This is Our Warhammer Journey

Inside the utterly destroyed arena, the broken corpses of the Deathwatch Space Marines had already been gathered and neatly arranged along the wide central passageway.

The Sisters of Battle softly chanted hymns, draping the corpses with ritual vestments torn from their own bodies, then set them alight.

In extraordinary times like these, there were no grand cathedrals or resounding chorales to honor these fallen warriors.

After much contemplation, Arthur laid down his clearly sacred relics—his power sword and shield—upon an altar constructed from rune-engraved pauldrons.

"Emperor, my Lord, I beg you to shape me into your chosen instrument."

"I do not fear death, I do not fear demons, for the Emperor shall receive me."

"Grant me a righteous path home, grant me a blazing path home."

"Let me be the storm that carries your name, to scatter your enemies utterly."

The clear and reverent voice of the Canoness dispelled the thick, crimson miasma hanging in the air.

Arthur stared at the flame ignited with holy oil, watching it envelop the bodies of the warriors. The initially crimson fire blazed hotter and hotter, turning into a radiant gold as it incinerated the corpses with incredible intensity.

The rising ashes clung to the flames like a molten golden river flowing toward the altar.

The Sisters surrounding him saw this miracle, and the fire of faith flared even brighter in their eyes. They lowered their gazes, veiling their eyes now glowing with holy light, and sang their chants with even more devotion.

As expected—yep, this was definitely stirring up the Emperor.

Arthur wasn't surprised. He quietly watched as the molten gold flame consumed his sword and shield.

The Warp had never fully belonged to the Four Chaos Gods. Compared to the conflicting voices within the Imperium regarding the Emperor's nature, these transmigrators had a far clearer understanding of who the Emperor really was.

He could absorb belief just like the Chaos Gods, had a towering Warp presence like theirs, and even possessed a divine domain called the Golden Throne that rivaled their realms in majesty.

After the Great Rift tore through the galaxy, he, too, could project his forces into the material world like the Chaos Gods deployed their daemons. In fact, because of the depth of humanity's faith in him, it was even easier for the Emperor to do so than for the others.

Well then. If the Emperor says he's not a god, then he's not a god. Whatever he says goes.

Arthur stood in silent vigil, paying his respects to the warriors who had fought and died. When the flames finally died down, his sword and shield were now coated in a matte black sheen from the process.

"Hmph!"

At that moment, Khorne, the Blood God, who had been observing the Great Game, noticed the actions of the "cursed one."

He didn't care.

He was furious.

An unexplainable, gnawing sense of having missed something made his already raging presence even more violent—like when a warrior who had once received his blessing turned and headed for the Golden Throne.

With a slam of his fist on the brass throne's armrest, a tower of skulls collapsed. The sky wept blood.

In the highest heavens of Chaos, the stakes of the Great Game had just been raised again.

CLANG—

Arthur stepped forward and picked up the sword and shield—now radiating with a subdued elegance, their original designs obscured. Within the engraved pauldrons now lay the ashes of the fallen warriors.

It seemed the Emperor had indeed taken notice of them.

Arthur exhaled slowly, relieved that he had asked the Sisters to conduct the rites. In this damned universe, returning one's soul to the Golden Throne was about as good a fate as one could ask for.

Better to believe in the Emperor than fall to Chaos.

"My Lord,"

Canoness Arabella spoke.

"I wish to craft reliquary caskets for the Angels. These caskets will carry their honor back to their brothers."

"…Go ahead."

Feeling his own words were a bit stiff, and still not fluent in the local tongue, Arthur added:

"Thank you."

"…Thank you for granting us this honor, my Lord."

Arabella swore on the Emperor—she had never seen an Angel like this one.

Not that he was wrong or unworthy, but—something about it unsettled her deeply. It felt like a demigod was treating her as an equal. Truly equal.

This was a bond of soul to soul, not just a courtesy wrapped in ritual.

As soon as Arthur finished speaking, the Sisters reverently began to gather the pauldrons containing the ashes. They wrapped the remains in sacred cloth, then activated promethium incinerators.

The fragments of armor melted under high heat and hymn, then were reshaped and reforged into silver caskets adorned with the iconography of the Order of the Sacred Rose. Finally, each casket was inlaid with the fallen warrior's pauldron.

"..."

Their craftsmanship was impressive.

Arthur didn't fully understand these mourning rituals, but he respected them.

As long as it wasn't something grotesque—like flaying people alive, stuffing fake babies, or performing incense baths with angel-skin effigies—he could live with it.

At least, to Arthur, the process of the Sacred Rose Sisters felt genuinely sacred. Nothing heretical or twisted.

"So… is this the Emperor saying he's going to cover for us?"

Romulus had come to his side, immediately noticing that Arthur's gear now matched his own in color scheme.

Everyone had mentally prepared themselves for the possibility of being noticed by the Warp deities.

After all, they dropped straight into the Warp itself. None of them were arrogant enough to think they were the Chosen Ones who could just land here and start punching Star Gods or kicking Chaos Gods around.

Let's be real—crossing into the Warhammer universe didn't make them Chosen Ones. More like Abandoned by Fate.

Still, considering how many secrets they carried, the fact that they'd survived this long in the Warp without attracting daemonic attention—or mutating into Chaos spawn—was pretty impressive.

"No idea," Arthur replied honestly.

He didn't know whether the Emperor had truly noticed them. All he'd intended was to give the fallen warriors a dignified send-off. Who would've guessed that a single prayer would give his weapons a new skin?

The Emperor really did love handing out black swords.

"No issues with alignment, right?"

Arthur asked, brushing off the uncertainty.

"All sorted," Romulus replied, lifting something in his hand.

"This guy was the problem."

Arthur's eyes followed the motion and instantly felt a chill. Romulus was holding the corpse of a psyker.

"So the Gellar field generator really does burn psykers?"

"The Gellar field is basically a psychic membrane that wraps around a ship inside the Warp," Romulus explained casually. "If it's not burning psykers, what is it burning?"

He effortlessly revealed a secret the Adeptus Mechanicus had long yearned to uncover. Tossing the corpse to the floor, Romulus pointed at its back.

There, amid the wreckage left by a bolt round, one could still faintly make out the symbol of the Chaos eight-pointed star.

"The psyker embedded in the generator had been tampered with. There was a pre-made summoning ritual on him. That's how the Deathwatch stationed in the Gellar field got ambushed and wiped out. I also checked the generator's logs—there's a full audit trail."

He looked grim.

"There are traitors in the Departmento Legis and Departmento Munitorum."

"That's not our problem for now," Arthur said, narrowing his eyes.

His instincts told him this whole ship was likely part of a massive conspiracy.

"The priority is getting this ship out of the Warp."

Even though the enemy embedded in the Gellar field had been dealt with, the ship's hull was torn to pieces. If they didn't return to realspace soon, it would become yet another derelict drifting through the void.

Orks, scavengers, daemons, corrupted Imperial citizens, and rogue Astartes—this ship was bound to be a dungeon crawl from hell for any future explorers.

"Exactly. Survival is our top objective now," Romulus agreed, then called out:

"Canoness Arabella."

"I am here, my Lord."

"My comrades and I will return to the Navigator's Sanctum to ensure the ship's transition out of the Warp."

Romulus added seriously, "Until then, I entrust the protection of the Gellar field to the Order of the Sacred Rose. The ship's guards will assist you."

"We shall not fail, my Lord."

"Then we leave it to you."

Offering polite thanks, Romulus and Arthur turned and made their way back the way they came.

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