59 – To the final frontier
59 ¨C To the final frontier
fastanda lotwith creating hundreds of Mind-Cores with thousands of threads of thought going on in each of them like the biologicalputers they are is entirely not the same thing as being smart.Smart, which arguably, I am not.
Just thought that somehow hurt.
I knew those sleepless nights ying dnd were worth it.
sometimeand that the Knights of Blood did an epicst stand against him as they fully gave in to the ck rage but not much else aside from how Dante killed the Swarmlord at the end just before the reborn Primarch descended onto the.
No, you need to aim high to win. I''ll get a lock of hair from Girlyman for sure and do the same with a Custodes if Ie across any.
"I can read battle reports in real-time,"Zedev interjected, one of the blue windows floating around him flew up to me and I saw a barrage of reports from deployment orders to requests for artillery shelling and so much more just fly by as they were taken over by dozens of new entries,"we could time our entry to be at a time when nobody would have the leisure to note a single bio-ship."
oops? Should I not have said that?"I will not do it if it is not a must. Hiding between the Tyranids might be much easier and I could make do with more...efficient camouge."
"4 AU."
efficientway of doing it? I''ve been extremely wasteful with my soul energy as ofte, despite my needing to literally connect my soul to hell to refill it.So...is there a better way of doing it?
''Short''I snorted in my mind. Only in Warhammer could people refer to an ability that could hops as a short-distance teleport.Well, with my power flowing into it, it ''should'' be able to do that.
somethingthat could go faster than escape velocity, but the reason I wasn''t TK-ing us up there in the first ce was efficiency.
Maybe I''d have to go with the initial n and just make arge bubble filled with air and just TK us up there.
"I don''t have sufficient data on your capabilities to calcte an optimal n of action."
somehowyou break these foci."
all of your dumb foci were made of Warp-based Wraithbone, of course, they turned into dust in my hands when they got purified,"Is that all?"
now I know how an Aeldari temple survived this close to the home world of a Primarch.
He is like a kid in a candy store.
Space...
Cute women... spaceships... eldritch powers... sci-fi toys...
If only I had a good meal, to make it even better.
60 – Ad Astra
60 ¨C Ad Astra
Announcement
From now on chapters are going to be Scheduled!
Wednesday 18:00 CET
Saturday 18:00 CET
Two chapters a week just as before, but now it will line up better with my Patreon posting schedule. It will also give me a single extra day per week to work on other projects.
(This is mostly for RR as I can''t schedule on ScribbleHub. So stuff is going to go out when I realize it should but the days should stay the same.)
I felt the outer armor incinerate as we gained more and more velocity, with the two joining in I could cut back on my own supply of soul energy and we were still going a bit faster than required to escape orbit. My focus went into keeping the outeryer healthy as fixing tears was much less energy-intensive than remaking the armor if parts of it ked off.
It was supposed to protect Hive-Ships from damned cyclone torpedos which could decimate continents so of course the armor didn''t need much healing to stay together, the integrity of it was questionable with my application of it but what can you do?
I''m such a moron sometimes,I wanted to p my forehead but instead, I forced down my embarrassment and integrated ayer of Ambull carapace under the outermostyer. The heat didn''t die down, it got sucked into the Ambull biomass and with the modifications my diligent Mind-Crores came up with it all started to turn into bio-energy.
It was much slower than eating stuff but asrge as this sphere was at around half a kilometer across, it was like I absorbed a whole human every minute. I could barely feel the extra energying in from the radiationpared to the heat, it was such a small amount but hopefully, it''d be much greater in deep space where nothing could shield me from it.
A rocket back when I was alive on Earth needed a bit more than eight minutes to reach low-earth orbit, aka LEO. This was around a thousand kilometers from the surface. We reached it in two and I already felt the atmospheric drag lessen and our velocity jump as a result.
The burning also abated a bit and along with it went my steady stream of bio-energy and the annoying pain I put myself through for some damned reason.
A tendril burst through the underside of the sphere and quickly split into a dozen before thickening up to be tens of meters thick and many more in length. Then I started paddling for ack of a better word. Using these Tyranid tentacles to propel myself forward was like trying to swim through air in zero gravity but it still somehow gave us a boost in propulsion so cool I guess?
These things were rather delicatepared to the armored shell, so they''d have been incinerated by atmospheric friction if I used them closer to the surface but with my healing it should be alright from now on.
My body was squished into the seat by now and I let out a smile. This was very much like sitting in a muscle car and while I didn''t have many opportunities to do so in my previous life this was a cool feeling. Fortunately, mypanions weren''t usual humans from the 21st century as I''m sure the Gs I was putting them under would have knocked them out, at least if not given them a serious brain hemorrhage.
"How do you all feel?" I asked with a steady voice, not letting the sadistic pressure on my body impede me.
"This is a brutish way of travel," Val noted calmly, looking asposed as can be.
"Operational."
"This is not how take off," Selene heaved, "should feel."
"Beggars can''t be choosers," I smiled, satisfied that everyone was doing well.
Fifteen minutester we reached what would be GSO, aka Geostationary Orbit which would be where the space stations orbited the if there were any but as far as I saw with some eyes made on the surface of the sphere there weren''t.
"This should be far enough," I said to myself as bio-energy started flooding into the tendrils connected to me still and the outer shell of the sphere started morphing. It lengthened and flesh, organs, nerves and many alien bio-matter started forming between our ''sphere'', which would be the control center and the outer armor.
From a sphere, it turned into an elongated cylinder with long tentaclesing out of its end but from far away it''d seem almost like a nail with how slim it was. Still, to anyone in the know it''d unmistakeably look like a small Tyranid ship and those who knew their bio-forms, it''d be clear that it was a Narwhal, the bio-form that let Tyranids travel at FTL speeds.
I didn''t do that yet, it relied on gravitational pull and we were still well within the gravitational well of the behind us. Using it at all will be a risk as the method could cause natural disasters on the the Narwhal pulled itself toward but I might not have much of a choice if I don''t want to bete to the party. Still, it will be ast resort if I sense a giant fleet entering the system.
Guilliman woulde at the head of the Indomitus Crusade, the question was how long did I have until then? Regr Narwhal''s could sense the gravitational and Psychic waves given off by inhabiteds from fucking sectors away so it shouldn''t be too hard to notice the fleet before they noticed me.
Tyranid organs finished forming around the ship, making pathways and intricate patterns with their grand tapestry and I felt the pressure on my body lessen to a gentle pull towards my chair, no different from standing on a metro.
"What?" Selene asked in surprise.
"Interesting," I murmured. Did this use something simr to the Crotalids? I knew the organs were damn important and so was their cement, as it was coded into the gics of both ships with no less than fifty redundancies. One of my future goals was to uncover the secrets of Enuncia and all simr powers, so this was a wee surprise. Who wouldn''t like powers that were free? Enouncia was anguage that literally bent the rules of reality, and even a simple human could speak it.
"Inertia dampeners?"I couldfeelthe surprise in Zedev''s voice despite it being as static as ever,"How?"
"Later," I waved him off, "We shouldn''t have much of a problem with pressure any longer."
"Good," Val sighed as he fixed the creases in his robe after standing up, "How long do you think it''ll take?"
"Hmm," I focused on the Narwhal''s senses and quickly found a giant gravitational well at the center of the system, the Star of the system. After I managed to disregard that, I found the nextrgest, which was a bitrger than the one we were currently in so it should be Baal as there were no otheroid-sized wells. From there it was a quick calction which was done a blink after I made the query, "We should be there in three days at this speed."
Val nodded and sat down to meditate. Selene remained in her seat and Zedev was absently staring at the ceiling, probably trying to figure out how the ship worked.
With silence seeming to remain for a while, I sank into my thoughts. My main dilemma at the moment was what to do with therge bio-mass stored in my Soul Puddle,yes I''m calling it that.Of course, the easiest answer would be to just teleport it out of there now that I was in space. It could hardly get lost or teleported into the out here but...
I thought back to how that Necron yer destroyed my body, if I didn''t have a part of my eldritch flesh inside Selene''s armor I''d have had to remain as her armor with no way of changing my body or just straight up abandon existing in realspace as I didn''t have any way of recing my body. Sure, I made some safeguards but I could always be caught with my pants down and have my body destroyed or captured inside a stasis field, that''d be a fucking dumb end to my short legend.
The biomass in my Soul Puddle was almost entirely eldritch flesh and as long as even a tiny little tendril of it remained under control I could always replenish my bio-energy and grow it as much as I wanted.
The decision was obvious. I''d have loved a giant pool of bio-energy inside my storesright nowbut having the assurance that I wouldn''t lose all of my bio-shapeshifting abilities if I lost this body was also a giant weight off my chest. With the Crotalid stuff, I shouldn''t even have to worry about losing my anchor to realspace as I could always just yeet out a small tendril filled with just enough bio-energy to recreate my body ¡ª avatar if I was being honest ¡ª and sustain it for a few months with the Warp Slip ability I got from those mutated crocs. With that I was basically a Perpetual on steroids or something simr but better, I wouldn''t need ages to reconstruct my body and I wouldn''t be unconscious while doing so.
So all the biomass stored safely inside my Soul Puddle was a lifeline, a second chance, a Health Point.
Still...just a bit couldn''t hurt...I''d still have a whole lot...
No, I''m starting to sound like a druggie, I''ll just go eat some fresh Tyranids instead.
''How much will this form take out of my bio-energy stores by the end of the travel?''
[You will have an estimated 1 week of fullbat capability if you fail to reabsorb the bio-ship, with it reabsorbed it grows to a month.]
Damn,I thought as I took in the answering from my predictive Mind-Cores, ones I tasked with specialising in simtions and numerology,well, good thing it won''t be hard to find food.
It almost took an hour, but we were out of the''s pull and our velocity jumped even further, with nothing pulling us back we could now just build up momentum much more easily. It made the organs responsible for the inertia dampening work a bit harder, but it could negate the Gs generated by FTL travel so it was still in low power mode if it could be called that.
There was an experiment I wanted to try, and this three-day-long journey would be the perfect ce to test it. Deep inside the sphere, far from where we were my tendrils curled around arge chunk of the ziggurat''s remains, Wraithbone and started to resonate.
I focused, every sound, every tone, every sequence had to be perfect down to the nanosecond or I could tear my newly-made ship apart, I knew that by instinct. Just around that small chunk my tendrils sang with eerie synchrony and less than a second after the alien song began the tendrils copsed into each other as the chunk disappeared from within their grasps along with chunks of the tendrils.
My attention was barely on those though as I quickly reached out with my soul towards the newly appeared greyish rock and pulled it towards me. The Wraithbone wasn''t spreading any warp energy as it was as stable and static as warp energy could get but my soul''s proximity already started corroding its outeryers.
I didn''t panic but I hurried up and put my hand onto it and pushed despite my ethereal skin getting goosebumps and feeling like ants were running across it. With barely any force behind it, my hand phased into the Psychic material.
There was a thing about the Warp, the Immaterium and Psychic powers in general that while I knew in concept, I couldn''t quite wrap my head around it andunderstandjust yet. It wasn''t logical. I knew that of course, the Warp was a ce of souls, emotions and thoughts and not rigidws, logic and rationale.
I knew Warp Sorcerers could turn people into bubbles if they so wanted, why could they do that? Because they wanted to and because they wanted it more than reality didn''t want it to happen and so it was. I knew it but I couldn''t just do it myself somehow, I still thought logically, seeking reason behind phenomena and cause behind effect even when there wasn''t.
This was why I couldn''t manage Valenith''s Blink, it involved just ''willing'' myself to be somewhere else, it didn''t need me to calcte how and where to open wormholes or pierce spacetime to get to another location, the Warp handled all that by simply lightening the physicalws and making it so that I wasthereinstead ofhere.
As my soul and the Wraithbone intersected for a single, fleeting, fraction of a second I felt like I understood a bit of it, I saw how all that the Warp was could be maderealand solidified. I understood what Wraithbone was and I understood the Warp just a bit more but as they say...the more I know about the Warp the more I understand how little I know.
It was easy to just think of it as arge pool of energy that I could use to make fire, move stuff and throw lightning around with big bad demons swimming around in it but that was not just a rudimentary understanding of the warp but utterly wrong. Fire didn''te out of my hand because warp energy could make fire naturally but because I always imagined in detail how I wanted the energy to create fire.
It wasn''t the Energy doing the work butme.There were no rules on it, no setschoolsof its applications, those were things me and Psykers in general put on it toprehend the iprehensible.
"Echidna?" Selene asked with a worried tone and I snapped my head at her.
"Yes?" I asked, my chest rising and falling rapidly as my mind supn a thousand miles a second and mental power flooded the floating Pyramids in my mind-scape.
"Are you alright?"
"Of course," I grinned, I wanted to jump around, I wanted to kick my legs back and forth like a schoolgirl in love as I realized I could do so much more than I thought, "I''m better than alright."
"Okay?" her brows were creased with worry and something else as she watched me happily dance around with my grin reaching up to my ears.
I disappeared, my body shifting closer to the Immaterium for but a blink and then I was where I wanted to be with barely any Soul energy loss to show for it, my will supplemented much of it.
I lifted Selene up like a mother would their child by the armpits and swung her around.
"Ehhhhh?" her eyes went wide as she stared into mine.
I really want to kiss you.
61 – Enlightenment
61 ¨C Enlightenment
Instead of bending over backward for my urges, I pulled Selene in for a hearty squeeze. I calmed down a bit as I felt her warm body within my hold.
¡°A-air- ¡°she wheezed with a pat on my back with her one free hand.
I let her go, of course, and as I stepped back, Selene stumbled as she suddenly had to hold up her weight. A giggle left my mouth as I looked at her. I was worried at some point that I was looking at Selene and the others more like one look at a pet or something, but by now I couldn¡¯t care about that.
I liked herpany, her character, her care and justheroverall. Despite the considerable power difference between us, I wasn¡¯t just keeping her around for amusement; she has proven to be more helpful than I initially thought.
If I was being pragmatic, then I¡¯d have left her behind already or even absorbed her and taken her Warrant of Trade.
A shiver went down my spine at the thought. This wasn¡¯t a new idea either. I wiped most of my Mind-Cores of emotion so they could make better calctions and this idea was among their rmendations. A side of me even understood why it was so. Selene was weakpared to me, and if the only reason I was protecting her was to gain the influence of a Rogue Trader, then I might as well be one when needed.
Never.
That I so certainly knew that I couldn¡¯t ever go through with it gave me a sense of satisfaction, a satisfaction stemming from not bing an emotionless eldritch monster despite my circumstances pushing me towards it.
Just how much of that do I have to thank Selene for?
Of course, the eldar emotions helped. They helped me ground myself andtch onto every bit of emotion I still felt, but out of everything, I felt Selene might have been my biggest source of positive emotions.She deserves to be rewarded for that...
Thankfully, she hardly opposed my flirting so far; otherwise, I didn''t know what I would have done. I''d like to think I would have still managed to remain myself, still managed to feel, but... it is not a line of thought I like to think about. I have her; she doesn¡¯t hate me, and I am still a thinking, feeling eldritch being.
A win in my book.
¡°You learned to Blink,¡± Selene eximed once her brain restarted. She was smiling like it was she who seeded.She is precious.
¡°I did,¡± I grinned, then booped her on the nose. I stepped back before she could p my hand away with a giggle.
Her confused frown was cute as well, I noted to myself with a sage nod.
¡°What¡¯s up with you?¡± she asked.
¡°I just found out that I don¡¯t know shit.¡±Isn¡¯t that great? Turns out I could be even more broken than I already am.
¡°Okay?¡± Selene tilted her head. ¡°and that is good, because...?¡±
¡°Because it means there is still much to learn,¡± I beamed at her.
She just looked at me weirdly, but that toaster licker was giving me respectful nces, damn it.
¡°What did you learn?¡± Valenith asked without opening his eyes, trying to cosy as some sagely master or something.
¡°That it doesn¡¯t have to make sense,¡± I said, a bit more subdued than before.
¡°That is usually one of the first things an aspirant learns,¡± he noted, ¡°it is a wonder how you even managed to do what you did, one who tries to understand the iprehensible usually ends up insane.¡±
¡°I¡¯m just built differently,¡± I shrugged. As far as I knew, something much more crazy had to happen for me to lose my mind. Normal people weren¡¯t susceptible to change their souls by feeling sad or edgy. Pros and cons.
¡°I sometimes think are my best student and then I feel like you didn¡¯t even listen to me,¡± he sighed helplessly.
¡°It is what it is,¡±now then, what to do in the next three days?
I needed to see how much I could alter my spells first with my expanded horizons; it was better to start with the familiar than to jump right into the deep waters and try toe up with an entirely esoteric spell, but I should be able to make some of my prior ideas work with this. Smite probably worked only because I wanted it to, but if it didn¡¯t have to make sense, could I just fuck up demons? No, if it made sense, I could besurethat it¡¯d work, which is even better than willing it...
Those can wait. Firstly... let¡¯s see what happens if I do this...
I walked back into my previous position and sat down. I didn¡¯t reconnect to the tendrils just that and let my Mind-Cores handle navigating it for now through a telepathic connection. I folded myself up into a lotus position more for the vibe it gave me than for actual use and put my two hands, face up, to my knees and focused.
Usually, when I wanted to use Soul Energy I just wished for it and it came flowing through my Soul thread like an overeager puppy, the interesting part was that it actually didn¡¯t gothroughmy soul, it just went around it and jumped onto the thread. Now I wasn¡¯t asking for energy. With my soul, I grabbed a chunk, I molded it, andpressed it. I forced it to hold everything that my purified little Sea of Souls was inside itself, represent it and be a vector for it. A vector it¡¯d used to influence realspace directly.
Then, and then I let it go through the thread. It didn¡¯t take long from my body¡¯s perspective, time was less a constant and more a suggestion in the Immaterium, even its linearity was questionable so it wasn¡¯t a surprise that my sense of time was weird when I consciously controlled both my soul and body at the same time.
Soul Energy flowedintomy soul. It created a slight Vortex at the center of my Soul Puddle and the condensed energy flowed out of it and through the soul thread entered realspace. I controlled the much too stable energy suddenly flooding my body. It was still malleable but my body was much less adept at it than my soul was. It was a humbling contrast to experience that even my best Form couldn''t match the abilities of my soul. I was still limited by my current Form.Hopefully, this will close the gap a little.
The energy tried to solidify inside of me as soon as it came into realspace, but I forcefully kept it in an energy state and guided it into my palms in two steady streams. Once the energy pooled in my palm, I pushed it just outside of my skin and let it start doing what it wanted, crystals of pure soul energy smaller than nanometers started forming, each connecting to a previous crystalline structure.
I didn¡¯t look, I couldn¡¯t. I was much too focused on not messing up the structure. I had to make it perfectly, not a single molecule out of ce or this vector. Thisfocuswouldn¡¯t be the best it could be. Time passed, and it felt both like an eternity and an instant by the time the two fledgling crystals in my palms connected, both in the shape of a long cylinder just wide enough to fit in my hand.
When I opened my eyes, I saw nothing. However, the meaning of ''nothing'' changed when instead of not seeing anything in my hands, I was blinded by a white light so intense that it caused the Navigator Eye in my chest to narrow and shield itself. A moment after, the light disappeared and with that final surge of energy, Ipleted my new Staff.
Hopefully, I know fuck all about making Psychic Foci, but while doing it I was sure this would help me channel Soul energy better.
Jumping to my feet, I let go of the newly made staff and let it float in front of me as I twirled it around to look at it because now I could actually see it. It didn¡¯t look like much to my physical eyes, a simple pure white staff as long as I was tall with the only artistic part of it being the upper end of it which looked like a bunch of my tendrils curling around each other with a slight gap between them which held seemingly nothing at all but all of my non-physical senses begged to differ, that was the most important part of the staff.
¡°W-what is that thing?¡± Selene asked as she looked at my new casting implement with wide-open eyes.
¡°Beautiful,¡± Valenith murmured as he stared longingly at it. He was up on his feet too and his illusion was cracking and flickering as clear evidence of his slipping focus.
My third eye snapped open, and I was almost forced to close it again. The staff didn¡¯t radiate power; it was much too stable for that and radiating the energy it was made off of would put a shelf life on it. No, what the staff was doing was influencing reality around it. It had an aura, so to speak, which weakened realspace and reinforced my will above all else.
¡°This,¡± I looked at it fondly, this could be the first of many but sentimentality had power in the Immaterium and as this would be a vector to enforce it upon reality, I wanted to make itimportant. For it to be important, it should have a meaning, a reason. Or... I could name it something dumb... something ironic, which would only be funny to me...I did name myself like that.Why can¡¯t it be both? I wondered and a name from one of my favorite games jumped to the forefront of my mind. It felt right, ¡°Is Atiesh, my Staff from now on till the end of time and beyond.¡±
Atiesh... The great staff of the Guardian. The Guardian whose sole reason for existence was the eradication of demons. This will do.
Now... Let¡¯s make some upgrades to this form... I wonder what having bones made of this material will feel like...
Octavian Gaius
999.M41 undetermined time || Above Holy Terra; Imperium Sanctus ||
Octavian was both appalled, honored, and somewhat nervous about what had transpired since his induction into the select few who Dreamed.
The words of the Lockwarden were ominous and prompted action, but he and his brothers thought otherwise. The Lockwarden wanted to attack, to detain and seal the being that escaped, but the Dreams kepting and were increasing in frequency ever since that fateful day. These Dreams prompted caution and in Octavian¡¯s humble opinion,diplomacy.
Octavian was not alone in his opinion, either. He felt their Lord wanted them to either protect or cooperate with the being that they were to meet. He didn¡¯t know if this being was the escapedthing, was possessing it, or was in possession of saidthing,but if the Emperor willed it dead, there were much less convoluted ways of telling his servants that.
Unfortunately, the opposition was also many, many only wished to eliminate the threat that could make their Lordmunicate the utmost urgency.
As evident by these opposing factions, Octavian wasn¡¯t alone. He threw a nce behind him. Three of the Ten thousand were leaving Terra. This was a monumental day and yet Octavian felt a tinge of unease.
Octavian himself wore the standard Custodes auramite armor with crimson red robes and pauldrons, the figure on his left only differed from himself in thetter, wearing royal purple where Octavian wore crimson. An Aquilian Shield. A Guilded Guardian. Theirs is a Shield Host who works closely with those who Dream as they are usually the ones actually carrying out the Lord¡¯s will, protecting seemingly unimportant people who all turn out to be pivotal for the Imperium¡¯s future. Martyrs, Commissars, Inquisitors, usually when they are still far from their intended posts and fates.
Octavian nced at the other, but quickly averted his eyes as the pure ck winged helmet snapped at him. ck auramite armor with golden ents and a crimson robe to cover it all, the Shadowkeeper was a being of perfection and with what little Octavian knew of them it was doubtful whether even if he and the other Custodes worked together they could prevent the Warden if he wanted to kill their target.
As for where they were...
Octavian didn¡¯t nce at the man sitting in themand chair of the voidship. He found himself thinking it disrespectful to do without reason and despite Custodes not adhering to any Imperial hierarchy, he himself was happy to be here.
He nced out of the window and beheld the below, Holy Terra and the gigantic form of the ship he stood on.
A Gloriana ss Battleship. These ships were always a rarity, titans of void warfare from an age where humanity could build better and bigger. They were the gships of the legendary sons of the Emperor during the Great Crusade and each became a symbol of their Legion.
Any who learned even a bit of history would be intimately familiar with their names,The Invincible Reasonof the Lion,The Iron Bloodof Ferrus Manus,The Red Tearof Sanguinius... andThe Vengeful Spirit,the gship of the Archtraitor Horus himself.
Out of all these legendary ships, very few were still in service and only one still had the fortune of once again being the chosen vessel of a Primarch.
This one.The Macragge¡¯s Honor, the gship of Lord Regent Robute Guilliman, the Lord of Ultramar and the Primarch of the Ultramarines legion.
Octavian didn¡¯t quite tighten his fist on his spear, but he had the urge to. The Primarch was going into war, on a Crusade to reim what was lost, a crusade the size of which hadn¡¯t been seen since the Emperorst walked the stars ten thousand years ago.
The ship¡¯s engines roared somewhere far below, but Octavian could make the resonance out.
The Indomitus Crusade has already started.
62 – The skies of Baal
62 ¨C The skies of Baal
"Ohhhhhhhhhh~~" I was vibrating, barely holding myself back from doing something embarrassing. Turns out when you have a whole Hive-Ship''s worth of gic samples and the Mental capacity to decode andbine them you can do some crazy things.
But that wasn''t all. I was floating in the air at the moment, swimming around like some jellyfish despite the artificial gravity I had going on inside the ship.
Speaking of the ship, I now had giant sails all around covered in Ambull heat and radiation absorbing stuff, who needs radiators or heatsinks when I can just turn excess heat into bio-energy? So now my ship was looking like a long and pointy nail with long tentacles at one and fourrge sails going from the tip to the back of it.
Back to why I was floating despite the gravity-generating thingy right under the floor here. I didn''t even use up soul energy by doing this, I was just letting it course through my newly made Wraithbone bones. That needs a new name too, my pure white bones were both visibly and in essence different from the solidified Warp jizz that Aeldari-made Wraithbone was.
I could go with something uninspired like Soulbone...ah whatever, it fits.
So now that I hadSoulbonerecing my whole skeletal structure I could use some minor Psychic powers without actually expending the energy. It took focus and I had to keep my will and image of what I wanted solid but it worked as evidenced by my floatyness.
So far I could only affect my body, as right now I wasn''t actually applying TK on my whole body but only on my bones which had some side effects like throwing my brain and other squishy bits about at faster speeds but I had most of that negated with the Eldar physiology and some non-Newtonian fluids inserted into my skull and around my spine. Despite it being Soulbone now it still had functioning bone marrow and nerves running along it so it was somewhat important for my body''s functionality.
I also got to rece the useless parts like entrails, guts, stomach and such with more effective bits. I now had miniature Neurothrope brains all around my body which with some Soul Energy or bio-energy ¡ª a VERY important detail, ''or bio-energy''¡ª could conjure up a twoyer defense that started with a mental field that either diverted iing things or slowed them to a crawl if it couldn''t manage the first and a skin-vicinity force field which repelled any normal form of damage. I didn''t have to worry about anything under a bolter or sma weapons with this up.
I also added a slew of neural cortexes wired up to my brain to assist me inbat, the most outstanding of these was the Patriarch neural pathways which gave it a budget prescience or maybe omniscience in a limited range. Basically, Spidey senses, or danger sense and the other was the Lictor''s fast twitch reflexes which would allow my body to react to said dangers even before my mind became aware of them.
Aside from that, I kept most of the previous Psyker form as it was, Eldar stuff all around with an Eldar brain and hormone system at its core.
Of course, my Combat and Hunter Forms also gained all of these enhancements. I didn''t know when it woulde in handy with both having carapaces thicker than some tanks but oh well, better having them in a bind than not.
I also made a Symbiotic armor simr to Selene''s just with a bunch ofyers wrapped over each other to give me a modicum of safety against Necron weaponry. I was still far from feeling safe with those things around the gxy but I was getting there, if I couldn''t tank them at least I might be able to dodge them now. The armor of course could go invisible like the Lictor and had interwoven Psychic pathways through which it could be as hardy as the Hive-Tyrant''s carapace.
Some might ask, didn''t you have Orkz too in your gene pool? Surely if they were such a widespread and strong race there had to be something useful in their fungal bodies, right? Well, I thought so too and there was but Tyranids and the Aeldari samples fit me much better for any circumstance I might need another form for. The one part of Orkz that I held out some hope for was their longevity which seemed limitless and their reproduction.
The longevity turned out to be sort of a fluke as they somehow used their WAAAAAGHHH!!! to resonate the warp in a way to not let time affect their bodies. Basically, though, they were too dumb to age, they didn''t know they should even, so they didn''t. On the other hand, reproduction could be arge stepping stone that would help me build myself up. Orkz used spores to reproduce and even from a damned bottle of water a new Ork could be born.
While this made them a nightmare to fight and eradicating them was only possible if the was ssed, to me it only meant a single thing. As far as I had some water, I''d have food.I found an infinite bio-energy glitch!! I''m awesome!
There was still more stuff to do but I was already feeling the increasing pull of Baal with the ship''s gravity sensors. I still wanted to imnt some stuff from the Maleceptor and the Hive Tyrant but those would have to wait until I was sure we had more time. All they could bring me were physical forms better suited to be overclocked in a way that while helpful to preserve my bio-energy, was not all that useful with me already being capable of that with both bio- and soul energy.
Still, if my Warhammer lore knowledge was valid and applicable to this gxy then my Combat Form should be able to handle an average Bloodthirster without any Psychic assistance or need for Regeneration. With all of my cheats included I should be able to go toe to toe with the Swarmlord.
I was still unsure how I''d measure up to other threats in this gxy. I knew Primarchs should be varied in strength but all of them should be more than capable of handing the Swarmlord''s ass to it,even Guilliman.
Was I fast enough to even see Harlequinn Solitares or Jain Zar, the Phoenix Lord of the Howling Banshees? It was all confusing, Jain Zar was killed by a squad of Night Lord Space Marines but she should be faster and stronger than Solitares who could rip through Custodes, who in turn could rip through a squad of Astartes. Warhammer lore was inconsistent like that.I guess I''ll have to see for myself.
"Gather around kids," I let my voice reverberate through the air, this much was getting as easy as breathing with my new staff twirling around me.
Zedev ignored my words and did as he was told, he was a bit battered after the fight with the orcs but somehow he fixed himself up and even managed to repair a few of his energy shield emitters so now he was closer to a walking tank in the shape of a mechanical Arachne than a human.
Valenith''s eyebrows and mouth were twitching at my address but he was getting better at either hiding his irritation or getting used to me. He''d being along, fuck me if I knew why he wanted to tag along but I wasn''t going to say no to this walking library and lore helping me. For a moment I wondered why I didn''t feel that same paranoia I did with Zedev for the Eldar.
At the start, I was careful and threatened him quite openly but within a few days, I almost trusted him. I considered mental maniption but I''d have felt that, I''d have purged that from my body and I didn''t even think of the possibility of him manipting my soul and my thoughts originating from it.
That left an answer I didn''t quite like: Instincts. My instincts were a hit-and-miss ever since I was reborn, they helped me survive at times but there were also instances where they insisted on me taking absolutely moronic choices like mind-controlling the entire crew of theWandereror eating Selene. They might have seemed fine in the short run but could have bit me in the ass hardter on.
I''d only allow Selene to do that.
She was looking at me with a determined glint in her eyes but there was also a sense of excitement and curiosity radiating off of her aura. My lips curled into an amused smile, she received a few other Tyranid symbiotic weapon temtes which she could change between on the fly along with a Bonesword simr to my bio-sword.
With her armor, I wouldn''t put it past her to utterly brutalize some Space Marines.A shame her face would be covered during the fight. I should have added the forcefield to her armor and taken away her helmet....but the protection...
I mentally pped myself on the cheek.
"As you all know we are closing in on Baal itself," I nced down at my wrist and pulled up my mental clock, "we are reaching Baal Secundus in an hour but we are going to swing around it and head for Baal itself while keeping far from Baal Prime."
"Query: why?"
"Because a big-ass demonic horde is rampaging around on the moon."
"Understood."
"Any other questions?" I looked around and Selene raised her hand.Do not ''aww~'', do not. Resist.
"What are our objectives?" she asked with a stoic face fitting for a Captain.
"We can''t let Chapter Master Dante of the Blood Angels fall," I snapped up a finger to count 1, "I want to eat the Swarmlord which is going to try to prevent us from achieving goal number one,"two, "and I want a lock of Guilliman''s hair."Three.
All three looked at me with varying degrees of shock.
"Did you say...Guilliman?" Valenith asked with a frown.
"Aren''t you a farseer?" I asked back.
"I am not," he retorted, "I am only instructed by one and act out his will."
"Must be annoying," I looked at him with a bit of sympathy, "I heard Eldrad is annoying to deal with."
"Wha-" "Next Question." I cut him off with a smirk. It was a bother to read even surface thoughts from him but the Navigator Eye came in handy. I couldn''t have manipted his thoughts without him noticing but brief nces undetected were doable.
"How do you even think the third one is possible?" Selene asked, "He is dead."
"He is far from dead," I smiled, "and he is on his way to Baal. The only question is whether we are alreadyte or not."
"But-," she stopped herself and sighed, "alright."
"Thanks," I smiled at her trust in me.
"Request: Swarmlord bio-form''s gic sample."
"That is doable," I nodded, "though I want you to get me something in return, if can I want any dangerous flora or fauna from Death Words, especially Catachan if you can manage. I don''t even need physical samples but recorded DNA sequences or gic temtes would do as well."
"Acknowledged."
With that done I returned my attention to navigating the ship, by now the outeryer transformed into a Lictor carapace and had us basically invisible but a ship thisrge would still be detectable with better sensors, not that I thought anyone was in a state to worry about singr ships with the bugs eating their entrails.
Baal Secundus flew by us and I had to take a detour to avoid the first moon and the huge Warpstorm covering it like a protective shell. That was a good sign, it meant the battle wasn''t over yet and that the Demons were still on the moon.
It took us an hour but we were now closing in on the itself, it had a slew of destroyed or floating fragments of either Imperial or Tyranid Bio-ships but far from the number it should have had. If I remembered right the Demons came when the Great Rift opened and along with them came a violent Warpstorm that didn''t just cover the first moon but the whole system for a few minutes and sucked almost all ships in orbit into itself.
With a smile, I sent out small tendrils which expanded and ate up all the wasted biomass floating around. Free food.
One bio-ship though still seemed operational and with only a slight dy it shot out seeker missiles. It must have used manual targeting as most of them flew by me but out of the hundreds that came ten still hit my ship.
I hissed and removed the pain receptors from the armor, those were dumb ideas anyway. The Lictoryer gave way and fragmented along with the Ambullyer beneath it but the thirdyer made of aposite of hive-ship armor and Hive-Tyrant carapace stood its ground and stopped the sma-propelled bio-missiles.
My third eye snapped open and gazed at the bio-ship which had a third of its body missing like huge jagged jaws bit a chunk out of it. There were still animalistic souls inside but much less than what a whole ship should have had.
I didn''t turn the prow of the ship, a tendril extended to the side and the armor shifted to the side, breaking into scales andyering upon each other to give way to the forming gigantic cannon. It was around twenty meters long and loaded inside it was a sma-propelled missile with the main load being a single tiny white tendril loaded with bio-energy to the brim.
The cannon fired into the void silently before the bio-ship could load another salvo, I saw the missile draw a searing white line through the darkness of space and impact the bio-ship.
Its side bent inwards as it prowled through its already shoddy armor tes. I watched on eagerly and counted inside my head, I wasn''t connected to this specific tendril at the moment so the suspense was real.
3, 4, 5, there!
The ship copsed upon itself, shattered armoring falling with its supporting flesh absorbed and the hardy armour soon joined it leaving nothing outwardly visible behind of the once mighty bio-ship.
I reabsorbed the cannon and realigned the armoring, molding the scales into a coherent shell once more without as much as slowing our speed.
Ten secondster I felt a part of myself reconnect, the tiny tendril returned from its voyage and with it came the bio-energy equivalent of a small bio-ship. I smiled or grinned is a more apt description.
It would be risky to use this on more dangerous bio-ships as I didn''t know who would win out if they managed to get my cute little tendril into a digestion pool. It could end with the tendril getting a free meal and the Tyranids getting my abilities. Despite me putting one out of a hundred chance of the second happening it wasn''t something I was willing to risk just yet.
[Remaining life on fullbat capability: 2 months]
That was without me reabsorbing the ship around me too, which should make that number double.
No other ship bothered us as the ship approached Baal.
Where tond this thing?
63 – Onto War
63 ¨C Onto War
My Third eye was wide open and scanning the, I was searching for thergest concentration of strong souls that should signify where the current headquarters of the defenders are.
"What is it?" Selene asked from next to me, staring down at the through a biological monitor I made, making the Lictor Carapace show what an eye saw on the hull of the ship instead of the usual camouge was surprisingly easy once I understood how it worked so now I could share what I saw with the others. Though Zedev and Val were sent to look at another monitor,yep.
"I''m searching for strong souls and I found one disturbingly powerful one...I think I know who it is too," I narrowed my eyes at the zing bonfire that was hidden deep beneath the earth, "he shouldn''t be a problem."
"Why?"
"He managed to get himself and his pals buried under a mountain inside the mines."
"Oh," Selene blinked, "Okay."
I wouldn''t say no to getting a lock of hair from him though.
Unfortunately,hemight be even more dangerous than Guilliman,himbeing the Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels, Mephiston. He was the avatar of the Dark Angel which was the dark part of the Primarch Sanguinius and he was probably one of if not the strongest loyalist Psyker in the Imperium with the only one getting anywhere close being the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines Tigurius.
I found another set of simrly strong souls swimming around where I saw thergest concentration of stronger souls. That should be the headquarters, a fortress monastery if I remember right? Though for the life of me, I had no idea what the name of it was.
My eyes narrowed as my vision zoomed in on them, thousands of ''strong'' souls were walking around, these were like torches in the darkness where a normal human was a brief flicker of candlelight but one among them was arger torch. It had an old and weary feeling to it and two phantasmal souls without solid anchors to realspace were following along with it from the Warp, watching on as he tried to somehow halt the advance of the Tyranids.
That should be Dante...and his two stalkers the leftover fragments of Sanguinius'' soul and the Sanguinor, the avatar of the White Angel which was the counterpart of Mephiston''s Dark Angel.
"Zedev where is the defenders'' headquarters?" Just to be sure I decided to ask, after all, he should be plugged into the battle reports.
"The defenders remain scattered throughout Baal as an aftereffect of the Warpstorms..."he answered after a moment,"Chapter Master Dante of the Blood Angels retreated to the Arx Angellicum Fortress-Monastery with a few of his warriors...they are readying for a final stand."
"Let''s go then," I smiled nervously as I aimed the ship right at the monastery, "Get ready for immediatebat once wend, I''m probably going to end up in the middle of the swarm."
"Ster," Valenith sighed, back in his human guise already with the apanying Sanctioned Psyker garbs.
Zedev''s barrier emitters roared to life as his power axe hummed with power, that thing was a monstrosity in and of itself which could go blow for blow with my bio-sword.
The reality was unstable in the whole Baal System but it was concentrated most on Baal Prime and around the Fortress-Monastery, I nced into the Warp to find a Legion waiting to pounce, wrapped in ominous warpfire and driven by righteous vengeance to deliver the emperor''s wrath upon the enemies of Mankind. The Legion of the Damned was just about ready to assault the Tyranids.
It seemed we managed to arrive for the finale.
The Ship entered the atmosphere, I cared not for casting illusions or covering the vessel with camouge and instead started making it smaller and more streamlined. We were falling now so propulsion wasn''t an issue, I reabsorbed the tendrils along with most of the navigation sensors and other organs and only left the armoring and the inertia dampeners along with the artificial gravity.
In any other ships we''d be getting thrown around from the harsh turbulence of atmospheric re-entry but it wasn''t the case with this ship, of course, the Tyranids didn''t make any of the organs for this purpose but I didn''t have to make many modifications to it to turn it into this. I was tempted to turn the whole ship into a swarm of drones but I was in the heart of the Imperium and right under the nose of the Angelic Host and soon that of The Lord Regent of the Imperium.
We''ll fight the swarm as if we were normal humans...well, more normal than we are.
We were a ragtag group of a Psyker focused on mass destruction, a Magos with a fetish for cutting up aliens, an ex-Rogue Trader wrapped up in my bio-armor and wielding modified Tyranid weaponry, and myself. I might be the weirdest one out of the bunch. Psyker, Shapeshifter, Xeno, bio-weapon, Reincarnator, a soul from another universe and so on.
Selene''s armor flowed over her body like a gentle wave of textile which was in actuality thousands of hair-thin tendrils interweaving to create her armor. Her arm morphed as she quickly went through her assortment of weaponry, each modified so the flying, screeching, flesh-eating worms shot out weren''t dead giveaways of what they were.
She stopped on one that was a smaller version of the cannon I used on the void ship, it''d shoot out bio-sma propelled chitinous bullets but instead of being filled with my tendrils, they were loaded with condensed bio-energy which would explode violently once the shell cracked or dug into something. Basically, it was a bolter but instead of being a bulky monstrosity, I designed it to look like a streamlined sci-fi rifle right out of my wet dreams.
It was matte ck with some silver ents, it didn''t have many straight edges and had more curving lines and smooth sides and of course, it didn''t have a magazine. It''d have to be refilled with bio-energy from her armor, I left a tendril in it which would allow her to eat stuff simr to how I do it and store the consumed biomass as bio-energy in the armor, so far she can only use it to heal herself, her armor and reload her rifle and I don''t particrly intend to turn her into a second me so that is all she''ll be capable of doing.
Her armor also changed some, Astartes had robes over their armor and so did Custodes so I decided that we needed to have them too. She had a twoyered armor with a skin-tight ck armor covering her from neck to toe like a skin suit and a white outer armor that covered her torso, thighs, shin and arms but left her with full range of motion. The robe came in next, flowing down from under the white chest armor like a tabard on her front and back. It was a silky material as blue as the sky.
I thoughtfully looked her over. This was much better than before, she was starting to look both ssy, hot as fuck and badass, a perfectbination.
"I outdid myself on that armor," I nodded, "you look gorgeous in it."
"Thanks," she tried not to smile as she looked down on herself, "how did you even make this?" she twirled the blue silky robe around her fingers.
"Turns out eating some nts here and there can be useful," I shrugged, "that is made from some sort of weird nt that grew in that Aeldari temple in the Webway."
"Though it not having a helmet is...unorthodox," she raised an eyebrow at me.
"It could cover your head if you want," I shrugged, "but with the forcefield built into it anything aside from that is mostly superficial, if it senses that something is going to break through it it''ll cover you in another tenyers of armor and you''ll probably look more like an Astartes in power armor than how you do now."
"Why can''t I do that from the start?" she arced an eyebrow but I caught the yful twitch of her lips.Yessss!!
"So I can see your face as you fight?"
"Sure," she giggled and continued checking over her weapons even though her modified Bonesword and that sci-fi rifle were leagues above the baseline Tyranid weaponry.
With a wave of bio-energy flowing through my body, I let my own armor flow over me, it was very simr to Selene''s but my own did a better job at sticking close to my skin and enting my figure. I''d gotten used to being in a bodysuit that left very little to the imagination so even this much felt like I was far too covered up, though I might change my mind rather quickly once disgusting people started ogling me.
Both of our armors were several separateyers in reality with the psychic pathways linking all of them together despite there seemingly being only two of them, I wasn''t going to be yed again and neither was Selene if I could help it.
Zedev on the other hand... I really wanted to see what''d happen to a human if they died but before their souls dispersed or got nom-nommed by demons I snatched them up and ced them into my Soul Puddle. It''d be unfortunate if that''d turn out to be Zedev... buuuuut
Okay, I''ll try to find another vict- subject. I don''t know if that sounds any better. Anyway, I shouldn''t experiment with my allies'' souls, bad Echidna, very bad.
My staff ¡ªAtiesh, I almost forgot I named it ¡ª twirled around me eagerly, ever since I made it it''s been following me around even without my input.
It wasn''t irreceable but it wouldn''t be the same Staff anymore if reced, it''d be simr but not the same, which was important with it being a focus of the Immaterium. At the moment it was my number two priority to keep it intact, after Selene of course and Zedev came in after my avatar which was third. I''m such a great boss.
Val can keep himself safe, if not I''ll have a new ne with a grumpy Eldar in it.
I nced at the Soulstone embedded into his robe around his chest, if he ever died while fighting because of me the least I could do was protect that thing and get it back to his Craftworld. Or maybe try resurrecting him...bad Echidna.
"Shouldn''t we slow down?" Selene asked a bit nervously as she watched the ground closing in on us through the monitor.
"Oh," I fed power into the central sphere again and reinforced its barriers while feeding bio-energy into the inertia dampeners, "I''ve got it!"
My tendrils quickly sucked up the biomass making up the rest of the ship, only leaving behind an empty shell loaded with a bit of overcharged bio-energy.
The monitor went dark a few secondster but we felt nothing, well, physically at least. I felt the shockwave hit our barriers as the bio-energy exploded violently and wiped away the swarm of bugs approaching us, before we crashnded the whole ground was swarming with them but now there wasn''t a single bio-form in a five-hundred-meter radius of the sphere.
I flicked my wrists and the energy making up the barriers gained a new directive and sted away all debris and smoke clouding our vision.
My nostrils red as I took in a deep breath, vile smells crawled into my nose, acidic blood coated the whole wastnd that was Baal, and the smoke in the air carried the scent of burning flesh, both human and alien. Beneath these overpowering scents I smelled blood from humans, ozone from the burnt air left behind by the use of sma weaponry andsguns.
The ground was ssy as either ournding or the following explosion turned the sand into ss and the pinkish sky of Baal was reflected in its jagged faces.
The sky was unnatural, not the pinkness of it but the deep red lines criss crossing through it like rivers of blood which in actuality were only thest vestiges of a receding warpstorm still concealed the interster space beyond.
Dry air pped me in the face, swinging my pale hair around and throwing ash and sand into my mouth.
"Urgh," I spat it out and cleaned off my mouth then turned on my repulsor field, "I hate sand."
Selene Voss
Life was weird, that she knew. She''d fought those greenskins before in the Guard, she''d met Eldar before and was well acquainted with all the troubles that came with them.
The gxy was a wide ce and unlike what many humans thought, she knew humanity was far from conquering it and subduing all of its danger. Those who knew better, those who saw the bigger picture understood that the Imperium''s position was precarious and the more one knew the more evident this became.
Necron Dynasties awoke from their slumbers, sometimes right under the feet of Imperial worlds and while she never fought them she knew those lifeless beings were a terror entirely different from all others she faced.
Then there were the Tyranids.
All-devouring, ever-hungry monsters from beyond the gxy. They came from all directions and seemed to evolve by the day with the singr purpose of ridding the gxy of life.
With a thought her rifle spoke, the sma propent was silent but she could hear the bullet cut through the air before bursting into arge Tyranid still a good four hundred meters away. Whatever Echidna''s armor did to both her eyesight and aim was magical, shesawthe Tyranid and wanted to shoot it, so she did.
The beast''s carapace imploded, bending inwards from the force of the bullet crashing into it before exploding outwards in a cloud of gore. The shards of its carapace were sent flying so fast they became shrapnel and garroted several other Tyranids around it.
"The shadow is setting in," Valenith said calmly as his staff started resonating with power as the Eldar scanned the horizon swarming with the aliens.
"The hive-mind is reasserting itself," Echidna said offhandedly, "I can feel a nexus around which it is condensed even more."
"A superior Synapse creature?"Zedev queried.
"That is our first target," Echidna grinned, her eyes flickering with a hunger and greed Selene became familiar with over thest few weeks. The woman wasn''t human, far from it and moments like these solidified that fact in Selene''s mind.
"The Swarmlord."
"Indeed," the woman nodded, "let''s get going, we should be close to the fortress."
Echidna started floating. She did love flying and Selene couldn''t say she wasn''t jealous of the ease with which the woman did it. She could fly too, although it was more of a controlled fall with some telekic assistance.
The woman sat sideways on her staff like she was using it as a ride and then she shot off with ast challenging nce behind.
"Why did it have to be me," she heard a weary sigh from the Eldar as his form flickered and she felt a slight rebound in the Warp, and then another ripple reached her from far away.
She noticed the Eldar was standing just as he was but four hundred meters away. Then he flickered again.
Selene threw a nce at the bulky Magos, as far as she knew he wasn''t capable of any form of speedy transportation without a vehicle.
"It is rmended that you catch up with them ex-Captain."
"What about you?"
"My transport is on its way."
"If you say so," Selene said and then she was off, maybe it was because of the sour feeling left in her heart every time he called her ex-Captain but she wasn''t overly enthused at the idea of having to carry him along.
She jumped and bounded over a row of swarming bio-forms with jagged scythes and by-now familiar ranged weaponry. Her foot connected with the head of arger one, a Warrior, and sent it crashing into the ground as sheunched herself back into the air.
Mid-air a swarm of flying Xeno came rushing at her but she just threw herself out of their way with a wave of telekinesis and sent a barrage of exploding bullets their way.
Fighting like this was little less than a dream only months ago, sure she had a power armour but it was one used by some higher ranking Sororitas members, and as such it wasfarfrom anything Astartes wore. Her current armor felt like something entirely different, it took her, a normal human woman and made a warrior out of her who could crash Tyranid Warriors under her boot like they were insects.
It was...addictive.
Out of nothing she suddenly felt an overwhelming force m into her and send her flying straight down, she smashed into the sand like a bullet and sent up a dust cloud while crushing several Tyranids underneath her. She snapped up instantly, he vision shifting to infrared, thermal, energy sensor, electric sensor, and bio-electricity each flickered for a moment before the bio-electricity and the atmospheric one oveid themselves to her normal vision.
A form twice asrge as her was rushing at her so fast it should have left explosions in its wake as it broke through the sound barrier.
''Are you alright?''She heard Echidna''s worried voicee knocking on the walls of her mindscape but she only had time to send a quick''Yes''before the beast was upon her.
Her sword formed in her hand, one moment there was nothing and the next she was gripping its hilt and shing up to defend against the scythe-like appendage trying to rend her in half. The swords connected and unlike what everyone withmon sense would have expected it was the beast that rebounded, it was stunned for only a brief moment and while Selene herself couldn''t have reacted in time her Armor was far from just for protection.
Her gauntlet shifted her hold on the sword by itself and shed up and to the side, by the time Selene realized what''d happened her sword was held out at her side and a scythe-like appendage was drawing a bloody trail through the air.
She narrowed her eyes at the still Tyranid which lost its invisible coat and was revealed to be a vicous-looking Tyranid with tentacles streaming down from its head, a Lictor if she remembered right.
Selene twirled her de around and readied herself for the continuation of the fight but as a stronger wind swept across the battlefield, the monster toppled over, its head falling through the air unconnected to the rest of its body.
She nced at her sword and gauntlet with some apprehension but shook her head. It was abat program like inbat Servitors, it was better to think of it like that.
I shouldn''t mention that to her though, she hates Servitors.
Selene mused as she jumped back into the air and continued towards where she felt Echidna''s presence through their connection.
''Selene, where are you?''the alien woman''s silky smooth voice echoed through her mind as she let it in freely.
''A Lictor thing ambushed me, but I''ve dealt with it.''She had to add the second part quickly, it was more an instinct than knowledge but she felt the woman would have turned 180 and rushed back to her to help.
''Alright, hurry up then''the woman said after a moment,''I found the Fortress and our friends.''
There was something inherently wrong with the way she said friends, well maybe because telepathicmunication carried meanings and feelings along with the words to make up for theck of bodynguage in themunication.
''I''ll be right there,''Selene sent and channeled a bit of that bio-energy into her body and armor. Her body became both lighter and stronger, her nextunch off of the back of a Tyranid sttered it on the ground instead of knocking it down. She could barely keep up with her new speed but the steady stream of bio-energy and her Armor correcting her miss-steps made up for it and she dashed through the battlefield faster than even most Tyranids could see.
Her heart was hammering heavily in her chest as she crested over a dune and the main battlefield spread out in front of her, this was it, her first battle where she fought for something she actually wanted. The guard, the Wanderer, or even her house were all fleeting and let her down time and time again but Echidna...
I just hope I can stand next to her...as a friend...or...
She gulped. She wasn''t a teenage girl and neither was she dense as a brick; she felt bad for already having some feelings for a woman just a month after Seraphina died but that felt like it''d been years ago already.
The attention and care the woman showed her was something she had never experienced before. There''d never be dynastic talks with her or expectations of fulfilled duties, no weight ced on her shoulder, responsibilities she didn''t want dragging her down to the abyss.
It didn''t hurt that even the woman liked to take on forms and wear clothes that were doing things to Selene.
She wanted to see my face during battle,Selene sighed, foregoing putting on a helmet,let''s give her a show then.
64 – Sons of Blood
64 ¨C Sons of Blood
Weird as it was, I''d left my heart and blood mostly intact with only some enhancements so they could transfer much more oxygen and work even under high Gs. I didn''t need them. I could live off of only bio-energy well enough and my base Psyker Form didn''t even have blood or a heart anymore.
What I realized when I looked into what bio-energy does to my cells to achieve this was that it is directly controlling and maintaining my mitochondrial transmembrane electric gradients in all her cells. Although it is enormously difficult to do with any nanotech we can conceive of, this is enough to bypass the need for oxygen for energy metabolism. It would also mean I don''t need her blood to circte anywhere as rapidly as it does in animals. Since oxygen is poisonous, this would be beneficial in normal environments too.
It still needed blood if it only did that but bio-energy could transnt any form of other energy needed to support the functioning of a biological organism, this also left open the question whether I could apply this in directbat somehow but I put little effort into this. A lightning bolt made of bio-electricity was viable, but I could do just that with psychic powers, exactly that as biomancy had that same spell as one of its staples. Even Val knew it.
Where was I going with this again?.... Right, blood, and why did I have a heart? The same reason I had emotions, feeling my excitement or nervousness have physical effects on my body felt nice, normal even. Normalcy was a hard thing toe by in this gxy and every bit was precious, so even if it was both redundant and unnecessary I had a heart and blood flow. It was also a must if I wanted to stay capable of blushing. Very important!!
An illusion flickered around me, concealing me from the slowly organizing Tyranids as I flew above the battlefield. The sky ¡ª much like the ground ¡ª teemed with aliens - massive fighter-jet-sized creatures apanied by small sky-shers. They flew among many floating spore sacks, poised to release their corrosive orbustible contents upon an unsuspecting prey.
Artillery beasts scratched in an ungodly voice as they shot boiling acidic missiles through the air. They painted arge arc onto the pink sky beforeing back down and bursting on the outer walls of the Fortress.
Atiesh twitched to the side, smashing arge Gargoyle to the side with an overpowering force wave which sent it careering through several exploding sacks that coated the falling beast in scorching mes.
"Good stick," I ran my finger along it. The thing was weird, having some sort of animalistic sentience, but unlike machine spirits, it didn''t have any soul I could sense.
"What say you, warriors of Baal?" My ears caught a weathered voice carrying a calm ferocity, "That
we let slip the Red Thirst one final time, and fly upon wings of wrath with our lord unto battle? I
There is no more beauty to be had from life, so let us then seek a beautiful death!"
"A beautiful death! For the Emperor! For Sanguinius!" The chorus of the transhuman warrior''s shout shook the basilica they were in and I let myself smile.
My gaze flickered to another ce for a moment. Deep within the Swarm, I sensed more than saw something. It was vast and intelligent, a predator that conquered gxies and had power enough to bring death upon many more. Deep, ancient hunger radiated from it, making it known to all who dared to look at it as the architect of their end.
Once again, like with the Lord of Change, I stared into the Abyss. My Third eye snapped open, and I pierced through the veil of ash clouds and warp concealment around the nexus point of the Swarm, something shifted and I felt something flicker across my presence but for a moment and then I felt it.
Uncontained hunger and fury. It wasn''t directed at me, not entirely, but enough of it was so I understood it knew, it knew who I was. It knew I was the one who made a meal out of it before. Be it a single tiny Ripper or a Norn Queen they were all Tyranids, all parts of the Hive Mind, sure a Norn Queen equaled to billions if not trillions of Rippers if onepared their effects on the hive mind but it didn''t change the fact that in that eldritch intelligence, all these monsters below me were one.
Single cells of the same organism.
The manifestation of the Hive-Mind shrieked and caused the Warp ¡ª which calmed from the shadow slowly spreading over it ¡ª to roil and crash back. The Warp-based Psychic attack did absolutely nothing to me and the sonic attack slipped off of a quick barrier I tossed up with Atiesh''s help. Good stick, who is a good stick? You are!
I smirked as I sensed the being return to its previous resting position. You are going to be my dinner today, overgrown bug.
My heart pounded still, not out of nervousness but from excitement. I wasn''t nervous, the one thing I dreaded was Selene somehow dying but with that armor and me keeping a telekic connection with both her and the armor that should be challenging for anyone to aplish. So no, I wasn''t overly nervous.
I am finally stepping onto the main stage!
So many novels and fanfiction I read and hardly any of them were of a character that actually made a difference. Who was better than this shithole gxy, who had the power to be what I aimed to be.
Dante, Gabriel Seth, Astorath, Mephiston and Guilliman. All of them are people I have a chance to meet.
And eat.
"Ouch," I pped myself in the face before wiping the drool off the edge of my mouth, "Let''s try not murdering some of the biggest heroes of the Imperium, that''d make for a horrid first impression."
What did first impressions matter when I could probably throw fists with a Primarch? Well, a Primarch didn''t amount to all that much if you counted the wholebat capability of the Imperium. What they had thought was Legions of Space Marines ready to die for them and billions praising their names and worshipping them as demigods. Especially Guilliman whose name was legitimately a synonym for ''Regent'' as in Lord Regent and Lord Guilliman were interchangeable titles in Gothic.
Lord Guilliman Guilliman. I giggled at the thought.
What I was getting at was that even with Selene acting as a tree to hide behind, she was an arguably thin tree with her ship stolen. Sure, she''d still be respected but how much shit hitting the fan could she swipe under the rug like this? Could she actually pull her weight when an inquisitor came around and started poking their crooked noses into my business? I wasn''t sure; I wasn''t versed in imperial bureaucracy but I knew Selene wasn''t in a good position from their standpoint. They couldn''t know that the most awesome eldritch monster was willing to go to war for her.
Now, if the Imperial Regent himself vouched for me and dumped some important title on my head, wouldn''t that be fucking convenient?
I knew just what he wanted too, information.
With a pained creak, the gates of the fortresses opened and out came bounding, frothing monsters the size of tanks that still somewhat resembled humans.
"KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL," only one could still talk coherently, if you could call that coherent, but what they could do fucking well was rip apart Tyranids, apparently.
One of them bounded up to a Carnifex close to the fortress, crushing Gaunts and Warriors under his bulky feet like flies and as the Carnifexunched itself at the brute, the mindless berserker grabbed at it. With the still weak control the Hive-Mind had on its toys, the Carnifex didn''t dodge in time as bulky fingers wrapped around its legs and torso.
The hulking abhuman raised the alien above his head as it squirmed helplessly and tore it in half, bathing himself in acidic blood, which only made his skin blister for a few seconds before it healed back up.
Dozens of scenes simr to this yed out as the small group of berserkers crashed into the endless swarms and paved the way for their saner brethren with blood. These were the ''damned'' or so the Blood Angels called them, once hopeful aspirants reduced to mindless beasts as they failed to turn into the noble Space Marines. Usually, the aspirant just died. The odds of sess in the process were rather abysmal, but there were a few who lost themselves to the ck rage before even fully bing a Space Marine which mutated them into the hulking monsters rampaging down there.
This is a bit too tame to be the end of time, but I can see where they areing from. From their perspective, the line of Sanguinius might die along with them right here and right now.
Autocannons roared to life all around the walls of the fortress and started sting into the endless wave of Tyranids, the people manning them were hardly trained for it but with the enemy spreading from horizon to horizon, hitting them wasn''t much of a challenge, reloading without getting a bone-spike to the head was much more of a worry though as one man experienced just now.
A soft sigh left my lips as I felt Selene arrive right under me with a path of liquified Tyranids in her wake. I was worried about her, but I wasn''t her mother. Coming off os overbearing or annoying wasn¡¯t something I wanted to do. I gave her more than enough tools to match up to some of the most dangerous beings in the gxy and if someone whom she couldn''t defeat came for her life, I could always just appear next to her.
A smile spread across my face as Atiesh snapped into my palm. The fabric of reality trembled as I briefly entered and exited.
"Oh," Selene turned to where I stood, looking vaguely in my direction before I expanded the illusion to cover her. Now that she could see me, her eyes focused on me, "So?"
"Look," I turned and pointed at the figures dashing out of the Fortress with a squad of golden beings flying carried by winged jetpacks, "The lead one is Commander Dante."
"The one with the... mask?" Selene narrowed her eyes as she saw the mannd on the head of a Tyranid warrior and smash it into gory paste beneath his boots before jumping back into the air, ughtering war beast after war beast.
"Yes," I nodded as my eyes tracked him, "That is Sanguinius'' death mask. They say it perfectly replicates the Primarch''s features."
"Shouldn''t we help him?" she frowned as she watched thest raging abhuman being pulled under the tide of aliens. "¡ them?"
"You are free to do so," I inclined my head, "Hmmm, I''m just wondering how much to show them ¡ ah don''t absorb stuff in front of them, please."
"Sure?" she nodded with a raised eyebrow.
"I''m not here to announce to the world that I am a Xenos Selene," I nced at her for a moment, "no matter how strong I am, a cyclone torpedo wouldn''t be something I want dropped on my head."
"You can just revive, right?"
"But it would be an awful waste of energy," I shrugged, "and besides, I mighte back, but you can''t."
"Ehm," she blushed a bit at the firm look I gave her, "It''d take a Primarch to kill me with this thing on."
"Or a Necron Destroyer," I corrected her, "or one of the other thousands of extremely dangerous beings lurking in the void."
"It''s so weird that you are this paranoid," she grumbled. "Even with the little of it you gave me, I feel like a demigod."
"I am not paranoid," I shrugged, I really wasn''t, "I just know how many things are out there that are beyond the current me, but along with them, I see just as many opportunities to overtake them."
"Like this," she turned back to the battlefield as Atiesh dutifully sent flying any beast that came close to our little bubble of calm.
"Yes," my lips cracked into a grin, "like this, so if you''ll excuse me, I have to go eat some people and kill some aliens."
"What about me," she said as I turned to leave, "what should I do?"
"Whatever you wish for Selene," I smiled back at her, "I think the Swarmlord might be still too much for you, but the rest should be perfect prey for you to hone yourself on."
"Okay," she licked her lips as she scanned the battlefield before nodding, "I''ll go help them."
"Be careful," I warned as I once again grabbed my obedient staff, "they are deep into the Red Thirst. It wouldn''t surprise me if they thought you are the enemy and tried to rip you apart."
"W-what?" she nced at me, "Oh, okay."
"Good luck, Selene," I said as I traced a circle on the elusive veil.
"Good luck, Echidna," she whispered back.
As the head of my staff connected to the starting point of the circle, the shape came to life like a scorched painting of reality itself, and inside I saw a different ce. After a step, the portal hissed shut behind me.
Dr. Strange has nothing on me now.
I materialized next to a fallen Space Marine, one of the winged ones that the ravenous beasts had torn apart. I sent out a psychic shockwave charged with Psyme, turning anything not in my immediate vicinity like the corpse into white ash which then softly drifted through the air, concealing me.
One lock of my hair shifted and turned into a tendril, plunging into a gash in the once mighty warrior''s armour and fed on his flesh. The tendril expanded, scanning, mapping, absorbing, analyzing, assimting, and then it retreated once only the ceramite shell was left of the once mighty warrior from the Sanguinary Guard. It morphed back into a lock of pale white hair.
40% already, or maybe only 40%? He was in a rather messy state.
Fortunately, there wasn''t ack of Astartes corpses around here so as thest sons of Sanguinius fought for their survival I walked around and collected more than enough of them to push my gene temte of the ''Astartes - (Sanguinius variant)'' well beyond 100%. Not that I could already turn into one of them, I''d need to create a single whole temte out of the dozens of fractured ones but with every part of their body being scanned it''d be faster than what I had to do with the Eldar where I needed to fill out the gaps based only on their DNA.
Once I was done with that, I headed over to where I felt the good Commander from. His soul was quite clear in this sea of bestial souls and average Astartes.
I could tell that he was falling already. He was giving in more and more to the Red Thirst. It was a trade really, sanity for power, and when a Blood Angel gave up theirst vestiges of sanity, would they gain the greatest strength, falling into what they called the ck Rage. Commander Dante was pushing himself closer and closer to that edge with every passing minute and every fresh scar or injury that adorned his body and armor.
''Commander'' I let my telepathy slide into his mind, carrying peaceful emotions. Hopefully, he wouldn''t think that it was a Psychic attack.
''What? Who is this?'' I saw him stumble slightly. A Tyranid Warrior prime needed no more prompting to skewer him.
''An ally, hopefully,'' I sent as Atieshshed out at the offending Tyranid with an Eldritch st. The beam of white energy only flickered into existence for a nanosecond, but it obliterated the target into a white mist.
''I don''t need your help, demon,'' he bit back as I felt someone try to intimidate me and when I nced at the source, I found an ephemeral angel ring at me, sword raised to strike.
''Demons are already helping you on Baal Prime,'' I snickered, ''but I am offering you a chance to live, though I know that is thest thing you''d want.''
''Begone already,'' he growled,shing out at the aliens converging on him before jumping back into the air, ''or show yourself.''
"dly," the air vibrated with my voice as my illusion fell away. Right in that instant did most of the Tyranids shift their path and throw themselves at me. I felt the Swarmlord shift again, but remained motionless aside from that. My force field was going at full force, projectiles curved around me and the few beasts thatnded strikes at my armor couldn''t as much as scratch it.
Let''s be dramatic. Psychic me formed a de in my hand, which I held with both hands before plunging it into the ground.
For a second there was silence as the beasts closest to me froze, their instincts honed over eons warning them of the danger, but it was toote, so veryte. A shockwave coated in white mes expanded slowly at first, expanding far up into the sky before it started swirling, I stood in the storm''s eye as my tornado of me fueled by the souls of the dead copsed into a glowing ring around me before it finally exploded.
The fire washed over the battlefield and Tyranids, be it the smallest maggot acting as a bullet or a mighty Carnifex, burned. I could have evaporated them instantly, but hearing thousands of aliens scream in pain and suffering was pleasing to a deeply sadistic part of me and I was sure the Astartes would agree with me. They didn''t scream, mes washed over them like the Tyranids but left them with only harmless specks of mes sticking to their armor, which they''d find outter enhanced their inherent healing factor.
"I''ll say it again Luis Dante, Greatest son of Sanguinius," He stood alone in a field of ash and burnt carapace, staring at a being he couldn''t possibly understand, "I want an alliance."
65 – Start the boss music
65 ¨C Start the boss music
Commander Luis Dante || Baal
He knew something was wrong; he felt it ever since that bio-ship entered the atmosphere and crashed into the wastnd a few kilometers away with a thunderous explosion that shook the Basilica''s foundations but he ignored it. With a swarm of Tyranids on his head and the Angelic Host nearing its doom, who would worry about a ship crashnding and annihting thousands of Tyranids? He didn''t.
It wouldn''t have been the first. The Warp Storms that coated the not long ago sent the Xenos into a mindless frenzy and cut them off of their eldritch hive mind. It was not that unusual that a bio-ship would crash into the, even if it was days after the others.
He didn''t know how, but that was when he started feeling a sense of foreboding. He even glimpsed at the form of the Sanguinor once or twice as it worriedly scanned the horizon. The horizon in the direction where the ship crashed, that is.
He stared at the being, for he refused to believe even for a second that what he was seeing was either a human or a woman.
It had only been a minute since he''d been rampaging through the tide of ravenous beasts. Never had he given in so deeply to the Thirst. He controlled himself in every moment of his overly long life, but now he felt in hisst fight he might let go a bit.
He enjoyed it, and the feeling revolted him. He knew he''d enjoy it. Of course, it was an addiction, an addiction coded into their genes no less.
But right as he was ready to plunge forward, bereft of all his winged brothers, it''s -- her -- voice echoed in his mind like a calming breeze that soothed his very soul. An offer to help? NOW? Impossible, he thought. Only demons had both the foresight and malice to strike at him at his weakest. He expected a Keeper of Secrets when he challenged the being to reveal itself, but what he saw differed from all his expectations.
For one, Dante knew Keeper of Secrets took on forms fit to seduce the beholder and while the woman was beautiful beyond reason he wasn''t attracted to her. He couldn''t be. A Demon of Seduction wouldn''t have failed so spectacrly.
Alliance? He frowned inside, trying to figure out what weird game was the being ying with him. He was tempted to cut her down right away, but her next action had him frozen stiff and reorienting his thoughts.
The Swarm was obliterated for almost a kilometer in every direction, he already saw the ones from further ahead rushing into the vacuum it created but that was something only a handful of people were capable of in the entire Imperium or even the Gxy as a whole.
A psyker. Seems sane enough. Shouldn''t be beyond Delta level then...but that power.
She recalled having seen the Chief Librarian in a fight, effortlessly ughtering hundreds and even thousands. This thing did the same.
High Gamma or Beta then.
He frowned under his mask. That was a disturbing amount of power for a being he knew nothing about and never heard of. Not to say that staying sane as a Beta-level Psyker was seemingly impossible and they were to be killed on sight, as they were endangering entires with their mere existence. They are walking Warpgates.
As an Astartes, Commander Dante was biologically incapable of feeling feer but the thought of being this close to a possibly hostile and deranged Psyker who was as strong as the best the Imperium had to offer if not stronger gave him a feeling not too dissimr to what humans considered ''fear''. He was wary, he thought through every word, sound or movement he made.
He was dead and so were his men. The Angelic host was a collection of walking dead, damned to thest. If he could convince this thing to assist them in taking as many Tyranids with them as they could then wouldn''t that be perfect? Maybe she''d fall along with us ¡ that would be for the best.
Dante pushed the Thirst down and re-chained it as it always was. He expected a rush of exhaustion at that very moment; he was prepared for it too but nothing came.
He shifted his body, feeling his body ache, his joints strain, but that came with being a thousand years old. What he couldn''t feel was the dozens of wounds he''d gained over the months of fighting and didn''t have time to heal. Nothing. He felt none of them.
"W-*cough*" he recovered himself from his blunder. During his rage he seemed to have forgotten to close his mouth, leaving it parched, "What did you do to me?"
"Oh, that?" the woman floated up to him, her feetnding gently on the ashen ground only a few meters away from him, "just a simple healing like I did with all of your men."
He gave nothing away from his feelings, evaluating her admittance and trying to verify the truth of it but he found no injured Astartes as far as he could see. There were only dead and spry ones already spreading out tounch salvoes of devastation on the approaching enemy while he...negotiated.
He cast his gaze over the woman again, carefully scanning her form. She caught his attention with her borate armor, reminiscent of Aeldari wargear in its curved elegance and range of movement, butcking the motifs. Beneath it, she wore a robe that cascaded from the front and back of the chest, while the rest of her body remained concealed under a dark bodysuit. No scratch, no dust, not even a drop of blood on her.
Dangerous.
Not that danger ever made the Commander flinch. He''d stared down Greater Demons, Demon Primarchs and almost all the horrors of the gxy. This much couldn''t faze him for too long.
"You asked for an Alliance," his voice was even as he spoke, not betraying his mind by evaluating the probabilities of the woman being a disguised Lord of Change or a hidden champion of the foul Trickster. There was one that could change his form. The Changeling.
"I did," the woman smiled at him in... amusement? "You are wondering why, aren''t you?"
"An acute assumption," he stated.
Her lips twitched slightly. He didn''t know if it was displeasure or further amusement.
"I want you to keep me around for a while after we win," her eyes hardened into dead seriousness, "I want you to introduce me, to vouch for me to one person of my choosing."
"Who?" Dante asked the obvious, "Why?"
"It wouldn''t be of much worth to me if you knew it before hands," she drawled, "or maybe it would," she tilted her head, "I want you to introduce me to the Lord of Ultramar should he ever cross path with you while I am still tagging along with you."
"Chapter Master Calgar?" Dante frowned, but the woman''s face remained in a frozen smile. He stared at her.
"I can literally turn into a statue," she stated without moving her lips. "You are not winning a staring match against me."
Dante noted that curious statement before he relented.
"What do you offer to bring to this... alliance?" he tasted the word like it was ash in his mouth.
"Me and my threepanions," she nodded, "and of course I''ll assist you in killing what your helmet is pinging for you. I am partially here to kill that thing."
It is a risk, arge one. She still might be a demon in disguise, but as far as I know, she might really just want to kill that thing. I''ll worry about her ''payment'' if we get out of this alive.
"Agreed."
"Oh?" my mouth curved into a smile, "well then, we should get going."
"What do you want me to do?" Valenith asked as he appeared next to me with a barely perceptible ripple in the Warp, he wore his human guise and cast an evaluating nce at the towering Space Marine before turning back to me.
"Taking orders from me now?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes."
"Help Selene then," I shrugged at his stoic demeanour. Unfortunately, he''s gotten much better at cloaking his emotions and thoughts since I found out about Eldrad being his Master. However, it''s still not enough to prevent me from taking nces when his attention lessens for even a second.
"As you say," he nodded and tapped his staff to the floor before disappearing again, the seamlessness and grace with which he did it was enviable and something which drove me to catch up to his prowess of the spell.
Dante didn''t make anyments, but I saw his eyes tracking Val as linger where he disappeared from.
"Other allies?" he asked with unnatural calmness, right, biologically unable to feel fear.
"Yes, I have two others," I shrugged, speaking of.
''Did the bugs eat you yet, Magos?'' I sent to the only mind advanced enough to be him on the.
I frowned for a moment as what I received was a barrage of chirps and boops but with a thought I tranted the Techno Lingis into a normal people''snguage.
''...Negative; Transport: Acquired; Predicted arrival: 10 Terran Minutes; End''
''Assist Selene and in defending the Fortress Monastery and the Blood angels if you would.''
''Acknowledged.''
"Let us go then," I stared into the eyeholes of his mask, "Commander."
"So be it," he said and turned towards the Swarmlord.
In the distance, beyond the rushing line of Tyranids there extended a swirling mass of blood and ash and it cut off most of my senses just like I assumed it did his. Still, it was easy to tell for anyone even mildly Psychically sensitive that the Shadow was coalescing there.
Dante''s jetpack roared back to life, it vomited sma-like mes and thenunched the Commander into the air. I was tempted to try putting on Gargoyle''s wings but for now, I wanted to appear only as an especially strong Psyker and not as a shapeshifting alien.
Atiesh flew into my hand again and energy coursed through it, even with my bones being made of the same material Atiesh was much better at focusing and channeling Soul Energy, and my bones also had a fraction of its reality-warping power. I assumed it was either because it was the first of its kind in 60 million years, a construct of pure soul Energy or because I named it and so made it important, it could be either, both or something else entirely.
I shot off after the Commander who was already arcing downwards into the swarm, he was deceptively fast for someone over 1500 years old. I saw him plunge into the waves and then flowers for dust and gore shout up, he fought much like a berserker but with some of his mind intact. It was a curious thing ho he was even alive at this point.
Plot armor probably.
As I flew after him my forcefield repelled anything in my way, be it projectiles or floating sacks of acid.
I aimed downwards and right into the swarm where I saw a Carnifex, I haven''t fought one yet in this body. Iunched myself and heard the sound barrier shatter with a thunderous explosion that was lost in the sounds of the battlefield. I let go of the staff, letting it float behind me as I formed my bio-sword in my hand, it was now pure white just like my armor with veins of sky-blue energy running along its body and cracking with power.
I angled myself, feet down and the sword pointed parallel to them, a secondter I smashed into the Carnifex leg first. My legs bent as they impacted its torso and my sword impaled it through the skull, the beast fell backward and I jumped off of it before it even hit the ground as a dozen rippers and three hormagaunts tried to rip me apart.
Midair I spun around and sent two crescents of mes to two of the gaunts as I threw myself at thest. The crescents smashed into the two and exploded into a contained inferno, burning as hot as the crust of the sun for just a second while my sword sheared through air and Tyranid alike like they weren''t there.
The feeling of zero resistance as I swung my sword felt slightly weird when I saw it rend through vicious aliens like butter.
I jumped up without thought and flipped around, then a sma-charged bio-artillery smashed into the ce I just stood in and exploded, not unlike how my crescents of me did.
I felt the heated air swing my hair around as I smirked in recognition, those neural upgrades were worth it after all, an attack like that could have depleted twoyers of my barriers at least.
As I reached the apex of my jump, a flock of Gargoyles flocked to me, jaws and ws aimed to rend me apart. One came from the front, one from behind, with three others circling around to sneak in an attack should I let my guard down.
Bio-electricity flooded my body, jumping over and into my armour in tiny arcs. A momentter they exploded outwards into a thunderous lightning storm and by the time it abated, four Gargoyles were falling through the air with pained screeches, their wings burnt off and their neural pathways fried.
Then I started falling along with them as thest winged beast dived after me, having stayed behind the rest to observe.
I heard the screeches and the speech of bolt guns grow louder as I came closer to the ground with the Gargoyle quickly closing in.
Weird, don''t they know I can fly?
''Danger from below.''
My spidey sense was screaming at me and despite my body already twisting to the side and my TKunching me away the sense only slightly abated.
I wrapped a bubble of an even stronger force field around me in preparation.
The ground caved in, and dozens of bio-forms fell in helplessly asrge spikes of bone burst out of the dirt in a circle around me.
Not bones, teeth.
I couldn''t help but gulp as the gigantic creature''s jaws snapped close and the bloody light of Baal was robbed of me in an instant.
An ominous, foreboding feeling came from my senses as I heard a liquid rushing in from the fleshy walls of this biological cave. I threw myself up,tching onto therge teeth, but I felt my gloves hissing as the acidic bile wanted to eat through them.
I sent Soul Energy coursing through it and the hissing grew quiet.
The massive beast burst out of the ground like a jumping dolphin and was now descending, about to bury us under mountains of rock. Directions changed quickly, a moment I was hanging from the teeth and the next I mmed to my side as up became down.
Ished out with my sword and chunks of calcium went falling. I heard the growing sea of acid below hiss violently as it tried to corrode the beast''s own teeth.
sh after sh teeth came loose and fell, but the forest of jagged calcium didn''t seem to grow smaller.
I clenched my teeth and widened my eyes as I felt Atiesh''s presence reaching out to me. Despite the distance, I embraced the connection and filled myself with Soul Energy. I psychically touched the veil and pushed from both sides, Atiesh was like an extra limb, an arm, a part of myself, it was another vector for my soul to influence realspace.
Light flooded my eyes as my fingers closed around the familiar body of my staff. Air rushed past me.
I only grazed the tail of the massive beast with my spell before it vanished underground, creating a gaping hole in the ground.
I don''t have time for you now, but you''ll get eaten. Just wait.
I threw a hateful re into the hole; I ate things and not the other way around. This overgrown worm was going to get a rude awakeninging for it after I was done beating up the Swarmlord.
Speaking of the big bad Avatar of the Hive-Mind, Dante was getting close.
I shot off, imagining myself like a surfer riding a wave of space itself, and felt my speed increase drastically despite not feeling any of the increased Gs on my body.
Reading how realistic FTL drives could work might have been worth it after all, though this wasn''t how they wanted them applied, I''m sure.
When I felt Dante only two hundred meters away from me I let go of the space-warping bubble.
Fuck.
My senses screamed at me and I flickered over to Dante with inhuman speed and threw up arge pure ck Barrier, I devised this one to protect from Kic and Radiation attacks by sucking up all of it and maybeunching it back at the attacker, the second part barely worked still.
I felt my hold on it strain as all the air, ash, dust and other molecules gathered on the front of my spatial bubble shot off at near-light speed.
Some Tyranids screamed, some didn''t, and some tried to circle around the shield and attack us from behind but Dante rewarded them for the effort with his axes and a splitting headache. Heh.
"I thought you got eaten," Dante noted, as my minor mistake dissipated along with my barrier.
"I did," I said as my eyes scanned the unhurt Tyranids instantly rushing at me as my barrier went down.
"Ready to go?" he asked.
"Yes," I nodded as I sent the approaching wave back with a wave of TK. I could call this Force Push.
"Connect us telepathically," hemanded and I just shrugged and obliged him.
''Sure''
''Let''s go,'' He shot off again,nding with another Tyranid getting squashed beneath his powerboots at the edge of the swirling storm of ash and blood. He stepped in and I lost track of him a momentter.
"I wonder if it''s mind-fuckery will affect me," I murmured to myself as I flickered after him and strode in just like him.
The screeches of beasts, the bark of guns and the far-off screams of the dying became muted as I advanced.
Shaky and ambiguous forms moved in all directions. They hissed, screeched and growled but none approached me.
Then, I was at the feet of a mountain stretching endlessly into the grim grey sky, a mountain of corpses.
Oh, joy.
I started climbing.
66 – Intermission
66 ¨C IntermissionValenith
He let himself ever so slightly open, just a tiny trickle, less than he wanted but just enough to do what he needed.
The by now familiar rush of power filled him, itching to be used, tempting him to just reach for it.
Dark thoughts tried to take root in his mind but were purged before they even formed but a few still made it through, not strong enough to stick or be a problem but Valenith''s mouth twisted in displeasure.
''A newborn child is more powerful than you. How pathetic.''
''No wonder Master sent you, instead of his other disciples, he''d rather be rid of you.''
''Just reach for it, the power is yours, just open yourself up to it and the gxy will be yours, kill the girl, torture the Mon-keigh, twist the metal abomination into scrap!''
Annoying, Valenith noted as he purged these thoughts and scanned his mind for any lingering taint, his mind was a fortress, stable, strong, impregnable, static...static. Static wasn''t a good thing but when your mind remained the same it was easier to spot tumors growing in it before they sprouted into problems.
That pitifully small trickle of Warp energy rushed through him, leaving behind a trail of bliss and yearning before it jumped into his staff. The staff hummed in power as lightning gathered into an orb, staying there until he needed it.
He thought back to how that pure energy going through him felt. It revolted a part of him, a part of him that was addicted to the way the Warp felt, a part of him that needed to die but another part of him just felt calm, rxed, serene, it was a power that came without side-effects, that didn''t want to eat your soul in return for the tiniest trickle of power.
To an Eldar who lived his long life shackling himself from his first breath to hisst, that serenity was more precious than anything. He couldn''t rest for a single waking moment of his life, never doubt, never stray and never give in even an inch to his emotions and inherent sadism.
Peace ¡ Serenity.
Those concepts were only foolish daydreams of younger Eldar. Valenith knew there will never again be a time when an Eldar can live freely, tap into the Warp freely, and not worry about their souls being tortured for millennia after their deaths.
No worrying about taint, about possession, about She Who Thirsts. Valenith breathed in and out deeply, he''d been alive long enough to know that despite the future lighting up in his eyes, the shadows lurked around it to snuff it out.
Peace, not just for me but all of us. It is worth anything, everything.
As he positioned himself between the rampaging Space Marines he wondered why he was here. The easy answer was that Master Eldrad wanted him here, to ry information which was his initial mission. ''Open the Gate and stay close, learn what you can of ''it'' and report it back.'' It was a simple mission.
Valenith didn''t believe for a second that was all his mission entailed, Eldar hadn''t ever spoken straight, without riddles and metaphors or dozens ofyers one would need to uncover before they even glimpse at his true intentions. So of course Valenith doubted his mission, he did report back when they were on Dagon, sending a small packet containing what little he managed to gather of the enigmatic woman.