In a corner of the Ghoul Stars, Sanchez and Wilshire boarded a monarch heavy lander together.
The black craft roared from the flight deck. Sanchez gazed through the viewport.
In the dim void, black warships engaged the surrounding Khrave vessels.
Explosions bloomed from the twenty-kilometer-long xenos ships.
The Shadows of Order had teleported aboard the xenos vessels and begun their purge.
Sanchez raised his right hand, examining the crimson liquid in his palm, dotted with black, slag-like particles.
The potion had been given to him by the Black Emperor before departure.
He had not yet drunk it, his fifth bestowal, because the Black Emperor had commanded that he must first complete the scheme he had devised, capture a Khrave Progenitor, and reveal the full design before consuming it.
Sanchez carefully placed the vial in a crystal case. With a puff of cold mist, the cylindrical container clicked shut.
"Chapter Master, we are approaching the designated coordinates. Ten-second countdown," the pilot's voice echoed through the compartment.
Sanchez stroked the gyrinx beside him. Given the Khrave's psychic prowess, he had left his Thunderwolf behind and brought the psychic cat instead.
"Three, two, one..."
As the voice faded, the Shadows of Order shuddered in unison, feeling as though they had passed through an invisible gate.
The structure of spacetime around them subtly shifted.
The smell of rotting insects and leaf mold filled the air, as if they had been shrunk to the microscopic level and cast into a spider's nest.
A psychic shockwave, like a thunder-hammer, slammed into the pilots' minds, shattering their Third Level Thelema midstate in an instant.
As the shockwave's aftershocks burned in their minds, the psychic pressure made Wilshire and Sanchez in the passenger compartment tremble.
In a flash of light, clawed feet materialized in the cabin, ancient arms raised.
"Sanchez." The Progenitor's voice echoed simultaneously in the source domain and in Sanchez's mind.
"Tell me. Where did the black-bladed weapon come from?"
As he spoke, a blue-black aura wreathed his tendrils.
Four standard Terran months had passed in the material world, but the deathly energy continued to erode his limbs.
The Progenitor guessed that any Khrave wounded by the blade would die instantly, and that the link would accelerate his own decay.
This was why he had come alone, without any Khrave.
Even in the material world, only Primarchs could stand against them. Custodes and Astartes were nothing but chaff.
The source domain was their dimension; they could unleash their full power here. A Primarch would be a lone wolf facing a lion and Sanchez was merely a slightly more dangerous Astartes.
He was just a mongrel waiting to be butchered.
The Progenitor had no doubt he would get everything he wanted: the black blade, its secrets, and Sanchez as his parasitized slave.
"Imprisonment protocol, activate!" Wilshire shouted.
Three crimson lights blazed. The Overseers stepped forward.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Their massive feet slammed down around the Progenitor, encircling him.
The Khrave Progenitor's consciousness unfurled, probing the source of the Shadows of Order's absurd confidence.
His probing was rebuffed by the logical programs of copper, silicon, and steel.
"Abominations!" the Progenitor snarled. Soulless constructs were anathema to the Khrave.
His ancient, decaying body swelled. His right arm swept, forming a two-meter-long blade.
The shimmering Warp Distortion crackled.
The Overseers' discs lowered. A cascade of crimson light poured down.
Three torrents of energy slammed into the Progenitor's psychic shield from different directions.
A series of shrieks. The Progenitor's body crackled.
His withered left arm blazed with aetheric light, raising a shield.
He slowly raised the shield above his head.
He took a step towards one of the abominations, his blade swinging.
Scrape!
An unnatural screech, beyond any material sound, reached Wilshire and Sanchez's Ramm's Ears. Blood dripped.
Before he could deliver a second blow, heavy footsteps echoed.
Robot after machine emerged from all sides.
The Dreadnought-sized machines moved between the Warhound-sized Overseers' legs, filling the gaps.
A hundred mechanical arms swiveled. Heat-rays and gleaming gravity-rounds rained down on the Progenitor.
The storm of energy engulfed him. His psychic shield shattered. His withered form was pummeled and dented.
"Damn it!"
A faint, colorful light flickered across the Progenitor's body.
He was about to teleport away when everything around him froze.
The crimson light stopped. The energy storm froze. The aetheric light stilled.
In the silence, a syringe streaked through the air, slamming into the Khrave Progenitor's withered head.
His War Crown slumped. His ancient consciousness fell into a strange paralysis. His aetheric energy dissipated uncontrolled.
A flicker in the frozen time, and Sanchez's voice sounded.
"Wilshire, I have him."
"Protocol terminated!" Wilshire ordered.
The crimson light faded. The heat-rays and gravity-rounds, at the final instant, were deflected by the intelligent machines' control, grazing past the Progenitor.
As the machines departed, the "Conspirer" approached the Khrave Progenitor, confessing the entirety of his scheme, as commanded by the Black Emperor.
"You should now understand. On Indra-Sul, I deliberately wounded you with the black blade, to lure you here."
The "Conspirer," Sanchez, briefly outlined the traps he had laid, then detailed the recent scheme.
Bang!
The Khrave Progenitor's massive form crashed to the deck.
"Your greatest power, psychic force, is useless against Wilshire's machines. Their terrible firepower, however, can pierce your psychic shield."
The "Conspirer," Sanchez, crouched, stroking the gyrinx, which lay limp on the deck, its mind linked to his.
"He unleashed his full psychic power, freezing time for an instant."
Rising, Sanchez produced the stasis container.
"I used that instant to inject a custom-made agent, developed by the Chief Apothecary."
Sanchez had learned from Mikael that, using the Khrave Progenitor's tendrils taken from Muspel as a basis, after hundreds of experiments, a paralytic agent had been developed.
The base was Slaught necrotic fluid and Nucerian anesthetic, with dozens of other ingredients, including mandrake and Fenrisian ice-wyrm blood.
"Khrave Progenitor, from beginning to end, you fell into the scheme I devised."
As he spoke, Sanchez stepped over the Progenitor, planted his left leg on his neck, glanced down, and raised the blood-red liquid to his lips.
The moment the potion touched his lips, a crimson mist filled Sanchez's world.
Amidst the unsettling, hissing sounds, a hundred Hrud, wrapped in tattered cloaks, materialized.
Like greasy scrolls torn from the spacetime continuum, they lunged at Sanchez.
His armor grew dull, as if it had not been maintained for centuries.
The "Conspirer" raised his hands, two hundred fire-crows, guided by his spirituality, screaming towards the Hrud.
The first wave of fire-crows shattered the entropic shadows.
The second wave struck the Hrud.
Bang, bang, bang...
Among the bursting fireworks, a figure materialized. A Slaught, wrapped in a rotting cloak, raised its staff.
A sickly green light crackled, shooting at Sanchez.
The "Conspirer" raised his right hand. Five serpents of flame shot out, forming a blazing wall around him.
As Sanchez faced one enemy after another in the illusion, the Khrave Progenitor's hollow eyes watched the black-armored figure.
'I witnessed the War in Heaven. I lived through the wars of the Old ones and the Necrontyr.'
'I have seen the rise and fall of countless races. I have fed on the life of countless worlds, devouring all their memories and secrets.'
'And now, I am deceived by an ant.'
Fury filled the Progenitor's mind.
He tried to summon his power, to drive his ancient body, but there was no response.
'The day of my death, of my race's death, has come sooner.'
Fear of death gnawed at his ancient heart.
"You... damn you..."
The voice reached Sanchez's ears. The "Conspirer," battered and bloodied by the Khrave Progenitor's illusions, felt a surge of power.
His obsidian eyes turned iron-black. A spear of white-hot flame formed in his hands.
He leaped, his eyes fixed on the Progenitor's tendrils, hurling the spear.
The Khrave Progenitor's body blazed with light, moving supernaturally.
The "Blazing Spear" flew true, striking the tendrils beneath his chin.
Bang!
The Khrave Progenitor's head exploded.
The crimson mist faded. The illusion vanished. The newly advanced "Reaper" looked down at the Progenitor lying on the deck.
"We will take him back, to offer him to my Lord."
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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