Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but Warhammer 40k

Chapter 102 Frequent Visitors to Illusions

Henry continued forward along the street in the dead silence.

As he ventured deeper, the city, which had been shrouded in a gray mist, gradually shed its initial indistinct outline.

The illusion is gradually approaching reality under the master's power.

The smell in the air grew stronger.

But when the wind blows across your cheeks, you can already feel the damp cold.

Even more gradually, traces of "human" life began to appear here.

A man emerged from the fog before Henry.

He was hunched over, pushing a creaking, dilapidated wooden cart piled high with blackened, foul-smelling, twisted corpses, while flies swarmed overhead, forming a buzzing black cloud.

Without saying a word, the man brushed past Henry as if he hadn't seen him at all.

Silently, I once again walked into the mist.

As Henry continued forward, he saw some ragged, emaciated people huddled under the dripping eaves.

Even with masks on, they coughed violently, their exposed skin corroded and festered by the poisonous gas, yet they remained numbly alive, as if they had long been accustomed to this endless, hopeless world.

There were also many corpses lying haphazardly in the alley next to Henry.

Some people had been dead for a long time, their bodies almost blending into the mud on the ground.

Someone had just breathed their last, their eyes still open, gazing at the gray sky that would never dissipate.

Henry's gaze swept over everything, though he didn't know what the illusion's owner wanted to do.

But his judgment became clearer and clearer.

—This illusion is not perfect.

The owner's will is too clear.

It faithfully records the memories in the mind of the illusion's owner, and looks more like the manifestation of a living being's obsession under the power of the subspace.

It seems that————

It was not the gods of the warp who created all of this.

He might not even qualify as a true Archmage who owns a territory in the Warp.

Thinking about this, Henry felt much more relaxed.

Unless the Four Gods personally intervene, the illusion will remain just an illusion and can never become reality.

Just then.

A series of hurried footsteps came from the other side of the street.

A dozen or so people wearing tattered leather armor and covered in pustules and frostbite rushed out of the smog.

They held sickles, hammers, spears, and rusted iron plates salvaged from who-knows-where; their faces were contorted with rage, and their eyes were bloodshot.

Upon seeing Henry's tall and conspicuous figure, they roared almost simultaneously.

"A tyrant's lackey!"

"Kill him! He must be an informant!"

"For freedom!"

They brandished their weapons and charged in from all directions.

But they are just illusions. Although the thoughts of powerful beings can indeed influence reality, their mere thought can cause significant changes in the material world.

But such beings are often referred to as gods or demigods.

The man at the very front, before he even touched Henry, vanished silently into the air like a cloud of dust blown away by the wind.

Their bodies continued to disintegrate, completely unaware of what was happening to them, before turning into a sky full of grayish-white dust.

But the people behind didn't stop at all.

More and more people rushed out of the dilapidated houses on both sides.

An old man, a woman, and a boy.

They chanted the same words monotonously, brandished similar weapons, and tirelessly charged at Henry.

With each contact, a group of people would disappear.

But new figures keep appearing.

They were simply mechanically repeating the rebellion that had ended countless years ago.

Henry continued forward.

The street became increasingly crowded.

Finally, even from the rooftops on both sides, from the shaky windows, and from the dark alleyways, people kept jumping down like dumplings being dropped into a pot, breaking their legs but still crawling forward.

The bustling crowd almost completely submerged the entire street.

They roared.

He was cursing.

Shouting to overthrow the tyrant, the roar almost shook the heavens.

But they couldn't even get Henry to stop for a moment.

They are just illusions.

Wherever it passed, the figures of people kept disintegrating.

Like a thick fog blowing in your face, slowly dissipating as you walk away.

at last.

After the last figure turned into dust.

The entire city suddenly began to shake violently.

Houses began to collapse, and deep abysses appeared in the streets.

The poisonous clouds in the sky quickly dissipated.

The whole world is like an oil painting burned through by flames, constantly peeling away.

Until all the sorrow and despair, all the illusions, vanish.

The entire world was left with only a single, enormous throne standing alone in endless darkness.

The throne was carved entirely from some kind of black stone that flowed with a dark light, covered with blasphemous runes and tormented faces, with thorns clinging to it and plague flowers blooming passionately.

It stands high above the top of hundreds of steep stone steps.

Even taller and stronger than Eugenie — humans.

His upper body was bare, as broad as a hill, and his bluish-gray muscles were so swollen that they almost completely lost the proportions of a normal human. His skin was covered with crisscrossing old wounds and rotting scars. His face was not exactly ferocious, but it was so huge that it was extremely oppressive.

This is a man who, with just one glance, immediately evokes the image of a "tyrant."

He sat there quietly.

He looked down at Henry from his high vantage point.

It's like looking down at a stranger who has wandered into your kingdom.

"Blood God's lackey."

His voice rang out.

"A fool who is favored by a loving father but remains unaware of it."

"You are more ordinary and weaker than I imagined."

Henry slowly raised his chainsaw sword.

The chainsaw sword starts automatically, and the sharp chain teeth begin to rotate at high speed.

"So you're the commander of chaos on this ship? It seems you're not the demon yet."

The man smiled.

"The Blood God's eye for choosing hounds is not much better than the Emperor's."

He slowly stood up.

With his movements, his massive body erupted with a violent sound.

He descended the throne step by step, and with each step, the black stone steps beneath his feet trembled slightly.

"But it doesn't matter."

"A loving father never rejects any lost child."

"Now, commit suicide with honor."

"End my wretched life before I truly come, and wash away the impure power from my body."

"The great relic will offer corresponding solace to the defeated candidate. You will be reborn from decay, and I acknowledge your tenacity and strength, allowing you to join my legion and become my brother."

Henry looked at him calmly.

"I don't want to become a monster like you, and you don't seem to have obtained the Crown of Corruption yet."

Agripus couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"monster?"

"You wield the power bestowed upon you by the Blood God, yet you stand here calling me a monster?"

"Tell me, mortal, when did power begin to be divided into good and evil?"

"What is truly valuable is only the fruit that brings forth for the loving father's harvest."

He slowly raised his head, looking at the sky shrouded in poisonous fog, and his voice carried a hint of nostalgia.

"My hometown was once ruled by a tyrant."

"Poisonous fog covered the mountains, hunger devoured the plains, and countless mortals struggled in despair generation after generation."

"Until the Great Primarch leads us to take up arms."

"We bleed."

"We sacrificed ourselves."

"Finally, the monster that oppressed us has been overthrown."

"But just when victory was within reach, the Emperor arrived."

His voice gradually lowered.

"He took away our hero."

"Conquest is packaged with glory, and plunder is concealed with expeditions."

"He claims to have saved humanity, but he has only spread the suffering of one planet to the entire galaxy."

"Aren't there enough worlds like this already?"

"If you were a true knight, you must have seen these sights before..."

"Countless frontier planets were treated as private property by governors and nobles."

"The courts can easily burn an entire city to the ground in order to maintain so-called order."

"Mechanical religions monopolize knowledge, state religions monopolize faith, and nobles monopolize wealth."

"What the Emperor desires is never human happiness; what He desires is the eternal and unending tyranny of His own, with His terror spreading to every corner of the material world and the warp!"

Agrius slowly opened his arms, and patterns began to spread across his body.

"But a loving father is different."

"Disease will no longer drive the poor to despair, and death will not be the end for the weak."

"Hunger, poverty, class, status—everything loses its meaning."

"Everyone will become a child of a loving father equally; only through increasing entropy can eternal happiness and tranquility be achieved."

Henry stood quietly and listened to the impassioned speech.

Then he looked at the throne behind him.

"But all I see is you sitting on the throne now—your actions may not be as magnificent as you claim."

Agrippa's smile gradually faded, and his expression turned grim.

A long silence fell over the air.

a long time.

He slowly lowered his arms and began to speak.

"This is a necessary sacrifice; someone always has to pay the price for the future—"

"It seems I can't persuade you—but since you've refused the Father's grace..."

"Then let it rot here."

As the last sentence fell.

The whole world began to change rapidly.

The black soil kept churning, and plague plants emerged from the ground, growing and spreading wildly.

A giant fungus rose from the ground.

Rotten flowers bloom one after another.

All pretense and embellishment have been stripped away.

In just a few breaths, this world began to evolve into Nurgle Garden, gradually taking shape.

But just as the black mud spread to Henry's feet.

But then it suddenly stopped.

It was as if an invisible boundary separated the two worlds, and the illusion formed by the will of the withered overlord was covered up.

Agrius's gaze finally changed for the first time.

In his field of vision, behind Henry.

Another world slowly unfolds.

Vast fields of golden wheat rippled in the breeze, stretching to the horizon.

Under the azure sky.

A solitary tree stands quietly on a sun-drenched hillside.

Under the tree, a simple swing is swaying gently in the breeze.

A girl in a white dress, seemingly tired from playing, jumped off the swing.

She was barefoot, stepping on the soft grass.

Then, he turned around.

Agrius's pupils suddenly contracted.

No matter how he stared, the vision granted by the subspace only allowed him to see a blurry halo, making it impossible to discern the girl's true appearance.

Even under the distortion, the girl gradually began to resemble the knight before her.

next moment.

The entire illusion shattered with a deafening roar.

In reality.

Agrippa suddenly bent over and began to cough violently.

Large swathes of putrefactive mycelium wriggled wildly from the gaps in the power armor, and the plague within the body began to rage as if it had been stimulated.

The corrupted monk Morge immediately looked over.

"What happened?"

Agrippa remained silent for a long time before slowly straightening up.

"That knight—he's not as simple as I thought; he also exists in the warp."

Moerger frowned.

"Blood God?"

"Perhaps we need to speed things up."

Agrippa didn't continue. In fact, he also knew of another possibility: perhaps the knight himself was a subspace being that had not yet truly arrived in reality.

But none of that matters anymore.

As long as he is killed in the material world, no matter what the knight is, it will ultimately become a bountiful harvest for the benevolent father.

Meanwhile, in the banquet hall's restroom, Balu, still half-asleep, hugged the toilet and gagged violently once more.

He held onto the edge of the toilet and coughed intermittently for a while before vomiting up most of the dinner he had just eaten.

Although most of it is the flesh of my good brothers, which is worthless, I still want to spit it out like this.

The mercenary still felt it was a bit of a pity.

My head felt heavy and dull, as if it were filled with lead.

Balu, panting heavily, raised his sleeve to wipe his mouth and groggily opened his eyes.

My vision is still a little blurry.

The first thing he saw was Henry standing at the bathroom door.

The knight stood with his back to him, still in the posture of pushing open the door, as if his whole being had been frozen in time.

Not moving at all.

"—Henry?"

Balu frowned, and seeing that the other party did not respond, he called out again.

"What's wrong, Henry?"

This time.

Henry seemed to be suddenly awakened from a long dream, his body trembling slightly.

He slowly turned his head around.

A trace of murderous intent lingered in his eyes, only gradually returning to calm after he saw Balu.

"It's nothing."

"There was one just now."

He had only spoken halfway through his sentence.

splash

The toilet in Balu's arms suddenly started churning on its own.

The water inside began to swirl wildly, forming an ever-expanding vortex. Then, a slippery tentacle suddenly stretched out and clung tightly to the edge of the toilet.

"Excuse me, excuse me!"

Accompanied by a familiar, strange cry.

Anastasius climbed out of the toilet.

Green slime dripped continuously from its eyes and tentacles, and it panicked like never before, not even bothering to wipe it away.

"I've finally found you!"

"Stop chatting, they're coming!"

"What's here?"

Baru was half-sober when he instinctively reached for his gun, only to find it wasn't in his pocket.

Anastasius's tentacles pointed together towards the outer edge of the deck.

"A huge group!"

"A large horde of chaotic creations is approaching this place!"

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