Warhammer Cultivation: Cultivating the Tao Te Ching in the 40K Universe

Even more terrifying, behind those endless cultists, a taller and more terrifying figure slowly emerged!

That was... a Tzeentch wizard!

His body had long been completely twisted by the power of the warp! His skin was covered with small, blinking eyes, full of intelligence and malice! Behind him stretched out a pair of enormous wings made of pure, ever-changing psionic flames!

In his hand, he held a staff twisted from countless wailing souls, filled with paradoxes and lies!

"Give up, Monakia's orphans."

The wizard's voice, as if composed of billions of different lies superimposed simultaneously, resounded directly deep within the souls of all the surviving Dao Guardians.

"How laughable is your 'protection'? How fragile is your 'order'?"

He slowly raised the staff in his hand.

"Come, embrace 'change'! In this eternal river of destiny, filled with infinite possibilities, you will gain... a true 'new life'!"

A psionic storm, indescribable in any language and filled with paradoxes and distortions, erupted instantly around him!

The already crumbling "Stone Array" of Barona, constructed by the last three Dao Guardians, was instantly and completely torn apart by the impact of this higher-dimensional law, like a small boat thrown into a stormy sea!

Barrow coughed up a mouthful of blood! His massive body, as if struck head-on by an invisible battering ram, flew backward uncontrollably, crashing heavily into the cold plasma reactor!

The defenses have collapsed.

An endless stream of cult members, their faces beaming with fanaticism, surged forth like a flood bursting its banks, instantly engulfing that last stronghold, a place filled with tragedy and despair!

Kyle didn't hesitate any longer.

He used the last bit of his true energy to push his speed to the limit!

He transformed into a streak of gray lightning, flowing against the current, filled with resolute determination and tragic grandeur, launching a final, and most hopeless, charge towards the battlefield already engulfed by death!

He knew he couldn't save anyone.

But at least he could die beside his brothers.

"……tutor……"

In his vision, which was beginning to blur due to the depletion of his true energy, he seemed to see again that calm figure standing under the ancient tree, smiling and watching them.

"...We didn't...disgrace you..."

He muttered to himself, and the Two-Element Chainsaw Sword in his hand burst forth with its final, and most dazzling, beam of light!

It was at this moment that he heard Barona's final roar, filled with resentment and endless rage.

"—For Monakia!!!"

And that final, and only, cryptic message, sent through interstellar language, to distant Terra, whose whereabouts are unknown…

Chapter 149 The Tribulation of the Dao Guardian (8 Extra Chapters)

Time, in the rusted steel hell of Necromonda, has long lost its meaning.

For the remaining Dao Guardians, every second felt like being repeatedly roasted on a burning iron plate, a time long enough to melt their souls into ashes.

Kyle's charge, like a gray lightning bolt flowing against the current, filled with decisiveness and tragedy, was ruthlessly extinguished the moment he unleashed the last brilliant light from his Yin-Yang Chainsaw Sword by an even greater and more unstoppable will.

That is not a physical obstacle.

That is a kind of "negation" at the level of laws.

Standing behind the endless cultists with fanatical smiles, the Tzeentch wizard didn't even use his staff. He simply raised his hand, which was covered with countless small, constantly blinking eyes, full of wisdom and malice.

Then, facing the resolute gray lightning, he gently snapped his fingers.

A crisp snap of the fingers, devoid of any harshness.

In an instant, the space in front of Kyle rippled like the surface of a calm lake where a stone had been thrown! He could clearly see that the short distance of a few dozen meters between himself and that last line of defense that had long been submerged by death had been infinitely stretched and twisted by this snap of his fingers, turning into an insurmountable chasm!

His charge was forcibly halted in place by an invisible force of law, full of paradoxes and lies! He felt like a moth caught in a spider's web, struggling and waving his weapon in vain, treading in the same spot within the false "reality" constructed by the enemy!

The defenses have completely collapsed.

Endless cultists, their faces beaming with fanaticism, surged forth like a flood bursting its banks, instantly engulfing the last stronghold, a place filled with tragedy and despair! The surviving defenders were utterly divided and surrounded, plunged into the most brutal, desperate, and individualistic battles of despair!

A Daoist guard who specialized in the "Mountain" method had his rock-solid chest pierced by three power spears, tempered with chaotic energy, thrusting from different angles! He let out a roar of unwilling anger, using the last bit of his true essence to detonate the Yin-Yang Chainsaw Sword in his hand, dragging several enemies around him into the flames of death!

On the other side, a nimble Taoist guard, after killing seven law enforcement officers in succession, finally exhausted his true energy and was cut in half at the waist by a high-pressure plasma cutting beam from a technician whose body was strangely fused with machinery and who was hiding in the shadows!

Death, like the most faithful shadow, began to mercilessly devour these last orphans from Monakia.

Finally, as the tidal wave of attacks receded and slowly parted to the sides, only less than ten broken figures remained, still struggling to stand, in front of the cold plasma reactor that was already covered in blood and bits of flesh.

They were the last survivors.

Centered around the reactor, they stood back to back, forming a small yet resolute and unyielding circular position. Their bodies were covered in gruesome wounds, their grey monk robes stained dark red with blood, clinging tightly to their trembling bodies, ravaged by exhaustion. The black and white of their Yin-Yang Chainsaw Swords, once imbued with Daoist essence, had dimmed due to the depletion of their true energy, leaving only their most basic, physical sharpness.

Their dantian had long since dried up. Their meridians had long since broken. What supported them as they stood was no longer true energy, but that... inextinguishable fire of hatred that originated from the ruins of Monakia and had long been ingrained in their bones.

The wizard Tzeentch slowly emerged from the mountain of corpses and sea of ​​blood, constructed of flesh and steel. His enormous wings, made of pure psionic flames, emitted an eerie, mesmerizing seven-colored light in the dim underground space.

He did not immediately issue the final attack order.

He was like a master theater director, appreciating the final, and most brilliant, scene before the curtain fell on his most masterpiece.

He reveled in the prey's final despair.

"Look at you, the orphans of Monakia." The wizard's voice, as if composed of billions of different lies superimposed simultaneously, resounded directly into the depths of the souls of all the surviving guardians. The voice was filled with a cat-and-mouse mockery and "mercy." "How laughable is your 'protection'? How fragile is your 'order'?"

He slowly raised the staff in his hand, a staff twisted from countless wailing souls, filled with paradoxes and lies.

"What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for that mentor who treats you as pawns to be discarded at will? Or are you waiting for that false emperor who will use orbital bombardment to personally reduce your homeland and faith to ashes?"

His words, like the most vicious dagger, pierced the already riddled hearts of every surviving Dao Guardian!

"No, I'll tell you who you should be waiting for."

The wizard's voice became incredibly seductive.

"Come, embrace 'change'! In this eternal river of destiny, filled with infinite possibilities, you will gain... a true 'new life'!"

A psionic storm, indescribable in any language and filled with paradoxes and distortions, erupted instantly around him!

That was not a direct attack.

That was... the most vicious "blessing" directed at the soul!

Kyle, the assassin who moved like the wind, saw the scene before him change in an instant, his eyes turning red with rage!

He saw himself back in Monakia! Back to the moment before that "perfect city" was burned down! His parents, his brothers, all his deceased relatives were smiling and opening their arms to him!

"Come back, child..."

Behind him stood Barrow, and his brothers, the Dao Guards, covered in blood and reaching out to him for help!

A voice echoed in his mind.

“Look, this is the gift of ‘change’. You can choose to save your past and let it be reborn in this eternal dream of happiness that I have created for you. The price is simply… the death of the ‘present’ behind you.”

This is Tzeentch's most insidious paradoxical illusion!

It doesn't force you; it simply gives you a "choice"!

A choice must be made between "past" and "present," between "family" and "loyalty," between "selfishness" and "sacrifice," a choice that could tear even the most steadfast moral compass in two...

"no no!!!"

Kyle let out an inhuman wail, filled with extreme pain! For the first time, his heart, long frozen by hatred, cracked open in the face of this ultimate, unsolvable problem!

But Barrow, this rock-solid leader, saw a different picture.

He saw himself, leading the surviving guardians, rebuilding Monachia! A new city, more magnificent and more perfect than before! Every resident in the city radiated genuine, absolute happiness! They no longer needed to labor, no longer needed to think, because they all worshipped a new, more benevolent, and more powerful "deity"!

And that deity was smiling, making promises to him.

“Look, Barrow. This is the ultimate form of the ‘guardian’ you seek. As long as you lead your brothers to kneel before me and receive my blessing of the ‘Primordial Truth,’ I can make all of this a reality.”

This, too, is an irresistible temptation!

It twisted and amplified Barrow's obsession with "protection," turning it into an absolute "enslavement" filled with "happiness"!

Baron's massive body trembled violently! In his pupils, which had become somewhat unfocused due to excessive blood loss, a struggle called "wavering" appeared!

The entire battlefield was plunged into an eerie, torturous silence.

Tzeentch, like the finest artist, watches these lost souls slowly walk toward their predetermined, self-destructive end within the most perfect tragic symphony he has composed.

He could even "hear" the melodious sound, like crystal shattering, that they made when their Dao hearts completely collapsed.

However, just as Kyle's reason, about to be devoured by the "past," completely snapped; just as Barrow's unbreakable Dao heart, belonging to the "Guardian," was about to kneel before that false "happiness"—

He chose neither the "past" nor the "present".

He chose... "the end".

With his last ounce of strength, he turned the dim and worn-out Yin-Yang Chainsaw Sword around and thrust it fiercely into the core of the massive plasma reactor behind him, which was groaning under its own weight!

"—Farewell, mentor."

For the first time, a relieved and liberated smile appeared on his young face, which was stained with blood and tears.

"We...did not...disgrace you..."

It was precisely at the moment he was about to detonate this steel heart, capable of reducing everything within a radius of several kilometers to ashes, and perish together with the world before him, a world filled with lies and betrayal—

All the sounds from the outside world, all the psionic roars, all the malicious whispers…

They all vanished in an instant.

The entire world fell into an absolute stillness, one that did not belong to this universe.

It was neither the deathly silence of a power outage nor the emptiness after a system crash.

It was a kind of "fulfillment" that I had never experienced before.

A kind of...like the beginning of the universe, when all the laws had not yet differentiated, and everything returned to the most fundamental "one," a time of absolute "harmony."

The smile on Tzeentch's face froze instantly. His enormous wings, made of pure psionic flames, trembled violently and uncontrollably! He could clearly feel that the connection between himself and the "Altar of Lies," the connection between himself and that great, indescribable master, had been forcibly, brutally, and completely severed by an invisible yet unstoppable will!

He became an isolated island!

Immediately afterwards, that calm yet supremely majestic voice, not through the air, not through spiritual energy, but like the most fundamental law of the universe itself, slowly resounded from the deepest recesses of the already collapsing souls of all the surviving Dao Guardians.

"Put the sword away."

"Next, leave it to me."

Chapter 150 Daoist Understanding: Myriad Phenomena (Bonus Chapter 1)

In an instant, the whole world seemed to be muted.

It was not simply silence, but an absolute deprivation of existence.

The twisted and paradoxical incantation that the Tzeentch wizard was about to utter froze in his throat. The cultists, brandishing blood-stained weapons and wearing fanatical smiles, charged forward as if they were prehistoric insects instantly sealed in amber, frozen in that 0.01-second eternity.

Even the light in the air, which was distorted wildly by the rampage of psionic energy, the ear-piercing buzzing of the plasma reactor as it was about to overload, and the thick, almost tangible stench of blood and smoke that permeated the battlefield... all of it was forcibly smoothed out and frozen in that instant by an invisible yet unstoppable will.

This is not a time standstill.

Time continues to flow.

But all the 'voices,' all the 'chaos,' and all the 'disorder' that make up this world are gently, yet mercilessly, completely covered up by a higher-dimensional 'order.'

The surviving Dao Guards were like drowning people who were about to sink into an endless abyss when they were suddenly lifted up from the cold sea by a pair of warm hands.

They stared blankly at the miraculous scene before them. They could feel the excruciating pain they had endured from the depletion of their true energy and the rupture of their meridians slowly subsiding under the soothing influence of this tranquil will. The boundless rage and despair they felt from witnessing their brothers' tragic deaths and the imminent collapse of their Dao hearts were also silently washed away, as if by the gentlest spring rain.

They were saved.

In a way they couldn't understand at all.

For the first time, Tzeentch's enormous wings, composed of pure psionic flames, trembled uncontrollably. For the first time, his face, filled with countless small, constantly blinking eyes brimming with both wisdom and malice, revealed the emotion called "fear"!

He felt like a self-proclaimed god, painter recklessly splashing colors across his canvas. But suddenly he discovered that a true, incomprehensible 'being' was standing behind him, silently gazing at him with emotionless eyes, and then, with a single hand, effortlessly erasing all the colors from his canvas.

Then, he arrived.

He did not "appear".

Because, in everyone's perception, he seemed to have always been there.

In the center of that pure realm, constructed from absolute stillness and devoid of any impurities, between the treacherous wizard and the surviving Dao Guardian, before the cold plasma reactor already covered in blood and flesh, a figure dressed in a gray monk's robe, slender yet upright as a pine tree, slowly "condensed" from nothingness into something.