Chapter 36: Chapter Twenty One: Gold, Silver, and Steel (Part III)
Location: A cavern of molten steel and rock that had once been the Inner Sanctum of the Creed.
Date: 815.M30 (191 Minutes since the Angel's arrival)
Battling a Daemon is never an easy thing. The Neverborn are not things of meat or metal. One cannot simply destroy an integral system and watch its body fail. A Daemon is a mass of sentient (or semi-sentient) Warp energy, puppeteering material matter. To banish it back to its hell-dimension home, it must be forced from the matter it is controlling. Either by utterly destroying the host, or sapping its energy through wards, exorcism and similar rites. The tools used to banish Daemons often use a mix of these factors. The Warhammer itself destroys the tissue and circuits, while the symbolism of the Hammer of Witches drives out the corrupting Warp-Energy. So when a Daemon is damaged, it is not being truly hurt. Only cast back into the pit.
Within the warp where banishment is not possible, battles play out differently. Instead of destroying an enemy-Daemon, a part or even all of it will be consumed. Cannibalism and predation between and within each God's sphere of influence are very common. Daemons wax, wane and change sides with the shifting battle lines of the Warp. Such is the Great Game, where flux is eternal and possibilities are infinite, and certainty such as death is alien. True and permanent death is a rare thing indeed. Killing a Daemon requires wiping to from the warp itself in such a way that its energy does not rejoin the Great Game but simply ceases to be.
The most primitive way to do this is for a far more powerful or uniquely antagonistic Warp-Power to utterly reduce the Daemon from being. Much like how a Star can burn entire worlds into nothing buts its most basic component atoms. A stark contrast to the cannibalistic exchange common between Daemons. The only power in the Immaterium with the will and means to do this is the Anathema. Atham the Revelator is not a participant in the Great Game, he is its end. He is feared and reviled by the Warp-Predators that feed upon the Materium and each other. When it came to matters involving the Anathema, nothing was held back. Both sides fought to exterminate the other.
This near eternal conflict continued in truly cataclysmic terms within Luna. The First Daemon Prince and the First Angel of Death sought to wipe destroy each other. Phenomenal psychic power, swords, and minds clashed in novas of power. The Angel's flesh was marred by many oily scars that oozed corruption, as was Be'lakor with tongues of blue flame that refused to be extinguished. The core of Luna ws being superheated and cooled by clashing energies in a physics-defying battle. The only constant in the ever-shifting battlefield was the Rift. The crack, in reality, provided a peephole for the Gods to watch the battle. Its jagged edges spat incandescent lighting. Illuminating the warzone in impossible colors.
A particularly brutal clash had sent both Angel and Daemon colliding into opposite ends of the chamber. The steel-shredding impact barely phased the two. Scrabbling from the impact-craters they flew across the Chamber. Reaching supersonic speeds, they smashed into each other, their weapons screaming for death of their opponent. With a mid-air feint, Be'lakor spun and grabbed one of the Angel's wings and threw her into the chamber wall. A flurry of doombolts and curses followed the reeling Avatar of Sanity, and before she could recover all two stories of Be'lakor landed on top of her wounded form. A taloned claw gripped the Angel's head and dragged her along the obsidian wall, grinding her burning flesh against the stone as he flew along it.
Suddenly, gouts of flames erupted from the Angel, seering the warp-infused flesh of Be'lakor. The Dark Prince was forced to let go of his foe, providing an opportunity for the Angel to ram her flaming greatsword through the Daemon's gut. The psychic flames burning away twisted flesh. Roaring in fury, Be'lakor punched the Angel. The atmosphere detonated in a cavitation bubble tinged with Daemonic laughter. Floating back to her feet the Angel flew forwards and gripped her blades hilt. With a brutal upward stroke, she pulled it free and through the Daemon's mutant ribcage. Be'lakor growled through the pain, and summon dark powers to combat the golden flames searing his flesh.
The battle continued for hours, neither side capable of gaining an advantage. Their flesh and spirit healed as quick as they were damaged. But Be'lakor could draw the fetid spring of corruption that was the Rift within Luna, and he knew that he would tire slower than his foe. A scrap of the soul once known as Sagitari-17 was entrapped in his stolen flesh. Tormented and mocked by the Daemon he had once served. He had believed himself chosen, elected by the divine. A rightful Sorcerer-Lord to enact the Gods will. Be'lakor had lost count of the times he had claimed such fools as hosts. Across the galaxy and the ages, a thousand worlds had gone mad under the First Prince's whims, each tragedy ending with the warp-touched architects of extinction becoming his hosts and playthings. Sagitari-17 was just the next of this Chaotic epic.
What puzzled Be'lakor was the source of the Angels power. He could sense the Astronomicon helping stabilize it, but it was not its font of energy. While it was similar to an incarnated Daemon, flesh infused with Warp Energy, it was also decidedly different. Something unique and bizzare made it up. Similar to the Primarchs in some ways, but if they had a spark of it inside of them, this thing was a blazing inferno. The Angel and the Primarchs were indeed Warp-touched, in a way that was both experimentally new and impossibly ancient. The Anathema had crafted his tools of domination perfectly.
The duel continued unabated, with Be'lakor holding a slight advantage in power. Not enough to tip the balance decisively, but enough that he would eventually win. With the Warp-Rift feeding him the raw stuff of Chaos and the laws of physics fading in Luna, victory would be his. This tempo changed in a single moment. With a perfectly timed parry, the Angel had slashed its sword across the eight-sided rune on the Daemon's chest. The psychic flames that formed the sword leapt onto his flesh and sought to reduce him to ash. Instead of slowly fading to auric cinders that would be quenched by his ocean of malice, these flames only grew hotter. Burning away at the Daemon's flesh.
The Angel's fire spread, leaping from its form like Solar flares. Everything it touched burned. The Warps touch was burned out of the materium, purged with callous disregard. The Angel's power was growing, and quickly. Soon, a corona of energy surrounded her. The Angel had become a Star. It took Be'lakor no time to realize the source of this new power: The Emperor of Mankind had come to Luna.
Where the Primarchs were power placed in flesh and filtered through a human soul, the Angel was nothing but unstoppable psychic energy barely contained in a saint's body. It existed only to destroy what the Emperor decreed an enemy. Eventually, if left unchained for too long, it would stop limiting itself. It would seek to serve the Emperor the only way it could; by destroying anything and everything it deemed unworthy or corrupt. It was a being made of pure order and domination, and few would escape its zealous judgment.
So where Be'lakor was limited by the Materium's stifling certainty, the Angel could only follow orders and do as the Emperor commanded. The Master of Mankind through Malcador had ordered it to stop Be'lakor, cleanse Luna, and protect the untainted. It had followed these orders, and even now its fire coursed through the Lunar catacombs, burning out the chaotic corruption like a virus culled from a bloodstream.
Now the Emperor's attention and will was focused through the Angel. Instead of a broken godling, Be'lakor faced the Anathema himself. Using the Angel much like a normal psyker would a force weapon, the Emperor channeled his power through her and unleashed his fury. Blow after blow burned and broke Be'lakor. His flesh was seared and his soul ravaged. With each world-ending strike, Be'lakor was further broken.
The mighty black wings that had once darkened the skies of countless worlds were ragged stumps. His limbs were torn off and burned. As the core of Luna burned with golden light, the Emperor-Angel gripped the Daemon by its throat and dragged it to the rift. Speaking through the Angel, the Emperor addressed the Daemon Prince and his gods.
"You are not gods. You are nothing but a disease. A blight on the soul of mankind, a curse inflicted in the First War. I will cleanse the Warp of you, and bring light and sanity to my people. Your armies have been broken. Hashut has been cast back to its pit. The Imperium has been girded against your taint. The laughter of thirsting gods is over. The Age of False-Gods is at an end. The Age of Mankind has begun."
Thrusting Be'lakor through the rift, the Emperor started to pour the psychic energy that made up the Angel into the Warp. The Angel was an unborn Primarch. It was divine essence not given humanity but simply weaponized. Now that Anathema-Power was being poured directly into the Warp. He sacrificed the Angel' s very essence to inject his will into the deepest Realms of Chaos. Screaming in unimaginable pain and humiliation, Be'lakor fled for its false-life, leaving the body of Sagitari-17 and seeking some dark pit to hide in.
Still the Angel bled into the Warp. The gods screamed in horror and frantically sought to stop the poisoning. The warp rift in Luna had been opened from the darkest reaches of the Warp, the domain of Chaos itself. Here, they could twist existence and send the sons of Lorgar back in time. Here, the God-Emperor could not destroy the gate, only shut it. It was a breach in existence leading to the stronghold of Chaos. A place of great darkness, a place of power. Where Chaos was at its purest, unassailable, and invincible. Except for one thing, for the deeper the darkness, the brighter the light shines. The Angel's essence flooded into the heart of Chaos. The Emperor would never have been able to strike such a domain normally. The gods had opened the way, channeling their might to extinguish the Imperium. Instead, the Light of Salvation and Revelation struck the gods.
The light burned away at each realm of chaos, exposing weaknesses in each domain and opening new cracks in the strongholds of disorder. The Chaos Gods felt the old rules of the Game change. The Anathema had cast a light in the deepest darkness and the Gods were afraid. Fear and desperation make fools of all of us and in that moment of panic, great cracks in the alliance known as Chaos Undivided were illuminated. The Emperor still held the attention of the Four but more of it was cast to their siblings. Opportunities became apparent as did flaws. The threat of the Anathema had not lessened, but the danger of a rival Ruinous Power had only increased. The Gods would be at war, stuck dueling each other while keeping an eye upon the Emperor. Self-Destruction is Chaos's very nature and when an opportunity presented itself the Four could not help themselves. Somewhere within the Warp an outcast watched this display and laughed. This misguided malice would aid the Emperor, and itself rise to join the Game.
Reeling in horror, the Four frantically to utterly shut the rift. As space/time convulsed and the Warps power subsided the Angel pulled itself out of the rift. Still holding the burnt and broken husk that had once been Sagitari-17. As a final parting gift of spite, the Four spat an ember of evil into the failed servant. The last bits of the Cult leader's soul took control of his broken body just as it mutated into a rancid Chaos Spawn.
Feeling the Angel dying the Emperor used the unborn Primarch for one final miracle. From its burnt body, a wave of golden flame lashed out. Pure Anathema to Chaos in the form of cleansing fire coursed through Luna, burning away any lingering touches of the Gods. Psychic engines and ritual chambers detonated in flames both real and immaterial. Cultists and daemonic infestations became ash. Unlucky loyalists who had failed to reach the untainted surface layers of Luna were scoured. The ones who survived would suffer the symptoms of soul-binding, unconnected to the choirs but damaged, and left in awe at the terrible might unleashed.
Now within the burning cavern once home to the Inner Sanctum lies two beings radically different yet incredibly similar. An ashen Angel composed of the last few flickers of power and a mewling Warp-Spawn that cried bitter tears at its foolishness.
The Primarchs and most of the lunar loyalists had made it to the surface. Where the corruption had already been scorched away by the XI Legions exorcist specialists. Marcus Augustio and Kalib Kraad, still carrying the body of Horus, arrived into the light of Sol just as a golden Stormbird touched down. When its gantry lowered. it seemed like a second Sun had erupted. The Emperor had arrived on Luna.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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