“Alright team, gather up.” I cpped and said ‘team’ gathered up as instructed, apanied by some grumbling from some while others came over enthusiastically.

  Selene was already o me with a pleased smile on her face, looking pleased with her ate. Especially so now that she got a handle for how to el power that didn’t want to taint her soul effitly. Many of the protective measures Val taught us could be done away with here, though she kept a bare minimum for unforeseen happenstances.

  Those mental protes for example, were handy not just against temptation and influe also against mental manipution which all of us were still susceptible to.

  “The three of us.” I g Sel and Val. “Are going back to help out the defenders. The two of you though, I am not so sure of.”

  Fae had a 180-degree shift once I was doh her procedure and as such, instead of celebrating like she would have, she looked down like an abandoned puppy. Bob gave her a sideway hug, he was gng at me warily ever since I became the object of his GF’s veion but with his newly regained youthful looks, there wasn’t much he could pin about.

  With the amount of vitality in his body, he should be good to good five turies with no bodily deterioration if he didn’t do any overly self-damaging stuff.

  “With our deal here being done,” I tinued. “You two run off on your own if you want. Though, I have another offer for you.”

  Bob’s wariness increased while Fae looked up at me hopefully, her sapphire blue eyes glimmering like gems. Such a weird part of Eldar geics.

  “”What is it?”” They asked in tandem, looked at each other, then back at me. The tone was quite differeweewo questions.

  “Once we are done here, hopefully I requisition a new voidship.” I rubbed my palms together. “Selly might not look it, but she is a Rogue Trader, so with a bit of oiling here and there, we could be getting a new ship before the month’s end.”

  “Really?” Selene looked at me with a weird mix of emotions. “Are you sure that is a good idea?”

  “If you don’t want to then we fet it.” I turo her, eyes searg her features for any sign of unhappiness about my idea. Surprisingly, I found quite a lot. “I thought you’d want a new ship?”

  “It’s not that I don’t,” she said. “But not having that responsibility has been freeing. If you are just doing this to please me, then please don’t.”

  “Hmm.” I tapped my . “Alright. Abort mission then.” I rolled back around. “We are leaving here in probably a month or sooner if I somehow mao upset some important people by act. If you two want to, you e along.”

  “Why would we want to?” Bob asked with a frown.

  “Five turies is still quite a short time pared to how long your little girlfriend will live and I am not doing another renewal like this out of kindness. You’ll have to work for it.”

  “I see.” He went into a brooding stare down with the floor.

  “I’d want to.” Fae said happily, theed a little as she g Bob. “Only if he wants to of course.”

  “Uandable.” I shrugged. “You’ll have until we leave to decide. You stay here or e back here by then if you want to e with or want a liftoff of the phough I’ll only throw you a p over at most.”

  “Uood.” Fae nodded. “Thank You for doing this to me. For freeing me and even helping Rob.”

  “It is what it is.” I waved her off. “You two ready to head back?”

  Val just nodded relutly, energy still pying on his fingers as he reapplied his illusionary human form. Though, I noticed it was leagues ahead of what he had before.

  Intricate details were added to his illusion and seeing through it would have proved almost impossible if I wasn’t cheating with my own powers. He finally draw on his eential, no more holding ba fear of She who Thirsts.

  Selene oher hand had that murderous smile ba her face as she gave me an eager nod.

  “Then off we go.” I smiled, mirr my girlfriend’s.

  A portal sprang up in front of me and I had to send the idiotic Skyssher that flew through ignorantly back with a baded sp. I’d thought opening it in the sky would save us from this but it seemed like the swarm somehow gained a new wind and was bearing down on the fortress with renewed vigour.

  I hopped through, my silky clothes morphing into my battle armour around me and once I felt the other two behind me I closed the portal. Selene was falling a dozeers above me while Val just stepped on air as he let out a veritable storm of energy.

  In a hundred meter orb, there was nothi of the Tyranids but scorched ash that followed the two of us in our dash for the ground. I grinned as I saw lightning rain down on the swarm like the wrath of a furious god.

  Valenith was formidable even before this, he could stand against dozens of demons at once or hold back a horde of Orcs like we saw in the Webway but right now he was just pying with aire army of Tyranids.

  Gargoyles flew up to meet him and fell back down with half of their bodies obliterated, even the special variants that stood as tall as houses couldn’t fly closer than two dozeers to the Eldar.

  I could feel his joy, a boundless, childish exuberaning from pure relief. The moment he pced his soul in my realm, I knew he could never betray me, but now I knew he would be loyal by his own will.

  Eldar were not like humans, they couldn’t be made to worship with force. As far as I knew, no Eldar has ever fallen to Chaos, not even the Drukhari who are the living representations of what it means to be a Saneshi cultist.

  They are despicable beings, but they never worshipped the Prince of Pleasure. They live by his design, dang on strings, but worship is not something they do. Some might say just being as they are acts as worship, but I felt different.

  I could feel Fae’s worship even this far and I khat while she was ihe realspace segment in the shadow of my Puddle, I would tio feel her. It would have been insignifit to someoh thousands or billions of worshippers, but I only had one and I could feel the slightest hint of power it gave me.

  It wasn’t something I liked to be ho, I never was big ion and even my narcissism has limits.

  [*snort*]

  I firmly put the limit on making others worship me. The ‘making’ part is important, though. I wasn’t going to beat the veion out of Fae’s head if she decided on giving it to me out of her own free will. Free power was free power.

  She is still getting a spanking if she goes all Lar on some unsuspeg people and starts evangelising. That is not something I will stand for.

  I smashed into a horde, my boots crushing a ifex into the ground. It didn’t quite die, but it was neck deep in dirt and I it so it didn’t really have much of a ce at crawling out of that hole alive.

  A serpent made of Psyfme leapt off of my skin and started cirg me, burning the rushing Tyranids to ash as it went further and further away from me with each round it made.

  I raised my foot and stomped down, the force of it easily crag the ifex’ shell where my weight smag into it couldn’t and ohat was done I let a lie eat away at his insides.

  Hmm. I’m colleg Fmes now. I have the regur ohe Vitality burning one and now the be that feeds on molecur bonds.

  The one I used here was the Vitality fme which burned white as it devoured the alien mohis robbed me of some bio-energy. To teract that I let out a swarm of flies to go around colleg bio-energy from fallen Tyranids but I ged my mind at the st moment and what came out were beautiful monoic butterflies with mostly white wings ated by heavy bck lines drawing shapes onto them.

  My little swarm went to work. With time they would harvest every fallen monster or human otlefield while I pyed warrior princess.

  Selly smashed down a hundred meters away from me and right into a line of artillery beasts. Soon ks of body parts flying through the air and screeches of pai up all around there.

  I better get to work too. Let’s give a show to these super soldiers that they won’t fet.

  I didn’t use Atiesh, only my good old bio-sword. It might have failed to leave anything more than a scratch at the Swarmlord but that wasn’t a problem wheoughest enemy I had to fight here were Hive Tyrants and maybe some other heavily armoured warbeasts.

  What stopped my bde back then was the psychoactive carapace which had more energy flowing through it than it had any right to.

  That wasn’t something any of the beasts here had.

  My sword cut them apart in the dozens. Hundreds fell victim to my Telekinesis, at times smashed into gory balls while at others I was satisfied with turning them into meat pancakes.

  Fiery serpents danced all around me, r as they burhrough the unending horde. This put me into the eye of the fiery storm they caused and against only the toughest Tyranids that could break through the serpents.

  The first Tyranids to burst through my cirg serpents with psifme still lig at their carapace were a duo of ifexes and an armoured behemoth that my mind-cores identified as a Tyrannofex.

  It stood tall even pared to the two ifexes which both were about twice as tall as me but the new behemoth was an armoured truck where the ifexes were only the size of bigger cars.

  The psifme was crawling uhe armour of the two smaller beasts and the half of one’s skull was clearly visible where my fmes ate away at its flesh.

  With a flex of will I turhe fmes into dark matter-dev infernoes owo ifexes as I threw myself at the living fortress that I graciously excluded from the attack.

  The ifexes roared but crumbled to dust even before my sword rend the Tyrannofex’s bio-on in half. The ravaged on dripped acidic blood o my force-field had it stream dowside of the invisible bubble.

  I looked up at the beast which realizing that its primary on was gone even before ht started off in ear, threw its entire weight forward to crush me us massive body.

  I let it try, grabbing onto its skull as it rammed into me. My armour and enhanced body underh it bined with the force field around it all easily withstood the impaot that the biggest danger came from there.

  My feet left the ground as the beast smashed its head upwards like an angry bull, then it tched onto my right boot while I was mid-air and tis charge right into where one of my fming serpents was setting off a veritable inferno.

  Eh.

  I was curious what the dumb thing nning, but trying to use my own fmes against me?

  My feet held in its jaws exploded into a dozen sharp tendrils that buried themselves into its flesh. I might be pying around with these Tyranids, but that didn’t ge the fact that aside from the Swarmlord, they were hopelessly tered in every way by my Eldritch abilities.

  The beast stumbled and bit down hard on my leg, the force field gave way after a few seds, but the armor didn’t so much as crack. After that defiant st attack, the beast crumbled, its heavy carapace empty on the inside as my tendrils worked on assimiting the hard shell.

  There weren’t any psychic els in it, just pure evolution going above and beyond to make that armour as impregnable as possible. Still, it was mostly biomass so with only a few seds of dey, the carapace too joihe rest of the beast in bolstering my growing stash of bio-energy and adding a new geic tempte to my growing colle of them.

  My little butterflies were ing and going at times, nding on my shoulder or toug my hair only for moments to deposit their collected bio-energy befoing back out to colleore.

  I gracefully floated up and pced my feet ba the ground, ag like I wasn’t a chew-toy to an ugly alien just a moment ago even if no one could see me at the moment.

  I cracked my neck, eying the group of beastings that forced their ast my serpents. Most crumbled a few steps in, the fmes being too much to bear for anything but the stro of them.

  A single Serpent circledabove me, shooting beams of devastating dark fmes to make sure no flyer could circumvent my little test strength.

  I was the big raid boss here that they o take down, not the other way around and I’d only bother with the stro challengers.

  I noticed I was grinning as a group of Hive Tyrants burst through the fmes. The four of them came from all four sides of me, trying to box me in and I could see the puppet-master’s strings guide their every movement as they rushed at me.

  Was this respect? Or just a sub-scious rea to a very valid source of threat the hive mied in me?

  No matter. It threw its stro little soldiers at me and I could feel more verging on my position.

  ifexes broke away from their formations, Hive Tyrants left the besieged fortress and their foes behind as they all rushed at me. Large worm-like bio-forms made the ground tremble beh my feet as they all got ready to face me down.

  My grin only widened. My feet slowly left the ground as I started levitating as a dozen Psychic spells da the edge of my mind, waiting to be used at the moment’s notice t my enemies low.

  “I love my new life.”

  P3t1