"... And this is the last one. Energize!" I ordered out loud, as the final anti-warp Pylon locked in place around the Maelstrom.
Only this time, it was not a primitive attempt at a Reality Bomb like Forge World Venatoria tried, and failed. The Necrons had built quality stuff for their C'tan masters during the War in Heaven. Rugged stuff that worked really well, like I saw at Cadia a century ago.
The 999 Pylons began glowing green, and the 4 Blackstone Fortresses present opened fire as well, with the Immaterium Beams. It took maybe a minute, or just a very long second.
Time was a bit confused for a while, but then the Maelstrom unraveled into a smooth slice of space-time, infected and infested with a thousand Daemon Worlds and worse.
Primarch Corax patted my head from above, while his brother Perturabo just stared at me in disbelief. "It's gone! The Maelstrom was closed." Perturabo spoke in a shocked voice.
"And it barely took me 4 days. Imagine what I could do in 6! I might even rest on the seventh...." I quipped in a light voice, recorded for posterity by the Blade AI and all my keen-eared Primaris Space Marines.
"You're mocking the Imperial Faith, Lord Captain." Sister Morvenn noted with mild curiosity and a warning voice.
"Was I? Did I claim to be a carpenter in my youth?" I asked mockingly.
People stared at me with confusion, except for a few Custodes who got my point.
Then, a grey Fenrisian wolf stumbled tired onto my ship and fell to the floor, looking exhausted. Zath did come thorough rather superbly, so I moved him inside the Tesseract Vault, where a Transcendent C'tan known as Nyadra'zatha rested as a prisoner.
Perhaps the C'tan was also playing me, as their kind were known to do. On the other hand, I didn't have many allies in this damn universe, except those I procreated by myself.
Another ally was on the way to...nevermind. Trazyn was already here, and ruffling the fur of Canis with total disregard for limb and life. Not his own body, possibly.
"Who is the cutest murder wolf? You are, little Canis!" my wolf's Godfather cooed like he was playing with a stuffed animal. Canis endured the disgrace with a stoic look, barely growling a little.
"Very brave of you, Lord Trazyn! Especially when using a borrowed body." I commented with a mild voice.
The Necron Overlord turned to examine my entourage with a collector's gaze, especially the Custodes and the five Primarchs. "The C'tan returned willingly to his Vault, and you also have 300 Custodes and 5 Primarchs in your collection, Lord Lancefire. Or should I say, Warmaster?" the Necron observed with an appreciative tone.
"Did you find enough Norn Queens?" I asked instead, and raised a metal throne for the new Imperial Ally.
Trazyn sat like a king on his throne, then tapped the plasteel throne with his staff to make it glow with green Necron runes. "Exactly 999 of them, Warmaster Lancefire. One of them even spoke, and asked about you!"
My wife, Inquisitor Valeyne warped in and examined the Necron with her keen Ordo Xenos eyes. I would not suspect anyone for giving away the secret, because her son Menelau just nodded at me from the command holotable. See, it is not betrayal, if it's done openly. I will still punish him later, but will need a different reason. Damn mommy boy!
"The Overlord of Solemnace, Lord Trazyn the Infinite! Your adventures at the side of my husband have become legend among the members of Clan Lancefire. And especially that other time you saved an Imperial World from Orks, and were worshiped as a Living Saint. They even built you a statue...that vanished somehow." Lady Valyene announced in an official voice.
"Hey! It was my statue, so it can't be considered stealing! And while my profession is a Grand Archeovist, I don't mind being compared to an Astartes Librarian." Trazyn the Infinite admitted without shame.
"He's also the only sapient to ever steal a god, so a mere statue is barely blip on his criminal record." I added with a smirk in my voice.
Trazyn preened on his throne, and nodded wisely. "So, we're ready to go steal some old books?" he proposed and rubbed his necrodermis hands together.
"And kill a Warp God while we're there, but sure. Books are important." I allowed, nodding with my chin magnanimously.
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"The strange wolf is a C'tan?" Perturabo asked with a perturbed voice.
I ignored the Primarch and just sent the coordinates for the Gates of Varl as our next destination.
The Labyrinth Armada set into motion, even faster than normal, since Trazyn's special double pronged ship dragged everyone like a locomotive pulling a giant train made of starships.
Meanwhile, I returned to the tesseract labyrinth with my Necron friend, to prepare the real weapon against Tzeentch. I had no illusion about my chances to escape the Crystal Labyrinth on my own,
even less about killing a Dark God in his own domain in the Warp. But that didn't mean I was without options.
The Fulgurite shard of Petrified Lightning was still embedded in Vulkan's corpse, pulsing faster and faster in the same rhythm as the Astronomican.
'No sacrifice is too great, no treachery too small' I mused inward as I delivered my pet Cryptek to Trazyn, along with his control rod.
"Ah, a true dimensional specialist! I was indeed missing one of those for my collection. And now I see why you had to clone Primarch Vulkan. Removing the divine weapon will cause a huge perturbance in the Warp. Maybe even a vortex, sucking in psychic energy and etheric identities...the Fulgurite is already near-Gamma plus levels." Trazyn the Infinite spoke with a deep, metallic voice, while his new Cryptek began assembling bits of blackstone and auramite as a shaft for the new Godslayer weapon. It even looked like a lance, for some strange reason.
"There might be a huge wolf involved. Leman Russ, in his mythical form." I added as the Cryptek's arms fell off and disintegrated a minute later. It seems I was quite right being careful and not touching the Fulgurite with my own hands.
Trazyn produced another pair of arms and just tapped them gently with his staff to make them bind to the Cryptek and let him continue.
"You mean a Daemon Form, like the Daemon Primarchs? Fulgrim had a snake, right?" the Necron asked as the glowing Fulgurite got hidden under a sheath of opaque blackstone.
"Yes, but no. Corax could turn into a flock of crows, and he never fell to Chaos. I'd guess it is an ancestral human myth, given substance by the Warp. Fenris, the wolf who ate the sun and started the Twilight of the Gods." I explained with a careless shrug.
The Cryptek let out a pained groan of tortured metal, as his head fell off and his entire metal body disintegrated after holding the Godslayer for a few seconds.
Trazyn just kicked the head, and it rolled into his own labyrinth like a ball, then pocked the shaft of the Godslayer for a millisecond. "Now it's over Gamma Plus levels. It should seriously wound even an Immaterium Gheist like Tzeentch."
"But not kill it?" I deduced with my bright mind.
Trazyn just measured me from head to toe for a long minute. "Don't get your hopes up, young human. We didn't collect all those Tyranids just for cleaning duty. We also have 5 Blackstone Fortresses with my own, and the Eldar will likely send their own as well. I compute a 50% chance of success, if nothing goes wrong."
I nodded gently and waved away a labyrinth wall to show off my collection of Orks and other alien species. Billions of them.
Trazyn sighed, and confiscated a few million adamantium plated with blackstone shields from my inventory. "Spell-resistant shields? They might become useful even for my Immortals. Tzeentch and his daemons use lots of fire spells"
It was my turn to be surprised, since Trazyn rarely stood to fight in a straight fight. I kinda expected him to steal the Hidden Library or something.
"What's going on, Lord Trazyn? You're normally a hit-and-run kind of Necron." I asked directly.
"Orikan the Diviner. You probably don't know him, but he's a decent chronomancer and a rival of mine. You know what he says?" Trazyn asked in a low voice.
I didn't know, but I doubted it was something good. "We're all going to die." I postulated with a defeated shrug.
Trazyn the Infinite turned his green-glowing eyes on me. "You will never die, Pef Lancefire. I am simply here to witness your Ascension."
The C'tan said something about an Ascension as well. Interesting, right? "That could be useful." I answered in a casual voice.
"Touch the Godslayer, and see for yourself." my Necron friend encouraged me in a cold tone.
So I did. Quite an enlightening experience, for a second.