Chapter 67

After spending a blustery night camped on the canyon floor, we pushed onward into the Boss Room.

Once everyone stepped onto the teleportation array, a brilliant flash enveloped us, bending and folding space. When reality snapped back into place, we stood not before a monstrous guardian, but in front of a monolithic mountain of treasure.

“Holy cow!” Squirrel Girl broke away from the formation, diving headfirst into the shimmering pile like a certain penny-pinching cartoon duck. “So much gold! It is a real treasure hoard!”

She was not the only one intoxicated by the sudden windfall. Emma slipped past us, snatching up an opulent black pearl necklace in a flash.

“I have always fancied a pearl necklace of this quality.” She fastened the strand around her neck, offering everyone an elegant twirl accompanied by a haughty smirk. “I think it suits me, don’t you, Leon?”

A heavy aura filled the air as Angelica, Clarice, and Deirdre glared daggers at the telepath. From the moment they had pitched camp last night, Emma had been hovering around Leon, looking for any excuse to strike up a conversation. He had ignored every advance, yet she refused to take the hint.

Angelica took a sharp step forward, her fists clenched at her sides. She opened her mouth to speak, but another voice cut in first.

“Keep away from our fiancé, or we will give you a pair of matching shiners to go with that necklace.”

A wave of bloodthirsty malice rolled off Olivia. Her latent yandere side was laid bare before all.

‘Keep this up, you thieving vixen, and they will never find your body…’

Startled by the sheer hostility rolling off the saintess, the three noblewomen froze, their irritation with Emma forgotten for an instant. The moment their eyes locked onto her, Olivia blinked, the murderous aura vanishing as she shrank into her usual demure posture, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeves.

“Ahem…” Lucoa stepped between them with a relaxed wave of her hands. “Is there something specific you want from Leon? Because your relentless pestering is rubbing a few of us the wrong way.”

Emma’s smirk faltered, her psychic senses catching the venomous weight of Olivia’s unvoiced thought. Quickly recovering her composure with a quiet cough, the telepath was forthright rather than beat around the bush any longer.

“It seems my intentions were misconstrued.” Emma offered a faint smile. “All I wanted was to discuss Leon’s psychic abilities. When I attempted to probe your minds for information on our current situation yesterday, he rebuffed me with unfathomable psychic force. I have fought many formidable psionics before, but what I felt from him was on an entirely different level.”

Clarice crossed her arms, her gaze flat. “You certainly have a peculiar way of showing it.”

“Where I come from, powerful men guard their secrets with their lives.” Emma lifted her chin with an easy shrug, running a manicured hand down the curve of her hip. “Give them some attention and a peek at your cleavage, and most men will gladly tell you anything you want to know. In my experience, it works far better than a casual conversation. Like his ancestor, all my attempts to garner his attention failed miserably. It must be a trait of the Doom bloodline.”

Storm and the other heroes pinched the bridge of their noses in collective exasperation. Just like the Emmas back in their own worlds, this one had to make things far more complicated than necessary. A straightforward question at the start could have spared everyone the headache.

“There is a time and place to use seduction to gather intelligence.” Mirage picked up a shortsword from the pile and gave it a testing swing. She nodded contently, feeling the center-of-gravity settle in her palm. “We are allies, not adversaries. Save those underhanded tactics for actual threats and be straight with us.”

The other women nodded in agreement, catching Emma completely off guard.

She had assumed the other summons still shared her lingering skepticism. Leon had been upfront about why he brought them here, asking for their aid to mend a shattered universe, and everyone had agreed to the terms. But agreeing in principle differed vastly from giving blind trust to complete strangers.

After sharing a warm meal and a night in camp, the other six had let down their guard, deciding to place their trust in his words.

Emma remained the lone holdout.

It was not out of spite; it was an occupational habit. As someone who spent her life swimming through the human subconscious, she knew better than anyone that even the most benevolent faces could harbor vile, cold-blooded monsters. Normally, a casual surface skim was all she needed to expose a person’s true nature.

Against Leon, that advantage was completely useless. His mental barriers were an impenetrable fortress of pure, unyielding will. Being blind to his true intentions left her deeply unsettled. If she could not read his thoughts, she could not verify his motives—and that left her clutching at whatever mundane tricks she had left.

Outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the group’s sudden unity, Emma raised both hands in a placating gesture of surrender.

“Very well. From here on, I will be straightforward with everyone.” Emma accepted the collective decision with a stiff nod, choosing to go with the flow for the moment.

As she turned to resume sifting through the treasure, my voice cut through the quiet space from the edge of the inactive teleportation circle.

“And here I assumed you were an intelligent strategist.”

Emma paused mid-step, her shoulders visibly tensing.

“If you had bothered to observe my fiancées, you would know that each is a natural beauty without peer. Someone who spent a fortune paying surgeons to sculpt their body could never hope to sway my attention.”

Her desperate need for control, her fragile pride, and her obsessive vanity were critical flaws that had to be dismantled here and now. This was not a mundane corner of her home reality; across the stars lurked ancient, predatory horrors who fed upon such self-indulgence. Chief among them was the Prince of Excess, whose domain feasted upon unchecked perfectionism and pride. If Emma ever succumbed to that whispered corruption, I would be forced to execute her—an outcome I had no desire to see. While cutting to the bone was harsh, the rot had to be excised immediately, lest it fester into damnation later.

Emma turned slowly toward me, every trace of color completely drained from her face.

“Where did you hear that?” She stepped backward until her heels knocked against the base of the gold mound, her posture trembling. “That is a bald-faced lie. This is my natural appearance.”

“Keep repeating that lie to yourself, Emma. Nearly every curve on your body was carved out by top surgeons on your home world. You were a flawless beauty before your vanity drove you to alter it all.”

Her heels lost purchase on the shifting coins, and she sank to the stone floor. Her manicured hands reached up to clutch her temples as old, buried memories forced their way through her mental barriers. She fought to reject the accusation, desperate to cling to the illusion she had weaponized for decades.

She parted her lips to deliver a scathing defense, but I cut her off with flat, surgical precision.

“You altered your flesh to match what a shallow society deemed valuable. What did it actually buy you? Your peers built real lives, found genuine love, and had identities beyond their hero personas. The great White Queen moved from one convenient arrangement to the next, terrified of letting anyone close. You had an adoring following and basked in public adoration, but let me ask you this: did it ever fill that void? No matter how high your status climbed, it always felt hollow, did it not? Because when the performance ends and the lights fade, you always find yourself in the same place—isolated, bitter, and completely alone.”

Every eye in the space turned toward the trembling telepath. Under their collective gaze, her porcelain facade shattered. The vulnerable woman beneath was dragged into the light, exposing an ugly truth: external validation was the sole anchor keeping her comfortable in her own skin. Without it, she stood completely exposed.

“Stop! Stop looking at me!” Emma clawed at her temples, her manicured fingers digging into her scalp as decades of ironclad control slipped through her grasp.

Emma collapsed to her knees, trembling violently as dry sobs racked her frame. Her sudden unraveling drew sympathetic glances from the surrounding women; while they agreed the White Queen had overstepped her bounds, Leon’s targeted strike had cut far too deep.

“Leon, that is enough!” Olivia stepped forward, giving me a pleading look before rushing straight to Emma’s side. “You are taking things much too far. What she did was wrong, but this is simply cruel!”

Mystique shook her head, folding her arms. “The woman can be a colossal pain in the ass, but dragging up something that personal…”

Before she could finish, a violent, uncontrolled psionic shockwave erupted from Emma’s fracturing mind.

A high-pitched ringing pierced the air, and loose gold coins vibrated before levitating off the stone floor. Several women winced, clutching their temples as raw mental static flooded the area.

Stepping forward with a quiet sigh, I raised an open palm.

“Call it what you like, but this is the best way to save her.” My voice carried flatly through the psychic gale. “Emma’s unchecked pride and vanity could get billions of innocent people killed.”

Hidden behind my cold metal mask, I looked down at the weeping telepath with quiet pity.

“There are predatory horrors in this universe far beyond your comprehension. Better that I break her fragile mask and help her forge an unbreakable one than be forced to execute her later.”

The air turned freezing cold as deep hues of purple energy crackled around me, carrying the sharp tang of ozone and burnt copper. Arcs of violet lightning bled from the fabric of reality, dancing across my knuckles and wreathing my forearm in raw Warp energy. With a single flex of my will, the unnatural lightning surged forward in a crushing wave, smothering Emma’s psychic tempest on impact.

The hovering treasure lost its lift, clattering harmlessly against the stone paving.

With the psychic pressure dispelled and the eerie aura receding back into the Immaterium, I closed the distance, caught her flailing wrists in a firm grip, and pulled them away from her face, forcing her to look up.

“Listen to me, Emma Frost. You will cease this tantrum at once.”

My voice was calm and emotionless, carrying the unyielding weight of an absolute command. I held her reddened, tear-streaked gaze, refusing to look away until the violent trembling in her shoulders slowed.

“You are a formidable woman and an exceptionally gifted telepath. While your physical appearance may have played a part in opening doors, it pales in comparison to the blood, sweat, and intellect you poured into every victory you ever claimed. You demean yourself and insult your own achievements by believing you are nothing without a sculpted mask.”

Emma’s eyes went wide with shock.

She had braced herself for a harsh reprimand, expecting him to continue tearing down her fragile defenses. A sincere compliment was the last thing she anticipated.

Her hands slipped from mine, falling loosely to her sides. “What is it you want from me? You possess enough power to crush my psionic gifts with a wave of your hand. Aside from my body, what else could you possibly want?”

“I need trustworthy leaders and capable tacticians at my back, Emma.”

With a quiet sound of interlocking metal plates sliding back, my armored faceplate retracted into my collar, exposing my face to hers.

Her breath caught in her throat. She stared at my features in stunned silence, clearly unprepared for the striking, otherworldly presence behind the mask.

“While I said my goal is to stop the collapse of reality, there is much more to it for me. As I have told you, I am the Second Imperial Prince of the Imperium of Man. That may sound like a hollow aristocratic title to you, but it is far more than that.” I held her gaze with steady resolve. “If you will allow it, I can show you exactly what it entails.”

Emma let her mental barriers drop, opening her consciousness to receive mine.

The moment our minds touched, the bitter chill of the Warp vanished, replaced by an oceanic, galaxy-spanning consciousness. At first, only a faint murmur of distant voices filtered through, but within seconds, the trickle swelled into a deafening roar of raw agony and desperate devotion.

Across an entire galaxy, untold quadrillions of souls cried out for their God-Emperor.

Beyond the gaping wound of the Great Rift, faithful populations begged and wept for holy angels to descend and rescue them from burning worlds. Trapped in the churning abyss of the Warp, the crews of failing vessels offered prayers, desperate to catch even a glimpse of the Astronomican’s golden light. In the suffocating depths of collapsing Hivesprawls, starving billions knelt at the feet of towering stone effigies, pleading for deliverance.

The sheer, crushing weight of humanity’s suffering crashed into Emma’s psyche, threatening to drag her consciousness down into the abyss. Before the torrent could drown her, my will surged forward, pulling her out of the undertow and into a calm mental space.

“What… what manner of horrific nightmare is this?” Her astral presence trembled in shock. “Who are all those people? And what… what was that grotesque presence lurking beneath their voices?”

In response, the psychic shroud parted, and a vast, sprawling vista of the Milky Way unfolded before her eyes. It would have been breathtaking had a gaping tear in reality not split the expanse in half—an open, festering wound bleeding raw Warp energy and corrupt violet light directly into the galaxy.

“This is the Imperium of Man.” My voice echoed across the mental projection. “My home… or at least, what remains of it. The desperate voices you heard belong to Imperial citizens… my people.”

The cosmic tapestry shifted, flashing across dozens of smog-choked shrine worlds, fortified star citadels, and scorched battlefields.

“Ten thousand years ago, I foresaw this bleak reality. I gave everything I had to stop it—my life, my loyal soldiers, my wife…”

I let the memories flow freely, sharing unvarnished glimpses of the life I once led and the brotherhood I fought beside before the galaxy burned. By the time the visions faded into quiet astral stillness, Emma’s projection stood motionless, a stunned, hollow look settled over her pale features.

The projection shifted one last time, manifesting a colossal obsidian throne room. Upon a mountain of glowing machinery sat the shattered, still husk of the Emperor of Mankind.

“My father sits bound to that golden throne, holding the remnants of humanity together with his dying flesh and indomitable will. Half of my brothers betrayed our people and laid waste to our home. The rest are scattered or struggling in the dark without our father’s light.”

My astral form materialized beside her, standing shoulder-to-shoulder as we gazed out toward the colossal, agonizing glare of the throne.

I nodded with somber eyes. “Humanity… my home… it bleeds terribly, and it is running out of hope. My brothers Guilliman and The Lion are doing their best, but it is not enough. They are so focused on holding the fractured realm together that they cannot see there will be no Imperium left to save. While they strategize how to maintain the status quo, countless worlds are swallowed whole by the darkness. Every day, trillions of lives are extinguished, yet to the bureaucrats on Terra, they are merely ledger entries on a spreadsheet.”

My ethereal fists clenched, the metaphysical joints groaning under the strain as cold fury flared in my chest.

Imperial leadership was sacrificing entire sectors merely to buy time for a counter-offensive that would never come. High Lords and commanders were more than happy to convene councils and review casualty projections, but none possessed the will to seize the initiative. They were trapped in a stagnant, defensive doctrine. What the Imperium needed was a ruthless offensive campaign—one designed to drag the enemy onto ground of our choosing, rather than dying on our knees in endless retreats.

“To save my home, my people, and this universe, I need capable, trustworthy individuals standing at my side. That is where the seven of you come in.” I met her gaze, refusing to let her look away. “I have no use for an arrogant socialite who cannot look past her own vanity. What I need is a shrewd politician who can play the bloated swine called high nobility like a fiddle, a tactician who can identify critical weaknesses and deliver solutions, and an unyielding soul who will step forward when lesser minds cower in terror. Can you be that person, Emma Frost?”

A faint, self-assured smirk touched her lips. “You would not bother asking if you believed I was incapable. It seems I will simply have to exceed your lofty expectations. But if you want my counsel, darling, you had best prepare yourself for my sharp tongue. After everything I have carved out with my own two hands, that part of me is not going anywhere.”

“I would expect nothing less of the White Queen.”

I offered my hand, and Emma took it. Our fingers locked in a firm, unbreakable grip as the astral plane fractured, dissolving into ribbons of golden light.

The roaring silence vanished, replaced in an instant by the damp, metallic air of the desert plain. As our consciousness snapped back into the pocket dimension, I reached down and offered Emma a supportive hand, helping her rise to her feet.

She dabbed at the stray moisture on her cheeks. Her signature poise had returned, but the brittle, condescending sneer was gone—replaced by a quiet, grounded confidence.

At her side, Olivia was already channeling the gentle light of restorative magic, her palms bathing Emma’s skin in a soothing emerald glow as she quietly closed the superficial scrapes along the telepath's cheekbones and temples. She glanced between Emma and Leon, noting the profound shift in Emma’s posture and steady gaze, but wisely kept her counsel to herself.

“What is with the sudden shift? Did we miss something important?” Black Cat looked between us in sheer bewilderment, resting a hand on her hip.

While our private communion in the astral plane had spanned what felt like hours, barely a handful of seconds had ticked by within the sandy Boss Room.

“Yes, and do not bother asking for details.” Emma turned a cool gaze upon the cat burglar. “We have reached an understanding. From this moment onward, he has my full support. That is all you need to concern yourself with, darling.”

No longer detecting hidden hostility or duplicity from the telepath, Angelica and the others visibly relaxed. The lingering tension in the space evaporated, replaced by a quiet readiness to work alongside their new ally.

“Leon, you never answered my question about the grotesque presence lingering within the torrent of voices.” Emma crossed her arms as her expression turned serious. “Care to elaborate now?”

“I held back because it is a reality all of you must understand.” I gestured toward a flat boulder nearby. “Gather round.”

Turning slightly toward Angelica, I gave her an appreciative nod.

“Since you and the others already know the truth, would you mind overseeing an inventory of our spoils? The less time we spend tangled in bureaucratic red tape at the guild counter, the better. I doubt our new guests care to stand around being gawked at by half the guild while pay our dues.”

Angelica caught my meaning immediately. With a reassuring nod, she directed our companions back toward the glittering mounds, leading the effort to count and separate the treasure.

“Now then… regarding the presence you sensed beneath the prayers.”

I took a seat beside them and laid out the situation in plain terms.

The Warp was not just another magical realm; it was a boundless, toxic sea fed by every raw emotion, violent impulse, and dark desire in the universe. At the center of that nightmare sat four predatory demons who ruled over war, plague, deceit, and excess—beings that actively hunted anyone whose unchecked passions opened the door. Places like Limbo or the Dark Dimension had dangerous rulers, but the Warp was far worse: a living storm that chewed through unguarded souls and wore their bodies like suits of skin.

A heavy silence settled over the group as the reality sank in. Looking back at Emma, the women finally understood why I had been so merciless with her earlier.

A bruised ego and a few shed tears were a cheap price to pay to keep her soul in one piece.

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