For the first time in his existence, Nyx comprehended, with visceral certitude, the precise signification of the formulation: 'When one assaults the juvenile specimen, the geriatric proprietary entity manifestspersonally'.
The identity of the 'geriatric proprietaryentity' who had now manifested before him, however, was considerably elevated in ontological calibration relative to the protagonist of that conventional narrativeparadigm.
Haemorrhagic effluence suffused the atmosphere with viscous substantiation.
The crimson colossus maintained his immutable posture. His unalloyed homicidalvolition was sufficient to induce atmosphericcrystallisation.
Every centimetre of Nyx's sensoriumscreamed its existential apprehension.
He could not, however, accede to this apprehension.
The spectators enthroned upon the brasscoliseum's elevated perimeters observed him with unrelenting concentration.
Should he succumb — Nostramo, in its entirety, would be consigned to Khorne's eternal jurisdiction.
...Geriatric PIZZA-proprietary entity! When will you INTERVENE?!
Nyx suppressed his tumultuous affectiveeffluence. He forcibly recalibrated his cognitive investment to the crimson divinitybefore him.
"Khorne... You propose a singular martialconvocation? You and I — exclusiveengagement?"
"Assuredly. In deference to equitable martialdispensation, I shall employ exclusively that magnitude of puissance which this temporaryvessel can accommodate without catastrophic corporeal compromise."
Khorne's enunciation was analogous to innumerable ferrous substrata undergoing simultaneous abrasive encounter.
His crimson ocular organs were saturated with absolute martial certitude.
As the Blood God — the pre-eminent martialdivinity of the Warp — His confidence in His capacity to annihilate Nyx was comprehensively unassailable.
"If martial convocation is your determination— COMMENCE!"
At this chronological juncture, discursiveelaboration was futile.
Nyx registered, with unambiguous clarity, that his sole remaining expedient for procuringeven a vestigial quantum of existentialcontinuity for Nostramo was this engagement.
Even confronted with a divine entity of primordial provenance — he was constrainedto elevate his blade.
His power sword immediately emitted its characteristic fulgurative modulation. Its disruption-field generator was activated to maximum operational calibration.
Golden psychic effluence cascaded along the blade's incandescent configuration with the momentum of atmospheric discharge. Sanctified configration erupted from its perimeter.
Nyx catapulted himself forward. The brasssubstratum beneath his inferior extremities fractured under the catastrophic investmentof his offensive commencement.
His blade — suffused with his comprehensivemartial investment and the accumulatedconviction of his devotees — descended upon Khorne.
"Your martial investment is commendable..."
Khorne intercepted this catastrophic offensivewith a single, effortless elevation of His sanguinary battle-axe.
No elaborate tactical manoeuvres. No sophisticated defensive calibration.
Exclusively the most primordial, unalloyedmartial dispensation:
Absolute puissance. Irresistible offensivemomentum.
His battle-axe bisected the atmosphere. Its trajectory was annotated by a piercing atonalkeen.
The two primordial forces COLLIDED.
The concussive effluence of their encounteroccasioned catastrophic fissuring of Nyx's oral commissures.
Golden haemorrhagic effluence exuded from the interstices of his manual extremities.
His entire corporeal configuration was compelled into a genuflective posture by Khorne's irresistible offensive momentum. The substratum beneath his genuflectivearticulation immediately fractured and depressed under this catastrophicinvestment.
His osseous infrastructure ululated its protestagainst this overwhelming martialdispensation.
At the instant of incipient comprehensivecorporeal compromise —
Nyx's lumbar configuration abruptlyintensified. He executed a rapid rotationaltranslation from his genuflective posture.
His power sword traversed the perimeter of Khorne's battle-axe with fulgurative velocity, extruding a sustained cascade of incandescent scintillations.
Exploiting this transient temporal interval, he insinuated his blade's apex — with the venomous precision of a serpentine predator— towards Khorne's carpal articulation.
This offensive commitment was, to Khorne, juvenile calisthenics.
His carpal configuration rotated with microscopic deliberation. His colossal battle-axe instantaneously recalibrated its defensivedisposition, occluding every conceivableangular trajectory of Nyx's offensivecommitment.
The concussive effluence of this interceptionoccasioned in Nyx's manual extremities acutenociceptive effluence.
Before he could recalibrate his martialdisposition —
Khorne's battle-axe transfigured itself into a sanguinary tempest.
EIGHT fulgurant crimson umbrae of axialeffluence — simultaneously descending from discrete angular trajectories.
These were not phantasmic simulations. These were EIGHT AUTHENTIC OFFENSIVECOMMITMENTS, executed at such velocitythat they perforated the threshold of temporaldifferentiation.
FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH!
Nyx's evasive translations were desperate, inadequate.
His anterior thoracic compartment. His manual extremities. His femoral configuration.
Every anatomic district accumulatedpronounced, osseous-exposing lacerations.
Golden haemorrhagic effluence — the essential vital essence of a Primarch — cascaded upon the brass substratum. Its combustion upon encounter with this infernalterrain emitted a sustained, sibilant acousticsignature.
He was comprehensively suppressed by this perfect, lethal martial dispensation.
Each defensive interception necessitatedformidable volitional exertion.
"ACQUIESCE, Nyx."
"CONSECRATE** yourself as my CHOSENINSTRUMENT. You shall receive puissanceinferior exclusively to my own."**
Khorne's enunciation was saturated with an effluence capable of perverting volitionalfaculties.
Nyx secured his power sword upon the substratum, his respiratory apparatuslabouring under considerable distress.
His ocular organs, however, retained their customary incisive calibration.
"...I... DECLINE."
The sanguinary colossal battle-axedescended once more, saturated with eschatological effluence.
Nyx's corporeal configuration accumulatedadditional lacerations. His defensiveperimeter progressively attenuated.
He persisted, however, in his immutableposture. He endeavoured to sustain his defensive disposition through sheer Primarchvolitional investment.
"Your ocular organs yet retain that contemptible effulgence... Hope."
Khorne's enunciation was saturated with derision.
"You anticipate repatriation by that ACCURSED ENTITY. Even should He intervene, however, you are, at this chronological juncture, already reclassified as my ACQUISITION."
Nyx did not enunciate a response.
His ocular organs, however, communicated his determination with unambiguous certitude.
Khorne's regard traversed Nyx's corporealconfiguration and fixed itself upon the diminutive human spectators enthroned upon the coliseum's elevated perimeters.
His expectation had been that these mortals— whom He held in profound contempt — would manifest comprehensive existentialdespair at this spectacle of their champion'scomprehensive suppression.
His expectation was contradicted.
Their ocular organs emitted a specificeffulgence — trust. Conviction.
These mortals authentically believed that Nyx — whom Khorne had comprehensivelysuppressed — could transfigure this catastrophic martial disposition into victory.
"These FORMICIDAE... How DARE they ENTERTAIN the PROPOSITION that they can CONTEND with DIVINITY?!"
Wrath — at this contemptible exhibition of mortal insolence — erupted within Khorne's sensorium.
Crimson effluence coalesced about His colossal battle-axe with animate deliberation. It ascended into incandescent configration.
His terrifying divine puissance occasionedcomprehensive structural perturbationthroughout the coliseum's entireconfiguration.
His subsequent offensive commitment would comprehensively annihilate this vestigialquantum of mortal insolence.
EIGHT crimson umbrae of axial effluenceabruptly coalesced into a SINGULAR, CATACLYSMIC OFFENSIVE COMMITMENT.
Sanguinary configration enveloped Nyx's corporeal configuration with the irresistiblemomentum of volcanic effluence.
This terrifying energetic perturbation was of such magnitude that it registered with visceralclarity upon the auspex displays of the Nightfall — which was, at this chronologicaljuncture, suspended in celestial orbit over Nostramo.
"...Nyx."
Just as Nyx maintained his unwaveringconviction that Curze could prevail against the renegade Eighth Legion —
So, too, did Curze maintain his unwaveringconviction that his fraternal associate would not succumb to the Blood God's oppressivemartial investment.
This conviction was unperturbed by Khorne's manifestation of His terrifying divinepuissance.
Since his successful insinuation of himself, Sevatar, and his two additional acquisitionsaboard the Nightfall, Curze had terminated an indeterminate enumeration of renegade Night Lords.
The umbral presence that had, throughout this engagement, persisted at the perimeter of his cognitive sensorium, however, had not yet manifested itself.
His prophetic faculty assailed his cognitionwith accelerating frequency. Fragmentedapprehensions of humanity's desolate future— interleaved with vivid registrations of his own predestined existential termination.
Curze's affective configuration remained immutable.
Even confronted with the phantasmic effigy of his own death — he traversed it with affectless equanimity.
Paradoxically — as his prophetic registrationsintensified in frequency and vividness —
The renegade Eighth Legion's tacticaldispositions manifested pronounced delaysand deficiencies.
It was as though they, too, were entangledwithin an invisible umbral reticulation of apprehension.
This transient interval of hesitationconstituted the decisive parameter in this primordial martial convocation between Primarch and Legion.
It facilitated Curze's accelerated insinuationof himself and his acquisitions into the Nightfall's essential profundity.
SHRIEK——!
An unanticipated fulguration of axialeffluence erupted from the umbra.
Its trajectory was directed at Curze's maxillofacial configuration with surgicalprecision.
Curze's transhuman perceptual faculties — which exceeded the threshold of conventionalAstartes sensory calibration by a considerable margin — registered this offensive commitment with sufficienttemporal increment to effect a subtle cephalicinclination.
The fulgurant glaive traversed his perimeterwith negligible attrition to his corporealconfiguration.
"You have arrived to encounter your predestined existential trajectory... Father."
This familiar enunciation — emanating from the umbra — occasioned in Sevatar's corporeal configuration pronouncedinvoluntary trepidation.
He could not err in his identification of this provenance.
This was the adversary who had exterminatedhis entire familial collective. This was the nocturnal phantasm that had, since that catastrophic chronological instant, dominatedhis somnolent cognitive registrations.
The entity denominated the 'Raven Prince'insinuated himself from the umbra with deliberate, ceremonial languor.
His regard encountered Sevatar's.
This encounter endured for a transienttemporal increment. It was saturated with ineffable affective effluence.
His regard then traversed to Curze. His enunciation was affectless, deferential:
"The Night Haunter anticipates your arrival in the profundity, Father."
"I am cognisant of this anticipation."
Curze's enunciation was equally affectless.
"Sevatar. Ralph. Crite. This renegadespecimen is designated for your retributivetermination."
His enunciation concluded, Curze translatedhimself through the Raven Prince's perimeterwith effortless facility. His corporealconfiguration dissolved into the umbra.
He traversed towards the profounderdarkness.
The three remaining specimens were constrained to engage the First Captain of the Eighth Legion — the pre-eminent Astartesmartial instrument of his gene-father'sretinue.
"The chronological juncture for the consummation of our antagonistic encounterhas arrived... My 'other' iteration."
From the instant of his adversary'smanifestation, Sevatar's regard had remainedfixed upon his maxillofacial configuration.
The configration of retributive volitionincinerated his sensorium.
He was not, however, subsumed by this impulse.
"Ralph. Crite. SUPPRESSIVE ORDNANCEDISCHARGE — MAXIMUM CALIBRATION!"
Sevatar did not propose a singular martialconvocation.
He was acutely cognisant that his adversary'smartial experience considerably exceeded his own. A singular offensive commitment would be equivalent to existential auto-termination.
His power glaive's disruption-field generatoremitted its characteristic ascendantmodulation. Its effulgence was of exceptionalintensity.
Exploiting the suppressive ordnancedischarges of his fraternal associates as defensive perimeter saturation, Sevatar catapulted himself at the Raven Prince with the velocity of a ballistic projectile.
The two power glaives collided for the inaugural chronological instant within this tenebrous corridor.
Fulgurant energetic scintillations eruptedfrom their engagement. Their acousticsignature was deafening.
Sevatar's offensive commencement, augmented by his translational momentum, compelled his adversary to accede a half-step retrograde translation.
The Raven Prince immediately, however, recalibrated his offensive investment. His glaive's blade inscribed a lethal arcuatetrajectory upon the atmosphere. Its apexencountered the armour protecting Sevatar's cervical configuration.
It inscribed a combustive, excoriatedimpression upon this august ceramite.