I Am the Mourning Raven

"Abnormal casualties detected. Red alert."

Commander Hill keenly noticed the slightest changes on the battlefield. The display before him constantly refreshed with battlefield updates, the most important of which were the vital signs of the Astartes.

He could coordinate troop deployments across the entire battlefield at once—where the enemy was particularly troublesome and needed more support, where Space Marines had suffered mortal wounds and required reinforcements and Apothecaries.

And now, to his horror, he discovered that Space Marines on one fringe of the battlefield were suffering abnormal casualties.

In barely ten minutes, more than ten Astartes had already died. Among them were White Scars, Ultramarines, and even an Iron Hand providing long-range fire support from the rear.

"How did an Iron Hand stationed at the rear of the battlefield die? Strange. This is deeply unsettling."

But the flood of signals pouring through the communications channels soon answered his question. The Space Marines and mortals watched in horror as their own warriors, after killing an enemy, began to mutate and melt, transforming into the likenesses of the dead foes.

This plague of death was spreading without cease. Whoever killed him would instead allow the enemy to be reborn through their body.

The Astartes saw familiar faces among their former comrades, writhing in extreme agony atop that malevolent armor.

They had once trained together, saved one another’s lives, drunk and laughed together, and spoken of their dreams for after all the traitors had been slain. But now, it was all gone.

They had defeated the enemy, yet the enemy was reborn through them in an unimaginably grotesque manner.

This was unparalleled blasphemy, an unforgivable hatred.

"That is evil psychic sorcery. These traitors who have cast themselves into the embrace of the Warp are best at such methods," Lox said.

At the very start of the battle, he had withdrawn to the rear and begun mobilizing the war base’s defensive installations and the warships in the skies to support the front lines.

A psychic passage opened beside him, and Usran, still bearing the smoke and grime of battle, stepped out.

"That enemy is no ordinary foe. He is the favored child of that Chaos God. I can feel the incomparably dense favor upon him."

"Lucius of the Emperor’s Children. I saw his existence in prophecy. He was the one who massacred the Iron Hands, Salamanders, and Raven Guard during the slaughter on Isstvan V."

Usran removed his helmet. He could not confront Lucius head-on.

"My apologies. When we Aeldari face the servants of the Prince of Pleasure, our power is suppressed to an extremely low level. Even I cannot erase Lucius," Usran said apologetically. "Especially when that Chaos God is casting part of His attention upon him. The moment I approach, He will discover me."

Lox nodded, showing that he understood Usran’s predicament. Asking the Aeldari to directly confront the youngest god was simply asking too much of them.

He also gained a deeper understanding of certain details—the Warp god seemed to be the natural bane of the Aeldari, to the absurd point that even Usran did not dare face Him directly.

This innate suppression left the Aeldari extremely passive when confronting Warp monstrosities. Humanity was different; at the very least, they could still wield most of their strength against the enemy.

"Be careful of him. The Prince of Pleasure will not allow His beloved toy to die. Even if he is killed, Lucius will be reborn through the one who killed him." Usran told Lox what he had learned through foreseeing the future.

"Unconditional resurrection? That’s completely ridiculous." The news immediately gave Lox a headache.

How were they supposed to fight that? Even if the enemy was killed, he could possess someone else and resurrect within moments. This was impossible to deal with.

"Not exactly. The blessing of a Chaos God is not quite that absurd. There are conditions to his resurrection." Usran shook his head.

"Lucius’s resurrection is a form of soul theft. He has received the favor of the Prince of Pleasure, and the power of the Warp god grants him the privilege of rebirth—" Usran said gravely. "So long as the person who kills him feels even the slightest pleasure or satisfaction, they will become a soul claimed by that Screaming Soul Armor."

Space Marines were still human. Though their emotions had been suppressed to the utmost limit by genetic modification and long years of training, they still possessed emotions.

Their yearning for victory, their devotion to glory, their loyalty to the Emperor, their reverence for their gene-fathers…

It could be said that they were genetically enhanced warriors free from base desires. They did not possess mortals’ greed for wealth, obsession with food and drink, need for lewd lust, or desire to wield power.

"What if he is killed by an indiscriminate bombardment?" Lox seized upon a blind spot. What would happen if the thing that killed Lucius was not even human?

Usran merely sighed. How could the Prince of Pleasure leave such an obvious weakness?

"Then he will simply be reborn directly. So long as the Chaos God’s favor remains upon him and His gaze continues to watch over him, he will return infinitely."

Lox drew a deep breath. These Warp abominations truly had no regard for reason.

Then who on their side could deal with such an exceptionally troublesome enemy?

Nykona Sharrowkyn prowled across the battlefield, moving through the shadows, his trail impossible for anyone to detect.

Whenever battle-brothers fell into bitter combat, Barabas Dantioch would emerge from the darkness. His arrival was so abrupt that even the loyalists did not notice the Mourning Raven entering the fight.

They only saw traitors who had been fighting moments before suddenly freeze in place, their heads severed from their bodies, or split apart without warning into chunks of flesh scattered across the ground.

Whether they were frenzied, brutal Noise Marines, the few traitors who still retained the neat appearance of the Emperor’s Children of old, or even Hellbeasts consumed by the desire for destruction, none could halt Barabas Dantioch’s advance.

He merely swung his C’tan phase sword, or fired a lethal gauss beam from within the shadows, and the enemy fell at his feet.

He was death’s shadow. Wherever he passed, traitors died without a sound.

And now, the appearance of Lucius, who was inflicting devastating casualties upon the loyalists, naturally drew most of his attention.

Barabas Dantioch swiftly descended upon the enemy. His dim, lightless power armor emerged from the shadows; Lox had equipped his friend with the most advanced technology, enough to block the vast majority of scans.

He did not hesitate for even an instant. Their blades collided as he struck straight for the enemy’s vital points.

To his surprise, when his ever-victorious C’tan phase sword met the long blade that looked like a xenos weapon, it did not sever the opposing weapon. It merely chipped a small notch into it.

Lucius’s pale eyes immediately turned toward the Raven Guard emerging from the shadows.

"A descendant of Corvus Corax… I remember your kind. On Isstvan V, I killed—" Lucius suddenly seemed to choke on his words, his entire body twitching as though in a seizure. "I killed many of you, and you are next."

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lucius, the flawless blade of the Prince of Pleasure…"

As he muttered those words, Lucius’s Blade of Laer launched its counterattack. Its treacherous, vicious swordsmanship struck out like the fangs of a venomous serpent.

But Barabas Dantioch moved like a ghost. The shadow-step inherited from his primarch, combined with the breakthroughs in technique he had forged through years of life-and-death combat, caused every one of Lucius’s strikes to miss.

How was that possible?

The wildly exhilarated Lucius immediately wore an expression of utter shock.

Lucius had believed his swordsmanship unmatched, yet even his proudest techniques could not so much as graze his enemy.

Barabas Dantioch’s ghostly footwork made Lucius feel an unprecedentedly icy killing intent. He was silent, yet lethal attacks could descend at any moment.

In his anxiety, Lucius’s usual mockery and insults died in his throat. He clamped his mouth shut, eyes wide, every muscle and every shred of focus fused as one as he tried to sever the head of this detestable Son of the Raven with his Blade of Laer.

But Barabas Dantioch was faster!

In the blink of an eye, his collarbone was pierced, then his heart and lungs, then his neck, then his spinal cord. A deep gash appeared across his handsome face, even cracking the bone beneath.

By the time the pain arrived, Lucius realized he had already been struck. He had not even sensed where Barabas Dantioch’s attacks had come from.

Yet such wounds were not enough to kill him. The powerful Warp energy surrounding him blurred the C’tan phase sword’s absolute cutting power.

Lucius furiously swung his Whip of Torment. Formed from lesser daemon entities and organs, the weapon carried immense malice and could pierce armor to strike directly at the soul.

But Barabas Dantioch had long since noticed that. A longer weapon had greater reach, but a shorter one was more dangerous at close quarters. With a power sword in one hand and a C’tan phase sword in the other, he closed directly against Lucius and engaged in the most perilous combat within inches of him.

Lucius’s whip and Blade of Laer could not be properly wielded. The two grappled and fought upon the ground, and the Son of the Raven unhesitatingly slammed his head into Lucius’s face. This arrogant Emperor’s Child wore no helmet, and Barabas Dantioch’s beak-like faceplate instantly smashed Lucius’s lips and teeth apart, sending blood spraying from his nose.

While his opponent was stunned, Barabas Dantioch knocked aside the enemy’s guard. The C’tan phase sword pierced Lucius’s ribs from the side and burst out through his back.

Lucius was knocked to the ground, collapsing into a limp kneel. Barabas Dantioch crossed both swords against his neck.

Then, for the first time in war, the son of Corax spoke.

"To me, you are nothing. Just a mad dog that needs putting down."

The power sword pierced through the ceramite armor and stabbed into his heart. Its crackling disintegration field reduced the organ to ashes, while the C’tan phase sword cleanly severed Lucius’s head, sending it spinning across the ground like a top.

After beheading this enemy, Barabas Dantioch once more melted into the darkness. He did not care in the least who this man was. Aside from being a tiny bit more troublesome than the other Emperor’s Children, there was no difference at all.

It was a casual act that brought him no pleasure whatsoever.

Leaving not a trace behind, he vanished into the shadows once more.