40 Thousand Reasons - Chapter 202

I shouldn’t have dodged the third strike. The Destroyer had an inviolable aura around it. The poor planet behind me did not.

I slashed at the passing tentacle with my Titan’s right claw, but it was too late. The world of Demios Binary, and the millions of techpriests guarding it, died in a cataclysmic explosion.

“No! You’ll pay for that!” Saint Celestine shouted and flared her powers even more, incinerating a dozen incoming tentacles at once.

Well, I never expected this fight to go easy.

“Focus, Celestine! Channel everything into the Titan.” I demanded in a quiet tone, just as the weakest psyker in the right arm began trembling and shaking, while the monitoring circuits simply shut off around his pod.

Critical soul trauma, do not use battery number 3, the Machine Spirit requested on the Anima circuit.

Incoming strike, dodge!

I simply teleported away, and used the tesseract labyrinth to replace the psyker in the pod with Griselda. I wasn’t certain what Ordo Sinister did with the burned out psykers, but for now the blind battery could rest in stasis.

Immediately, the influx of an Alpha-plus level psyker into the Anima circuits refilled the energy reserves, and even rejuvenated the weakened batteries to some extent. The Saint’s aura permeating the Titan helped as well, and a second later we were back in the fight.

However, a second was all it took for the materialized Chaos construct to repair itself as well. The lost tentacles grew back, and even added tongues and teeth along their length.

Trazyn’s beam flashed darkly beside us, and a large swathe of incoming winged demons died forever. But there were more, always more.

The galaxy had plenty of rage and fear to summon untold demons, during the millions of years of sentience, alien or human alike. Pain or pleasure, fury or lust, it didn’t matter. Every dream and emotion was reflected into the Warp, only now the Eye of Terror threw them all back at once. Well, at least half of them.

I continued released precious munitions onto the material assets of Chaos, spending torpedoes and mines and bombs like throwing rice at a wedding. Best use of them anyways, as thousands upon thousands of Chaos marines, or corrupted tanks and spacecraft, Titans and Knights and Dreadnoughts got obliterated every minute.

My Orks held the lines in suicidal charges, enjoying the mayhem and massacre and the brutal violence like…Orks. Couldn’t compare their sheer joy and exuberation for a massive fight with anything else. Losing millions of Orks per minute was a fair trade in my opinion, if it allowed me to reduce the Chaos forces at a similar pace.

Far to our right, Polaris-Albedelach had a great time, shredding into Khorne’s body like a whirlwind of lightning and death.

The Eldar Talisman fired again, this time directly into Slaanesh’s pink construct. A hundred limbs got sheared off and flayed of life and soul, and then a gravity beam struck as well, emerging from the Singularity.

The construct shifted and bent, contracting into a smaller shape with a giant purple eye in the middle.

“That’s our chance, Sister. We’re going for the eye!” I commanded with a grin.

My Psi-Titan, the Occedentalis-Sabaktes burst forward into a flash of speed and energy, and we impacted construct’s eye with the right claw first, then the armored pauldron. And then we got stuck, as the eye wept a sticky fluid than trapped us like an insect in amber.

Perhaps not my best idea then. I flared the Antipathic Tempest spell, then fired a Death Pulse bomb right into the god’s eye. The shockwaves threw us away, spinning for a moment like a leaf in the wind.

Right arm damaged, engage repairs now, the Machine Spirit of the Destroyer demanded in a wail of pain into my mind.

I just glanced outside the cockpit, to find the right arm missing from the elbow. We aren’t going to repair that, buddy. We’ll need a Titan Manufactorum for that, and Cadia did not have such facilities.

Still, I directed the psyker energy to begin the Necrotechica spell, sealing leaking conduits and plugging the gaps in the arm’s armor.

Then I teleported again and fired the left-hand cannon at near point-blank range, exploding the purple bleeding eye into a nebula of violet fluids and misshaped sexual organs.

Burning sexual organs though, with claws and teeth in painful places. I think I did them a favor.

“Get out of there!” a robotic voice warned me all of a sudden, right into my mind.

I grabbed my fellow Titan and flashed back on board the Black Lament, storing the two Psi-Titans in the tesseract for now.

And then the world of Cadia was engulfed in a green light, and Stern and Celestine crashed to the floor, screaming and wailing in pain.

I simply stored the hurting women in my pocket dimension, and walked to my command chair where Sister Darcy was biting her lips until they bled.

“It’s okay, Darcy. Are you in pain?” I asked a bit worried.

“I don’t sense the Emperor anymore. There is only a green wall, all around my soul.” she answered in a confused daze.

For once, I just patted her head and refrained from commenting. ‘Working as intended.’ would have been cruel and unnecessary.

Then I lifted her gently and sat back in my chair, placing the teenage novice in my lap. “Can you imagine what those things are feeling right now? Cut off from the Warp and the worship of their cultists?” I asked instead, then fired the main weapon for the last time.

The black beam was tighter and weaker now, but with the Warp repelled by the Cadian psylons, the Chaos God was weaker as well. The eroding beam spread through the decaying flesh, and slowly the Lord of Excess began to die.

The drain of the Blackstone Fortress weapon began to feel uncomfortable, then painful, then worse and much worse. Still, this chance would not come again.

I kept the beam on target for ages, until everything went black.

“Wake up, my lord. There’s some kind of Eldar god, he wants to speak with you.” I heard a young voice demand too loudly.

With effort I opened an eye, to see Darcy at the side of my bed, and a pair of Eldar Harlequins, standing by the door.

The tesseract vision didn’t even detect the second Harlequin, which meant something important. Probably.

“You’re Cegorach?” I muttered in a tired slur.

“Not quite, human. You can find me in the Black Library, when you have time to visit. My actual presence in the mortal world would have…too strong consequences.” the second Harlequin answered in a perfect High Gothic.

“I see. Some kind of projection then. So why are you disturbing my beauty sleep?” I continued while searching for a recaf thermos in the tesseract, then gulping the still hot beverage.

“It’s been three weeks already. Also, the Eye of Terror is gone.” the Eldar God answered with a short laugh.

If this was a prank, then it wasn’t a good one. I only had to mentally link with the fort’s Machine Spirit…and look outside from any pict sensor.

The Black Lament’s chronometers also confirmed the elapsed time. I’d slept for three weeks, but didn’t even feel weak or famished.

I just sipped more recaf, and mentally checked my internal organs. Some kind of organic mechanism had triggered and placed me in hibernation. The Emperor did look after me.

“Everything is great then! The invaders were repelled, and I can return to my other job.” I quipped in fake cheerfulness.

Both Harlequins snorted at the same time and the same tone. “Two Chaos Gods are dead, Pef Lancefire. And, you killed one of them. She-who-Thirsts is gone and Ynnead has awakened instead.” The familiar Solitaire explained in an awed voice.

I just blinked to shake off the last clouds in my mind. “So?” I asked a bit confused.

“He’s an idiot, Lord Cegorach. I think we’re wasting our time here.” The Solitaire spoke in Aeldari, only I understood him clearly now.

Since when could I understand Aeldari? I barely knew a hundred common words.

“I’m not wrong, my lonely son. He too has crossed the Black River, just like me and you. He can even understand us. Don’t you, human?” Cegorach asked while measuring me with a piercing gaze.

Gods were obnoxious like that. Always reading your mind.

“So who killed Khorne?” I asked in Aeldari, as I stood up and summoned Canis for support.

The wolf sniffed at the xenos and glanced at me to confirm if they were edible.

Darcy immediately plunged to hug and pet the elephant-sized wolf, almost vanishing in the thick and grey fur.

“That’s…the funny thing. We helped too, but it was your pet Necron who scored the kill. And there was an Inquisitor involved as well, Lady Greyfax. She fired that modified weapon.” Cegorach replied in an amused voice.

I nodded with a smile. Trazyn had done the same with the Hadex Anomaly, using an Inquisitor for the dirty job itself.

“Anything else?” I asked curious.

“It is a huge galaxy, human. But yes. The Maelstrom is acting up, and the Screaming Vortex has began to expand rapidly, engulfing the entire sector. The Tyranids are acting strangely as well, thousands of Hive Fleets guarding habitable planets instead of devouring them. Craftworld Biel-Tann has changed course towards the worlds formerly inside the Eye, and refuses contact with anyone. The Outsider Dyson sphere has began glowing brighter, which probably means the insane C’tan is waking up. And lastly, the Necron Hollow Sun has detonated in a giant supernova.” The Eldar god answered in a flowing voice, almost like a poem.

I held my hand out and Canis pushed his nose into my palm. No wise utterances from my genius wolf though.

He was possibly just as lost as me. I did suspect someone had a metal hand to do with a certain enemy Necron Dynasty being blown up, but not much else.

“So?” I wondered again. I had a feeling the Eldar god wanted me to ask something, but I really didn’t want any Eldar help. Especially not a god. They came with too many strings.

“I will allow Mnemorach to travel at your side, Pef Lancefire. And a favor, for your amusing service. I may not have the reach of your Emperor, but I suspect you’ll avoid Terra for as long as you live. You might need divine intervention, one day.” the projection spoke in a final tone, then faded away, leaving the other Solitaire alone, once more.

I grinned and pointed at the Harlequin with my thermos. “So I’m an idiot, right?”

“You are, human. But you’re also too lucky. Had you asked anything from Cegorach, you’d have died a slow, painful death.” the Solitaire explained in a casual voice.

I chuckled at that, and drew Darcy out before she tugged the wolf’s tongue again. Poor girl had a deathwish, I swear.