The entire cargo hold shook violently, as if an earthquake had erupted in the endless vacuum surrounding the void ship, threatening to drag the freighter into a rift in reality itself.
Khârn leaned into a gap between the cargo, the vibrating metal containers repeatedly striking his head, making his Butcher's Nails buzz and causing a throbbing pain in his brain.
Anger, an unbearable anger, surged from Khârn's brain.
This was the only emotion the Butcher's Nails allowed.
These terrifying Psyker-surgical implants, originating from Nuceria, directly pierced the brain, constantly devouring brain tissue, stripping the implanted individual of empathy, the ability to feel joy, and all emotions except anger, leaving only bone-deep pain. This pain could only be slightly alleviated by anger.
After the Blood God blessed Khârn, the effects of the Butcher's Nails were further amplified.
The resulting bloodlust and rage directly consumed Khârn's soul, masking all pain and hesitation, allowing Khârn to constantly push every muscle to its limit in his fury, unleashing an extremely bloody killing power.
For the past ten thousand years, Khârn had been immersed in this rage.
But not now.
Khârn gritted his teeth, veins throbbing on his face.
Anger, anger was trying to consume him. He felt his brain being constantly gnawed by the Butcher's Nails.
No, not yet, it's not time yet.
The demon sharing Khârn's body emerged from his flesh, its tendrils piercing into Khârn's brain.
This demon could not help Khârn dissipate his anger. As a demon born from emotional tides, it was more adept at stimulating extreme emotions than at eliminating them.
The demon merely awakened the only emotion, besides anger, still hidden deep within Khârn's brain, not yet consumed by the Butcher's Nails and Khorne's blessing.
That emotion was hatred, a complete hatred for Erebus.
Aside from hatred and the anger granted by the Butcher's Nails, Khârn's soul was empty.
The surge of hatred overwhelmed the anger of the Butcher's Nails, temporarily allowing Khârn to control his body and not be consumed by rage.
For revenge, Khârn had to remain calm.
"You're about to break down."
The demon warned:
"The Blood God blessed you, filling your flesh with unparalleled power, and its powerful self-healing ability allows you to kill tirelessly."
"But this blessing is also cruel. Precisely because of the self-healing ability the Blood God granted you, your brain has completely, utterly fused with the Butcher's Nails. The Butcher's Nails have replaced much of your nerves, becoming a vital part of your brain."
"When you embrace slaughter, when you embrace massacre, this can maintain a certain balance, preventing the nails from directly killing you..."
"But now that you are suppressing anger and restraining slaughter, the Butcher's Nails will, according to their original design, constantly gnaw at and erode your brain tissue until they completely kill you."
"I know!!!" Khârn growled, crying out in pain: "Just like my father!"
"I once wanted to approach my father, to be close to my father, to empathize with my father."
"This was the pain he once experienced, he fought against it too, but failed."
The demon ignored Khârn's growl and continued speaking to itself:
"If you continue to refuse to succumb to anger, you will die sooner or later, at most in eight months."
"The Blood God's tolerance is not infinite; the freedom he gives you has a countdown."
"I never expected his tolerance to be infinite." Khârn gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, and his tone slowly calmed down.
Then he looked at the demon wrapped around him.
"You're almost there too; you've eaten too much," Khârn whispered.
This demon, parasitic on Khârn, had continuously devoured the bodies of many other daemons.
The emotions and concepts that made up those daemons were mostly completely different from its own.
But to gain power as quickly as possible, it still ate them all.
Whether it was Tzeentch's Lord of Change or Nurgle's Great Unclean One, it swallowed them all.
These different, even opposing, emotions and concepts constantly clashed within its body, causing problems for its existence.
"I died long ago." The demon chuckled dryly: "I died the day Erebus killed Angron."
"Erebus' ritual dagger was forged from the annihilus blade that killed Horus, capable of killing or corrupting the greatest heroes."
"A small demon like me was directly corrupted by that dagger down to its very existence."
"If not for Angron's last remaining bit of emotion and my desire for revenge, I would have long since been fragmented and dissipated in the Warp, to be re-formed not as I am now, but as Erebus' slave."
Khârn nodded dully, saying nothing.
He knew the demon was lying.
The ritual dagger certainly possessed peculiar power; it was with the ritual dagger that Erebus had escaped from his grasp.
But the demon parasitic on him had the option of abandoning Angron and fleeing back to the Warp when facing the ritual dagger.
However, the demon chose to live and die with Angron, accompanying Angron until the very last moment, and Khârn trusted him because of this.
Just then, the entire cargo hold experienced another violent tremor that made Khârn's nails ache.
"We have penetrated Terra's atmosphere," said the demon attached to Khârn.
This was the reward Khârn had demanded from Abaddon.
Abaddon, through the Alpha, helped Khârn clear a path, allowing Khârn to infiltrate Terra and reach Saint Doraemon.
However, the journey had not been peaceful, as the entire galaxy had fallen into chaos after the Great Rift opened.
Khârn secretly helped this freighter repel human pirates three times, Aeldari pirates twice, Dark Eldar once who were raiding for slaves, a group of Green-skinned Orks who happened to pass by with an asteroid, assassinated several genestealer who had infiltrated the crew, killed a lictor clinging to the outside of the hull, repelled the Emperor's Children warband 'Imperator's Son,' and even fought off a demon invasion in the Warp.
After an even stronger tremor, the freighter slowly came to a halt, evidently docking at Terra's starport.
According to the plan, this vessel would dock at the Eternal Wall spaceport, and its cargo would be transported into the Terra Imperial Palace.
The inspection personnel had already been infiltrated by the Alphas, so as long as Khârn remained hidden in a cargo container, he could sneak into the Imperial Palace.
Khârn could only trust Abaddon and the Alphas for now.
He pressed tightly against the cargo container, and the demon possessing his body writhed, flesh like different corpses stitched together extended from Khârn's body, wrapping Khârn layer by layer.
Then, this flesh writhed, a layer of scales appeared on its surface, and then the scales became semi-transparent, carrying Khârn into the gaps between light and shadow.
This was an ability the demon parasitic on Khârn gained after eating the lictor that clung to the outside of the hull.
Of course, it was much inferior to the original, only allowing a stationary Khârn to barely achieve optical invisibility.
"You're still complaining? If I hadn't been a demon of the domain of greedy dissolution, you wouldn't even have this much invisibility."
The demon attached to Khârn grumbled.
The cargo container began to move, swaying, and both Khârn and the demon on him maintained the utmost silence.
But gradually, Khârn sensed something was wrong.
This feeling had no basis, it was simply Khârn's judgment, honed by war and slaughter, reacting, making him vaguely smell the scent of a trap and betrayal.
Could Abaddon truly dare to deceive him?
The suppressed anger in Khârn's heart slowly surged again.
He did not fear deceit and lies; no trickery could withstand anger.
Just kill, just kill.
When encountering a scheme, resist; to resist is to kill.
He slightly tightened his grip on the chainaxe, bloodson, hidden beneath the demon's flesh.
Mere Alphas would not be able to stop Khârn's chainaxe, inherited from the Primarch Angron.
A slight vibration came, the cargo hold stopped, placed somewhere.
Khârn held his breath, ready for battle, the Butcher's Nails on his head also began to buzz.
"KILL!!!!"
Khârn let out a low, hoarse war cry, his body like a human battering ram, crashing heavily into the cargo hold's hatch.
The sound of struggling, twisting steel rang out as the two heavy steel doors were violently smashed open by Khârn, deforming severely.
Blinding light poured into Khârn's eyes, everything around him suddenly brightened, making Khârn, who had been hiding in the dim cargo hold for a long time, quite uncomfortable.
Then, Khârn saw the light source.
White wings slowly unfurled, and beneath golden hair, gentle eyes looked at Khârn with a smile.
Beside him was a man in blue and gold power armor, with a face like an ancient monarch's stone carving.
And between the two was a smaller mortal with a semicircular pocket on his stomach, who was looking at Khârn with great interest.
Buzz buzz buzz ——————
The Butcher's Nails in Khârn's head buzzed.
This was a terrible sound, a symbol of the World Eaters' rage.
But for some reason,
In this room, in front of these three people,
The buzzing sound from the string of Butcher's Nails on Khârn's head seemed a little cute?
Butcher's Nails, it's okay, even small ones are cute.
"Saint Doraemon above!"
Khârn was still immersed in the anger and bewilderment brought by the Butcher's Nails, unable to react.
But the demon parasitic on him half-crawled out of Khârn's body and directly performed a loyal and standard aquila salute towards Alexander:
"Little demon, I have drifted in the Warp for half my life, without a clear master."
"My only sincere heart, burning with loyalty for humanity, never ceases."
"Today, seeing Saint Doraemon's visage, I finally know that this heart should repay my lord!"
"If you do not abandon me, I wish to pledge myself as an adopted god!!!"
"Loyalty!!!"