Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but Warhammer 40k

Chapter 87 It's Here

"However, we don't have many good lads like this anymore—there are human shadows behind the Nurgle attacks, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to find this ship so easily."

"At least you're still alive, and those traitors' plans failed—as long as you're here, the Vestalen family flag has not fallen."

"Aldrich, the patriarch of the Vestalen family, is now fleeing like a rat in a sewer—it's hard to say whether the flag has truly fallen."

After the boat owner finished speaking, he continued forward.

"But now it seems we need to talk to that young man named Cass—unfortunately, I only have one psychic left."

"Still the oldest one—"

Orion had barely finished speaking.

A series of crisp clanging sounds came from beside a load-bearing steel column not far away.

Even though the sound was mostly drowned out by the engine noise tinkering by the mechanical priest in the hall, it was still quite jarring.

Theresa turned her head toward the sound.

Only then did she realize that there was another figure imprisoned there.

An extremely thin old man.

She was already so thin that she was unrecognizable. Her dry, yellowish skin was like cheap parchment, wrinkled and wrapped around her body. Her sparse, gray hair hung down like a clump of withered grass, obscuring most of her face in shadow.

Several black chains engraved with prayers wrapped around his arms, waist, and legs, securing him firmly to the steel pillar.

At the junctions of the intersecting chains, dozens of bells were hung to draw attention to his movements.

Each metal surface is imprinted with sacred words praising the emperor.

It reflected a cold luster in the dim light.

Theresa had long heard of the strangeness and uncontrollability of psionicists.

But I was still startled when I saw the old man.

His eyes remained closed the entire time.

However, beneath the thin eyelids, the skin swelled and subsided like boiling swamp, as if the eye sockets were filled with a swarm of living insects that were running around everywhere.

The old man's lips moved repeatedly, uttering indistinct murmurs.

The voice was faint and ethereal, as if answering a question from another world.

The mechanical priests passing by were already used to this scene.

Orion's gaze lingered on the mangled body.

"How was your day?"

The old man did not answer.

He kept his head down, uttering indistinct syllables to himself.

"That's what the soldier guarding the side said."

"Not much has changed since then, sir."

"During his brief moments of lucidity, he would ask us for some alcohol."

"He said the demon disdained his body, and sometimes went mad, saying he could hear what was happening on the other side of the ship—he said—a new demon was born on this ship."

Orion sighed softly.

"pity."

"If it weren't for this war, he wouldn't have gone mad and been tied up here—he was already the most devout and strongest person he could be."

Just as he finished saying that.

The old man, whose head had been buried deep inside, suddenly began to convulse violently without warning.

Whoosh—!

All the chains were taut.

The iron rings fixed to the surface of the steel column were pulled by the enormous force, making a series of clanging sounds.

The old man arched his entire body forward exaggeratedly, as if an invisible hand in the void was gripping his skull, attempting to forcibly peel his broken soul from his physical body.

Turbid blood slowly trickled down his nostrils and dripped onto the deck.

Those eyes, which had been tightly closed, suddenly opened wide.

The sunken eye sockets were empty, devoid of pupils and whites.

Instead, two plumes of pitch-black mist surged and overflowed outwards, as if they were alive.

The old man opened his mouth wide in an exaggerated manner.

The sounds emanating from deep within its throat were completely unlike those of a human.

Instead, hundreds and thousands of voices of men, women, and children blended and overlapped seamlessly, transforming into rings of sound waves invisible to the naked eye.

"It's here."

The entire maintenance hall seemed to have been drained of air; all noise faded away, leaving only a deathly silence.

The old man's body trembled violently in mid-air.

The heavy black chains were taut one after another, emitting a mournful metallic wail as if they were about to break.

"It's here—"

""

"It smelled one."

"So many living people—"

The overlapping voices grew increasingly shrill and piercing, until they finally transformed into a scream that tore apart a throat.

"Run! It's already overhead!!"