The wraithbone throne erupted in a brilliant white light, amplifying the Rangdan Overlord's psychic power and unleashing a microscopic tide that swept toward the Primarch to crush him.
The psychic torrent surged past. Corpses, blood, steel, and glass were all reduced to lead-like dust, dissolving completely from the microscopic realm.
Blazkowicz spun and delivered a side kick, his armored boot deflecting a plasma spear, breaking through layer upon layer of sonic booms as he charged the Rangdan Overlord.
The blade of the spear threw off sparks, accelerating instantly and becoming searing hot under the intense friction.
The wraithbone throne did not dodge. The weapon disintegrated in the psychic domain; by the time it reached the Rangdan Overlord, it had already broken down into atomic dust.
With the haughty Overlord at the epicenter, the psychic domain expanded outward in a sphere. Wherever it passed, everything turned to dust, ruthlessly obliterating all matter in its path.
The Primarch's honor guard rapidly retreated. The Rangdan Overlord was acting at all costs and had already abandoned its own Praetorians; before the alien guards could even process what was happening, they were turned to ash.
Abandoning everything, all for a single objective—to kill the human Primarch!
Cerebral fluid leaked from the fissures in the Overlord's skull. Manipulating the microscopic plane required intense concentration, and its psychic reserves were being consumed at an extreme rate.
The ruinous storm advanced, yet Blazkowicz did not falter.
He lifted his foot and stepped directly into the atomized domain, his stride unwavering as he marched firmly toward the Rangdan Overlord.
This move played right into the Overlord's hands. The psychic tide surged forward, corroding his Praetor Armor, attempting to dissolve the plate and the flesh sealed within it.
But within the microscopic domain, a towering wall appeared before the Overlord. The edge of its psychic power could not penetrate it, let alone rupture the atomic bonds.
The ruinous storm ground to a halt.
The Rangdan Overlord withdrew its psychic energy and looked at the armor worn by the approaching figure, letting out a helpless sigh in its mind.
Its psychic energy condensed into a massive hand, grasping for Blazkowicz's limbs and pulling outward with immense force.
The Slayer's expression remained unchanged. Without a word, he suddenly flexed his muscles and exerted his strength, shattering the invisible hands.
"What manner of thing are you?"
From the edge of the bridge, the Eldar slave—who had been cut in half by the Doom Slayer and had lost all signs of life—opened her mouth to ask on behalf of the Rangdan Overlord.
"A human," Blazkowicz replied as he approached step by step, his posture unstoppable, answering the alien leader's question.
"Human? A Primarch?"
High up on the suspended wraithbone throne, the Overlord seemed to burst into a mocking laugh, the tentacles beneath its brain twisting wildly as if it had just heard the greatest joke in the cosmos.
The Eldar corpse continued to speak, the voice of the dead stripped of its former elegance, punctuated by gasps like someone in their death throes: "I have fought your brothers. Ten battles, eight victories."
"We would fight for a long time. The battles would stretch on for days, and a hard-fought victory would finally be decided at the very end."
"And you," the Overlord's gaze lowered, its voice speaking through the physical medium with a tone of sheer helplessness: "You took only ten seconds to dismantle every single one of my methods."
"Psychic energy is formless and far harder to deal with than conventional physical limbs, yet you broke it through raw, brute force."
Blazkowicz did not respond; he was under no obligation to answer. He simply strode toward the throne, steadfast and determined to take the alien Overlord alive.
"Unfortunately, you cannot catch me." The Eldar corpse floated into the air, rising level with the throne, looking down at Blazkowicz from above.
As the words left her mouth, the ceiling viewports opened. Deprived of any protective shielding, the bridge directly faced the raw Warp!
And then—nothing happened.
The Rangdan Overlord froze in a daze. The turn of events defied its expectations.
Shouldn't the energy of the Warp have flooded inside, instantly daemonifying the starship, while daemonic entities materialized to harvest the human souls?
Meanwhile, it would have departed safely under the protection of its psychic shield.
"Are you waiting for them?" a mocking voice echoed. Asterlan pointed out beyond the viewport.
Following the human's direction, the Overlord saw numerous Warp entities amidst the flames. They were gloating, looking at it as if it were a complete fool.
Yet they only dared to hide in the distance, not daring to draw a single step closer, as if paralyzed by terror.
"BEGONE!!!"
A thunderous roar erupted, unleashing a crimson lightning storm across the Warp. The Overlord's soul shuddered in fear, and the spectating daemons stiffened.
The source of their terror was answered. The daemons' bodies trembled; with one final glance back at the battlefield, they plunged deep into the currents of the Warp and fled.
As the roar rolled across the Immaterium, Asterlan let out a long breath and said to the Rangdan Overlord, "The reinforcements you were waiting for don't seem very reliable, do they?"
Amidst the mocking question, the Overlord realized it had been surrounded by the human warriors.
It carelessly cast aside the Eldar corpse, the cavities beneath its crimson eyes twitching as it spat out bizarre syllables: "What are you?"
By now, its arrogance had completely vanished, replaced entirely by profound confusion.
As a high-ranking member of the Rangdan hierarchy, the Overlord knew the truth of the Warp: the unbridled daemons and the utterly profane gods.
But the Rangdan's study of the Warp was heavily insulated; their psyker client-races were controlled by cerebral fluid, ensuring they would never cross the line out of curiosity to touch the true taboos.
Exploring only along the safe margins, and combining various archives from their Eldar slaves, the Rangdan high command had unanimously decided to suppress this knowledge.
Within the Rangdan Empire, the control over Warp lore was even stricter than in the Imperium of Man.
They knew of daemons and the Dark Gods of Chaos. Those were untouchable taboos; a mere drop of contamination meant utter annihilation.
Now, the Overlord's mind trembled, its long-held common sense completely overturned.
The real-space universe was supposed to revere the Warp, not like this—where daemons were scared witless by a single roar from a human warrior and didn't dare to linger.
"Human," Blazkowicz's answer remained unchanged, and his footsteps did not stop.
The void beneath his feet trembled. Under his absolute will, mottled Warp energy coalesced into a flight of stairs, carrying the God-slayer higher into the air.
"Human? Ha! Ha! Ha!" Seeing the Warp submit, the Overlord abandoned all thoughts of escape. Its tentacles clapped together, throwing out maddening laughter in bizarre syllables.
Right then, the wraithbone throne erupted in blinding light and shattered with a loud crack, channeling all its remaining power into the Rangdan Overlord's psychic domain.
At its final moment, the Overlord launched a desperate, suicidal strike!
All its psychic power condensed into a single point. A spike materialized before its brow, pure and flawless, its psychic essence compressed almost into physical matter.
The spike turned into a beam of light, plunging toward the Slayer's forehead, only to be caught in an armored, giant hand, unable to advance another millimeter.
Crack~
Blazkowicz pressed his thumb against the spike, suddenly applying pressure, crushing the psychic spike to pieces.
"Touching non-material spirit with a material, physical body," the Overlord spoke with bitter irony as it tumbled from the shattered throne. "Is this the kind of power a human is supposed to possess?"
Blazkowicz raised his hand and clamped his palm over the alien Overlord's face, gripping the five-meter-tall, dark-green brain in his hand.
"I am a Primarch," his answer was concise, his tone firm and devoid of the slightest hesitation. "A weapon forged by the Emperor."
"Heh."
The Overlord let out a cold, mocking sneer and closed its eyes, refusing to say another word to this monster that called itself a "human" and a "Primarch."
The light of teleportation flared across the bridge once more. Legion warriors arrived bearing a stasis cage, locking the Rangdan Overlord inside and dragging it back to the Blackstone Fortress.
Blazkowicz stood where he was, looking down at his open palm.
He possessed absolute power. He could command the tides of the Warp to crush the alien fleet, and he could even order the daemonic legions to serve his purposes.
But he was a human. This identity was beyond question.
He would never align himself with the profane!
The teleportation lights flared, and the warriors returned to the Blackstone Fortress one after another, reforming their ranks and preparing to march toward their next objective.
The Blackstone remained in place for a long time, thoroughly shattering the bio-organic alien fleet, before its engines ignited to continue its unfinished crusade.
"Please anchor the course." As the ship traveled through the Warp, the automated systems chimed, and a holographic star map materialized before the commander.
Blazkowicz did not rush to confirm the coordinates. Instead, he said to Harlan, "Utilize the Chaos artifact to locate the flight path used by the forces fleeing toward the Imperium."
Harlan nodded, taking the Chaos artifact in his hands as he sat cross-legged in meditation, beginning his search for the route.
"Obelisk." Blazkowicz called over his honor guard, issuing a solemn command to the towering figure: "Take one hundred Legion brothers and form a small vanguard fleet."
He pointed toward the runic cage, where the alien Overlord was bound by psychic chains and pierced by instruments of torture. "Deliver it to the Emperor's side at the absolute maximum speed."
"Our forces are deep behind enemy lines. The risk of advancing while carrying such a high-value captive is too great. Our immediate priority is to secure our gains."
"You don't need to hide your tracks either. With the Overlord captured, news will spread across the Rangdan Empire in no time, and we will become the most prominent target."
"Understood." Obelisk stood up, glanced at the Champion Swordsman, then at the Primarch, before turning to leave.
"Fifth Company, with me." Rallying his Legion brothers to take the alien Overlord, the Primarch's guard moved the anti-gravity platform, heading toward the fortress's docking bays.
Blazkowicz watched his sons leave the command hall. Obelisk was highly capable, steady, and wise; entrusting the transport mission to him was the perfect choice.
"Custodes, coordinate with the Iron Men to defend the key nodes of the fortress. The Legion companies must stand ready to reinforce the defensive lines at a moment's notice."
His gaze narrowed as he looked into the depths of the Warp: "A fierce encirclement will be upon us shortly."