The inquisitor heard an inconsistency in the sound of their engines and checked their current speed.

  It was decreasing.

  "By The Emperor's dirty socks! What is happening this time?" He had enough of malfunctions and technical failures landing him in unfortunate circumstances. He bolted out of his quarters, annoyed to the extreme.and marched towards the detachment of Tech-priests that traveled along with him. They were staying nearby and he saw them quickly exiting the guest quarters.

  "Techsorcist Ikarios!" He saw a familiar face and stopped the Tech-priest. "Where is Eisenarch?"

  "The Magos went to check on the Gellar Field generator." Ikarios Mikato tidied his red robe and stared at Kael through his large lenses that took a large portion of his face.

  "Let's go to the engine room, I have enough of these accidents." The inquisitor put on his helm, as if switching to no-nonsense mode. At the end of this day, heads would roll.

  The few higher ranking Tech-priests that were residing in the guest quarters followed him line ducklings along with their servo skulls, which hovered right behind them. They passed quickly through the ship, the alert signal blaring everywhere around them along with red lights, the emergency light reflecting off all metallic surfaces around them.

  Soon, they reached the lower deck and started seeing the void ship's technicians running frantically around.

  "Hey, were is the Gellar Field generator?!" The inquisitor grabbed one of them rudely and asked the startled man in gray uniform.

  "What?! But the engine is not in the same place." He looked confused, but Kael did not care about his confusion.

  "Stop thinking. Where is the generator?!" He repeated sternly, his eyes unblinking.

  "Around the corner, fourth door on the left." The panicked man answered, realizing only at this moment who was asking the question.

  "Finally, thank you." The inquisitor responded with a hint of sarcasm and rushed towards the destination.

  It took them at least a minute to reach the room, because of the sheer size of the rooms at this deck. The void ship was not one of the newest models and most mechanical components and engines were crammed together. A good solution for convenience and ease of maintenance, but a terrible choice for security.

  The inquisitor pushed the button to open the door, but found them locked.

  "Damned fools, we do not have time for this, Techsorcist open this immediately or we are blowing it up!" Kael Gull stepped aside and let Ikarios act. The member of The Machine Cult was quick to insert his mechadendrite into the interface of the door, but after a few seconds of communicating with the mechanism, he simply lifted his Omnissian Axe and trashed the lock with two swift strikes.

  "Step away from the generator!" Kael burst into the room and saw a figure under a red hood fiddling with the machine.

  "Thank The Throne, Inquisitor!" The man was Magos Eisenarch Alvrick, holding a few simple tools. "Quick, help me repair at least one of the generators before it is too late! Ikarios, everyone!"

  The panicked voice of the Magos made his fellow Tech-priests rush closer to him and aid him in his predicament.

  "As I thought! How bad is it?" The inquisitor's face turned red, it was exactly how he feared.

  "This ship has a set of three sub-generators ensuring the Gellar Field does not fail even if one of them malfunctions. Even though the design is reliable, some components and circuits are shared and had been sabotaged. We are minutes away from a critical failure." Eisenarch narrated quickly while trying to salvage what he could. With the Inquisitor still staring at him, he finished his report. "It will take about three hours to fabricate new parts with appropriate heavy machinery."

  "Are you joking? Three hours in warp is a death sentence, provided the machines you speak of are even on board." Kael had an urge to cut someone's head off, it was exactly as he had feared. The malfunctioning engines were probably just a distraction to lure the technicians on board away from the Gellar Field generators.

  "I do not think this ship is equipped with the necessary machines, but we can improvise. I can try." Ikarios Mikato proposed and the Inquisitor nodded in his direction, observing the Tech-priest disappear.

  Suddenly, a chubby hand landed on Kael Gull's shoulder.

  "Friend, a minute." The Rogue Trader who arrived shortly after the inquisitor heard everything and led him outside of the room, entering some random engine room next door, closing the plasteel door behind him.

  "I had not seen malfunctions of this level in years. Take my personal guard and go to the cargo bay, Adeptus Militarum was selling some valuable components of trashed ships, there is a whole Gellar Field Generator among the cargo. Container K-766." Giron spoke seriously, his hand squeezing a laspistol."There is a trator on this ship, but I trust my personal guard one hundred percent."

  The Rogue Trader nodded to the people surrounding him and they slowly moved towards the Inquisitor.

  "Fine, this will work. Leave at least a pair of them here. You will need them." Kael Gull agreed to the proposal and exited the closed room, running towards the cargo bay.

  At that moment, he felt a shift in his surroundings, as the damaged generators gave out.

  The grim surroundings of the void ship corridors colored with a red hue, as the ship slowly slipped into immaterium. The omnipresent whispers of unnatural creatures of the warp distracting the crew from their tasks.

  Kael's team did not succumb to the perils of the warp, not yet.

  They rushed down to a different section of the lower deck, the cargo storage area, where large shipping containers made of metal were loaded with valuable goods, or large amount of junk that was simply too cheap to leave behind.

  Kael jumped down from the last steps of a flight of stairs and ran thourhg the corridor bordering their destination, when he heard an angry growl in front of them. That would be a no suprise given the circumstances, but this time he saw even a body that belonged to a daemon.

  "We have contact, cut them down quickly. Do not delay." He pulled out his chainsword and his trusted companion roared into life, its teeth spinning around the sword's body. It was a waste to shoot bolts where a blade was good enough.

  The warp energies gradually unveiled the whole body of the daemon, as the ship slipped in an out of the Gellar Field, the generators being on their last legs. The inquisitor immediately recognized the lesser deamon, it was a Bloodletter, a notorious servant of Khorne. It had muscular humanoid body with a large pair of horns and sharp teeth. Its red skin worked almost as a camuflage in the surrounding red hue of the warp, but it was not a creature of stealth. Far from it.

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  It roared while lifting its large sword and rushed towards Keal, who quickly shot the attacker with his bolter. The demon quickly deflected the few shots and swung its blade in a powerful overhead cut.

  The inquisitor had experience fighting this type of lesser daemon, but had no time to use his usual tactic. He decided to try his luck by dodging the swing in the last second and guiding his chainsword into a vicious uppercut targeting the demons armpit. The daemon managed to avoid the attack by making a half-step forward, but the inquisitor did not stop his wide swing and fluently continued it into a downward cut that landed on the chaos spawn's collar bone.

  The teeth of the blade spun with a roar, bones and flesh cut and torn, but the daemon had not given up yet. He turned his hips and swung his large blade in a wild backhanded slash, reaching behind his back. The inquisitor saw it coming and angled his chainsword up to deflect the sword, gripping his weapon even harder.

  The hellblade of the Bloodletter clashed with the chainsword and given the angle, the inquisitor used the energy to finish his cut instead of fighting it head on. Consequently, the lesser daemon's body was bisected in a diagonal cut, using the Bloodletter's own energy. The inquisitor glanced at his blade and growled, it was not as good as new after the clash, but he had to manage with what he had.

  Luckily, they were already in front of the door to a cargo bay marked with a large letter K. Kael quickly opened the door and Giron's personal guard followed him inside. He looked around and his eyes quickly fell onto a damaged container that had a large hole in its front. It was the one they were searching for.

  "Emperor protect us if the insides are damaged." He heard one of the men behind him cursing and he shared his opinion.

  They quickly stepped closer and entered the cramped space of the shipping container, but its insides seemed to be intact. The only oddity was a single naked dead body inside. It was strange, but they had no time for delays.

  "Quikcly, get the part we need and we are out of here!" The inquisitor commanded and all of them began rummaging through the baxes and cases around them.

  It took them precious minutes before one of the guards shouted in glee, discovering the part they needed, its serial number written clearly on a sealed box.

  "This is it! Let's move out." Kael checked the package and they climbed out of the damaged shipping container and exited the cargo bay, wanting to sprint back to the Gellar Field generator.

  However, in the middle of the corridor, there stood a daemon blocking their way, a large sword pulsing with malice in his hand.

  "I do not recognize this one." Kael snorted and lifted his own weapon.

  * * * *

  A huge cloud finally moved into position, casting a deep shadow over the loading area. It was now or never.

  Lord Tichondrius jumped off a roof and used his wings to glide, an object wrapped in rough cloth strapped to his back. It seemed to him that a trickle of mana was pouring into his body from the wrapped up Frostmourne, but it had to be just his imagination. The sword had no mana regeneration properties.

  He landed on the ground behind one of the containers and waited for a guard that was not a part of the laboring workers to walk into the shadow near him. When the slowly walking man dressed in military camo finally joined him, he quickly jumped at the man and his long fingers enveloped his neck. Unable to make a sound, the guard was unable to overpower the Nathrezim and soon arrived at the deaths door.

  On his last legs, the guard tried to kick the metallic contained to alarm the others, but Tichondrius simply lifted him into the air, shifting his body away from the dark surface of the container. Twisting his wrist abruptly, he broke the man's neck and looked up.

  The cloud was slowly passing over his head, his time ran out.

  Along with the dead body, the Dread Lord entered the nearby shipping container that was ready to be shipped into the sky ship. Space ship they called it. Sure enough, there was a lot of space in it for the containers. Once inside the container, he closed it and waited for the workers to carry it inside the landed space ship using peculiar machines reminding him of gnomish technology, but obviously less crude and more reliable.

  The landed space ship was clearly only moving goods to a much larger vessel, his aim was to capture the trade vessel and use it to return back home, or at least use its maps to find out his location. He waited until the vibration spreading through the metallic construction of the container told him that he was being moved into the landed space ship.

  A success! He did not expect anyone to open the container anymore, as he had observed the workers doing the same procedure with all the other goods they had processed.

  Squeezing himself into a pile of secured goods inside the dark, small space, he braced himself for the take off of the auxiliary space ship. Surprisingly, there was no wild ride and he felt only a minor inertial force for roughly twenty minutes before everything went still and silent.

  Was he on board of the mothership? He hoped so.

  He decided to wait some more to be absolutely sure.

  While he waited, he thought about the strange place. It had to be some far, unknown world the Burning Legion had not yet reached with its invasion, or an insignificant place no one even bothered to conquer. Given the mana signature, he would not be surprised. Who would be interested in a hole totally devoid of mana? It had to be the poorest place he had ever been to.

  His mind submerged into the mire of intrigue and deception he planned to unleashed when he returned to Azeroth with vengeance.

  Those fools must pay!

  He could not unleash his anger onto the two generals of the Burning Legion above him, but the mortals would do.

  "The moons will turn red, blood red." A voice disturbed his thoughts

  Tichondrius' body winced. Was the human corpse actually still alive?

  "Run away, I need to tun away!"

  Another whisper, but this time the voice was different. It was not the corpse. It could not be the corpse.

  "Try it again one more time! You can do it!"

  A third voice, completely disjointed from the other two voices was heard and Tichondrius froze, listening for more.

  And they came.

  Not one or two, but dozens and dozens of voices whispering, shouting, pleading and laughing swallowed him. He wanted to instinctively check his mind with a simple spell, but remembered that he had no mana.

  "Wait!" He realized it wasn't completely true. He felt like there was suddenly mana around him, but not the arcane feeling he was used to. The substance was heavier, with a mind of its own. He started to doubt it was mana at all.

  But depraved of the arcane juice needed for his spells for far too long, he tried it anyway.

  He sucked in the foreign mana and tried to use a simple Shadow Bolt spell of the lowest rank. The cast went more or less as he had expected and a small ball of ominous shadow flew forward, slamming into the wall of the container.

  A loud crash interrupted the voices and a hole appeared in the metallic wall of the shipping container.

  "Damn, I am busted. With mana again, let's hope my luck will turn for the better." He sucked more of the strange mana, turning it into a stronger Shadow Bolt and blasted the locked open, creating a large, gaping hole in the metallic wall.

  There was no one outside.

  "Screw the voices, let's continue with the original plan. I need to find a captain of this ship." He tried to draw on the new mana again and use shadows to veil his form, but failed miserably. The new mana was good enough for purely destructive spells, but it could not be used as it was for anything more complex. He had no time to re-learn his spells.

  He had an idea.

  The otherworldly demon quickly undressed the dead guard and dressed into his clothes and armor. Fortunately, his build was large enough and Tichondrius was able to fit even his wings inside, but he knew that he looked very suspicious.

  "I look absolutely ridiculous, this is useless." He tore at the clothes, shredding it with his claws and threw the stripes of cloth away.

  It looked like stealth was off limits.

  Irritated, Lord Tichondrius stepped out of the shipping container, starting his hunt.

  Behind his back, there was a big number marking the shipping container as item K-766 and a sound of echoing steps was telling him that there was no need to search for a prey to test his new power, they would come to him.

  He hid behind one of the shipping containers and waited for the visitors to enter the cargo bay.