"Ohhhhhhhhhh~~" I was vibrating, barely holding myself back from doing something embarrassing. Turns out when you have a whole Hive-Ship's worth of genetic samples and the Mental capacity to decode and combine them you can do some crazy things.
But that wasn't all. I was floating in the air at the moment, swimming around like some jellyfish despite the artificial gravity I had going on inside the ship.
Speaking of the ship, I now had giant sails all around covered in Ambull heat and radiation absorbing stuff, who needs radiators or heatsinks when I can just turn excess heat into bio-energy? So now my ship was looking like a long and pointy nail with long tentacles at one and four large sails going from the tip to the back of it.
Back to why I was floating despite the gravity-generating thingy right under the floor here. I didn't even use up soul energy by doing this, I was just letting it course through my newly made Wraithbone bones. That needs a new name too, my pure white bones were both visibly and in essence different from the solidified Warp jizz that Aeldari-made Wraithbone was.
I could go with something uninspired like Soulbone...ah whatever, it fits.
So now that I had Soulbone replacing my whole skeletal structure I could use some minor Psychic powers without actually expending the energy. It took focus and I had to keep my will and image of what I wanted solid but it worked as evidenced by my floatyness.
So far I could only affect my body, as right now I wasn't actually applying TK on my whole body but only on my bones which had some side effects like throwing my brain and other squishy bits about at faster speeds but I had most of that negated with the Eldar physiology and some non-Newtonian fluids inserted into my skull and around my spine. Despite it being Soulbone now it still had functioning bone marrow and nerves running along it so it was somewhat important for my body's functionality.
I also got to replace the useless parts like entrails, guts, stomach and such with more effective bits. I now had miniature Neurothrope brains all around my body which with some Soul Energy or bio-energy — a VERY important detail, 'or bio-energy' — could conjure up a two-layer defense that started with a mental field that either diverted incoming things or slowed them to a crawl if it couldn't manage the first and a skin-vicinity force field which repelled any normal form of damage. I didn't have to worry about anything under a bolter or plasma weapons with this up.
I also added a slew of neural cortexes wired up to my brain to assist me in combat, the most outstanding of these was the Patriarch neural pathways which gave it a budget prescience or maybe omniscience in a limited range. Basically, Spidey senses, or danger sense and the other was the Lictor's fast twitch reflexes which would allow my body to react to said dangers even before my mind became aware of them.
Aside from that, I kept most of the previous Psyker form as it was, Eldar stuff all around with an Eldar brain and hormone system at its core.
Of course, my Combat and Hunter Forms also gained all of these enhancements. I didn't know when it would come in handy with both having carapaces thicker than some tanks but oh well, better having them in a bind than not.
I also made a Symbiotic armor similar to Selene's just with a bunch of layers wrapped over each other to give me a modicum of safety against Necron weaponry. I was still far from feeling safe with those things around the galaxy but I was getting there, if I couldn't tank them at least I might be able to dodge them now. The armor of course could go invisible like the Lictor and had interwoven Psychic pathways through which it could become as hardy as the Hive-Tyrant's carapace.
Some might ask, didn't you have Orkz too in your gene pool? Surely if they were such a widespread and strong race there had to be something useful in their fungal bodies, right? Well, I thought so too and there was but Tyranids and the Aeldari samples fit me much better for any circumstance I might need another form for. The one part of Orkz that I held out some hope for was their longevity which seemed limitless and their reproduction.
The longevity turned out to be sort of a fluke as they somehow used their WAAAAAGHHH!!! to resonate the warp in a way to not let time affect their bodies. Basically, though, they were too dumb to age, they didn't know they should even, so they didn't. On the other hand, reproduction could be a large stepping stone that would help me build myself up. Orkz used spores to reproduce and even from a damned bottle of water a new Ork could be born.
While this made them a nightmare to fight and eradicating them was only possible if the planet was glassed, to me it only meant a single thing. As far as I had some water, I'd have food. I found an infinite bio-energy glitch!! I'm awesome!
There was still more stuff to do but I was already feeling the increasing pull of Baal with the ship's gravity sensors. I still wanted to implant some stuff from the Maleceptor and the Hive Tyrant but those would have to wait until I was sure we had more time. All they could bring me were physical forms better suited to be overclocked in a way that while helpful to preserve my bio-energy, was not all that useful with me already being capable of that with both bio- and soul energy.
Still, if my Warhammer lore knowledge was valid and applicable to this galaxy then my Combat Form should be able to handle an average Bloodthirster without any Psychic assistance or need for Regeneration. With all of my cheats included I should be able to go toe to toe with the Swarmlord.
I was still unsure how I'd measure up to other threats in this galaxy. I knew Primarchs should be varied in strength but all of them should be more than capable of handing the Swarmlord's ass to it, even Guilliman.
Was I fast enough to even see Harlequinn Solitares or Jain Zar, the Phoenix Lord of the Howling Banshees? It was all confusing, Jain Zar was killed by a squad of Night Lord Space Marines but she should be faster and stronger than Solitares who could rip through Custodes, who in turn could rip through a squad of Astartes. Warhammer lore was inconsistent like that. I guess I'll have to see for myself.
"Gather around kids," I let my voice reverberate through the air, this much was getting as easy as breathing with my new staff twirling around me.
Zedev ignored my words and did as he was told, he was a bit battered after the fight with the orcs but somehow he fixed himself up and even managed to repair a few of his energy shield emitters so now he was closer to a walking tank in the shape of a mechanical Arachne than a human.
Valenith's eyebrows and mouth were twitching at my address but he was getting better at either hiding his irritation or getting used to me. He'd be coming along, fuck me if I knew why he wanted to tag along but I wasn't going to say no to this walking library and lore helping me. For a moment I wondered why I didn't feel that same paranoia I did with Zedev for the Eldar.
At the start, I was careful and threatened him quite openly but within a few days, I almost trusted him. I considered mental manipulation but I'd have felt that, I'd have purged that from my body and I didn't even think of the possibility of him manipulating my soul and my thoughts originating from it.
That left an answer I didn't quite like: Instincts. My instincts were a hit-and-miss ever since I was reborn, they helped me survive at times but there were also instances where they insisted on me taking absolutely moronic choices like mind-controlling the entire crew of the Wanderer or eating Selene. They might have seemed fine in the short run but could have bit me in the ass hard later on.
I'd only allow Selene to do that.
She was looking at me with a determined glint in her eyes but there was also a sense of excitement and curiosity radiating off of her aura. My lips curled into an amused smile, she received a few other Tyranid symbiotic weapon templates which she could change between on the fly along with a Bonesword similar to my bio-sword.
With her armor, I wouldn't put it past her to utterly brutalize some Space Marines. A shame her face would be covered during the fight. I should have added the forcefield to her armor and taken away her helmet....but the protection...
I mentally slapped myself on the cheek.
"As you all know we are closing in on Baal itself," I glanced down at my wrist and pulled up my mental clock, "we are reaching Baal Secundus in an hour but we are going to swing around it and head for Baal itself while keeping far from Baal Prime."
"Query: why?"
"Because a big-ass demonic horde is rampaging around on the moon."
"Understood."
"Any other questions?" I looked around and Selene raised her hand. Do not 'awwwww~', do not. Resist.
"What are our objectives?" she asked with a stoic face fitting for a Captain.
"We can't let Chapter Master Dante of the Blood Angels fall," I snapped up a finger to count 1, "I want to eat the Swarmlord which is going to try to prevent us from achieving goal number one," two, "and I want a lock of Guilliman's hair." Three.
All three looked at me with varying degrees of shock.
"Did you say...Guilliman?" Valenith asked with a frown.
"Aren't you a farseer?" I asked back.
"I am not," he retorted, "I am only instructed by one and act out his will."
"Must be annoying," I looked at him with a bit of sympathy, "I heard Eldrad is annoying to deal with."
"Wha-" "Next Question." I cut him off with a smirk. It was a bother to read even surface thoughts from him but the Navigator Eye came in handy. I couldn't have manipulated his thoughts without him noticing but brief glances undetected were doable.
"How do you even think the third one is possible?" Selene asked, "He is dead."
"He is far from dead," I smiled, "and he is on his way to Baal. The only question is whether we are already late or not."
"But-," she stopped herself and sighed, "alright."
"Thanks," I smiled at her trust in me.
"Request: Swarmlord bio-form's genetic sample."
"That is doable," I nodded, "though I want you to get me something in return, if can I want any dangerous flora or fauna from Death Words, especially Catachan if you can manage. I don't even need physical samples but recorded DNA sequences or genetic templates would do as well."
"Acknowledged."
With that done I returned my attention to navigating the ship, by now the outer layer transformed into a Lictor carapace and had us basically invisible but a ship this large would still be detectable with better sensors, not that I thought anyone was in a state to worry about singular ships with the bugs eating their entrails.
Baal Secundus flew by us and I had to take a detour to avoid the first moon and the huge Warpstorm covering it like a protective shell. That was a good sign, it meant the battle wasn't over yet and that the Demons were still on the moon.
It took us an hour but we were now closing in on the planet itself, it had a slew of destroyed or floating fragments of either Imperial or Tyranid Bio-ships but far from the number it should have had. If I remembered right the Demons came when the Great Rift opened and along with them came a violent Warpstorm that didn't just cover the first moon but the whole system for a few minutes and sucked almost all ships in orbit into itself.
With a smile, I sent out small tendrils which expanded and ate up all the wasted biomass floating around. Free food.
One bio-ship though still seemed operational and with only a slight delay it shot out seeker missiles. It must have used manual targeting as most of them flew by me but out of the hundreds that came ten still hit my ship.
I hissed and removed the pain receptors from the armor, those were dumb ideas anyway. The Lictor layer gave way and fragmented along with the Ambull layer beneath it but the third layer made of a composite of hive-ship armor and Hive-Tyrant carapace stood its ground and stopped the plasma-propelled bio-missiles.
My third eye snapped open and gazed at the bio-ship which had a third of its body missing like huge jagged jaws bit a chunk out of it. There were still animalistic souls inside but much less than what a whole ship should have had.
I didn't turn the prow of the ship, a tendril extended to the side and the armor shifted to the side, breaking into scales and layering upon each other to give way to the forming gigantic cannon. It was around twenty meters long and loaded inside it was a plasma-propelled missile with the main load being a single tiny white tendril loaded with bio-energy to the brim.
The cannon fired into the void silently before the bio-ship could load another salvo, I saw the missile draw a searing white line through the darkness of space and impact the bio-ship.
Its side bent inwards as it prowled through its already shoddy armor plates. I watched on eagerly and counted inside my head, I wasn't connected to this specific tendril at the moment so the suspense was real.
3, 4, 5, there!
The ship collapsed upon itself, shattered armoring falling with its supporting flesh absorbed and the hardy armour soon joined it leaving nothing outwardly visible behind of the once mighty bio-ship.
I reabsorbed the cannon and realigned the armoring, molding the scales into a coherent shell once more without as much as slowing our speed.
Ten seconds later I felt a part of myself reconnect, the tiny tendril returned from its voyage and with it came the bio-energy equivalent of a small bio-ship. I smiled or grinned is a more apt description.
It would be risky to use this on more dangerous bio-ships as I didn't know who would win out if they managed to get my cute little tendril into a digestion pool. It could end with the tendril getting a free meal and the Tyranids getting my abilities. Despite me putting one out of a hundred chance of the second happening it wasn't something I was willing to risk just yet.
[Remaining life on full combat capability: 2 months]
That was without me reabsorbing the ship around me too, which should make that number double.
No other ship bothered us as the ship approached Baal.
Where to land this thing?
"Ohhhhhhhhhh~~" I was vibrating, barely holding myself back from doing something embarrassing. Turns out when you have a whole Hive-Ship's worth of genetic samples and the Mental capacity to decode and combine them you can do some crazy things.
But that wasn't all. I was floating in the air at the moment, swimming around like some jellyfish despite the artificial gravity I had going on inside the ship.
Speaking of the ship, I now had giant sails all around covered in Ambull heat and radiation absorbing stuff, who needs radiators or heatsinks when I can just turn excess heat into bio-energy? So now my ship was looking like a long and pointy nail with long tentacles at one and four large sails going from the tip to the back of it.
Back to why I was floating despite the gravity-generating thingy right under the floor here. I didn't even use up soul energy by doing this, I was just letting it course through my newly made Wraithbone bones. That needs a new name too, my pure white bones were both visibly and in essence different from the solidified Warp jizz that Aeldari-made Wraithbone was.
I could go with something uninspired like Soulbone...ah whatever, it fits.
So now that I had Soulbone replacing my whole skeletal structure I could use some minor Psychic powers without actually expending the energy. It took focus and I had to keep my will and image of what I wanted solid but it worked as evidenced by my floatyness.
So far I could only affect my body, as right now I wasn't actually applying TK on my whole body but only on my bones which had some side effects like throwing my brain and other squishy bits about at faster speeds but I had most of that negated with the Eldar physiology and some non-Newtonian fluids inserted into my skull and around my spine. Despite it being Soulbone now it still had functioning bone marrow and nerves running along it so it was somewhat important for my body's functionality.
I also got to replace the useless parts like entrails, guts, stomach and such with more effective bits. I now had miniature Neurothrope brains all around my body which with some Soul Energy or bio-energy — a VERY important detail, 'or bio-energy' — could conjure up a two-layer defense that started with a mental field that either diverted incoming things or slowed them to a crawl if it couldn't manage the first and a skin-vicinity force field which repelled any normal form of damage. I didn't have to worry about anything under a bolter or plasma weapons with this up.
I also added a slew of neural cortexes wired up to my brain to assist me in combat, the most outstanding of these was the Patriarch neural pathways which gave it a budget prescience or maybe omniscience in a limited range. Basically, Spidey senses, or danger sense and the other was the Lictor's fast twitch reflexes which would allow my body to react to said dangers even before my mind became aware of them.
Aside from that, I kept most of the previous Psyker form as it was, Eldar stuff all around with an Eldar brain and hormone system at its core.
Of course, my Combat and Hunter Forms also gained all of these enhancements. I didn't know when it would come in handy with both having carapaces thicker than some tanks but oh well, better having them in a bind than not.
I also made a Symbiotic armor similar to Selene's just with a bunch of layers wrapped over each other to give me a modicum of safety against Necron weaponry. I was still far from feeling safe with those things around the galaxy but I was getting there, if I couldn't tank them at least I might be able to dodge them now. The armor of course could go invisible like the Lictor and had interwoven Psychic pathways through which it could become as hardy as the Hive-Tyrant's carapace.
Some might ask, didn't you have Orkz too in your gene pool? Surely if they were such a widespread and strong race there had to be something useful in their fungal bodies, right? Well, I thought so too and there was but Tyranids and the Aeldari samples fit me much better for any circumstance I might need another form for. The one part of Orkz that I held out some hope for was their longevity which seemed limitless and their reproduction.
The longevity turned out to be sort of a fluke as they somehow used their WAAAAAGHHH!!! to resonate the warp in a way to not let time affect their bodies. Basically, though, they were too dumb to age, they didn't know they should even, so they didn't. On the other hand, reproduction could be a large stepping stone that would help me build myself up. Orkz used spores to reproduce and even from a damned bottle of water a new Ork could be born.
While this made them a nightmare to fight and eradicating them was only possible if the planet was glassed, to me it only meant a single thing. As far as I had some water, I'd have food. I found an infinite bio-energy glitch!! I'm awesome!
There was still more stuff to do but I was already feeling the increasing pull of Baal with the ship's gravity sensors. I still wanted to implant some stuff from the Maleceptor and the Hive Tyrant but those would have to wait until I was sure we had more time. All they could bring me were physical forms better suited to be overclocked in a way that while helpful to preserve my bio-energy, was not all that useful with me already being capable of that with both bio- and soul energy.
Still, if my Warhammer lore knowledge was valid and applicable to this galaxy then my Combat Form should be able to handle an average Bloodthirster without any Psychic assistance or need for Regeneration. With all of my cheats included I should be able to go toe to toe with the Swarmlord.
I was still unsure how I'd measure up to other threats in this galaxy. I knew Primarchs should be varied in strength but all of them should be more than capable of handing the Swarmlord's ass to it, even Guilliman.
Was I fast enough to even see Harlequinn Solitares or Jain Zar, the Phoenix Lord of the Howling Banshees? It was all confusing, Jain Zar was killed by a squad of Night Lord Space Marines but she should be faster and stronger than Solitares who could rip through Custodes, who in turn could rip through a squad of Astartes. Warhammer lore was inconsistent like that. I guess I'll have to see for myself.
"Gather around kids," I let my voice reverberate through the air, this much was getting as easy as breathing with my new staff twirling around me.
Zedev ignored my words and did as he was told, he was a bit battered after the fight with the orcs but somehow he fixed himself up and even managed to repair a few of his energy shield emitters so now he was closer to a walking tank in the shape of a mechanical Arachne than a human.
Valenith's eyebrows and mouth were twitching at my address but he was getting better at either hiding his irritation or getting used to me. He'd be coming along, fuck me if I knew why he wanted to tag along but I wasn't going to say no to this walking library and lore helping me. For a moment I wondered why I didn't feel that same paranoia I did with Zedev for the Eldar.
At the start, I was careful and threatened him quite openly but within a few days, I almost trusted him. I considered mental manipulation but I'd have felt that, I'd have purged that from my body and I didn't even think of the possibility of him manipulating my soul and my thoughts originating from it.
That left an answer I didn't quite like: Instincts. My instincts were a hit-and-miss ever since I was reborn, they helped me survive at times but there were also instances where they insisted on me taking absolutely moronic choices like mind-controlling the entire crew of the Wanderer or eating Selene. They might have seemed fine in the short run but could have bit me in the ass hard later on.
I'd only allow Selene to do that.
She was looking at me with a determined glint in her eyes but there was also a sense of excitement and curiosity radiating off of her aura. My lips curled into an amused smile, she received a few other Tyranid symbiotic weapon templates which she could change between on the fly along with a Bonesword similar to my bio-sword.
With her armor, I wouldn't put it past her to utterly brutalize some Space Marines. A shame her face would be covered during the fight. I should have added the forcefield to her armor and taken away her helmet....but the protection...
I mentally slapped myself on the cheek.
"As you all know we are closing in on Baal itself," I glanced down at my wrist and pulled up my mental clock, "we are reaching Baal Secundus in an hour but we are going to swing around it and head for Baal itself while keeping far from Baal Prime."
"Query: why?"
"Because a big-ass demonic horde is rampaging around on the moon."
"Understood."
"Any other questions?" I looked around and Selene raised her hand. Do not 'awwwww~', do not. Resist.
"What are our objectives?" she asked with a stoic face fitting for a Captain.
"We can't let Chapter Master Dante of the Blood Angels fall," I snapped up a finger to count 1, "I want to eat the Swarmlord which is going to try to prevent us from achieving goal number one," two, "and I want a lock of Guilliman's hair." Three.
All three looked at me with varying degrees of shock.
"Did you say...Guilliman?" Valenith asked with a frown.
"Aren't you a farseer?" I asked back.
"I am not," he retorted, "I am only instructed by one and act out his will."
"Must be annoying," I looked at him with a bit of sympathy, "I heard Eldrad is annoying to deal with."
"Wha-" "Next Question." I cut him off with a smirk. It was a bother to read even surface thoughts from him but the Navigator Eye came in handy. I couldn't have manipulated his thoughts without him noticing but brief glances undetected were doable.
"How do you even think the third one is possible?" Selene asked, "He is dead."
"He is far from dead," I smiled, "and he is on his way to Baal. The only question is whether we are already late or not."
"But-," she stopped herself and sighed, "alright."
"Thanks," I smiled at her trust in me.
"Request: Swarmlord bio-form's genetic sample."
"That is doable," I nodded, "though I want you to get me something in return, if can I want any dangerous flora or fauna from Death Words, especially Catachan if you can manage. I don't even need physical samples but recorded DNA sequences or genetic templates would do as well."
"Acknowledged."
With that done I returned my attention to navigating the ship, by now the outer layer transformed into a Lictor carapace and had us basically invisible but a ship this large would still be detectable with better sensors, not that I thought anyone was in a state to worry about singular ships with the bugs eating their entrails.
Baal Secundus flew by us and I had to take a detour to avoid the first moon and the huge Warpstorm covering it like a protective shell. That was a good sign, it meant the battle wasn't over yet and that the Demons were still on the moon.
It took us an hour but we were now closing in on the planet itself, it had a slew of destroyed or floating fragments of either Imperial or Tyranid Bio-ships but far from the number it should have had. If I remembered right the Demons came when the Great Rift opened and along with them came a violent Warpstorm that didn't just cover the first moon but the whole system for a few minutes and sucked almost all ships in orbit into itself.
With a smile, I sent out small tendrils which expanded and ate up all the wasted biomass floating around. Free food.
One bio-ship though still seemed operational and with only a slight delay it shot out seeker missiles. It must have used manual targeting as most of them flew by me but out of the hundreds that came ten still hit my ship.
I hissed and removed the pain receptors from the armor, those were dumb ideas anyway. The Lictor layer gave way and fragmented along with the Ambull layer beneath it but the third layer made of a composite of hive-ship armor and Hive-Tyrant carapace stood its ground and stopped the plasma-propelled bio-missiles.
My third eye snapped open and gazed at the bio-ship which had a third of its body missing like huge jagged jaws bit a chunk out of it. There were still animalistic souls inside but much less than what a whole ship should have had.
I didn't turn the prow of the ship, a tendril extended to the side and the armor shifted to the side, breaking into scales and layering upon each other to give way to the forming gigantic cannon. It was around twenty meters long and loaded inside it was a plasma-propelled missile with the main load being a single tiny white tendril loaded with bio-energy to the brim.
The cannon fired into the void silently before the bio-ship could load another salvo, I saw the missile draw a searing white line through the darkness of space and impact the bio-ship.
Its side bent inwards as it prowled through its already shoddy armor plates. I watched on eagerly and counted inside my head, I wasn't connected to this specific tendril at the moment so the suspense was real.
3, 4, 5, there!
The ship collapsed upon itself, shattered armoring falling with its supporting flesh absorbed and the hardy armour soon joined it leaving nothing outwardly visible behind of the once mighty bio-ship.
I reabsorbed the cannon and realigned the armoring, molding the scales into a coherent shell once more without as much as slowing our speed.
Ten seconds later I felt a part of myself reconnect, the tiny tendril returned from its voyage and with it came the bio-energy equivalent of a small bio-ship. I smiled or grinned is a more apt description.
It would be risky to use this on more dangerous bio-ships as I didn't know who would win out if they managed to get my cute little tendril into a digestion pool. It could end with the tendril getting a free meal and the Tyranids getting my abilities. Despite me putting one out of a hundred chance of the second happening it wasn't something I was willing to risk just yet.
[Remaining life on full combat capability: 2 months]
That was without me reabsorbing the ship around me too, which should make that number double.
No other ship bothered us as the ship approached Baal.
Where to land this thing?
