Chapter 11: Chapter 11: The Derelict Spaceship
Eden quickly finished his dinner and returned to his bedroom to rest. The maids helped him wash up and change into nightwear.
Eden lay down on the soft bed. "You can all leave now. I'm going to sleep."
"As you wish, Governor," the maids said, bowing gracefully before tiptoeing out of the room. The crystal lamps dimmed as they left.
As night deepened, soft red moonlight filtered through the windows, casting a faint glow across the room.
"I still can't get used to that red moon," Eden mumbled, his eyes open.
After seeing the familiar moon of his home world, the red moon here seemed especially eerie.
But he wasn't having trouble sleeping; there was something more important he needed to do.
Eden activated his psychic power, focusing on the whispering voices coming from the Warp.
He intended to replicate the events of the previous night, to re-enter the Warp and seek out Little Sun.
This was extremely dangerous, as it exposed him to the corrupting influences of the Warp and its terrifying entities.
But Eden had no choice. He needed to study and harness the power of Little Sun to find a solution to the current crisis.
After all, this was his greatest trump card.
The whispers in the Warp grew sharper, with many strange beings calling out to him. The tugging sensation became more intense.
"Which one is it?" Eden gritted his teeth, enduring the splitting headache as he tried to identify Little Sun's specific signal among the chaos.
Among the many presences, one stood out—a powerful purple force that constantly tempted him.
It seemed that if he answered, he would be transported to a place of unparalleled pleasure.
An old acquaintance… Eden thought, realizing that the call came from Slaanesh, the Chaos God of excess and pleasure, who was still trying to lure him in.
"Hah! You won't tempt me!" Eden dismissed the frequency from Slaanesh and blocked it out, muttering, "Get lost!"
Slaanesh's reaction was immediate and furious, continuing to bombard him with calls to join its realm.
But Eden completely ignored it. Communicating with the Warp was like chatting online—it didn't matter how angry the other party got; there was little they could actually do.
Slaanesh wouldn't send a demon to get me, right? Eden suddenly grew nervous. If Slaanesh tracked him down and sent a demon to capture him in the real world, he would be doomed.
"There are hundreds of millions of planets in the Imperium, no way they'd find me that easily…" Eden reassured himself.
If it were that easy for Slaanesh to pluck people from the Warp, the Imperium's key figures would have been long dead.
Moreover, Little Sun was still protecting him, making it difficult for Slaanesh to locate him.
Comforted by this thought, Eden continued his search for Little Sun's signal.
Just as he was about to lose his grip, a familiar frequency entered his mind.
It was Little Sun!
Eden immediately latched onto the signal with his psychic awareness, responding to its call.
Boom!
In an instant, Eden's consciousness was pulled into the Warp.
He was back!
Once again, his consciousness merged with Little Sun.
He "gazed" at the cold, shining sun formed by the Emperor's will, suspended high above in the void, feeling a slight sense of relief.
Thankfully, the Emperor's protection kept his Little Sun avatar safe from the predatory creatures of the Warp, which would have devoured it as a snack otherwise.
Eden began to guide Little Sun, trying to get a feel for its power.
But the energy shortage still left many of its abilities unusable, such as illusion projection, blessings, and teleportation.
For now, the only ability Eden could use was Warp exploration, and he only had enough energy for one attempt.
Simply put, this meant he could open a treasure chest in the Warp and search for physical objects.
Some might consider this a useless ability, but Eden knew it had immense potential.
After all, there were countless treasures scattered throughout the Warp, especially derelict ships.
Since humanity first mastered Warp travel, ships had been entering the Warp for millennia.
During the height of human technology in the Golden Age, countless ships traveled through the Warp.
But the Warp was dangerous, like a stormy sea, and its deadly Warp storms could destroy everything!
Over the centuries, countless ships had been lost in the Warp, their wrecks floating aimlessly through the void.
These wrecks were treasure troves, potentially containing lost technology, powerful weapons, and ancient relics.
With technology having regressed so much in the present day, finding a relic from the Golden Age—such as an STC (Standard Template Construct)—would be like striking gold.
"Should I search?"
Eden decided to activate Little Sun's search ability, sending out a psychic scan through the Warp.
As a self-proclaimed unlucky person, he performed a small superstitious ritual, crossing his fingers as he initiated the search: "Search initiated!"
Little Sun trembled slightly, and a wave of psychic light spread out, rippling through the endless void.
Soon, the energy began to pinpoint various objects, marking them as glowing dots on Eden's mental map.
Each dot represented a physical object within the Warp.
Eden was nervous—he could only place one psychic beacon to navigate toward an object.
The choice was crucial.
If he selected something unreachable or, worse, picked a Chaos God's lair, he was doomed.
It felt like playing a game where you only had one chance to draw a card—extremely nerve-wracking.
"Please let it be something good!"
Eden mentally rubbed his hands together and selected a medium-sized glowing dot.
After all, a massive dot could be a dangerous lair belonging to a powerful entity, so it was safer to pick something moderate.
Once he made his choice, Eden guided his consciousness to dive toward it.
His awareness stretched into the void, slipping through a Warp rift and emerging in a new location moments later.
As his vision cleared, Eden saw an ancient metal colossus looming ahead, colliding with his senses like a mountain.
Compared to this massive metal object, he was as small as an ant standing before a giant beast, the sheer scale overwhelming.
Eden extended his psychic senses and realized that the structure was a derelict ship, glowing faintly blue as it drifted through the Warp.
"A derelict ship! I've hit the jackpot!" Eden exclaimed.
When a ship was wrecked in the Warp, its remains often drifted for centuries.
Sometimes, these wrecks were drawn into Warp vortexes, gathering into massive debris fields.
Through some mysterious force, the wreckage within these debris fields would fuse together, forming an enormous structure that continued its eternal voyage through the Warp.
These ghost ships were often called derelict spaceships—moving treasure troves in the Warp!
The interior of such a ship often contained remnants from multiple eras, including lost technology or sacred relics, just waiting for a fateful explorer to find them.
However, exploring a derelict spaceship was highly dangerous, as heretics or even Chaos demons often made these wrecks their nests.
"I really hope this ship hasn't been taken over by a Chaos demon..."
Eden felt a pang of worry. If the ship was occupied by a powerful demon, he stood no chance of exploring it!
(End of Chapter)