Beside the grey vehicle, Arsena, the "Polymath" and a master of ritual magic, directed Marlena and Diana as they inscribed runes on the surrounding pillars of dual-numbered black gold using ritual knives.
Their psychic intuition, almost simultaneously, sensed the approaching figure.
Arsena turned. The immediate impulse was to kneel in submission.
He ascended to the third level of the Thelema mindstate, resisting the urge.
He examined the Black Emperor in astonishment. Usually, He restrained His transcendent aura and majesty, interacting as calmly as possible to keep those around Him clear-headed.
Today, He was different.
Arsena quickly noticed the banner slanted behind Nareth's left shoulder. The Dionysian Spear was absent from his right.
'Still my Lord's favored asymmetrical style, but switched from right to left.'
As he thought, he considered activating his Spirit Vision to examine the new object.
The next instant, his face went pale. His temples throbbed.
Arsena immediately abandoned the idea. He watched Freddy and John, following the Black Emperor. The black wolf and gyrinx kept their distance, as if from something fearsome.
Marlena and Diana gazed at the approaching Black Emperor with fascination. They had never seen such a perfect male.
His powerful, masculine presence washed over them, flushing their cheeks.
Marlena, a biomancer, clearly perceived her hormones accelerating. Every cell in her body yearned to reproduce with this perfect male.
Nareth looked around, noting the obvious changes in everyone's demeanor. He saw Shadows of Order kneeling in submission.
Arsena is struggling against His allure. Marlena and Diana were captivated by His supernatural masculinity.
'After linking the "Red Priest's" uniqueness, the passive effects of its Charisma and Masculinity authorities are more pronounced.'
Hmm, if Arsena hadn't spent the most time with me, he would be kneeling too.'
'If Marlena and Diana weren't strong-willed, and Sequence 6... they might have thrown themselves at me... As I thought, it's best not to bring the uniqueness into reality unless necessary.'
To break the "Red Priest's" passive aura, the Primarch infused his words with spirtuality, light and shadow flickering in his eyes.
"Continue!"
"Tonight, we hunt the Hrud of Golghis!"
Marlena and Diana shuddered, snapping out of their dazed fascination.
They looked down in shame, realizing they had seen the Black Emperor as a man, not as Him.
'What's wrong with me?'
'Having such improper thoughts about my Lord.
'It's blasphemy.'
"My Lord... I'll check the construct line."
Marlena walked away, flustered. The masculine image lingered in her mind.
She only regained focus when she bumped into a pale construct.
She looked around. The "Biologist" immediately noticed that besides the Hrud, there was life here.
Primitive lichen clung to the shaded rocks. Fungi-like plants grew in distant caves.
She also sensed the thin atmosphere was still breathable for humans.
Marlena looked up at the pale light.
Remembering her duty, she turned back.
When her eyes fell on the black-armored, golden-winged figure, she noticed the banner behind His left shoulder.
The blasphemous thoughts surged. She ascended to the third level of the Thelema mindstate, her gaze fixed on the ground.
She walked forward. The potent masculine aura enveloped her.
Head bowed, she returned to the black gold pillars, continuing to carve runes with her ritual knife, placing eleven talismans on each pillar.
Marlena and Diana worked slower. They had only prepared five and four pillars respectively, when each should have done seven.
Nareth and Arsena each completed twelve pillars. Finally, just before sunset, all thirty-three pillars were ready.
The moment the pale light vanished, Nareth handed the Bloody Chain to Arsena and said to the three: "Restore your psychic energy."
He ordered the Court Techmarines: "Activate the stasis device." Simultaneously, his right hand reached over his neck, grasping the banner's iron-black, blood-spattered shaft.
For reasons unknown, he suspected it was because of the entropy granted by the Old Ones, or perhaps the inherent contradiction between time and stasis, the Hrud intensely disliked stasis devices.
He recalled that when Perturabo activated his device, the Hrud of the entire Gurgan system had swarmed out, madly attacking the Iron Warriors, causing heavy casualties.
Knowing the consequences, Nareth would not activate it recklessly. He decided to use the "Red Priest's" Ritual authority, leveraging its link to the Kingdom of Disorder, to limit its influence to Golghis alone.
Because he would be using the uniqueness, he had deliberately left the Dionysian Spear on the command base's weapon rack, lest the Emperor peer through it.
This also maintained his preference for asymmetry.
The Techmarines activated the large vehicle-mounted stasis device, crafted by Lord Perturabo. As the field pulsed rapidly,
activated light projected into the four large caves. Hrud just emerging were caught in the light vortex.
Time streams immediately became chaotic. Tens of thousands of Hrud were torn apart.
The stasis field then stabilized, but still overwhelmed the Hrud's biological fields.
Their time-distorting effects were dispelled. The entropic waves around them dissipated.
As if a veil was torn away, countless Hrud were revealed from the shadows.
At the same moment, Nareth gripped the "Red Priest's" uniqueness and chanted in Dunnic.
"I, in the name of the 'Red Priest,' request the Kingdom of Disorder grant me power, so that this stasis field is not perceived by Hrud beyond Golghis."
For the incantation to work, he should have used "beseech" instead of "request," and "Sefiroth of Disorder" instead of "Kingdom of Disorder."
This would have been more precise and aligned with the status level gap between the uniqueness and the source.
But with Arsena and the others present, it would compromise the Black Emperor's identity and reveal the accurate name of the Kingdom of Disorder. So he did not use the most fitting incantation.
The "Baron of Corruption" dared not activate his Spirit Vision, but he felt his spiritual energy drain instantly, the shaft in his hand growing hot.
An invisible force, centered on him, expanded rapidly.
'The ritual, invoking the "Red Priest's" Ritual authority, should have succeeded.'
Taking the Bloody Chain from Marlena, he noticed her body tremble.
He wound the chain back on. The throbbing in his temples gradually subsided. His depleted spiritual energy slowly recovered.
Marlena stepped back, suppressing her surging desires, forcing her attention to the Hrud.
She noticed that creatures previously only visible with her Spirit Vision were now clearly visible to the naked eye.
The strange field enveloping them seemed to have receded.
She looked at the Techmarines nearby, who had quickly climbed man-made hills and were firing dense barrages with bolters.
'My Lord foresaw this. Without their distorted fields, even bolters, even solid rounds, can harm the Hrud.'
She glanced at the grey vehicle, then at the constructs she had made.
Five Reaper constructs fired green beams from their arms, tearing Hrud apart.
Eight Warrior constructs swung their curved arms. Each strike of their bony blades cut dozens of Hrud in half.
Hrud fell in droves. Thousands died in moments.
They surged, screaming, raising their plasma flintlocks, firing dense barrages at the constructs.
With the stasis field active, the rounds, lacking phase-shift effects, struck the constructs like ordinary solid rounds, only scratching them.
Yet the Hrud were still a vast ocean.
Each construct was hit by tens of thousands of attacks every second.
Marlena thought of the Black Emperor's plan. 'The entire planet's Hrud are surging here.'
As she thought, a Warrior construct fell with a crash.
Hrud poured through the breach, only to fall under the Techmarines' dense fire.
Construct after construct fell, crushed to pieces by countless Hrud.
Light and shadow flickered in the Primarch's eyes. In an instant, he entered the third level of the Enumeration.
His consciousness extended, covering tunnels hundreds of kilometers long, deep caves.
In an instant, the Primarch had a sixth of the grey planet under his perception.
'Not hundreds of millions, but certainly tens of millions of Hrud are drawn.'
He had anticipated numbers in the hundreds of millions. The entire Sak'trada Deeps held billions of Hrud. As one of fifteen major worlds, Golghis naturally held over a hundred million.
As he thought, he felt the surrounding light vortex being compressed by the onrushing distorted fields.
His expression changed. 'Hmm? A hundred million Hrud is overwhelming Perturabo's stasis device.'
He recalled that when Perturabo activated his device, the Hrud of the entire Gurgan system had swarmed out.
Gurgan Prime was the Hrud's largest world, with hundreds of millions of Hrud.
The three major worlds combined held nearly a billion. The stasis device was naturally overwhelmed.
He had thought that with Golghis alone, the distorted fields of a hundred million Hrud wouldn't be that powerful.
'A hundred million Hrud's distorted fields are this terrifying.'
Gripping the "Red Priest's" uniqueness, ready to chant, he saw the Hrud tide had already reached the black gold pillars. The distorted temporal flow seeped into the stasis field.
Diana's golden hair rapidly turned white. Arsena's fingers knotted with degenerative disease.
Marlena's skin repeatedly alternated between wrinkled parchment and its original fair, delicate state.
The biomancer struggled to resist aging, but could not help those beside her.
As Marlena struggled, a voice, extremely masculine, brimming with male allure, sounded in Dunnic.
"I, in the name of the 'Red Priest,' request the Kingdom of Disorder grant me power!"
"I command the Hrud: Silence!"
The three hundred sixty-three Silent Talismans on the thirty-three black gold pillars simultaneously glowed green.
The entire area was enveloped in green teardrops. Every mind momentarily stalled.
After a second, the Shadows of Order and their attendants regained clarity, looking around in shock.
Hundreds of millions of Hrud fell, one after another, in a continuous cascade of thuds.
Confirming all Hrud within his perception were down, the Primarch replaced the shaft on his shoulder.
"Marlena, treat them."
Marlena snapped out of her daze. The Black Emperor's words echoed in her mind. Blasphemous thoughts flickered.
The cascade of Hrud falling, thud after thud, woke her.
She glanced around. Countless Hrud lay everywhere.
For the first time, she felt the power of a deity. The illicit thoughts vanished.
She extended her bio-lightning, touching Arsena and Diana.
Arsena's fingers straightened, though age spots remained.
Diana's golden hair was mostly restored, though white strands remained.
Marlena withdrew her power, ashamed. "My Lord... forgive my inadequacy. They have only about thirty-eight years of life left."
"It's nothing," Arsena looked around, awed. "Witnessing my Lord's power, I have no regrets."
"To die serving my Lord is an honor," Diana said simply. "I believe tens of thousands of Shadows of Order were spared sacrifice."
"I promise, you will not die of old age."
Nareth spoke, then beat his wings and flew.
Arsena and Diana exchanged glances, their eyes filled with immense joy.
They had no doubt about the promise. Marlena watched the golden figure vanish, curious.
'Even the most advanced life-extension surgery, or a biomancer like Lord Magnus, couldn't extend their lives.'
'How will my Lord do it?'
Nareth weaved through the silenced Hrud, sending them constantly into the Kingdom of Disorder.
He considered how to fulfill his promise. He had two options.
One was to advance ahead of time obtain the Panacea STC, to compensate for the life the entropy fields had taken.
The other was to turn them into Perpetuals.
He preferred the latter. It was already in his plans, a permanent solution to their lifespan problem.
'I must act quickly. Extract from Slau Dha's mind the method for turning John Grammaticus into a Perpetual.'
'If I fail within thirty years, I'll have to advance ahead of time retrieve the Panacea STC.'
Having decided, he summarized the lessons from his first ritual.
'Overall, I achieved my goal. I spared thousands of Shadows of Order from sacrifice, and dealt with Golghis's hundred million Hrud.'
'But I underestimated the Hrud's distorted fields. Next time, I must refine the ritual.'
After a moment's thought, a preliminary plan formed.
'I'll still use the stasis device to draw the Hrud. I can't yet cover a planet with a ritual.'
'But I must be alone. I can face them by myself. Activating the Silent Talismans takes only an instant. A few decades of aging hardly affects me.'
'This also allows me to change the incantation, to leverage more power from the Kingdom of Disorder.'
His thoughts raced as his form flashed, busily traversing the area, using telekinesis to gather Hrud into the Kingdom of Disorder.
As Nareth worked, the Shadows of Order of the Fourth Chapter were bewildered. They didn't know why the Hrud, who had just surged from the caves, had suddenly retreated and gone silent.
Only when they received word from the Primarch's Aide did they learn their gene-father had dealt with most of the Hrud single-handedly.
Oliver, his weapon in hand, had hoped to make a difference as a "Spirit Guide." He hadn't expected the Black Emperor to have handled the Hrud.
He sighed, both regretful and awed. 'Praise be to my Lord.'
He stared into the dark tunnels. 'The Hrud didn't surge across the surface to my Lord's area. There must be an underground tunnel network.'
'Perhaps some Hrud remain. Even if not, my Lord ordered us to retrieve the contents of their archives.'
"Forward!"
Oliver led his Honor Guard aboard the Termite Tunnelers, drilling into the caves.
It was not until the helmet timer indicated Golghis's day had arrived that they completed traversing the Hrud's hundreds of kilometers of tubular tunnels.
They encountered no Hrud.
Oliver climbed out of the Termite Tunneler and walked forward. He saw shelves of layered mycelium paper, neatly sorted.
The Primarch's transhuman body was weary from constant psychic use when he finished transferring all the Hrud to the Kingdom of Disorder.
He then saw the carts of mycelium books Oliver had brought back.
The "Baron of Corruption" glanced at them. He immediately recognized them from the Blasphemoy Slate.
'Indeed, mycelium books. The main ingredient for Sequence 6 Paragon Pathway "Polymath."'
'Arsena will be much better after advancing to Sequence 6.'
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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