My Life as A Death Guard
Chapter 483: A Battle of Sorcery, but Corax Is Still the Unluckiest One
"Over here!!!" The Khan's shout pierced through layer upon layer of fog. From somewhere deep within the mist came the rapid beating of wings.
Beside Jaghatai, the Stormseer Yesugei raised his staff. Cracks now spread across the ram skull mounted atop the staff, while ominous moss crept over it—only to instantly wither away into ash symbolic of death.
The monster moving swiftly through the fog was rapidly growing larger.
Faint mist swirled around the Khan, dotted with flickering lights.
+…J-just… leave directly…+ A distant call echoed from afar, followed by a surging cacophony of furious roars and clashing blades.
"Hurry!" The Khan roared as he looked into the distance.
At the end of the corridor, the swollen silhouette of the Warmaster emerged. Rolling darkness surrounded him as crimson-stained shadow descended.
Earlier, Mortarion had directly carried the Khan and the White Scars through a short-range psychic teleport aboard the Vengeful Spirit, allowing them to shake off Horus.
But with every step Horus took, the corridor ahead twisted unnaturally.
For fleeting moments, the Khan glimpsed fragments of impossible realms: the ever-shifting labyrinth of sorcery, a churning sea of blood, a lush and grotesque garden. These bizarre domains writhed and rolled endlessly, constantly changing as the veil trembled and the boundary between the physical world and the Warp grew increasingly blurred.
The Primarch could hear Their whispers—annoyed, mocking, playful.
As Mortarion probed the limits of the gods, They too searched for the critical threshold.
The Khan felt the deck beneath his feet becoming unreal. Warp-born things were beginning to drag them toward another battlefield.
For a Primarch who merely understood psychic power without truly mastering it, this was the last situation he wished to face.
Fortunately, they had someone capable of wielding psychic power skillfully.
No—not Magnus.
The fog suddenly surged toward the Khan's feet, carrying a nauseating stench, while Mortarion's voice rang clearly in their ears.
+—You who summoned me, use teleportation!+
The Khan clearly saw Yesugei hesitate for a brief moment while raising his staff.
Yet immediately afterward, the Stormseers obeyed Mortarion's command without hesitation.
Lightning exploded from Yesugei's staff, snaking like a great serpent into the white fog. The mist shuddered violently.
"Withdraw!"
Leading the Keshig and the Stormseers, Jaghatai decisively retreated into the increasingly dense fog behind them.
The physical deck of the ship no longer existed here.
He stepped onto what had once been a corner of a garden.
Once, it had been vibrant with life.
Now, everything had withered.
Everything had decayed.
Death slumbered silently across this land.
Jaghatai understood.
Through the active summoning of the Stormseers, through Mortarion's connection to Nurgle, the Pale King had successfully unfolded his own domain within one corner of the Vengeful Spirit.
Frost rapidly spread across the Khan's white armor. The distinctive scent that accompanied psychic sorcery stung his nose. Suddenly, the Khan felt an overwhelming silence.
Too silent.
Before fully committing himself to the rolling sea of fog, the Khan turned back one final time and saw Horus standing motionless where he was.
Half-submerged within the mist, amid a gray-white world that had already begun to fall into stillness, the Khan looked upon the Warmaster as he accepted the power of Chaos.
The previously furious Horus had grown calm.
He simply stood there silently, sorrow filling his eyes, as though offering a final farewell.
The Khan turned away and fully leapt into the abyss shrouded by fog.
In that final moment, Jaghatai did not wonder what Horus had been mourning.
Was he grieving the Khan's ultimate "betrayal"?
Or had the sight of an old friend briefly restored his clarity?
Jaghatai Khan had no answer.
He only knew that although silence now surrounded him completely, the buzzing hum of insect wings was growing louder and louder.
The Stormseers continued dutifully chanting ancient incantations. Great power burst from their staffs, while the fetishes made from animal and human skulls trembled violently as though caught in a hurricane.
The Khan heard distant, unwilling muttering from beside a great cauldron. He raised a ladle and waved away the interference of the other powers.
The stench of rot drifted in.
Greenery began to sprout once more beneath their feet. Flies crawled noisily across freshly grown vegetation, while butterfly-like insects tipped with curved venomous stingers climbed from blooming flowers and shakily took flight.
Plants grew at astonishing speed with rustling whispers.
Flies buzzed loudly as their wings beat.
Then the thinning fog churned violently once more.
White mist descended to the ground.
The freshly grown vegetation instantly withered again.
Life and death completed a full cycle in a single instant.
Those once-vibrant insects collapsed to the earth and silently decayed into ash.
And from the far side—deep within the garden—a long bell tolled.
Once.
Twice.
Three times…
Seven times.
Corax, already on the verge of blacking out, suddenly felt Mortarion's speed sharply decrease. They abruptly dipped downward in midair, and the patterns upon the Pale King's wings suddenly dimmed. The once-orderly markings began to fall back into chaos.
At a glance, Corax realized the twisted patterns were no longer nested in sequences of seven within seven.
The white fog muffled all sound as much as possible; otherwise, Corax might have heard Mortarion's irritated curse.
Still clutching Trazyn under one arm, the Pale King reached toward his waist. He drew out a dagger.
It was long and curved, wrapped in faded strips of cloth. Its sharp edge resembled shattered glass, while ominous iridescent colors shimmered across the blade, revealing the extraordinary toxicity it possessed.
Mortarion roughly shoved the dagger into Corax's hand.
+They're too slow,+ the Pale King spoke, irritated by the Stormseers' pace. Teleportation required time. It required a stable environment.
Corax gripped the dagger, looking questioningly toward Mortarion. The gauntlet covering his hand hissed with corrosion the instant it touched the blade.
+Prepare yourself,+ Mortarion said in a low voice.
+The moment I reach Khan—stab me. Banish me back. Then we leave this place directly.+
Corax fell silent in shock.
He wanted to ask something, but in the end, he merely answered:
"…Alright."
Mortarion said nothing further.
Originally, he had planned to use the Stormseers' teleportation in conjunction with his own Warp domain to carry them safely away from here.
But now, it seemed his very existence had once again enraged Nurgle.
In that case, they would leave another way.
The Lord of Ravens widened his eyes in astonishment.
A miniature Death Guard stumbled out from beneath Mortarion's cloak.
The tiny figure climbed to the center of Mortarion's wings, positioning itself exactly within Corax's reach. Turning its head toward him, the little creature held tightly onto Mortarion's cloak with one hand to keep its balance, while waving the other hand insistently—gesturing for Corax to stab there.
Corax stared in complete disbelief, clutching the dagger.
Meanwhile, in a corner neither Primarch was paying attention to, Trazyn was staring fixedly at the tiny Death Guard.
The indicator lights across his face were flashing wildly.
The rapidly beating wings abruptly stopped.
Within the sea of white mist, Mortarion—carrying both of them—burst through the fog and came crashing heavily down toward the Khan's position.
The Pale King saw the Khan and the White Scars battling Nurgle daemons clawing their way up from the ground. He could clearly feel his domain being slowly devoured, returning bit by bit to Nurgle's control.
But fortunately, this could all end now.
+STAB!!!+ Mortarion roared.
The instant he reached the Khan, the Khan turned back in alarm, and Corax drove the dagger down without hesitation.
The sound of armor shattering rang out.
Then came Mortarion's furious cursing.
Brilliant light erupted from within the Pale King's body. Like an empty shell collapsing inward, Mortarion crumpled instantly as white mist burst outward like spraying blood.
The familiar sensation of Warp-translation hit Corax hard enough to make him vomit. The enormous Warp turbulence generated by Mortarion's banishment crashed through them, instantly shattering every concept within the region.
Corax felt Mortarion's presence rapidly receding—vanishing.
That was the necessary price of banishment.
But in that final moment, amid the violent Warp currents and above Mortarion's rapidly collapsing domain, the Pale King suddenly hurled them outward!
Because of the banishment, Mortarion himself would return to the place where his existence was most firmly anchored—the Death Guard fleet.
As for the others, Mortarion used the remnants of his domain to try sending them into safe regions of realspace connected to his territory.
Any physical realm touched by Mortarion's concepts and authority—or inhabited by his followers—could serve as a point of connection for his domain.
Within the white fog, Corax felt himself flying backward at tremendous speed.
He heard voices of praise—words glorifying the Pale King.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Khan and the White Scars hurled away by the shockwave, falling into the world beneath the white mist—he vaguely recognized it as the chamber aboard a White Scars vessel where the Stormseers gathered.
The Stormseers there were actively calling upon the Pale King.
Because of that, Mortarion had established a connection to that location.
The Warp-force of the Pale King battered against Corax. The Lord of Ravens realized that Mortarion had originally intended to throw both him and Trazyn toward the White Scars as well.
But only Trazyn, who had been closer to that side, successfully fell through.
The area linked by the white mist was rapidly shrinking.
Corax tumbled through the chaotic Warp.
He could have entered one of the physical worlds inhabited by those followers invoking the Pale King—but at the final moment—a prayer forcibly intercepted him.
The white mist was completely swallowed by ominous darkness. Corax abruptly crashed back into realspace, landing sprawled and disoriented upon the floor.
As his vision recovered, he saw terrified people screaming around him.
They wore magnificent clothing and elaborate makeup.
And standing calmly among them, guiding them—was an Aeldari.
An Aeldari!!!
The prayer they had all been chanting together still echoed in his ears:
"Praise be to Hades."
The Lord of Ravens instantly realized with sharp clarity—they were not praying to Mortarion.
Which meant—he had arrived in entirely the wrong place.
Corax thought despairingly:
What in the world is all this?
Praise be to Hades… what even is that supposed to mean?
Before his exhausted mind could fully grasp the meaning of those words, overwhelming weakness swallowed him whole.
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Tn: I updated the story once every 2 days, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
Latest Chapter: Chapter 525: The Erasure[1]
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