[Old Cypher collapses into your arms, his weight suddenly negligible.]
[That ancient, weathered face relaxes. The perpetual tension, the burden of millennia, drains away. He looks almost peaceful. Almost young.]
[Then his body begins to change.]
[The warmth bleeds out of him in seconds. His flesh doesn't just cool, it withers, pulling tight against bone. His frame shrinks, collapsing inward like a deflating bladder. Within moments, you're holding not an Astartes but a hunched, shriveled thing that barely looks human.]
[If you hadn't just killed him with your own hands, you wouldn't believe this desiccated corpse had ever been a Space Marine.]
["Is this how Astartes age and die?" you murmur to the empty cave. "Or did old Cypher carry some curse? Or is it the title itself, Lord Cypher, that devours those who bear it?"]
[No answer comes. You don't expect one.]
[You force down the emotions churning in your chest. Grief. Anger. Fear. Determination. You lock them all away behind ceramite and duty.]
[You lift the corpse carefully, cradling it like something precious, and carry it out of the wide cave that's been your home for over half a year.]
[Outside, you find a sheltered spot between jagged boulders, a place where the wind won't scatter the ashes. You lay him down on the sand with gentle hands.]
[You raise one ceramite palm to the chest of your iron-gray armor, to the strange half-skeleton decoration that marks Lord Cypher's plate. You speak the command silently, reaching into the pocket universe fragment within the space-time crystal.]
[A small container of promethium materializes in your hand.]
[You uncap it slowly, then pour the fuel over the shrunken body. The chemical smell is sharp, astringent, out of place in the dry wasteland air.]
[Your hand goes to the bolt pistol at your waist. You step back. Raise the weapon. Aim carefully.]
[You pull the trigger.]
[The bolt round strikes true. The promethium ignites instantly, blue-white flames roaring up to consume old Cypher's remains. Thin green smoke rises, twisting in the breeze, carrying away the last physical evidence of a legendary Fallen Angel.]
[You bow your head. Your hand rises in the Aquila salute, held steady over your chest.]
[You hold it there for a long moment.]
[Then you turn away and walk back into the cave.]
[Time to prepare. Time to move. Time to begin.]
[You methodically check your equipment. The Lion Sword and your broad power sword, crossed and mag-locked to your power pack. Their combined weight is immense but balanced. The two relic pistols at your waist, plasma and bolt, ancient and deadly. Everything secure.]
[You retrieve the agonizer whip you took from the Dark Eldar Wych, mag-locking it to your thigh plate where you can draw it quickly. The weapon still crackles faintly with malevolent energy, eager to inflict its special brand of agony.]
["The next enemy I meet can test this," you say to the empty cave.]
[You sweep through the space one final time, erasing all traces of habitation. When you're satisfied, you retrieve the Reaver jetbike and guide it outside.]
[Old Cypher's body has burned down to black ash, scattered across the sand. The flames have died. Only wisps of smoke remain, fading into nothing.]
[You mount the jetbike and hover there for a moment, silent tribute to a legend's end.]
[Then you pull your white hood up over your helmet and gun the throttle.]
[The jetbike screams away from the cave, and you don't look back.]
["My only duty as Lord Cypher," you think as the wasteland blurs past, "is to find a way to wake Lion El'Jonson. But if I get anywhere near the Rock, the Dark Angels' fortress monastery, the inner circle will tear me apart before I can explain anything."]
[You bank around a particularly large boulder formation, the jetbike responding smoothly to your touch.]
["So there's no rush. I should travel the galaxy first. Do some good. Do some bad. See what needs doing."]
[A faint smile crosses your lips beneath the hood.]
[The freedom of it, the endless possibilities, sends a thrill through you that you haven't felt since...]
[Whine. Whine. Whine.]
[Your enhanced hearing catches the sound before your eyes do. Eldar engines. Multiple. Coming fast.]
[You twist in your seat, looking back.]
[Three Reaver jetbikes appear over the horizon, anti-grav systems howling. But the riders aren't ordinary Kabalite Warriors in their cheap armor.]
[These are Incubi. Elite killers in black armor trimmed with green, their plate shimmering with power fields. Each one carries a massive klaive, the Dark Eldar's answer to a power sword, strapped across their backs.]
["Incubi?" Your mind races. "Why here? Why now? Has an Archon descended on this planet?"]
[You don't wait to find out.]
[You wrench the jetbike's controls hard, reversing direction, and slam the throttle to maximum. The engine screams in protest, then delivers. You surge forward.]
[Your plasma pistol comes up smoothly. You twist in your seat, aim one-handed, and fire.]
[Whoom. Whoom. Whoom.]
[Azure plasma balls streak through the air, each one a miniature sun. The Incubi scatter immediately, their jetbikes peeling off in different directions with perfect coordination.]
[But the plasma pistol fires like a heavy weapon, not a sidearm. The stream of shots is relentless, tracking, predicting.]
[One Incubi banks too late. A plasma ball catches his jetbike's engine housing. The anti-grav system explodes in a shower of sparks and flame. The bike tumbles from the sky, and the Incubi goes with it, his black armor wreathed in fire.]
[He hits the sand hard, rolling, klaive skidding away. But he's already rising, already reaching for his blade.]
[Your agonizer whip is in your other hand before you consciously decide to draw it. The barbed tip lashes out like a living thing, faster than thought, wrapping around his neck with serpentine precision.]
[You leap from your own jetbike mid-flight, power armor absorbing the impact as you hit the ground. Your plasma pistol stays on target, firing continuously at the Incubi's burning form.]
[He tries to dodge, superhuman reflexes pushing his tortured body into acrobatic evasion. He's fast. But you're faster, and the plasma never stops coming.]
[The other two Incubi circle back, jetbikes screaming as they dive toward you from opposite angles. They abandon their bikes mid-dive, klaives already drawn, blades crackling with disruptor fields. They come at you from above, twin executioners' strokes aimed at splitting your skull.]
[You don't move. Don't flinch.]
[Your hand touches the space-time crystal.]
[The command is mental, instinctive. Bullet time.]
[Reality hiccups. The invisible temporal field erupts outward in a ten-meter sphere, engulfing all three Incubi in its influence.]
[Everything slows. The Incubi in mid-air seem to hang there, suspended in amber, their klaives descending with dream-like torpor. The one wrapped in your whip struggles against the barbed coils with movements like wading through oil.]
[But you move normally. Time obeys you here.]
[Your whip tightens around the first Incubi's throat. You jerk hard. The agonizer's special properties activate, nerves igniting with pain, muscles seizing. He can't even scream.]
[Your plasma pistol swings up toward the two airborne Incubi. You walk the shots across them methodically, plasma balls moving at normal speed while they float helpless in slowed time.]
[One ball. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.]
[You empty half the power cell into them.]
[The temporal field collapses.]
[Time snaps back to normal speed.]
[The two Incubi in mid-air don't even have time to register what's happening. The plasma balls, which had been approaching at glacial speeds in the temporal field, suddenly accelerate to normal velocity all at once.]
[They impact simultaneously. Armor vaporizes. Flesh boils away. Bones turn to ash.]
[The Incubi simply cease to exist, their forms reduced to expanding clouds of superheated particles.]
[The third Incubi, the one in your whip's grip, finally recovers enough to reach for his klaive. His hand closes on the hilt...]
[You pull.]
[The agonizer whip, designed to inflict maximum agony with minimum effort, slices through his neck like it's made of water. The barbed edges part ceramite, flesh, bone, and more ceramite with equal ease.]
[His helmeted head tumbles free, horns and all. His body collapses a second later, neural death finally catching up with mechanical decapitation.]
[Silence.]
[Three elite Dark Eldar killers. Dead in seconds.]
[You stand among the corpses, plasma pistol still warm in one hand, agonizer whip coiled in the other.]
["First kill as Lord Cypher," you mutter. "Not bad."]
[You retrieve your jetbike, mount up, and accelerate away from the battlefield.]
[The galaxy awaits. And you have work to do.]