Through the viewing port of the Void Sword, Jaghatai Khan surveyed the staggering scale of the colossal macro-cannon. He turned back to the attendant Iron Man beside him, his expression one of lingering uncertainty.
A holographic control panel hovered before the machine, projecting a real-time readout of the cannon's charge cycle. One press of the fire command would ignite the weapon. Two kilometers ahead of the muzzle, the cage housing Perturabo, along with the heavy combat drone serving as its expendable carrier, would be instantly engulfed by the beam.
Even within the twisted, discordant geometry of the Warp, Jaghatai's transhuman eyesight was precise enough to discern the minuscule black speck drifting in the void before the weapon's maw. A feed on the holographic display provided a high-definition optical view, clear enough that Jaghatai could see the listless, broken expression of the Primarch within his prison.
The sheer, apocalyptic overkill of using such a weapon for an execution was difficult to reconcile. Yet, the attendant Iron Man offered no further elaboration.
"Executioner, the weapon is primed. The prisoner has reached the optimal kill-zone. Depress the trigger to activate; the execution will be concluded in half a second."
Jaghatai looked once more at the speck in the void. Memories of the Great Crusade flooded his mind, brief, violent flashes of a bygone era. His fingers, encased in the gauntlets of his power armor, passed heavily through the holographic interface.
"Hiss—thrum!"
Outside the viewport, the massive cannon surged with a blinding, terrifying radiance. An aura of pure annihilation flickered along the barrel's length before the weapon unleashed its payload. A beam of catastrophic power tore through the void, aimed straight at the prisoner.
But just before the massive pillar of light could disintegrate the cage, a gargantuan sigil flared into existence amidst the roiling Warp currents.
In the blink of an eye, Perturabo vanished.
The beam roared past, consuming nothing but the empty cage and the heavy combat drone, reducing them to scattered atoms. The strike carved a true vacuum into the Warp, an area of absolute nothingness where even the chaotic tides of the Immaterium were rent asunder and annihilated. The dying edge of the beam dissipated into the Warp-sea, erasing countless daemons lurking in the shallows.
The Sea of Souls buckled. The violent energy tidal wave struck the Void Sword and the surrounding Imperial fleet, violently shoving the entire armada a massive distance out of position.
The cage and drone had been obliterated, the concept of their physical matter erased from existence. Just as Jaghatai thought the ordeal concluded, a shrill, piercing alarm echoed through the Void Sword.
The Titan-class weapon roared to life at maximum output. Countless beams of varying dimensions erupted from the hull at a perpendicular angle, momentarily turning the surrounding void into a furnace of blinding light. The sheer energy feedback made the entire fleet heave and pitch within the Warp.
"Status report!"
In the face of such raw, cosmic power, individual strength was rendered infinitesimal, even that of a Primarch. Jaghatai could only gaze outward, bracing himself as he demanded answers from the attendant Iron Man.
"A chaotic sorcerous manifestation intervened and extracted the prisoner, Perturabo."
"The energy trajectory originated from directly above the fleet. The Warp-tide is obscuring the source, possibly masked by an incomprehensible energy barrier."
"Target acquisition is currently suppressed. To prevent the prisoner's escape, the fleet is initiating wide-area saturation bombardment of the sector."
As countless beams lanced into the deep void, the resulting energy vacuum birthed mountainous waves of instability. Spatial rifts and temporal distortions slammed into the fleet. The shockwaves were enough to tear an ordinary Imperial vessel to shreds, and even the gargantuan void shields of the Void Sword rippled under the strain.
"Damage assessment: Failed."
"Status of prisoner: Unconfirmed. Processing—"
BOOM!
A torrent of malignant energy slammed into the Void Sword's shields. The protective layer, already shivering from the wake of the fleet's own fire, began to scream in agony. Along the flank of the Crusade of Retribution's fleet, a massive array materialized, glowing with a nauseating, brilliant blue light.
A deluge of deep-blue sorcerous energy surged toward the heart of the Void Sword. The torrent pierced the outer energy shield and began to bore deeper. A pall of despair fell over the surrounding Imperial vessels; captains barked orders, desperately attempting to maneuver away from the onslaught.
Then, a secondary, pale-blue shield flared to life, filling the void left by the failing energy barriers. The hull of the Void Sword began to shimmer; vast, monolithic crystals of pure, solidified psychic energy pulsed, bathing the entire fleet in an ethereal, sapphire glow.
Psychic shielding proved far more effective against Warp-based phenomena than conventional energy barriers. Even at half the density of the primary shield, it successfully stalled the chaotic energy attack.
The unknown adversary was clearly intimately familiar with this sector of the Warp. Leveraging the localized temporal-spatial instability and the cover of the Chaos-tide, they expertly navigated around the Iron Men's return fire while maintaining relentless pressure on the Void Sword.
Axion's primary logic core operated at its ceiling, analyzing the enemy's attack patterns and energy signatures. These chaotic spells were anomalous, oscillating at frequencies unlike any Warp-force previously encountered; they appeared to be a fusion of multiple, distorted Laws of Reality. Every strike carried the potential to blur the boundaries between the Materium and the Immaterium, making the shield-system's defensive responses increasingly strained.
The Void Sword began to draw upon the ambient energy tidal waves. Warp-matter was siphoned directly into the ship's hull. The energy-separation processors hit peak output, bypassing the compression chambers and feeding raw, purified psychic energy directly into the shield grid. Though the crystals encrusted on the ship's hull began to fracture and crack under the load, the integrity of the shield began to climb.
Sensing the shift in momentum, the enemy drew upon even greater reserves of power.
Deep within the Warp, Kairos Fateweaver, the Oracle of Tzeentch, stood at the prow of a Thousand Sons strike cruiser, his twin heads weeping black tears as he brandished his chaotic artifacts.
This ambush was no accident. The Iron Men's intent was too pure, too direct to be missed. When the fleet entered the Warp, Magnus the Red had felt the purest, most agonizing sense of unease. Under his guidance, the sorcerers of the Thousand Sons had turned their collective psychic gaze to the source of the disturbance.
Blessed by the Changer of Ways, Magnus's premonition had become terrifyingly precise. Yet, the Iron Men were beings without souls. Magnus saw only a cold, dark shadow that would soon erase the Iron Warriors' fortress guarding the Eye of Terror, continuing its inexorable advance toward his own domain. Even Perturabo himself had failed to evade this fate.
To counter this unknown threat, Magnus had prepared. He had positioned his sons to lie in wait outside the fortress-world of Medrengard long before the event arrived. The Thousand Sons used Tzeentchian lore to beguile the local chaotic cultists, compelling them to lay down blood-sacrifice runes in advance.
When the Iron Men finally shattered the fortress-world, the souls of the corrupted mortals were harvested as a singular, massive offering. The Thousand Sons channeled this psychic harvest to summon Kairos Fateweaver, the Oracle of Tzeentch, and laid bare Magnus's grand design.
Finding the prospect of shifting the strands of fate irresistible, the Great Daemon agreed.
In the heart of the Immaterium, Kairos personally presided over the ritual that forcibly abducted Perturabo. Now, he brewed a chaotic malediction intended to invert the very fate of the Crusade of Retribution, preparing to cast the entire fleet into an abyss of his own making.
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