Chapter 7: This Is Not the Warp

Tyrone Hive Primus

"Where's the psyker?!"

Qin Mo's gaze swept the battlefield, his senses sharpened to a razor's edge. He searched for the enemy psyker—the one who had whispered into the Hybrid commander's mind—but found nothing.

No lingering psychic resonance. No Warp disturbances.

Nothing.

His brow furrowed. A psyker had warned the enemy. That much was certain. And yet, there was no trace of them.

He turned and addressed the stunned PDF soldiers inside the hab-block.

These troops had been fighting the rebels for hours, but they had only seen one psyker today—Qin Mo himself.

"Get out of the open!" A PDF officer rushed down from the second floor, calling out to him. "We need to hold this position together!"

Qin Mo ignored him.

Standing unshielded in the crossfire, he simply adjusted the gravity shield on his back and swept his gaze across the exhausted, terrified soldiers.

They had been pushed to their limits by the relentless assault. Their eyes betrayed fear and fatigue.

Qin Mo knew he needed to do something to restore morale.

His gaze met Grey's.

Grey nodded silently. He turned to the remaining four surviving soldiers of the 44th Regiment, and they silently stepped forward, forming up behind Qin Mo.

Each stood three meters apart, careful not to overlap their gravity shield fields.

"The best defense is a good offense," Qin Mo declared, turning toward the onslaught of rebels charging at him.

He walked forward.

Grey and the others advanced alongside him, firing their weapons with a calm and disciplined brutality.

Though they acted fearless, a sliver of doubt gnawed at them. The gravity shields allowed them to walk through hails of bullets like they were strolling through a park… but what if the enemy had lasguns?

Grey's fears were soon confirmed.

He spotted a cluster of rebels wielding lasguns, their weapons aimed at Qin Mo. He turned to warn him—

—only to realize that Qin Mo had already accounted for this.

Within a 500-meter radius, the laws of probability were no longer absolute, the very laws of physics bent to his will.

Under his selective reality manipulation, the hit probability of every incoming lasbolt was mathematically reduced to zero.

Lasgun fire veered off course, deflecting harmlessly into the ground.

Qin Mo took ten more steps forward.

Then, he raised his staff and slammed it into the earth.

A torrent of flame erupted forward, spreading in a wide fan-shaped inferno.

Metal melted.

Bodies were reduced to ash.

From the windows above, PDF soldiers watched in awe as an entire wave of rebels was erased in seconds.

Qin Mo raised his staff again.

He pressed the ignition switch on his chainsword, and as its teeth spun to life with a savage growl, he declared:

"For the Golden Throne!"

His unyielding figure stood defiant amidst gunfire and artillery shells, untouched by either.

Atop his staff, the golden Aquila of the Imperium gleamed in the firelight, casting a divine radiance over the battlefield.

The soldiers inside the building felt their blood boil.

They believed—the Emperor Himself was watching them from the Golden Throne, expecting His warriors to prove their courage.

"For the Emperor."

A spark ignited.

"FOR THE EMPEROR!"

A deafening war cry erupted as the PDF troopers surged forward, rushing out of the building with fanatical fervor.

....

Qin Mo led the charge, gravity shield deactivated, chainsword tearing apart every enemy in his path.

His fearless assault only fueled his allies' fervor—they fought not just to survive, but to be worthy of charging alongside him.

But in reality…

Qin Mo was barely standing.

His body felt like lead, his limbs sluggish and numb.

His eyelids were so heavy that turning his head took all his remaining willpower.

He was exhausted.

The sheer effort of rewriting the laws of physics—bending an entire battlefield's probabilities to nullify lasfire—had drained him completely.

And then—

He encountered the enemy he feared the most.

Not a hulking Genestealer aberrant…

…but a small, wretched, purple-skinned creature, crawling like a grotesque parody of Gollum.

A Neurogaunt.

One of the most dangerous threats to psykers in the Tyranid gene cults.

It had a singular, terrifying ability—

Warp Disruption.

"Chitter∼... Chitter∼..."

The Neurogaunt scuttled onto the back of a rebel cultist, its beady eyes glowing with a sickly purple radiance.

It locked eyes with Qin Mo—even from a hundred meters away.

It was already activating its Warp-nullifying ability.

Qin Mo instinctively braced for the backlash.

And then…

Nothing.

The Neurogaunt's ability had no effect on him.

The two simply stared at each other.

The silence was deafening.

"…?" (Neurogaunt.)

"…?" (Qin Mo.)

For a moment, the alien creature's expression shifted—a clear look of confusion.

Qin Mo raised his staff and unleashed a storm of lightning, incinerating the Neurogaunt and everything within a 30-meter radius.

....

He scanned the battlefield.

The rebel forces—already leaderless—were beginning to collapse under the fanatical counterattack of the PDF.

The rear guard started to break and flee, though many still fought desperately.

Qin Mo decided to shatter their morale completely.

He rose into the air, energy crackling around him.

And then—

Within a 50-meter radius at the center of the enemy formation, reality began to unravel.

The metallic ground beneath their feet turned soft like a sponge, then melted into liquid, drowning those who stepped on it.Armor plating pulsed and shifted, flowing through veins like blood, or spilling like liquid metal onto the ground.Bullets fired at the PDF suddenly changed direction, looping backward to strike their own shooters in the head.Bayonets stabbed outward—only for the rebels to suddenly find themselves impaled by their own weapons.

Within seconds, every single cultist in the affected zone was dead.

The remaining rebels—those who witnessed this horror—finally broke completely.

Screaming in blind terror, they fled in all directions, abandoning their weapons as they ran.

Even the Planetary Defense Forces, who had been fighting alongside Qin Mo, stared at him in horrified silence.

When he finally descended back to the ground, only Grey and the four remaining 44th Regiment soldiers stood by him.

Everyone else had instinctively stepped back, keeping a careful distance.

Qin Mo exhaled shakily.

"…This… isn't the Warp."

His voice was weak.

No one understood what he meant.

No one knew why he had said it.

Only Qin Mo himself knew—

The Neurogaunt's nullification ability had failed to affect him.

Which meant—

His power was not psychic in nature.

But if it wasn't Warp-based…

Then what the hell was it?

The soldiers and officers still stared at him in fear.

"He just saved your damn lives!" Grey snapped at them, furious. "You'd all be dead, torn apart by the rebels—just like the rest of the 44th Infantry!"

Shame flickered across their faces.

They were grateful.

But they were also afraid.

"I need… to rest," Qin Mo muttered.

He stumbled forward, nearly collapsing. He barely managed to keep himself upright by leaning heavily on his staff.

The fight had drained him completely.

Only sheer willpower kept him on his feet.

Grey rushed to his side, taking his chainsword and gravity shield pack to lighten his load.

"He's right," a large soldier finally muttered. "He saved us."

He moved to carry Qin Mo, but Qin Mo simply handed him his staff and leaned on another 44th Regiment survivor for support.

The remaining medics rushed to check his condition, while the others hurried inside—clearing a room for him to rest.