Since the full-scale Rangdan invasion began, the Imperial world of Bar'Savor had fallen.
The brutal xenos enslaved most of the Imperial populace.
Among the survivors who fled to other worlds, tales circulated of the Emperor's death angel, a majestic, towering warrior who saved them.
Bald-headed, wielding a massive spear, he slew the beast-like xenos and shouted at them, "Quickly, board the shuttles! I will follow!"
They never saw that warrior again.
On the eastern edge of Bar'Savor, in the Haednar suburbs, stood a row of chimneys and cooling towers.
Low-voltage pylons supplied vast amounts of power to the silvery-white building complex. Constructs dragged rotting corpses to offer to their creator.
Within one tower-shaped building, Slaugth wrapped in burial shrouds moved around a central cage of grey pillars.
The grey pillars were enveloped in a green energy field. Within the necrotic energy cage stood a towering giant.
Omegon calmly surveyed his surroundings. Having tried twenty methods and still failed to break the cage, he refrained from further attempts until he conceived a new plan.
The necrotic slime could inflict considerable damage even on his innate transcendent body. Once, he had lost consciousness for a long time.
He watched coldly as the worm-creatures passed through the pillars, extracting blood or slicing off tissue samples.
Physical pain was far easier to recover from than necrotic damage.
Through observation, he understood the xenos' purpose: to study him, to enslave him.
He saw a worm-creature approach the cage, raise its scepter. Evil runes flickered, and green light sprayed from the tips of all twenty pillars.
Omegon's body shuddered. He made no sound of pain.
Partly due to whole-body paralysis, partly because he refused to show weakness to the xenos.
The worm-creature's body suddenly expanded. To guard against any possible counterattack from Omegon, it circled around.
The needle pierced Omegon's left leg. Blood flowed into the syringe.
The Slaugth had tried using experimental instruments, but any instrument this human, so full of secrets, would be destroyed.
Sensing a tremor, the writhing worms rapidly retracted.
A massive fist slammed into the worm-creature's body. Dozens of maggots crackled to the ground.
The writhing worms twisted, retreating with the collected blood.
The Slaugth suddenly expanded, its worm-mass carrying the syringe and leaping before the energy field. Its vox-synthesizer glowed with a faint light.
"Omegon, submit! You cannot resist much longer."
"Dream on!" Omegon said coldly.
A dense rustling sound arose. Omegon turned his head.
He saw the uneasy writhing worms beneath a hood. He realized something was happening.
'An Imperium counter-offensive?'
Omegon held little hope for the change. He had seen the corpses of Astartes, devoured like food by the worm-creatures.
'Perhaps only those Primarchs the people speak of could possibly defeat that worm-creature.'
He searched among the worm-creatures for that evil figure.
At the same moment, aboard the Shadow's Sovereignty, which had just transitioned to realspace,
Nareth, after receiving the Slaugth offered by Howard Fendr and the Osseivore arms offered by Ramsey and others, returned to the real world.
He went to the bridge and reviewed the hololithic strategic table.
The Slaugth fleet, as in his memory, was not large.
After entrusting the void battle to Luther, Gren Vosotho, and Diana, Nareth called up Bar'Savor's Imperium data.
He glanced at the hologram and zoomed in on a major southern continent.
A series of markers flashed past, finally revealing a vast urban complex.
There, residential areas and manufacturing plants were distributed around a central starport.
Haednar.
"Auspex matrix scans show no life signs in that city. It's a dead city."
Nareth raised his hand and tapped on the power plant region, one hundred twenty kilometers north of the spaceport.
"Prepare for teleportation."
"Parameter settings: one kilometer margin of error. Non-lethal materialization success rate: ninety-five percent."
"Summon the Chief Apothecary and Gahlan Surlak."
Though Imperial worlds inevitably suffered destructive changes after the Slaugth occupied them, he remembered Alpharius's team had successfully executed a covert teleportation.
'Omegon, I'm here to rescue you.'
Nareth gazed at the region below. He knew that among the many Slaugth, there was one whose power exceeded even a Destroyer, rivaling a Primarch.
In an instant, it had defeated the fully grown Alpharius.
It had knocked aside the Sarrisanata twin-blade Alpharius wielded, which decades later would be called the Pale Spear.
Chief Librarian had sacrificed his life, unleashing a psychic attack that stunned the Slaugth for an instant, allowing Alpharius to shove a krak grenade inside it and kill it from within.
'Aside from Taxal, only the Rangdan homeworld might hold even stronger Slaugth.'
As Nareth pondered, Mikael and Gahlan arrived on the bridge.
After they saluted, the Primarch sent a thought-pulse to Mikael.
"Your task is to obtain the Slaugth's experimental data and biological samples."
Mikael bowed slightly to the Black Emperor to acknowledge the order.
The combined fleet, with absolute naval superiority, routed the five disc-shaped Slaugth ships and the Rangdan vessels bristling with spikes and flails.
The communication bead in Arsena's ear buzzed. He listened, then reported.
"Based on Bar'Savor's planetary curvature calculations, we will enter the theoretical maximum teleportation range for the target location in one minute."
Nareth nodded slightly and led his chosen group of eleven, including Luther, onto the teleportation platform.
The teleporter's light rapidly intensified, becoming blinding, then the platform's runes lit up.
Bar'Savor, northern suburbs of Haednar. A blinding light flared.
The group materialized five meters above the ground. The flash immediately drew the attention of nearby constructs, which operated in groups of three to five.
Metal clanged against concrete-aggregate.
Gahlan looked down at the numerous constructs. He had seen their mangled limbs in the laboratory, but never a complete specimen.
Their lower bodies consisted of three jointed metal legs, ending in spikes. Their movement was erratic and hurried.
The upper bodies seamlessly connected to pale, stalk-like organic forms. A bestial, tooth-filled maw dominated their center, surrounded by lashing tendrils.
Having identified the threat, one or two from each group charged directly. The remaining raised their arms. Built-in devices fired green necrotic beams, sweeping wildly.
The others dodged individually. Gahlan was slightly slower. A beam shot straight for his chest.
Golden flames lanced out, meeting the green beam.
With a crack, Gahlan landed. He saw Lord Nareth flash past, his golden wings beating.
Golden flames scattered. Construct after construct was incinerated.
Gahlan's eyes flickered. He saw the eye-searing, bright green energy beams sweep across the area, vaporizing whole blocks of concrete-aggregate.
Deprived of support, large chunks of concrete-aggregate above crashed down.
'Lord Nareth saved my life.'
After landing, Gahlan's eyes shone. He followed the airborne figure, raising his bolt pistol.
Bolts flew into the tooth-filled maws, penetrating deep into the bodies.
Like bursting balloons, disgusting slime sprayed everywhere, crackling.
Zahariel and Baltha Katuri, forewarned and sensing the Slaugth's evil will, unleashed their psychic powers without reserve.
Baltha raised his force staff. Lightning struck a construct, blasting its pale, fungus-like flesh and bursting its purple veins.
The arc leaped to a second construct, then a third...
Construct after construct fell amidst piercing cracks.
Zahariel awakened his memories of fear, donning his Fear Mask.
Everything around him instantly slowed. His body flickered constantly between reality and the Warp.
Reaper constructs extended metal tendrils tipped with claw-like pincers from both sides, lashing at the black figure.
SWISH, SWISH, SWISH...
All the constructs' attacks missed.
They could not strike the Librarian, who had leaped into the Warp.
Each time Zahariel returned to reality, he left a wound on a construct.
Construct after construct fell rapidly.
After four seconds, his "Fearsight" ended. Zahariel returned to the real world.
He looked into the distance. The Slaugth's wills merged into a single entity, like a devouring abyss.
.....
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