Klein took the stack of cards from Tule’s hand.
Thirty-two cards remained in the deck.
Klein didn’t really understand things like card counting, that required a certain foundation in mathematics, and whatever math Klein had known had been returned in full to Archimedes, Descartes, Gauss, Euler, and the other ancestral sages the moment he graduated in his previous life.
Greyfax had told Klein he could study some mathematics in the future, that certain divinations would require calculation, but Klein never found the opportunity before he died.
But truthfully, Klein didn’t think this would affect his divination ability.
After all, the mathematics level of the great sage and supreme master of the numerology world, Mortarion, was at the grade of seven-times-seven-is-forty-nine, while Klein was a mathematical powerhouse capable of calculating 13×13＝169, his divination ability presumably wouldn’t be limited by his mathematics level.
He tapped his temple a few times with his fingers and looked at the deck.
Spirit Vision…
could also be considered a foundational skill among Divination psychic abilities.
With a single glance, Klein knew the remaining card distribution in this deck was unfavorable to him.
Of course, with Lucky’s blessing, this slight disadvantage wouldn’t affect Klein’s victory.
But he was in no hurry to deal; instead, he smiled and looked at Tule and Cicero, saying:
“Gentlemen, I’ve noticed your luck isn’t very good today.
I happen to have a little trick for changing one’s fortune, would you care to hear about it?”
Tule and Cicero looked at each other, but Klein’s psychic power had already silently planted a suggestion of trust in their minds, making them unconsciously begin to believe Klein’s words.
Klein’s consciousness had been lingering in Tule and Cicero’s minds, guiding their actions while simultaneously reading their recent memories.
He saw things that utterly disgusted him, the young girl on the platter, the trembling, weeping child slaves, the blood-soaked skin made into leather shoes…
Klein’s gaze swept over the red leather shoes on Cicero’s and Tule’s feet.
Klein was not really a person of strong moral convictions, especially after transmigrating into the Warhammer universe and enduring that torment upon the Golden Throne, he had long since become numb to many things.
He also believed that the vast majority of people, if made to sit upon the Golden Throne for just one second, would find nothing in life impossible to let go of.
What were life’s troubles compared to the agony of the Golden Throne?
Robbery, theft, fraud, gambling, murder, and even far more vile things, Klein could face all of them with a calm mind, without many stirrings of particular emotion.
Toying with Cicero and Tule just now, for instance, wasn’t really about venting on behalf of his predecessor, he was mostly just looking for amusement.
But there was one thing Klein still treasured.
He treasured living peacefully and without pain.
Only after sitting upon the Golden Throne did Klein understand the preciousness of an ordinary life.
He even wished that everyone could live peacefully and without pain.
And when a person, someone who had committed no wrong, even a child, was made to die in torment and agony, Klein truly felt some genuine unhappiness.
Why should a person be tortured for no reason?
Klein could not accept this.
Those who had done no wrong should not be made to suffer, this was now Klein’s small bottom line.
And for this, Klein would absolutely send the two of them a grand curse.
“I recently joined a new sect, its name…
the Big E Snake-Oil Cult.”
“This sect believes that in the galaxy there is a vicious, debt-dodging, human-life-spending-as-currency-as-he-pleases, locking-an-old-man-on-a-toilet-for-a-full-day-and-night, even-his-own-son-sees-him-as-a-tool, venomous demon king Big E.”
“Do you know just how many unspeakable atrocities he’s committed?
Do you know what he did to his own sons?”
“His Seventeenth Son built him a city, and he blew it to ashes.”
“His Fourteenth Son’s foster father liked to fart, so he beat the man to death right in front of the Fourteenth Son.”
“His Fifteenth Son was the most pitiful of all, just because a phone call disturbed him going in and out of a corridor, Big E set dogs on the son to stomp his back.
The body wasn’t even in one piece anymore; his grandson had to piece him back together himself.”
“The most pitiful is his Sixteenth Son.
A fine child, this one, he rose up against his father, had him beaten too, but in the end Big E, utterly shameless, pulled the ultimate master-class fake-out, played dead and struck from behind, stabbing his Sixteenth Son to death with a little dagger.”
“But this Big E, despite his mountain of evils, finally got his comeuppance.
He was beaten into paralysis and can never stand again for the rest of his life.
Yet he still refuses to give up, every single day looking for scapegoats to take his place…
The reason you two have had such rotten luck lately has to be because Big E has set his sights on you.”
Tule and Cicero stared blankly at Klein as he talked a blue streak, but for some reason, Klein’s words seized their attention completely.
“So how do we resolve this?” Tule asked instinctively.
“Big E bullies the weak and fears the strong.
The simplest approach is to curse him away.” Klein raised a finger and wagged it before Tule and Cicero.
“Come now, curse him alongside me, out loud!”
“Murdered his own uncle as a boy, fatherless, motherless.”
“Stole his brother’s sheep, never paid a single coin.”
“Seduced the very gods, seized custody of the children.”
“Founded the human Imperium, on Terra, the self-styled False Emperor.”
“Built the Golden Throne, burned Malcador alive.”
“Wrote dwarf jokes, earned a place in the Book of Grudges.”
“Let loose wild dogs to bite, snapped Magnus’s spine.”
“Goaded Loken into whispering poison in the Warmaster’s ear.”
“Burned Monarchia to the ground, led Guilliman on the path.”
“How many chapters more to record all his crimes?”
“How much loyalty would it take to be shown innocent?”
Tule and Cicero shook their heads in bewilderment.
They could not quite grasp what Klein was saying, but they could feel that this Big E…
was indeed nothing good.
Klein struck an encouraging pose, signaling the two of them to join in the cursing.
“Big E, you whore.”
Cicero first tried uttering one curse, and then felt as though something heavy was lodged deep in his heart, oppressive and unbearable.
Thinking of the money he had just lost, that heaviness in Cicero’s heart seemed to grow even more burdensome, and that curse he had just uttered appeared to open a channel for releasing this pent-up fury.
“Big E, you motherfucking, fatherless wretch, your whole family died when you were young, your brothers backstabbed you when you grew up, your wife ran off after marriage, and the son you raised turned out an ungrateful bastard.”
Was that going too far?
Seeing Cicero suddenly launch into it from a standing start, Klein was startled himself.
Though he had nudged things along, cursing that filthily, as expected of a man of culture…
Cicero didn’t care.
The more he cursed, the fiercer he got, as if spewing such venom could truly vent his resentment.
Even Tule got swept up in it and started cursing along with him.
Seeing the heat was just right, Klein raised a hand, signaling them to keep listening.
“In truth, Big E has four accomplices: the cowardly runt Khorne the Cripple, the stupid illiterate Tzeentch the Stutterer, the vicious murder-freak Nurgle the Clean, and the ugly bore Slaanesh the Kitchenmaid.”
“You have to curse them all together for the best effect.
Come, repeat after me…”
“Cowardly runt Khorne the Cripple, you’re a deserter who fled the battlefield eight times, a witchcraft-practicing scumbag, your courage is less than a single Gretchin’s.”
“Stupid illiterate Tzeentch the Stutterer, you’re a moron who can’t count past nine, a one-track-minded fool, your wisdom is less than a single Ogryn’s.”
“Vicious murder-freak Nurgle the Clean, you’re some cat-torturing freak who bathes seven times a day, who crushes every ant you see on the roadside, your love for life is less than a single Skaven’s.”
“Ugly bore Slaanesh the Kitchenmaid, you’re a prudish, boring little kitchenmaid, even the Necrons know how to have more fun than you, and your seductive power can’t even match a single Nurgling’s.”
Cicero and Tule followed Klein in cursing viciously.
Tule held back a little, but Cicero cursed with real venom.
True, Klein’s psychic nudging played a part, but looking at it this way, the man had truly lost his mind over gambling.
Klein raised his eyes slightly and used Spirit Vision to glance at the energies around them.
Eugh…
what a disgusting mass.
The pitch-black Doom brewing around them had grown nearly as thick as tar, almost forming some kind of Warp entity.
Faintly, Klein could even hear the thing emitting a piercing, grating wail.
And this was on Macragge, where the Warp was weak.
Were they in the Eye of Terror, they’d probably have already exploded into a bloody mist, their consciousness stretched and dragged out, stuffed into the Warp to suffer eternal torment and agony.
Of course, even here on Macragge, with Doom this heavy, they would likely still die in agony, and after death, when they sank into the Warp…
that would surely be quite the spectacle.
What Klein had employed was a technique from the school of Divination known as the Doom technique.
Under normal circumstances, on Macragge, this Doom technique would at most cause the two some minor misfortunes, losing a little money or the like.
But Klein had made a few small modifications.
Cursing, reviling, blaspheming against the gods, in every civilization, these are considered the surest ways to invite Doom.
Klein had just guided them into simultaneously reviling and cursing the Emperor, Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaanesh, and the cursing had been exceptionally foul.
Even if the gods themselves hadn’t turned their gaze upon them or actively sought to punish them, the Warp backlash alone was a terrifying force of Doom.
Not to mention the daemons and Daemon Princes under the gods’ command, who had no qualms about punishing them on their masters’ behalf. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Even through the thick veil, they still hurled powerful curses at Tule and Cicero.
Klein merely rode that great tide, using the Doom technique to guide and fasten this Doom firmly onto Cicero and Tule.
And so, their lives were thoroughly ruined.
As for Klein himself, when he cursed just now, he had deliberately withdrawn a bit more of his will back toward the Golden Throne.
The words of his cursing against the gods were mingled into the terrifying psychic waves emanating from the Golden Throne, making it nearly impossible for any being in the Warp to detect them.
And even if they did…
Klein welcomed them to come to the Golden Throne and settle accounts with him.
He would be most welcoming.
“Mm…
eh?” Klein discreetly glanced at the futures of the two.
Tule would likely die within a day or two.
As for Cicero…
he would actually live for quite a long time still, several months.
But Klein could clearly see that the Doom upon Cicero was even thicker than that upon Tule…
just what was this boy going to endure over the next few months?
“Shall we keep gambling?” Klein said, picking up the playing cards in his hand.
“Fine.” Cicero nodded.
“After cursing the way you taught me, my luck’s already starting to turn.”
“Right, right.” Klein smiled in agreement.
(Translated by yourtl.app)
─────────────────────────────────────────
TL NOTES — LORE GUIDE
Some references in this chapter come from source universes that may be unfamiliar to some readers.
The notes below provide the context needed to understand them.
PRIMARCHS REFERENCED IN THE CURSE
Seventeenth Son (Lorgar Aurelian) — Primarch of the Word Bearers.
Built the city of Monarchia in the Emperor’s honor as the heart of his Imperial Cult.
The Emperor, who rejected being worshipped as a god, ordered Monarchia razed to the ground by Guilliman’s Ultramarines as a public humiliation.
This event pushed Lorgar toward Chaos.
Fourteenth Son (Mortarion) — Primarch of the Death Guard.
Raised on the toxic deathworld Barbarus by the warlord Necare, whom he called father.
Mortarion attempted to kill Necare himself in single combat, climbing the toxic mountain alone, but collapsed from the poison atmosphere before reaching the peak.
The Emperor then slew Necare on his behalf, denying Mortarion his vengeance.
Mortarion never forgave this.
Fifteenth Son (Magnus the Red) — Primarch of the Thousand Sons.
After psychically detecting Horus’s coming betrayal, Magnus used forbidden sorcery to warn the Emperor, breaching the Emperor’s psychic wards and ruining his secret Webway Project.
The Emperor sent Leman Russ and the Space Wolves to arrest Magnus and bring him to Terra, but Horus pushed Russ toward destruction instead.
The Burning of Prospero devastated Magnus’s homeworld and left Magnus psychically shattered into shards.
Ahriman, one of Magnus’s gene-sons and chief sorcerers of the Thousand Sons, later helped recover several of these shards.
Sixteenth Son (Horus Lupercal) — Primarch of the Sons of Horus, Warmaster of the Imperium.
Led the galaxy-wide rebellion known as the Horus Heresy.
He mortally wounded the Emperor in their final duel aboard the Vengeful Spirit.
Older summaries of the lore often present the Emperor as hesitating, holding back, or appearing weakened before finally destroying Horus with a decisive psychic blow.
The chapter exaggerates this into a joke where the Emperor fakes weakness and shamelessly strikes Horus down from behind.
OTHER CANONICAL REFERENCES
Malcador the Sigillite — The Emperor’s closest advisor and trusted Regent.
During the Siege of Terra, while the Emperor went to confront Horus aboard the Vengeful Spirit, Malcador took the Emperor’s place on the Golden Throne to keep its psychic functions stable in his absence.
The Throne consumed him over the course of the ordeal, reducing him to a withered, ruined husk while he held on long enough for the Emperor to return.
After the duel, the Emperor took Malcador’s place on the Throne.
Book of Grudges — In Warhammer Fantasy/The Old World, the Dwarfs keep the Great Book of Grudges, a sacred ledger of every wrong ever done to their people.
To be recorded in it is to become the target of a grudge that the Dwarfs will not forget until it is repaid.
Loken (Garviel Loken) — One of Horus’s closest captains and personal friends, and the most prominent loyalist voice in the early Horus Heresy novels.
Before Horus’s fall, Loken was the Legion’s voice of strict obedience to the Emperor and his doctrine of the Imperial Truth.
When Horus turned to Chaos, the conspirators in the Legion deemed Loken too loyal to bring into the plot and purged him with the other loyalists at the Isstvan III virus bombing.