Nareth and the Khrave Progenitor spun and darted with equal grace, clashing like dancers.
They moved with impossible speed, golden light and the brilliant blade colliding again and again, ripples of energy spreading with each impact.
The aetheric blade shrieked, countering the golden fist that had yet to land, lunging for Nareth's abdomen.
Bang!
The Khrave Progenitor was startled to find the fist, meant for its head, had somehow struck its back.
Boom!
Golden light tore through the host's back, ripping the black-veined skin.
Joints snapped. Bones shattered.
Psychic mist rose from the wound, resisting the brutal force.
The Khrave Progenitor slid to the right, evading.
The fist struck again, as if the host had moved into it.
A strange shadow flickered in the host's eyes, fixed upon the black-armored giant that loomed over it.Precognition had been disrupted!
Its form blurred, the air thickening and warping, coalescing into a mass of psychic energy.
The host spun its arm, the aetheric blade directing a wave of psychic force at Nareth.
Where the energy passed, both the material world and the Warp warped, the distortion spreading even into the realm of the mind.
Nareth raised his hand, deflecting a blow aimed at his thigh, turning it aside.
The "Mentor of Disorder's" spirituality spread. The waves of "Entropy" rippled, tearing at the fabric of spacetime.
The aetheric blade accelerated, exceeding the Khrave Progenitor's limits.
In its accelerated motion, the atmosphere subtly shifted, growing denser, its hues sliding towards the blue end of the spectrum.
The blade's light dimmed rapidly, shattering, dispersing into specks.
Two of the host's teeth, veined with black, fell. Its arm withered, its body growing weak.
The aetheric blade exploded, psychic mist billowing.
The Khrave Progenitor's arm, withered and claw-like, lunged for Nareth's chest.
He snapped out his right arm, grasping the withered limb, lifting the host.
The waves of "Entropy" washed over the host, scouring it.
The black veins writhed, surging like fish.
"You can age this body. But what about here?"
The Khrave Progenitor's tone was mocking. Everything around them slowed.
The battlefield, wreathed in smoke, shifted. The psychic mist dissipated with the wind.
Bolt-flame died to embers. Shadows stretched.
The arm holding the host faded, vanishing.
The black veins faded from its body, its skin glowing faintly.
A strange smile crossed its face as it looked around with interest.
It looked up: a starry sky.
It looked down: shadows on the ground.
"This is your mind," the Khrave Progenitor said, leisurely, like a visitor.
"My kin tell me that Angron's is a world of crimson slaughter."
"In a world filled with a constant drone, knights in ornate armor, armed with fine weapons, fight savage warriors with clubs and no armor."
"Again and again the savages fall, each time cracking the blood-red earth..."
"Sanguinius's is..." The Khrave Progenitor's tale stopped abruptly, its lips curving.
"All your genetic inheritance, your very psychic power, all useless here."
"Here, I am-"
Its confident words died in a choked gurgle. Tendrils burst from its body.
Light and shadow moved as one.
Blazing light tore the tendrils apart.
Shadows wrapped around the Khrave Progenitor.
Light and shadow flickered in the Primarch's obsidian eyes. 'You are too confident, daring to enter my mind.'
In the outside world, Nareth's psychic power, bolstered by "Ambition," had only been able to hold the line against the Titan crews' minds. But in the realm of the mind, he was the master.
Shadows coiled, converging on a single point, the "Brain."
It was not the physical brain, but the supernatural seat of consciousness.
The converging psychic force pressed against the Khrave Progenitor's mind, forcing it to spill out images like paint:
Stars ignited in this imaginary sky, spinning around a supermassive black hole.
With each breath, pulses of light and matter from a million years were expelled.
Images formed a psychic network of light, a light that did not belong to the material world.
Under the pressure of Nareth's will, shadows traced the outline of a nebula.
The Khrave Progenitor's tendrils exploded, dissolving into clouds of nothingness.
The smoke drifted, dispersing in the wind.
"Trying to run?"
Shadows coiled around the smoke, revealing a colorful image: the interior of the nebula.
The drifting smoke transformed into bloated Ork cruisers of scrap-metal, elegant Aeldari ships, Hrud petal-ships, and countless alien void craft.
Most were ancient, belonging to races humanity had never encountered. Only a few metal tomb-ships and wreckage in orbit remained.
Occasionally, a baroque, battlemented Imperial Gothic vessel slid through the void.
Nareth's gaze focused on an elegant fleet.
Each ship was a crystalline spindle, delicate pods like floating palaces.
Force fields flickered. The hulls, plated and barbed, were like gleaming crustaceans.
Nareth's consciousness pressed deeper, locking onto the source of the bright aura.
The physical dimensions faded, revealing a web of veins.
Asteroids spun. Fragments drifted.
A ring of orbital debris circled a shattered world, which slowly orbited a dying star.
As Nareth memorized the details of each mind-place, each void and astronomical phenomenon, an iris opened in the nebula.
A massive eye, covered in tendrils, stared at the black-armored, golden-winged figure.
Boom!
The star of the shattered system collapsed, its light shooting into the void.
"Nareth!" A voice, laced with hatred and fear. A tendril blazed an arc, severing its connection.
The tendrils fell in neat rows. The world vanished.
A wisp of tendril materialized in Nareth's right hand. He reached out, snatching the falling body.
'Unexpectedly, it went even more smoothly than I anticipated. The Khrave Progenitor delved deep into my mindscape.'
'Not only did I, like the Lion, manage to locate the Khrave's homeworld in the galactic north, I also obtained a piece of the Khrave Progenitor's true form, which can serve as a divination focus.'
Bang, bang, bang...
Across Muspel, every thrall stopped in confusion. The reactors of the Asiatic Predator and the Hellhound suddenly shut down.
A psychic scream echoed from every Khrave host. With the Master's flight, they had lost their psychic anchor to reality.
Torghun Khan looked up. Lord Nareth held the powerful xenos leader's host body firmly in his grasp.
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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