The Hammer of War, Chapter 54

Name: Amir Azad
Title: War-Summoner
War Points: 0

STR – 47
DEX – 40
VIT – 161

—

“What do you think of Raynare?” Alexandra asked.

The two of us stood on the balcony of our condo, watching Seoul stretch out beneath us. Rows of high-rises blinked with a thousand little lights, cars crawled along the streets like ants that never slept, and the city hummed with that strange mix of calm and noise that only really big cities ever seemed to manage. The air was crisp, colder than it had any right to be, and I decided I liked it. For now, at least.

The real question was how long we’d actually get to enjoy it. Every new place felt temporary, like we were already halfway out the door the moment we arrived. It didn’t matter how good the view was or how well we’d set ourselves up. Eventually, something—or someone—would come sniffing. And when that happened, we’d leave. That was just the way of things. The next stop was Japan, assuming we didn’t get derailed somewhere along the way. Until then, this patch of Seoul belonged to us.

Raynare had passed out an hour ago, and I should’ve been thinking about what she said. Instead, my mind kept circling the bigger picture. Most of her information wasn’t new; it was the sort of background noise you picked up by simply existing in this world long enough. The only fresh piece was that Sacred Gear removal spell, and that was… useful, but not game-changing. The real weight on my mind was the question of what came next.

Specifically, whether or not it was time to take a crack at the Khornate Dungeon.

The idea had been gnawing at me since the System flagged its existence, but my memory of the Slaaneshi Dungeon was still too fresh. That whole fiasco had left me with about as much enthusiasm for another Chaos god’s playground as one might have for chewing glass. Khornate meant blood, violence, and more violence stacked on top of the violence. Which sounded doable, honestly, but I didn’t want a repeat of the last mess where things went sideways because I underestimated how insane it all was.

I exhaled slowly, watching the mist of my breath vanish into the night, and turned to Alexandra.

“I think she’s useless now,” I said. “We should just kill her. But I’m guessing you have other ideas?”

Alexandra nodded. “I am not one for waste and killing Raynare, no matter how satisfying it may be for the both of us, is a waste of effort and resources.”  

“We could make use of her. There are many ways to brainwash an unwilling subject and I am well-versed in most of them. Or,” she added with a small shrug, “we could simply use [Mindshackle Scarabs]. Efficient. Clean. We would turn her into our slave, a prisoner in her own body. Her powers are interesting, and they would be of benefit to us if we utilized them well.”

I scratched my chin. “If you say so. Raynare’s about as useful to me as an umbrella in a gunfight, but sure. Do with her as you will, I care not. She’s not human; her life holds no weight.”

Alexandra’s lips twitched at the corner, before she grinned.

“Still,” I went on, “that Kokabiel fellow she mentioned sounded like someone worth tracking and keeping an eye on. Assuming her ramblings weren’t just a side effect of getting her face repeatedly rearranged, he and his organization, Grigori, sounds like bad news.”

“I’ll send a message to the Great-Slayer Granthi and ask him if he knows more,” Alexandra said. Both of us had a means of direct contact with the Great-Slayer Granthi and, by extension, the Sikh Demon Hunters. “Until then, we prepare. You need to get stronger, Amir. There are forces in this world that possess powers far beyond either of us—for now.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s been on my mind. I’m thinking of tackling the Khornate Dungeon. The System thinks I’m ready, but I don’t think I am. So…” 

I leaned forward and stared at a distant police car, sirens blaring, and the white sports car it was chasing through the streets. It looked fun. Street racers, perhaps? “I’m going to revisit the Slaaneshi Dungeon. I can handle it now, but I’ll keep running it until it feels easy. On and on, until I can defeat the final boss with just my pinky finger. Then I’ll move on to the Khornate Dungeon.”

Alexandra tilted her head in thought, then nodded. 

“That sounds… reasonably wise. And,” she added, crossing her arms, “you could use more experience with actually commanding your units, instead of relying on yourself all the time.”

I winced. “That again?”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “That again. You keep acting like a one-man army, but you’re a Summoner. That’s akin to having a tank and then walking into battle with a bolt-pistol because you think it looks cooler.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “It does look cooler.”

“It does,” Alexandra sighed. “But coolness is not a survival strategy. Or a strategy at all, actually.”

“Tell that to every action movie I’ve ever seen,” I muttered.

Her cybernetic eye whirred softly as it focused on me, which somehow made the silence worse.

“Fine,” I said, throwing up my hands. “Next time I’ll use the Carnifexes and all the other little goodies I have in my basket. Happy?”

“No,” she said without missing a beat. “I’ll be happy when we’ve purged this world of all the non-human filth that corrupts it. But I’ll take what I can get.”

I breathed in. “Well, no time like the present.”

The world blinked sideways, and the Slaaneshi Dungeon unfolded again in front of me. Same desert. Same cracked red-purple sky. Same ugly rocks that looked like someone had tried and failed at landscaping. Even the stars above hadn’t moved—still foreign, still twitching faintly in ways that made no sense if you’d taken a single astronomy class.

I wasn’t wasting time. One thought, and the army spilled into being behind me. The evolved Ork Nobz appeared first, bigger than ever, green skin stretched over muscles that made them look like they’d been bench-pressing tanks for fun. The Gargantuan Squiggoth slammed down next, a living mountain with armor plates thicker than any bunker door. Then came the Carnifexes, claws scything at the air just to remind everyone they existed, and the Exocrene, already drooling acid like a busted chemical plant.

Behind them, the Cadian Stormtroopers snapped into perfect formation, rifles raised, their armor polished enough to make me feel underdressed. The Drukhari Incubi arrived with their usual flair for being both menacing and quiet at the same time. The Culexus Assassin appeared last, and the whole squad of soldiers shuffled half a step away from him on instinct. Good choice, really. Nobody sane liked standing next to a walking black hole for psychic energy.

The horizon rippled. Daemonettes emerged by the dozen, their forms twisting and twitching as they ran. I’d seen them enough times by now to know exactly what came next—lots of screaming, lots of slashing, and usually one or two of them trying to jump on me personally for reasons I’d rather not think about.

“Kill as many of them as you can,” I said. “Don’t stop until we’re done.”

The Nobz grunted in approval, the Carnifexes roared, and the Stormtroopers just gave the kind of disciplined nod that said copy that, sir, time to go die again.

I activated my [Blank] aura at full power, the pressure of it spreading out across the desert like the room had suddenly run out of oxygen. Every Daemonette that came too close started to twitch like someone had pulled the plug on their nervous system. Their claws still clicked, but their movements lost that unnatural smoothness.

I summoned the [Tau Rail Rifle] into my hands. The weapon hummed as the charge built. It was big, heavy, and still the best option here. Sure, the [Exitus Rifle] was precise, but I wasn’t looking for surgical tonight. I wanted holes the size of car tires and enough piercing power to line up the Daemonettes like skewers at a barbecue.

I raised the rifle, aimed, and fired.

The sonic crack split the air, a clean thunderclap that echoed off the rocks. The round punched through the first wave like a stick through wet paper, scattering limbs and ichor across the sand. The recoil wasn’t bad, but the shockwave still rattled my teeth.

Behind me, the Nobz barreled forward like a wall of angry muscle, swinging cleavers and tearing Daemonettes apart by the handful. The Squiggoth bellowed, stomped forward, and flattened three of them without even trying. The Stormtroopers opened fire in clean bursts, each shot finding its mark. The Carnifexes joined the brawl, claws snapping and acid spittle hissing wherever it landed.

And the Culexus Assassin just walked into the swarm, his mere presence enough to make Daemonettes scream and collapse into twitching heaps before they could reach him.

I led the charge with another shot, the rail round tearing through another cluster, their bodies folding before they hit the sand.

“Kill them all!” 

It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t subtle. But it was effective.

And honestly, after everything I’d been through lately, it felt pretty damn good to just point at the problem and say, “shoot it until it stops moving.” I could’ve gone with a more disciplined attack, like the last time. I could’ve funneled the Daemonettes into a killzone and blasted them apart with controlled fire. But this chaos… all of it… this was precisely the sort of thing that would force me to grow stronger. 

I didn’t even realize I’d been roaring as we charged through. My throat was raw, but the sound just kept coming out, so I let it.

A Daemonette lunged at me, sword swinging, pincer snapping, both aimed straight for my chest. I ducked low, twisted underneath, and squeezed off a single round. The shot tore through its torso and split it apart in a burst of shredded limbs and cheap-looking flesh.

The lower half flopped to the dirt like a broken toy. Out of habit, I reached down and activated [Soul Siphon].

Error. Inapplicable.

“Yeah, figured,” I muttered.

These Daemonettes weren’t the real deal. They were constructs. System fodder. NPCs dressed up in meat suits. They moved, fought, and bled convincingly enough, but they didn’t have the one thing I actually wanted—souls. That meant no boosts, no stat gains, nothing to siphon. Just more XP-less mobs in an endless wave.

Oh well, I already expected as much anyway. The System was a part of me. I could not drink from myself.

I raised my weapon and fired again, the recoil nudging against my shoulder with a satisfying thump. Another Daemonette dropped in a heap, legs kicking twice before going limp.

Behind me, one of the Carnifexes roared back at the horde. It didn’t sound like mine was holding back either. The beast smashed its claws into two of them, lifted, and flung their bodies into a nearby rock wall. Alexandra, somewhere off to my right, muttered something I couldn’t hear, her bolt pistol spitting sharp bursts of fire into the swarm.

I stepped over the twitching remains of the last one I shot and sighted another. One squeeze of the trigger and it burst apart, black ichor spraying across the ground and across my boots. The stench rose instantly, sharp and acidic. I looked down at the mess, grimaced, then gave a half-smile.

“Well, that loot better be fucking worth it.”

I raised my left hand and caught the Gargantuan Squiggoth’s tusk as it lumbered past, the thing shaking the ground with each step. The creature barely noticed me hanging off it, but my grip was firm enough to haul myself upward. I scrambled over the rough hide and slid into the empty howdah strapped onto its back. From there, the battlefield stretched out in full view. A wasteland of shattered terrain, burning wrecks, and Daemonettes shrieking as they charged into the grinder.

I braced the Exitus Rifle against the railing and picked them off one by one. Heads burst. Chests caved in. Limbs flew. The Squiggoth kept moving, smashing through knots of enemies without breaking stride. For a solid hour the killing went on like that. By the end, the ground below looked more like a butcher’s yard than a battlefield.

And then the boss showed up.

The System didn’t even get the chance to flash its name. I didn’t need it. A Keeper of Secrets towered above the lesser Daemons, claws flexing, tongue lashing, eyes already locked on me like it knew who had done the most damage here.

“Right on cue,” I muttered.

I ordered every one of my remaining units to fire. Carnifexes roared and the Exocrene belched bio-plasma, Shocktroopers let loose disciplined volleys, and the Ork Nobz sprayed and prayed. Explosions shook the ground, ichor sprayed, and chunks of Daemon-flesh flew.

The Keeper staggered, but I knew better. This thing was not gonna die so easily. It could regenerate and it would keep regenerating for a long time. 

So I prepared something special.

I sent the Squiggoth back into my [Inventory] with a thought, the howdah vanishing under me as I dropped to the ground. I hit hard, rolled, and came up running. The Keeper noticed, towering bulk twisting toward me, claws digging trenches into the dirt as it charged. The air shook with its bellow.

I grinned and summoned the Squiggoth right on top of it.

One hundred tons of green hide, bone, and iron crashed straight down. The Keeper’s eyes widened—almost human in that final moment—before it disappeared under the bulk of the beast. The impact rattled my teeth, dust exploding outward in a wave that knocked lesser Daemons flat. The ground itself groaned beneath the weight.

The Squiggoth bellowed once, triumphant, then shifted its massive shoulders and settled down like it had just found a comfortable resting place. The Keeper was gone. Crushed. Flattened. Pinned under a mountain of flesh with no room to regenerate.

I exhaled, adjusted my coat, and muttered, “Try regenerating from that, bitch.”

Dungeon Quest Completed! Regular Boss Defeated! - 10,000 War Points Rewarded!
Choose your reward!

1. Weapon

2. Artifact

3. Unit

Huh, I was not expecting this.