A few mier, which I spent trying to e up with a believable cover story I 'saw' the steltion leave the aer realspabsp;Turns out distances are rather fickle and uable in the as I realized that the souls seemingly so close were barely at the edge of the star system. I sat in my fy chair, taking soce from the embarrassment in its leathery hold. Right, they couldn't predict where exactly they'd end up so they had to leave the there. Whatever, not like I had any idea what I'd tell them yet. At the speed they were traveling it'd take more than a week to reach me, now that I think about it I shouldn't rely on their sensors pig up oher. For a moment there I fot they didn't have any sensors much better than what we had ba Earth, not sure how the hell they mao hit stuff in space battles. Psykers must e in handy, no matter how much everyone may hate them in the imperium. Then again, your neighbor suddenly spawning a demon horde wasn't the best look for them. With all that being said having a free week wasn't so bad, the governor kept note of most of the geealer cults' locations around the hive city. This way I had time to go and check if either of those locations had any remaining for me to absorb. With a st, mournful look at the fy chair I left. Let's hope I could get ba time. I spent seven, b, soul-numbing, and annoying days going from one location to the only to find nothing, not even blood to somewhat satisfy my curiosity until I got my hand on a whole geealer. No sign of fightiher, which could have cued me in on what I'd find at the st location. The pce was deep ihe heart of the city, I haven't seen light since a few days ago aher did I breathe air that could be called fresh by any meaning of the word. The tunnels were cold and the smell of rust bined disgustingly with mold. I stalked through these pathways, long fotten by most previous inhabitants of the city mostly in my humanoid form. My skin was covered by a film of soft chitinous substahat let me use the Lictor's camoufge ability, which hid me from the numerous geealers ambling about the hideout. The narrow tunnels and cracks suited the more eiore, rather than the several meters tall murder mae that was the Lictor. I expected to find maybe a small holdout or a few survivors or even just the leftovers from a fight but they seemed to have hidden themselves from everyone else duking it out above the surfabsp;This will be fun. These monsters didn't deserve an ouny sympathy, not many people did in this gaxy if I'm being ho but I've already decided to keep myself from killing too many civilians. I know where their souls would end up after I killed them, getting your soul eaten by demons or whatever else found it in the was a fate very few deserved in my opinion. I wouldn't hesitate though, should anyone prove to be a threat or an obstacle. Mercy was good and all, but only when my own survival was already assured, no that wasn't quite right. I'd have to thrive to even think about others' well-being. I was so different from everyone else in the gaxy, I wasn't a human and even if I was I think I'd still think like that, dying aing reinated might have influenced me just as much as turning into an eldritch space monster. The joke's on whoever reinated me though, I always loved eldritch space monsters. Some of the sci-fi stories had humans with basic hard sci-fi tech faced up against inprehensible eldritch beings from outer space, and while I wouldn't want to be the unfortunate human I was more than happy to be the overpowered monster. Freedom stemmed from power, especially in this fucked up universe. I was nowhere near strong enough to be free, the tless fas would just stomp me uheir boots like the rown bug I was, I'd have to ge that. The ship will be the first step and until I go toe to toe with the stro beings I'll have to py the game, the game everyone pys in this gaxy. The great game for the fate of the gaxy, between hapless mortals, psychic demigods, and thirsting gods. Back to the reason why I wasn't already in the process of turning these bald fuckers into biomass, one was that I finally had targets to practice the more telepathic side of psyker powers, and the other was that I caught a glimpse of the patriarch. Of course, there atriarch here, why wouldn't there be? I instinctively k could put up a fight even against my Lictor form, unlike Lictors the patriarch was closest to a brood lord. Enhanced physical strength and psychic powers w in tao best any foe that would like to kill it. Its main fun erating the cult and spreading through the world while a Lictor's was infiltration and assassination. If I could get the jump on it'd tilt the odds heavily in my favor, and that's while I'm ign that unlike usual Lictors I bat its psychic powers while its mental attacks would hopefully fail to hit me as I'm not ected to the . I wasn't relying on that too much though, I had a brain and a tether eg my body to my soul, it shouldn't be too hard to send a psychic attack through that if the patriarch was skilled enough. If I wao kill it I'd have to strike fast and hard, ohe cult was decapacitated they'd be easy pigs. I gnced into the , seeing thihers of energy going from oealer to another, expanding over the whole cult, like a malicious spiderweb. It was hard to see anything through it, the dark water grew sort of muddy around the web, robbing my sight somewhat. I knew I could push through, it'd be easy t the whole web crashing down if I ected to the . This was just a brood mind, not the actual hive mind which could cast a shadow over sub-sectors. I didn't do that though, it would have been a waste. Much easier to just murder them and absorb them, let the web e crashing down once I demolished the pilrs holding it up, without the cult to power it it'd fade. I suspected killing just the patriarch would weaken it siderably, it should be the stro psychic being in the cult if not on the p. I stalked, knowing that it wasn't needed but my Lictor body's instincts made it hard to go against them and I didn't bother f it. It almost moved on its own with me just having to point where I wao get, Tyranid bioforms were maes made of flesh, bones, and chitin. The many cultists, ranging from bald humans to the monstrous first and sed-geioealers remained non-the wiser as I stalked amongst them. These damp tunnels and crevices carved out of the old ferrocrete foundation of the city made for the perfect setting for a horror movie. I just hoped I would be the monster of this story and not the Tyranids. Not that I was easy to kill, they would be the meal this time. The patriarch stayed in an oval hall at the end of the twisting tunnels, now that I had a mental map of most of these tunnels it kind of looked like an anthill. The 'queen' remai the ter, anding its tless minions. Along the way, I tio test my rudimentary telepathy, I couldn't ect my soul to theirs through the like I suspected other psykers could so I had to do it through their body. Tendrils of soul energy ected to the heads of cultists and I felt their minds, it was a disturbing mix of animalistic savagery and harmonic coexistenbsp;Each mind sang its own tune and the hundreds of cultists made up an orchestra without a single one being out of tune. I didn't push the energy through the tunnel and into their souls, even if I went through an intermediary the effect should be simir to when I ected to the directly. I was once again made aware of how different my mind is from what it once was, despite feeling a dozen minds at ond prehending their many i thoughts I somehow uood it all without losing focus. My mind was like a CPU, made up of several cores and each running numerous individual threads with more or less priority. My mind was stantly scious of eadividual thread of every core but I could also push them to the bay mind, leaving it for them to report to me anything they deem iing. This style of thinking, this thought splitting came to me without effort, it wasn't even an instinct tellio do it, it was like I'd always been capable of it and just now became scious of it. I didn't know if it was from my inal soul, the new body, or the soul energy but it was extremely useful. I suspected the body though, with it seemingly influeng my soul it was far more than what it appeared initially, for all I ks hidden funs just needed more energy to start up. I designated Fear Induemory Manipution and simir psychic powers I remembered as subsets of telepathy. Yeah, both could be achieved with biokinesis too but telepathy was the go-to for those. It was fasating, how bending the mind made the matter making up the brain to the ges. I had to foow though, I had a monster to hunt. I grinned, my oval mouth covered in jagged teeth uhe tentacles c my fa this form swishing at the motion. I hoped I looked terrifying, unfortunately being invisible at the moment made getting feedback challenging. Oh well, there will be a ime. P3t1

  Anyone who's upset at the meetiing pushed back a feters take it out on the guy who reminded me that ships usually exit the at the edge of systems and it takes 1-3 weeks to get to a p from there.(This also gives me more time to figure out the actual meeting)