The Asiatic Predator and the Hellhound raised their weapon arms in unison, aiming at the black-armored warriors.
The Titan crews' eyes were hollow. Thoughts passed between them, unhindered by their physical brains or psychic shock units.
From their communion, they shared each other's feelings: the Emperor's Angels had become the enemy.
"For the Emperor!"
In the Titans' world, the Shadows of Order were marked as enemies of the Emperor. Fury became strength.
As the tendrils from another dimension gripped the Titan crews, raising their mechanical arms to strike, light suddenly shone down.
Shadows appeared.
Light and shadow interwove.
The mechanical arms halted, interrupted by an intruding psychic force.
The tendrils coiled within them radiated a wave of freezing cold.
In the psychic clash, frost spread from their heads, across the metal bodies, from the immaterial world to the material.
Inside the war machines, the frost crept over their skulls, seeping into the psychic shock interfaces of their bionic ports.
A distant voice projected into the unified mental space.
The tendrils grew, becoming thick.
Rumble!
A mountain of ice erupted from nowhere, borne aloft by the tendrils.
Light and shadow flickered, playing across the immense peak.
The iceberg exploded, shattering into a million shards.
Every face of every smooth, mirror-like fragment reflected a part of the tendrils.
"Nareth!"
The icy voice echoed through the Titans' metal frames, a crackling sound.
The Warhounds trembled, raising their heads, looking skyward.
A black-armored, golden-winged figure dove.
Frost spread, the temperature plummeting. The black armor grew coated in ice.
Nareth's body shuddered, feeling a chilling, overwhelming force invade his mind.
Light and shadow flickered in the Primarch's obsidian eyes. The psychic assault was immediately met with his own spreading consciousness.
The drifting smoke, scattered metal shavings, and everything around him fell within his perception.
His eyes narrowed. He could not detect the Khrave Progenitor lurking nearby.
Whoosh!
A grey-black rock was ripped from the ground and hurled at Nareth.
He beat his wings. Golden flames erupted, incinerating the rock.
The Primarch's eyes flickered, tracing ripples amidst the shifting light and shadow, he locked onto the psychic emanations.
The Hellhound's arm trembled, rising, its gun barrel swinging towards Nareth but before the barrel could align, the "Mentor of Disorder" twisted his waist and swung his fist.
Boom!
The massive mechanical body swayed, the attack interrupted. Nareth's eyes narrowed, his vision encompassing both the material world and the supernatural dimension.
At the center of the rippling psychic waves: the Hellhound's plasma reactor.
At the material level, a finger-long tendril, its surface covered in black veins.
The Primarch traced the spindle-shaped psychic node, glimpsing the cold will in another dimension.
Beyond the veil of unreality, a scream echoed.
The stream of time surged. Nareth saw a young galaxy, species growing wild among the stars.
Soul-light, spreading not as light in the material world, but through tendrils, reached into reality.
The tendrils parasitized a blue-grey world. Steel pyramids stood, their parasites infesting Aeldar and Orks.
The Aeldar were not as delicate and graceful as any Aeldar Nareth had seen. They were taller, their bodies covered in lines, like painted savages.
To place them in the Aeldari taxonomy, they were closest to the Exodites.
The Orks were far larger and stronger, often over ten meters tall.
Their muscle colors varied, unlike the uniform green of today.
As stars blazed, the Khrave stood at the crossroads, feasting on upheaval and strife, savoring mental fragility and material desires.
Crab-like forms, two tree-like arms slamming together.
Crocodile heads on serpentine bodies, spewing green venom.
....
Between the rise and fall of species, the destruction of ancient times became familiar.
Races Nareth had seen on the Hrud's mycelial scrolls.
At a certain point, the parasitic intelligence turned its gaze to the ascendant humans.
The ancient being, having devoured countless races, sneered.
"Time flows. Even the Imperium of Man will be buried in ruins."
As the vision unfolded, tendrils reached into his mind, their voices like grinding glass.
"Nareth, you and your sons will become dust."
An image intruded: dust settling around a ring-shaped Angelic Monument in an ancient pantheon.
One scene after another, untouched by the erosion of time, worlds rising and falling around him.
Threads shimmered, and future visions arose: Black armor crumbling, power swords dissolving, battle standards tattered... ableak, cold atmosphere spread, everything seeming to decay.
Nareth instantly ascended to the Third Level of the Thelema midstate. The "Mentor of Disorder's" "Ambition" pulsed.
"The Shadows of Order and I will stand in the stream of time far longer than the Khrave."
Brilliant light and thick shadow alternated.
Boom, boom, boom...
A series of psychic clashes erupted in the unreality, tendrils snapping and dissolving in the explosions.
Icebergs rumbled, spreading into the material world.
Crackling, Nareth beat his golden wings.
"You think no one can find you?" He exploded forward, his fist swinging like a cannonball.
Boom!
Nareth smashed through the grey-rock wall, seeing shadows within.
Among the soldiers in uniform, lasguns in hand, one figure, indistinguishable from the rest, looked up.
He stood straight, half Nareth's height.
He raised his chin, as if choosing to look up, not due to the height difference.
His hair blazed with hateful flames. When his mouth opened, teeth veined with black were revealed.
His hand clenched, and shimmering aetheric light materialized.
The "Mentor of Disorder's" gaze narrowed. Colorful light coalesced, forming blades of light.
Aetheric blades were born from nothing, gleaming white as they took shape.
The Khrave Progenitor's host lunged with incredible speed, its aetheric blade shrieking as it swung.
The "Mentor of Disorder," Nareth, his back muscles rippling, his power fist blazing golden.
Boom!
Grey rock exploded into clouds of dust.
Amidst the rumbling, Torghun Khan leaped, his curved power sword sweeping, sending the charging thralls into bloody mists.
He did not stop, his gaze fixed on the shockwave's epicenter.
Through the dust, he was fortunate enough to witness Lord Nareth's battle with the xenos leader.
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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