Am I dead?
In a soundless world, my vision slowly returned and I felt the rain hitting me again. There was something in front of me, something huge. Squinting, the object came into focus; it was an axe, the colossal axe of the daemon and it was sticking up from the ground just a few feet away from me. Being this close I could tell the weapon was easily more than twice my height.
The daemon was a much further distance away in a freshly made crater, looking worse for wear and struggling to stand up with movements suggesting confusion. That impact from the turbolaser, at this range, felt like having a sun thrown to my face. Unfortunately not even that level of firepower with whatever I had done could kill it. Just as the daemon was about to get its bearings again it was hit by an ungodly amount of very accurate heavy bolter fire and a myriad of other weapons.
I turned around just to witness the massive gunship swooping in as it continued to hammer on the fallen daemon. My hearing still had yet to return but I could feel the vibrations the gunship created in the air with its firepower. The iconic space marine gunship was so close to me, in a daze, I reached out.
<++ ACCESSING… One (1) responding machine spirit within the vicinity. Connect? YES/NO ++>
<++ Connection established.++>
<++ Accessing machine spirit via ethernet link ++>
<++ Authority confirmed and accepted. We are ready to serve.++>
<++This is Adeptus Astartes Thunderhawk gunship ‘Shadow Talon’ #machineID ********-*******-*********. Ave Imperator. We await your ---
…
<++ Connection timeout.++>
<++ Connection timeout.++>
Did someone sever the link?
The Thunderhawk flew over me, its titanic hull shielded me from the rain for a second and I sensed some peculiar presence inside it. It then proceeded to fly over the daemon and then a huge amount of explosions detonated in the crater.
Cluster bombing run!
Theory confirmed. Twice it had the chance to attack me but it did not, I was not their target. But the Thunderhawk was now definitely the target of all the aircraft and anti-air assets on this battlefield.
I watched in amazement as a swarm of aircraft including Flameraven appeared from all over the battlefield chasing after the Thunderhawk as it hightailed it out of the fight after delivering its unsolicited attack run on the daemon.
Just then another ping got my attention, the special weapon delivery was finally here, carried over by a Stratoraptor with perfect timing. I dove into the network, took over the trigger control of the weapon and fired it at the dazed daemon.
It was like shooting a fish in a barrel as the special missile made a direct hit, creating a bubble of spacetime anomaly around the daemon. The “Caliban’s special” was a stasis bomb, one of the more exotic weapons available in the grimdark universe, effectively trapping its target in a bubble of perpetuity for a short amount of time. It was one of the very rare weapons Kryptorer had in his stash of secrets.
The daemon was now stuck in a stasis bubble. Inside the affected area time basically just froze. Due to the arcane nature of the weapon, no one could tell how long the effect will last but I fully intend to exploit this period.
It was then my hearing finally returned and I was aware of a rhino tank pulled over beside me. Alicya climbed out from the cupola, jumped down from the tank and started walking over with Kira. The sister appeared none too pleased with my plot of ditching them.
I took a closer look at Alicya, the probationary palatine had a sour expression between pouting and crying, it felt like she really wanted to scold me but held me in too high regard to do so.
There was one way to defuse this weird tension. I stabbed the Nameless Sword to the ground, walked over and hugged her while apologising.
‘I am sorry.’
She was surprised by my embrace and apology, her power armour was cold to the touch but it still felt good after all those close calls. The reality of death just passed over by a hair’s breadth hit me like a truck as I buried my head into her chest. This feeling of relief was overwhelming, then an awkward realisation hit me; what I was doing now might have been the dream of many hobbyists in my past life.
‘Why did you do that and how did you know?’ Alicya finally asked while starting to brush off the mud from my hair.
‘The Thunderhawk’s angle of attack was constantly shifting towards the daemon but I was not certain it would work out.’
‘The probability checks out, Lady Syrine had a better chance of surviving a Turbolaser impact with her reinforced energy protection field in the open. Being inside an armoured transport would bring complications into the equation if that weapon was indeed directed at her.’ Quoted Kira without missing a beat, ‘however, that will make little difference as you will still be unlikely to survive hand to hand combat with that warp spawn.’
‘There is one key difference,’ I answered, ‘you two will still be alive.’ Both Alicya and Kira looked stunned by my response. Just then the army started firing into the stasis bubble, signalling time to create some real distance between us and the incoming hell.
‘Let’s get out of here.’ After collecting my sword, we boarded the rhino again and drove away from the daemon. We watched the hectic firepower intensify from a safe distance, soon an endless amount of projectiles were flying into that mess.
Eventually even Kathalina’s Baneblade “Terminus Pride” had joined the fray, firing all its guns one after another into the bubble. Some long-range artillery rounds had even made it, landing round after round into the bubble. In the finale, a formation of Sororitas Exorcist tanks arrived and added a barrage of missiles into the mix. I also noticed a decorated Sororitas rhino peeling off from the main battle group and heading right toward us. I recognised it to be Diadinah’s command rhino.
The precious few minutes stretched on and the frenzy firing of the Imperials piled on. Finally, we received a warning from Kryptorer to all open channels. ‘Stasis bubble collapse imminent, stand by for impact.’ Just as he finished speaking, there was a bright flash and a cataclysmic level explosion as time resumed within that bubble of space with all the projectiles inside.
We watched in awe as a mushroom cloud rose from the impact site and the shockwave hit our rhino, its hull creaking in protest. The sound was deafening even after we put our hands up to cover our ears.
Nothing in this universe should be able to survive that, I was confident of that notion and raised my head above the opened hatch to inspect the impact site. Visually nothing could be seen as it was a world of dust so I sent out [Auspex] to check.
I froze.
It was still there. It felt severely weakened than before but was definitely still there.
+Lady Syrine.+
I almost screamed out loud with the sudden noise in my head before recognising it was a psychic message from Fulton, one of Thaberus’ psyker retinue.
+Fulty? Be warned the daemon is still here.+
+We know. The inquisitor had ordered the troops to stay away until this was resolved. We are approaching your position, please stand by.+
From the darkening sky, a new flyer appeared and swiftly approached. It looked like a modified Corvus Blackstar strike craft, sleek and modern looking unlike most of its boxy imperial counterparts. Psychic resonance confirmed Fulton and Tsalieh were on board.
By then Diadinah’s rhino finally reached us just as the Blackstar strike craft had gotten close enough, I linked up with its machine spirit and the rest of its passengers became known to me. Niandra and Thaberus were on the strike craft too. As befitting of an inquisitor knowing the risks involved, Thaberus was wise not to be onboard the Flameraven when it did the attack run. The Blackstar landed with a huge downdraft, blowing rain and muddy water everywhere.
Shortly after, four people exited it with the inquisitor leading from the front, striding purposefully. Matching his timing, Diadinah exited from her rhino together with Markeylla, Veritta and Welminah.
Closer to us, the sisters reached first with the canoness leading in the front. Diadinah’s expression softened as she saw me, she bowed deeply together with the other sisters before saying, ‘Holy Daughter, everything went better than expected with just some minor deviations from your plan.’
I was overjoyed but was in no way about to hog all that glory. ‘Diadinah, you and the others had done really great work out there in the field. Now we just have to tie up this last loose end.’
Thaberus and his group stopped in front of the gathering, the inquisitor’s expression was as indecipherable as ever but I did detect his awe when he saw the flaming Nameless Sword for the first time in my hand, followed by a hint of amusement, probably due to my current messy state.
‘Well, you are in a surprisingly excellent state considering you just took down a greater daemon.’ He commented.
I scoffed jokingly before replying, ‘First, the combined effort of the army took it down, not me. Second, the damned thing is still there. Any idea how to finish it off for good? Can we ask the army to continue blasting it from a distance?’
‘Considering all that firepower just now I doubt that will work. My investigations on the chaos cult responsible for this treacherous act revealed they had used an ancient artifact in this scheme. This warp spawn appeared to have tethered itself to the physical world through its connection with said artifact. We might need a direct psychic attack with a force weapon to sever its final attachment to this universe.’
Force weapon? Where can… I instinctively look down at the flaming sword in my hand. This counts as one, right? Just when I was wondering if I actually needed to go into that mess and stab the daemon myself, Thaberus spoke again, ‘You have done more than enough, let us handle the final...’ but before he could finish his statement, a blood-curdling roar came from behind us.
We all turned to witness an unbelievable scene. About a hundred yards away something huge and grotesque appeared from the wall of smoke and dust. A towering, bloodied mess of skinless flesh and muscle stumbled with great difficulty towards us. Where its head was supposed to be was mangled protrusions of organs, and something that looked like a deformed eyeball was hanging out from that mess. For a very brief moment, our eyes met and it recognised me.
KILL YOU.
It said to me without words, taking a few steps forward and then collapsed to the ground in a cloud of dust. The whole imperial gang went silent upon seeing what just happened, then it felt as though the very air itself suddenly changed.
This dreaded feeling, the immaterium is coming over? Goosebumps were appearing all over my body and my instinct was screaming imminent danger.
‘The daemon is thinning the barrier of reality!’ Tsalieh was the first to realise what was happening.
‘How? Why?’ Thaberus demanded, apparently he was also caught by surprise by this sudden development.
‘I don’t get it, but the daemon seems to be… burning itself up to use the artifact’s power!’ Fulton answered as the situation suddenly became very desperate.
‘Get behind us!’ Fulton shouted as he started working with Tsalieh. Holding hands, their power fused and a protective psychic field was deployed, everyone got into it as things literally went to hell around us. Outside the psychic field, impossible colours and weird sceneries appeared as reality started to slip away.
+This is bad!+ Tsalieh cried out through psychic communication.
+Damnation! The barrier won’t hold for long!+ Fulton agreed.
+What is the name of this psychic power?+ I asked in amazement.
+Sanctuary.+
Our little sanctuary barrier was not looking well though, it seemed to be cracking from immense pressure. I had seen the psychic duo working together multiple times now and had a rough idea of how to contribute.
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+Let me join your psychic choir.+
+But...+ Tsalieh hesitated.
+Do it, we will be dead at this rate anyway!+ Fulton communicated through gritted teeth.
‘Markeylla.’ I passed my sword to the sister. Even while in a daze, the celestian superior accepted the weapon naturally. I then put one hand on the shoulders of each psyker from behind, sensing the rapid circulation of power between them. This is just like the circulation I had with the sword.
+Here it goes.+ I started pumping my psychic energy into the circulation with the duo, slowly at first then increasing in intensity as our powers started to blend together. Faster and faster our circulation went as the two psykers continued to channel powers into the field with my backing.
+So much power!+ Tsalieh gasped.
+Concentrate and stabilise the field!+ Fulton commanded, so we pushed further until the Sanctuary field stabilised.
‘It… it is working! We are keeping the immaterium at bay for now.’ Fulton announced, puffing.
‘Can we move away from here?’ Thaberus asked the obvious question.
‘Negative, we can’t move while channelling this protective field.’
‘Are we totally cut off from the outside?’ I asked while trying to communicate with Kryptorer via his skull probe but received no reply. ‘There might be literally a universe between us and our old reality.’ Thaberus answered grimly. ‘So what do we do now?’ Diadinah asked.
As the others started a discussion I found myself spacing out and my attention shifted to where the daemon was outside the field.
I had another hunch, a really bad one. Recalling the brief moment when I looked into the broken eyes of the greater daemon, it must have assessed me with its twisted intelligence and took into account what it had witnessed.
This is a trap made for me, isn’t it?
In a trance-like state, I slowly walked to the edge of the field. Compelled by a knowing feeling, I held my hand out and pushed my finger towards the outside. Just as my finger crossed over the field slightly, a communication came through.
FIGHT ME.
An inhuman voice sounded in my head, sending frightening chills down my spine as it continued to speak. Fight me, daughter of Anathema – in a daze, I found myself being pulled back from behind with a hand choking on my neck and cold steel pressed against the side of my head. It was Niandra.
‘What are you doing?’ Niandra, Alicya and Diadinah all asked at the same time and I heard the sound of weapons being raised further behind.
‘Release Lady Syrine or I will shoot.’ added Kira with the sound of her galvanic rifle being loaded up. it seemed like my action just now was about to start an internal dispute.
‘Stop it. All of you.’ I said calmly and felt the grip on my neck loosen slightly, so I continued. ‘This is a trap for me. The daemon wants to fight me, I heard its calling.’
‘What in the … why?’ Thaberus asked.
‘I don’t understand either, with the low level of casualties we achieved, nothing of this level of threat should have come through via that ritual. It almost felt like it had a personal grudge with me.’ I replied.
No one had anything further to add to that statement, so it was time to defuse this situation. Mustering as much authority as possible, I demanded, ‘Unhand me, Niandra.’
Niandra hesitated until Thaberus weighed in, ‘Do as she says. If she was possessed we would all be dead by now.’ The assassin complied. I turned around to have a look at the gathering. It had been a long day and everybody was looking under the weather, Veritta and Welminah were looking especially pale.
‘Seems like I will need to fight and banish the daemon myself. Destroying the artifact or hitting the daemon with a force weapon will cut off his attachment to our world and end this phenomenon, correct?’ ‘That should be the case.’ Thaberus nodded.
I pointed at the Nameless Sword, ‘Is that a force weapon?’
Tsalieh winced at my question. ‘Like just now with its blue psychic flame? Definitely.’ Good, I had to be sure.
‘We will accompany you.’ Diadinah said.
‘No, it is almost pure immaterium outside this field and probably only I have the Emperor’s true blessings to stave off its corruptive effect.’ I replied.
In truth, that statement was a mix of half-truths and guesses but I doubt the rest could help much in the upcoming ‘duel’ without even taking into account the risks of being possessed or being mutated to death. My companions sprouting tentacles and attacking from behind was the last thing I want to see while in a boss fight, and a sight like that would probably break me.
‘But this is so dangerous…’ Markeylla wanted to argue.
‘The daemon is severely weakened, it can be done.’ I declared while stretching out my hand to the celestian superior. She hesitated for a second, saw Diadinah nodding before handing the Nameless Sword back to me reverently and delivering her blessings. ‘May the Emperor grant you strength.’
I nodded, taking back my sword and triggering its flames. I then walked to the edge of the field. Outside this barrier was Chaos itself.
This is it.
The last deciding fight for this war. I took a deep breath and turned my head around, like a gathering of really expensive looking cosplayers, the whole group was looking at me silently.
‘See you all later. The Emperor protects.’ I forced a smile, tuned my halo to the maximum level and then stepped forward into the unreality.
Outside, the first thing I did was to nervously observe myself, looking for any signs of troubles and actively checking my own status. So far everything seemed fine. Looking closer, I found my halo seemed to be creating its own sanctuary field effect around me, constantly repelling the immaterium.
The outside was an eerie world. The aftermath of close to a whole army’s worth of weapons discharge mixed with the immaterium had made a real mess of the field. Dust, hot steam and smoke were everywhere, visibility was practically zero with only the light provided by my halo illuminating the path forward.
I approached the position of the downed greater daemon cautiously, spamming [Auspex] to constantly confirm its exact location. The readings were weird, it felt like the daemon’s very existence was hanging by a thread, a burning will that stubbornly refused to leave.
Thinking about the current situation, some facts were dawning on me. A powerful daemonic entity thinning down the barrier of reality to bring a world into the immaterium was the standard end game for a daemonic invasion. But that was usually done after the chaos forces had gathered enough power and souls to pull a whole world through. This daemon doing this now while it was severely wounded served no other purpose than to force my hand.
So this is definitely a trap for me.
I shook my head to regain focus, nothing matters now but to banish the daemon and call it a day. I continued to spam [Auspex] forward. It was still not moving, but the ominous feeling was intensifying.
Finally, I reached a clearing and saw my target. There in the distance was the injured daemon. It was still a bloodied mess and appeared to be motionless. I continued to approach until instincts told me to stop.
Looking closer and with my auspex readings, I saw a disc-like object inside the body of the daemon. My psychic sense indicated weird energies were emanating from said object with the daemon’s essence intertwined with it. This must be the artifact Thaberus had mentioned. Now I just need to hit it with my sword.
The daemon remained curiously motionless, no taunting nor further communication was coming forth. This last boss fight was looking more like a puzzle than an actual fight.
So, how?
Fatigue was setting in, this need to end fast.
I then remembered my pillow throwing way back in the bedroom, despite being not aerodynamic at all I still managed to fling the sleeping aide with a respectable speed. That meant… the Nameless Sword could probably be launched like a spear, that way there was no need to get any closer to the daemon. Only one shot at this, too bad I could not practice… wait. I can do simulations!
[Simulatio] Activated-
In my mind’s eye, I threw the sword again and again at the artifact inside the daemon. After a few tries, the process was refined to a certainty, hitting my target again and again without fail.
Finally, I was ready. The blue psychic flame on my sword was raging now as if begging to be unleashed.
Let’s do this.
I pulled back my body, poured my remaining powers into the Nameless Sword and threw it like a javelin.
Go back to hell!
Just like the simulations, the sword left my hand and flew straight at my target like a bolt of vengeful lightning. Then I felt it. Somehow, my senses detected the daemon smirking, its smug emotion apparent and its malice laid bare. Screaming alarms went off in my mind.
Something appeared in my senses and came at me with supernatural speed but my body was still stuck in the after pose of throwing out my sword.
Time slowed further and I finally saw what was coming at me. It was a whip, a barbed whip thicker than my arms. Even in my thought accelerated state, I could not dodge but watched in horror and slow motion as the thing approached. My senses registered the Nameless Sword hitting its mark just as the whip reached me.
Now I really fucked up.
ZHHHhhhaaaammmmm!!!
There was a thunderous sound and a brilliant flash, the next thing I knew my body was flying backwards in midair, rain hitting my face.
Rain! Reality had returned and … a cold realisation surfaced: I got hit and the reinforced energy field of my rosette must have activated.
A lot of thoughts quickly went through my head. First off, I was angry at myself for being careless; a whip was part of the default wargear for a typical Bloodthirster, and while this opponent was anything but typical I should have anticipated that.
Then my attention went to calculating my odds of survival. This energy field of mine should be similar if not superior to the protection granted by the iron halo equipped by space marine commanders. So a minimum of 4++ if not 3++ invulnerable saves? I should be able to survive this… wait, this is not a game.
My thought acceleration ended and in a flash as I came crashing back to earth, the great momentum had me skipping across the muddy ground for a great distance before finally stopping.
In a state of shock, I tried to get up but only managed to raise myself slightly while getting relentlessly pummeled by the rain. I am in such a mess now.
What about the daemon? I shivered, pushed myself and managed to send out another wave of [Auspex] to its last known location. Nothing, it was finally banished for real.
Looking down at myself to assess my situation, I found all my limbs were intact but there was this curious feeling of numbness on my chest. Panicking, I tried to sit up again but choked on my throat and proceeded to vomit out blood. Streams of hot blood were dripping down freely from my mouth and nose.
Oh, this does not look good.
I couldn’t even get myself to sit upright. This transhuman body, a supposed peak level creation of a galactic empire, could not even perform such a basic action now.
I need help.
In a blind panic, I reached out psychically and to my great relief, managed to grab hold of a pair of familiar consciousness nearby.
+Help!+
+Lady Syrine?+ They both replied.
+Fulty, Tsalieh. The daemon is done for but I am hurt, need assistance.+
+Acknowledged, we are coming over.+
Suddenly new sensations started creeping onto my body. Ouch, pain. Wait, ain't I supposed to have a grace period for the adrenaline to suppress such sensations before the pain kicks in?
+Please hurry, I am… in a pretty bad state...+
Without warning the pains intensified by folds, I wanted to scream but messages of [Regalis] were popping up again and my throat felt like it was filled with blood.
Laying flat on my back on top of the cold, wet muddy ground, I saw nothing but a raining dark and dirty purple sky. The psychic duo was still responding but I could no longer hear what they were saying.
I drowned in a sea of pain, everything faded to darkness.