Chapter 67 — "Echoes of the Warp"
The gate opened with a sound like distant thunder.
Stone scraped against stone, each echo rolling down the long tunnel ahead of them. Dust drifted in the air, disturbed for the first time in centuries. Gaius raised his hand, and the Ultramarines halted, weapons lifted and ready. Their visors glowed faintly in the gloom, casting thin halos of blue light across the walls.
The Psyker Containment Unit followed behind them, carried on a grav-sled. Its surface was wrapped in layers of purity seals and iron latches, humming faintly with restrained power. Around it, the Bladeguard Veterans stood silent, shields steady, movements precise.
Floating quietly above the scene were faint, translucent silhouettes, Tony, Diana, Mindy, Saeko, and Naruto, watching through the projection system of the Chat Group. They had been here before, virtually, and yet the sight of a Space Marine formation moving through ancient catacombs still drew a kind of breathless awe.
The gate fully opened, revealing a circular hall beyond. Pillars of carved stone reached up into the dark, each one etched with runes of warning and fear.
Gaius gave a simple order.
"Advance."
Their armored boots struck the floor in rhythm. The sound carried far, swallowed only by the vastness of the hall. The walls were lined with statues of daemons, carved in grotesque detail, wings, horns, and faces frozen in expressions of hatred or despair.
The light of their armor lamps flickered over them, giving each statue the illusion of movement.
Tony's voice came through the shared channel, a quiet observation. "Creepy interior design choice."
Mindy folded her arms, a faint smirk on her face at Tony's Jokes.
No one among the Marines reacted, their focus absolute.
The squad reached the center of the chamber. The grav-sled came to a stop. Gaius turned slightly.
"Titus."
The lieutenant nodded, stepping forward to unlock the containment capsule. With a low hiss, the metal shell open, its shell slamming down to the ground.
Inside an elderly man, blindfolded, wrapped in parchment seals, after the containment opened he stepped out and immediately kneeled on the shell and prayed. His hands were clasped in front of him, a quiet whisper escaping his lips. A faint shimmer hung in the air around him, psychic energy restrained by discipline and faith.
Tony's HUD flickered as he used Identification:
[Astropath Veneratus Lurean Voss]
A loyal Imperial psyker trained by the Astra Telepathica to wield the warp under strict control. Blindfolded and sealed with purity sigils, Voss channels psychic energy to protect Imperial forces from daemonic influence, uses raw faith, chanting and praying to the Emperor to hold back Chaos. His main role is to form powerful psychic barriers during battle, shielding Ultramarines from warp attacks while they attack. Though old and frail, his mind remains strong, his faith and discipline allowing him to stand against the horrors of the warp.
Diana frowns slightly. "The Warp?"
Tony replies, "I'll explain it after the broadcast."
Saeko nods. "We'd all like to know more about Gaius' world." Naruto and Mindy Nodded beside Saeko. she was not suprised at what Tony has said, since Gaius came to his world more than hers, so he might knows more.
The psyker raised his hands slightly. His whisper became a chant, low, rhythmic, echoing through the stone hall. A pale golden light began to spread outward, forming a thin dome of psychic protection around the squad.
"Form a perimeter," Gaius ordered quietly.
The Bladeguards moved, bolters ready. Gaius stood at the front, hammer in hand, silent.
Then his voice cut through the stillness.
"Commence."
Bolters roared.
Plasma fire burned through the shadows.
Statues shattered, stone fragments scattering across the floor. The hall filled with smoke and echo.
Then, from the ruins, black arms of shadow began to emerge.
They were formless, twisting, reaching toward the light. The Marines adjusted formation instantly, firing without hesitation. Bolter shells tore through the darkness, but for every tendril destroyed, another grew in its place.
The psyker's chanting rose in volume. The light of the barrier thickened, pushing the shadows back.
Diana uses Identification on the shadowy arms and tendrils that tries to attack.
Warp Manifestation: Shadow Tendrils
The black, shadowy arms are physical manifestations of the Warpchaotic energy given form as the veil between reality and the Immaterium weakens. They appear when daemonic corruption is disrupted, often as statues or relics acting as warp anchors are destroyed. These tendrils are not the limbs of a single daemon but fragments of raw warp energy lashing out instinctively, seeking to attack at the one who were causing destruction to its anchor. In Imperial terms, they are the Immaterium's backlashan echo of Chaos itself trying to breach realspace.
Diana thinks quietly to herself, "Daemons… is this world's hell just under another name?"
As demons and hell exist in her world, demons and daemons are name closely.
Gaius stepped forward, swinging his hammer once. A shockwave burst outward, breaking through a cluster of shadows. They recoiled, hissing, before fading into mist.
The chamber grew still again.
It began as a tremor beneath their feet.
From the far end of the chamber, a sealed pod of twisted metal and bone began to unfold. Light leaked from its cracks, spilling red and violet across the stone.
When the structure split apart, a figure emerged, tall, draped in blackened armor, wings of warped bone spreading behind him. no face can be seen as it is covered. In his hand, he held a staff, etched with runes that twisted even as one looked at them.
The psyker's chant faltered for the briefest moment.
The sorcerer slammed his staff into the floor.
Time broke.
The entire hall froze, dust suspended, shells mid-flight, smoke unmoving. But within the psyker's golden barrier, the Space Marines, are still able to move since they are in the Psyker shields, that are stopping the time effecting them as well.
meanwhile diana shot a identification on the enemy.
Tzeentchian Sorcerer Maltherion:
A human psyker consumed by the will of Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways. Wielding a warp-forged staff, Maltherion can halt the flow of time within an area, freezing reality in place while he works his sorcery. His greatest weapon is fear itself, able to invade the minds of his enemies and twist their deepest terrors into lethal illusions. Wounds suffered within the nightmare manifest upon the body, leaving victims dead without a mark of battle.
Tony's voice was sharp. "It's capable of freezing time!?"
Diana nodded slowly. "indeed from the looks of it, Good thing the psyker was capable of shielding them from the time stopped."
The chaos sorcerer, looked at the Psyker who was still praying, chanting and kneeling.
Gaius' voice came through the squad channel, calm as stone.
"Hold formation. Protect the psyker."
The Marines spread out in a semicircle, bolters firing in precise bursts. The rounds after getting out of the invisible barriers midair, stopped by time's frozen distortion.
The sorcerer didn't care about the space marines shooting as time is stopped outside of the shield, so their shooting won't do anything.
He extended a clawed hand, taking a blade from it's behind and shot out. It cut through the air, aimed straight for the psyker's chest.
Gaius moved.
In a single step, he was in the back of the psyker, hammer raised. The impact met the Blade stopping it.
the The Chaos Sorcerer tilted its head, amused but cautious, it didn't move any forward.
Gaius didn't speak. He stepped forward, planting himself between the psyker and the sorcerer, stance wide, hammer resting at his side. His eyes followed every twitch of the creature's wings, every flicker of motion.
A pause hung in the air, both sides waiting for the other to move.
The daemon's body trembled. Its wings flexed once, then snapped.
A bone shard, razor-sharp and white-hot, launched from its wing.
Gaius, tried stopping it, but it was too fast, his body couldn't catch up.
The shard punched through the psyker's chest, leaving a perfect hole. The man's mouth opened soundlessly, blood bubbling as the light of the barrier flared, then began to die.
The Ultramarines seeing the psyker died, readied themselves as they know the time stopped will consumed them.
Gaius turned, saw the light collapsing. He knew what would follow.
Time will stop.
He surged forward, hammer raised, armor servos roaring, trying to shield the rest of his squad before the collapse. As he was a member of the group chat he can see the panel of everyone who uses identification, so he knows the information of the Sorcerer, so he stood in front, hoping he will be the first one that the Sorcerer attacked, as he knew well what his own will was capable of.
The daemon slammed its staff down.
Silence.
Dust froze midair. Sparks from the bolters hung motionless. Every Marine stood still, mid-breath, mid-motion, caught in suspended eternity.
Gaius was halfway through a swing, body locked, hammer frozen in descent.
Only one thing moved: the Sorcerer.
And beyond it, faint, ghostlike, the Chat members.
Diana, Tony, Mindy, and Naruto flickered in faint light, their forms translucent. They were not bound by this reality, existing as virtual projections visible only to Gaius.
"Gaius! Move!" Naruto shouted, voice echoing through unmoving air.
He dashed forward, his fist passing straight through the Sorcerer's torso. It was like punching through smoke.
Tony cursed under his breath. "He can't hear us. The time is stopped."
Mindy folded her arms, eyes narrowing. "Then we shout louder."
They tried, but nothing changed.
The daemon walked slowly toward Gaius, claws trailing along the air as if savoring the stillness. It circled him, a predator around prey, and then stopped behind him.
Its clawed hand reached out, gripping Gaius's helmet and tilting it upward until their visors met. Then, the Sorcerer's mask unfolded like the petals of a grotesque flower, revealing the truth beneath, a warped, daemonic visage dominated by a single, massive eye, surrounded by clusters of smaller, twitching ones that gleamed with unnatural light.
A whisper crawled from its throat.
"Let's see you deepest fears."
Reality bent.
The Sorcerer's gaze pulsed, and the world tore open.
The underground hall vanished. The statues, the light, even the dust dissolved into darkness.
The Chat members blinked, their surroundings replaced by an infinite void. There was no ground, no sky, just blackness stretching forever.
Tony realizes: "We're… inside his mind."
Diana nodded at what Tony.
At the center sat a man.
Gaius.
Bareheaded. Calm. His armor seemed to exist and not exist at once, a presence more than metal. He sat upon a chair forged from shadow and iron, hands resting on his knees, gaze lowered.
The void was utterly still.
The Sorcerer appeared before him, its body.
"So this is your mind?" it murmured. "Empty. Hollow."
Gaius didn't answer.
Naruto seeing Gaius didn't move even when the enemy is in front, was worried and shouted "Gaius, Move!"
But Gaius still didn't move as if he didn't Hear Naruto shouting.
Seeing this Naruto want to shout more, then a hand in his shoulder stopped him, it was Tony Stark. "stop it, Naruto."
Naruto look at the sorcerer "But Gaius is in danger."
Tony replied at Naruto while looking at Gaius who was sitting in a chair, motionless.
"let's believe in Gaius, Naruto." making Naruto stopped and just watched with them.
The sorcerer extended tendrils of thought, invisible lines of psychic probing that sank into the void like spears. It searched for fear, guilt, weakness, pain, anything human.
It found nothing.
No echo. No emotion. No resistance even, just stillness.
The silence pressed back, heavy and unmoving.
The sorcerer frowned. It reached deeper, claws of thought scraping through the Ultramarine's mind, but can't scrape it, he can't find any memories.
Nothing to feed on.
"What are you?" it hissed.
Gaius lifted his head.
His eyes were black, not from corruption, but from depth.
Not lightless, not glowing, simply black, absorbing everything and giving nothing back.
The sorcerer stepped back, for the first time uncertain.
Gaius stood slowly. Armor flowed around him like liquid metal, reforming from will alone. Every motion was deliberate, quiet, inevitable.
"You seek fear," Gaius said, voice low and even. "There is none to find."
The sorcerer screamed and lunged.
Warp fire erupted. Bone and flame shot forward, a storm of chaos meant to erase him from existence.
When it cleared, Gaius was still walking.
No shield. No flare of psychic light. Just refusal, a sheer force of being that denied the sorcerer's power any meaning.
The void itself began to reject the creature, its claws passing through air that felt like solid stone. Each step Gaius took made the space around him steady, the chaos burning away into silence.
The sorcerer shrieked and attacked again, faster, wings slicing through the black like blades, firestorm flaring, but it passed through him like smoke through glass.
"This is impossible!" it screamed. "You cannot—"
Gaius vanished.
He appeared before the sorcerer. Then beside it. Then behind.
No movement. No sound.
Just there.
A gauntleted hand caught the sorcerer's throat.
"Die," Gaius said simply.
The sorcerer clawed and twisted, but its power faltered, the void itself closing in.
Cracks spread through its body like shattered glass, light bleeding from within.
The Ultramarine's grip tightened.
The snap was soft, final.
Light broke apart, scattering into the dark like dust in wind.
Silence returned.
Gaius stood for a long moment, then turned, walked back to the chair, and sat again.
Naruto and Mindy seeing the enemy was defeated shouted "yeah!" with hands raised. Tony, seeing the enemy defeated, was relieved, as even he was worried for his friend. He shouted to Gaius, "That was badass!" Gaius, who was sitting in the chair, looked at them and smiled.
Then the void faded.
Sound rushed back, the crackle of energy, the echo of collapsing stone.
Time resumed.
The sorcerer's body, standing beside Gaius in the real world, trembled violently. Its form was pale, unstable, a reflection of its death inside his mind.
Gaius's hammer, frozen mid-swing, continued its motion. He released it halfway through, letting momentum carry it forward.
The warhammer crashed into the floor, the impact rattling the chamber.
Gaius's hand shot up, catching the sorcerer's neck mid-turn.
It tried to speak, failed.
Blue warp-blood spilled as he crushed its throat, the body collapsing in silence.
The sorcerer's head fell, and the sorcerer's corpse with it.
WIth the Ultramarines immediately form a perimeter, around after the Sorcerer is killed.
Gaius reached down, pulling the staff from its claws. The runes along its length dimmed, then went dark, the time-stopping artifact now dead in his hand.
Tony let out a slow breath. "He killed it… by will alone."
Diana's voice followed, quiet but steady. "Truly a warrior of body and mind."
Mindy crossed her arms, eyes still on Gaius. "Guess that's what the "they shall know no fear" means."
Gaius stood over the fallen psyker for a moment. The man's body was lifeless, eyes open but calm, the expression of one who had done his duty to the very end.
Gaius gave a slow nod. "He held the line," he said quietly. Then the broken statue exploded, and turned into a beam of light that shot through the sky.
~~~
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