However, the Iron Men were, in the end, something fundamentally different from the Imperium.
Their processing efficiency was far beyond anything the Imperials could comprehend. Within the Void Sword, the hull began to writhe like a living organism. Structural configurations shifted rapidly; peculiar, active mechanisms emerged around the bio-domes, sections that should have remained static within the vessel's internal architecture.
Gravity regulators began to fluctuate. Within that artificial, continent-sized ecosystem, the gravity simply ceased to be. The once-rushing rivers broke apart, instantly dissolving into countless droplets that drifted into the void.
Magnus and his daemon sorcerers immediately attempted to use Chaos sorcery to warp the local gravitational orientation, seeking to anchor themselves to the floor.
But the spells proved futile. No matter how they struggled, the repulsive force generated by the gravity-regulation devices precisely maintained the state of weightlessness. In a zero-gravity environment of such vast proportions, the chamber became an inescapable trap.
The surviving mortal psykers and daemons floated chaotically through the space; even Magnus dared not move rashly.
Yet, the daemons adapted to this state with terrifying speed. Using their own Chaos energy as propulsion, they grinned, brandishing weapons inscribed with profane symbols as they closed in on the drifting, helpless mortal psykers. But their grins soon vanished.
The entire space was moving; the colossal bulkhead walls were closing in on them rapidly.
Out in the surrounding Imperial fleet, countless souls felt the eruption of Chaos from within the Void Sword. The aura of that evil, profane energy was impossible to miss.
"What is happening?"
The question rippled through the fleet instantly.
But they were met with an unbelievable sight. The armor of the Titan-class ship began to contract violently. A massive breach tore open along the side of the hull, and the structure of the vessel visibly reconfigured itself.
Then, a structure of staggering dimensions was ejected from the hull, cast out into the cold reaches of space.
Axion's decision had been swift and absolute: since this chamber was tainted by Chaos, the solution was to discard it entirely. Those psykers who might not yet have been corrupted were simply written off as collateral.
Yet, the moment it broke free from the Void Sword, Magnus, replenished by the surge of warp power, cast a spell once more. A gargantuan rift to the Immaterium tore open in the vacancy left within the ship's hull.
At the same time, in the Warp, Perturabo, stranded on a nameless planet alongside his Iron Warriors and the Thousand Sons, felt the opening of this sudden, artificial gateway.
The Thousand Sons were the first to fall into formation.
The energy bleeding from the portal carried the psychic signature of Magnus. The Iron Warriors could not perceive it, but the Sons could.
"It is our Father! Brothers, rend the False Emperor's lapdogs asunder!"
The Thousand Sons Legion surged into the portal first. Only after his sons had entered did Perturabo beckon his own kin forward. The Iron Warriors marched in rigid, rhythmic lines behind their Primarch, until one Warsmith broke rank and stepped before him.
"Father, perhaps we should no longer involve ourselves in the schemes of these entities."
"If a psychic bridge presided over by Magnus himself can result in such chaos, perhaps it is a warning in itself. We should abandon these unrealistic ambitions."
Perturabo looked at his son with uncharacteristic gravity, then, unexpectedly, nodded.
"But we cannot remain here."
"The Immaterium is too vast, and this planet is a wasteland, void of anything save grotesque creatures of Chaos. To leave, one must strike a bargain with the Ruinous Powers. I do not trust Magnus, and I trust the daemons even less."
"As for the future... none can offer any guarantees."
With that, Perturabo patted the Warsmith's power-armored pauldrons and stepped into the warp rift.
For a moment, the Iron Warriors stood in confusion; they sensed that their Primarch had, once again, changed. As Perturabo's silhouette vanished into the gateway, the main body of the Iron Warriors followed suit.
For Axion, this was far from an amusing experience. The massive portal was swaddled in staggering quantities of Chaos energy, a magnitude even more alarming than that of the Sortiarius, which was already nearing the brink of slaughter nearby.
Tzeentch had intervened again, silently bestowing further "gifts" upon Magnus. Were it not for the Primarch's immense psychic potential and his unique nature as a son of the Emperor, such a blessing would have instantly reduced any other champion to a writhing Chaos spawn.
The sheer power of the portal meant that only weaponry of sufficient might could shatter it. But the problem lay in its location: deep within the hull of the Void Sword.
As the light of the warp rift began to strobe, the Thousand Sons charged out. In the freezing void, they found themselves surrounded by titanic mechanical structures, as if they had descended into the trenches of a machine-world. Beside them, a massive, straight conduit led directly into the vacuum of space.
Accident piled upon accident, constantly exceeding Axion's projections.
Cast into space along with the bio-chamber, Magnus re-established his connection to the nearby Sortiarius. As the readings of Chaos energy in the void began to skyrocket, a massive, towering phantom, the bird-headed avian form, manifested.
Its razor-sharp talons raked cruelly across the colossal hull of the Void Sword. Surging waves of Chaos energy threatened to swallow the entire Titan-ship. Countless profane runes scattered through the void.
The Imperial fleet, having anticipated the danger, scrambled to spread outward. Even the White Scars fleet, commanded by Jaghatai Khan, was forced into a temporary retreat.
The terrible corruption of Chaos began to rapidly befoul the Imperial vessels Calgar had assembled. On every ship, the psychic choirs began to chant the Imperial Creed in frantic unison. Every mortal crewman, Guardsman, and naval rating could feel the trembling of their very souls. The Astropaths and Navigators had already collapsed, curled in agony upon the decks.
The Void Sword wallowed like a whale caught in a titanic net.
But the Iron Men would not sit idly by.
Deep inside, swarms of mechanical constructs mobilized toward the internal battle zones. The Thousand Sons and Iron Warriors found themselves fighting the very architecture of the ship. Alloy walls sprouted jagged spikes that shifted and snapped; those caught within them were instantly riddled, turned into human sieves.
Other structural components, manipulated by swarms of nanites, rapidly reconfigured, morphing from simple bulkhead plating into arrayed gauss-weaponry. A torrential storm of high-velocity metallic projectiles shredded the Iron Warriors.
Simultaneously, the exterior of the Void Sword began to change again. More massive apertures appeared on the hull. The remaining uncorrupted bio-domes were loaded into magnetically accelerated tracks constructed in real-time, then fired out of the hull like colossal shells, flung far beyond the reaches of the system.
From the moment Perturabo appeared within the hull, Axion had made his decision.
Once all the survivors had been purged from the ship, several massive beams of energy arrived from the distant void. The terrifying power devoured a third of the Void Sword's hull.
"AOOOO!"
A sound, like the tearing of a soul, echoed vaguely through the void.
The black-glaring beams vanished as quickly as they had arrived. Left behind, floating in the dark, were only the bow and the stern of the Void Sword.
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