Chapter 298: Chains Within Chains (Patreon)

Ayen found himself surrounded, two Blanks and one Iron Man hemming him in, their mere presence grinding against his psyche like sandpaper on raw, exposed nerves. Cold sweat soaked his robes, and his whole body trembled uncontrollably. His face had gone corpse-white.

Yoan doubted this psyker could still maintain coherent thought. He was already preparing to seize Ayen the moment the man collapsed from exhaustion and haul him back to the Talon Sector, raw material for Qin Mo’s expanding psyker-study programs.

But Berrant crushed that hope with a single flat remark.

“This little bastard’s resistance is absurd,” Berrant muttered, idly rolling a Throne Gelt between his fingers. “Didn’t you see him manifest psychic power while standing barely two paces away from me?”

Yoan really hadn’t seen it. The one who witnessed Ayen’s earlier manifestation was Heatdeath.

“I recommend immediate termination,” Heatdeath said, voice metallic and clinical as he arrived at the logical solution.

“No.” Berrant’s hand froze mid-motion as he played with the Thrones-Gelt coin. “He’s just a pathetic soul warped by Bellona’s psychological conditioning. He doesn’t deserve to die for her sins.”

Yoan narrowed his eyes at Berrant.

This fellow Blank didn’t look like someone capable of charity, more the sort of man who solved problems with blunt violence. He had literally killed his own supervising Inquisitor, yet here he was pleading for Ayen’s life?

Berrant was kinder than he appeared, but a Pariah nonetheless, and Pariahs never survived without wariness.

Every Blank suffered misery. Even the ones fed by the Imperium, Sisters of Silence, Officio Assassinorum operatives, lived on the edge of human comfort.

Ordinary humans found them unsettling, nauseating. Society pushed them aside. A potent Blank was often killed before adulthood.

Thus Berrant always prepared a second plan, a knife behind the back of every sentence.

This was no exception.

“Ayen,” Berrant said quietly. “Bellona is a gutter-witch who twisted your emotions. She hollowed out your will and filled it with her own. She puppeteered your mind. She’s not worth your life. Listen to me. Leave. Forget all this. Find some forgotten world and start again, build a new life.”

His voice offered comfort, but his hand tightened around the grip of his sidearm. If Ayen lost control, Berrant intended to shoot before the psyker could exhale.

Ayen said nothing, head bowed. No one could see his expression. His posture was rigid, as if clinging to the last thread of self-control.

“You know I don’t speak kindly to anyone,” Berrant continued. “Don’t force me to get on my knees.”

Finally, Ayen reacted, his jaw moved slightly, as if swallowing something he’d hidden in his mouth.

Then he slowly rotated toward Berrant. Then, in a whip-crack motion, his head snapped up, violet radiance erupting from his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth, followed by an unnatural scream.

An unnatural wind swirled around Ayen and frost crept across the ground, the air dropping to a murderous chill.

“That’s Sanctus! Bellona’s drug refined from psyker essence!” Berrant roared. Yoan and Heatdeath didn’t know the name, but they understood the danger; both moved instantly.

Yoan triggered Bullet Time, his internal reactors spiking, and swung his blade at impossible speed.

Heatdeath’s body dissolved, shell and endoskeleton splitting into twin liquid forms that surged in from opposite flanks.

"Crack∼"

A shard of ice shattered under Yoan’s foot. In the silent tension of the transit tunnel, that single sound felt like a thunderclap. It drew Ayen’s attention.

Ayen turned his head, raised his hand, and an invisible force locked Yoan’s body in place.

Yoan’s metal skeleton creaked violently. His three reactor cores entered critical overclock, burning through synth-skin and plating, yet he couldn’t break free.

Berrant fired his gun, but the bullet froze mid-air.

Heatdeath reached Ayen at that moment. Shell and bone re-formed into a slicing edge that severed both of Ayen’s arms, breaking the psyker’s hold long enough for Yoan to wrench free.

The pain drove Ayen into a frenzy. He turned his attention fully on Heatdeath and that was the opening Yoan needed.

Yoan rammed his blade through Ayen’s spine.

The psychic pressure collapsed instantly. In his final second of life, Ayen’s survival instinct and emotional overload tore open a warp-gate, and his body vanished from the trade-hub.

….

“He’s dead,” Heatdeath reported. His body re-merged into its unified form and projected an image.

Ayen’s corpse drifted in space, frozen solid. Dead.

“If we weren’t machines or Blanks,” Yoan said as he sat down, examining the crushed synthetic flesh of his chest, “his psychic scream would’ve ripped our souls out. Good work… Blank.”

Berrant had no reply. The remark hit too close.

He had believed Ayen, flanked by two Blanks, would be no threat even in a breakdown. But Ayen’s psychic talent was grotesquely abnormal, far beyond anything he had predicted.

Ayen had only ever used reconnaissance-type abilities before. So Berrant had not expected offensive capability of this scale.

“He was a pitiful one,” Berrant muttered, almost to himself. “Poor bastard. Bellona had him bound with emotional shackles. Made him commit acts he didn’t want. He shouldn’t have died like that.”

Yoan opened his mouth to speak, but Berrant cut him off.

“This galaxy is cold and cruel. If outcasts like us don’t help each other, we’ll die in the Hive sewers with the other forgotten filth sooner or later.”

“…Fine,” Yoan sighed. Then asked the key question: “Why did you betray Bellona?”

“Betray?” Berrant scoffed. “I never betrayed anyone.”

He produced an Inquisitorial sigil, belonging to someone other than Bellona.

“I’m a mole. A Puritan Inquisitor embedded me at Bellona’s side. My mission was to engineer her death. I simply fulfilled my duty.”

“So, another classic case of internal Inquisitorial warfare.” Yoan slumped against a wall, exhausted.

The Inquisition was a hydra of factions and contradictions. But broadly, they fit two types:

Puritans, conservative, risk-averse. Not more moral, just more cautious.

Radicals, ends-justify-the-means, willing to wield xenos or daemonic artifacts or ally with aliens, so long as the mission was accomplished.

A Puritan wanting Bellona dead was hardly surprising.

“So why did you want to kill her?” Berrant asked.

“We had… disagreements,” Yoan lied.

Berrant didn’t press. He simply smiled knowingly, Thrones-Gelt rolling between his fingers.

“Bellona’s plans were going to devastate the Talon Sector. So you came. That Rogue Trader, Klein, set the stage and lured Bellona in. Correct?”

“Yeah,” Yoan admitted. “But I’ve always wondered, we originally planned to kill her aboard the Inquisition’s ship. Then Klein said he could arrange something better. He’s not Inquisition. So how did he even get into Bellona’s circle?”

Berrant chuckled. “I used to run a gang. I know Rogue Traders. Now guess, who suggested I connect them? Who wrote the ‘inquiry report’ certifying Klein as trustworthy? Bellona told Ayen only moments ago that she was going to the Talon Sector. But I knew long before. I read her notes. She trusted me more than Ayen. I was closer to her.”

Yoan froze. Then realization dawned.

Layer upon layer.

A Puritan Inquisitor wanted Bellona dead. Berrant learned Bellona intended to travel to the Talon Sector. He received orders to introduce her to Klein.

Why? Because Klein was from Talon.

And the Inquisition suspected every Talon-born citizen carried hidden control implants. Regardless, the Talon Sector could certainly find out Bellona’s intentions through Klein, and they would act.

To make Bellona bite the hook, the Inquisitors even forged a thorough background investigation on Klein to erase her suspicions.

Thus the chain of causes locked together and Bellona died.