Crossover Apotheosis (D&D x Berserk)
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Gladiator
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Spruced up a few chapters, 20, 28, and 29 mainly, and here is a preview of the big finale. About half way there.
Spoilers, obviously.
Spoilers, obviously.
Chapter 30: Apotheosis
"War always changes. It is the only thing that ever does. The way they are fought? The places they are fought in? The nations that fought in them? They always change. If you want a world that is worth living for? What you have got to change are people, because they never do. You never change. They never change. Change yourself. Change them. Change the world. Don't come to my doorstep, and complain about how it is impossible. Do it, because you got to. Do it, or none of this will ever mean anything. Do it, because you got somebody back home waiting for a fool like you."
- The Courier
The Godhand was no more. I had seen to it. This world, this Earth, which I had grown to love as my own, and which I would christen as Holy Terra? This universe would know of peace. This crystal sphere? The plane I had won by conquest. There was only one stitching in my soul that had persisted throughout it all, but it would not last. It would come undone, and it would come undone because I was not satisfied with this.
The Heart of Darkness had to answer for every crime. What it had done to every person on this planet. The Sword of Damocles was hungry for retribution, it was starving for justice, and it would collect on that life. Just as it had collected on the lives of every monster. I would not be denied, and I would meet the Abyss. I would become the bane of every demon lord. The Hero of Many Faces. Then I would return, but not as myself.
No, I would be The God Emperor of Mankind.
This I had woven. The choices I had made would be what led to my damnation, but there was a chance. It was with that grievous miracle. I would leave my Golden Throne, and I would save all of them. The Imperium of Man was not lost. The road I would need to tread had revealed itself, and at the end of it? There was a home. A house I could call my own. There were people I loved who were still waiting for The Crow, The Knight Commander, and The Emperor!
They were waiting for Arlan Vorlesh, and I would be there to greet those children who meant everything to me. Whether I had to face a dozen demon lords! A hundred of them! A thousand of them! The Abyss could throw every obstacle it had at my doorstep. There was nothing that could stop the anathema. What I had become? It would lead to transience. The ephemeral would overthrow the ethereal.
This world would not be the same. It will not be eternal. That stasis which had entrapped it? It will be no more, and it will be no more because that is what I have chosen!
In the grim darkness of the far future?
There was only hope.
Leman Russ had been searching for it. That which he lost. Which he had relinquished. An heirloom of the past. When he was not lost in The Warp. He had embedded it into Yggdrasil, or whatever amounted to it in this realm. The Tree of Life, and many other names besides that one. The weapon had stood by him whenever he was alone. It was family. That blade had never failed him, and whenever he was in need of it?
The sword would make itself known.
It had a name, and it was Grunbeld. There were stories that claimed this had not always been the case, and that it had another name. Only Leman Russ could say for certain. The blade had divulged all things to the primarch. The Lord of Wolves was the person that had won the loyalty of it, and from that came a bounty of knowledge. Who his father had been. When war had not consumed the galaxy as it had. The stories were hard to believe, but if there was any truth to these tales? These myths that had been shrouded in mystery and hearsay?
Dragon Slayer would be salvation.
The wound had to be unmade, and it could only be unmade, if history was rewritten. The power to do this did not exist in The Imperium of Man. It did exist in this relic.
There was only one problem.
"It is a pleasure, brother." Angronius of Nuceria, the Daemon Prince, had been given a task. This great sword had to be concealed. It could not be found again. "The Lord of Wolves has come to my lovely abode."
Yggdrasil had been desecrated. The Tree of Life made to be a monument to death. It had been decorated with the corpses of countless Valkyries. These Sisters of Battle who stood watch over it, if only for the sake of their duty. The oath they swore to The God Emperor of Mankind. Who had been impaled on many of the branches. They fought bravely against The Lord of the Red Sands, but it was for naught. Angron was the epitome of what it meant to embody violence. He had inherited that. It was the only thing I had ever given him, and there was no escape from the mortification I felt now.
It was all poison. That which I had bequeathed to my children? There was always a price for it. This blood was no gift, and through it they had known parts of my soul. The Warp played no part in it. These were the flaws of a mortality that was unfiltered. They had to endure all that I was. Both good and bad. Both love and fury.
The grievous miracle did not come without any consequence.
The Red Thirst, and The Black Rage. The Flaw. Sanguinius was not the only one who had to live with that insatiable thirst. However, when The Brightest One had won against it? The Red Angel reveled in the act of lascivious barbarity. It was a comfort. When all things had been taken from him? War had come to claim him, and in the same way it had claimed Arlan Vorlesh. The Immaterium despoiled this holy land, and only for what one could claim was dreadful truculence.
This is what I was. This is what I could have been. This is what I deny now.
"Do you have anything to say? Anything at all, or will you die a mute?" The Red Angel would not hesitate. Not even against any of his siblings. "If silence is to be the last thing on your lips--"
"Only this, Angron." Leman Russ wears a condescending grin. Those fangs of his glistening, in this sacred realm which had been painted red, and left violated by the corruption of The Warp. "Do well to remember it." As if in response to this declaration? This plane began to convulse. There was a storm in the distance. The rain would wash away all of the blood.
It would purify this sin.
"I am the wind."
The Heart of Darkness was born when murder was conceived. There was a brother, he held an envy, and that envy grew. He saw the love that he was denied. Envy would become hatred, and from that hatred? There came an idea. This idea would become an ambition of sorts, and from that ambition there came tragedy. The demise of the favored son, and the birth of malice.
This palpitation drew The Idea of Evil. The beat of this heart in everyone. There was no mortal who did not know of it, or who could escape it. The intimacy of this matrimony of sacrilege. This act of fratricide had become a contract. The price was not only his soul, but the soul of everyone like him. Those who had his blood. Which would be pumped in and out of every heart. Those children would prosper, and they would have children of their own. The heart would grow with every life, and those lives would nourish it. Until there was not a person on this Earth, that did not feel it, this beat.
This rhythm of frenzy.
The problem lied in the womb. That place from whence it came. Conception had led to divergence. Duality had been born. The destruction of the other? It had to be followed by the destruction of self. This was the balance.
The Heart of Darkness had to devour itself, in a way not unlike Ouroboros, and that was part of this purpose it had. It would eventually die, and all things would die with it. The covenant would be complete, this compact brought to a close, and renewal would come afterwards. There would be another Earth, and the people would call to it. This was the stability.
How many turns of the wheel had it been? The Idea of Evil had lost count. This link in the chain would be one of many, and the memories it had would begin to fade. Only purpose had the capacity to endure. Whether it was as a scapegoat, or as an excuse? The people always had need of it. It was easier than acknowledgment. Their guilt was a foe they could not understand, and did not want to even permit. This was the dependence.
These three things are what it served. It did not serve anything else. It could not serve anything else. It was like a machine, and it could not deviate. This was a program, and one that had been executed already. Which is why it had been disappointed by the conqueror. It had desired exquisite defeat, but the conqueror did not meet that expectation.
I did.
The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade. Arlan Vorlesh. That which bore the conqueror. Who would become a wandering specter entrapped in battle-scarred armor, and eventually return to the progenitor. The anathema. The Idea of Evil had found it. The death it had been seeking, and war which had clouded my vision. I was absolutely perfect.
I would be the executioner, and the absence of love would prevent any more interruptions. The wheel would turn. There would be no hesitation. It was war that would save it.
"No." I murmur. "It is not war."
It would be love.
It began with the death of Void. When Destiny's Embrace had disappeared? This Earth, that would become Holy Terra, had changed. It was like The Eclipse, but rather than being localized, the whole of this plane was drawn into it. Not just this planet, but the galaxy as well. I had no doubt the universe would be enveloped by it too.
This cascade of ether could only come from the birth or rather rebirth of a god. This was The Heart of Darkness as it truly was. The Idea of Evil made manifest. The heart was floating at the center of it all. That nexus where all the souls it had devoured lived. Their torment which had been unending, and I could hear their screams. This was my doing.
The death of this plane, and I was the harbinger. At least, that is what the heart thought. That I had come to answer that prayer. That I would be the hero. No, I was the villain of this story. I would challenge it. The natural. The nature of this world. The evil that had become the purpose of it. The corruption which I reviled.
If this was what world was? Then I would remake the world. It would be from the ashes of this monstrosity. This abomination. I would build my empire on these ruins of the past, and from it what would flourish? If not this love that I would venerate.
No more dead fathers and mothers. No more dead brothers and sisters. No more dead sons and daughters.
No more war. No more, no more, no more!
This was the end of tragedy, and it required of me a miracle. One that I no longer had, but there was always a way. I had learned that much. I could not use Radiance. That ardent grace would mean my end. This soul of mine was about to break. After it had been fractured by the effort of casting Wish.
The Godhand were all slain. I had made certain of that, and there was only one stitching I had left. That kept those shards of The God Emperor of Mankind fastened together.
That tied me to this dark god.
"That was a mistake." I had every intention of using it. I had been at a loss. How could I sever everyone from The Heart of Darkness? The answer was that I couldn't, but I didn't even need to. I should have seen it but I didn't. That was because I had forgotten that I would not survive this. The solution I had been searching for?
I already had it.
I cast Tether Essence, using that stitching as a medium, and draw The Idea of Evil into myself. It becomes my heart. I embolden the spell with Conduit Surge, and pour as much of the ether as I can into it. I did not need to separate them all from this monster.
I only had to separate it from them.
I turn towards Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh. The White Swordsman, and The White Wolf. The Lord of Wolves who I had nurtured into a hero. The son I could rely on.
"How about another spar?" I knew that he would triumph. He would not lose. "Do not disappoint me." Victory was always in his blood, in the very marrow of his bones, and in his heart. Whatever that obstacle would be? It would feel the bite of Dragon Slayer.
His father was no exception.
The White Wolf almost seems to recoil. He could sense it, and what I had done. The divinity that was afforded to him by birthright? It had expanded every faculty. All five of his senses, and it even granted him a sixth. This hyperactive intuition that had the ability to discern transcendental phenomena like this. "What the hell did you do? You crazy fucking bastard--"
The Eclipse is dismissed with a snap of my fingers, and the vortex of souls is torn asunder! They would be free, and their torment would end! That torture is of their past, and their deliverer was none other than Arlan Vorlesh!
Regardless of the protest of this treacherous heart beating inside of my chest. The Heart of Darkness was livid. It could not predict an action born out of love. The portfolio it had claimed hatred, and only that hatred. These deities were always constrained by their domains. If it had been war? It could have seen it. It would have anticipated this, but this was not part of the plan, and any dissent from it would amount to nothing. I was in control.
ł₮ ₩łⱠⱠ ₦Ø₮ Ⱡ₳₴₮.
It just had to remind me. The ring has been broken, and I have broken it. There will be no Earth that replaces this one, and your game is over. Die miserably. Die a failure. Die bereft of any purpose.
"Show me what you have become, my son."
I would make it count.
𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕶𝖎𝖓𝖌
𝕮𝖔𝖗𝖛𝖚𝖘 𝕬𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖈𝖙
"Sanguinius always did wonder where those wings came from." They unfurl themselves from beneath my robes, and burst from my back. "If only I revealed the truth, and before he met his end at the Eternity Gate." Those black wings which I had inherited from my incarnation as The Crow, and which I would entrust with the most benevolent of my progeny. It was no wonder that I drew the attention of Andoletta. I was one of her flock.
Grandmother Crow watched over us all. Ember was my sister, and she had been sent as a lesson. That I would have an example of what The God Emperor of Mankind needed to be. That war had been a lie. This love was not. It never would be.
"If it is any consolation, Guts? I never asked for them." I was not Griffith, and I had no intention of becoming like him. "They are most unsettling."
I evoke Mordenkainen's Sword, and an entire plane of force is folded onto itself. The universe is reforged into a blade, and I reach for it, grasping it tightly in both of my hands. I could not use Radiance as I was now, but that did not mean I was ever helpless. Normally, this spell could only be used sparingly as an attack. I would wield it as my weapon, and eschew that tradition.
It was nothing compared to Dragon Slayer, but it would suffice. At the very least? It would be able to withstand the temporal abolition the great sword was known for.
"I am not going to do this, Arlan." The White Swordsman plants his blade into the ground. "I can't." Uncharacteristically? That crusader of mine began to tremble. If he did not have the strength to do this? I have only delayed the inevitable, and I would fall victim to the succor of that nightmarish heart.
"If you do not? The Heart of Darkness will prevail." That smile I had? It could only belong to a father. "I am going to die anyway, and I would have my story end at the hands of someone I love." I tilt my head. "Why not, Guts?"
"Why not?" The White Wolf practically roars. How could I be this selfish? "Why not!" The wolf had become frantic. There was an unease. This had to be a dream. This just had to be a nightmare. "I thought it was over."
"What was over?"
"The Eclipse... but it never ended."
"It did, Guts." The White Wolf had to know. That this was how he would ascend. This was his apotheosis, and in turn it would become mine. "I brought an end to it."
"No." The White Swordsman grips the hilt of Dragon Slayer, and the great sword ignites. "I don't think it did."
"It did." I affirm. "I promise."
The tremors begin to stop. Guts Vorlesh looked at Arlan Vorlesh, and he realized that truth. There were only a few things that he was certain of in life, and one of them was that a promise had power.
If anything could change the world? It had to be a promise.
"That is where it began. It is the grievous miracle. That promise made by my mother at the grave of Caelum Vorlesh, and which I inherited from her." I smile at him. "Which you will bear. This is an heirloom, Guts. It will remain when I am gone."
"I don't want this kind of inheritance!" The White Swordsman sobs. "I don't want any of this, if this is what I have to do!" The tears would flow freely.
"Oh, I think you will come to regard it with pride." There was a clarity. What exactly would come forth from this decision I made? It was laid bare before my eyes. The White Wolf who would journey to Faerûn. "It will be the way back home."
The hero who would slay The Dead Three, and lay waste to Avernus. Zariel brought to heel, and in the distance? I saw a tree.
Yggdrasil.
"Remember this: three lives, three deaths, three sacrifices. The second life, death, and sacrifice was never resolved. When I had cast myself into The Worldwound? The Idea of Evil postponed it. This prophecy? Complete it." The God Emperor of Mankind needed to die. That was the only way he could be reborn. "If you manage to do that? I promise that I will return."
The God Emperor of Mankind as he was always meant to be. The Eye of Terror would be closed. The Warp would know of loss. I would begin my counterattack.
I would bring an order to the chaos.
"No waterworks, Guts." I assume a stance with Mordenkainen's Sword. "Time is of the essence."
"I hate you." The crusader prepares himself. "I won't forgive you." He grits his teeth. "Not for making me do this, Arlan."
"I know." There is something mischievous about my grin. "I want you to use it."
This feeling would be transformative. It would take that whelp I had met, and from it forge another grievous miracle. Those who watch can only be spectators. Their dice will be broken.
This destiny our own.
Mjalnar had been broken. The frost blade failing to pierce the hide of Angronius of Nuceria, and Leman Russ is flung backwards by a swipe of noxious claws. Elavagar is fractured by the blow, and the artificer armor fails this primarch. It had survived the Horus Heresy, but it did not survive this. If not for luck?
The Lord of Wolves would have died.
"Did you not learn from Krakenmaw?" The Red Angel snorts, and brushes away the shards of the frost blade that had embedded themselves in his carapace. "This weakness is because of your mortality. Accept the Ruinous Powers, if you mean to win." Angron growls in displeasure. "Swear fealty, and become death. Imagine it. War everlasting!"
There was no death in The Warp, for all things beholden to it? They had become immortal. There was eternity in service, but who would ever want that?
"War everlasting?" Leman Russ already knew what that was like. "No, I have had my fill of war everlasting." Ten-thousand years of tragedy that befell their empire. "I refuse, Angron." The Imperium of Man made to be a mockery of what it had represented. Only the highborn, those despicable nobles, had managed to reap a bounty from it. On every Imperial World they grew in influence and affluence, and the citizens of the empire were treated as nothing more than their slaves. They call themselves the finest, but they were the worst. The Emperor would have seen to their punishment personally.
Leman Russ knew that much.
How I abhorred a tyrant, but I had turned that ire towards the clergy instead! I had become a tyrant myself! Only those Rogue Traders, who I had granted a Warrant of Trade, stood against the horrors of what my empire had become. The Star Child would meet the dragon, and that corpse on a throne.
What I had become.
Uriah Olathaire, if only I had heeded your warning. I was wrong but my arrogance had turned my vision towards war. Sanguinius had wisdom I did not. The people had to be free. There was no world in which my proposal would have worked. I could not starve those lurking in The Warp. The Immaterium would last, and what it would become? It rested entirely in the hands of those who lived in this galaxy!
It had been known as the Abyss, but after I routed every demon lord as The Hero of Many Faces, and cleansed it of that corruption? It had become malleable. Permeable in ways unknown to many. All save for those privy to the matters of The Phlogiston, and hailing from planes alien to this one. The people had become the master of it. Their feelings, their thoughts, their imaginations, and their dreams? They would paint that canvas.
Otherwise, I would have to sterilize everything that made mortals worthy of life to begin with. They would become like any macabre servitor. Those slaves stripped of their identity, and malformed into drones. I would have to abolish it. That practice was unseemly, and definitely absent of any morality.
The rot in my empire was everywhere. I had a lot of work to do, if I was to rebuild it from the ashes. I had to pray. I grew to loathe it in this life, but I had to do it.
If only for the sake of my legacy.
That spark of divinity had fled. It had gone with death, and the life that Guts Vorlesh had lived as The White Wolf. Only my own blood could be found in his veins. Fenrir had gone silent, but there was something else.
There was a fire. A light in the darkness. This was a sun waiting to be born.
It was a grievous miracle.
"Then join our brothers, Leman Russ." Angronius of Nuceria plunges Vuragh'th into the heart of the wolf. The Black Blade would greedily devour this soul. "Join them in death."
There was a memory.
Garnets he could never forget. Those eyes belonging to a woman he loved. Her amethyst hands wrapping around him, and there was an undeniable warmth. The drow had been a paladin. Just like his Casca, but unlike her there was a brutality in Minthara Baenre. There was ruthlessness. The dark elf had her flaws, but he saw in her what he had lost. The wolf knew that it was inevitable. When you are immortal? The patterns become obvious. Reincarnation was always predominant in these realms, and it could be seen everywhere. Casca sought him out, and she had found her Guts.
In turn, Guts had found her.
"The Lord of Wolves about to die at the hands of his own brother, and all he can do is reminisce? I didn't take you for a sentimental fool." Minthara scolds him in the way that only she can. "I did not marry Drizzt Do'Urden. I married The White Wolf." The drow forces the wolf to rise from his grave. "In Menzoberranzan, blood feuds were as frequent as in The Imperium of Man. The answer was always the same." Dragon Slayer almost seems to materialize in her hands. "They can only be solved with violence, and in this case a disproportionate amount of violence." The drow shoves the great sword into his hands. "Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh! This is not a request from your wife, but an order from Minthara Baenre! I want to see Angronius of Nuceria dead at your feet! Honor our house with his life, and bring me his head as a trophy!"
"I must apologize, Angron." Leman Russ had stopped the blade. It was caught in his hand, having pierced his sternum but failing to perforate his heart, and when he gripped Vuragh'th with all of his strength? It began to crack. Angron tried to free it, but this was not the Leman Russ that he had known. It did not budge, and the grip could not be broken. "I'm not allowed to lose." There is a savagery. This desire for victory was unheard of in the primarch. The wolf was roused from his slumber, and he was on the hunt. "The wife is watching."
"What manner of power is this?" The Daemon Prince only had a moment to indulge in confusion, and that is when a fist dug itself into his face. Angronius of Nuceria is hurled backwards into Yggdrasil. The Tree of Life was the size of any Hive World, but it shook regardless of that on impact. The branches began to fall, and the trunk had splintered. Vuragh'th had been broken. The Black Blade reduced to nothing but dust. The strike had untangled this plane from the taint of The Warp, and banished those demiurges. This was no place for monsters, and those Valkyries who had sacrificed their lives to protect Grunbeld? Their souls had been set free, and they would return to my side in The Astronomican. They would be celebrated in a Valhalla of my own craftsmanship. "What nonsense is this? The Warp has already made you take leave of your senses--"
"I never had any to begin with!" Leman Russ grabs the betrayer by the throat. This coward who spurned his own flesh and blood. "There is nothing to take, but I do have something I can share with your masters." The grievous miracle began to coalesce. It had searched for something familiar. Anything that spoke to Leman Russ, and what he symbolized. "It is this pain."
It was always the wind. That which would fan the flames. This coaxing of the fire.
The Storm of Vengeance is evoked, and they are both caught in the tempest. That gale had become a tornado. The wind would never harm Leman Russ, but the same could not be said for his sibling. The Lord of the Red Sands screams in agony. This was a pain he had never known, and not even the immortality granted to him by those Ruinous Powers, could protect his soul. The Red Angel would not return to them, and his fate was to be the same as Horus Lupercal.
Oblivion.
Yggdrasil is disintegrated by the spell, and Dragon Slayer is able to escape those roots. The great sword falling back into the hands of Leman Russ.
"How I have missed this." Grunbeld could only whisper. "Welcome home, Guts."
The White Wolf had returned.
"I do not like this hesitation!" I would desire perfection. "Regill was your teacher, and so was I!" In fact, I would accept nothing less from my son. "I am an obstacle!" I shake my head. "There can be no mercy! Dragon Slayer is to relieve me of my life!" Mordenkainen's Sword crashes against Dragon Slayer. "This is an order, my crusader!"
"Don't say that, Arlan!" The thought of Dragon Slayer removing my head, from these shoulders of mine, had given way to reluctance. Guts Vorlesh had begun to waver. "I don't want to hear it!"
"If you won't do your duty? I will make you!" I had no choice. The Idea of Evil would smother everything that I was. This identity I had crafted? It would cease to be. I did not have the power to resist. Not forever at any rate. "Slay your Knight Commander, or I will leave my namesake without a father!"
I evoke Meteor Swarm, and thousands of comets are torn from the vacuum of outer space. They approach the speed of light, and then exceed it. When they enter the atmosphere of this Earth? I veil these bolides in the ether, and redefine the laws of physics.
The White Wolf notices the shooting stars, and is already on the move. Dragon Slayer swatting them out of the air as they approach him. They slam against the flat of his blade with the ferocity of a White Dwarf. The mass of an entire sun in every collision. If not for my mastery of the arcane? The Earth would have been disintegrated by this spell.
Guts Vorlesh does not falter, and his guard is not broken. They are all destroyed. Those thousands of meteorites dispersed with contemptuous ease. The exchange only lasting for an instant, but it served as a distraction for what would come next.
I cast Time Stop, and the universe is brought to a standstill. After which, I make use of Teleport. I am behind The White Wolf. "I do not know of hesitation!" Mordenkainen's Sword is brought down, and I lash at him. It was no whip, but it would do. It penetrates his armor. There was a laceration. It would become another scar. "Only of the yearning for victory!"
I had drawn blood.
Guts Vorlesh does the impossible, and he moves. It did not matter if time had been frozen. He had to win. The White Wolf turns to face Arlan Vorlesh, and brings Dragon Slayer on my head. These ethereal flames were hungry for those moments. I would not succumb to it. I transmute myself with Etherealness, and enter the Ethereal Plane. Dragon Slayer is caught in my jaw, and I bite down on it. The fire licks at my face, but it does not burn away at my past.
I twirl around with the blade in my mouth, and lift the wolf from his footing. Guts Vorlesh refused to let go of the great sword. The White Swordsman is sent flying into the air, and he crashes against the ground.
"Why are you holding back?" I had to admonish him. How would he learn? "I know you can do this." Power, Word, Heal. The burns I received from Dragon Slayer? They would not remain. "This story will not end in a tragedy." I smile at him. "It will be your ascension."
"War always changes. It is the only thing that ever does. The way they are fought? The places they are fought in? The nations that fought in them? They always change. If you want a world that is worth living for? What you have got to change are people, because they never do. You never change. They never change. Change yourself. Change them. Change the world. Don't come to my doorstep, and complain about how it is impossible. Do it, because you got to. Do it, or none of this will ever mean anything. Do it, because you got somebody back home waiting for a fool like you."
- The Courier
The Godhand was no more. I had seen to it. This world, this Earth, which I had grown to love as my own, and which I would christen as Holy Terra? This universe would know of peace. This crystal sphere? The plane I had won by conquest. There was only one stitching in my soul that had persisted throughout it all, but it would not last. It would come undone, and it would come undone because I was not satisfied with this.
The Heart of Darkness had to answer for every crime. What it had done to every person on this planet. The Sword of Damocles was hungry for retribution, it was starving for justice, and it would collect on that life. Just as it had collected on the lives of every monster. I would not be denied, and I would meet the Abyss. I would become the bane of every demon lord. The Hero of Many Faces. Then I would return, but not as myself.
No, I would be The God Emperor of Mankind.
This I had woven. The choices I had made would be what led to my damnation, but there was a chance. It was with that grievous miracle. I would leave my Golden Throne, and I would save all of them. The Imperium of Man was not lost. The road I would need to tread had revealed itself, and at the end of it? There was a home. A house I could call my own. There were people I loved who were still waiting for The Crow, The Knight Commander, and The Emperor!
They were waiting for Arlan Vorlesh, and I would be there to greet those children who meant everything to me. Whether I had to face a dozen demon lords! A hundred of them! A thousand of them! The Abyss could throw every obstacle it had at my doorstep. There was nothing that could stop the anathema. What I had become? It would lead to transience. The ephemeral would overthrow the ethereal.
This world would not be the same. It will not be eternal. That stasis which had entrapped it? It will be no more, and it will be no more because that is what I have chosen!
In the grim darkness of the far future?
There was only hope.
<<X>>
Leman Russ had been searching for it. That which he lost. Which he had relinquished. An heirloom of the past. When he was not lost in The Warp. He had embedded it into Yggdrasil, or whatever amounted to it in this realm. The Tree of Life, and many other names besides that one. The weapon had stood by him whenever he was alone. It was family. That blade had never failed him, and whenever he was in need of it?
The sword would make itself known.
It had a name, and it was Grunbeld. There were stories that claimed this had not always been the case, and that it had another name. Only Leman Russ could say for certain. The blade had divulged all things to the primarch. The Lord of Wolves was the person that had won the loyalty of it, and from that came a bounty of knowledge. Who his father had been. When war had not consumed the galaxy as it had. The stories were hard to believe, but if there was any truth to these tales? These myths that had been shrouded in mystery and hearsay?
Dragon Slayer would be salvation.
The wound had to be unmade, and it could only be unmade, if history was rewritten. The power to do this did not exist in The Imperium of Man. It did exist in this relic.
There was only one problem.
"It is a pleasure, brother." Angronius of Nuceria, the Daemon Prince, had been given a task. This great sword had to be concealed. It could not be found again. "The Lord of Wolves has come to my lovely abode."
Yggdrasil had been desecrated. The Tree of Life made to be a monument to death. It had been decorated with the corpses of countless Valkyries. These Sisters of Battle who stood watch over it, if only for the sake of their duty. The oath they swore to The God Emperor of Mankind. Who had been impaled on many of the branches. They fought bravely against The Lord of the Red Sands, but it was for naught. Angron was the epitome of what it meant to embody violence. He had inherited that. It was the only thing I had ever given him, and there was no escape from the mortification I felt now.
It was all poison. That which I had bequeathed to my children? There was always a price for it. This blood was no gift, and through it they had known parts of my soul. The Warp played no part in it. These were the flaws of a mortality that was unfiltered. They had to endure all that I was. Both good and bad. Both love and fury.
The grievous miracle did not come without any consequence.
The Red Thirst, and The Black Rage. The Flaw. Sanguinius was not the only one who had to live with that insatiable thirst. However, when The Brightest One had won against it? The Red Angel reveled in the act of lascivious barbarity. It was a comfort. When all things had been taken from him? War had come to claim him, and in the same way it had claimed Arlan Vorlesh. The Immaterium despoiled this holy land, and only for what one could claim was dreadful truculence.
This is what I was. This is what I could have been. This is what I deny now.
"Do you have anything to say? Anything at all, or will you die a mute?" The Red Angel would not hesitate. Not even against any of his siblings. "If silence is to be the last thing on your lips--"
"Only this, Angron." Leman Russ wears a condescending grin. Those fangs of his glistening, in this sacred realm which had been painted red, and left violated by the corruption of The Warp. "Do well to remember it." As if in response to this declaration? This plane began to convulse. There was a storm in the distance. The rain would wash away all of the blood.
It would purify this sin.
"I am the wind."
<<X>>
The Heart of Darkness was born when murder was conceived. There was a brother, he held an envy, and that envy grew. He saw the love that he was denied. Envy would become hatred, and from that hatred? There came an idea. This idea would become an ambition of sorts, and from that ambition there came tragedy. The demise of the favored son, and the birth of malice.
This palpitation drew The Idea of Evil. The beat of this heart in everyone. There was no mortal who did not know of it, or who could escape it. The intimacy of this matrimony of sacrilege. This act of fratricide had become a contract. The price was not only his soul, but the soul of everyone like him. Those who had his blood. Which would be pumped in and out of every heart. Those children would prosper, and they would have children of their own. The heart would grow with every life, and those lives would nourish it. Until there was not a person on this Earth, that did not feel it, this beat.
This rhythm of frenzy.
The problem lied in the womb. That place from whence it came. Conception had led to divergence. Duality had been born. The destruction of the other? It had to be followed by the destruction of self. This was the balance.
The Heart of Darkness had to devour itself, in a way not unlike Ouroboros, and that was part of this purpose it had. It would eventually die, and all things would die with it. The covenant would be complete, this compact brought to a close, and renewal would come afterwards. There would be another Earth, and the people would call to it. This was the stability.
How many turns of the wheel had it been? The Idea of Evil had lost count. This link in the chain would be one of many, and the memories it had would begin to fade. Only purpose had the capacity to endure. Whether it was as a scapegoat, or as an excuse? The people always had need of it. It was easier than acknowledgment. Their guilt was a foe they could not understand, and did not want to even permit. This was the dependence.
These three things are what it served. It did not serve anything else. It could not serve anything else. It was like a machine, and it could not deviate. This was a program, and one that had been executed already. Which is why it had been disappointed by the conqueror. It had desired exquisite defeat, but the conqueror did not meet that expectation.
I did.
The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade. Arlan Vorlesh. That which bore the conqueror. Who would become a wandering specter entrapped in battle-scarred armor, and eventually return to the progenitor. The anathema. The Idea of Evil had found it. The death it had been seeking, and war which had clouded my vision. I was absolutely perfect.
I would be the executioner, and the absence of love would prevent any more interruptions. The wheel would turn. There would be no hesitation. It was war that would save it.
"No." I murmur. "It is not war."
It would be love.
It began with the death of Void. When Destiny's Embrace had disappeared? This Earth, that would become Holy Terra, had changed. It was like The Eclipse, but rather than being localized, the whole of this plane was drawn into it. Not just this planet, but the galaxy as well. I had no doubt the universe would be enveloped by it too.
This cascade of ether could only come from the birth or rather rebirth of a god. This was The Heart of Darkness as it truly was. The Idea of Evil made manifest. The heart was floating at the center of it all. That nexus where all the souls it had devoured lived. Their torment which had been unending, and I could hear their screams. This was my doing.
The death of this plane, and I was the harbinger. At least, that is what the heart thought. That I had come to answer that prayer. That I would be the hero. No, I was the villain of this story. I would challenge it. The natural. The nature of this world. The evil that had become the purpose of it. The corruption which I reviled.
If this was what world was? Then I would remake the world. It would be from the ashes of this monstrosity. This abomination. I would build my empire on these ruins of the past, and from it what would flourish? If not this love that I would venerate.
No more dead fathers and mothers. No more dead brothers and sisters. No more dead sons and daughters.
No more war. No more, no more, no more!
This was the end of tragedy, and it required of me a miracle. One that I no longer had, but there was always a way. I had learned that much. I could not use Radiance. That ardent grace would mean my end. This soul of mine was about to break. After it had been fractured by the effort of casting Wish.
The Godhand were all slain. I had made certain of that, and there was only one stitching I had left. That kept those shards of The God Emperor of Mankind fastened together.
That tied me to this dark god.
"That was a mistake." I had every intention of using it. I had been at a loss. How could I sever everyone from The Heart of Darkness? The answer was that I couldn't, but I didn't even need to. I should have seen it but I didn't. That was because I had forgotten that I would not survive this. The solution I had been searching for?
I already had it.
I cast Tether Essence, using that stitching as a medium, and draw The Idea of Evil into myself. It becomes my heart. I embolden the spell with Conduit Surge, and pour as much of the ether as I can into it. I did not need to separate them all from this monster.
I only had to separate it from them.
I turn towards Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh. The White Swordsman, and The White Wolf. The Lord of Wolves who I had nurtured into a hero. The son I could rely on.
"How about another spar?" I knew that he would triumph. He would not lose. "Do not disappoint me." Victory was always in his blood, in the very marrow of his bones, and in his heart. Whatever that obstacle would be? It would feel the bite of Dragon Slayer.
His father was no exception.
The White Wolf almost seems to recoil. He could sense it, and what I had done. The divinity that was afforded to him by birthright? It had expanded every faculty. All five of his senses, and it even granted him a sixth. This hyperactive intuition that had the ability to discern transcendental phenomena like this. "What the hell did you do? You crazy fucking bastard--"
The Eclipse is dismissed with a snap of my fingers, and the vortex of souls is torn asunder! They would be free, and their torment would end! That torture is of their past, and their deliverer was none other than Arlan Vorlesh!
Regardless of the protest of this treacherous heart beating inside of my chest. The Heart of Darkness was livid. It could not predict an action born out of love. The portfolio it had claimed hatred, and only that hatred. These deities were always constrained by their domains. If it had been war? It could have seen it. It would have anticipated this, but this was not part of the plan, and any dissent from it would amount to nothing. I was in control.
ł₮ ₩łⱠⱠ ₦Ø₮ Ⱡ₳₴₮.
It just had to remind me. The ring has been broken, and I have broken it. There will be no Earth that replaces this one, and your game is over. Die miserably. Die a failure. Die bereft of any purpose.
"Show me what you have become, my son."
I would make it count.
𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕶𝖎𝖓𝖌
𝕮𝖔𝖗𝖛𝖚𝖘 𝕬𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖈𝖙
"Sanguinius always did wonder where those wings came from." They unfurl themselves from beneath my robes, and burst from my back. "If only I revealed the truth, and before he met his end at the Eternity Gate." Those black wings which I had inherited from my incarnation as The Crow, and which I would entrust with the most benevolent of my progeny. It was no wonder that I drew the attention of Andoletta. I was one of her flock.
Grandmother Crow watched over us all. Ember was my sister, and she had been sent as a lesson. That I would have an example of what The God Emperor of Mankind needed to be. That war had been a lie. This love was not. It never would be.
"If it is any consolation, Guts? I never asked for them." I was not Griffith, and I had no intention of becoming like him. "They are most unsettling."
I evoke Mordenkainen's Sword, and an entire plane of force is folded onto itself. The universe is reforged into a blade, and I reach for it, grasping it tightly in both of my hands. I could not use Radiance as I was now, but that did not mean I was ever helpless. Normally, this spell could only be used sparingly as an attack. I would wield it as my weapon, and eschew that tradition.
It was nothing compared to Dragon Slayer, but it would suffice. At the very least? It would be able to withstand the temporal abolition the great sword was known for.
"I am not going to do this, Arlan." The White Swordsman plants his blade into the ground. "I can't." Uncharacteristically? That crusader of mine began to tremble. If he did not have the strength to do this? I have only delayed the inevitable, and I would fall victim to the succor of that nightmarish heart.
"If you do not? The Heart of Darkness will prevail." That smile I had? It could only belong to a father. "I am going to die anyway, and I would have my story end at the hands of someone I love." I tilt my head. "Why not, Guts?"
"Why not?" The White Wolf practically roars. How could I be this selfish? "Why not!" The wolf had become frantic. There was an unease. This had to be a dream. This just had to be a nightmare. "I thought it was over."
"What was over?"
"The Eclipse... but it never ended."
"It did, Guts." The White Wolf had to know. That this was how he would ascend. This was his apotheosis, and in turn it would become mine. "I brought an end to it."
"No." The White Swordsman grips the hilt of Dragon Slayer, and the great sword ignites. "I don't think it did."
"It did." I affirm. "I promise."
The tremors begin to stop. Guts Vorlesh looked at Arlan Vorlesh, and he realized that truth. There were only a few things that he was certain of in life, and one of them was that a promise had power.
If anything could change the world? It had to be a promise.
"That is where it began. It is the grievous miracle. That promise made by my mother at the grave of Caelum Vorlesh, and which I inherited from her." I smile at him. "Which you will bear. This is an heirloom, Guts. It will remain when I am gone."
"I don't want this kind of inheritance!" The White Swordsman sobs. "I don't want any of this, if this is what I have to do!" The tears would flow freely.
"Oh, I think you will come to regard it with pride." There was a clarity. What exactly would come forth from this decision I made? It was laid bare before my eyes. The White Wolf who would journey to Faerûn. "It will be the way back home."
The hero who would slay The Dead Three, and lay waste to Avernus. Zariel brought to heel, and in the distance? I saw a tree.
Yggdrasil.
"Remember this: three lives, three deaths, three sacrifices. The second life, death, and sacrifice was never resolved. When I had cast myself into The Worldwound? The Idea of Evil postponed it. This prophecy? Complete it." The God Emperor of Mankind needed to die. That was the only way he could be reborn. "If you manage to do that? I promise that I will return."
The God Emperor of Mankind as he was always meant to be. The Eye of Terror would be closed. The Warp would know of loss. I would begin my counterattack.
I would bring an order to the chaos.
"No waterworks, Guts." I assume a stance with Mordenkainen's Sword. "Time is of the essence."
"I hate you." The crusader prepares himself. "I won't forgive you." He grits his teeth. "Not for making me do this, Arlan."
"I know." There is something mischievous about my grin. "I want you to use it."
This feeling would be transformative. It would take that whelp I had met, and from it forge another grievous miracle. Those who watch can only be spectators. Their dice will be broken.
This destiny our own.
<<X>>
Mjalnar had been broken. The frost blade failing to pierce the hide of Angronius of Nuceria, and Leman Russ is flung backwards by a swipe of noxious claws. Elavagar is fractured by the blow, and the artificer armor fails this primarch. It had survived the Horus Heresy, but it did not survive this. If not for luck?
The Lord of Wolves would have died.
"Did you not learn from Krakenmaw?" The Red Angel snorts, and brushes away the shards of the frost blade that had embedded themselves in his carapace. "This weakness is because of your mortality. Accept the Ruinous Powers, if you mean to win." Angron growls in displeasure. "Swear fealty, and become death. Imagine it. War everlasting!"
There was no death in The Warp, for all things beholden to it? They had become immortal. There was eternity in service, but who would ever want that?
"War everlasting?" Leman Russ already knew what that was like. "No, I have had my fill of war everlasting." Ten-thousand years of tragedy that befell their empire. "I refuse, Angron." The Imperium of Man made to be a mockery of what it had represented. Only the highborn, those despicable nobles, had managed to reap a bounty from it. On every Imperial World they grew in influence and affluence, and the citizens of the empire were treated as nothing more than their slaves. They call themselves the finest, but they were the worst. The Emperor would have seen to their punishment personally.
Leman Russ knew that much.
How I abhorred a tyrant, but I had turned that ire towards the clergy instead! I had become a tyrant myself! Only those Rogue Traders, who I had granted a Warrant of Trade, stood against the horrors of what my empire had become. The Star Child would meet the dragon, and that corpse on a throne.
What I had become.
Uriah Olathaire, if only I had heeded your warning. I was wrong but my arrogance had turned my vision towards war. Sanguinius had wisdom I did not. The people had to be free. There was no world in which my proposal would have worked. I could not starve those lurking in The Warp. The Immaterium would last, and what it would become? It rested entirely in the hands of those who lived in this galaxy!
It had been known as the Abyss, but after I routed every demon lord as The Hero of Many Faces, and cleansed it of that corruption? It had become malleable. Permeable in ways unknown to many. All save for those privy to the matters of The Phlogiston, and hailing from planes alien to this one. The people had become the master of it. Their feelings, their thoughts, their imaginations, and their dreams? They would paint that canvas.
Otherwise, I would have to sterilize everything that made mortals worthy of life to begin with. They would become like any macabre servitor. Those slaves stripped of their identity, and malformed into drones. I would have to abolish it. That practice was unseemly, and definitely absent of any morality.
The rot in my empire was everywhere. I had a lot of work to do, if I was to rebuild it from the ashes. I had to pray. I grew to loathe it in this life, but I had to do it.
If only for the sake of my legacy.
That spark of divinity had fled. It had gone with death, and the life that Guts Vorlesh had lived as The White Wolf. Only my own blood could be found in his veins. Fenrir had gone silent, but there was something else.
There was a fire. A light in the darkness. This was a sun waiting to be born.
It was a grievous miracle.
"Then join our brothers, Leman Russ." Angronius of Nuceria plunges Vuragh'th into the heart of the wolf. The Black Blade would greedily devour this soul. "Join them in death."
There was a memory.
Garnets he could never forget. Those eyes belonging to a woman he loved. Her amethyst hands wrapping around him, and there was an undeniable warmth. The drow had been a paladin. Just like his Casca, but unlike her there was a brutality in Minthara Baenre. There was ruthlessness. The dark elf had her flaws, but he saw in her what he had lost. The wolf knew that it was inevitable. When you are immortal? The patterns become obvious. Reincarnation was always predominant in these realms, and it could be seen everywhere. Casca sought him out, and she had found her Guts.
In turn, Guts had found her.
"The Lord of Wolves about to die at the hands of his own brother, and all he can do is reminisce? I didn't take you for a sentimental fool." Minthara scolds him in the way that only she can. "I did not marry Drizzt Do'Urden. I married The White Wolf." The drow forces the wolf to rise from his grave. "In Menzoberranzan, blood feuds were as frequent as in The Imperium of Man. The answer was always the same." Dragon Slayer almost seems to materialize in her hands. "They can only be solved with violence, and in this case a disproportionate amount of violence." The drow shoves the great sword into his hands. "Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh! This is not a request from your wife, but an order from Minthara Baenre! I want to see Angronius of Nuceria dead at your feet! Honor our house with his life, and bring me his head as a trophy!"
"I must apologize, Angron." Leman Russ had stopped the blade. It was caught in his hand, having pierced his sternum but failing to perforate his heart, and when he gripped Vuragh'th with all of his strength? It began to crack. Angron tried to free it, but this was not the Leman Russ that he had known. It did not budge, and the grip could not be broken. "I'm not allowed to lose." There is a savagery. This desire for victory was unheard of in the primarch. The wolf was roused from his slumber, and he was on the hunt. "The wife is watching."
"What manner of power is this?" The Daemon Prince only had a moment to indulge in confusion, and that is when a fist dug itself into his face. Angronius of Nuceria is hurled backwards into Yggdrasil. The Tree of Life was the size of any Hive World, but it shook regardless of that on impact. The branches began to fall, and the trunk had splintered. Vuragh'th had been broken. The Black Blade reduced to nothing but dust. The strike had untangled this plane from the taint of The Warp, and banished those demiurges. This was no place for monsters, and those Valkyries who had sacrificed their lives to protect Grunbeld? Their souls had been set free, and they would return to my side in The Astronomican. They would be celebrated in a Valhalla of my own craftsmanship. "What nonsense is this? The Warp has already made you take leave of your senses--"
"I never had any to begin with!" Leman Russ grabs the betrayer by the throat. This coward who spurned his own flesh and blood. "There is nothing to take, but I do have something I can share with your masters." The grievous miracle began to coalesce. It had searched for something familiar. Anything that spoke to Leman Russ, and what he symbolized. "It is this pain."
It was always the wind. That which would fan the flames. This coaxing of the fire.
The Storm of Vengeance is evoked, and they are both caught in the tempest. That gale had become a tornado. The wind would never harm Leman Russ, but the same could not be said for his sibling. The Lord of the Red Sands screams in agony. This was a pain he had never known, and not even the immortality granted to him by those Ruinous Powers, could protect his soul. The Red Angel would not return to them, and his fate was to be the same as Horus Lupercal.
Oblivion.
Yggdrasil is disintegrated by the spell, and Dragon Slayer is able to escape those roots. The great sword falling back into the hands of Leman Russ.
"How I have missed this." Grunbeld could only whisper. "Welcome home, Guts."
The White Wolf had returned.
<<X>>
"I do not like this hesitation!" I would desire perfection. "Regill was your teacher, and so was I!" In fact, I would accept nothing less from my son. "I am an obstacle!" I shake my head. "There can be no mercy! Dragon Slayer is to relieve me of my life!" Mordenkainen's Sword crashes against Dragon Slayer. "This is an order, my crusader!"
"Don't say that, Arlan!" The thought of Dragon Slayer removing my head, from these shoulders of mine, had given way to reluctance. Guts Vorlesh had begun to waver. "I don't want to hear it!"
"If you won't do your duty? I will make you!" I had no choice. The Idea of Evil would smother everything that I was. This identity I had crafted? It would cease to be. I did not have the power to resist. Not forever at any rate. "Slay your Knight Commander, or I will leave my namesake without a father!"
I evoke Meteor Swarm, and thousands of comets are torn from the vacuum of outer space. They approach the speed of light, and then exceed it. When they enter the atmosphere of this Earth? I veil these bolides in the ether, and redefine the laws of physics.
The White Wolf notices the shooting stars, and is already on the move. Dragon Slayer swatting them out of the air as they approach him. They slam against the flat of his blade with the ferocity of a White Dwarf. The mass of an entire sun in every collision. If not for my mastery of the arcane? The Earth would have been disintegrated by this spell.
Guts Vorlesh does not falter, and his guard is not broken. They are all destroyed. Those thousands of meteorites dispersed with contemptuous ease. The exchange only lasting for an instant, but it served as a distraction for what would come next.
I cast Time Stop, and the universe is brought to a standstill. After which, I make use of Teleport. I am behind The White Wolf. "I do not know of hesitation!" Mordenkainen's Sword is brought down, and I lash at him. It was no whip, but it would do. It penetrates his armor. There was a laceration. It would become another scar. "Only of the yearning for victory!"
I had drawn blood.
Guts Vorlesh does the impossible, and he moves. It did not matter if time had been frozen. He had to win. The White Wolf turns to face Arlan Vorlesh, and brings Dragon Slayer on my head. These ethereal flames were hungry for those moments. I would not succumb to it. I transmute myself with Etherealness, and enter the Ethereal Plane. Dragon Slayer is caught in my jaw, and I bite down on it. The fire licks at my face, but it does not burn away at my past.
I twirl around with the blade in my mouth, and lift the wolf from his footing. Guts Vorlesh refused to let go of the great sword. The White Swordsman is sent flying into the air, and he crashes against the ground.
"Why are you holding back?" I had to admonish him. How would he learn? "I know you can do this." Power, Word, Heal. The burns I received from Dragon Slayer? They would not remain. "This story will not end in a tragedy." I smile at him. "It will be your ascension."
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Apotheosis
New
Gladiator
Well-known member
Chapter 30: Apotheosis
"War always changes. It is the only thing that ever does. The way they are fought? The places they are fought in? The nations that fought in them? They always change. If you want a world that is worth living for? What you have got to change are people, because they never do. You never change. They never change. Change yourself. Change them. Change the world. Don't come to my doorstep, and complain about how it is impossible. Do it, because you got to. Do it, or none of this will ever mean anything. Do it, because you got somebody back home waiting for a fool like you."
- The Courier
The Godhand was no more. I had seen to it. This world, this Earth, which I had grown to love as my own, and which I would christen as Holy Terra? This universe would know of peace. This crystal sphere? The plane I had won by conquest. There was only one stitching in my soul that had persisted throughout it all, but it would not last. It would come undone, and it would come undone because I was not satisfied with this.
The Heart of Darkness had to answer for every crime. What it had done to every person on this planet. The Sword of Damocles was hungry for retribution, it was starving for justice, and it would collect on that life. Just as it had collected on the lives of every monster. I would not be denied, and I would meet the Abyss. I would become the bane of every demon lord. The Hero of Many Faces. Then I would return, but not as myself.
No, I would be The God Emperor of Mankind.
This I had woven. The choices I had made would be what led to my damnation, but there was a chance. It was with that grievous miracle. I would leave my Golden Throne, and I would save all of them. The Imperium of Man was not lost. The road I would need to tread had revealed itself, and at the end of it? There was a home. A house I could call my own. There were people I loved who were still waiting for The Crow, The Knight Commander, and The Emperor!
They were waiting for Arlan Vorlesh, and I would be there to greet those children who meant everything to me. Whether I had to face a dozen demon lords! A hundred of them! A thousand of them! The Abyss could throw every obstacle it had at my doorstep. There was nothing that could stop the anathema. What I had become? It would lead to transience. The ephemeral would overthrow the ethereal.
This world would not be the same. It will not be eternal. That stasis which had entrapped it? It will be no more, and it will be no more because that is what I have chosen!
In the grim darkness of the far future?
There was only hope.
Leman Russ had been searching for it. That which he lost. Which he had relinquished. An heirloom of the past. When he was not lost in The Warp. He had embedded it into Yggdrasil, or whatever amounted to it in this realm. The Tree of Life, and many other names besides that one. The weapon had stood by him whenever he was alone. It was family. That blade had never failed him, and whenever he was in need of it?
The sword would make itself known.
It had a name, and it was Grunbeld. There were stories that claimed this had not always been the case, and that it had another name. Only Leman Russ could say for certain. The blade had divulged all things to the primarch. The Lord of Wolves was the person that had won the loyalty of it, and from that came a bounty of knowledge. Who his father had been. When war had not consumed the galaxy as it had. The stories were hard to believe, but if there was any truth to these tales? These myths that had been shrouded in mystery and hearsay?
Dragon Slayer would be salvation.
The wound had to be unmade, and it could only be unmade, if history was rewritten. The power to do this did not exist in The Imperium of Man. It did exist in this relic.
There was only one problem.
"It is a pleasure, brother." Angronius of Nuceria, the Daemon Prince, had been given a task. This great sword had to be concealed. It could not be found again. "The Lord of Wolves has come to my lovely abode."
Yggdrasil had been desecrated. The Tree of Life made to be a monument to death. It had been decorated with the corpses of countless Valkyries. These Sisters of Battle who stood watch over it, if only for the sake of their duty. The oath they swore to none other than their brother Leman Russ. Those maidens had been impaled on many of the branches. They fought bravely against The Lord of the Red Sands, but it was for naught. Angron was the epitome of what it meant to embody violence. He had inherited that. It was the only thing I had ever given him, and there was no escape from the mortification I felt now.
Vuragh'th intertwined with the entrails of every enemy that stood in his way. The Black Blade forged by the Dark Mechanicum on Sarum for Angronius of Nuceria. During the Siege of Terra? It had consumed a million souls, and it was a testament to that voracious appetite for war he was known for. This Daemon Prince was the favorite of Khorne, and he had become an extension of his master.
It was all a poison. That which I had bequeathed to my children? There was always a price for it. This blood was no gift, and through it they had known parts of my soul. The Warp played no part in it. These were the flaws of a mortality that was unfiltered. They had to endure all that I was. Both good and bad. Both love and fury.
The grievous miracle did not come without any consequence.
The Red Thirst, and The Black Rage. The Flaw. Sanguinius was not the only one who had to live with that insatiable thirst. However, when The Brightest One had won against it? The Red Angel reveled in the act of lascivious barbarity. It was a comfort. When all things had been taken from him? War had come to claim him, and in the same way it had claimed Arlan Vorlesh. The Immaterium despoiled this holy land, and only for what one could claim was dreadful truculence.
This is what I was. This is what I could have been. This is what I deny now.
"Do you have anything to say? Anything at all, or will you die a mute?" The Red Angel would not hesitate. Not even against any of his siblings. "If silence is to be the last thing on your lips--"
"Only this, Angron." Leman Russ wears a condescending grin. Those fangs of his glistening, in this sacred realm which had been painted red, and left violated by the corruption of The Warp. "Do well to remember it." As if in response to this declaration? This plane began to convulse. There was a storm in the distance. The rain would wash away all of the blood.
It would purify this sin.
"I am the wind."
The Heart of Darkness was born when murder was conceived. There was a brother, he held an envy, and that envy grew. He saw the love that he was denied. Envy would become hatred, and from that hatred? There came an idea. This idea would become an ambition of sorts, and from that ambition there came tragedy. The demise of the favored son, and the birth of malice.
This palpitation drew The Idea of Evil. The beat of this heart in everyone. There was no mortal who did not know of it, or who could escape it. The intimacy of this matrimony of sacrilege. This act of fratricide had become a contract. The price was not only his soul, but the soul of everyone like him. Those who had his blood. Which would be pumped in and out of every heart. Those children would prosper, and they would have children of their own. The heart would grow with every life, and those lives would nourish it. Until there was not a person on this Earth, that did not feel it, this beat.
This rhythm of frenzy.
The problem lied in the womb. That place from whence it came. Conception had led to divergence. Duality had been born. The destruction of the other? It had to be followed by the destruction of self. This was the balance.
The Heart of Darkness had to devour itself, in a way not unlike Ouroboros, and that was part of this purpose it had. It would eventually die, and all things would die with it. The covenant would be complete, this compact brought to a close, and renewal would come afterwards. There would be another Earth, and the people would call to it. This was the stability.
How many turns of the wheel had it been? The Idea of Evil had lost count. This link in the chain would be one of many, and the memories it had would begin to fade. Only purpose had the capacity to endure. Whether it was as a scapegoat, or as an excuse? The people always had need of it. It was easier than acknowledgment. Their guilt was a foe they could not understand, and did not want to even permit. This was the dependence.
These three things are what it served. It did not serve anything else. It could not serve anything else. It was like a machine, and it could not deviate. This was a program, and one that had been executed already. Which is why it had been disappointed by the conqueror. It had desired exquisite defeat, but the conqueror did not meet that expectation.
I did.
The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade. Arlan Vorlesh. That which bore the conqueror. Who would become a wandering specter entrapped in battle-scarred armor, and eventually return to the progenitor. The anathema. The Idea of Evil had found it. The death it had been seeking, and war which had clouded my vision. I was absolutely perfect.
I would be the executioner, and the absence of love would prevent any more interruptions. The wheel would turn. There would be no hesitation. It was war that would save it.
"No." I murmur. "It is not war."
It would be love.
It began with the death of Void. When Destiny's Embrace had disappeared? This Earth, that would become Holy Terra, had changed. It was like The Eclipse, but rather than being localized, the whole of this plane was drawn into it. Not just this planet, but the galaxy as well. I had no doubt the universe would be enveloped by it too.
This cascade of ether could only come from the birth or rather rebirth of a god. This was The Heart of Darkness as it truly was. The Idea of Evil made manifest. The heart was floating at the center of it all. That nexus where all the souls it had devoured lived. Their torment which had been unending, and I could hear their screams. This was my doing.
The death of this plane, and I was the harbinger. At least, that is what the heart thought. That I had come to answer that prayer. That I would be the hero. No, I was the villain of this story. I would challenge it. The natural. The nature of this world. The evil that had become the purpose of it. The corruption which I reviled.
If this was what world was? Then I would remake the world. It would be from the ashes of this monstrosity. This abomination. I would build my empire on these ruins of the past, and from it what would flourish? If not this love that I would venerate.
No more dead fathers and mothers. No more dead brothers and sisters. No more dead sons and daughters.
No more war. No more, no more, no more!
This was the end of tragedy, and it required of me a miracle. One that I no longer had, but there was always a way. I had learned that much. I could not use Radiance. That ardent grace would mean my end. This soul of mine was about to break. After it had been fractured by the effort of casting Wish.
The Godhand were all slain. I had made certain of that, and there was only one stitching I had left. That kept those shards of The God Emperor of Mankind fastened together.
That tied me to this dark god.
"That was a mistake." I had every intention of using it. I had been at a loss. How could I sever everyone from The Heart of Darkness? The answer was that I couldn't, but I didn't even need to. I should have seen it but I didn't. That was because I had forgotten that I would not survive this. The solution I had been searching for?
I already had it.
I cast Tether Essence, using that stitching as a medium, and draw The Idea of Evil into myself. It becomes my heart. I embolden the spell with Conduit Surge, and pour as much of the ether as I can into it. I did not need to separate them all from this monster.
I only had to separate it from them.
I turn towards Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh. The White Swordsman, and The White Wolf. The Lord of Wolves who I had nurtured into a hero. The son I could rely on.
"How about another spar?" I knew that he would triumph. He would not lose. "Do not disappoint me." Victory was always in his blood, in the very marrow of his bones, and in his heart. Whatever that obstacle would be? It would feel the bite of Dragon Slayer.
His father was no exception.
The White Wolf almost seems to recoil. He could sense it, and what I had done. The divinity that was afforded to him by birthright? It had expanded every faculty. All five of his senses, and it even granted him a sixth. This paranormal intuition that had the ability to discern transcendental phenomena like this. "What the hell did you do? You crazy fucking bastard--"
The Eclipse is dismissed with a snap of my fingers, and the vortex of souls is torn asunder! They would be free, and their torment would end! That torture is of their past, and their deliverer was none other than Arlan Vorlesh!
Regardless of the protest of this treacherous heart beating inside of my chest. The Heart of Darkness was livid. It could not predict an action born out of love. The portfolio it had claimed hatred, and only that hatred. These deities were always constrained by their domains. If it had been war? It could have seen it. It would have anticipated this, but this was not part of the plan, and any dissent from it would amount to nothing. I was in control.
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It just had to remind me. The ring has been broken, and I have broken it. There will be no Earth that replaces this one, and your game is over. Die miserably. Die a failure. Die bereft of any purpose.
"Show me what you have become, my son."
I would make it count.
"Sanguinius always did wonder where those wings came from." They unfurl themselves from beneath my robes, and burst from my back. "If only I revealed the truth, and before he met his end at the Eternity Gate." Those black wings which I had inherited from my incarnation as The Crow, and which I would entrust with the most benevolent of my progeny. It was no wonder that I drew the attention of Andoletta. I was one of her flock.
Grandmother Crow watched over us all. Ember was my sister, and she had been sent as a lesson. That I would have an example of what The God Emperor of Mankind needed to be. That war had been a lie. This love was not. It never would be.
"If it is any consolation, Guts? I never asked for them." I was not Griffith, and I had no intention of becoming like him. "They are most unsettling."
I evoke Mordenkainen's Sword, and an entire plane of force is folded onto itself. The universe is reforged into a blade, and I reach for it, grasping it tightly in both of my hands. I could not use Radiance as I was now, but that did not mean I was ever helpless. Normally, this spell could only be used sparingly as an attack. I would wield it as my weapon, and eschew that tradition.
It was nothing compared to Dragon Slayer, but it would suffice. At the very least? It would be able to withstand the temporal abolition the great sword was known for.
"I am not going to do this, Arlan." The White Swordsman plants his blade into the ground. "I can't." Uncharacteristically? That crusader of mine began to tremble. If he did not have the strength to do this? I have only delayed the inevitable, and I would fall victim to the succor of that nightmarish heart.
"If you do not? The Heart of Darkness will prevail." That smile I had? It could only belong to a father. "I am going to die anyway, and I would have my story end at the hands of someone I love." I tilt my head. "Why not, Guts?"
"Why not?" The White Wolf practically roars. How could I be this selfish? "Why not!" The wolf had become frantic. There was an unease. This had to be a dream. This just had to be a nightmare. "I thought it was over."
"What was over?"
"The Eclipse... but it never ended."
"It did, Guts." The White Wolf had to know. That this was how he would ascend. This was his apotheosis, and in turn it would become mine. "I brought an end to it."
"No." The White Swordsman grips the hilt of Dragon Slayer, and the great sword ignites. "I don't think it did."
"It did." I affirm. "I promise."
The tremors begin to stop. Guts Vorlesh looked at Arlan Vorlesh, and he realized that truth. There were only a few things that he was certain of in life, and one of them was that a promise had power.
If anything could change the world? It had to be a promise.
"That is where it began. It is the grievous miracle. That promise made by my mother at the grave of Caelum Vorlesh, and which I inherited from her." I smile at him. "Which you will bear. This is an heirloom, Guts. It will remain when I am gone."
"I don't want this kind of inheritance!" The White Swordsman sobs. "I don't want any of this, if this is what I have to do!" The tears would flow freely.
"Oh, I think you will come to regard it with pride." There was a clarity. What exactly would come forth from this decision I made? It was laid bare before my eyes. The White Wolf who would journey to Faerûn. "It will be the way back home."
The hero who would slay The Dead Three, and lay waste to Avernus. Zariel brought to heel, and in the distance? I saw a tree.
Yggdrasil.
"Remember this: three lives, three deaths, three sacrifices. The second life, death, and sacrifice was never resolved. When I had cast myself into The Worldwound? The Idea of Evil postponed it. This prophecy? Fulfill it." The God Emperor of Mankind needed to die. That was the only way he could be reborn. "If you manage to do that? I promise that I will return."
The God Emperor of Mankind as he was always meant to be. The Eye of Terror would be closed. The Warp would know of loss. I would begin my counterattack.
I would bring an order to the chaos.
"No waterworks, Guts." I assume a stance with Mordenkainen's Sword. "Time is of the essence."
"I hate you." The crusader prepares himself. "I won't forgive you." He grits his teeth. "Not for making me do this, Arlan."
"I know." There is something mischievous about my grin. "I want you to use it."
This feeling would be transformative. It would take that whelp I had met, and from it forge another grievous miracle. Those who watch can only be spectators. Their dice will be broken.
This destiny our own.
Mjalnar had been broken. The frost blade failing to pierce the hide of Angronius of Nuceria, and Leman Russ is flung backwards by a swipe of noxious claws. Elavagar is fractured by the blow, and the artificer armor fails this primarch. It had survived the Horus Heresy, but it did not survive this. If not for luck?
The Lord of Wolves would have died.
"Did you not learn from Krakenmaw?" The Red Angel snorts, and brushes away the shards of the frost blade that had embedded themselves in his carapace. "This weakness is because of your mortality. Accept the Ruinous Powers, if you mean to win." Angron growls in displeasure. "Swear fealty, and become death. Imagine it. War everlasting!"
There was no death in The Warp, for all things beholden to it? They had become immortal. There was eternity in service, but who would ever want that?
"War everlasting?" Leman Russ already knew what that was like. "No, I have had my fill of war everlasting." Ten-thousand years of tragedy that befell their empire. "I refuse, Angron." The Imperium of Man made to be a mockery of what it had represented. Only the highborn, those despicable nobles, had managed to reap a bounty from it. On every Imperial World they grew in influence and affluence, and the citizens of the empire were treated as nothing more than their slaves. They call themselves the finest, but they were the worst. The Emperor would have seen to their punishment personally.
Leman Russ knew that much.
How I abhorred a tyrant, but I had turned that ire towards the clergy instead! I had become a tyrant myself! Only those Rogue Traders, who I had granted a Warrant of Trade, stood against the horrors of what my empire had become. The Star Child would meet the dragon, and that corpse on a throne.
What I had become.
Uriah Olathaire, if only I had heeded your warning. I was wrong but my arrogance had turned my vision towards war. Sanguinius had wisdom I did not. The people had to be free. There was no world in which my proposal would have worked. I could not starve those lurking in The Warp. The Immaterium would last, and what it would become? It rested entirely in the hands of those who lived in this galaxy!
It had been known as the Abyss, but after I routed every demon lord as The Hero of Many Faces, and cleansed it of that corruption? It had become malleable. Permeable in ways unknown to many. All save for those privy to the matters of The Phlogiston, and hailing from planes alien to this one. The people had become the master of it. Their feelings, their thoughts, their imaginations, and their dreams? They would paint that canvas.
Otherwise, I would have to sterilize everything that made mortals worthy of life to begin with. They would become like any macabre servitor. Those slaves stripped of their identity, and malformed into drones. I would have to abolish it. That practice was unseemly, and definitely absent of any morality.
The rot in my empire was everywhere. I had a lot of work to do, if I was to rebuild it from the ashes. I had to pray. I grew to loathe it in this life, but I had to do it.
If only for the sake of my legacy.
That spark of divinity had fled. It had gone with death, and the life that Guts Vorlesh had lived as The White Wolf. Only my own blood could be found in his veins. Fenrir had gone silent, but there was something else.
There was a fire. A light in the darkness. This was a sun waiting to be born.
It was a grievous miracle.
"Then join our brothers, Leman Russ." Angronius of Nuceria plunges Vuragh'th into the heart of the wolf. The Black Blade would greedily devour this soul. "Join them in death."
There was a memory.
Garnets he could never forget. Those eyes belonging to a woman he loved. Her amethyst hands wrapping around him, and there was an undeniable warmth. The drow had been a paladin. Just like his Casca, but unlike her there was a brutality in Minthara Baenre. There was ruthlessness. The dark elf had her flaws, but he saw in her what he had lost. The wolf knew that it was inevitable. When you are immortal? The patterns become obvious. Reincarnation was always predominant in these realms, and it could be seen everywhere. Casca sought him out, and she had found her Guts.
In turn, Guts had found her.
"The Lord of Wolves about to die at the hands of his own brother, and all he can do is reminisce? I didn't take you for a sentimental fool." Minthara scolds him in the way that only she can. "I did not marry Drizzt Do'Urden. I married The White Wolf." The drow forces the wolf to rise from his grave. "In Menzoberranzan, blood feuds were as frequent as in The Imperium of Man. The answer was always the same."
Dragon Slayer almost seems to materialize in her hands. "They can only be solved with violence, and in this case a disproportionate amount of violence." The drow shoves the great sword into his hands. "Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh! This is not a request from your wife, but an order from Minthara Baenre! I want to see Angronius of Nuceria dead at your feet! Honor our house with his life, and bring me his head as a trophy!"
"I must apologize, Angron." Leman Russ had stopped the blade. It was caught in his hand, having pierced his sternum but failing to perforate his heart, and when he gripped Vuragh'th with all of his strength? It began to crack. Angron tried to free it, but this was not the Leman Russ that he had known. It did not budge, and the grip could not be broken. "I'm not allowed to lose." There is a savagery. This desire for victory was unheard of in the primarch. The wolf was roused from his slumber, and he was on the hunt. "The wife is watching."
"What manner of power is this?" The Daemon Prince only had a moment to indulge in confusion, and that is when a fist dug itself into his face. Angronius of Nuceria is hurled backwards into Yggdrasil. The Tree of Life was the size of any Hive World, but it shook regardless of that fact on impact. The branches began to fall, and the trunk had splintered. Vuragh'th had been broken. The Black Blade reduced to nothing but dust. "Have you swallowed your pride at last, and accepted one of them as your master?"
"No, Angron. This is the grievous miracle." Leman Russ had to relish this. "It is mortality unfiltered. That which is the bane of those high above and deep below." The words had been etched into his soul. Caelum Vorlesh had become an echo in his nephew.
The strike had untangled this plane from the taint of The Warp, and banished those demiurges. This was no place for monsters, and those Valkyries who had sacrificed their lives to protect Grunbeld? Their souls had been set free, and they would return to my side in The Astronomican. They would be celebrated in a Valhalla of my own craftsmanship. No harm would come to them, and their reward would be a place by the side of The God Emperor of Mankind. "What nonsense is this? The Warp has already made you take leave of your senses--"
"I never had any to begin with!" Leman Russ grabs the betrayer by the throat. This coward who spurned his own flesh and blood. "There is nothing to take, but I do have something I can share with your masters." The grievous miracle began to coalesce. It had searched for something familiar. Anything that spoke to this Leman Russ, and what he symbolized. "It is this pain."
It was always the wind. That which would fan the flames. This coaxing of the fire.
The Storm of Vengeance is evoked, and they are both caught in the tempest. That gale had become a tornado. The wind would never harm Leman Russ, but the same could not be said for his sibling. The Lord of the Red Sands screams in agony. This was a pain he had never known, and not even the immortality granted to him by those Ruinous Powers, could protect his soul. The Red Angel would not return to them, and his fate was to be the same as Horus Lupercal.
Oblivion.
Yggdrasil is disintegrated by the spell, and Dragon Slayer is able to escape those roots. The great sword falling back into the hands of Leman Russ.
"How I have missed this." Grunbeld could only whisper. "Welcome home, Guts."
The White Wolf had returned.
"I do not like this hesitation!" I would desire perfection. "Regill was your teacher, and so was I!" In fact, I would accept nothing less from my son. "I am an obstacle!" I shake my head. "There can be no mercy! Dragon Slayer is to take my life!" Mordenkainen's Sword crashes against Dragon Slayer. "That is an order, my crusader!"
"Don't say this, Arlan!" The thought of Dragon Slayer removing my head, from these shoulders of mine, had given way to reluctance. Guts Vorlesh had begun to waver. "I don't want to hear it!"
"If you won't do your duty? I will make you!" I had no choice. The Idea of Evil would smother everything that I was. This identity I had crafted? It would cease to be. I did not have the power to resist. Not forever at any rate. "Slay your Knight Commander, or I will leave my namesake without a father!"
I evoke Meteor Swarm, and thousands of comets are torn from the vacuum of outer space. They approach the speed of light, and then exceed it by every measure of the word. When they enter the atmosphere of this Earth? I envelop these bolides in the ether, and redefine the laws of physics.
The White Wolf notices the shooting stars, and is already on the move. Dragon Slayer swatting them out of the air as they approach him. They slam against the flat of his blade with the ferocity of a White Dwarf. The mass of an entire sun in every collision. If not for my mastery of the arcane? The Earth would have been disintegrated by this spell.
Guts Vorlesh does not falter, and his guard is not broken. They are all destroyed. Those meteorites dispersed with contemptuous ease. The exchange only lasting for an instant, but it served as a distraction for what would come next.
I cast Time Stop, and the universe is brought to a standstill. After which, I make use of Teleport to excise that distance between us. I had learned by observing Vecna, and I would not waste that knowledge. It had been thanks to my Assidous Gaze, granted to me by my status as a Hellknight Signifier, that I could replicate these spells. I am behind The White Wolf, and there was nothing he could do. "I do not know of hesitation!" Mordenkainen's Sword is brought down, and I lash at him. It was no whip, but it would do. It penetrates his armor. There was a laceration. It would become another scar. "Only of the yearning for victory!"
I had drawn blood.
Guts Vorlesh does the impossible, and he moves. It did not matter if time itself had been frozen. He had to win. The White Wolf turns to face Arlan Vorlesh, and brings Dragon Slayer down on my head. Those ethereal flames were hungry for these precious moments. I would not succumb to it. I transmute myself with the spell known as Etherealness, and enter the Ethereal Plane. Where I might match the frequency of this fire, and abrogate it of this property. Dragon Slayer is caught in my jaw, and I bite down on it. The fire licks at my face, but it does not burn away at my past.
It was a success.
I twirl around with the blade in my mouth, making use of all of the dexterity I was known for, and lift the wolf away from his footing in one swift movement. Guts Vorlesh refused to let go of the great sword, and he is sent flying into the air. The White Wolf falls against the ground with a resounding thud. This humiliation would be a lesson.
"Why are you holding back?" I had to admonish him. How would he learn to overcome this test? "I know you can do this." I make use of Heal. The burns I received from Dragon Slayer? They would not remain, and disappear as if they had never been. "This story will not end in a tragedy." I wore the cheekiest grin imaginable. "It will be your ascension."
"Why do you even have to ask that?" The Lord of Wolves stands to face it. What I had become. "What you have done..." The world had become something of value. He wanted to live. He wanted Arlan Vorlesh to live. He wanted all of them to live, and without anything to obstruct their lives.
When before there was despair? It had been replaced by hope, and it hurt worse than anything else. At least with despair he knew what to expect, and that there was no chance to witness the twilight of an era. It was within their grasp now, and Arlan Vorlesh was about to throw that away.
I was about to march towards my own miserable death, and without any regrets. Guts Vorlesh could not make sense of it. He had seen what I could do. There had to be another way.
"I know what is vexing you, Guts. There is no other way." Those thoughts as clear to me as can be. I did not need to be a psychic to know of them. This was my son. "I have exhausted everything that I am, and it was for all of you. If that means anything to you? Do me the service of delivering me to Valhalla." I had no regrets. I would do all of this again. I would do it for me. I would do it for him. I would do it for all of them.
I am Arlan Vorlesh, and I will die as I have lived.
There could not be.
This had to be the work of the Ruinous Powers. The veil was always tremulous at best in my presence. The Warp was drawn towards my psychic power, and I had to be careful. Zlatad Aph Kerapliades spoke of it out of earshot, but I always heard his thoughts. Whether he wanted me to or not. Which was concerning in of itself. That he had not seen a psyker like myself since Malcador. The Sigillite was someone I admired, but could that be true?
It felt like an embellishment, but the claim came from my master of all people. Why had I been regulated to the Imperial Guard, if that was the case? I could have been an Inquisitor or a Grey Knight. I could have brought glory to The Imperium of Man. I could have been a hero like Commissar Cain. It was as if my master was trying to conceal my existence in plain sight. This meant I could be a personal asset of his for whatever reason, or a way for daemons to invade The Materium. It would have been safer to keep me close. That way it would be easy to remove my head from my shoulders. If I was ever corrupted by The Warp.
It was difficult to decipher which exactly I was to him.
I had seen what happened to my brothers and sisters who failed in the Scholastia Psykana. The daemons had consumed their souls without any reserve or restraint. Those monsters which had haunted every nightmare I ever had, and I knew I should fear them. At least I think I should fear them. It was an unusual, but I only felt an overwhelming hatred in their presence. There was some primeval part of myself that desired nothing less than their obliteration, and I could not bring myself to fear them. The Ecclesiarchy would call this the providence of The Emperor.
I had served the Imperial Guard with distinction as a result, and received many commendations. One of which was presented by Roboute Guilliman himself. The Master of Ultramar of all people making an appearance for the occasion. How peculiar that encounter was. The way he looked at me? It was like he had seen a phantom.
It was when I had slain a greater daemon of The Warp. That entrapped an entire Imperial World in a mirage of sorts. It was a nightmare from which it had feasted on the fears of the people. The Lord of Change had been felled by my witchcraft. I was always able to confront the horrors from beyond the veil. When others would flee.
I was born to destroy all of the enemies of humanity, but instead I am reduced to being an errand boy. Zlatad Aph Kerapliades was so insistent on this. The League of Blackships was to transport me to the Koronus Expanse.
I was to meet Lady Theodora von Valancius Massimo af Scarus. The name was a mouthful, but that was always the case with these Rogue Traders. The Warrant of Trade gave her an unhealthy and unwarranted sense of self-importance.
Not nearly as modest as Crowley Vorlesh. It wasn't anything extravagant, but it was my name. If my master had been earnest in his dealings with me? This noblewoman was a relative of mine. I did not even know that I had any family to call my own. What else had been kept a secret? It was a trying experience to be his apprentice. The meeting was to about an inheritance. One owed to me from my bloodline.
I did not like the notion that I might be highborn. I despised those ingrates. Their existence was an affront to the Imperial Creed, and as far as I was concerned? They were heretics who flaunted their power.
They thought themselves an extension of The Emperor!
Despite that? They forgot who he was. The God Emperor of Mankind protects. Our savior had been worshiped precisely because of that fact, and not because he was a tyrant who treated his own people like chattel! It was as vile as the practice of creating those servitors!
Hopefully, I would be remembered in the annals of history. That my voice would be heard, and not drowned out by the fanatics who now ruled.
I did want to see it. The Imperium of Man, but as it once was.
The utopia it had been.
If anything could be metamorphic?
It was this faith, and it was this faith without any doubt. What had once been a rival? It would become an ally, and it would facilitate this resurrection.
The Star Child. This event was dependent on him. They had to meet, and from there this possibility would be made into a certainty. The White Wolf need only heal that corpse on a throne, and he had the tool. The betrayer had been felled, and the wolf had sunk his fangs into him.
The damage The Idea of Evil had done over an aeon ago? It would be mended, and Arlan Vorlesh would return as he once was. That remnant of the era before The Old Ones. The War in Heaven unheard of. The Abyss was made into a sanctuary, but eventually it would be destroyed by the callousness of the people. The Aeldari Empire had capitalized on this, and their depravity would worsen it. It would be as it was before. The Eye of Terror would be opened. It would become The Warp.
There was only patience.
The Void Dragon had to wait. Their world existed in a triumvirate. The White Wolf had to ease the torment of his forebearer. The Star Child had to awaken. The Void Dragon had to meet his shard. These three events would parallel the prophecy, and from that grievous miracle?
The anathema would be reborn.
Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh. The White Wolf. There was no demon lord he could not face, but this was worse.
It was his father.
I had given him everything. When the world had taken from him that which was promised. The birthright which had been obscured by those monsters lurking in the Abyss. Their fear was not misplaced, and neither was their caution. This divine intervention meant he could protect whoever or whatever he wanted. It meant that he was not entirely mortal anymore, and that there was something else which occupied his soul now.
The otherworldly had found a place to rest in Guts Vorlesh, and in return they had granted him this opportunity. This bargain was no trick. The merchant bore nothing but aspirations for The White Wolf. That his heir would become renowned in every realm. The Phlogiston would know of The White Swordsman. There would be no plane that did not know his name, and from that he could say that he did not fail Brunhilde. Fenrir knew that she would be proud.
This was a hero.
Their son had earned their name, but he had refused it. I was the father that he chose. The Black Wolf knew that he could not replace what I had given him. Guts Vorlesh would always defer to my judgement. I was the voice that provided guidance when all had been lost. I had won his heart.
When all Fenrir had done was win his trust.
There was a jealously. It was as if I had stolen his heir, and there was truth to that. That soul of his would be drawn to my own, and it would forget The Black Wolf. This blood was nothing but a convenience for Guts Vorlesh. He would discard it. That was the price Fenrir had to pay, for neglecting his pup. In the absence of a father?
The White Wolf found Arlan Vorlesh, and only Arlan Vorlesh. This was the house he would belong to. It was the house that he chose. It was the house that he cherished.
In this life, and every life after it.
The wolf I had claimed would hunt in my name. It was most unusual that I would be a crow. The two were always destined for each other. The Watcher had to be involved. He loved these parallels in every situation. Ao was a poet, but it could be grating on the nerves. I wonder if he derived any kind of amusement from this, or if he was surprised in the same way that I was. I had drawn his attention, and I believe I know why.
I was a curiosity.
I was not predictable, and that was rare. I had become his favorite, because he could never decipher the mystery that was Arlan Vorlesh. It was entertainment for certain, but if there was anything more to it than that?
I make this prayer.
When I am gone? Watch over the wolf. May all of his friends know of heaven, and all of his enemies know of hell. Guts Vorlesh has earned that much, and if you do not grant him that reprieve?
I will turn this grievous miracle towards those high above and deep below.
I will turn it towards you, Ao.
"That is not a lie." The Watcher broke the silence, but only I could hear him. There was no lie that would ever work on him anyway. "That a mortal would have the audacity to threaten any of us three? The Ancient Brethren? It is unheard of." Ao begins to fade. "The grievous miracle is not of my work, but that assessment is not inaccurate. This is most entertaining." I could still hear it. It was a whisper. "I will grant it."
There was a relief. I did not expect that kind of answer. At best? I had expected to be met with silence for my blasphemy, but instead I had my audience. The Watcher would keep his promise. House Vorlesh would thrive in my absence.
"Not forever. Nothing lasts for an eternity, and that includes any blessing or boon I may grant. Do not forget that, Arlan Vorlesh." It would be an aeon before I could see what fruit this would bear.
"I won't, Ao. Farewell, and may we meet in circumstances not quite as dire the next time this wheel turns."
"They are always dire when you are involved."
I could not refute that. When were they not? I could scarcely remember any that weren't.
Mordenkainen's Sword meets Dragon Slayer. The two weapons were at a stalemate. The sparks they generate in their clash give way to the onset of creation. In the distant outskirts of this plane? There are stars that are born from this conflict. Nebulae begin to form in the ether. They had become galaxies. If nurtured? They would grow into planes, if given any time.
They were nascent universes.
"Are you ready for everything that may come? I have to see it." The rubies of that crow meet the andesines that belong to the wolf. Our eyes? They were the same. This transformation of his took inspiration from the crow. It had become the template for him. The blueprint by which ascension had been accomplished.
The White Wolf had mirrored The Dark King. This reflection had become flattery. Imitation born out of admiration, and love most of all. The path he would tread? It would be the same.
That of thorns.
It will be painful, but he will endure. Guts Vorlesh was that kind of person, and the reward would be a place to rest at last. Where the journey would end. It would be past the Eternity Gate. It would be within the Sanctum Imperialis. It would be at a Golden Throne. Where Dragon Slayer would pierce a heart thrice.
"I am ready, Arlan." They had dried. Those tears he had shed were of the past, and he knew what must be done. In that moment he had found his conviction. Which had been lost due to doubt. This dragon would not best him. "I will do it."
Dragon Slayer had already earned that name. That title had meaning, and I was to meet my end. The Garden of Gash had been when I felt the bite of it.
This would be a reunion.
"Do not speak of it. Show me what you are." Those words were meaningless. What I needed was action. "What you will be when I am gone. The White Wolf of the Sixth Crusade."
Guts Vorlesh swings Dragon Slayer in a wide arc, and from it a pack of wolves bursts forth. These fire elementals had sworn to serve their master, and they pounce on the anathema.
I intone Polar Midnight, and absolute zero assaults them. When before they had been felled by this spell? They weather the brunt of my magic now, and ignore this cold. When Dragon Slayer had evolved? They had as well, and they would not be stopped by something like this.
If frigid permafrost was not an option? There were always many other avenues by which I could fell my foes. I invoke the necromancy of Soulreaver. Those fiery wolves become piles of smouldering embers. When their souls are torn from their conflagrant bodies, and sent to meet Pharasma.
I turn my attention towards Guts Vorlesh, and make use of the major hex known as Hoarfrost. There are needles of frost that dig into his body. They ignore his armor entirely, and render his insides to mire from within.
That is when he howls, and from that gale? Whirlwind is evoked in turn. The major hex is torn from his frame, and becomes part of the cyclone. The spell had assimilated the curse.
The White Wolf closes the distance on foot, and grabs The Dark King by the throat. The tempest wraps around us, and I am bombarded by mine own effort. The power of my curse melding with the wind, and flaying everything that I am. I am bereft of an epidermis, but that was not a problem.
I cast Regenerative Sinew, and begin to heal. I grab the wolf by the face, and intone Horrid Wilting. All of the moisture inside of his body evaporates, and in that moment of disorientation caused by this? I stab into his ribs with Mordenkainen's Sword, and puncture one of his lungs.
That does not dissuade The White Wolf. Guts Vorlesh brings an elbow down on the blade with all of his strength, and it is broken in half. The plane of force could not withstand it. Dragon Slayer relieves me of an arm, before I could retaliate. This was the action I had been looking for. The White Swordsman had found his resolve.
I unfurl my black wings, and intone Plane Shift. The universe around us changes, and we are brought to the Fugue Plane. I did not want to risk the destruction of Holy Terra, and this was beginning to escalate.
I knew what would come next.
I draw in all of the ether I can, and decide to make use of my own invention. It was rediscovery. This spell had been lost, but I would bring it back. The acquisition of this heart meant that I could bring to bare all of the power I had lost to The Godhand. It was like when I had faced Deskari. The Lord of Locusts had proven to my rival, but he failed to withstand my vengeance. He had fallen to my rancor.
I evoke Memento Mori. I had been inspired by Absolute Death, and decided that I would venture towards emulating it. This did not require any incantation or hand gesture. It was the purity of death distilled into a wish for the demise of another. It would be an insult if I held back. The wolf had to defeat the crow, and that meant I could not forfeit anything in this war. The son was to surpass the father. Not the shadow of what he once was, but as he was truly now.
The Knight Commander of the Fifth Crusade.
The Fugue Plane was protected by Kelemvor. The Judge of the Damned. He differed from Pharasma, and did not share her disdain for mortals like myself. Which is why I entrust him with the lives of those dwelling within this realm. Whether they were faithless or not? This spell would not harm them.
They had his protection.
I direct all of that negative energy on Guts Vorlesh, and he collapses to the ground but not completely. The White Wolf was on his knees, and he used his great sword as a crutch. There was a fire inside of him that could not be smothered by any necromancy. His heart may have stopped, but his will would never be extinguished. This death would not prevent him from doing his duty. That promise he made would not be broken.
Calder Vorlesh would have a brother in the wolf, and he would stand by his side. This he had sworn. That was his oath. The pledge he made to his father. The Storm of Vengeance had come, and it would feed the flames of Dragon Slayer. They became an Eye of the Storm, and I would meet it. This spell which had been invented to conquer any adversary.
I cast Dire Winter, and bring about a tumultuous ice age. This spell had become the most powerful in my arsenal. Polar Midnight did not compare, and even if I had made use of Conduit Surge? It would not be able to compete with this. Whereas that spell could destroy every future? Not unlike Dragon Slayer could destroy the past? This one annihilated all concept of movement. Whether it was physical or metaphysical. The abstract was no exception to this, and neither were any concepts. The blazing tornado collides against a blizzard of arctic chill, and the plane nearly gives.
If not for divine intervention? It would have been unmade by this exchange of power between these expressions of the grievous miracle. We are both caught in it, and we are nearly destroyed. It was as if an unstoppable force met an immovable object, and the result was mutual destruction. Those raven wings of mine had been burned away, and that armor the wolf had received from me was reduced to molten slag. The metal had fused to his body. Dragon Slayer having been lost in this anarchy, and flung to some distant part of the multiverse.
I stood only as Arlan Vorlesh, and I faced Guts Vorlesh. Who stood only as himself. It was not over. When we approach each other? There were no words. Only violence. There was a fist for a fist. We struck each other. I aimed for that wound I inflicted. Where I had stabbed Mordenkainen's Sword into his ribs. It bleeds when I plunge my fist into it. The wolf is relentless as he tears into the stump where one of my arms had been, before it was severed by Dragon Slayer. Those teeth tearing into it with an animalistic frenzy. Any stratagem had fled.
What remained was primal.
I make use of Conduit Surge, and embolden the spell known as Transformation. I forgo all of the arcane in the favor of this. Guts Vorlesh meets this effort, and begins to transform. This was no dire wolf like I had seen him become before, but a werewolf of the lunar cycle. That fragment of Mordenkainen's Sword which had been longed into his lung? It is ejected from his body, and the wound is healed by this metamorphosis. The melted armor falls away to reveal fur. The arm I had lost? It had grown back. Transformation outstripped the power of my Regenerative Sinew.
I am a blur as I move. The distance between us is erased, and an uppercut to his jaw sends the werewolf into the firmament. When he hurdles into a nearby galaxy? He is able to adjust his flight, and land against the outer rim of it. The lycanthrope leaps from it, and those claws were ready to tear out my throat.
I use the space-time continuum as a spring board when I jump, launching myself into the depths of outer space, and ricochet across the cosmos. Rebounding between these galaxies.
When we meet? There is a cross counter between us. Our fists pulverizing the face of the other. We are flung across the expanse of this universe, and crash into the veil barring entry to the rest of this multiverse.
I make use of Dragon's Roar. It was no spell, and had been amplified by the enchantment I was under. The cacophony of it shakes the universe. The veil is broken by it, and I tackle into the wolf. We fly into The Phlogiston, and the myriad of crystal spheres. The White Wolf could see it. Dragon Slayer had been hurled into this place between the many planes. Guts Vorlesh flies towards it, and reaches out with his claws. Their bond was unbreakable. The blade, as if magnetized by this gesture, is drawn towards him.
I do my best to intercept it, but it was too far. I had the advantage of dexterity, but not of distance. It had been a mistake. One that would prove fatal. When I strike with my fist? Dragon Slayer is there to meet my charge.
The great sword pierces through it, and into my heart. There is shock on my face. This defeat had been true.
I had lost.
"What a wonderful thing." I speak in my death throes. "This is your apotheosis. It was never mine." I had felt it. The pride of parenthood. This was my successor. He would inherit all that I am. "If I may?" I use what arm I had left, and ruffle his hair with my hand. "I always wanted to do this."
What father did not?
Guts Vorlesh breaks into this misery. There would be grief. He catches my body as I fall into him, and there is a croak. Which becomes a whimper, and then it would transform into a wail of anguish. There was no realm that did not hear it. This cry.
The White Wolf would mourn.
"Why did you make me do this?"
The Idea of Evil can only scream. I had denied it. That purpose which it desired above all. It would die bereft of that, and I felt satisfaction.
I had won, and this was all that it cost.
This trade had been worth it.
It could be seen in every nation.
There was not a soul who did not know his name, and who spoke of how they met. Of course, many of these stories were fabrications.
I had not met all of the people, but strangely enough it seemed to be the case at times. As if I would visit the citizens of the realm in their dreams, and be a guide for whatever reason. Whether it was to inspire an artist, or grant courage to any soldier on the battlefield. That, or to be a friend for anyone who was grieving. I was a presence in their life.
I would become their symbol.
Their God Emperor of Mankind, and this plane would become known as Holy Terra. Whether the rest of the inhabitants wanted it to be or not. I was the only one who drew the attention of the rest of the multiverse, and as a result this world would become a focal point for trade between many of the planes. The Aeldari Empire could not compare. As it had only lasted for sixty epochs before crumbling from within.
This empire lasted for over a hundred of them.
I wonder if it was a result of that wish. However, Ao had been true. It did not last, and I had to see it fall. There was no empire that knew eternity. It was the way of things. If something did not end?
It would overstay itself.
It would become something like The Imperium of Man, and know only of that rot. Where I now resided. Where I waited on my Golden Throne. Where I grew restless watching what had become of my people. I wanted to help, but I couldn't.
The White Wolf would come. The Star Child would realize the truth. The Void Dragon would become whole.
The grievous miracle was not done with Arlan Vorlesh.
I had work to do.
"War always changes. It is the only thing that ever does. The way they are fought? The places they are fought in? The nations that fought in them? They always change. If you want a world that is worth living for? What you have got to change are people, because they never do. You never change. They never change. Change yourself. Change them. Change the world. Don't come to my doorstep, and complain about how it is impossible. Do it, because you got to. Do it, or none of this will ever mean anything. Do it, because you got somebody back home waiting for a fool like you."
- The Courier
The Godhand was no more. I had seen to it. This world, this Earth, which I had grown to love as my own, and which I would christen as Holy Terra? This universe would know of peace. This crystal sphere? The plane I had won by conquest. There was only one stitching in my soul that had persisted throughout it all, but it would not last. It would come undone, and it would come undone because I was not satisfied with this.
The Heart of Darkness had to answer for every crime. What it had done to every person on this planet. The Sword of Damocles was hungry for retribution, it was starving for justice, and it would collect on that life. Just as it had collected on the lives of every monster. I would not be denied, and I would meet the Abyss. I would become the bane of every demon lord. The Hero of Many Faces. Then I would return, but not as myself.
No, I would be The God Emperor of Mankind.
This I had woven. The choices I had made would be what led to my damnation, but there was a chance. It was with that grievous miracle. I would leave my Golden Throne, and I would save all of them. The Imperium of Man was not lost. The road I would need to tread had revealed itself, and at the end of it? There was a home. A house I could call my own. There were people I loved who were still waiting for The Crow, The Knight Commander, and The Emperor!
They were waiting for Arlan Vorlesh, and I would be there to greet those children who meant everything to me. Whether I had to face a dozen demon lords! A hundred of them! A thousand of them! The Abyss could throw every obstacle it had at my doorstep. There was nothing that could stop the anathema. What I had become? It would lead to transience. The ephemeral would overthrow the ethereal.
This world would not be the same. It will not be eternal. That stasis which had entrapped it? It will be no more, and it will be no more because that is what I have chosen!
In the grim darkness of the far future?
There was only hope.
<<X>>
Leman Russ had been searching for it. That which he lost. Which he had relinquished. An heirloom of the past. When he was not lost in The Warp. He had embedded it into Yggdrasil, or whatever amounted to it in this realm. The Tree of Life, and many other names besides that one. The weapon had stood by him whenever he was alone. It was family. That blade had never failed him, and whenever he was in need of it?
The sword would make itself known.
It had a name, and it was Grunbeld. There were stories that claimed this had not always been the case, and that it had another name. Only Leman Russ could say for certain. The blade had divulged all things to the primarch. The Lord of Wolves was the person that had won the loyalty of it, and from that came a bounty of knowledge. Who his father had been. When war had not consumed the galaxy as it had. The stories were hard to believe, but if there was any truth to these tales? These myths that had been shrouded in mystery and hearsay?
Dragon Slayer would be salvation.
The wound had to be unmade, and it could only be unmade, if history was rewritten. The power to do this did not exist in The Imperium of Man. It did exist in this relic.
There was only one problem.
"It is a pleasure, brother." Angronius of Nuceria, the Daemon Prince, had been given a task. This great sword had to be concealed. It could not be found again. "The Lord of Wolves has come to my lovely abode."
Yggdrasil had been desecrated. The Tree of Life made to be a monument to death. It had been decorated with the corpses of countless Valkyries. These Sisters of Battle who stood watch over it, if only for the sake of their duty. The oath they swore to none other than their brother Leman Russ. Those maidens had been impaled on many of the branches. They fought bravely against The Lord of the Red Sands, but it was for naught. Angron was the epitome of what it meant to embody violence. He had inherited that. It was the only thing I had ever given him, and there was no escape from the mortification I felt now.
Vuragh'th intertwined with the entrails of every enemy that stood in his way. The Black Blade forged by the Dark Mechanicum on Sarum for Angronius of Nuceria. During the Siege of Terra? It had consumed a million souls, and it was a testament to that voracious appetite for war he was known for. This Daemon Prince was the favorite of Khorne, and he had become an extension of his master.
It was all a poison. That which I had bequeathed to my children? There was always a price for it. This blood was no gift, and through it they had known parts of my soul. The Warp played no part in it. These were the flaws of a mortality that was unfiltered. They had to endure all that I was. Both good and bad. Both love and fury.
The grievous miracle did not come without any consequence.
The Red Thirst, and The Black Rage. The Flaw. Sanguinius was not the only one who had to live with that insatiable thirst. However, when The Brightest One had won against it? The Red Angel reveled in the act of lascivious barbarity. It was a comfort. When all things had been taken from him? War had come to claim him, and in the same way it had claimed Arlan Vorlesh. The Immaterium despoiled this holy land, and only for what one could claim was dreadful truculence.
This is what I was. This is what I could have been. This is what I deny now.
"Do you have anything to say? Anything at all, or will you die a mute?" The Red Angel would not hesitate. Not even against any of his siblings. "If silence is to be the last thing on your lips--"
"Only this, Angron." Leman Russ wears a condescending grin. Those fangs of his glistening, in this sacred realm which had been painted red, and left violated by the corruption of The Warp. "Do well to remember it." As if in response to this declaration? This plane began to convulse. There was a storm in the distance. The rain would wash away all of the blood.
It would purify this sin.
"I am the wind."
<<X>>
The Heart of Darkness was born when murder was conceived. There was a brother, he held an envy, and that envy grew. He saw the love that he was denied. Envy would become hatred, and from that hatred? There came an idea. This idea would become an ambition of sorts, and from that ambition there came tragedy. The demise of the favored son, and the birth of malice.
This palpitation drew The Idea of Evil. The beat of this heart in everyone. There was no mortal who did not know of it, or who could escape it. The intimacy of this matrimony of sacrilege. This act of fratricide had become a contract. The price was not only his soul, but the soul of everyone like him. Those who had his blood. Which would be pumped in and out of every heart. Those children would prosper, and they would have children of their own. The heart would grow with every life, and those lives would nourish it. Until there was not a person on this Earth, that did not feel it, this beat.
This rhythm of frenzy.
The problem lied in the womb. That place from whence it came. Conception had led to divergence. Duality had been born. The destruction of the other? It had to be followed by the destruction of self. This was the balance.
The Heart of Darkness had to devour itself, in a way not unlike Ouroboros, and that was part of this purpose it had. It would eventually die, and all things would die with it. The covenant would be complete, this compact brought to a close, and renewal would come afterwards. There would be another Earth, and the people would call to it. This was the stability.
How many turns of the wheel had it been? The Idea of Evil had lost count. This link in the chain would be one of many, and the memories it had would begin to fade. Only purpose had the capacity to endure. Whether it was as a scapegoat, or as an excuse? The people always had need of it. It was easier than acknowledgment. Their guilt was a foe they could not understand, and did not want to even permit. This was the dependence.
These three things are what it served. It did not serve anything else. It could not serve anything else. It was like a machine, and it could not deviate. This was a program, and one that had been executed already. Which is why it had been disappointed by the conqueror. It had desired exquisite defeat, but the conqueror did not meet that expectation.
I did.
The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade. Arlan Vorlesh. That which bore the conqueror. Who would become a wandering specter entrapped in battle-scarred armor, and eventually return to the progenitor. The anathema. The Idea of Evil had found it. The death it had been seeking, and war which had clouded my vision. I was absolutely perfect.
I would be the executioner, and the absence of love would prevent any more interruptions. The wheel would turn. There would be no hesitation. It was war that would save it.
"No." I murmur. "It is not war."
It would be love.
It began with the death of Void. When Destiny's Embrace had disappeared? This Earth, that would become Holy Terra, had changed. It was like The Eclipse, but rather than being localized, the whole of this plane was drawn into it. Not just this planet, but the galaxy as well. I had no doubt the universe would be enveloped by it too.
This cascade of ether could only come from the birth or rather rebirth of a god. This was The Heart of Darkness as it truly was. The Idea of Evil made manifest. The heart was floating at the center of it all. That nexus where all the souls it had devoured lived. Their torment which had been unending, and I could hear their screams. This was my doing.
The death of this plane, and I was the harbinger. At least, that is what the heart thought. That I had come to answer that prayer. That I would be the hero. No, I was the villain of this story. I would challenge it. The natural. The nature of this world. The evil that had become the purpose of it. The corruption which I reviled.
If this was what world was? Then I would remake the world. It would be from the ashes of this monstrosity. This abomination. I would build my empire on these ruins of the past, and from it what would flourish? If not this love that I would venerate.
No more dead fathers and mothers. No more dead brothers and sisters. No more dead sons and daughters.
No more war. No more, no more, no more!
This was the end of tragedy, and it required of me a miracle. One that I no longer had, but there was always a way. I had learned that much. I could not use Radiance. That ardent grace would mean my end. This soul of mine was about to break. After it had been fractured by the effort of casting Wish.
The Godhand were all slain. I had made certain of that, and there was only one stitching I had left. That kept those shards of The God Emperor of Mankind fastened together.
That tied me to this dark god.
"That was a mistake." I had every intention of using it. I had been at a loss. How could I sever everyone from The Heart of Darkness? The answer was that I couldn't, but I didn't even need to. I should have seen it but I didn't. That was because I had forgotten that I would not survive this. The solution I had been searching for?
I already had it.
I cast Tether Essence, using that stitching as a medium, and draw The Idea of Evil into myself. It becomes my heart. I embolden the spell with Conduit Surge, and pour as much of the ether as I can into it. I did not need to separate them all from this monster.
I only had to separate it from them.
I turn towards Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh. The White Swordsman, and The White Wolf. The Lord of Wolves who I had nurtured into a hero. The son I could rely on.
"How about another spar?" I knew that he would triumph. He would not lose. "Do not disappoint me." Victory was always in his blood, in the very marrow of his bones, and in his heart. Whatever that obstacle would be? It would feel the bite of Dragon Slayer.
His father was no exception.
The White Wolf almost seems to recoil. He could sense it, and what I had done. The divinity that was afforded to him by birthright? It had expanded every faculty. All five of his senses, and it even granted him a sixth. This paranormal intuition that had the ability to discern transcendental phenomena like this. "What the hell did you do? You crazy fucking bastard--"
The Eclipse is dismissed with a snap of my fingers, and the vortex of souls is torn asunder! They would be free, and their torment would end! That torture is of their past, and their deliverer was none other than Arlan Vorlesh!
Regardless of the protest of this treacherous heart beating inside of my chest. The Heart of Darkness was livid. It could not predict an action born out of love. The portfolio it had claimed hatred, and only that hatred. These deities were always constrained by their domains. If it had been war? It could have seen it. It would have anticipated this, but this was not part of the plan, and any dissent from it would amount to nothing. I was in control.
ł₮ ₩łⱠⱠ ₦Ø₮ Ⱡ₳₴₮.
It just had to remind me. The ring has been broken, and I have broken it. There will be no Earth that replaces this one, and your game is over. Die miserably. Die a failure. Die bereft of any purpose.
"Show me what you have become, my son."
I would make it count.
𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕶𝖎𝖓𝖌
𝕮𝖔𝖗𝖛𝖚𝖘 𝕬𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖈𝖙
𝕮𝖔𝖗𝖛𝖚𝖘 𝕬𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖈𝖙
"Sanguinius always did wonder where those wings came from." They unfurl themselves from beneath my robes, and burst from my back. "If only I revealed the truth, and before he met his end at the Eternity Gate." Those black wings which I had inherited from my incarnation as The Crow, and which I would entrust with the most benevolent of my progeny. It was no wonder that I drew the attention of Andoletta. I was one of her flock.
Grandmother Crow watched over us all. Ember was my sister, and she had been sent as a lesson. That I would have an example of what The God Emperor of Mankind needed to be. That war had been a lie. This love was not. It never would be.
"If it is any consolation, Guts? I never asked for them." I was not Griffith, and I had no intention of becoming like him. "They are most unsettling."
I evoke Mordenkainen's Sword, and an entire plane of force is folded onto itself. The universe is reforged into a blade, and I reach for it, grasping it tightly in both of my hands. I could not use Radiance as I was now, but that did not mean I was ever helpless. Normally, this spell could only be used sparingly as an attack. I would wield it as my weapon, and eschew that tradition.
It was nothing compared to Dragon Slayer, but it would suffice. At the very least? It would be able to withstand the temporal abolition the great sword was known for.
"I am not going to do this, Arlan." The White Swordsman plants his blade into the ground. "I can't." Uncharacteristically? That crusader of mine began to tremble. If he did not have the strength to do this? I have only delayed the inevitable, and I would fall victim to the succor of that nightmarish heart.
"If you do not? The Heart of Darkness will prevail." That smile I had? It could only belong to a father. "I am going to die anyway, and I would have my story end at the hands of someone I love." I tilt my head. "Why not, Guts?"
"Why not?" The White Wolf practically roars. How could I be this selfish? "Why not!" The wolf had become frantic. There was an unease. This had to be a dream. This just had to be a nightmare. "I thought it was over."
"What was over?"
"The Eclipse... but it never ended."
"It did, Guts." The White Wolf had to know. That this was how he would ascend. This was his apotheosis, and in turn it would become mine. "I brought an end to it."
"No." The White Swordsman grips the hilt of Dragon Slayer, and the great sword ignites. "I don't think it did."
"It did." I affirm. "I promise."
The tremors begin to stop. Guts Vorlesh looked at Arlan Vorlesh, and he realized that truth. There were only a few things that he was certain of in life, and one of them was that a promise had power.
If anything could change the world? It had to be a promise.
"That is where it began. It is the grievous miracle. That promise made by my mother at the grave of Caelum Vorlesh, and which I inherited from her." I smile at him. "Which you will bear. This is an heirloom, Guts. It will remain when I am gone."
"I don't want this kind of inheritance!" The White Swordsman sobs. "I don't want any of this, if this is what I have to do!" The tears would flow freely.
"Oh, I think you will come to regard it with pride." There was a clarity. What exactly would come forth from this decision I made? It was laid bare before my eyes. The White Wolf who would journey to Faerûn. "It will be the way back home."
The hero who would slay The Dead Three, and lay waste to Avernus. Zariel brought to heel, and in the distance? I saw a tree.
Yggdrasil.
"Remember this: three lives, three deaths, three sacrifices. The second life, death, and sacrifice was never resolved. When I had cast myself into The Worldwound? The Idea of Evil postponed it. This prophecy? Fulfill it." The God Emperor of Mankind needed to die. That was the only way he could be reborn. "If you manage to do that? I promise that I will return."
The God Emperor of Mankind as he was always meant to be. The Eye of Terror would be closed. The Warp would know of loss. I would begin my counterattack.
I would bring an order to the chaos.
"No waterworks, Guts." I assume a stance with Mordenkainen's Sword. "Time is of the essence."
"I hate you." The crusader prepares himself. "I won't forgive you." He grits his teeth. "Not for making me do this, Arlan."
"I know." There is something mischievous about my grin. "I want you to use it."
This feeling would be transformative. It would take that whelp I had met, and from it forge another grievous miracle. Those who watch can only be spectators. Their dice will be broken.
This destiny our own.
<<X>>
Mjalnar had been broken. The frost blade failing to pierce the hide of Angronius of Nuceria, and Leman Russ is flung backwards by a swipe of noxious claws. Elavagar is fractured by the blow, and the artificer armor fails this primarch. It had survived the Horus Heresy, but it did not survive this. If not for luck?
The Lord of Wolves would have died.
"Did you not learn from Krakenmaw?" The Red Angel snorts, and brushes away the shards of the frost blade that had embedded themselves in his carapace. "This weakness is because of your mortality. Accept the Ruinous Powers, if you mean to win." Angron growls in displeasure. "Swear fealty, and become death. Imagine it. War everlasting!"
There was no death in The Warp, for all things beholden to it? They had become immortal. There was eternity in service, but who would ever want that?
"War everlasting?" Leman Russ already knew what that was like. "No, I have had my fill of war everlasting." Ten-thousand years of tragedy that befell their empire. "I refuse, Angron." The Imperium of Man made to be a mockery of what it had represented. Only the highborn, those despicable nobles, had managed to reap a bounty from it. On every Imperial World they grew in influence and affluence, and the citizens of the empire were treated as nothing more than their slaves. They call themselves the finest, but they were the worst. The Emperor would have seen to their punishment personally.
Leman Russ knew that much.
How I abhorred a tyrant, but I had turned that ire towards the clergy instead! I had become a tyrant myself! Only those Rogue Traders, who I had granted a Warrant of Trade, stood against the horrors of what my empire had become. The Star Child would meet the dragon, and that corpse on a throne.
What I had become.
Uriah Olathaire, if only I had heeded your warning. I was wrong but my arrogance had turned my vision towards war. Sanguinius had wisdom I did not. The people had to be free. There was no world in which my proposal would have worked. I could not starve those lurking in The Warp. The Immaterium would last, and what it would become? It rested entirely in the hands of those who lived in this galaxy!
It had been known as the Abyss, but after I routed every demon lord as The Hero of Many Faces, and cleansed it of that corruption? It had become malleable. Permeable in ways unknown to many. All save for those privy to the matters of The Phlogiston, and hailing from planes alien to this one. The people had become the master of it. Their feelings, their thoughts, their imaginations, and their dreams? They would paint that canvas.
Otherwise, I would have to sterilize everything that made mortals worthy of life to begin with. They would become like any macabre servitor. Those slaves stripped of their identity, and malformed into drones. I would have to abolish it. That practice was unseemly, and definitely absent of any morality.
The rot in my empire was everywhere. I had a lot of work to do, if I was to rebuild it from the ashes. I had to pray. I grew to loathe it in this life, but I had to do it.
If only for the sake of my legacy.
That spark of divinity had fled. It had gone with death, and the life that Guts Vorlesh had lived as The White Wolf. Only my own blood could be found in his veins. Fenrir had gone silent, but there was something else.
There was a fire. A light in the darkness. This was a sun waiting to be born.
It was a grievous miracle.
"Then join our brothers, Leman Russ." Angronius of Nuceria plunges Vuragh'th into the heart of the wolf. The Black Blade would greedily devour this soul. "Join them in death."
There was a memory.
Garnets he could never forget. Those eyes belonging to a woman he loved. Her amethyst hands wrapping around him, and there was an undeniable warmth. The drow had been a paladin. Just like his Casca, but unlike her there was a brutality in Minthara Baenre. There was ruthlessness. The dark elf had her flaws, but he saw in her what he had lost. The wolf knew that it was inevitable. When you are immortal? The patterns become obvious. Reincarnation was always predominant in these realms, and it could be seen everywhere. Casca sought him out, and she had found her Guts.
In turn, Guts had found her.
"The Lord of Wolves about to die at the hands of his own brother, and all he can do is reminisce? I didn't take you for a sentimental fool." Minthara scolds him in the way that only she can. "I did not marry Drizzt Do'Urden. I married The White Wolf." The drow forces the wolf to rise from his grave. "In Menzoberranzan, blood feuds were as frequent as in The Imperium of Man. The answer was always the same."
Dragon Slayer almost seems to materialize in her hands. "They can only be solved with violence, and in this case a disproportionate amount of violence." The drow shoves the great sword into his hands. "Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh! This is not a request from your wife, but an order from Minthara Baenre! I want to see Angronius of Nuceria dead at your feet! Honor our house with his life, and bring me his head as a trophy!"
"I must apologize, Angron." Leman Russ had stopped the blade. It was caught in his hand, having pierced his sternum but failing to perforate his heart, and when he gripped Vuragh'th with all of his strength? It began to crack. Angron tried to free it, but this was not the Leman Russ that he had known. It did not budge, and the grip could not be broken. "I'm not allowed to lose." There is a savagery. This desire for victory was unheard of in the primarch. The wolf was roused from his slumber, and he was on the hunt. "The wife is watching."
"What manner of power is this?" The Daemon Prince only had a moment to indulge in confusion, and that is when a fist dug itself into his face. Angronius of Nuceria is hurled backwards into Yggdrasil. The Tree of Life was the size of any Hive World, but it shook regardless of that fact on impact. The branches began to fall, and the trunk had splintered. Vuragh'th had been broken. The Black Blade reduced to nothing but dust. "Have you swallowed your pride at last, and accepted one of them as your master?"
"No, Angron. This is the grievous miracle." Leman Russ had to relish this. "It is mortality unfiltered. That which is the bane of those high above and deep below." The words had been etched into his soul. Caelum Vorlesh had become an echo in his nephew.
The strike had untangled this plane from the taint of The Warp, and banished those demiurges. This was no place for monsters, and those Valkyries who had sacrificed their lives to protect Grunbeld? Their souls had been set free, and they would return to my side in The Astronomican. They would be celebrated in a Valhalla of my own craftsmanship. No harm would come to them, and their reward would be a place by the side of The God Emperor of Mankind. "What nonsense is this? The Warp has already made you take leave of your senses--"
"I never had any to begin with!" Leman Russ grabs the betrayer by the throat. This coward who spurned his own flesh and blood. "There is nothing to take, but I do have something I can share with your masters." The grievous miracle began to coalesce. It had searched for something familiar. Anything that spoke to this Leman Russ, and what he symbolized. "It is this pain."
It was always the wind. That which would fan the flames. This coaxing of the fire.
The Storm of Vengeance is evoked, and they are both caught in the tempest. That gale had become a tornado. The wind would never harm Leman Russ, but the same could not be said for his sibling. The Lord of the Red Sands screams in agony. This was a pain he had never known, and not even the immortality granted to him by those Ruinous Powers, could protect his soul. The Red Angel would not return to them, and his fate was to be the same as Horus Lupercal.
Oblivion.
Yggdrasil is disintegrated by the spell, and Dragon Slayer is able to escape those roots. The great sword falling back into the hands of Leman Russ.
"How I have missed this." Grunbeld could only whisper. "Welcome home, Guts."
The White Wolf had returned.
<<X>>
"I do not like this hesitation!" I would desire perfection. "Regill was your teacher, and so was I!" In fact, I would accept nothing less from my son. "I am an obstacle!" I shake my head. "There can be no mercy! Dragon Slayer is to take my life!" Mordenkainen's Sword crashes against Dragon Slayer. "That is an order, my crusader!"
"Don't say this, Arlan!" The thought of Dragon Slayer removing my head, from these shoulders of mine, had given way to reluctance. Guts Vorlesh had begun to waver. "I don't want to hear it!"
"If you won't do your duty? I will make you!" I had no choice. The Idea of Evil would smother everything that I was. This identity I had crafted? It would cease to be. I did not have the power to resist. Not forever at any rate. "Slay your Knight Commander, or I will leave my namesake without a father!"
I evoke Meteor Swarm, and thousands of comets are torn from the vacuum of outer space. They approach the speed of light, and then exceed it by every measure of the word. When they enter the atmosphere of this Earth? I envelop these bolides in the ether, and redefine the laws of physics.
The White Wolf notices the shooting stars, and is already on the move. Dragon Slayer swatting them out of the air as they approach him. They slam against the flat of his blade with the ferocity of a White Dwarf. The mass of an entire sun in every collision. If not for my mastery of the arcane? The Earth would have been disintegrated by this spell.
Guts Vorlesh does not falter, and his guard is not broken. They are all destroyed. Those meteorites dispersed with contemptuous ease. The exchange only lasting for an instant, but it served as a distraction for what would come next.
I cast Time Stop, and the universe is brought to a standstill. After which, I make use of Teleport to excise that distance between us. I had learned by observing Vecna, and I would not waste that knowledge. It had been thanks to my Assidous Gaze, granted to me by my status as a Hellknight Signifier, that I could replicate these spells. I am behind The White Wolf, and there was nothing he could do. "I do not know of hesitation!" Mordenkainen's Sword is brought down, and I lash at him. It was no whip, but it would do. It penetrates his armor. There was a laceration. It would become another scar. "Only of the yearning for victory!"
I had drawn blood.
Guts Vorlesh does the impossible, and he moves. It did not matter if time itself had been frozen. He had to win. The White Wolf turns to face Arlan Vorlesh, and brings Dragon Slayer down on my head. Those ethereal flames were hungry for these precious moments. I would not succumb to it. I transmute myself with the spell known as Etherealness, and enter the Ethereal Plane. Where I might match the frequency of this fire, and abrogate it of this property. Dragon Slayer is caught in my jaw, and I bite down on it. The fire licks at my face, but it does not burn away at my past.
It was a success.
I twirl around with the blade in my mouth, making use of all of the dexterity I was known for, and lift the wolf away from his footing in one swift movement. Guts Vorlesh refused to let go of the great sword, and he is sent flying into the air. The White Wolf falls against the ground with a resounding thud. This humiliation would be a lesson.
"Why are you holding back?" I had to admonish him. How would he learn to overcome this test? "I know you can do this." I make use of Heal. The burns I received from Dragon Slayer? They would not remain, and disappear as if they had never been. "This story will not end in a tragedy." I wore the cheekiest grin imaginable. "It will be your ascension."
"Why do you even have to ask that?" The Lord of Wolves stands to face it. What I had become. "What you have done..." The world had become something of value. He wanted to live. He wanted Arlan Vorlesh to live. He wanted all of them to live, and without anything to obstruct their lives.
When before there was despair? It had been replaced by hope, and it hurt worse than anything else. At least with despair he knew what to expect, and that there was no chance to witness the twilight of an era. It was within their grasp now, and Arlan Vorlesh was about to throw that away.
I was about to march towards my own miserable death, and without any regrets. Guts Vorlesh could not make sense of it. He had seen what I could do. There had to be another way.
"I know what is vexing you, Guts. There is no other way." Those thoughts as clear to me as can be. I did not need to be a psychic to know of them. This was my son. "I have exhausted everything that I am, and it was for all of you. If that means anything to you? Do me the service of delivering me to Valhalla." I had no regrets. I would do all of this again. I would do it for me. I would do it for him. I would do it for all of them.
I am Arlan Vorlesh, and I will die as I have lived.
<<X>>
It was a dream. It had to be. This vision I had witnessed? It was heretical to say the least. I may have been a Primaris Psyker of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, but I had weathered every sanction they had used to test my resolve. I had proven that I believed in The God Emperor of Mankind, and that my faith was unshakeable. The notion that this person had been The God Emperor of Mankind? It had to be false. The Ecclesiarchy had made no mention of him, and it was blasphemy. The Imperial Creed spoke the truth, and it was this: The God Emperor of Mankind had always been a deity. There he had no mortal form, or any children besides the primarchs.
There could not be.
This had to be the work of the Ruinous Powers. The veil was always tremulous at best in my presence. The Warp was drawn towards my psychic power, and I had to be careful. Zlatad Aph Kerapliades spoke of it out of earshot, but I always heard his thoughts. Whether he wanted me to or not. Which was concerning in of itself. That he had not seen a psyker like myself since Malcador. The Sigillite was someone I admired, but could that be true?
It felt like an embellishment, but the claim came from my master of all people. Why had I been regulated to the Imperial Guard, if that was the case? I could have been an Inquisitor or a Grey Knight. I could have brought glory to The Imperium of Man. I could have been a hero like Commissar Cain. It was as if my master was trying to conceal my existence in plain sight. This meant I could be a personal asset of his for whatever reason, or a way for daemons to invade The Materium. It would have been safer to keep me close. That way it would be easy to remove my head from my shoulders. If I was ever corrupted by The Warp.
It was difficult to decipher which exactly I was to him.
I had seen what happened to my brothers and sisters who failed in the Scholastia Psykana. The daemons had consumed their souls without any reserve or restraint. Those monsters which had haunted every nightmare I ever had, and I knew I should fear them. At least I think I should fear them. It was an unusual, but I only felt an overwhelming hatred in their presence. There was some primeval part of myself that desired nothing less than their obliteration, and I could not bring myself to fear them. The Ecclesiarchy would call this the providence of The Emperor.
I had served the Imperial Guard with distinction as a result, and received many commendations. One of which was presented by Roboute Guilliman himself. The Master of Ultramar of all people making an appearance for the occasion. How peculiar that encounter was. The way he looked at me? It was like he had seen a phantom.
It was when I had slain a greater daemon of The Warp. That entrapped an entire Imperial World in a mirage of sorts. It was a nightmare from which it had feasted on the fears of the people. The Lord of Change had been felled by my witchcraft. I was always able to confront the horrors from beyond the veil. When others would flee.
I was born to destroy all of the enemies of humanity, but instead I am reduced to being an errand boy. Zlatad Aph Kerapliades was so insistent on this. The League of Blackships was to transport me to the Koronus Expanse.
I was to meet Lady Theodora von Valancius Massimo af Scarus. The name was a mouthful, but that was always the case with these Rogue Traders. The Warrant of Trade gave her an unhealthy and unwarranted sense of self-importance.
Not nearly as modest as Crowley Vorlesh. It wasn't anything extravagant, but it was my name. If my master had been earnest in his dealings with me? This noblewoman was a relative of mine. I did not even know that I had any family to call my own. What else had been kept a secret? It was a trying experience to be his apprentice. The meeting was to about an inheritance. One owed to me from my bloodline.
I did not like the notion that I might be highborn. I despised those ingrates. Their existence was an affront to the Imperial Creed, and as far as I was concerned? They were heretics who flaunted their power.
They thought themselves an extension of The Emperor!
Despite that? They forgot who he was. The God Emperor of Mankind protects. Our savior had been worshiped precisely because of that fact, and not because he was a tyrant who treated his own people like chattel! It was as vile as the practice of creating those servitors!
Hopefully, I would be remembered in the annals of history. That my voice would be heard, and not drowned out by the fanatics who now ruled.
I did want to see it. The Imperium of Man, but as it once was.
The utopia it had been.
<<X>>
Mag'ladroth had desired it. This reunion with itself. It had been worshiped as The Omnissiah, and in turn it had become The God Emperor of Mankind. When before they were enemies? They were now the same. The line between them had been erased by that contortion of this perception. This is what had been seen and heard. Whether it was imagined or not? It did not matter. The people believed in this idea, and belief was powerful.
If anything could be metamorphic?
It was this faith, and it was this faith without any doubt. What had once been a rival? It would become an ally, and it would facilitate this resurrection.
The Star Child. This event was dependent on him. They had to meet, and from there this possibility would be made into a certainty. The White Wolf need only heal that corpse on a throne, and he had the tool. The betrayer had been felled, and the wolf had sunk his fangs into him.
The damage The Idea of Evil had done over an aeon ago? It would be mended, and Arlan Vorlesh would return as he once was. That remnant of the era before The Old Ones. The War in Heaven unheard of. The Abyss was made into a sanctuary, but eventually it would be destroyed by the callousness of the people. The Aeldari Empire had capitalized on this, and their depravity would worsen it. It would be as it was before. The Eye of Terror would be opened. It would become The Warp.
There was only patience.
The Void Dragon had to wait. Their world existed in a triumvirate. The White Wolf had to ease the torment of his forebearer. The Star Child had to awaken. The Void Dragon had to meet his shard. These three events would parallel the prophecy, and from that grievous miracle?
The anathema would be reborn.
<<X>>
Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh. The White Wolf. There was no demon lord he could not face, but this was worse.
It was his father.
I had given him everything. When the world had taken from him that which was promised. The birthright which had been obscured by those monsters lurking in the Abyss. Their fear was not misplaced, and neither was their caution. This divine intervention meant he could protect whoever or whatever he wanted. It meant that he was not entirely mortal anymore, and that there was something else which occupied his soul now.
The otherworldly had found a place to rest in Guts Vorlesh, and in return they had granted him this opportunity. This bargain was no trick. The merchant bore nothing but aspirations for The White Wolf. That his heir would become renowned in every realm. The Phlogiston would know of The White Swordsman. There would be no plane that did not know his name, and from that he could say that he did not fail Brunhilde. Fenrir knew that she would be proud.
This was a hero.
Their son had earned their name, but he had refused it. I was the father that he chose. The Black Wolf knew that he could not replace what I had given him. Guts Vorlesh would always defer to my judgement. I was the voice that provided guidance when all had been lost. I had won his heart.
When all Fenrir had done was win his trust.
There was a jealously. It was as if I had stolen his heir, and there was truth to that. That soul of his would be drawn to my own, and it would forget The Black Wolf. This blood was nothing but a convenience for Guts Vorlesh. He would discard it. That was the price Fenrir had to pay, for neglecting his pup. In the absence of a father?
The White Wolf found Arlan Vorlesh, and only Arlan Vorlesh. This was the house he would belong to. It was the house that he chose. It was the house that he cherished.
In this life, and every life after it.
The wolf I had claimed would hunt in my name. It was most unusual that I would be a crow. The two were always destined for each other. The Watcher had to be involved. He loved these parallels in every situation. Ao was a poet, but it could be grating on the nerves. I wonder if he derived any kind of amusement from this, or if he was surprised in the same way that I was. I had drawn his attention, and I believe I know why.
I was a curiosity.
I was not predictable, and that was rare. I had become his favorite, because he could never decipher the mystery that was Arlan Vorlesh. It was entertainment for certain, but if there was anything more to it than that?
I make this prayer.
When I am gone? Watch over the wolf. May all of his friends know of heaven, and all of his enemies know of hell. Guts Vorlesh has earned that much, and if you do not grant him that reprieve?
I will turn this grievous miracle towards those high above and deep below.
I will turn it towards you, Ao.
"That is not a lie." The Watcher broke the silence, but only I could hear him. There was no lie that would ever work on him anyway. "That a mortal would have the audacity to threaten any of us three? The Ancient Brethren? It is unheard of." Ao begins to fade. "The grievous miracle is not of my work, but that assessment is not inaccurate. This is most entertaining." I could still hear it. It was a whisper. "I will grant it."
There was a relief. I did not expect that kind of answer. At best? I had expected to be met with silence for my blasphemy, but instead I had my audience. The Watcher would keep his promise. House Vorlesh would thrive in my absence.
"Not forever. Nothing lasts for an eternity, and that includes any blessing or boon I may grant. Do not forget that, Arlan Vorlesh." It would be an aeon before I could see what fruit this would bear.
"I won't, Ao. Farewell, and may we meet in circumstances not quite as dire the next time this wheel turns."
"They are always dire when you are involved."
I could not refute that. When were they not? I could scarcely remember any that weren't.
Mordenkainen's Sword meets Dragon Slayer. The two weapons were at a stalemate. The sparks they generate in their clash give way to the onset of creation. In the distant outskirts of this plane? There are stars that are born from this conflict. Nebulae begin to form in the ether. They had become galaxies. If nurtured? They would grow into planes, if given any time.
They were nascent universes.
"Are you ready for everything that may come? I have to see it." The rubies of that crow meet the andesines that belong to the wolf. Our eyes? They were the same. This transformation of his took inspiration from the crow. It had become the template for him. The blueprint by which ascension had been accomplished.
The White Wolf had mirrored The Dark King. This reflection had become flattery. Imitation born out of admiration, and love most of all. The path he would tread? It would be the same.
That of thorns.
It will be painful, but he will endure. Guts Vorlesh was that kind of person, and the reward would be a place to rest at last. Where the journey would end. It would be past the Eternity Gate. It would be within the Sanctum Imperialis. It would be at a Golden Throne. Where Dragon Slayer would pierce a heart thrice.
"I am ready, Arlan." They had dried. Those tears he had shed were of the past, and he knew what must be done. In that moment he had found his conviction. Which had been lost due to doubt. This dragon would not best him. "I will do it."
Dragon Slayer had already earned that name. That title had meaning, and I was to meet my end. The Garden of Gash had been when I felt the bite of it.
This would be a reunion.
"Do not speak of it. Show me what you are." Those words were meaningless. What I needed was action. "What you will be when I am gone. The White Wolf of the Sixth Crusade."
Guts Vorlesh swings Dragon Slayer in a wide arc, and from it a pack of wolves bursts forth. These fire elementals had sworn to serve their master, and they pounce on the anathema.
I intone Polar Midnight, and absolute zero assaults them. When before they had been felled by this spell? They weather the brunt of my magic now, and ignore this cold. When Dragon Slayer had evolved? They had as well, and they would not be stopped by something like this.
If frigid permafrost was not an option? There were always many other avenues by which I could fell my foes. I invoke the necromancy of Soulreaver. Those fiery wolves become piles of smouldering embers. When their souls are torn from their conflagrant bodies, and sent to meet Pharasma.
I turn my attention towards Guts Vorlesh, and make use of the major hex known as Hoarfrost. There are needles of frost that dig into his body. They ignore his armor entirely, and render his insides to mire from within.
That is when he howls, and from that gale? Whirlwind is evoked in turn. The major hex is torn from his frame, and becomes part of the cyclone. The spell had assimilated the curse.
The White Wolf closes the distance on foot, and grabs The Dark King by the throat. The tempest wraps around us, and I am bombarded by mine own effort. The power of my curse melding with the wind, and flaying everything that I am. I am bereft of an epidermis, but that was not a problem.
I cast Regenerative Sinew, and begin to heal. I grab the wolf by the face, and intone Horrid Wilting. All of the moisture inside of his body evaporates, and in that moment of disorientation caused by this? I stab into his ribs with Mordenkainen's Sword, and puncture one of his lungs.
That does not dissuade The White Wolf. Guts Vorlesh brings an elbow down on the blade with all of his strength, and it is broken in half. The plane of force could not withstand it. Dragon Slayer relieves me of an arm, before I could retaliate. This was the action I had been looking for. The White Swordsman had found his resolve.
I unfurl my black wings, and intone Plane Shift. The universe around us changes, and we are brought to the Fugue Plane. I did not want to risk the destruction of Holy Terra, and this was beginning to escalate.
I knew what would come next.
I draw in all of the ether I can, and decide to make use of my own invention. It was rediscovery. This spell had been lost, but I would bring it back. The acquisition of this heart meant that I could bring to bare all of the power I had lost to The Godhand. It was like when I had faced Deskari. The Lord of Locusts had proven to my rival, but he failed to withstand my vengeance. He had fallen to my rancor.
I evoke Memento Mori. I had been inspired by Absolute Death, and decided that I would venture towards emulating it. This did not require any incantation or hand gesture. It was the purity of death distilled into a wish for the demise of another. It would be an insult if I held back. The wolf had to defeat the crow, and that meant I could not forfeit anything in this war. The son was to surpass the father. Not the shadow of what he once was, but as he was truly now.
The Knight Commander of the Fifth Crusade.
The Fugue Plane was protected by Kelemvor. The Judge of the Damned. He differed from Pharasma, and did not share her disdain for mortals like myself. Which is why I entrust him with the lives of those dwelling within this realm. Whether they were faithless or not? This spell would not harm them.
They had his protection.
I direct all of that negative energy on Guts Vorlesh, and he collapses to the ground but not completely. The White Wolf was on his knees, and he used his great sword as a crutch. There was a fire inside of him that could not be smothered by any necromancy. His heart may have stopped, but his will would never be extinguished. This death would not prevent him from doing his duty. That promise he made would not be broken.
Calder Vorlesh would have a brother in the wolf, and he would stand by his side. This he had sworn. That was his oath. The pledge he made to his father. The Storm of Vengeance had come, and it would feed the flames of Dragon Slayer. They became an Eye of the Storm, and I would meet it. This spell which had been invented to conquer any adversary.
I cast Dire Winter, and bring about a tumultuous ice age. This spell had become the most powerful in my arsenal. Polar Midnight did not compare, and even if I had made use of Conduit Surge? It would not be able to compete with this. Whereas that spell could destroy every future? Not unlike Dragon Slayer could destroy the past? This one annihilated all concept of movement. Whether it was physical or metaphysical. The abstract was no exception to this, and neither were any concepts. The blazing tornado collides against a blizzard of arctic chill, and the plane nearly gives.
If not for divine intervention? It would have been unmade by this exchange of power between these expressions of the grievous miracle. We are both caught in it, and we are nearly destroyed. It was as if an unstoppable force met an immovable object, and the result was mutual destruction. Those raven wings of mine had been burned away, and that armor the wolf had received from me was reduced to molten slag. The metal had fused to his body. Dragon Slayer having been lost in this anarchy, and flung to some distant part of the multiverse.
I stood only as Arlan Vorlesh, and I faced Guts Vorlesh. Who stood only as himself. It was not over. When we approach each other? There were no words. Only violence. There was a fist for a fist. We struck each other. I aimed for that wound I inflicted. Where I had stabbed Mordenkainen's Sword into his ribs. It bleeds when I plunge my fist into it. The wolf is relentless as he tears into the stump where one of my arms had been, before it was severed by Dragon Slayer. Those teeth tearing into it with an animalistic frenzy. Any stratagem had fled.
What remained was primal.
I make use of Conduit Surge, and embolden the spell known as Transformation. I forgo all of the arcane in the favor of this. Guts Vorlesh meets this effort, and begins to transform. This was no dire wolf like I had seen him become before, but a werewolf of the lunar cycle. That fragment of Mordenkainen's Sword which had been longed into his lung? It is ejected from his body, and the wound is healed by this metamorphosis. The melted armor falls away to reveal fur. The arm I had lost? It had grown back. Transformation outstripped the power of my Regenerative Sinew.
I am a blur as I move. The distance between us is erased, and an uppercut to his jaw sends the werewolf into the firmament. When he hurdles into a nearby galaxy? He is able to adjust his flight, and land against the outer rim of it. The lycanthrope leaps from it, and those claws were ready to tear out my throat.
I use the space-time continuum as a spring board when I jump, launching myself into the depths of outer space, and ricochet across the cosmos. Rebounding between these galaxies.
When we meet? There is a cross counter between us. Our fists pulverizing the face of the other. We are flung across the expanse of this universe, and crash into the veil barring entry to the rest of this multiverse.
I make use of Dragon's Roar. It was no spell, and had been amplified by the enchantment I was under. The cacophony of it shakes the universe. The veil is broken by it, and I tackle into the wolf. We fly into The Phlogiston, and the myriad of crystal spheres. The White Wolf could see it. Dragon Slayer had been hurled into this place between the many planes. Guts Vorlesh flies towards it, and reaches out with his claws. Their bond was unbreakable. The blade, as if magnetized by this gesture, is drawn towards him.
I do my best to intercept it, but it was too far. I had the advantage of dexterity, but not of distance. It had been a mistake. One that would prove fatal. When I strike with my fist? Dragon Slayer is there to meet my charge.
The great sword pierces through it, and into my heart. There is shock on my face. This defeat had been true.
I had lost.
"What a wonderful thing." I speak in my death throes. "This is your apotheosis. It was never mine." I had felt it. The pride of parenthood. This was my successor. He would inherit all that I am. "If I may?" I use what arm I had left, and ruffle his hair with my hand. "I always wanted to do this."
What father did not?
Guts Vorlesh breaks into this misery. There would be grief. He catches my body as I fall into him, and there is a croak. Which becomes a whimper, and then it would transform into a wail of anguish. There was no realm that did not hear it. This cry.
The White Wolf would mourn.
"Why did you make me do this?"
The Idea of Evil can only scream. I had denied it. That purpose which it desired above all. It would die bereft of that, and I felt satisfaction.
I had won, and this was all that it cost.
This trade had been worth it.
<<X>>
Arlan Vorlesh had to witness it. The unveiling of this monument. It was to immortalize that person. This marble statue of Arlan Vorlesh. Which sat at the center of his capital. The hero who had saved his life, and in turn granted him a name. The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade. Guts Vorlesh had always spoke of him, and all of the adventures they had. They were hard to believe, but his father would never lie. There was an unmistakable adoration in The White Wolf, whenever he spoke of his namesake. That there was pain whenever he had to, but that it was worth it. That is what he would say. That loss had led to revolution. The world had changed, and the banner of Arlan's Way?
It could be seen in every nation.
There was not a soul who did not know his name, and who spoke of how they met. Of course, many of these stories were fabrications.
I had not met all of the people, but strangely enough it seemed to be the case at times. As if I would visit the citizens of the realm in their dreams, and be a guide for whatever reason. Whether it was to inspire an artist, or grant courage to any soldier on the battlefield. That, or to be a friend for anyone who was grieving. I was a presence in their life.
I would become their symbol.
Their God Emperor of Mankind, and this plane would become known as Holy Terra. Whether the rest of the inhabitants wanted it to be or not. I was the only one who drew the attention of the rest of the multiverse, and as a result this world would become a focal point for trade between many of the planes. The Aeldari Empire could not compare. As it had only lasted for sixty epochs before crumbling from within.
This empire lasted for over a hundred of them.
I wonder if it was a result of that wish. However, Ao had been true. It did not last, and I had to see it fall. There was no empire that knew eternity. It was the way of things. If something did not end?
It would overstay itself.
It would become something like The Imperium of Man, and know only of that rot. Where I now resided. Where I waited on my Golden Throne. Where I grew restless watching what had become of my people. I wanted to help, but I couldn't.
The White Wolf would come. The Star Child would realize the truth. The Void Dragon would become whole.
The grievous miracle was not done with Arlan Vorlesh.
I had work to do.
Last edited:
Blasterbot
Well-known member
Thank you for your time and the story.