How?
That was the question of the day, wasn't it?
How did the Hive-Mind pull me into an Illusion? I might have panicked a bit there and flooded my mindscape with soul-energy ordered to obliterate any foreign energy but after a few seconds of that and nothing substantial changing, I came to a conclusion.
The illusion isn't in my head. It's not my mind or soul being fooled, but my eyes and senses.
That was a much more digestible thought than it somehow breaking through my defences without me even getting as much as a warning or an alert. My senses were just mortal. They were good, a combination of Aeldari and the best the Tyranids had combined with my own Eldritch senses, but I didn't put as much faith in them as the defences around my mind and soul.
With a bit of trepidation rising in my chest, I extended a dozen soul tendrils along with my aura to survey my surroundings.
A shiver almost ran down my spine as I felt a colossal mind wrapped all around my own. It couldn't puncture through my shields but myriad claws and jaws were trying to every second as infinite eyes filled with malicious hunger glared at me from the shadowy darkness.
My knuckles went white around my staff as I gritted my teeth. This thing almost made me fear it. ME.
It wasn't casting an elaborate illusion, nor was it just pulling me into a mental world of its own make. What it was doing was much harder to achieve. It was purely warping reality all around me, so I'd mistakenly believe I was somewhere else, saw something else, and felt something else.
The light wasn't fake, nor was the hill, but the bodies were. It created the light to fool me and warped the hill so I'd feel as if they were bodies but when one of my tendrils impaled a body looking just like that first Lictor I killed I felt no feedback, there was no biomass there, nor any new information, just rock.
My feet left the ground as Atiesh vibrated and glowed with energy. Its pure white form shimmered and seemed to blend with reality one moment and bend it around itself in the next. The bodies morphed back into simple rock and stone at my feet as I pushed back the Hive-Mind's influence meter by meter.
I glared into its mind.
The tiny smudges of fear and unease were left behind, buried under a tsunami of cold fury. This thing dared make me afraid, dared to toy with my mind. Dared to enter the part of me most vulnerable, the only thing that was still me.
The thousands of well-oiled cogs in my mind spun rapidly. Ideas and plans flew by one after the other before I stopped on one. I smirked.
The Hive-Mind was massive and ancient, which made it disgustingly overbearing and very hard to destroy, as it could just rebuild itself if there were bio-forms remaining but it was fragile. Spread apart in trillions of bodies across several galaxies, one would think this many bodies would work together and give it an unshakable foundation but in reality it was more like a castle of cards that would come crashing down if a sufficiently powerful breeze smacked into it.
Let's be that breeze.
Unfortunately, I was a rather soft breeze as my only experience with telepathy and mental warfare came from being a fly on the wall inside Zedev's and Valenith's head.
I did build up my mindscape, too. Does that count as Telepathy? It should.
The mind was a curious thing, one that I hardly, if at all, understood. It stood on two pillars, the Soul and the Brain, a pillar of the Immaterium and one of Reality. This made it both esoteric and rigid. One couldn't restore a destroyed mind without a backup, despite the ability of the Warp to bend the rules of reality. As far as I know. There might be a way to just reverse time for someone, some Psykers can stop time in an area around themselves, but could it be reversed?
But... the soul should also store most memories... Confusing. That meant one could destroy the soul through the mind?
Telepathy was dangerous, but right now I was the one wielding that danger.
I didn't know how to attack, but how hard could it be?
Destroying is always easier than building and manipulating.
The outermost layer of my mindscape — a large spherical barrier, one of ten at the moment — morphed into Psychic flames fused with my intent to burn into the mind of this thing and exploded outwards.
The eldritch shriek that shook the air put a smile on my face. I just did the equivalent of using pepper spray on a rapist, who in this instance was an eldritch hive mind. What a weird life I'm living.
It remained unperturbed by my attack, recovering after a few seconds and returning its attention to me with a mounting fury but that was the moment I launched the second phase of my offensive.
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A small crack opened up on my mind and like a ravenous beast, the hive-mind instantly rushed back to slip through it.
Deep in my mind, I just finished putting together a condensed 'nuke'. It was dumb, but it should work. I filled it with both soul energy and a fair bit of my fury, so it should make for a nice firework.
With the hive mind only a second away from bursting through the tiny hole, the nuke flew out to greet it and my shields slammed shut behind it.
Sensing something amiss, the monstrous mass of shadows and beastly appendages scattered away from the nuke. My attack flew, scaring away the darkness as it went.
In the meantime, I shot off to the top of the hill as the Illusion started fading. Dante was already fighting with the Swarmlord up there.
Then my attack exploded, deep inside the hive-mind. Simple and effective.
The screech that followed rattled my bones. All Tyranids close and far shrieked in a chorus that made the ears bleed.
With gratification welling up in my heart, I reached the site of a devastating duel. The top of the hill morphed into an open plateau as large as the eye could see.
Dante stumbled back, his axe seated into the torso of the towering Swarmlord up to the handle. It was still roaring as its mono-molecular teeth swirled like a chainsaw, throwing flesh, carapace, and gore all around it while digging itself further into the alien flesh.
I caught sight of a massive, jagged gash slicing through his torso as he turned, blood trailing down and already drying onto his matted gold powerarmor.
"Hi," I said as I flickered next to him and caught him under the armpit before he stumbled. I quickly soothed his mind just like before and so instead of smashing his other axe into me, he just went still, almost relaxing.
"Where-?" a muffled wet cough resonated through his helmet.
"It trapped me in an Illusion," I admitted as I pushed down my annoyance at the fact, "but I paralyzed the hive-mind for a bit. I don't know how long we have until it recollects itself."
"Finish it," he said as he tore out of his helmet and coughed up some more blood, now entirely leaning onto my shoulder.
"And here I thought I'd get a chance to fight shoulder to shoulder with the famous Commander Dante," I sighed with exaggerated sadness, but my eyes were laser focused on the rigid Swarmlord. Mine... MINE!
"Maybe you will get your chance," he wheezed.
He raised his head, marred with scars and wrinkles. His withered hair stuck to his face with dried blood, his eyes were cold and dark. Weak. Fragile.
"I will hold you to that," I said with a smile. As I laid him down, I sent an ever so tiny wave of bio-energy into his body, "Sleep."
"I need to see it die," he said as he slumped down, bloodshot eyes trained on the beast.
"Suit yourself~"
I have a meal to eat~
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COMMANDER LUIS DANTE || BAAL || FEW MINUTES AGO.
He stumbled over a corpse. He'd crawled over uncountable ones already and he lost any semblance of count or time long ago.
Men, women, children mixed with myriad of aliens, monsters and his men. All people he killed, few with his own hand and many only through his choices.
He crawled on; they were dead and he had a mission to do, a final one.
Suddenly the corpses disappeared and his thirst addled mind recognized that he was on a plain and not on a hill anymore. It recognised the gigantic Hive Tyrant towering over him a few dozen meters away.
The details of the fight were fuzzy in his mind, but he managed to sever one of its scythe-like arms before a psychic scream launched him into the air. He sank even more deeply into the thirst, trading sanity for power. He hung just on the edge of falling to the Black Rage.
His last flicker of sanity was only kept because he MUST see this monster die. He could go in peace if he did.
One more step into the Thirst and there would be no coming back from him.
It was a blur from then on, his head pounded from the continuous shrieks and screams that aimed to shatter his crumbling psyche, but his single-minded purpose prevailed. He must kill it, he will kill it.
And then … and then … I can rest.
Sluggish as he was, he fought on, unrelenting, unforgiving. His Thirst burnt along with his conviction. He'd do his gene-father proud. 1500 years of life all came together at this one moment.
He saw an opportunity; he knew it was a trap, but he didn't care. If the beast gave him a free blow at the price of his life, he is going to make the most of it.
His jittery jetpack roared one last time as he dashed at the beast, slipping between two jagged scythes and raking along a third with his off-hand axe.
Pushing to the left, he gave himself a spin and as he reached the beast; he used it all to smash his power axe deeply into the side of its torso.
"GAkhhh," He screamed up in pain as the fourth arm of the beast was impaling him through the stomach but the roar of his axe eating through the monster's carapace and flesh drowned it out.
He glared up at the beast, seeing its jaws coming closer and closer, ready to rip his head off even as its claws pierced deeper into his body.
Dante raised his other axe, ready to behead the beast, even if it was the last thing he did.
The air resonated with an unholy screech and the monster thrashed for a second, pushing Dante painfully off of its claws. And then it went still, rigid as a statue.
"Hi~" Another one, Dante thought as he commanded his tired body to move again, his axe cut through the air, ready to rip the new enemy apart.
Then a wave of calmness and peace hit his raving mind like a thunder crack, taking all the wind out of his sails.
"Where-?" he stumbled, the thousands of injuries reasserting their existence as his thirst abated. White hot pain bloomed inside his stomach and he coughed a mouthful of blood.
"It trapped me in an Illusion," the thing masquerading as a woman clicked her tongue as it came close to support him and she held up his much larger body effortlessly.
"But I paralyzed the hive-mind for a bit, I don't know how long we have until it recollects itself," she continued and Dante would have had his jaws hanging open if he didn't have his mask on, very dangerous …
He thought back to how the beast went rigid just as it was about to finish him off; he didn't know whether he'd survive that encounter and a part of him — a large part — wished he didn't, but he knew the woman most likely saved his life.
Later…
"Finish it," he groaned. If he was to die today, he'd see the monster die before him.
He wasn't listening to the 'small talk' the woman was doing anymore, bloodshot eyes trained on the rigid monster even as a gentle wave of energy started coursing through his veins. He didn't notice it.
"I need to see it die," he mumbled.
Then … Rest … Finally.
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OCTAVIAN GAIUS || MACRAGGE'S HONOR || WARP
"My Lord?" his hand stopped scribing as the voice of a woman came through his door.
"Enter."
"Yes, My Lord!" The woman quickly entered, not daring to meet his eyes as he watched her from his seat.
"Yes?" he asked.
"We will be entering the Baal System in an hour, my Lord," the woman said, staring at the floor.
"I see," Octavian nodded, "You can leave."
"Yes, My Lord."
The door shut close as the woman scurried away, but Octavian wasn't thinking about her anymore, as an ethereal sense of rightness came over him.
"So it is Baal," he stood up, "Your will be done, My Lord."
Years, he'd spent accompanying the Lord Regent on his crusade. Years he'd spent waiting, thinking.
Now it was finally time to act.