Upon hearing this, Heydrich was not moved in the slightest.
This wasn’t the Stars of Calamity—Nurgle had not personally descended onto the field.
So whatever was orchestrating all this was most likely a Greater Daemon, or perhaps not even a Greater Daemon at all, but merely a band of the Death Guard.
What’s more, even if Nurgle himself were to descend in person, he need not dream of being able to whisper into Heydrich’s ear.
“The disciples of the Blood God have already overrun the under-hive.
They will spread madness and slaughter across the entire planet.
Your great family will all become skulls offered up to the Blood God—it seems we may have no way of joining you.”
Pulling Irena behind him, Heydrich spoke unhurriedly as he gazed at the Mortal Champion of Nurgle before him.
His voice was as steady as if he were reading aloud a piece of routine official paperwork—neither raised nor lowered, as though the figure standing before him were not a pus-soaked Champion of Chaos, but merely an ordinary acquaintance bumped into at the market.
This attitude was itself the best disguise—fear exposes weakness, hostility provokes attack, but indifference and an impartial recitation only makes the other party feel you are simply conveying a neutral piece of bad news, and that he happens to be the one who needs to hear it.
Sure enough, as Heydrich’s words fell, the smile on the Mortal Champion of Nurgle’s face finally vanished.
The Imperium, and indeed many humans, believed that the Imperium and Chaos were locked in a 1v4.
But in reality, the sides were a 1v1v1v1v1.
Indeed, the hatred between them exceeded their hatred for the Imperium of Man—a secret that many did not know.
So very often, if a planet was troubled by Chaos, it was generally a single brand of Chaos.
And if any other faction’s followers were present, then those rivals would be the priority targets of that particular Chaos cult.
To use an inappropriate metaphor: if the souls of mortals were lambs, then Chaos cultists were a pack of wolves, all mutually hostile and each wanting to devour the lambs alone.
Unless the Dark Gods behind them had reached some sort of agreement, they would absolutely prioritize attacking one another.
As for the masters behind them reaching an agreement, as far as Heydrich knew, the last time that had happened was ten thousand years ago, during the Horus Heresy.
“Most blasphemous heretics run rampant in the under-hive—I thank you for the tip.
So long as you are willing, the gates of the Grandfather are forever open to you.
Everyone, to protect the harmony of this planet, come with me to the under-hive.”
Sure enough, after only a moment’s thought, this Mortal Champion of Chaos could sense it.
The voice from the highest heavens was filled with loathing and hostility toward Khorne, and so in an instant he turned his priority target toward the Khorne cultists of the under-hive.
The boundless horde of Poxwalkers also began at this moment to gradually turn their steps, marching toward the border where the under-hive met the wastelands.
As for Heydrich, he dragged Irena along and floored the accelerator, charging off without lingering for even a single second more.
“Hah, hah, hah…”
It was just that, along the way, Irena was now panting heavily in great ragged breaths.
It was clear that being unable to open fire upon seeing heretics made her feel she had betrayed her own faith.
She should have perished together with those filthy things in mutual destruction, rather than fleeing here in disgrace.
And it was right at this moment that Irena suddenly realized something and turned to look at Heydrich.
“Why do you know so much?”
“Because I am a Pariah—only the lowest grade of Pariah.
I cannot do what the Sisters of Silence do, forming that powerful anti-Warp field around themselves.
All I can manage is to protect myself.”
Hearing this, Heydrich was spouting nonsense with a perfectly straight face.
Pariahs, too, came in all ranks and grades.
Just as most of the Imperium’s subjects were in fact psykers—merely the lowest grade of psyker.
In truth, many were not even classified as psykers at all, and it was much the same for Pariahs.
The Sisters of Silence in particular stood almost at the very pinnacle of Pariahs, but there were also some exceedingly feeble Pariahs.
“No wonder you’ve always carried out missions alone.”
Hearing Heydrich’s words, Irena thought for a moment and then nodded.
Because she had not sensed the slightest trace of corruption from Heydrich—if he were a Pariah, then that was no problem at all.
But the very instant she accepted this, Heydrich himself was momentarily stunned.
Because a Pariah’s field really had formed around his body, which gave him the urge to bury his face in his hands.
“There’s definitely something fishy about this Path of Enigmata—and you actually believed it.”
Though inwardly utterly speechless, the Path of Enigmata was simply like this.
So long as you make the other party believe you, then you will gain the corresponding power; but if you are seen through by them, then this ceases to exist.
Of course, to avoid trouble, Heydrich could actively shut it off, so after thinking for a while, he went ahead and turned all of it off.
A Pariah causes others to instinctively loathe you, and the numbers in which they are born are in fact no fewer than the psykers.
But the problem is that, much of the time, they don’t even live to adulthood before being beaten to death by others.
The Pariahs who can be discovered and protected are only a very small fraction.
Heydrich didn’t much want to be stared at as a freak, but the sensation of that brief instant just now had also confirmed Irena’s own conjecture.
If the man before her was a Pariah, then it was indeed possible for him to know things that ordinary people could never know.
On top of that, she had read his file and knew he had always worked alone.
He had completed all manner of dangerous missions, among them not a few involving out-of-control psykers and Chaos cultists.
To have gone through so much and yet suffered no corruption—this seemed highly abnormal, but if he were a low-grade Pariah, then such a possibility did indeed exist.
Thinking this far, the look in Irena’s eyes as she regarded Heydrich grew far more at ease, and she then put the boltgun away.
Her small gesture made the corner of Heydrich’s eye twitch—it was clear that this Sister had set aside her wariness toward him for the time being.
But at the same time, there was a flicker of confusion in her heart: how had this man so utterly suppressed her?
Irena lowered her head and glanced at her own wrist.
The lingering force of Heydrich’s grip just now had not yet fully dissipated, as if a pair of pincers sturdier than power armor had welded themselves there for a moment and then withdrawn.
She had seen no shortage of the private soldiers of Sector Governor families, but most of those were well-trained mortals—at most a band of veterans clad in finely-crafted armor, not one of them able to suppress the recoil of her gun-holding wrist with a single hand, let alone while she was wearing power armor.
It was just that, right at this moment…
BOOM!!!
A massive explosion blasted open directly in front of the two of them, and Heydrich instinctively slammed a foot down on the brakes.
Then, to his somewhat startled discovery, the road before them had now completely collapsed.
And from within it, a pack of bloodthirsty madmen came charging out.
“Blood for the Blood God, skulls for the Skull Throne!!!”
Amid shout after shout, this crowd of people charged toward the two of them, utterly fearless of death.
“What the hell, these people blew up the under-hive?
How long has it even been?”
Gazing wordlessly at that great throng of madmen blocking his way, Heydrich was about to swing the vehicle around—except that at this very moment.
BANG!!!
Accompanied by a gunshot, someone—he had no idea who—fired and blew apart the vehicle’s engine outright.
The car Heydrich was driving was no military vehicle; naturally it couldn’t withstand being directly singled out by a lasgun.
At the same time, countless Poxwalkers also launched a charge toward this throng of Khorne cultists, and now he and Irena were trapped directly in the middle.
“Get out of the car—we’ll cut our way through.”
Though full of helplessness in his heart, the situation had already come to this.
To stay here was to court death, so the only option was to cut their way out from another direction.
It was just that, at this moment, only one thought occupied Heydrich’s mind: what on earth was still going on with this Hive City Kuent world—and watching it now, it seemed that thanks to his own bout of meddling, it was developing straight toward outright chaos.
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