My Life as A Death Guard
Chapter 391: Cadia Opens, wait… did it open?
The land lay silent. Endless sand and dust rose, the air quivering with an anxious, restless dryness.
"Heehee," the purple-eyed Greater Daemon hunched its body, propping itself on a staff stacked from human bones. It looked up at the sky; the white membranes over its frog-like eyes blinked once, reflecting a firmament that had begun to churn like a pot of garish slop.
Ingethel raised its staff. It spread its hands and waved the emaciated rod in a frenzy, the bone staff scraping across the yellow sand with a rasping hiss.
"A new age, hee! A new age!"
Behind it, upon the vast altar smeared with the blood Ingethel oversaw, black blood flowed upward from the lower tiers, coiling like black serpents around the central Primarch's body. Lorgar knelt there, his eyes reflecting the blazing church-fires of Terra. He too lifted his head in ecstasy, the corners of his mouth tearing into a sinister grin.
"False Emperor… false Emperor… you will pay for your deceit and hypocrisy."
A corpse-pale flash ignited at the far end of the firmament. White light flared, overwhelming the former brilliance of the eternal sun, like a cold sun about to rise.
Perturabo laughed. He could feel a tremor of near-ecstasy—this final step would be completed by his own hand. His soul quivered, yet the hand with which he altered the pylon's circuitry was more precise than the finest machine. At this moment, he was utterly focused.
Almost there… almost there…
Low murmurs—whispering, whining, giggling, cackling—rubbed against his ears. A venomous serpent slowly climbed his neck, its crimson tongue flicking out, coaxing, seducing.
The Lord of the Forge held its breath as well. The ancient, undying flames flickered in its eyes; cables obediently coiled back at its side. It would witness the overthrow of an age—the true beginning of a brand-new era.
"Hee! What a fine day! Such a fine day!"
Ingethel shouted to the heavens, saliva spilling from layers of jagged teeth. It sniffed the air in manic delight, savoring the stench of psychic power mixed with the discordant reek of burning gunpowder. The sky trembled—closer, closer now!
Lorgar, kneeling on the ground, began to murmur prayers to his gods. Those purple-eyed primitives also fell to their knees and sprawled, writhing like worms.
Perturabo stopped abruptly. He straightened and stared at the circuitry before him. The alien system was down to its final segment—the very last step.
Perturabo's mind trembled.
Vashtorr's head slid closer, resting ambiguously on Perturabo's shoulder. Another talon reached from behind and clasped Perturabo's hand.
+Come, come… the final step.+ the Lord of the Forge said excitedly.
The Lord of Iron let out a cold laugh. In Perturabo's trembling eyes, chill and ruthlessness surfaced.
"I will."
Perturabo said.
"Let this decaying Imperium collapse."
He reached out to complete the final step—
High above Terra, amid the icy winds of the Himalayas, the Emperor's languid tapping fingers stilled upon the table. Upon the Throne, the Master of Mankind slowly opened his eyes, golden light surging within them.
In the deepest confinement cell aboard a Space Wolves vessel, the withered Crimson sinner shuddered violently.
Beneath Baal's resplendent sunset, facing the orange-red sun, the Great Angel froze. Between his outstretched wings, the color-stained feathers trembled faintly in the wind.
In the rainy night of Nostramo, the Night Lord's pitch-black eyes gazed into the darkness as bean-sized acidic raindrops slid down the bridge of his nose from his soaked, disheveled hair.
Within an underground tomb, the metal skeleton seated upon a throne set aside the relic it had been toying with, puzzled.
In the reception chamber of Barbarus, Mortarion's hand halted mid-signature. The Lord of Death lifted his head from the document in silence, his heart pounding fiercely.
Was something… wrong?
Mortarion frowned. He raised his hand and casually wrote a few numbers in the margin of scrap paper—
"The time has not yet come. The full moon approaches."
The Lord of Death softly read the words aloud.
What… did that mean?
What exactly had happened?
Perturabo remained silent. Vashtorr was silent as well. The crackling forge-fire burned quietly within Vashtorr's eye sockets.
"…Did it succeed?"
Perturabo's uncertain, faintly trembling voice broke the silence. He might despise this wavering version of himself—but not now.
Vashtorr remained silent, as if frozen in place. Only the flickering abomination-furnace within him and the faint crackle of electric arcs made any sound.
The long, coarse creak of rusted metal echoed as Vashtorr leaned his metallic head forward slightly, firelight reflecting across the circuitry.
+…Yes.+ the Lord of the Forge said in a low voice. He shook his head and, for the first time, spoke with uncertainty.
+Try it again?+
Perturabo turned his head and stared at Vashtorr. Vashtorr, too, stared back in silence at the Primarch.
Perturabo suddenly snapped his gaze back to the circuitry. He melted down the alloy he had welded in place for the final step, welded it again, and violently attempted to reignite the power source several times.
No response.
On the surface, Ingethel's frenzied dance came to a halt. It stood there in a daze, saliva dripping from its jagged mouth and splashing onto the ground. At its feet, the ignorant devotees still writhed and twisted their bodies.
"Ah… ah…"
The hideous Greater Daemon trembled as it slowly extended a hand. In its lizard-like, sandstone pupils was reflected a distant sight—a wisp of gun-smoke, faintly rising from the furthest edge of the horizon.
Krrt—
In an instant, the horizon flashed black and white. Dust and sand exploded into the air and fell back to the ground. The world fell silent.
Drip. Drip.
Drip.
Beside pitch-black armored boots, blood dripped into yellow dust. The floating grit splashed upward, coating black armor in grime.
Hades doubled over, coughing violently. Weakly, he braced himself against the violently shuddering blackstone pylon beside him, as black lightning and viridian arcs coiled around his body.
The resonance surged violently. The pylon shrieked—its polarity, utterly unlike that of the other blackstone pylons, unfolded here. Darkness stretched outward, sinister and warped.
Hades's vision blurred. Darkness swallowed everything. Making no effort to defend himself, Hades wiped his mouth—his palm came away slick with blood.
No… no. Hades could feel the Black Domain expanding recklessly, greedily devouring the unguided psychic energies.
He could feel the Black Domain growing—but it's growing far too fast.
Hades drew in a sharp breath. Bracing himself against the blackstone pylon, he forced his upper body upright.
Beside the blackstone pylon, flames flickered at the base of a drop pod whose hatch had been violently kicked open. Smoke drifted out.
Countless corpses lay strewn across the darkness.
Within sight, there were only the dead.
Hades took deep breaths. He closed his eyes, sensing the resonance of the blackstone pylon beside him. Pitch-black arcs of electricity spread savagely, tearing bottomless trenches into the earth. The abundant, ownerless psychic energy was the perfect conductor for those arcs.
Perturabo abruptly rose to his feet. He smashed his fist directly into the circuitry—bang!—the lines shattered, and across the entire planet, the surging wells of psychic energy began to wither.
"—Hades!!!" The Lord of Iron roared in fury. Only now, in this moment, did Perturabo—who had been wholly absorbed in the final step of his grand endeavor—realize that he could not control the Iron Warriors stationed in the remote regions.
In the Iron Warriors' scanning arrays, above Cadia's atmosphere, a black river—almost invisible, as if cloaked—floated silently.
Feeling the psychic source abruptly cut off, Hades let out a long breath. The rising lightning began to subside.
"Drop pods," Hades said calmly. Immediately after, the sky above him lit up with countless streaks of meteor fire.
Next came waiting for reinforcements.
Hades wiped the blood from the corners of his eyes and mouth again. By reflex, he touched the Emperor's finger bone hanging at his neck. The withered phalanx still gave no response.
The raw, unregulated psychic intensity just now had already been on the verge of surpassing the Emperor's finger bone—and that had been without guidance. Hades could only resist it by forcibly reversing the polarity of a blackstone pylon.
Hades took a deep breath. If he went all out, he wouldn't last long.
But—
Hades let out a cold laugh. The flames of war, biting with frost, ignited in his eyes. If it came down to a fight to the death—he had more than enough to wear down Perturabo and Lorgar.
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