40 Thousand Reasons - Chapter 201

Without waiting, I teleported back on the Black Lament, and began accelerating the Blackstone Fortress towards Solar Mariatus, the outermost planet of the Cadian System.

The Venatoria fortress soon joined me on this run, and fired first towards the incoming Chaos gods.

The Immaterium beam was not limited by the speed of light or other mundane concerns. The ancient weapon simply burst into dark light, and kept firing for a long minute with a giant cone of soul death.

It was not enough, although the energies projected by Trazyn’s fortress did hold the incoming claws in place, halting their momentum, and burned the outer layers of skin.

I observed the process with curious eyes, trying to infer how much firepower would be needed to actually kill these things. Possibly a hundred times more? Hard to say with precision.

Anyways, as soon as Venatoria stopped firing the claws advanced on Cadia again, but this time pushing in front of them a large Chaos fleet made up of shielded battleships and demon-engines.

The Eldar fortress fired next, their beam crackling with blue lightning, similar in appearance with Miss Stern’s tempest powers.

Screams of pain emerged and the Chaos hands burst into flames and halted again.

“We should fire too, my lord” Chyron proposed in his usual gruff tone.

“It would just exhaust me for no gain, Brother.” I said with a small shrug, and folded Miss Darcy to bring her to my side.

“Lord Lancefire! I was…What are those things? I can feel their hate!” the young Sister of Battle exclaimed in righteous fury.

“They are the Great Enemy, my dear. Well, the part of them that our minds can recognize. I doubt anyone can see their real form.” I explained in a light voice, and fired a short burst from the Black Lament. A single second to calibrate the weapon and obtain some data on the effectiveness of my own beam.

To my surprise, and probably everyone’s else, the Immaterium beam of the Black Lament hit much harder than expected, throwing the encroaching hands back towards the Eye of Terror, while black cracks appeared in the structure of the constructs.

The Emperor had fiddled with the fortress for sure, during his presence on board.

“Dad, there’s a large revolt going on here. The inmates are led by an organization known as the Correction Rehabilitation Movement, and are taking over the prisons. I am deploying Tarantula drop pods, but it is not enough!” Finona spoke empathically into my mind, turning my attention to the Prison World of Saint Josmane’s Hope.

Well, I wasn’t about to waste troops and time trying to save murderers and whatever other prisoners they kept on that world. This smelled to me like a Chaos front, and that was enough. The Inquisition’s unofficial motto fit perfectly to the situation.

“When in doubt, Exterminatus.” I answered curtly, and simply forgot about the problem.

It was rather stupid to maintain a prison world right in the middle of the Eye of Terror anyways. What did they think it would happen, once Chaos influence grew stronger?

The Nova guns of the Black Lament began firing their Nova shells at the approaching Chaos fleet, filling the void with explosions and burning hulls.

The invaders kept coming though, a dozen battleships outfitted with dimensional shields plowing through and launching drop pods and troop landers towards Solar_Mariatus and Demios_Binary.

I countered that with Nova mines and a squadron of corvettes to reinforce the orbital defenses, and soon the landing forces simply evaporated.

Then the Mechanicus revealed their own surprise, defense batteries emerging from under Demios Binary’s surface and firing at the Chaos fleet with ancient laser and neutron beams, followed by long range missiles.

A tiny singularity fired from the Glorianna Battleship hit a couple of enemy ships and overwhelmed their weakened shields and three battleships blew up from the unexpected strike.

However, the return fire from the remaining Chaos fleet scoured Demios Binary and silenced the revealed batteries with lance and plasma fire.

More hidden defenses began to emerge, and Void Shields sprang up to cover the batteries.

I helped with a second of Immaterium beam fire directed at the incoming invader fleet, and soon after nine remaining hulls drifted in the void, scoured clean of any life or souls.

“My lord, there’s a new Warp portal on Hive World Belisar! The emerging forces are the Emperor’s Children, led by Lucius the Eternal.” Chyron advised me, sounding a bit worried.

I glanced in the tesseract vision at the new front, just in time to watch a Hive City getting swiftly overwhelmed by Chaos marines, demons and traitor regiments that emerged right in the middle of a large city with 30 billion souls.

Not only that, but the invaders were rapidly assembling sacrificial altars with near mechanical precision.

“Lucius? That’s the guy that just won’t die, right?” I mused, mostly to myself.

“No, my lord. He can die just fine. But he takes over the ones who killed him.” Sister Darcy explained with a horrified voice.

I blinked in surprise, and halted priming the melta torpedoes getting prepared to launch in my labyrinth. Perhaps killing the guy wasn’t the best option then.

“Plan B!” I decided with an encouraging nod towards Chyron.

We didn’t actually have a plan B, but the Lamenter Captain did have an enhanced mind, just like I did now. We had used plan A to capture and sacrifice the Champion of Khorne, so we should be able to do the same for the Champion of Slaanesh.

An amused cough resounded from within the dreadnought coffin, and my Lamenter brother saluted me for the last time. Then he vanished, with Sister Dessima and the abduction squad arriving in the midst of the invading Chaos marines.

Ten seconds later, the city itself vanished in melta bomb explosions and atomic fire. I extracted as many civilians I could from unaffected areas, but at least 3 billions people, right in the middle of the Warp portal zone were lost.

Another burst of golden light followed from Klaisus, as Ordela and Albesalom were starting the next sacrificial ritual of a Chaos Champion.

An angry howl of hate emerged from the Eye of Terror, and the pink claw split off into a thousand spiked tentacles rushing towards Cadia, followed more sedately by the burnished-red claw of Khorne.

I held fire again, until the Necron and the Eldar fortress fired, then fired with the Black Lament as well, for a long ten-second burst.

But this time the Chaos Gods refused to retreat, even as their skin blacked and cracked, then shards fell off and burst into flames. A torrent of tiny winged dreams erupted from the Eye, only they wouldn’t be so tiny if they were visible from light-years away.

‘Emperor, if you have a miracle prepared, now it’s the time!’ I muttered in my mind. Not exactly a prayer, but I wasn’t a very religious person anyway.

“Where am I?” I heard a confused woman ask right behind me.

Darcy sprang to her feet to confront the new arrival, while I just smiled wryly in my command chair. Really, Big E? You waited until I asked for a miracle?

“This is the Black Lament, Sister. The space fort of the Lamenter’s Chapter. And, we are at Cadia.” the Novice explained with an impressed voice.

“…I was dead, walking among ruins and corpses. And then…” the new arrival whispered to herself.

“You died ten millennia ago, Sister Celestine. Come, I’ll let you have my old Novice robes.” Darcy said and escorted the naked Saint towards her room.

I just sighed inward and produced a set of light power armor and a blue bodyglove for the naked woman, and placed them in Darcy’s room, as my own miracle.

The Emperor tried to be subtle, enticing me with his naked Saint.

Not that I would refuse his gift, but now it wasn’t the right time for romance.

I just hoped the Saint would be enough. I fired the Immaterium beam again, a short burst to buy me some time, then teleported beside Darcy.

“I guess you’re the miracle, huh? Perfect body, I admit. But do you have actually useful powers, beside making me blush with your beauty?” I asked the dressing woman.

The Saint was even prettier than my wife Serena, and possibly equal to my Rose, though quite differently. Flowing blonde hair and a warrior’s fit body, full lips and wide hips…yeah. It was love at first sight.

Even knowing that it was hard to resist. Celestine nearly gasped while looking back at me and blushing profusely.

“You’re very pretty too, Astartes. And while I know my faith is infinite, I can’t say if my powers will be sufficient for what I sense it’s coming. Fury and lust, anger and pain…the Ruinous Powers emerging from the Eye of Terror itself.” Celestine answered in a shy voice, while tugging at the thin bodyglove.

I just snapped my fingers and assembled the power armor around her with the tesseract, since time was quite short right now.

“I do have a Titan, Lady Celestine. You can call me Pef, as we’ll ride into battle together. Darcy, you sit in the command chair and cover us.” I ordered with a smile, then snapped my fingers again.

The next second, my Psi-Titan landed beside Ordela and Albedelach, just as the glowing altar shut off.

The corpses of Kharn and Lucius remained impaled on their ice spikes, lacking limbs and souls.

“Did it work?” I asked the Omega Pariah, while Celestine shifted in my lap trying to find a comfortable position.

“…Not really, Lord Pef. I think we need a Primarch, or they just die. Their souls are just too weak and corrupted.” Albesalom answered instead, and pointed with his Titan’s Power Claw at the approaching Chaos Gods.

I sighed inward, although I was told by two gods the ritual wouldn’t work. I guess reversing Chaos just wasn’t the same with an Ork Waagh. Sister Ordela returned to her labyrinth stasis pod, beside Dessima, while the covent of Silent Sisters were sent to protect Cadia and other vital ships and instalations.

“We need to hold them off, for twenty minutes. I’ll take the pink one.” I explained to my fellow Princeps in a grim voice, then entered hyperspeed and flashed away, the Destroyer glowing with the pure aura of an Imperial Saint.

Albedelach passed me with ease, and streaked away in a golden beam, proving that Miss Stern was much stronger than the pretty Sister Celestine in my own lap.

I had a few other tricks of my own though. I lazily dodged the incoming tentacle and flared the tempest aura, then fired the left hand Psi-cannon. The first tentacle simply evaporated into ectoplasmic ash, and I heard Celestine chant softly a melodic prayer.

Twenty minutes with this amazing woman in my arms seemed too short now. I embraced her tighter and dodged yet another pink tentacle with my super Psi-Titan, then fired once more.

Nineteen minutes left and 998 tentacles to go.