"Son of a bitch," I heard Selene say in something like a whispered scream but my attention was barely ohe Tsunami in the roag us like a tide of world-ending darkness, aiming to snuff out the soul of us all. It even reached beyond the , t further towards me but I knew I'd be safe. Distance was retive and especially in the pce my soul was, it'd only take a sihought to get out of the way of it. I swept my gaze across the hundreds of gathered humans, Shadows, Pilots, Scribes, tech priests and Selene herself. They were all sile, this tide would kill them if they were lucky, tear their souls from their bodies or do something even worse if they were stronger, like Selene was for example. I think if it was the me from a few days ago I'd have left them to die, too much risk and too little payoff. If the ripple was caused by what I suspected then the only reason I evehem in the first pce was gohere was barely any practical reason for me to exert myself for their prote. Still, apathy was a fragile emotion, it wasn't aion in itself as much as it was the ck of it. I liked Selene's pany and that slight adoration was the seed that sprouted into a magnifit tree with my enhanced emotions. I didn't want to let her die, I didn't love her or anything, don't get me wrong but I felt the risks were suddenly even with my gains. She'd live. My decision was made, as much out of my enhanced emotions as reasoned for by my pragmatic side that was tasked with keeping my soul from turning into a murderhobo space horror. I was hoping that the bination of my wanting to be in a certain way, fuelled by my sincere emotions would be enough to affect my soul. It shouldn't be much but as the soul was the representation of all that I was, all of my choices held signifit weight, especially a choice that could result in the death of hundreds of my 'allies'. My soul sprouted hundreds of tendrils that sped toward the deceptively still waters below. The ce of thought, emotion and willpower so I used all three as I willed a protective sphere into being around the souls of all the people here and the uy of the obeyed. A shield powered by the pure energy of the soul and enhanced by my emotions and unbending will covered them all in a brilliant white sphere of prote. Not a blihe ripple-turned cataclysmic shockwave arrived, crashing into my shield with the wrath of a dimension that has been vandalised and torn apart by pesky mortals. I absently he blockheaded residents of the immaterium trying to verge on me even though the currents were fighting against the a ferociously. Demons weren't beings that could be halted for long by that though, after half a minute of me sustaining the barrier, turning most of the -Energy I was busily purifying in the meantime bato it, the demons reached it. They first tried to tear into the shield but they found themselves g and instead followed the glowing tendrils of soul energy b into the , like hunting dogs smelling their prey they followed along my trail. Before I'd been green and ected into the mostly by act but I had much to think about sihen and a sario like this while wasly among them I'd thought of ways to deal with lesser demons. My solution was not too plicated but I didn't have the opportunity to test it yet either. The immaterium wasn't a logical pce as I'd said before, with me p the shield with the power of friendship and all that was evident but I couldn't quite my head around how to apply the more esoteric powers of a Psyker. So I decided to steal, what I wanted was for my attack to not feed the demons instead of hurting them which was a challenging task with soul energy being like a pure maiden pced before a serial rapist that were the demons and the energy that they were made of. My idea was basically Smite-ing them, I'd shoot a bolt of Soul Energy that'd not just dig into them but expend all of its carried energy to destroy as much of the stuff that made up the demon's body. My soul became the ter of a storm, white lightning-like Smites snapped out of it like it was a Tes Coil and to my delight the Smite worked just as I'd wa to. Every demon the bolts of lightning struck got parts of their forms bloart and the wou in its pce burned in white fmes, scorg the very essence of the demons. Dozens of endrils extended down from my soul every sed to fuel the barrier and take the pce of the ones I had to throw away before the energy stabilized the e too much. I was sug in said energy like a giant vacuum er before it could corrode or corrupt my barrier, this caused a huge influx of energy in my pure sea of soul energy but it was getting sed sooner or ter if I wasn't ected to the anymore it'd only be a question of how long it took. The angry waves of the crashing into each other echoed out through out the immaterium but in this one pce, they got lost beh the howling screams of the demons. They'd e for a meal perhaps, expeg it to be free prey or they were just overwhelmed by their hunger fht souls but still, they'd e to devour my soul. I watched on with grim satisfa as they chopped of burning limbs to stifle the fmes before too much of themselves was lost. I couldn't hope to permaly kill them by this but a demon had to spend thousands of years remaking their bodies after a banishment, I hoped I'd at least inveniehese assholes with this. The screams of their brethren didn't stop the rest though, many crawled on, using other demons as a cover or as meat shields as they leapt into a tunnel leading towards the expanding ke of soul energy around me. An iing thing I noticed was that if I just yahe annoyis that tried that and threw them outside of the soul energy there was fuck all they could do. Teically they weren't in the , the immaterium yes but the ? No. My tiny sea of souls worked for them too as a simir enviro but ihingness iween they were helpless. Their wings desperately tried to keep them in the air but they plummeted all the same and sank into the dark waters like pebbles into a pond. Then it happened, with no forewarning the tumultuous froze. The water took on an eerie calm and the surface was as still as ice, my pull on it weakened, like the energy became sluggish and unwilling to move anywhere. I hastily retracted my soul-tendrils, the threat was gone for now and then I saw a glimpse. The still water reflected bayself floating above it but a myriad of maws, cws and eyes, mad with hunger and filled with malicious intelligenbsp;"Motherfucker," I muttered, reiterating my previous thought. The Tyranids were on our doorstep and our ride has dipped without us, the accurate description of our situation was 'neck deep in shit'. I tried searg for any sign of the Wanderer but all I found was the afterimage of a faded tear iy, a ortal opened right where the ship was supposed to be. Well, damn. It seemed like all of my luck had been used up on reination. During all of this, I felt like my stomach was trying to digest rotten food but in this case, my stomach was my soul, the little ke of soul energy had grown into a veritable o spreading far beyond a mortal's eyesight. The whole o was a battlefield of light and dark as I used my white soul energy to disperse and tain energy as I purified it in smaller batches to not overwhelm myself. This was the only reason my body wasn't writhing around on the floor while shivering in overwhelming disgust and revulsion. "Ea!" "Yetting awfully familiar, aren't you?" I raised an eyebrow at Selene who had a deep frown on her fabsp;"That was the fifth time I called out to you," she noted, her brows threatening to meld together on her forehead. "Oh well," I shrugged, "I had something to do." She raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "You know, like proteg your souls from the side effects of some moron engaging a -Drive in the orbit of the p, nothing important." "Thank You?" "You are wele," I nodded, "now care to enlighten me why said moron would ehe -drive on the ship you are presumably the captain of?" Her shoulders slumped at my question, the ever-collected captain not g about her appearance for the first time in my presenbsp;"Listen to this," she said as she handed me a unicator thingy, Vox something. I was still getting familiar with all the weird tech the Imperium used. "Okay," I stared down at the blocky thing, half of it looked like a '90s speaker while the rest had buttons and stuff on it, "how?" Seleared at me for a moment, judging if I was fug with her before she he thing out of my hands, pushed a few buttons and the back with a huff. "Thanks," I said as the Vox crackled to life. "Message to Captain Selene Voss from Ag-Captain Vesper Harken: The Navigator has had a vision of the Tyranid swarm approag, he swears on his life it will be here before we get you bato the ship, it is either abandoning you or dying together. I'm activating the -Drive right after this message and Pray to the Emperor that it doesn't blow us all up. Goodbye Selene." "What an ass," I clicked my tongue as I hahe speaker back to Selene, "guess we are destio bee bug snacks." "Then it is going to be the worst snack they'd ever eaten," Selene's face was dark and I imagihunderclouds orbiting around her head. "That's for sure," I nodded sagely, "I'd give a tummy ache to the big bad aliens, of that I am certain." She pursued her lips, clearly unamused at me making jokes right after our fates had been decided for us before she shook her head, "Call the Magos, tell him what happened and call him back up here to discuss things moving forward." "Yes, Captain!" one Shadow said, his voice crag a bit. I saw the unnatural effects of the Shadow of the Tyranid fleet seep into them, it was more than just a shadow that dampened psychic powers, it was a cloud of malice, evoking fear and desperation that affected every mortal i. "ive: verge on my position instead, my find might just be what we all need." My head sowards the Vox held in one of the Shadow's hands, Zedev's syic voimistakable as it sounded out from it. What did this crazy toaster-licker find? P3t1