Chapitre 85: Chapter Twenty-Seven: The View from Ulthwe (Part III)
"Prospero" that name tugged at something at the back of Magnus's mind. A vague feeling of recognition and sadness that came uninvited. Quickly discarding the intrusive thought the Primarch readied himself for war. Such flickers were not uncommon for him, his status as the most psychically powerful Primarch came with some baggage. Ever since he and his legion left the Sol System, Magnus could feel the eyes of the so-called Dark Gods upon him. Away from the indomitable aegis of the Astronomicon and his father, Chaos leered at his soul with a disturbing obsession and thirst. Magnus knew why of course, he and his gift were key to the Primordial Annihilator's defeat. For now, he has other battles to fight and Chaos could wait. The mystery of Prospero would be added to the list of mysteries he might uncover, along with his earlier observer.
Departing the command deck the Primarch armed himself for war. The Lightning Bearer has beaten important lessons into Magnus, lessons against hubris and over-reliance on his psychic might. That was not to say Magnus fought with crude blade or bolt like his brothers. He simply acknowledged all forms of power and kept a dagger just in case. As such the arming chamber of the Primarch blurred the line of armory and ritual center. Plates of Ceramite, covered in occult symbols and inlaid with arcane trinkets enclosed the Primarch. A great helm crafted in the image of ancient Magi-King sealed over his head. Its myriad of psycho-reactive materials already glowing at his mere touch. The arming servants of the XV Legion combined the arts of ritualist and armorer, completing complicated pre-battle checks while inscribing symbols of power on polished metal. In his youth, Magnus would have dismissed the bulky power armor and the Plasma Pistol mag locked next to his dagger as unnecessary. Which in truth they would be, anything that could resist his psychic might would not be slowed by mere metal and plastic. Still, Magnus cloaked himself in traditional tools of war as a reminder and symbol. To never let himself fall prey to hubris or ignorance. This act of preparing for war had become a ritual of sorts, which only held power as long as you gave it power.
As the last rivet and neural cable found its place, Magnus reached out his left hand. Sinister, the hand of destruction and retribution. Into Magnus's palm, a blind Astropath placed his chief weapon. It was a Staff, a symbol long associated with power, mystery and the Magi. Yet it was a Staff in the same way the Blade of Psychic Fire the Emperor carries is a Sword. Magnus has "borrowed" extensively from the Sigillites collection and every other trove he could access to craft this tool of Psychic power. The Staff itself was carved from a truly ancient piece of wood that survived a thousand disasters through a mixture of luck, and the intense psychic energy its mother-tree had been saturated in. That near-mythical tree traced its lineage back to an unassuming Fig Tree that sheltered a Prince of a nation long forgotten. A tree that had watched this run-away Prince touch a part of the Warp yet unsullied by Chaos and become a great Teacher. This legend sourced the Staff's name, the Awakened Dream. Of course, Magnus had not stopped with a simple wooden haft, even one with such pedigree. A sphere of polished meteoric stone capped the staff. Its void-black material drinking in light and offering glimpses of the impossible to those who peered into it. Around this dark orb of ritual power floated a halo of fifteen sacred stones. Each cut to mathematical perfection and charged with sparks of psychic power. Ribbons of silk, papyrus, and precious metals coiled down from the orb and along the staff. Every centimeter of each ribbon is covered in esoteric script and occult imagery. The Awakened Dream formed a psychic focus and force weapon beyond compare. A tool of manipulating the tides of the Warp in ways not seen since the height of the Aeldari.
Gripping the familiar heft of his Staff, Magnus closed his eyes as his servants painted the last ritual symbols upon his armor and finished their final psionic-sutras. Leaving the arming chamber, Magnus was flanked by his twin equarries. They had also prepared for War, and would follow him across the battlefield as extensions of his will. A brief telepathic message from the Primarch alerted his Lord-Magi and Coven Chieftains to his intent and orders. He would join the initial assault on Prospero. A flurry of telepathic messages between Primarch and Genesons continued across the fleet as Magnus prepared himself for Teleportation. The XV legion honor guard, the Varaha Shields, clad in Terminator armor awaited the Primarch in the Flagships primary Teleportarium. The Shields membership numbered some of the Legion's best Telekinetics and Biomancy. Experts in turning their minds and bodies into exactly as their name implied, living shields for the Primarch. The Honor Guards Captain, Jedet Geb gave his Genefather a small salute and moved his warriors into position around the Primarch.
A flurry of Telepathic messages poured into Magnus as he prepared for Teleportation. He, alongside close to three thousand of his Legion elite, would arrive in the Amonite Capital of Tizca. They would rip through the enemies defense, push into the heart of whatever psychic threat wormed its way into this planet, and kill it. Under his orders, the Fleet would target the few cities outside of Tizca and blast them to ash. Then unload the full complement of Auxilia and Astartes to besiege Tizca. Where they could either help the Primarchs initial force mop up the enemy remnants or provide assistance if need be. Tizca itself was protected by a combination of mechanical and psychic shields and defenses. Enough to protect, or at least mitigate a true Imperial bombardment. Normally such barriers would stop unguided teleportation, turning it into a near-suicidal task likely to scatter its survivors across kilometers of unfamiliar terrain, if not simply shunting them into solid stone or other obstacles. But by very definition any battle in which a Primarch fought quickly left behind any concepts of normality.
Magnus took his place in the center of the Teleportarium, his most trusted Genesons forming a ring around him. With a deep shuddering breath, the Primarch started to gather up his power. Reaching into the Sea of Souls and making a path through eldritch currents. The esoteric machines of the Teleportarium started to crackle with energy, but not of its own creation. Magnus did not rely on petty mechanical substitutes. If he desired a path through the Warp and back into reality, then he would carve it himself. Magnus struck the center of the Teleportarium with his staff and then his company was gone. In speeds measured in transhuman thought, the Primarch carved a path through the Warp. Dancing between spiritual riptides, arcane break walls, and hungry nightmares with ease. Aside from the Primarch's guards, nearly three thousand other Astartes teleported down to the surface. They used traditional methods but found themselves under their Genefathers Aegis once in the Warp. Each teleporting Squad was guided by the Primarch, slipped through the defenses of Tizca with little effort from Magnus.
The storm stuck Tizca all at once, hundreds of lightning bolts detonating across the city. Punching right through its shields and dropping three thousand Angels of Death into Tizca. Magnus and his Honor Guard arrived at the base of the Great Pyramid. No fanfare, just a flash of light, and then a Demigod stood among broken men. Across Prospero. the Amonite defenders prepared for whatever invasion force the Imperium would throw at them. Their soothsayers and analysts predicted the pattern of bombardment and how the Auxilia would attack. The Astartes offensive had not entered any of their visions. Predicting the future is difficult, preventing others from doing it is by comparison easy. A fact the Seers of the XV Legion were acutely aware of. Gunfire and the telltale sparks of warp-craft soon erupted across Tizca. As three entire fellowships of the Arcanists marched on the Amonite capital. A devastating force capable of ruining entire worlds by strength of arms and psychic power. They were a mere distraction, to keep the brain-bound abhumans of Prospero from recognizing the Primarchs' threat.
Magnus gazed around the plaza at the Pyramids base. Taking in the sights of the expansive nexus of the Amoninte civilization. The roads and buildings of Tizca stood organized in an intricate pattern of mathematical and psionic resonance. Subtly focusing the mental energies of the mega-cities occupants towards the Great Pyramid that stood before Magnus. The shimmering city of Tizca bled latent psychic energy. Controlled and directed with an artisan's touch. It pained the Primarch he would need to destroy it. All of the Primarch's senses extended out to soak in a snapshot of the city around him before it burned with soulfire. The occupants of the plaza finally shook free from their surprise and noticed the Primarch and his guards. They responded quickly. The psychic network connecting them directing its puppets with methodical precision.
Hundreds of different Amonite abhumans pushed towards the Imperial trespassers. The Primarch recognized maybe a dozen distinct castes-races among the Heretics. It seemed whatever mind guided this world had taken advantage of the Warps mutagenic properties. Speeding up specification, birthing specialized abhumans castes. Some were little more than walls of muscle, larger than even Terminator clad Astartes. Kin to the Ogryns of former prison worlds. Bloated parodies of humanity bred for manual labor and unsophisticated violence. Others possessed mutations in reverse of these Prospero Ogryns. Swollen heads pulsing with psychic potential, carried along by spindly limbs. Each abhuman caste showed clear signs of selective breeding and mutation, born for a singular role the ruling intelligence desired. The Amonite Commune was still made up of individual mutants, but for how many more generations, Magnus could not say. It would not be long before any semblance of singular thought had been wiped from Prospero, leaving an Amonite Hive. A psycho-born eusocial organism, a serious threat to the future of mankind the Emperor envisioned. One that would never come to fruition, as Magnus prepared to deal with Tizca's defenders.
Time slowed, and the charging Amonites became frozen like insects in amber. Magnus Rubiracr, Lord of Mysteries adjusted the flow of space/time around him as he responded to the attack. In his little bubble of diluted time, he could spend comparative hours of transhuman brain activity in planning out the perfect economy of destruction. An amused smile crossed the Primarchs face as he looked out across Tizca. It has been a few years since he had needed to use any serious level of effort in battle. His duties across the growing Imperium had kept him from the truly brutal fighting some of his brothers were mired in. He could strike with precise, clean effort, but he was not going to. Magnus expected what he was about to do would provoke the master intelligence of Prospero. A fact he used to justify his desire to cut loose.
Striking the Awakened Dream upon the polished stone of the Plaza and reaching out with his free hand. Magnus reached into the meniscus between Material and Immaterial. Feeling the threads that connected his Abhuman enemies. He traced the strings of Will that bound the Amonites together, gathering up a great bundle of them into his psychic grip. Then he pulled. Raw psychic power latched onto the hundreds of threads and ripped them free of the Souls they connected to. Earlier the twins and Primarch had discussed freeing the Abhumans, using methods of delicate psychic surgery. Delicately cutting the connections, hoping to perverse the minds touched. This was not what Magnus did, his act was of pure and practiced Psychic violence. Instantly almost half of the defenders moving against the Primarchs honor guard fell. The lucky ones died instantly, the psychic shock interrupting the autonomic nervous system or triggering colossal strokes. Most did not get such a clean death. Magnus watched an Ogryn collapse to the ground and beat its head into the stone while screaming its throat raw. Only stopping when its blood and brain matter formed a great halo around his thrashing body. A dozen lithe abhumans with delicate but dexterous limbs turned on each other. Savaging anything they could with a mixture of bladed weapons and precision tools. Many were lobotomized, whatever crucial parts of their brain the Psychic tendril had wormed itself into, irreparably traumatized by the violent extraction.
Watching the scene of madness and carnage unfold, the Primarch reminded his sons with a gentle telepathic message. "This is why the Imperium fears psykers. Our power is great and in the wrong hands could unleash horrors that make this seem tame. Remember that fact and don't ever forget our abilities are as much a danger to us as our foes."
Magnus knew it was terribly hypocritical of him. To be acting the wise sage, counseling restraint while indulging his desire to unleash his power. He hoped his awareness of that fact earned him some leniency in that regard. Besides, showing the raw devastating force of his Psychic might served as a reminder to his sons. What they might aspire to and what they might fear. Turning his focus back to the surviving enemies, Magnus decided another demonstration would prove useful. When he had ripped open the minds of the nearby defenders he had traced the psychic connections back to a nexus of sorts. A more powerful psychic mind that itself was connected to the heart of the web below the Great Pyramid. This nexus had hidden itself, possibly unintentionally in one of the rising obelisk-habs that surrounded the Plaza. Peering down from the shining building, directing the small army that tried to attack the Primarchs honor guard. The Nexus had been also hurt by Magnus's first attack but was already recovering. Magnus could feel it gathering up its own psychic might. Paltry compared to him but surpassing many of his Legions officers.
The Primarch traced the enemy "commander" with his mind as his sons moved in to finish the beleaguered remains of its subordinates. Terminators glowed with psychic flames as they cut down Abhuman fighters with methodical practice. Ahriman and Ohrmuzd never leaving the Primarchs' side. Getting a sense of the creature, Magnus was disgusted. It was like the bulbous-headed mutants of before but taken to a foul conclusion. A warped cranium, rendered egg-shell thin by constant growth teetered on top of a vestigial sack of organs and limbs. Telekinetic effort kept it propped up and floating a few inches from the ground. What passed for a body had been stretched out by the constant pull of gravity, left dangling from the mutated skull. Yet this defilement of the human form was not raised bile in the Primarchs throat. He felt something writhing inside the swollen skull. Its brain grew at a rapid pace for a far more sinister purpose than powering Psychic disciplines. Shadows of writhing maggots fed on the Nexus-Creatures brain, growing fat on psychically active brain matter.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone