Bubbles in cultivation tank number three rolled upward.
The nutrient solution inside was murkier than the others, showing a sickly yellow-green hue.
Lil Mouse gripped Cyril's oil-stained cuff tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force, his nails almost tearing the coarse cloth.
He was trembling.
It was a fear and sorrow that seeped from the very marrow of his bones.
Cyril followed Lil Mouse's gaze.
A thin, small figure floated in the tank.
It was a boy.
His skin was bloated from the chemicals, appearing a translucent, ghastly white.
The boy's back was pressed against the glass wall.
His spine was gone.
In its place was a thick, dull copper-colored metal pillar inserted directly into the back of his head.
Over a dozen wires thinner than blood vessels extended from the metal pillar, burrowing into the flesh that originally belonged to the latissimus dorsi and trapezius muscles.
The wounds had not healed.
The granulation tissue was still squirming, trying to envelop the invading metal, only to be torn apart again and again by rejection reactions.
The boy was not dead.
His eyeballs rolled violently under his eyelids, his lips parted and closed, and there was even a slight twitch at the corners of his mouth.
That was pain.
The excruciating pain of nerves directly connected to metal.
Lil Mouse's mouth was open, his throat making only a hissing sound from the friction of airflow.
"He's screaming in pain."
Cyril's voice was very light, without any emotional fluctuation, sounding as if he were stating some experimental data.
Lil Mouse snapped his head back to look at Cyril, his eyes red, tears carving two furrows through his soot-streaked face.
"Save... save him..."
Lil Mouse's voice was as hoarse as if he had swallowed a handful of sand. "Sir.. Big Brother... please..."
Cyril did not look at him.
His gaze passed over the suffering boy and landed on the skull altar in the center of the hall.
That suspended purple crystal was pulsating.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound was not loud, yet it vibrated painfully against the eardrums.
With every pulse, a layer of purple halo rippled across the crystal's surface.
The halo flowed along the conduits at the base of the altar, merging into the bases of those dozens of cultivation tanks.
As the halo injected, the boy in tank number three convulsed violently, his pained expression becoming even more distorted, even carrying a hint of eerie excitement.
It was poison.
It was also the only energy source keeping these half-dead test subjects breathing.
Slaanesh's power was forcibly pressing souls about to dissipate back into their shattered shells.
As long as this crystal kept beating, these people's pain would be endless.
If it were destroyed, the supply would be cut off.
These people would die within seconds from organ failure and genetic collapse.
They could not be saved.
This place was never intended for anyone to live from the start.
Cyril reached into his cuff, his fingertips touching that cold rose knot.
The system panel pulsed with a red warning box in the bottom right corner of his retina.
This thing had to be destroyed.
Even if it meant blowing this temple and all the poor souls here into ash. Letting them die was the final mercy for them.
Cyril's thumb hooked around the tube of magnesium powder in his sleeve pocket.
"Stop crying."
Cyril pressed down on Lil Mouse's shoulder with great force. "Tears are the most useless liquid here, worth less than piss."
Lil Mouse's whole body jolted, and he forced himself to stop sobbing.
Just as Cyril was calculating how to detonate the crystal without alerting that killing machine...
Bang!
A loud noise broke the eerie silence.
The airtight door on the side was kicked open.
The heavy iron door slammed against the wall, shaking off several pieces of rust-stained metal.
A stumbling figure rushed in.
It was One-Eyed Jack.
This high-ranking member of the Iron Crow Gang looked wretched at this moment.
One sleeve of his originally majestic leather coat had been torn off, revealing an arm covered in needle marks.
His remaining eye was bloodshot, his pupil dilated to the extreme.
Foam hung from the corner of his mouth, and he tightly gripped a large-caliber bolt pistol in his hand.
He was shaking.
Not from cold, but from the neurological spasms following a drug overdose.
"Who... who's there!"
Jack roared, his muzzle waving wildly in the empty hall. "Come out! I heard a sound! That was thunder! It's that monster! The Witch! The lightning-caller!"
Ever since his mental defenses crumbled after being scared witless by Cyril's bluff of a "Psyker storm" in the alley that day, fear gnawed at his brain like maggots.
Even hiding in this temple claimed to be absolutely safe, he always felt that the man who controlled lightning was standing in the shadows watching him.
The Rust Sage stopped recording data.
That mechanical head turned 180 degrees, its red sensors coldly locking onto the intruder.
"Jack."
Sizzling static came from the speaker. "You are interfering with the sacred calibration. Get out."
Jack ignored the Rust Sage's warning.
His gaze scanned the hall frantically, finally settling on the two figures in front of cultivation tank number three.
Two porters wearing filthy overalls.
One tall, one short.
The tall one was turning sideways to look at him.
Although his face was covered in soot and grease and he wore the lowest class of clothing.. that look.
That look of standing above the clouds and looking down on ants.
Jack would never forget it in his life.
It was a nightmare.
"It's you!"
Jack screamed, his voice becoming sharp and piercing from extreme terror. "It's you, you bastard! You followed me! You're here to kill me!"
He suddenly raised his muzzle, aiming at Cyril's head.
His finger was on the trigger, turning white from the excessive force.
"Don't come over! Don't come over! I'll blast you!"
Lil Mouse was so scared his legs went weak, and he slumped directly onto the ground.
It was over.
This time it was really over.
The servo-arms on the Rust Sage's body suddenly spread out.
In the shadows along the walls, six hidden automatic sentry cannons emerged simultaneously, their red laser targeting lines weaving into a net across the hall.
Three light dots locked onto Jack.
Three light dots locked onto Cyril.
"A Psyker? Step down, Jack."
The Rust Sage's voice changed.
It was no longer that unwavering mechanical drone, but carried a hint of fanatical trembling.
His only remaining human hand tapped quickly on the console a few times.
Click.
All exits of the temple locked simultaneously.
Heavy blast walls crashed down, turning the place into a completely sealed iron box.
"I thought those two rat-workers smelled wrong."
The Rust Sage turned around, the reactor in his chest humming. Several mechanical tentacles behind him rose like venomous snakes, the cutting blades at their tips spinning rapidly.
"I didn't expect such an unexpected harvest."
He stared at Cyril, his two red electronic eyes flashing frequently, seemingly performing some high-intensity data analysis.
"Which cult are you from? A wild psyker? Or one of those Inquisition lapdogs?"
The situation began to slide away from the best-case scenario.
A madman with a gun in front, a monster guarding the door behind.
Cyril stood in place.
Several red laser dots flickered on his brow and heart.
With just one extra movement, those bolts could tear him to shreds.
But he did not move.
Nor did he activate his abilities.
Cyril reached out and wiped his grime-covered face.
The movement was slow.
Very relaxed.
He brushed off the layer of lime powder on his hands used to fake calluses.
White powder drifted in the dim light.
He looked at the half-man, half-machine sage and raised his hand to wag his index finger.
It was a taunt.
A naked contempt for some low-grade work.
"This is your 'Ascension'?"
Cyril's disparaging voice was clearly audible in the dead silence of the hall.
He raised his hand, pointed at the convulsing boy in tank number three, and then at the pulsating purple crystal on the altar.
"Using this kind of low-life Warp-tainted Slag to force scrap metal into rotten flesh."
Cyril took a step forward.
Ignoring One-Eyed Jack's muzzle, which was almost pressed against his face.
And ignoring the sentry cannons that could fire at any moment.
He walked to a cultivation tank and lightly tapped on the glass.
Clang.
Clang.
"Is this the truth your Dark Mechanicum pursues?"
Cyril turned around and looked directly into the Rust Sage's eyes, his tone full of regret and disappointment.
"Crude. Inferior. It's simply an insult to knowledge."
The Rust Sage's mechanical tentacles came to an abrupt halt in mid-air.
"What did you say?"
"I said, you are a mediocre talent."