With the 'Spartan' in his hand, Gerhard alternated between Las-fire and Bolter rounds, doing the most damage to the daemons, while trying to leave the other humans out of it. But it wasn't really working, as they were a vomiting, blood-crying, corrupted mess by that point. Not even his use of his shield was helping them much.
The writhing form of the last remaining Flamer pointed its limbs at Gerhard as he appeared before it, spewing out warp flames with wild abandon. But all he got was a kick in the midsection, which was followed by a casual 20 Mana bullets that disintegrated its form.
Gerhard drew the Twin Boneswords from his back mid-motion, the monomolecular edges hummed with power. He dodged an attack by several Heralds and Horrors and carved through a Screamer in a single cross-slash, while firing the Spartan in the opposite direction, the Synaptic Overload triggering so fast it looked like the daemon shattered into glass.
[Screamer defeated]
[+150,000 EXP]
To Gerhard, these creatures were no longer nightmares; they were just mobs which granted exp, which were far too little for his liking. But at least there was a theoretical endless amount of them, so that was something.
He ploughed through them as a wolf would through sheep. He was brutal and efficient, his mind working in overdrive, and [Battle Plan] had shown him the best way to go about this, to deal the most damage.
And it was working. He was impossible to stop.
The notifications rolled in, and so did the experience as he killed one Lesser daemon after the other. The Pink Horrors split in two, creating two Blue Horrors, which weren't so happy, but less powerful.
It didn't matter. Gerhard killed them all and with such disgusting ease that he was getting more powerful as he went, thanks to the blessing of Gork and Mork.
[Blessing of Gork and Mork has levelled up]
They also didn't like these unorkadox enemies and seemed in favour of Gerhard's actions. It was much appreciated.
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~Enough,~ a powerful voice hissed, echoing in the foundations of the Warp and echoing all around at once.
Time stopped. The frantic movement of the last Blue Horrors, the spray of ichor, and the hurling of Captain Erefan froze in an instant. The room seemed to get new laws as physics changed its ways, and mathematics seemed to be inverted in some strange, incomprehensible way.
Up was down, left was also down and right... Well, there was no longer any left. It was all gone.
...
It was all nonesense.
The creature, which had been observing up to that point, drifted through the walls and down from the ceiling. It was a large, gangly creature, winged and feathered like a bird.
It ignored the carnage Gerhard had wrought, its eyes, like portals to a billion dying stars and blue and red swirling chaos, fixed on the 'anomaly'.
~You are a most curious variable,~ the daemon croaked, its cadaverous finger reaching out to touch Gerhard's helmet.
~A mind of such powerrrr.... built of iron and ambition. My Master has use for a herald who loves the tides of change as you do.~
It circled, each step echoed across time itself as it spread its energies and gently touched Gerhard's armour with its feathers. The corruption attempted to take hold right away, but was stopped from penetrating the deeper parts, as if another type of energy prevented it.
One that was in no way weaker than the daemons.
~IMPOSSIBLE!!!~
It looked at Gerhard and the armour more closely, understanding that the strange pulsing blue light must be the energy that was interfering with the attempt to fully corrupt Gerhard.
It looked Gerhard, who had his entire existence's time stopped, directly in the eyes.
~Most intriguing. Let us peel back these layers and find the soul beneath. Let's perceive the hopes and dreams of this most delicious of souls.~
The creature touched Gerhard's mind and dived in. It poured its vast, sorcerous intellect, the gateway to the madness of fate, into Gerhard's mind, intending to rewrite his very essence into a slave of Tzeentch.
And what a powerful slave he would become. Just thinking about it made it salivate. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
...
Suddenly...
The creature shrieked as its own corrupting sorcery was caught, magnified, and slammed back into its own bird-brained existence. The reflection was so sudden and violent that the creature's form began to vibrate and tear, even though it was inside the Warp right now.
In the next moment, the perspective shifted. A door opening into a space so vast and familiar that the daemon dove in with a predator's hunger, to escape the pain it felt.
Inside the mind-space, it saw the Great Game laid out like a shimmering tapestry. It saw 'Gerhard's' hopes: a vision of itself perched not on a gargoyle but on a throne of crystalline, chaotic sorcery, holding the strands of fate, having finally decoded the final riddle of the Well of Eternity.
It saw dreams: the moment it would whisper a single word into the ear of an unassuming man, triggering a cascade of betrayals that would turn the Astronomican's light into a blue scream of betrayal and change. It felt great ambitions: to be the God of Change who was no longer a pawn, but a player equal to the Architect of Fate.
It was glorious. It was the perfect ego-projection.
But then, the colours began to change as they always did. The tapestry of fate became a series of rigid, grey bars. The shimmering possibilities of the future were suddenly replaced by Fears... the deep, primordial terrors that even a Greater Daemon hides from itself.
It saw itself becoming static. It saw a future where it was no longer a weaver of change, but a recorded historical fact, a dead thing, a small side note in a book, unmoving and unchangeable. It saw the "Great Game" end, not in its victory, but in a cold, silent void where no thoughts existed to be manipulated.
It saw an endless black void where every one of its "clever" schemes was reduced to nothingness, scripted as a predetermined path it had been forced to walk by a power far more calculated and cold than even the Ruinous Powers.
!!!!!
The daemon scrambled backwards, its talons scraping against the "floor". It looked up, expecting to see the fractured walls of Gerhard's mortal psyche.
Instead, it saw its own memories reflected in it from every angle. It recognised the specific shade of indigo in the sky; it was the exact hue of its own very essence. It saw the gargoyles of its own tower.
The horror hit like a physical blow.
~This is... my sanctum,~ the daemon's bird head whispered in a terrifying realisation. ~I am not in his mind. He is... he is...~
From the centre of the daemon's own hopes and fears, Gerhard revealed himself. He wasn't a flickering psychic projection or an imprint. He appeared as a hole in the daemon's own thoughts.
The endless void.
"You have a very busy mind, Xyzanthos," Gerhard said, his voice flat as he said the first part of the daemons' true name out loud. "Yes, I know your full true name. I have to say, [Observe] is more powerful and useful than I ever would have thought."
Hearing that name made the very essence of it shudder with insane dread, as it couldn't have known that Gerhard had used a very powerful skill... called: lying. He truly could see the True Name... but not all of it. And yet, that small part was enough for the Greater Daemon to believe Gerhard, and that was the whole point.
It shrieked and wiggled as it couldn't believe what was happening right now.
Gerhard walked through the daemon's 'dreams', his very footsteps turning the shimmering threads of fate into cold, void pockets. He reached out and caught a golden thread of the daemon's ambition. He looked Xyzanthos in the eyes, then crushed it into sparkling dust between his fingers.
"It's a bit messy, though," Gerhard continued, looking around the daemon's collapsing psyche with the clinical detachment of a superior being.
"Too much 'possibility,' not enough 'result.' You spend so much time looking at what could be that you forgot to notice what is."
Gerhard stepped closer; his presence had changed entirely, filling the daemon's entire field of vision.
[Blank]
The [Blank] skill was fully activated, sending vibrations through and began to erase its existence.
"You know what's hilarious?" Gerhard said, a small, cold smile playing on his lips. "If you had used anything else. Like literally anything, you could have killed me. And you could have killed me with ease. I had my finger on the plus button for spending all my points and using the [Blank] skill, like right now, apart from a dozen other secret moves. But it wasn't necessary."
Gerhard couldn't stop himself from chuckling lightly, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of his plan. That's right, this was his plan. [Battle Plan] was a broken skill, truly.
"But you wouldn't do that. You couldn't. You can't leave things as they are; you can't let me die just like that. You had to change me, to corrupt me, to make me into a slave. The bringer of change for humanity, the new growing light had to be twisted... you HAD to dive in and know more, to find out what made me tick. What was that power you couldn't understand, couldn't foresee...?"
This time, Gerhard circled. The daemon couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't do anything, not even try to escape its own mind.
A strange sword appeared in Gerhard's hand. With each passing moment, Gerhard's 'null-presence' that anti-psychic field grew more powerful, more overbearing and soul-destroying. It was the worst amount of pain the daemon could ever have imagined.
And that same power, that same danger, could be felt from that strange power sword.
"I was going to kill you, you know... and I still am. We both know that's going to happen. But no one said we had to make it quick. After all, this is your mind; how much time has passed outside? One picosecond... one femtosecond...? Even less? The truth is, on the outside, you're already dead."
It tried to scream, but it couldn't. The pain was too much, as Gerhard plunged it into its stomach veeeery slowly. It was merely a file being opened, and Gerhard was the only one with administrative privileges, as he slowly copied and then changed the entire source code from the ground up.
"Have you ever experienced a black hole?" Gerhard asked as he continued, as if he were walking in the park. "Time and space usually bend, and the one who is affected experiences it differently compared to the one watching from outside. Now, I have had my skill [Blank] active since you brushed against my mind for the first instance, and since it has levelled up a lot in these last few moments alone... and it's basically the same."
Gerhard shrugged.
[Energy Drain]
"It is really true that a Pariah is a black hole or an endless void that sucks all psychic energy and all that is connected to the Warp in and my presence, in this state, is getting worse and worse. I don't even want to know how much pain you must be in right now.
Truthfully, I don't give a shit. Heh, you're scum, but I'm still thankful for you being the way you are. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten such a juicy chance. Oh, and in case you're wondering why I'm monologuing like a bellend, your little connection to your daddy is cut off. No one knows what happened here. And no one ever will."
Then, Gerhard did something never seen before in all of time and reality. He started to chant.
[Seal] + [Mana] + [Amplify] + [Shackles]
He combined four spells into one more powerful version than the sum total of them.
[Magical shackles of binding]
.
Lencillus reprimanded himself mentally. He had taken too long. He had encountered legions of Warp denizens and had to cut them all down. Thankfully, his Allarus Pattern Terminator Power Armour was a ridiculous piece of equipment, above anything even the Emperor ever created.
That was no joke.
Thanks to the game-like bonuses Gerhard could place on his items, that was more than feasible. And the Allarus pattern was a legendary grade item. Not only that, Gerhard was constantly getting better at crafting, managing to give his creations small but noticeable effects.
Lencillus burst into the command deck and was assaulted by the sheer power that radiated off the daemon. However, just as he was about to attack, his presence disappeared, as if it ceased to exist.
...
Lencillus stared wide-eyed as the large form had disappeared, revealing Gerahrd, who had his arms behind his back and looked as if nothing had happened.
Only that he had seemingly lost all his clothes.
"G... Lord Gerhard, what--.... what... was that...?" he managed to say.
"Hmm? Oh that... well..."
[Lord of Change defeated]
[+52,209,202 EXP]
[Level up]
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[Level up]
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Lord of Change – Lv.??
|HP: 861/260,000
|MP: 0 - (48,000 sealed)
| A Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, a master of sorcery that reshapes reality and ensures victory before battle begins. This one was on the lower end of the cast, but still a Lord of Change.
| Having been demoted for no apparent reason recently, he was out to seek something that might please his lord.
| Too bad it found The Gamer.
---
[A new skill has been created through a special action]
[A new skill has been created through a special action]
[A new skill has been created through a special action]
[A new skill has been created through a special action]
"Funny story. So this is what happened," Gerhard said and started to explain.