Warhammer 40,000: Echoes of Divinity

From the moment Qin Mo issued his command to the time Grey and Grot returned, the entire operation took less than one hour.

Along the way, the two made a brief detour to Duncan's coordinates to deposit Albert's lifeless form—a stark reminder of the countless sacrifices demanded by a war against xenos corruption.

As soon as Qin Mo secured the psyker, he had her confined in a reinforced chamber, its adamantium walls layered with Anti-Psyker Emitters.

....

"Let me out!"

"I'll KILL you all!"

"Uuuuhhh... uuuhhh…"

The psyker thrashed violently, her frail body crashing against the iron-clad walls.

Her eyes burned with madness, glowing faintly with residual warp-energy, but no power came to her aid.

Cut off from the psychic synapse web of the Genestealer Cult, her connection to the Broodmind had been severed, leaving only emptiness and despair.

Grey and Qin Mo stood at the doorway, their expressions cold and impassive, watching her unravel like a puppet with its strings cut.

After a moment's pause, Grey finally asked, "What use is she?"

"She holds significant value," replied Qin Mo with a smile. "Through her, I can pinpoint the location of the xenos leader."

Grey raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you say you were already working on a device to track him?"

"I did. But with her involvement, the process will be much faster... and far more precise."

Grey glanced at the psyker curled up on the floor, reduced to nothing more than a shivering husk. His grip on his bolter tightened.

"Do we need to extract her brain?"

"No need." Qin Mo shook his head.

"Then how do we make her comply without killing her?"

Qin Mo didn't answer immediately. He simply watched the psyker struggle for a few more moments before turning to Grey.

"Every living being has a breaking point. Once that threshold is crossed, they cease to be who they were."

Grey said nothing, but he understood.

He had almost reached that point himself when the 44th Regiment was nearly wiped out.

He had endured because that was the duty of a soldier of the Imperium, yet he understood not everyone could bear such a burden.

Still, he wasn't sure how this related to breaking the psyker.

In a steady tone, Qin Mo continued. "I'll break her. Shatter her mind. Then, I'll rebuild her."

He turned, motioning for Grey to follow. "You should pay attention. One day, you'll need to extract information from an enemy more... efficiently."

Grey hesitated. "Is this necessary?"

Qin Mo chuckled, shaking his head. "Necessary? No. I could just strap her into a machine and rip the knowledge straight from her neurons."

Grey sighed softly. "Then why do this?"

"Because this is a lesson."

....

Two Days Later 

For two days, Qin Mo and Grey worked the psyker over.

It wasn't like a standard interrogation—no crude torture, no direct questioning.

Yet Grey couldn't discern a clear pattern in his methods.

He kept asking inane, nonsensical questions, forcing the psyker to answer.

The only noticeable change was her resistance.

At first, she screamed, thrashed, cursed. But now, she simply sat in the corner, staring blankly, answering his words like a broken automaton.

And so, the process continued.

Even now.

"What flavor of starch do you like?" Qin Mo's tone was light, almost conversational.

Grey stood beside him, his fingers flexing over the hilt of his combat blade. If she made even the slightest wrong move, he would crush her Skull before she could even think about resistance.

But the psyker only shrank further into herself, curling up tightly. "Starch has no flavor, sir…" she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Answer me." Qin Mo's voice hardened.

She trembled. "But... but it really has no flavor…"

"Really? I don't believe you." Qin Mo shook his head, feigning disappointment.

Her eyes darted around the room in search of an escape that did not exist. After a long moment, she repeated, "It really has no flavor."

"Alright then." Qin Mo rose to his feet and left the room.

The moment he stepped out, the waiting guards entered—each wielding electrified shock-mauls.

A moment later, screams and anguished wails echoed through the hallway.

It was the same routine that had been repeated for the past two days: Qin Mo would ask his questions, and when he was done, the enforcers would enter.

....

Days Later

The chamber stank of antiseptic and burnt copper.

Qin Mo's methods remained merciless. Relentless barrage of questions, each more nonsensical than the last.

"What color is silence?" he intoned.

The psyker huddled in the corner, her shaved scalp crusted with dried blood from where she'd battered it against the walls. Her once-vivid eyes were hollow, her answers rote.

"S-silver. Like st-stars…"

"Incorrect." Qin Mo nodded to a guards lurking in the shadows. Then a hulking brute stepped forward, its shock-maul crackling with blue current.

The psyker screamed.

Grey leaned against the wall, arms crossed. His bolt pistol felt heavier than usual. "This is a waste of time. Plug her into your machine and be done. If you want to teach me, I'm willing to learn—but right now…""

Qin Mo didn't look up from his data-slate. "Haste yields incomplete results. The machine might extract data, but it would lack context and certainty. "

He gestured to the psyker, now sobbing into her knees. "This ensures her compliance. No lies. No resistance. Only… truth."

"What tastes like sorrow?" Qin Mo demanded suddenly.

The psyker flinched. "R-rust. Rot. The Emperor's Mercy…"

After a brief pause, Qin Mo nodded. "Adequate."

As he strode out, two Enforcers entered, their shock-mauls spitting sparks.

The door sealed behind them, muffling the screams.

Grey followed Qin Mo into the hallway, his voice sharp. "Do you enjoy this?"

Qin Mo halted mid-step. "...No." 

Grey stared back at the interrogation room. The psyker's whimpers seeped through the door, broken by jagged laughter.

He wondered if she'd already told them everything—and if they'd simply failed to hear it.

"Do you understand now?" Qin Mo asked.

"No." Grey shook his head, exasperated.

"I'll explain it in detail later when we have time. Or I could install a a cortical infolink in your brain so you can just download the knowledge." Qin Mo wasn't in a hurry to make Grey grasp interrogation techniques immediately.

Grey grimaced. "Pass for now"

Qin Mo chuckled. "I thought so."

He knew that, to Grey, his methods must seem as incomprehensible cruel. But cruelty was the currency of survival in the grimdark expanse of the 40k universe.

He himself had once been unprepared for this brutal reality. That was why he had ended up in chains, discarded like refuse in the depths of the underhive, another nameless soul crushed beneath the weight of a world that did not care.

He had sworn to himself that it would never happen again.

"I've already ordered each regiment to expand to ten thousand troops. These soldiers need weapons and equipment, plus reserves. That means we have at least two days before deployment. So, I figured we could either use that time for training... or throw a banquet." Qin Mo said.

Grey's lip curled. "You'd waste hours on feasting?"

"No." Qin Mo's gaze didn't waver. "I waste hours on you. The machine does not sleep. The war does not pause. But our mortal troops? They require… motivation."

....

Three Days Later

Qin Mo's work had yielded results.

Now, it was time to test his creation.

Grey escorted the psyker from her holding cell. Though she was no longer bound, her neck was still fitted with a psyk-inhibitor collar, ensuring she could not wield her unnatural gifts.

They descended deeper into the underground bunker, stepping through armored bulkheads reinforced with adamantium plating.

Inside, five warriors in Thunderborn-pattern power armor awaited.

Among them stood Qin Mo.

"Come here." He beckoned.

The psyker hesitated, trembling like a malnourished grox calf.

Qin Mo seized her by the throat, forcing her to look at the spherical device in the corner of the bunker.

"See that machine? Step inside, put on the helmet, and sit down. Relax."

"Y-Yes…" she replied softly, her voice devoid of its former defiance.

Qin Mo was pleased. With a casual motion, he unfastened the psyk-inhibitor collar.

The others immediately tensed, their graviton hammers primed, their trigger fingers tightening on volkite carbines.

But their caution was unnecessary. The psyker had been so thoroughly broken that she barely noticed. She simply obeyed, stepping into the machine without resistance.

Submission. Obedience. The final phase was complete.

Grey exhaled sharply. He had doubted Qin Mo's methods—but now, the proof was before him.

The psyker donned the interface helm, and the moment she relaxed, her consciousness reconnected to the Genestealer psychic network.

And then—resistance flared.

Defiance flooded her mind, her old self clawing to the surface.

〈Where are you, sister?

Do not surrender. For the Great Devourer!

We are always with you! Stay strong!...〉

The psychic network surged with voices.

The psyker reached up, trying to rip off the device—

The machine responded swiftly.

Restraints snapped into place. A surge of energy briefly overloaded her neural pathways until she fell silent.

Qin Mo studied the screen. Data streams flooded in, marking enemy locations.

"The hive mind's bond is touching." Qin Mo muttered as he filtered through the vast influx of data, looking for the most crucial piece of information.

He hadn't expected immediate results from this experiment—but the outcome exceeded expectations.

Deep beneath the Tyrone Hive, the Patriarch of the cult had already noticed that an important psychic node had gone missing. The moment this node reconnected, the entire brood-mind instinctively conducted a sweep—

And that sweep had been intercepted.

"340 kilometers due north, 2,000 meters underground." He read aloud.

....

At that exact location, a massive Tyranid bioform opened its eyes.

Two seconds later, it shut them again and issued a command through the Broodmind.

The war had entered its next phase.

....

Back in the bunker, the psyker in the machine went brain-dead.

Qin Mo calmly began donning his power armor.

"When the full-scale offensive begins, I'll lead the strike team personally. We have a mission that will turn the tide of this war.

We are going to end this war."