This Is Our Warhammer Journey

When Romulus stepped into the chamber, all he saw were mangled corpses strewn across the floor, spraying blood nonstop.

Chaos Space Marines.

Judging by the skull decorations on their armor and the crimson paint job, they were most likely a warband that worshipped one of the Four—specifically, Khorne.

After efficiently slaying the enemy, Arthur pulled his sword free, lifted the body of a fallen black-armored warrior from the floor, and confirmed the Crimson Fists insignia on the man's shoulder pad. He then examined the armor closely and frowned.

The kill team members weren’t Primaris Astartes. Looks like the Regent of the Imperium, Guilliman, hadn’t awakened yet.

He tilted his head, listening.

Aside from the cries of “Blood for the Blood God” and the sound of axes biting into flesh, there were no signs of ongoing combat. Judging from the Deathwatch corpses on the floor and the Chaos Space Marines that had attacked them, it was clear—there were no defenders left in this chamber capable of fighting back.

“Seems like we got here late?”

The thick scent of blood hit hard. Arthur knew—this was definitely some kind of Warp influence.

“We’re still in time.”

Romulus’s gaze fell on the necks and chests of the fallen warriors—two savage holes remained there, as if some organ had been violently gouged out with a sharp weapon.

“Chaos Space Marines and daemons don’t play on the same team. They won’t let daemons steal the spoils before they’ve had their fill.”

“...That’s true.”

Arthur remembered that bit and laid down the Deathwatch Marine’s body.

As superhuman warriors who had undergone nineteen surgical augmentations, each Astartes carried what was known as a gene-seed—used to cultivate the organs necessary for creating new Space Marines.

After the eighteenth surgery, where the progenoid glands were implanted, the gene-seed would grow with the body. Five years later, the one in the neck would mature and could be extracted; ten years later, the one in the chest would reach maturity and could also be harvested.

The former was typically extracted regularly as a kind of gene-seed tax and for Chapter reserves. The latter was usually recovered by an Apothecary after the Astartes had fallen in battle.

The gene-seed was the foundation of a Chapter. If it mutated malignantly or was lost in large quantities, it usually meant the end of that Chapter—unless they received aid from their parent Chapter or the Imperium.

But for Chaos Space Marines, who had defected, mutated heavily, and lost all Imperial support, stealing loyalist gene-seeds was one of their few means of replenishment.

Likewise, thanks to a certain big guy who claimed to resist the Warp but still spiked the gene-seed creation process with Warp shenanigans, gene-seeds were highly prized among the denizens of the Warp. They were considered top-tier, ultra-rare materials for all kinds of blasphemous rituals.

So it made sense that these Chaos Space Marines attacking the Gellar field generator hadn’t immediately destroyed it. After all, when does a leopard ever share its prey with hyenas?

Who knew—once they were done, they might just steal the whole ship and take off, leaving the daemons outside to stare dumbfounded.

Thanks to his deep understanding of this world’s secrets, Arthur quickly pieced it all together.

However—

“Just the two of us enough?”

Arthur asked, suggesting maybe they should wait a bit for the Sisters of Battle.

By their expected pace, they should arrive in about a minute. These women, clad in power armor, heavily enhanced physically, and blessed by the Emperor due to their fanatical faith, were always considered ideal allies of the Astartes.

His superhuman brain calculated that the battle damage in this chamber alone had been caused by a squad of sixteen. What they’d be facing next weren’t some bottom-tier trash that couldn’t even react to their movements—they’d be up against fellow Astartes.

“Two of us?”

Romulus let out a chuckle.

“Who said it’s just the two of us?”

“?”

Arthur tilted his head, but when he glanced over, a squad of blue-armored Ultramarines emerged from the shadows behind him.

“Dmn, not bad... but why are all the souls so f**ing expensive?”

Romulus muttered under his breath.

“Huh?”

Arthur looked at the Ultramarines as if Romulus had just pulled them out from between his legs—his mind filled with a swirling galaxy of confusion.

“I scanned this one and just split him off directly. If we’re going for speed, might as well commit.”

Seeing Arthur’s confusion, Romulus pointed to a fallen Astartes on the ground—his shoulder bore the Ω symbol and a skull mark underneath. Romulus then patted one of the nearby Ultramarines on the shoulder pad.

“Standard firstborn Astartes physiology. But the souls are so absurdly expensive I had to code them myself, so these don’t have any onboard. I’m running them manually, but they’ll get the job done.”

“I’m almost certain we’re not under the gaze of any of the Chaos gods.”

Arthur examined the Ultramarines, who moved like machines. He shook his head slightly—starting to doubt his earlier theory that they were ‘blessed’ by the Warp.

If the Chaos gods could just hijack Astartes bodies and let daemons ride them around, there’d be no need to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of High Lords and manipulate them into launching Penitent Crusades just to feed Chaos with cannon fodder.

Of course, it wasn’t impossible that Chaos was subsidizing this whole thing—hoping for a bigger return on investment. Given how Tzeentch tricked Primarch Magnus, it’s not like the Four in the Warp were short on startup capital or patience.

Even a gene-enhanced Primarch with superhuman intellect had been deceived. Arthur, just a greenhouse kid from the 3K era, knew he didn’t have the wisdom to sniff out what was wrong—let alone the guts to gamble on it.

Bottom line, until they got out of the Warp and found a pariah to confirm whether their weirdness was Warp-related, better to stay suspicious.

“True.”

Romulus nodded, giving Arthur a light push.

“You go draw their fire. The boys and I have a dozen guns trained on them.”

Inside a warship, maneuvering space was tight. Combat boiled down to who fired first and who could kill the other before they got shot.

So in shipboard engagements, the side with more firepower usually had the edge—and there were plenty of cases where mortals managed to take out Astartes.

And with over a dozen bolters and meltas behind them, blasting apart under-supplied heretics was going to be easy.

“Alright, make it quick.”

Tilting his neck and refocusing forward, Arthur gripped his shield, crouched low, and began advancing swiftly through the chamber.

There was definitely more than one Chaos Space Marine hiding here.

But the heretics, already thinking they’d secured victory, weren’t expecting a squad that shouldn’t even be here. Many of the Chaos Space Marines that tried to leap at Arthur mid-strike froze in disbelief when they saw the line of hulking blue figures behind him.

Chaos had given them powerful bodies and combat instincts—but not even those instincts could save them in tight quarters under a saturation bombardment of bolter fire.

Arthur stayed locked in, maintaining an optimal defensive stance as he pushed forward.

Until he reached the base of the generator—an area slightly more spacious than the rest.

The nauseating stench of blood peaked at that very moment.