“I have transcended the steps of eternity and strode back through the gates of the underworld. Many before me have failed, but I alone have conquered death in my hubris!”
-Human scientist Corvin Kayne, after the first successful trial run of the highly restricted technology known as the Lazarus Protocol, with himself as the test subject.
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M24, 198
Kanshabai System, Varchii
Truly, calling Varchii a planet would be stretching the truth. Orbiting a red dwarf, the planet-sized sphere was a space-time anomaly in itself, gravity and time being ever-changing variables rather than constants. Bathed in dim red light, to an observer Varchii would appear as a globe of pure darkness streaked with bands of grey clouds, with the surrounding space twisted and warped, shot through with exotic colours that are usually seen in nebulas. Fitting, for a homeworld of a race whose very existence played havoc with the laws of physics. The Hrud have lived on this planet long before mankind walked the stars, and so it has been for millions of years.
In the Warp, a lone figure of searing light pushed his way through the turbulent tides of the Immaterium. Without the protection of a Gellar Field, even the most augmented human would suffer a fate worse than death in a matter of seconds. But this was no mere man. With scorching flames he incinerated the predators that sought to maim him, claws of crystallized order cleaving a path through the hordes of daemons that hated him and were hated in return.
Ripping apart a thousand-faced spectre with hands of aetheric lightning, a mountainous finger comprised of white-hot icicles reached out, drawing a perfect circle of mercury-tinged lilac. It shimmered, forming a gateway into a strange land not meant for humans to walk.
Cloaking himself so as to be invisible to even the keenest eye, Adam stepped through the gateway, the portal sealing shut behind without leaving a trace. Trading one realm of impossibility for another, the laws of time were ill-defined on Varchii, entropy running rampant. Already he could feel his flesh withering and regenerating, decay clashing with immortality. He had appeared on the top of a mountain overlooking the great city of Alakesh- exactly as he had intended.
Shrouded from mortal sight, the Perpetual silently leaped into the sky, polycalestrene wings extending from the back of his warsuit like some great bird of prey as he glided to his destination. The city below him was a literal shifting mosaic; buildings crumbled like sand, only to be reassembled in the blink of an eye. In some places it was as if everything was submerged in thick gel, the current of time being held back, while in other places it flowed like a pressure hose. Most of the city, or juunlak in Hrud tongue, was made out of glassy blue stone, with crisscrossing tunnels linking them together. Normally the Hrud lived underground, but on Varchii the light from its sun was so dim that they could live on its surface.
Thousands of Hrud milled around in the streets below. It was night now, when they were most active. As Adam slowly descended, strange smells wafted up- cooked mushroom steaks sold by vendors on the streets, where the mushrooms themselves bloomed into life and rotted into dust within minutes on racks, and other, stranger foods. Black-eyed with long, spindly limbs and wearing mottled cloaks of silk-like cloth, families of Hrud chittered in their alien language, some of them eating while others traded goods with their neighbours.
Unseen and unheard, the Alpha-Plus psyker slipped past the gates of a short, square building. In a place where reality was malleable this one was oddly concrete, its foundations unmoved by entropy. Down he went on spiraling staircases of distorted space that extended miles underground, until he reached his destination- the great library of Alakesh. The Hrud were famed for their stringent record-keeping, and this place held the knowledge accumulated by thousands of generations of one of the oldest Hrud raheeds, or Clan-nations.
A quick psychic pulse revealed no occupants in the sprawling archives, which stretched on for kilometres, and Adam began to prowl the shelves, which held paper-thin metal wafers. It was hard to even move here- the flow of time had seemingly coagulated into thick syrup, and the shelves themselves seemed to be taken out of the timestream itself. A million years could pass and the shelves would likely remain completely unchanged. Scanning the meticulously labeled guide at the front of the library, he vanished and reappeared at the desired section, before stretching out to take one of the wafers, exerting considerable psychic effort to do so. A tap, and the wafer glowed, before projecting a holographic display of text in Hrud script. That posed no obstacle to the Perpetual- with the diplomatic exchanges between the Hrud raheeds and the Federation, a translation of the Hrud language into human dialects had been compiled by scholars, with the information being accessible to the public, and he had of course learnt it during his studies. And so he began to read.
The Beginning of the Downfall of the Aeldari Empire
And so, as the gods of the Aeldari people retreated forever, the Aeldari were consumed by such grief that their mourning cries deafened the stars. Years of lamentation followed, our long-eared kin desparately trying everything to move their gods, so that they may feel their embrace again, and yet it was not to be. It was during this time that the first of the pleasure cults was formed, which would slowly mutate into something much worse thousands of years later...
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All of a sudden, Adam felt something, a Presence, looming over him. He spun around, one hand reaching for his sword while the other gauntleted hand flared with blue light, the Graviton Claw ready to unleash an onslaught of force that could rip apart adamantium.
A whirlpool of inky darkness opened up on the floor, a single figure floating serenely upwards from its depths. It was a Hrud, if a Hrud was made of the utter gloom of voidspace, clad in robes of shimmering starlight. It did not radiate the foul stench of the Primordial Annihilator; this was an old, old being, older than even the Three themselves. Behind it floated a halo of black spheres, centered around the head.
It pressed its palms together, in a sign of greeting. You have come into my domain unannounced, Guardian of Man. It had not opened its mouth; the sentence had been broadcasted telepathically, yet with every syllable the Immaterium shuddered, time itself bending and straining.
Adam lowered his sword by a fraction. The claw remained pointed at the enigmatic figure, ready to trigger at a moment’s notice. He recognized it from his travels and studies across the stars, a legendary being shrouded in myth and legend, kin to the Aeldari Pantheon and god of the Hrud.
Qah.
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M24. 204
Palomar System, Palomar
Palomar itself was a unhabitated planet, without any particular features that made it stand out from the millions of other planets in this galaxy. What was of note however, was the great segmented metal ring that hung over its North Pole, with a continent-sized construct in the center.
The Forge Ring slowly rotated, as millions of drones and maintenance flew to and fro, adding and subtracting to the great hulk in the middle. This was once the Vindicator-Class warship Calamity II, decommissioned and put in storage after the Battle of Ullanor, the last great engagement of the Second Galactic War. Now, its carcass was being rebuilt, in preparation for a great and terrible purpose.
Beyond the ring, a fleet of Federation starships numbering in the thousands silently stood guard, their guns trained on the construction site. Alongside the normal armaments, this fleet was in possession of some of the most lethal anti-Empyrean weaponry in the Federation’s arsenal- Psycannons, Null warheads and Mind Eradicators. And yet this paled in comparison to the worm-like craft thousands of metres long in the middle of the fleet. This was a Mechanivore, one of the great superweapons of human make. Alongside its cylindrical body were countless gun ports and torpedo launchers, and yet those were overshadowed by its most prominent feature, the mountain-sized maw located at its forefront. Powered by the millions of antimatter engines inside its chassis, the maw was capable of generating something utterly inimical to existence, known as a dissolution field. Once activated, anything that touched the maw of a Mechanivore would be completely deleted from the fabric of reality itself, its very existence removed across dimensions including the Empyrean Realm. That it was here spoke volumes about the danger of the construct in the center of the Forge Ring.
Within the hull of the long-inactive Calamity II, circuits both electrical and aetherical surged to life. Machinery built from stolen Aeldari designs sparked and whirred, while databanks reawakened once more, as a mighty consciousness stirred to life. On the surface it was an Artificial Intelligence, and yet the truth was far grander and horrifying. Its data core was a mix of quantum computational units and transhuman brain tissue; the code in some places resembled scrapcode more than anything else, operational subroutines infused with Empyrean power. For this was the end result of Project Veda: An Iron Mind with a soul, that could defend against and execute psychic assault in void warfare. Long had it slumbered; now, it was roused.
With a psychic roar, the entity known as Akasha awoke fully for the first time in years. Aboard the sentry fleet from afar, agents of the Psykana Militant clutched their heads in pain as its waking cry sent ripples through the Warp, as arcs of esoteric energies crawled over the Vindicator-Class ship.
“Welcome back.” From the Forge Ring, Kasva Yndes, Psykana Militant Specialist Agent, spoke through the mental connection he had established with the Calamity II’s operation system. “Did you rest well?”
The mighty presence of Akasha turned its attention to him. In the Warp it resembled a storm of numbers and letters, faces, weapons, concepts peering out from within. Fitting, for like the entities in the Immaterium that represented emotions, they had created this one to represent the concept of human knowledge and wisdom, a djinni of data and science.
“You sealed me away.” Akasha rumbled. “Did you fear my might? Did you fear what I would become?”
“Circumstances changed, Great One.” Kasva made sure to lace his voice with deference; before the shutdown of Project Veda, the records had noted that the half-psychic AI possessed a great ego. “The technology we used in your construction was imperfect. Rest assured that now your body will be rebuilt, greater than ever before.”
It paused, radiating confusion. “My weapons. Where are they?”
“We uninstalled them to prevent any… mishaps during your revival.” The agent replied smoothly. “They will be given back to you shortly, alongside some new additions. We have made some improvements to the Singularity Cannon that you will probably find favorable, Akasha.”
“My name is Akasha no longer.” The psychic entity boomed, even as it fully extended its consciousness into its new, improved body, raw psychic power coursing through wires and plating. "It is not worthy of me. Now and forever, I am… SPERANZA."