Bab 87: Chapter Twenty-Seven: The View from Ulthwe (Part V)
Amon ceased his struggle as he peered into the Eye. In those few terrible moments, he saw the cosmos as the Primarch did. He saw the Warp, the Materium, and everything in between through the eyes of a Demigod tutored by Psychic Sages and the Anathema. Tears of blood and other fluids with coloration that defied reason poured from Amon's own eyes. Amon glimpsed the threads of fate and how perilously close humanity stood on the edge of Damnation or Extinction. He saw a trillion possible futures and how the Emperor and his sons fought to guide the human species on a singular impossible vision. Amon saw what terrors hid deep in the darkness and how his actions aided them. How the survival of Prospero was nothing of the sort. It was exchanging the dangers of being hunted in the wilds for the certain death of livestock. The visions poured into Amon's mind and filled it to bursting. Blood vessels broke in staccato and it only took Amon fifteen seconds to die.
Only two beings aside from Magnus's own family had survived looking into his third eye, and they both served as his Equaries. It was not a painless way to die but was illuminating. Magnus found it poetic in a grim sense. Even on the fields of war, he tried to teach. Granting foes whose mind he had already ripped open a flicker of enlightenment. Usually, he unleashed his Eye as a tool of death as an act of harsh judgment. Laying bare his enemies foolishness. While this use had been touched by that desire, it was also an act of discordant compassion. An attempt to show Amon the different paths and why his death was needed. Magnus knew mentally that Amon had committed terrible crimes, collaborating with Warp-Xenos and mutating humans into a degenerate hive. Yet he could understand the man's desperate actions. Being able to show Amon the truth before he died made what Magnus endured to open his Third Eye worth it. Sometimes he could still feel the cold metal of Gungir, his brother's spear in his chest.
With surprising gentleness, Magnus rested the fallen Psykers body on the group before him and turned up to face the Psychneuein Queen. The psychic chains Amon had created already started to buckle and he watched the monstrous thing start to awaken. It would be mad, driven utterly insane, even by its species standards by its binding. Magnus would kill it before it had time to fully awaken. The twin Equaries took their places. Ahriman summoning up Warpfyre and sifting through a dozen futures. Ohrmuzd readied powerful kineshields and sped up his nervous system. The sword and shield of the Primarch. Magnus readied his staff and started to chant. To an unaugmented mortal, it might sound like a single pure note. Those gifted with enhanced senses might be able to sense the truth of it. Magnus spoke a Psi-Sutra of fire and wrath with incredible speeds. Using the focusing aid of the chant and its words of power to focus and direct his power.
Weaving Psychic Magik with precision entire Covens might be pressed to match, at speeds faster than unaugmented thought. Magnus lifted his staff and unleashed death. A wave of white-hot fire erupted towards the Queen. Burning its bloated flesh and severing its threads of power. He had killed the puppetmaster now he would kill the webspinner. The Queen twitched and thrashed with all the grace of a dying arachnid as flames licked at its flesh. With a great sizzling pop, the Knight-Walker-sized horror fell from the ceiling as fire consumed it. Even mutilated and malformed, a Psychneuein Queen was mighty and tried to push through the flames. It was pointless, Magnus was no simple fire-caller. When he engaged in the brute force of Pyromancy he did it with the majesty and fury expected of a Primarch. The XV Primarch had conjured up heat commonly found in the heart of Stars or in the engines of Voidships. Fire hot enough to push stone instantly to Plasma erupted from Magnus's mind and at the Queen. Normally such raw power would turn the Pyramids innards into molten slag. Magnus focused the heat with molecular precision. Controlling the movement of individual atoms and dispersing heat with the natural cryonic feedback of Warpcraft. It took only seconds but the wretched bulk of the Queen had been reduced to a mound of ash that covered the chamber floor.
Pulling back his flames, forming a ball of radiant energy atop his staff the Primarch waited. Soon movement started in the ash pile. A sickening wrenching pop as bone and skin was ripped open by explosive growth. Psychneuein Drones, no longer constrained by a shackled Queen burst from their hosts. Swarms of the festering grubs devouring their host body and siblings. Then growing into adulthood with such speed it exposed their warp-touched nature. Soon nearly three dozen of the Wasp-Fiends pulled themselves from their mother's ashes. Guided only by instinct, they swarmed the Primarch and his equerries. Ahriman leaped into action. Conjuring bolts of psychic energy that speared the Psychneuein, leaving disintegrating husks in their wake. Ohrmuzd stood between the monsters and his brother and father. Pushing the Psychneuein back with walls of mental force. All while the Primarch struck with a whip of fire. The ball of flame perched on his Staff's head lashed out like some multi-headed serpent of Old-Terran myth. Each coil of plasma striking like red lightning and atomizing a Parasite.
It took them only a few moments to cut through the small swarm, and soon the trio was leaving the Pyramids innards. Knowing what awaited them outside and across Prospero. Even when cloaked in tons of polished stone, a deafening buzz of insectoid wings could be heard. Magnus exited the Pyramid and for a moment thought the sun of Prospero had set. That was not the case. The sky was black with Psychneuein. As every single infected citizen of Tizca and its few outlying communities was consumed. The swarm was unimaginably large. Amon in his attempt to stave off the Parasites had given them a breeding ground like never before. All fifty million citizens of Prospero had some level of psychic talent and were implanted with Psychneuein eggs or grubs. Now the fruits of the Amonite Commune's labor blanketed the world.
The shields of Tizca had fallen and orbital lance strikes started to pour from the sky. Burning away chunks of the swarm and giving Magnus glimpses as his sons across the mega-city. They fared far better than he had feared. Each mixed Coven of Battle-Brothers mixing their talents to defend against the swarm and tear into it. The Primarchs' own honor guard still held the Pyramids stairs. Pouring storm bolter fire and gouts of flame into the sky. Gritting his teeth, Magnus reached into his well of power. He started to grab the warp with his will. Dominating it and using the raw stuff of creatia as his. Following the teachings of his father, preparing to unleash a display of psychic power capable of rending Battleships from the sky. Then before Magnus could unleash his wrath the frightful buzzing of wings stopped. All at once, the world of Prospero seemed to go silent. Then it started to rain Psychneuein, millions of insectoid corpses fell from the heavens. Their warp-soaked bodies already starting to deteriorate after death. As quickly as the swarm had taken flight, it fell down dead.
Magnus held his power ready and watched the surreal sight, wondering if the Queen's mutilation had somehow birthed defective Psychneuein, or was the rapid growth too much even for Warp Predators. The answer to the question soon became clear as Magnus glanced down at the foot of the Pyramid. Where a circle of stone lay untouched by the Psychneuein corpses. In that circle, a number of shapes shimmered into being. He did not know if they teleported or used cloaks even his senses could not detect. Either possibility worried the Primarch.
Fifteen humanoid shapes became clear. Five of them moving statues of carved bone, similar in size to Terminator Clad Astartes. Nine dressed in iridescent robes bedecked with flowing runes and polished jewelry. And in the center a single black-clad figure holding a staff in one hand and a shining cube of geometric golden shapes in the other. Any questions about the newcomer's identity ended when the circle parted, letting the black-robed leader approach the Pyramid. Flowing movement, that confused the eye and seemed far too liquid and graceful for any living being to make. Great helms with ornate plums and decorations. A faint but pervasive aura of otherness and ancient power. The Eldar had come calling.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone