an enormous supply of psychic energy.
Even then, only part of that energy could be used to lengthen its expiration date.
Maintaining a single Resurrection Coin indefinitely would consume the full psychic energy of at least two Super Materia every day.
Tifa's production operation had finally begun turning a profit instead of suffering losses. Even if she waived Kain's processing fees entirely, however, her world could currently manufacture only two Super Materia per week.
Production was expected to increase by one additional piece next week, but even that wouldn't come close to covering the daily expense.
There was another possible solution.
He could accelerate time in Tifa's world so that several months passed there for every day that passed here.
But that wouldn't work.
The psychic energy used to create the Super Materia was collected from Kain's side and sent to Tifa's world for processing.
If Tifa extracted the necessary energy directly from her planet's Lifestream, manufacturing only a few pieces would cause the planet to suffer problems again.
A better option was to accumulate fully charged Super Materia.
Once he gathered roughly five of them, he could devour them all at once and create a new Resurrection Coin.
Therefore, Kain's decision to resurrect the three Astartes hadn't been motivated entirely by kindness.
If he hadn't used that stored power, it would have expired in a few days anyway.
Huh?
What was this?
Fragments of the daemon's memories?
No, that wasn't quite right.
Kain was extracting an understanding of its memories from the emotions it had left behind.
He couldn't read a human's memories through this method. Human souls were too fragile, and their stored information shattered too quickly.
A daemon was different.
Its resilient spiritual structure allowed him to obtain at least some usable information.
Through those fragments, Kain finally understood how this creature had appeared.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
It hadn't deliberately targeted him. Their encounter had been an accident.
Furthermore, the daemon hadn't been anywhere close to its full strength.
If it had arrived in its prime, something on the level of a Primarch might have been required to kill it.
Kain had been extremely fortunate this time.
(End of Chapter)
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