40 Thousand Reasons - Chapter 206

I’m not certain is this was merely my subjective perception of time, or some kind of omniversal temporal effect, but Yncarne moved too slow and missed the sword strike, and so did the Avatar of Khaine which appeared a second later.

I couldn’t let a small failure stop us anyways.

Polaris-Albedelach teleported above the battlefield and fired its wide range Death Pulse, moving slightly faster with the Demonifuge powering its psychic systems.

But Nurgle simply took a small step back, only that step transformed into a hundred kilometers of distance, making the psi weapon miss.

A black glowing C’tan appeared right beside the Chaos God and sliced with a Phase Scythe right into the creature’s leg, cutting a tendon perhaps.

The shitty grin on the Chaos God’s face vanished, and a Warp wave struck the ghostly Nightbringer, shattering the C’tan shard into a thousand smaller bits of floating scrolls and black letters.

I began preparing my Black Lament to fire, when an alien hand tapped my shoulder. “Not yet. You’ll only draw attention to yourself.” the Harlequin whispered in a barely audible voice.

Right! We did have a plan to follow, even if things went wrong here.

I focused my mind and deployed the last remaining Orks behind Nurgle, right as the broken C’tan were sucked back into the Tesseract Vault and a thousand bio-titans replaced them in a concave arc centered on the target.

Zooanthropes, Maleceptors, Trygons and Tyrants attacked Nurgle with psionic spells and focused Silence, even while thousands of plagues and diseases spread on the battlefield.

Nurgle summoned his own reinforcements, demons and Plaguebearers, then Daemon Princes and Greater Demons, while my sneaky Orks howled in joy and rushed inside the mansion to loot and pillage.

Nobody likes to see their home burned and looted, not even a Chaos God. His attention slipped, and he turned to deal with the annoying greenskins, his Warp portals opening all over the mansion to produce more Plague Marines, demon engines and diseased cultists.

That second was enough, as the Psi-Titan had a clear shot and fired the Sinistrum beam right at the damaged knee, blowing it off completely, while the Eldar Avatars also struck with their godly weapons.

“I’m getting angry!” the Empyrean godling yelled in annoyance, just as the sky split open to reveal a giant Ork with two heads, falling feet first.

Nurgle shifted to the side barely dodging the crashing ogre.

“I am Gork!”

“And I am Mork!” the other head proclaimed in fairly decent Low Gothic.

“And we have come to collect all the shinnies!” the first head explained while chopping with a familiar axe called Gorechild. My gift and bribe for their help, if that wasn’t clear.

The dragon teeth on the blade sliced open the jolly belly of the Chaos God, only there weren’t gems and gold inside, like the Ork Gods were promised. For a pair of godlike creatures, they were quite the idiots, to be correct.

I simply assumed they’d act like a bigger and badder Ork Boss, greedy and violent, and to nobody’s surprise they did.

While the police drama took place on the steps of the mansion, our fleet kept moving forward, while a thousand Hive Fleets were being deployed behind and to the sides.

Of course, the vast majority of these Tyranids were not mind controlled, only certain valuable specimens with powerful synaptic links gaining the honor of receiving Necron mindshackles.

They did their job anyways, as the Tyranids were simply supposed to attack and devour everything they encountered. Mostly demons. If they died, it wasn’t a problem, quite the contrary.

As the Black Lament passed over the battling gods, I sacrificed a crate of gems and gold and dispersed those over Nurgle’s wounds.

I know, I was being petty, but I also didn’t want those overpowered idiots after my head. Better give them a bigger target.

“Look! He really bleeds gems and gold!” Gork shouted and kicked Nurgle away to grab the shinnies.

“I want the blue ones!” Mork demanded and slapped his other head in envy.

I sighed inward as Nurgle just watched the Ork Gods bicker over his blood and gems, then biting on the gold to make sure it was real. His wounds were already regenerating visibly, by the time our fleet crossed into the next layer.

“You were mean.” the Inquisitor commented as she unleashed a barrage of melta bombs and promethium canisters behind us to create a wall of flames and screaming traitor marines being burned alive, yet unable to die.

I just shrugged at her hypocrisy and fired a single second blast towards Nurgle just before the Tyranid Silence crashed over the mansion layer and that space crumpled into confetti and plague spores.

The beam didn’t do much, barely flaying a layer of skin from the Chaos God, but now I had something to measure against its total apparent mass. About one in one thousand the necessary damage, not that Nurgle would stay still and allow me to fire for 20 minutes.

“The Masque_of_the_Frozen_Stars is already picking the lock around Isha. If you’re looking for valuables to steal, now it’s the time.” Mnemorach whispered from behind my chair, just as I let out a tired sigh.

I knew the plan, but this was the Warp and I couldn’t expect everything to go as planned. Already things were going badly, as the Ork Gods were too stupid to focus a single minute on their task.

I didn’t actually hope that they’ll be actually able to kill Nurgle, even if the thing was injured, but at least they could have tried. A single minute!

Damn it!

The fleet kept going, while our troops began to deploy and fortify as much as they could, blocking the mansion’s corridors with ferrocrete and blackstone bunkers, setting up minefields and traps, and covering courtyards with flamer tanks and sentry turrets.

We didn’t have a whole minute, as Nurgulite reinforcements poured in though doors, halls and portals, and our big guns had to jump out to fight Greater Demons and Plague Titans.

We did have three and half Titan Legions of our own, plus nine Knight courts, and thousands of tanks. We could hold the enemy here, while the rescue took place. But only if Nurgle didn’t show up in person.

Even Greater Demons were functionally immune to most weapons, and Titans were too slow to fight them on even grounds. If the plasma cannon missed, the Titan was toast or melted. Shields and armor counted for too little here inside the Garden, where reality was often a mere suggestion.

Of course, there were other potential helpers that might arrive. The Hrud were coming through the Maelstrom, a giant migration of trillions with powers potentially equal to Nurgle himself.

They might arrive in a minute, or in a thousand years though. Travelling through the Warp was uncertain like that.

Tzeentch and his armies were supposed to attack Nurgle as well, but they weren’t going to. Tzeentch would be too cautious to risk his life in direct combat.

I didn’t actually plan for the scheming god to actively help, but rumours of Trazyn’s deal with a certain Chaos Sorcerer were ‘leaked’. Nurgle had been forced to deploy most of his armies on his domain’s border with the Architect of Fate, which did allow us a rather easy entry into his mansion.

Suddenly, the mansion shook like a leaf in a storm, and the Necron ship just vanished, leaving us and the Eldar holding the idiot ball.

“Isha was freed, but the Necron took her!” Mnemorach observed in a slightly surprised voice.

“And that’s why the mansion is crumbling?” I asked while retrieving my troops into the tesseract. No point fighting the lesser minions anymore.

“…No. Mork is dead.” the Solitaire continued with his impossible knowledge.

I blinked and urged the Black Lament to speed up and upwards. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.” I mused while unleashing a barrage of Nova shells and Nova mines to cover the retreat.

We changed course towards the Maelstrom, with our Gellar fields burning through their consumable psykers a hundred times the normal rate.

The Immaterium currents were shifting and changing like crazy, and this wasn’t the best time to navigate. Only we didn’t have much choice.

We had to reach the Hrud, or else.

An Eldar cruiser changed course and dove right into the strongest Warp current and vanished without a word.

“You saw that?” I asked a bit curious.

“Farseers are crazy. Then again, a Crone Sword is worth the risk anyway.” the Harlequin explained in a careless voice.

Seeing what Yncarne could do with its own sword, I had to agree. Those weapons were kinda nice.

“I want one too.” I hummed in a longing voice.

The Solitaire laughed and patted my shoulder. “You have enough enemies, human. Your Emperor was wise to remove a hundred targets from your back, but you keep wanting more.”

I sighed and scratched Canis on his wise head. “Woof!” the wolf proclaimed in a proud howl.

Yeah, Canis I know. You’ll never be my enemy.

Now we only had to find the damned Hrud in a universe-size maze that kept shifting.

So I just opened the hololith screen and poked it at random.

The Black Lament took the lead, covering the combined fleet with its bulk and enormous Gellar fields, and we sped onwards.

I wasn’t a Navigator, but I trusted my luck anyways.