Chapter 97

Both of my hands transformed, morphing into a Tyranid spike bolter. I wasn’t sure of its exact name, but the thing shot out armour-piercing spikes laced in neurotoxin and acid so vicious that it melted right through any carapace I could currently replicate.

It was a nasty weapon, though not as nasty as some of the other Tyranid projectile weapons. I also loaded condensed bio-energy into the launched spikes for good measure, that was something I had ample amounts of thanks to my helpful little butterflies that still worked hard to eat up as many of the fallen as possible.

I didn’t have to be frugal with bio-energy like I would have to be with soul-energy for the near future. Not that the latter helped me much, the only two times I drew blood was when I was using a Combat Drone or when I shot a spike at him.

I should have been using bio-energy a lot more when I saw his sigils warding off my sorcery, but I just preferred being the mage throwing spells at my foes from far away or the enthralling swordswoman nimbly dancing around her foe.

Sometimes though, like right now, there was a need for some good old primal violence.

So anyway, I started blasting.

Half of my Combat Drones followed suit and like me, morphed their limbs into Gatling guns and rained spiky hell down on the Shadowkeeper. Meanwhile, the rest rushed at him with their teeth bared and scythes readied.

The bio-rifles — though they were more akin to automated Gatling guns, or heavy-duty machine guns only helicopters carried — were nearly silent as they fired, only the sequential hiss in the air and the slight knockback told me mine was even working.

Even as I did so I walked backwards at a steady pace. There was no fucking way I’d be getting hit by that stupid skull’s attack a second time. I didn’t even dare look into its eyes, afraid it would just repeat the previous event/situation/happening.

It somehow stunned my mind back then, just long enough for the dark light — that I came to associate with the null field — to wash over my helpless Avatar. That couldn’t happen again, especially not until I knew how it did that.

I thought my mental defences were good. I lamented. Clearly, they weren’t though, the Hivemind managed to trap me in an Illusory world and that skull managed to stupify me. It was obvious that compared to my body and soul, my mind was painfully weak. Mortal even.

I thought fast, and I thought a lot, but that wasn’t the same as unbreaking will. A computer could think fast and multitask, but that wouldn’t help it in defending against telepathic intrusion.

Finding a way to reinforce my mind jumped right up to the top of my task list, even above mind-reading and whatnot.

I kept track of the Custodian even as the storm of spikes descended upon him and blocked out my sight. Half a dozen towering Combat Drones clad in thick carapaces pouncing on him in harmony didn’t help with that either, but sight was hardly my sharpest sense. Aura was.

He swung his spear around in an arc, arcs of white lightning snapping off of it and finding spikes heading for him and then another. The arcs chained from spike to spike, disintegrating each, but even as hundreds got destroyed before the first drone reached within melee range, he still had thousands more to deflect.

I had the bio-energy to spare to keep the barrage up for days if not months. He had to run out of stamina or fuel for his spear before that … right?

The Drones weaved between each other's attacks, the mind core of each working in tandem with the rest so they worked as a single cohesive unit. The drones firing from the back line used the transmitted communications to aim spikes, so they struck where the front-line Drones couldn’t without obstructing the latter.

It would have taken down most foes, probably even this Shadowkeeper if he was a normal Custodian. But he wasn’t. He had overpowered relics of an age where humanity conquered the stars.

The beam of disintegrating energy flickered to life, bursting forth from the end of his staff as he twirled it around himself. Most of my Drones managed to avoid it, ducking under or jumping over it, but some didn’t and fell to the ground with a quarter of their bodies no longer existing.

All the shooter Drones were fine at least. With a command sent, all the remaining melee Drones split apart. In place of every 3 metre tall monstrosity, there were now three 2 metre tall ones. Those should have a better chance of dodging.

The Shadowkeeper was back at it though, he tapped the black skull now back on his waist and the sphere of overbearing null-field snapped into place for just a second.

The poor Drones that fell under its influence went feral as my telepathic link with them got shattered. At least there was no mind-splitting this time as I only controlled them remotely through said channel.

The sole problem was that before I could reassert my control, half of the remaining six had been cut down. I couldn’t heal them either, as my safety mechanism activated the moment I lost control of them.

The tiny tendrils in them merged with the body entirely and started condensing the leftover bio-energy into an inevitable explosion that would use the drone’s very body as shrapnel.

Unless I went up to them and reabsorbed them, those drones would explode in 3 … 2 … 1

I grinned as they went nuclear, each jumping at the Shadowkeeper with absolute disregard for their own lives and latched onto his limbs before they did so which finally let a good few spikes get past his guardian spear.

Letting more bio-energy drain from me, I formed more melee Drones, these ones designed to be disposable and with the aim to repeat what their far more costly brethren had done.

The Shadowkeeper wasn’t down. He still stood held up by his armour and waving his spear around by the time the dust cloud from the explosion cleared up. Though, he did look much closer to a hedgehog than he probably liked.

Clotted blood stained his scarred black armour where grey spikes penetrated through it, his blood dried in a second, but the acid and toxin were already in his bloodstream. I could hear his flesh sizzling, and that finally made my hardened glare morph into a ferocious grin.

By all accounts, he was losing. Still, I didn’t dare think myself the victor just yet. The last time I got cocky, I got a blast of null energy in my face and a fractured mind that still hadn’t healed perfectly.

I was still dancing on a knife’s edge, only a single misstep away from another mind-shattering experience.

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I had to admit that he was even more cunning than I thought. He had lulled me into a false sense of security before. He made me believe that the skull could only make a sphere and that if I didn’t get hit by his spear, I could weave between his attacks and survive.

Back then I thought I was dancing on a knife’s edge too, but I learned the knife was held at my throat throughout the entire fight. He was just waiting for an opportune moment.

He could have more tricks, more weapons he hadn’t shown yet. Shadowkeepers had weapons in abundance, and I was … unwilling to act on assumptions again.

In a way it was enthralling, watching how his single spear flashed about and drew arcs of white through the air as it deflected or outright obliterated dozens, maybe hundreds of spikes each second.

Some made it through and punched right through his ceramite, but most didn’t, stopped either by his spear or by thicker parts of his armour. He tapped the skull and the sphere went up once, then twice.

Nothing happened, there was nothing a null field was going to do about a bunch of super pointy spikes laced with the deadliest poisons I could make, flying at him faster than fighter jets.

He smashed his spear into the ground, and as the fucking overpowered piece of shit tech it was, it let out a blast of white energy that obliterated every spike in a ten-metre sphere around him.

With that, he gave himself enough breathing room to dash at one of my ranged drones. I controlled it to dodge, but he flicked the power on his spear and a beam of energy blasted into a drone.

A Drone, because it wasn’t even the one he was rushing at but the one to the right of it. The original target also met its end after as the null field flickered to life right on top of it.

Another drone was also barely caught under its effect. I gritted my teeth as both jumped at the Custodian as per their pre-written commands and tried to blow him to hell, but he wasn’t about to be fooled twice by the same trick.

His feet sent one flying, the half-tonne drone looking like some petulant child as it soared through the air before it exploded like a gory firework, while the second earned a spear through its skull.

He flicked it away just in time to not be swallowed up by the following blast.

He looked like some undead demon, a hundred spikes piercing him and dried blood slowly making sure his armour was more red than black. If only I had the Swarmlord’s template already.

I stomped on that thought, ‘what ifs’ wouldn’t help me. The fucker was dying. He had to be dying. I couldn’t imagine anything surviving the amount of abuse those plagues, toxins, poisons, and venoms should be giving his superhuman immune system.

I tried to remake the encirclement, but the Custodian was smarter than to let me do so. He kept dodging, pouncing, and deflecting just so I could never quite rain hell down on him from all around again.

That made deflecting the spikes all the more easy, which consequently gave him enough breathing room to — at times — snipe one of my drones with pin-point beams of matter-eating energy.

It was a game of cat and mouse, though I wasn’t certain which one of us was which. I felt I only needed time and the toxins and the increasing number of wounds would do him in. Death by a thousand cuts might not be enough, but when his organs are failing at the same time, it might just be enough.

That all depended on him not killing me first. Something he was trying to do with increasing ferocity, maybe he was getting desperate or just decided he wouldn’t survive this either way so he might as well take as many wounds as needed to get to me.

The fucking skull stuck to him like glue, not even when a drone tried to latch onto it and force it away with an explosion did his grasp on it fray. No matter, I could pry it from his cold, dead hands once I was done with him.

I weaved in psychic attacks here and there, seeing whether I could punch through his sigils, but that didn’t result in anything substantial yet. Though if his psychic defences went down, I could probably tear him apart in a moment.

The skull was levelled at me again, and I Blinked away just as the whole direction in which I was standing disappeared from my psychic senses.

Two more drones died, and I was left with only four. More formed out of my Avatar, which earned it the undivided attention of the Custodes. Our dance became a lot more intense from then on. He thrust himself back into the fray, aiming right at my Avatar and almost ignoring the other Drones.

He roared, and from gods know where, he produced something like … grenades? The important part was that they exploded violently as he threw them and that he had quite a lot.

One burst into a sphere of white flames that left not even the charred remains of the drone it landed under behind, another released a wave of grey sludge that crawled over and devoured the Drone from within, warring with its regeneration every step of the way, and a third released arcs of lightning that rushed through the nerves of anything alive they touched and fried their brains.

There were others, but these proved most effective against my Drones, and so he let it rain. Some were deflected, but he seemed to have an abundance of them as one hand continued to flick them this way and that as he dashed towards my retreating Avatar.

So many fucking tricks. I thought, wondering what else he’d pull out of his ass if I beat him back this time. That was slowly turning into a huge IF, as his spear burst alight and the beam extending out of its end sheared through anything it caught.

If that thing had a limited supply of fuel, he wasn’t afraid to burn that all up anymore. I just had to hold out. He must be desperate. I have to be careful. A rabid dog backed into a corner is the most dangerous type of enemy.

He seemed to speed up, his already far beyond superhuman speed and agility went even beyond that into the truly supernatural. That caused me to miscalculate and for a brief moment, I was within his sphere’s range and too slow to Blink away.

My aura went dim, my soul-thread tightened up, and I felt encased, like my head and mind by extension was held in a vice-like grip. Then came the light again, his damned beam aiming to end me, but even if I couldn’t dodge the skull, I could dodge the beam as I knew it would be coming.

I rolled, the disintegrating strike only chipping my shoulder, but it quickly turned to chase me. I saw more grenades fly towards me, and in front of me, trying to cut off my escape route.

Atiesh appeared next to me, and I grabbed onto it with my clawed hand. My mind stayed sharp and my will unyielding. The null field couldn’t take away that no matter how much it tried and now that it didn’t catch me with my pants down, I could resist it.

I swung the staff and the grenades’ path was diverted, flying past me and leaving me mostly unscathed, and more importantly, free to dash away from the beam.

Moving out of the null sphere proved challenging, as the now even faster Shadowkeeper was almost upon me.

That made it easier to avoid his beam, at least.

The staff snapped out and struck his hand; the strike carrying more weight behind it than even my enhanced form should have given it, and sent his swing wide.

Unfortunately, he still held onto the spear, and I only had enough time to scramble a bit further.

Blinking was impossible under the null field, even with Atiesh in my hands. That left only fight or flight, but fighting in melee combat with a custodian would be about the dumbest thing imaginable.

Flight it was, at least until he dropped dead from the many wounds he had.

Not that it was easy, he was quickly back at it. Hounding me, throwing everything he had to keep me under his null field and trying to skewer me, impale me, or whatever else he could do.

He was getting tired … no, Custodians didn’t tire. Finally, the poison is taking effect.

His strikes slowed and I could hear his groaning breaths coming out quicker under his helmet. Still, he fought and his speed refused to diminish. Each strike of his spear and near miss of his beam fanned the flames of my own desperation.

A single misstep, a single wrong dodge, or a miscalculated evasion could have killed me. Sure, my soul and body would live on, but one only had to look at the Emperor to see how one with a mind fractured into a thousand pieces turned out. I would rather die. Really die.

My heart was thundering in my chest, useless as it was. My focus dimmed. Only him, his weapons, and I existed. My mind spun a thousand miles a second to gleam even the smallest of tell before a strike, to help me dodge before he even truly moved.

We could have fought for a day, a month, or maybe just a minute, but it came to an end in a way I never would have expected.

A burst of blue lightning flashed from behind me, but my danger sense remained silent. Even as dim as it was under the null field, I came to trust its tiny nudges. There was no nudge this time, so I didn’t dodge.

The lightning went past me, only by a hair’s breadth, and struck the Shadowkeeper. Its arc coils around him like chains and forming a dozen shackles. They tightened, and then I heard a voice, a dark whisper in my ears rattling like a dying man.

“I am to help you,” it said. “Come.”

Then I was grabbed. I felt a gauntleted hand grab one of my arms and then space twisted around us. No, it wasn’t just space; it was time.

“Traitor,” I heard the wheezing voice of the Custodian, now distant. I saw him collapse to a knee a good few hundred metres away as the coils of lightning slowly faded.

“I act on orders,” said my ‘saviour’, but I was once again thrown for a loop as my mind whirled. Memories crashed into it like an avalanche. It took a moment to claw my way out.

Time fuckery. I cursed. That was what happened. This fucker stopped time and dragged me out of the null field, but I remained somewhat conscious. Well, conscious enough to forge memories while time stood still, but the downside of that was all those memories crashing into my mind once time was once again flowing as it should.

“Fuck,” I swore, the sound coming out as a savage gurgle from my now bestial mouth. Reality cracked behind the Shadowkeeper and even as a spike-launcher formed on my hands, he was already through, collapsing backwards into the darkness.

My spike flowed after him into the abyss, a dozen of them even before it slowly crawled close.

“Fuck,” I reiterated, now in a human voice as my body morphed back into my Psyker Form.

“Are you unharmed?” asked the pale Librarian.

“No,” I said, glancing at Mephiston suspiciously. “But I am well enough. Why are you here?”

He ignored my suspicious gaze boring into him as power slowly flowed into Atiesh at my side, ready to blast both of us to smithereens. Maybe my suspicion was unwarranted since he was the one to come to my ‘rescue’, but I needed no rescuing. I was doing … fine-ish.

Okay, maybe I should appreciate his rescue more, but he just attacked a Custodian. Space Marines did NOT do that. Did he go crazy? Maybe the Dark Angel warped his mind and somehow thought I would be a fine vessel next?

No, I was spiralling. Stop that.

“The Lord Regent ordered you protected.”