Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Thorn-class frigate launched over a dozen scythe-shaped missiles, completely destroying the human smuggler transport ship's last pitiful fragments of shielding and its main gun battery.
Seven assault skiffs carrying boarding parties activated their mimic engines, masking their electromagnetic signatures and blending into the night sky.
They closed in rapidly on the transport ship, using dark matter beams to melt one breach after another into its armor plating.
Before long, the boarding party's Reaver jetbikes tore their way inside, blasting through facilities along the way and cutting down all resistance.
In his mind, only another Archon would dare engineer such a betrayal.
But the voice on the other end of the comm was identical to the one from the broadcast:
"Who's calling? Ilyss?
Oh, this little darling? She's right here in my arms. Ilyss, my dear, someone's asking for you…"
The comm unit sounded like it had been pressed into the Lhamean's bosom.
But Ilyss's reply came only as muffled sounds — somewhere between pained moans and breathless whimpers — as if she were being toyed with, unable to answer.
"You… you wretch!"
Randrel's rage boiled over. He crushed the comm in his grip, breath heaving.
Never in his life had he suffered such humiliation — reduced to the role of a fool in some petty theater.
"Raiding party! With me — we'll tear that bastard limb from limb!"
He clenched his venom-blade, swearing to subject this so-called "Raphael" to the most exquisite torments in the galaxy — to carve him into a limbless husk, hand him to the Haemonculi, and have him made into a living toilet to endure the filth of slaves for eternity.
Woooo—
Before Randrel's forces could reach the entrance, the ship's klaxons screamed.
It was Eden's "gift" — the self-destruct sequence.
Worse yet, the ship's compartments had been packed with powerful explosives.
"Fu**!"
The Archon spat a final curse before fire swallowed him and his warriors.
The transport ship was torn apart in a massive explosion, obliterating all within.
Hhh—
Half of Randrel's body spun away amidst the debris.
He gasped for breath as his soul-mechanisms worked to repair him, realizing he was drifting toward the raiding vessel.
A flicker of hope stirred — if he could make it back aboard, there might yet be a chance.
But then he saw it — the moment that crushed him.
Through the raiding ship's observation port stood the one who had orchestrated his ruin.
That figure had Ilyss in his arms and inclined his head ever so slightly, as if in farewell.
The engines of the raiding vessel flared bright — and it leapt to full speed.
Randrel was left to tumble into the endless void.
"No—!"
The realization hit — the nearest world was hundreds of light years away. Rage gave way to despair.
This torturer of countless lives would drift in the dark until the hungry Lady consumed his soul completely.
…
The Thorn-class frigate sped away.
Inside the ship—
"More terrifying than Mandrakes themselves…"
Blood soaked the chamber — but the slaughterer was not a Drukhari pirate. It was a lone, terrifying human warrior.
The former tormentors had become helpless prey.
The hall was littered with mangled remains.
A Nightmare Warrior bellowed, swinging a massive blade in a desperate bid to behead his foe.
The Nightmare Warriors were among Commorragh's most elite — brutal killers honed through cruel training, famed throughout the galaxy.
In Drukhari society, advancement came only by killing one's superior, so Archons rarely trusted their security to members of their own cabal.
The neutral, contract-bound, and deadly Nightmare Warriors were prized in the Dark City's mercenary markets — the ideal bodyguards.
Randrel had spent a fortune hiring two of them. One had died on the transport ship; the other had remained aboard the raiding vessel to guard the spoils.
But the "enemy Archon" had used teleport-boarders to seize the bridge.
He ordered all to surrender.
The Nightmare Warriors refused to break their contract — and led a contingent in resistance.
They quickly realized they faced a monstrous killing machine.
One Nightmare's blade shattered — a heavy blow followed, sending him reeling.
Then a pair of massive hands seized his head and twisted it clean off.
Dark red blood poured down the human's scarred face, making him look even more fearsome.
One of Commorragh's elite warriors had been slain without even landing a blow — the sight shattered the resolve of the other cabal fighters.
"That's enough, Titus."
Eden's voice rang out, halting the warrior before he killed them all.
He looked at the man who could tear apart a Daemon with his bare hands — and smiled in satisfaction.
His investment had paid off in full.
Now, Titus's entire set of legendary wargear had been refitted in the style of the Drukhari, making him look even more ferocious.
At present, he appeared in the role of bodyguard to Eden's Drukhari clone.
Such an arrangement was nothing unusual.
Commorragh was a trade hub ruled by the Drukhari, whose commercial reach spanned the galaxy. Almost every sentient species traded with them.
Many humans and xenos alike served as their mercenaries and pirates.
Archons would employ all manner of powerful beings as bodyguards.
If wealthy enough, some might even hire desperate Space Marine Chapters to eliminate rivals.
Given this environment, Eden could more boldly fold his warriors into the Redemption Kabal, letting them operate openly as mercenaries.
Titus, Terror Legionnaires, Orks — all could be integrated this way.
Right now, his most pressing concern was his own status.
He had to become a genuine Archon of a real Kabal, with his own territory and a retinue of Drukhari retainers.
Only then could he steadily draw in more people, gather wealth, and hire even more Drukhari muscle to serve him.
"You should consider yourselves fortunate…"
Eden strolled from the shadows with deliberate grace, coming to stand before the assembled warriors. Every movement radiated poise.
His gaze swept across the Kabalite warriors, and in an archaic Aeldari accent he'd learned from Isha herself, he said:
"You wretches have been freed from that useless Randrel and now stand before a true Archon — heir to the House of Asurmen.
The great Raphael Asurmen — the future supreme ruler.
Were I not short of capable hands, you would not even earn a glance from me, no matter how long you groveled on your knees."
"Asurmen… House Asurmen?"
Ilyss's eyes widened, her hand instinctively covering her mouth.
As a Lhamean courtesan of the Cult of Lileath, she had studied the sagas of the ancient Aeldari Empire and knew the legends of that ancient line.
House Asurmen could trace its name back to the empire's golden age, its family name linked to the Aeldari Goddess of Life, Isha. For generations they had served as her high priests.
But after the catastrophe that birthed the Dark Prince, the House vanished.
Some claimed they were destroyed when the gods fell; others whispered they had hidden themselves deep within some forgotten relic site.
Ilyss studied the man who had only recently made her gasp in pain, her eyes brightening.
He did look the part of a scion of a noble, ancient line — taller than most Drukhari, with paler skin than their typical dusky-brown.
His robes were of an ancient Aeldari Imperial cut, their fabric a rare and long-lost craft.
Only on rare occasions would adventurers in Commorragh find such scraps in ruins — nobles would pay dearly to sew these fragments into their own attire as a mark of decadent luxury.
"That's… the purest soul-energy…"
Ilyss sniffed the air, catching the scent radiating from the Asurmen heir.
A craving seized her — sharper and more urgent than she'd ever felt — and with it, shock.
She had only ever smelled such pure soul-energy once before, when passing a Haemonculus master's atelier.
This was richer, more intoxicating, by far.
It was the sort of thing any noble would greedily inhale — and here he was, letting it waft freely in the air. Utter, unimaginable decadence.
In truth, it was only Eden's specially distilled "soul perfume," extracted from soul-healing elixirs.
Drawn from the pure essence of the Goddess of Life Isha herself — a perfect weapon against Drukhari instincts.
Without the warp-extraction device, it would have been impossible to bring such energy into realspace at all.
The perfume's true purpose was image.
Eden wanted everywhere he walked to be drenched in the aroma of priceless, life-saving soul-energy — so the Drukhari would gnash their teeth in envy, feel the sting of inferiority, even lick the floors he passed over.
That was true nobility.
And in fact, this identity wasn't entirely a fabrication — if anything, it was downplaying the truth.
House Asurmen were merely favored servants of a god.
Eden was someone who had bedded a god. From a certain angle, he utterly eclipsed them.
Of course, after the Dark Prince's birth and the long millennia since, Isha's worship among the Aeldari had all but vanished.
It would take time to restore it.
Nowadays, Commorragh's so-called nobility were mostly degenerate upstarts.
Even the Supreme Overlord Asdrubael Vect had begun life as a slave — how could he compare to the heir of such an ancient line?
Soon, Eden would show the low-born of Commorragh what a true noble looked like.
Ilyss's voice was husky, and she sank to her knees without thinking:
"My… my lord of House Asurmen… I, Lhamean Ilyss of the Cult of Lileath, offer myself to your service."
The Kabalite warriors also recognized the man's lofty station and knelt on one knee, bowing their heads in Aeldari fashion.
Even the hound-like Ur-Ghul scavenger received a cuff from a nearby warrior, whimpering as it flattened itself to the floor.
The warriors inhaled deeply as they bowed, trying to draw in as much of the soul-energy in the air as they could — but dared not overstep and risk offense.
They knew the tempers of nobles could be deadlier than any Archon's, and none wished to end up as some grotesque ornament to be tormented for eternity.
In Commorragh, though warriors might kill their superiors to take their place, none dared provoke someone whose power and standing far outstripped their own.
Just as all bent the knee to Supreme Overlord Vect — for defiance meant a fate worse than death.
Eden's expression didn't change. He merely cast a disdainful glance at the corpse-littered, filthy floor.
"Clean this up. The spoils are yours."
He pointed lightly, then turned toward the Archon's private chambers.
Titus glared at the warriors, then casually dumped a crate of soul-healing elixirs onto the bloody floor like so much garbage before following his lord.
Ilyss gazed at the vials, their contents faintly clouded — the unmistakable gleam of soul-energy within.
Such elixirs would take her months of resources to afford even one.
In truth, these were low-grade.
Eden had taken a wise advisor's counsel and reworked the formulas, producing a wide range of potencies.
The cheapest versions were massively diluted, holding only trace amounts of life-essence — just enough for a faint healing effect, the rest being harmless industrial filler.
Higher grades held fuller potency — and increasing doses of addictive stimulants.
From low-dilution to high-concentration, there were ten grades across several series.
The ones he'd just tossed were only tier-three — low-grade product.
Ilyss hesitated. The Archon hadn't said they were for her.
She quickened her pace to follow him.
The other warriors didn't dare snatch them up until the floor was clean.
They scrubbed at the gore and blood like madmen, desperate to earn the right to the spoils — some looked ready to lick the deckplates if that would hasten the work.
No one in Commorragh survived long by offending someone like this.
All knew one truth:
Serve the noble heir of House Asurmen well, and he would grant you more — purer — soul-energy.
All you had to do was give him everything… and win his favor.
(End of Chapter)
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