Chapter 19: Clash of the Ruinous Spawn

Chapter 19: Clash of the Ruinous Spawn

The air was thick with the scent of blood and burning flesh, the screams of the dying punctuated by the relentless roar of gunfire. Two factions clashed in a brutal contest of attrition, neither side gaining the upper hand, yet both steadily losing warriors to the slaughter. But amidst the chaos, two towering figures stood apart, their battle far more significant than the carnage around them.

Darot and Pete. Two abominations, two champions of the Ruinous Powers, stared each other down with unbridled malice. One bore a smirk of arrogant amusement, the other glared with seething hatred, as if gazing upon an insect that desperately needed to be crushed.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Darot sneered, his voice dripping with mockery. The daemon-host's elongated form was clad in glistening purple scales, his presence shrouded in an eerie, pink-hued aura. "How delightful to see one of Grandfather Nurgle's wretched spawn crawling about on this little rock."

Pete scoffed, his diseased form heaving as his mouth remained still—his words instead slithering forth as a guttural psychic resonance.

"Silence, degenerate," his voice oozed contempt. "Me know why you here. You seek the star... but me will find it first. For Father."

With a sickening click, Pete raised his bio-cannon, the grotesque growth on his arm pulsating with unholy energy. He aimed directly at Darot, his single-minded wrath emanating like a palpable force.

Darot chuckled, unfazed. "Tsk, tsk, tsk… Such anger. You wound me, dear. But I understand—after all, it hasn't been long since you were *gifted* that wretched host. Unlike you, however, I wear a *fresh* corpse."

With a slow, theatrical movement, Darot dragged his clawed fingers across his own bare chest, reveling in his own form. Then, he lifted his wickedly curved arm-blade, pointing it toward Pete with an air of superiority.

"And that, my dear, makes me *stronger* than you."

The words were enough to send Pete into a frenzy.

"**DIE!**" he roared, his rage boiling over as he fired his bio-cannon. Fleshy, tumor-ridden projectiles, each swollen with virulent plagues unknown to mankind, screamed through the air toward Darot.

But the daemon-host was fast. Too fast. His form blurred as he danced around the incoming shots, his twin weapons at the ready—a jagged flesh-sword in one hand, an elongated arm-blade on the other. As he closed in, Pete snarled, his diseased bulk shifting.

With a thunderous stomp, Pete shattered the ground beneath him, sending bile-soaked cracks surging outward. A putrid green sludge erupted forth, spreading in all directions, rapidly transforming the battlefield into a rotting wasteland.

Darot, caught mid-charge, sneered in annoyance. There was no avoiding the tainted ground—so he did not try. With a feral grin, he surged forward, his momentum carrying him straight into the corruption. As his flesh began to sizzle and bubble from exposure, he raised his sword in a wide, upward arc—its bladed edge carving deep into Pete's bloated form.

The wound, however, did not behave as it should. It yawned open unnaturally, stretching wider, wider—until a gaping, fanged maw emerged from the torn flesh, gnashing hungrily.

"*Hah!*" Pete cackled, his voice an echoing rasp. "*Me not feel a thing!*"

Darot's expression darkened, irritation flashing across his features. With a snarl, he lashed out, his hoofed leg striking Pete's chest with crushing force. The impact sent the Nurglite monstrosity hurtling backward, his diseased mass tearing through shattered debris.

Not wasting a moment, Darot pursued. His flesh-sword dematerialized in an instant, twisting and reforming into a barbed whip pulsating with unnatural energy. With a crack, the weapon lashed out, wrapping around Pete's lumbering form. With a guttural snarl, Darot *pulled*, slamming Pete back down into the earth with enough force to crater the ground beneath him.

Standing over the impact site, Darot folded his arms, his lips curling into a smug smirk.

"Hmph. You may be getting stronger, worm, but you still lack the refinement of a true daemon. No amount of Grandfather's rot will save you from annihilation."

But before he could relish his victory, the rubble beneath him shuddered.

A monstrous roar erupted from below as Pete burst forth, his form shifting once again. His flesh contorted, tubes of writhing organic matter sprouting from his back, leaking searing green pus. The foul liquid dripped onto Darot's abandoned flesh-sword—where, to his horror, it hissed and corroded through the warp-forged material in mere seconds.

Darot snarled and leaped back, discarding the weapon before its corruption could spread. Wasting no time, he conjured a roiling ball of violet flame in his palm, hurling it toward Pete with a snarl.

The impact was immediate. The warpflame engulfed Pete's form, burning him not from the outside, but from the inside—his very soul set alight by the eldritch inferno.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Pete howled in agony, his voice laced with something he had never felt before—true pain.

"Why?!" he bellowed, writhing in the burning torment. "Me shouldn't feel anything!"

Within his mind, the daemonic entities fused to his wretched body hissed in warning:

'It is warpflame, wretch! It does not burn flesh, it sears the very essence of the soul! Even we, blessed by Grandfather, are not immune to such a thing!'

Darot cackled, his elongated form flickering in the dancing violet light.

"How adorable," he sneered. "Even now, your pathetic vermin whisper in your ear. But there's no need for prayers, little plague-rat—your suffering ends now."

With blinding speed, Darot lunged. His arm-blade became a whirlwind of death, carving deep into Pete's flesh, each wound allowing the warpflame to seep further into his rotting form.

Pete roared.

And then he acted.

Darot had become too focused on his attack—too arrogant.

A sickening click sounded from Pete's form as his bio-cannon suddenly cocked.

The realization hit Darot an instant too late.

With a final, guttural roar, Pete fired.

A massive, roiling blast of virulent green energy exploded from the weapon, striking Darot at point-blank range.

BOOOOOOOM!

The force of the blast sent Darot hurling through the air, his body swallowed by the seething green conflagration, his shrieks of pain lost beneath the deafening explosion.

As Pete stood, smoke rising from his mangled form, the daemonic voices within him whispered, their tone shifting from agony to quiet satisfaction.

'Now… let us finish this.'