Rising up from a Nobleman to Intergalactic Warlord!!-Chapter 183

---3rd Person POV ---

While Victor and company moved on Vect and his Kabal of the Black Heart, the situation underground had become quite precarious. Sensing the battle raging overhead, Khorne's daemons entered a frenzied state and began lashing out at the defenders with unbridled rage. Cutting down thousands of the bastards every minute, tens of thousands more quickly took their place, forcing Hesperax, Malys, and Yoma's people into a steady retreat. Realizing they were thirty minutes or less away from being pushed back to street level, Malys asked the two women if they had any suggestions to turn this around.

"The Cult of Strife usually deals with corporeal enemies, not daemons. Other than aiming for the head or heart, I got nothing.", Hesperax admitted, looking to her new boss. "What about you? Surely the Bane of Chaos has something kicking around in his warehouse that can help us, right?"

"You will refer to our leader by his title, Supreme Commander, when you are speaking about or to him.", Yoma corrected her, releasing a long, pained sigh, "To answer your question, yes, we do have a few weapons that might help us. Lady Serana and her mother, Queen Valerica, have been researching souls extensively on behalf of the Supreme Commander. Their research has led to- "

"Save the spiel for someone who actually gives a damn; I am losing people every second you spend yapping here.", Malys snapped, wanting to see these weapons in action.

"... the weapons in question are still in the experimental stage, so do not complain to me if they do not work.", Yoma said, fighting the urge to kill Malys for interrupting her. "Give me a moment; I will request the assets now."

Tapping on her personal wrist-mounted computer, Commander Yoma quickly submitted an emergency request to the Logistics Division for several crates of weapons. Using her authorization to bypass the normal red tape, the requested items were quickly sent to her location within seconds. Startled by their abrupt arrival, Hesperax and Malys looked at the crates with a curious expression, wondering what sort of goodies they were going to get to play with. Walking over to the closest crate, Yoma punched in her access code to disarm the self-destruction protocol before opening the hermetically sealed lid.

Reaching inside, she brought out three different grenades and presented them to the two Drukhari. The first and largest one had a cross affixed to the top of it, the second was a smooth, black sphere, and the third one had a picture of a ghost painted on it. Unsure how those were going to turn things around, they held their tongues and gave her a chance to prove their lethality to them.

"So this one here is called the Antioch Grenade, or Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, if you want to be really specific.", Yoma explained, pulling the safety pin on the first grenade. "To use it, all you have to do is pull the pin, wait three seconds, and yeet this motherfucker straight into the enemy ranks. Once you do that, close your eyes and cover your ears."

(AN: If you know, you know!)

Following her own instructions to the letter, Yoma threw it like a fastball and pegged a lowly grunt in the face, roughly fifty feet away. Staggering backward into his comrades, they stopped their advance for a moment to look at the unusually shaped grenade. Detonating right in front of them, the small explosive charge dispersed a dense cloud of enchanted, blessed silver powder into the air. Purifying the daemons on contact, the small draft their abrupt erasures generated sucked the dust cloud into their ranks, quickly erasing tens of thousands of them in a matter of seconds.

"Holy fuck... that thing is amazing!", Malys laughed. "Why were we supposed to close our eyes and cover our ears, though?"

"They were not sure how abrupt or violent the purification process would be, so they were just erring on the side of caution.", Yoma answered, "This next one you will definitely want to cover your ears for. I have seen a field test for it, and it is going to get fucking loud in here."

"Oh, let me give it a try!!", Hesperax pleaded, eager to test one out for herself. "Since it does not have a pin, how do I arm it?"

"There is a recessed button on the side that you hit twice to arm it. Make sure you throw it immediately, as you do not want to be anywhere near it when it activates.", Yoma said, gingerly handing it to her, "Do not fuck this up, or we are all dead."

Nodding her head in understanding, Hesperax rushed forward to get a better angle on the retreating daemons and did as her new boss instructed. Launching the sphere like a bullet, it tore through two of them before embedding itself in a third. Crying out in terror, the daemon attempted to kill itself to avoid True Death, but the grenade went off before it had the chance to. Siphoning all soul essence within a forty-foot radius into itself, the affected targets howled in brutal agony as their entire existence was slowly stripped away from them. Watching them fade into oblivion, once all of them were gone, the sphere crumbled away, leaving an artificial black soul gem behind.

"It turns them into gemstones?", Hesperax questioned, motioning one of her subordinates to retrieve it. "Is the 'Supreme Commander' intending to make jewelry or something?"

"It is not a gemstone; it is a Soul Gem. They are used to enchant items with magical attributes and/or effects.", Yoma answered, handing the last grenade to Malys. "Lady Serana and her mother requested we hand over all Soul Gems we create for further research. Do not attempt to steal one... they take their work very seriously. The last sticky-fingered thief was turned into alchemical ingredients for some unknown concoction."

Taking a moment to examine the crystal closely, Hesperax could faintly hear agonizing screams from the bound souls inside. Based on Yoma's warning, it was a safe assumption that its soul-draining effect also worked on living beings, like Vect's Obsidian Orbs. Genuinely surprised to see such technology being developed by humans, she felt her decision to jump ship was even more validated now.

"Before I do anything with this one, what does it do?", Malys questioned as the defense forces began retaking lost ground.

"It functions as a capture device for daemons and other Wap entities. Queen Valerica wanted live specimens to experiment on, and the Supreme Commander fulfilled her request.", Yoma said, motioning for her subordinates to bring the crates up, "It only works on Lesser Daemons and below, though. The stronger ones are too much of a security risk to warrant developing technology to capture them."

"Seriously... You gave me the fucking lame one!?", Malys spat, returning it to Yoma. "Give me one of the badass ones!"

"Only those in the service of the Supreme Commander are allowed to use them. Before you ask, we are not currently accepting new recruits at this time.", Yoma stated with a smug smile, 'Hesperax and her cult may have secured their place among us, but I will be damned if I let more of these meatheads join us. I can tell just by looking at them that they are nothing but trouble!'

"Sorry, Malys, that is just the way the cookie crumbles.", Hesperax mocked her. "Look at the bright side, at least you get to keep your life, right?"

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Refusing to let this travesty slide, Malys demanded to speak with Victor once the dust had settled. Vehemently rejecting the Archon's request, Yoma made up some bullshit excuse to shut her down while Hesperax continued to rub her privileges in Malys' face. While the three of them bickered with one another, their subordinates sent the experimental weapons to the other teams working down here and continued moving forward looking for a good, defensible location.

---Victor POV---

Finding our targets locked in a heated battle with Eldanial and his Biel-Tan forces, Bo-Katan and Samus took to the sky while Ahsoka and I ran straight toward the Black Heart's front line. Tearing through Drukhari's shields with her high-powered rifle, Bo-Katan focused on dismantling their leadership structure while Samus used her plasma arm cannon to wipe out swaths of grunts.

"Since we are both warriors at heart, how about we make a wager? The person who kills the least number of baddies here pays for the winner's bar tab on the next world we visit.", Samus suggested, "To make it fair, I will switch to using my antimaterial rifle."

"I will take that bet; be ready to pay out the ass for me, though. My tolerance for booze is very high, and I only drink top shelf.", Bo-Katan laughed, casually avoiding the barrage of enemy fire heading for them.

"Do not worry, I will share some of my booze with you, as what I drink is only sold by the bottle.", Samus snickered, switching to their rifle. "Ready. Set. Go!!"

Raining down a hailstorm of anti-personnel bullets upon the Drukhari, Ahsoka and I watched their defensive lines quickly start to collapse under their intense onslaught. Taking point just as we reached them, I steamrolled through everyone in my path while Ahsoka cut down the few that managed to get out of the way in time. Laser-focused on the Archon, who was barking out orders from the center of his forces, he turned to look at me just as I was about to reach him.

"STOP HIM!! CUT HIM DOWN!!", Vect howled, using one of his Succubus bodyguards as a living shield.

Leaping into the air, I spun Stormbreaker around several times and brought the weapon's hammer side down upon the stunned Drukhari. Summoning a super-sized bolt of lightning on impact, nearly all of Vect's forces were instantly vaporized, while the few survivors were reduced to piles of charcoal. Saved by his customized, personal shielding unit, the Archon sailed through several buildings before coming to a rest in the middle of a blood-covered roadway.