Chapter 15 Tzeentch

Once again, Stan opened his eyes and looked around in surprise. He had grown accustomed to expecting to see the Shadow of the Emperor, but instead, he was met with an ugly, greenish-gray wasteland so vast that its edges blended into the pale, unpleasant-looking sky.

Right in front of Stan, someone sat with their head drooped, and even in a seated position, this someone was taller than Stanislav standing up. The figure was obscured by incredibly long, disheveled hair, making it difficult to discern who exactly was sitting there.

"Ahem," Stan politely cleared his throat, causing the woman to jerk her head up sharply, revealing her exhausted and weary face.

"An Eldar," Stan thought to himself. "Or an Eldar woman? Which is correct?"

"A human?!" The eyes of the goddess of life and healing, captured by Nurgle, darted around her own inner world—the only place where she could somewhat hide from the horrors surrounding her. "No! How could a human be here?!"

"What do you want now, Nurgle?" Isha barked, rising to her full height and towering over the surprisingly small human. "I won't allow you to stay here!"

"She's quite tall…" Stan involuntarily lost his train of thought as he gazed at the three-and-a-half-meter-tall, completely naked Eldar. Despite her signs of exhaustion and the subtle but noticeable differences in her physiology, she was undeniably captivating.

Stan strained his memory, trying to recall anyone similar. Even the tallest Eldar were noticeably shorter. He also didn't see any spikes, BDSM gear, or screaming victims, so she clearly wasn't a Dark Eldar or the Bitch Goddess.

Something flickered in Stan's memory, and he began to examine the stranger more closely.

"Could she be…"

Though Isha was captive, she was still a goddess with her own small following. Any attempt by Nurgle to breach her sanctuary was doomed to fail. Her power was literally designed to counteract disease and decay. Had she been at full strength, Nurgle would have been in serious trouble.

Now, he could destroy her but not fully subjugate her.

Isha tensed, wishing to expel yet another demon from her mind, but…

Nothing happened. Her power passed through the man standing before her as if he weren't there and continued onward.

Even if he had been a phantom, she should have dispelled him. Yet, reality was stubborn. The little man stood there, shamelessly staring at her!

One thing was certain: this was not one of Nurgle's usual demons or even Nurgle himself. Over the countless millennia, she had memorized the "scent" of his power.

"Who are you?" she snapped, her expression growing even more serious.

"Stan, a human," the stranger replied indifferently, then sat down on the floor under the goddess's stunned gaze. "And what's your name?"

"Didn't the one who sent you tell you?" the goddess asked suspiciously.

"No one sent me."

"Then how did you get here? I'm a prisoner of the God of Decay. No one can enter without his knowledge!"

"But I'm here, aren't I?"

Isha frowned and tried to scan the intruder again. This time, she managed to sense something.

No, it was still elusive, something she couldn't quite grasp, but there were differences. She finally recognized where she had felt this before.

"It was you!" The goddess's face instantly changed, her anger replaced by genuine joy.

It took her only a couple of steps to close the distance between them. Stan barely had time to widen his eyes and let out a strange, choked sound—something between a hiss and a squeak—before he was crushed in a bone-shattering embrace and pressed against her massive chest.

His legs flailed comically as he tried to free his head from the mountain of soft flesh to say something and, at the same time, breathe—though for obvious reasons, he wasn't eager to do so.

Finally, the goddess set the oxygen-deprived Stan back on the ground as her burst of joy subsided.

"You could, uh, put some clothes on," he muttered, trying to look her in the face, which was, frankly, difficult.

"Oh, the shyness of young races," Isha shook her head with a smile, causing Stan to frown involuntarily.

"Considering it was you Eldar who created the Bitch Goddess, I wouldn't be so quick to judge," Stan said, instantly regretting his words as he saw Isha's face fall, her good mood vanishing.

"Sorry," Stan mumbled, feeling awkward. "I shouldn't have said that."

"No, you're right," the goddess sighed, and with a green flash, a complex fabric outfit appeared on her. "We were the architects of our own downfall."

"Come on," Stan tried to cheer up the giantess, though his tone was uncertain. "Now you have someone to talk to, even if the company's not great." He finished self-deprecatingly. "Lately, I've been in high demand."

"So, who are you?" Isha asked again, her curiosity piqued as she examined the man. "I can't fathom how you got here. And what's with the power inside and around you?"

"If only I knew!" Stan threw up his hands. "By the way, can you make us some chairs? And no one will interrupt us here?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a bone chair appeared before him, and he promptly sat down.

"No," Isha also sat down on her own chair. "The Great Unclean One is suddenly preoccupied. From what I've heard, Tzeentch sensed some vague threat and is gathering forces near his domain in the Warp. The other Dark Gods, unsure of what to expect from the main schemer, are also amassing their armies."

"He's too busy for you," Stan nodded understandingly. "All the better, because I'm getting tired of talking to the golden fanatic."

"The golden…" Isha's eyes flashed with understanding. "You've spoken to the Emperor?"

"You know him?" Stan recalled. "Weren't you captured before he became active?"

"I'm still a goddess of the Eldar," Isha said with a hint of pride. "I see the fates of the world, and the Unclean One loves to talk while brewing his cursed concoctions. So, I've been keeping an eye on this man. Though whether he can even be called a man is a big question…"

The last part was clearly said with intent, judging by the goddess's attentive gaze, as if she was waiting for some reaction. But Stan wasn't going to make it easy for her.

"Alright," Isha sighed in mock defeat. "I have a small request."

"I'm listening," Stan nodded without much interest.

"The next time you speak to the Teacher, tell him that if he helps me, I'm willing to join his side and offer him my full support." The intensity with which Isha delivered this made it clear that she was staking a lot on this decision.

"The Teacher?"

"He used to love hiding in the shadows, using only his 'students' as proxies. But the War changed him. None of us are what we used to be."

"Alright, I'll pass it on," Stan agreed, curious about how the Shadow would react to the proposal.

"Good," the goddess took a deep breath, and some of the softness she had shown earlier returned. "Now, I'd love to hear about your adventures. Good stories are rare in my cage."

*****

When Stan woke up, he immediately knew that this jump was the last. Their journey was over, and they had finally reached Holy Terra, the cradle of humanity and the place from which mankind had begun its devastating march across the galaxy.

Ordyntsev sighed in annoyance and stretched with a crack. The only good thing about this whole mess was that he would finally leave this stupid cell—only to be thrown into another one.

Soon, the guards arrived. They shackled his hands, surrounded him, and led him through the endless corridors of the ship until they reached the hangar where the shuttles were waiting.

Everything had been prepared in advance. Stan wasn't given much time to look around, but even so, it was clear that the entire ship had been reserved just for him.

Inside, to Stan's deep disappointment, there were no windows, so he couldn't admire Terra from afar.

However, though he couldn't see Earth from a distance, he did get a detailed look at the headquarters of the Lord Inquisitor.

Strangely, there was no pomp, no ostentatious wealth, or anything else the Imperium was known for. Instead, it was an incredibly tall, black rectangular building of monstrous proportions, making the surrounding structures look like pathetic dwarves.

From this black parallelepiped, gray protrusions jutted out like pimples, emphasizing the twisted sense of humor of its creator.

The only standout feature was the massive symbol of the Ordo Malleus on the front wall, as this was the Ordo to which the Lord Inquisitor belonged.

The Ordo Malleus specialized in eliminating daemonic threats and studying their nature. Given how dangerous daemons were, serving in this Ordo was incredibly perilous but equally necessary.

The landing pad was some distance from the building, connected by a railway.

As it turned out, Stan's "compartment" was a separate carriage in the train, specially reinforced to contain the most dangerous prisoners, such as high-level psykers and other sources of trouble.

Unfortunately for Stan, the security measures of the Inquisitor's residence were extensive. His body was encased in an impenetrable iron sarcophagus, leaving him unable to move. The air pumped inside contained a sedative, so Stan was lucky—he slept through the entire wait.

Then his sarcophagus was loaded onto the train and finally taken to the giant black building.

Stan couldn't see it, but as soon as the train entered the building, it slowed down to avoid being mistaken for a threat by the dozens of combat turrets.

And that was just the beginning of the surprises awaiting anyone who dared to invade via the railway.

Hidden niches filled with heavily armed servitors, concealed minefields, descending bulkheads, and vats of corrosive acid, flamethrower and energy turrets, chains of small churches near the walls to neutralize daemonic auras—these were just a small part of the surprises waiting for intruders.

In the nightmare world of eternal war, if there were people prepared to face the horrors the galaxy could throw at them, it was the Inquisitors. A profession that chose to stare into the eyes of the most terrifying things in their world without flinching.

Stan's sarcophagus was delivered to the prison block and taken to the twentieth underground level out of twenty-five, corresponding to very serious threats but not yet absolutely critical.

The Inquisition observers found no sorcerous connection to the Warp in the man, but due to his impressive and strange achievements, they decided to assign him such a high threat level.

After all, starting from the twenty-first level, the prisoners were partially or fully energy-based beings, ranging from psykers to daemonhosts, the mere knowledge of which would result in immediate death for any "witness."

*****

The black obelisk, which once stood on a godforsaken asteroid, now hurtled through the currents of the Warp, destroying everything in its path.

Accelerated by the pull of a black hole, this "Warp destroyer" disintegrated any energy entity that came within hundreds of meters of it.

Where the obelisk encountered islands of materiality, accidentally thrown into the Warp, it tore through them with the same ease, suffering no damage. Created by the C'tan to combat the Warp, the pylons were among the hardest materials in the galaxy.

This was no surprise. The C'tan's plan involved placing pylons throughout the cosmos, on every significant piece of land.

*****

The Architect of Fate obsessively flipped through another energy tome. Around his glowing, multicolored blue figure, thousands of other books floated, which he also flipped through while reading.

Tzeentch's skin teemed with constantly shifting faces, sneering or mocking anyone who looked at them. These fleeting faces were transient, but Tzeentch's wrinkled visage rested on his chest, making his head and body one. Each of these faces was now intently reading, devising new ideas, and implementing them.

Above Tzeentch's burning eyes stretched two horns, their spiral tips crackling with sorcerous fire. The celestial firmament around Tzeentch was saturated with magic, swirling like flowing smoke, forming intricate, interwoven patterns around his head.

Not long ago, Tzeentch had finally returned to what had distracted him earlier—a certain anomaly in reality, so insignificant that Khorne's invasion had thrown him off.

But as it turned out, this was something of extreme importance!

Tzeentch furiously tossed aside another tome, which burst into violet flames, screaming with thousands of male and female voices.

It was all on the surface! How could he have missed it?

His entire plan was on the verge of collapsing from what seemed like such a minor and insignificant influence that Tzeentch might have even admired his opponent's skill—if it weren't directed against him.

He couldn't allow this. Everything had to go according to plan, and now he was so close to finding that cursed gnat causing so much trouble. It was the root and source of the influence spreading across the galaxy.

And he was almost there!

*****

The black pylon had no mind or emotions, but if it did, it would have been horrified.

Before it stretched thousands of kilometers of steel and stone—a giant cosmic wanderer, somehow thrown into the Warp.

The wanderer was covered in shuddering daemonic flesh and countless purple daemons of Tzeentch, crawling all over it. They grinned and jumped around, mocking things only they understood.

It seemed nothing could overcome such a massive and impregnable wanderer. Any object that struck it would be reduced to dust.

But the pylon didn't care.

The black stele, hurtling at unimaginable speed, pierced the steel and immediately disappeared inside.

*****

"There it is! There it is!" Tzeentch's sinister mind rejoiced as he finally grasped the thread. "So, so, so… Hive Ixodus, a strange incident, the death of a sorcerer, and the appearance of… a Saint. There's the anomaly!"

The Architect of Fate rubbed his dozens of hands together gleefully, his hundreds of faces smacking their lips in anticipation of revenge. This had been an interesting challenge, but now the game was over.

Whoever had tried to hide their pawn from him, he had found it and would now destroy it.

Yes, the Saint had escaped somewhere, but for an entity of Tzeentch's level, finding someone he now knew about was simple.

"Terra, then…" The Warp itself shuddered at the force of Tzeentch's words. "That's where the anomaly is hiding…"

*****

The black obelisk, with a flash of plasma, pierced the last obstacle and, spinning, flew out the other side of the cosmic wanderer.

But this path came at a cost to the poor pylon.

The cosmic wanderer was an incredibly ancient thing, having witnessed the Necrontyr civilization and the Old Ones. It had absorbed both a Necron tomb ship and an Old Ones' seed ship. Here, ships of the Human Federation and an Iron Men's space worm were locked in eternal struggle. This wanderer was a true monument to eternal war.

And, logically, it was incredibly durable. Though the Necron pylon had managed to break through, it had lost all its speed and was now chipped and cracked.

It seemed its journey was finally over. Though it still destroyed the Warp around it, it could no longer move.

However, fate still had plans for one small, very determined pylon.

As it flew through the wanderer, the obelisk inadvertently pierced four still-functioning reactors from the ships of the Old Ones, the Federation, the Necrons, and the Iron Men. For a brief moment, they aligned in a single line through which the pylon passed.

One energy explosion the wanderer might have survived, but four?

The force of the detonation was so great that it attracted the attention of countless daemons of Chaos. Even the three Chaos Gods turned their burning gazes toward Tzeentch's territory, wondering what the schemer was up to now.

The only one who didn't was the Architect of Fate. All his power was concentrated on solving the most complex puzzle of his life—an anomaly so strange that even he didn't know what it was.

The force of the explosion caught the cracking pylon and propelled it forward with new, unimaginable power, tearing through any obstacle, including the barriers of Tzeentch's personal realm, conveniently located near the ancient wanderer.

Like a black needle, the obelisk pierced one defense after another, so swiftly it seemed to happen in an instant. Most importantly, its Warp-destroying effect also destroyed the "alarm system" that would have alerted its master to the intrusion.

*****

Tzeentch contentedly began gathering his power to crush the anomaly in one blow.

Yes, it was on Terra, the heart of the Golden Deceiver's power. But the Emperor was nearly dead and powerless. Even if he wanted to or knew about the attack, he wouldn't be able to protect a single human.

The power Tzeentch had gathered would, under normal circumstances, be enough to destroy an entire planet, if not a system.

An unimaginable expenditure, but the Architect was willing to sacrifice it all to ensure the continuation of the Plan.

In his quest to deliver a guaranteed strike, he had gathered so much power that he had even sacrificed some of his personal defenses and shields.

No one in the entire universe could have taken advantage of the fleeting gap that had appeared in his defenses. First, it was an infinitesimally small window of time, and second, Tzeentch's all-seeing gaze noticed everything touched by the Warp.

But the pylon, as a creation of the C'tan, had no connection to the Warp.

As Tzeentch was about to unleash his strike on Terra, he didn't see the floor beneath him crack, releasing the battered, crumbling, but still sharp black spire.

Engrossed in his ritual, the Architect of Fate could have reacted at any other moment—but not this one.

The obelisk, shooting up from below, acted as a perfect stake, impaling the Dark God from his rear to his crown, tearing through his essence.

For a moment, the world seemed to freeze.

And then…

Tzeentch died…

AND THE WARP FINALLY WENT MAD.

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Heh. Praise the Imperium.