This travel is horrendous.
People motivated themselves to do better for the rewards gained by their efforts, Maximilian being one of them. But for Maximillian of today, the greatest motivator is the punishment of falling from grace.
Right now, he felt like luggage. The only benefit he had over a Null was being a Touched, the creation line had chosen him. He was so near the next step it hurt. A few years and he would become a Blessed, being a conduit for the line he always dreamed of, sadly his younger brother didn’t have such a luck.
Feeling anger, Maximillian tries to find a better position on the spaceship, but with no luck, the only thing he got was to make the fake leather emit annoying noises.
Claudius, always the happiest of the family, knowing he had earned a neutral line has broken him, but nothing broken him and us more than being banished from our clan. From the work of petty politics, no less, a not named family that didn’t want to earn the chance by valour, but with bribe and promises!
Doing his best to control his rage, Maximillian takes a look at the cursed symbol of his uniform, a sign of hope and despair in equal measure. The weight of the real meaning only understood by the subjects of the Empire. Inside a circular emblem dust was drawn, almost fuelling entirely, but in the top a bird beak, the beak of the Phoenix of Creation can be seen, the symbol of the Emperor.
For me to rise through the ranks of the Blight, the effort will be double, but you can be sure that there will be way fewer politics than these accursed clans. Here you just need to show what you have, and be sure to lose the less of yourself you can.
Dreaming about the past, Maximillian remembers how his late father told them, of the other side of the symbol of the emperor, the Phoenix of Creation defying death. If the main symbol shows the invincibility of the Phoenix that multiplies to the infinite, the other side shows the Phoenix struggle, body full of wounds, exposed fractures, bones and organs peaking out, the dark gold blood more prevalent than the gold feathers and flesh.
“To earn this”, I remember my father saying. “That is our second way to reach the top boys, to have a chance again to meet the Emperor in the flesh, the greatest blessing of them all. The price is unimaginable; the time is unaccountable, but to serve the Emperor is easy as breathing, without it we fall.“
“It would be so much easier to rise the family to the upper clans. It would be easier that is if father hadn’t fallen against these abomination lovers’ cultists. Fuck!…Sorry father.”, even the relaxant being pumped in his veins wasn’t enough to stop him venting his frustrations.
“It doesn’t matter. I will rise, I will have the full Blighted Phoenix in my chest, have my revenge and meet the Emperor. But for now, I will assure the safety of Claudius on this doomed planet and do my mission. Fucking abomination cultists. Why they need this fucking planet?”
Saying that, Maximillian relaxes and starts meditating again, trying to improve his knowledge of his spells, simulate his battle style, and being sure he was ready for what would come next.
——————
Far away, near Ptolemy 7, the Fallen Chimera cultists are in a space fight against the Emperor of Creation forces. The bulk of Emperor’s units strength in this confrontation was made of the Blight, the Fanatics only being a quarter of the forces focused on controlling the Emperor’s army.
The fight is evenly matched, as the technology of the Emperor's forces and their materials showed their strength as blasts of energy are created from nothing from the strangest of places.
This was the only deterrent to the monstrous strength of the cultists. Fleshy spaceships, with mutating canons assimilating mouths of magical beasts, showering the Emperor squadron in cursed flame and most varied form of matter, as if defying their rule of creation in this space.
Domes of gold light envelope most of the emperor’s ships to protect against the onslaught, but some aren’t so lucky.
The fight continues, loss after loss, reinforcement after reinforcement, strategy after strategy. The scope unknown to Maximillian as he meditate until his arrival on the planet.
——————
“Captain… you won’t like what I will show you, but… come with me”, one individual of his Blight team calls for Maximillian.
Reaching the point where his subordinate, the sight that greeted him was nauseous. If not for the power armor he was wearing right now, he would be vomiting because of the smell, he was sure of that. These people seemed to have been dead for days. Most of them weren’t people though, dead Nulls could be seen everywhere.
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The corpses, they seemed strange, like something was done to them. Before he could scan what happened to the nearest body, his subordinate called to him again.
“Please captain, check this body, but I warn you, you wouldn’t like what you will find”
Going where his subordinate indicated, the most eye-catching was the blond hair of the corroded body, full of insects consuming what remained of the body.
“No…no…NO FUCKING WAY…Wh-who did that? Why would someone do THIS?”, the scan didn’t lie. That was his brother Claudius. He couldn’t control the vomit and tears flowing from him, his power armor starting automatically to deal with the cleaning.
He stopped the flux of gastric acid in seconds, but the tears were hard to deal with. “Armor, just stop, let me cry in peace, I ORDER YOU”, the armor stops obeying its master command.
Maximillian put his hand on his nape, “Why would someone harvest him? The system scan indicates that it was with the help of the system, these accursed cultists don’t use it, and neither one of the Blight would be here.”
“I agree captain, and I doubt anyone, including the human guards and staff, would accept being submitted to a system engram. The only thing I could think of is—”
“A Null. I heard about the insurgence happening all across the universe, the Nulls being one of them. The damage these Nulls are doing to the Empire, and the other forces that are employing their use, is increasing.”, Maximiliam suspected as much.
Maximillian tries to compose himself more, straightening his posture, ”I even heard of the mass of bound beasts attacking their owners of Tamer’s Enclave faction. If not for our contract, that would be the perfect time to eliminate then”.
“We could say that to any faction, Captain. Everything is a mess.”
“And we are here to fix this Null mess.”
“Captain, we aren’t here for it.”
“It won’t cost much to deal with it during the mission if they show up, one less nuisance to the Empire.”
His other squad member slaps their palm on the power armor’s visor, “We need to focus on the mission, you as our captain, should remember that.”
Maximillian reigns in the anger bumbling out, only needing a few seconds. It takes more than that to shake me, and in the future it will take much more.
“I know. It seems these Nulls are harvesting and increasing their power without the Empire permission, so eliminate them on sight. Take your weapons out”. As he says that Maximiliam takes the chainsaw gun, commonly used by the Blight, even Fanatics use this armament, though many deem it as a weapon for brutes.
Maximillian takes a moment to appreciate the weapon. During his service in the Blight, he started to appreciate the ingenuity of it. A big assault rifle customized to function like a bayonet, but instead of having a blade, it has a chainsaw on the lower part.
The thing was beautiful. Red body with details in gold, it was mesmerizing. The weapon is of peak-VIII Tier of the Touched incarnation, the same as his armor. He was better equipped than his squad, but they weren’t badly equipped either for their incarnation after all. They all are in red armors and detail in gold, the color scheme of the Blighted.
The quality of the equipment, though, just raised his caution.
These cheapskates obviously arm ourselves with the lowest expense possible. Even when our clan was rewarded with that legendary weapon, it was a joke. Claudius rest his soul, probably tried to deceive himself. By the looks of it, he underestimated how crappy the weapon was.
Why are they spending this much on us? Obviously, this expense is nothing for the empire, but the Blight is always armed with trash. Maximillian takes a long look at the weapon before finishing his musings.
“You. Do the ritual. This place is a mess so you can put everything on holy fire, even if this Nulls doesn’t deserve it.”, he points to another of his subordinates.
“But sir, the time—”
“The faster we do it, the faster we leave, so go and do it. I know you worries have reason, but stop the insubordination, or I will have to act”, he makes a point by lifting his gun lightly.
It didn’t take long for his subordinates to cleanse the place with holy fire. Before the flames extinguished, they were already in the way to their destination.
“Look at this. This accursed system finally gave me a blessing. The amulet is just inside the research station.”
"I wish I have the time to torture these wretched Nulls, but the cleansing will have to do.”, Maximillian says that, as the system’s scans of his nape stop indicating the location of Claudius’ amulet at his request.
The Blight squad was on the surface of the main entrance of the research station at the foot of the central mountain. There ancient gray structures mix with the new technological ones. Beasts and Nulls corpses could be seen in flames all around it.
Trying to test the defense and the access using them was met with failure, the gates showing no reaction. One of the Blight’s team members was just typing on an entrance terminal near the gate, to see what was the situation.
“Captain, the access they gave us is only for visitors. We can’t access the defense systems from here.”
“That cheapskates at least anticipated that. Seems we will have to hack it personally. Relax soldier, they gave us enough of the security data, as it seems we will need it. I will give them to you. But remember. This knowledge is confidential, if we fail this mission, they will get ride of us. I suppose you guys already suspect that anyway.”
Maximillian took out various instruction manual copies and gave to his twenty squad-mates, all taken from his personal spatial bag.
“Use cognitive drugs. You have 10 minutes to cram this information in your heads, then we are going in”.