What…
was that?
It was a hazy, indistinct shadow, hanging behind Klein where he sat upon the Golden Throne.
It was barely discernible as a dark brown shape, like something charred by coal fire, prostrating itself behind Klein in an ugly, hunched posture.
The shadow it cast nearly swallowed him whole.
What was it?
Klein wanted to see it clearly, but he could not.
All of his psychic power converged in his eyes, yet he still could not make out what that blurred thing truly was.
What are you?
Klein asked the dark brown shadow.
…Man…
sorrow…
Fragmented sounds drifted down from above the Golden Throne.
Every word seemed to carry the searing heat of a star, plummeting from the heavens and crashing into Klein’s will, setting every nerve ablaze.
The pain was nearly on par with sitting upon the Golden Throne itself.
A silent shriek tore from Klein’s throat.
He was falling, falling toward the ground, falling back to reality.
A heavy thud rang out.
The candlestick toppled, its flame extinguished.
Wax cooled upon the floor, and the incense within the burner had long since burned away.
In the dim triangular chamber, Klein clutched his head.
His clothes were nearly soaked through with sweat, his legs trembling faintly.
Phantom pain, agony, dizziness, dread…
a storm of chaotic emotions surged through Klein’s mind.
What…
was that?
Behind the Golden Throne, behind Klein, there had been something else, something that crouched low, shrouding him almost entirely with its body.
Behind the Golden Throne, behind Klein, or rather, behind the Emperor Himself, how could such a thing exist?
Klein massaged his temples, easing the pain in his head.
Whatever it was, it was not something he could perceive clearly now.
His psychic power was still far too feeble.
Merely glimpsing that thing’s blurred silhouette and hearing its fractured voice had made his very soul feel as though it were burning.
If he wanted to see it for what it truly was, he would likely need to further strengthen his psychic power.
To be honest, Klein already had a vague suspicion of what that thing might be, but he did not dare dwell on it.
He dared to mock the Chaos Gods, because he trusted the Chaos Gods lacked the means to breach the Golden Throne.
But that thing…
if it truly was what Klein suspected…
The Dark King…
the name flashed through Klein’s mind for an instant.
Son of a bitch, Big E…
he couldn’t really have left him a landmine this colossal, could he…
What did this feel like?
It was like someone using the toilet before you had failed to flush, then crammed a firecracker into the filth, and this firecracker could go off at any moment.
What was worse, he did not even know for certain whether the filth was there at all.
Klein gritted his teeth.
Damn it all.
If it really blew up under his ass, then so be it.
Everyone could die together.
Klein was certain that when the time came, there would be someone far more desperate than him.
At that thought, Klein shook his head, severed his train of thought, and forced his attention elsewhere.
He had successfully crossed the Warp.
At this moment, Klein’s body had established a true connection with the Warp.
He had become a gate suspended between the Warp and reality.
Under normal circumstances, they can exploit the Warp’s psychic power through it.
But if they lose control, their very body becomes a gateway for daemons to invade reality.
That said, Klein was not particularly worried about this.
A secondary reason was that the Warp near Macragge was relatively calm and far less dangerous.
The primary reason was, though greater psychic strength made it easier to become a door for daemonic incursion, he had never heard of any witless daemon choosing to walk through the door of the Emperor Himself.
Klein could not use the Emperor’s psychic power, but at any moment, he could pull the consciousness and psychic power within this body back onto the Golden Throne, leaving behind only an empty, soulless shell of a corpse.
And any daemon attempting to walk through the door of Klein himself would, nine times out of ten, be dragged right along with him onto the Golden Throne to enjoy the hospitality.
Klein directed the Warp’s psychic power to flow slowly into his body.
His senses sharpened, keener than before…
Not the ordinary five senses, but senses that transcended reality, a blurry sense that could dimly glimpse the future.
This was the psychic talent of a diviner, classified by the Inquisition as a psyker of the Divination discipline.
Such psykers excelled at piercing the torrents of time and destiny, foretelling the course of the future, manipulating probability, and bringing down certain…
forms of misfortune upon their enemies.
Beyond that:
There was Biomancy, adept in the ways of flesh and blood, shaping the bodies of oneself or others by will alone, mastering cells, controlling the internal energies of living organisms.
Pyromancy, the manipulation of flame and heat, skilled at immolating enemies with the daemonic fires of the Warp, even transforming one’s very body into pure, blazing fire.
Telekinesis, adept at converting psychic power into pure physical force, moving objects with thought, generating force fields, releasing kinetic energy.
And Telepathy, skilled at infiltrating the minds of others, forging mental links, tampering with perception, distorting memories…
even turning others into puppets.
This was the kind of psyker who might have been controlling the scholar earlier.
Though there were some more unusual psykers, whose talents lay in more dangerous and rarer fields like Daemonology, these five classifications accurately covered the vast majority of psyker talents…
If it were not for the fact that this classification was clearly just the five Cult disciplines of the Thousand Sons during the Great Crusade, rebranded with different names, Klein might actually have admired the Inquisitor who invented it.
Mm…
Klein attempted a few of the lesser psychic spells Greyfax had taught him.
He succeeded in levitating the candlestick before him and in awakening a memory within his own mind.
Telekinesis and Telepathy.
The scholar’s psychic talent lay primarily in the Telekinesis discipline, with a lesser affinity for Telepathy.
This put Klein in a rather awkward position.
He hardly knew any spells from these two disciplines.
Telepathy was slightly better, Greyfax specialized in Telepathy, and while teaching Klein spells from the Divination discipline, she had taught him a little on the side.
But for Telekinesis, Klein knew at most a handful of lesser psychic spells.
He almost entirely lacked knowledge of the higher-level disciplines, leaving him utterly unable to bring the scholar’s talent in Telekinesis to bear.
Conversely, with the Divination discipline, because the scholar’s psychic power had flowed into him, Klein’s Prescience had been considerably enhanced.
Within the Inquisition, there are two systems for classifying psykers.
One is a system that purely evaluates psychic power levels, using a total of twenty-four grades ranging from Ω to A.
Among them, the seven grades Ω, Ψ, Χ, Φ, Υ, Τ, and Σ denote negative psykers, which is to say, the levels assigned to Untouchables.
Ρ is Grade 0, serving as the baseline for ordinary humans.
Grade 1 is Π, termed the inert psychic level, and its bearers are not regarded as true psykers.
Above this, from Grade 2 (Ο) to Grade 7 (Κ), individuals are classified as low-order psykers.
In theory, they should be subject to Inquisition control, but because such psykers are as countless as the stars themselves, managing all of them is practically impossible.
Fortunately, most pose no real danger.
Grade 8 (Ι) and above marks those who truly need to be taken by the Black Ships for training and screening.
When Klein was only a diviner, he originally stood at Grade 7 (Κ), the limit of the low-order psykers.
But after being discovered by Greyfax and undergoing training, he reached Grade 8 (Ι).
Now, having fused the psychic power of both the scholar and the diviner, Klein considers himself to be at Grade 9 (Θ), or approaching that level.
Apart from this classification of psychic power itself, the Inquisition has another classification system that targets psychic technique proficiency.
The five common psychic disciplines are each divided into six tiers.
Of these, Telepathy and Divination, both closely intertwined with the mind, share the same rating scale:
respectively: the Crimson Layer, the Golden Layer, the Silver Layer, the Esoteric Layer, the Silent Layer, and the Gloaming Layer.
Klein’s Divination can reach the third tier, the Silver Layer, while his Telepathy sits at the second tier, the Golden Layer.
The grading for telekinetic arts, meanwhile, is: Grammarian, Rhetorician, Debater, Trivium Master, Quadrivium Master, and Supreme Magister.
Klein’s telekinetic arts are roughly at the first tier, Grammarian. Read this novel at novelping.com for the best experience.
Klein pressed his fingertip to the center of his brow, his pupils sharply contracting.
He activated a Divination psychic spell called “Prescience.”
The spell’s effect was exactly as its name implied: Prescience.
By peering into the future through a psychic lens, one could see the web woven from countless intersecting possibilities and pluck fragmentary visions of the future from it…
Shattered Blackstone…
an Obelisk…
a lighthouse…
twinkling stars…
Fractured, disjointed images flickered before Klein’s eyes.
He saw a towering mountain rising from verdant earth, piercing the clouds like a lighthouse.
He saw, ahead of him, a powerfully built man with short golden hair walking forward, lifting his head to gaze up at that mountain.
He also saw Dita, somewhat older than she was now, standing at his side, holding a clay tablet in her hands.
The tablet was inscribed with Macragge’s cuneiform.
“Lighthouse.” Klein faintly heard Dita’s voice.
Lighthouse.
Suddenly, a blinding glare enveloped Klein’s vision.
The piercing radiance cut through the metal.
The mountain, that towering mountain was looking down upon Klein.
It was…
Lighthouse
We are the Lighthouse
The shattered Lighthouse
You are looking at us
We are also looking at you
The mountain’s voice, something like sound, yet entirely different, resounded.
Klein was certain it was absolutely not psychic.
It was…
it was someone speaking through space-time itself.
Endoskeletal cavity housing matter-immatter interaction organ faces the light
Incomprehensible words rose, then gradually thinned within the future Klein was witnessing, until they vanished entirely.
Klein slowly pulled his finger away from his forehead.
Lighthouse…
He turned the word over in his mind.
His first reaction was the Astronomican, lit by the Emperor in the days to come.
But what he had just seen in that premonition did not feel like the Astronomican.
After all, he was far too familiar with that thing.
It was so close to him that it scorched him with agony day and night, just as loathsome as the Golden Throne.
If it was not the Astronomican, then was it something else?
Klein let out a soft breath.
It would seem that Macragge, too, was a place where great talents converged!
(Translated by yourtl.app)
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TL NOTES — WARHAMMER LORE GUIDE
Some references in this chapter draw on Warhammer lore that may be unfamiliar to some readers.
The notes below provide the context needed to understand them without leaving the page.
ORGANIZATIONS
Black Ships — The Inquisition’s fleet of psyker-collection vessels.
They roam the Imperium gathering strong psykers (Grade 8 and above in this fanfic’s scale) for screening, training, or sacrifice to fuel the Astronomican on Terra.
To be “taken by the Black Ships” is the fate awaiting any psyker the Imperium considers too powerful or dangerous to leave at large.
CONCEPTS / TERMS
Untouchables — Also called Pariahs in canon.
Rare humans born with the opposite of psychic talent: their mere presence dampens or nullifies psychic powers and disturbs daemons.
The Inquisition values them as bodyguards and assassins against psyker threats.
In this chapter’s grading scale, Untouchables occupy the negative grades (Ω through Σ).