Capítulo 26: Chapter Eighteen: The Battle of Ceres (Part III)
Location: Inner Sanctum of High Prelate Naalrac-Aou
Date: 812.M30 (Fifteen Hours since the planet-quakes stopped.)
High Prelate Naalrac-Aou was the wealthiest and therefore most powerful Q'hrel within the C'er Slave-Colony. Its clan had been one of the original founders and they had profited greatly from humanities fall. For nearly a thousand C'er rotations the Q'hrel had been fortunate. In a single day, those fortunes had been utterly reversed. A horde of mutant meatlings of seemingly Terran origin had invaded. Every defense and force the Q'hrel could desperately summon was smashed aside.
Naalrac-Aou could only watch through the Inner Sanctum of the Steel-Flesh sensor arrays as doom came to its people. Entire clans were scoured away in belligerent fire. Millennia of history and thousands of Q'hrel butchered. The High Prelate could only ooze pheromones of horror and grief as chem-sensors howled that the Prime breeding pools had been drained. The Polyp-Spawn had been burned alive as they suffocated. Even some of Naalrac-Aou's latest siring has been murdered.
It had been thankful to secure the safety of most of its clan within the Steel-Flesh of C'er. The Ancient relic was impregnable, it did not matter that the rest of C'er's people and resource had to be abandoned. As long as they held the Heart they could wait. Naalrac-Aou's Clan, the Naalrac in near its entirety was clustered deep within the bunker-nests built into the Eldritch metal. Entire kin-units preparing to enter hibernation. An exoskeleton crew of Q'hrel would stand guard over their kin as long as it took for the invaders to leave.
This method had worked before and the elite of the Naalrac Clan hoped it would work again. For a few precious hours it appeared it would. The Mutant-Meatlings were running out of things to smash and burn. Their attempts to breach the Steel-Flesh had so far failed. Right as Naalrac-Aou started to settle and allow itself to hope a new Nether-tear was detected. A large force had stepped between realities and now stood outside the gate.
Before the Q'hrel elder could check the other gravitic and witch sensors for more information a great thundering blast echoed through the Steel Flesh. As it shook the Xeno fortress Aou felt something. Something great and terrible that every species knew and feared. The dreaded feeling of an Apex Predators attention. It faded as soon as it came, and Naalrac-Aou felt the stench of fear-pheromones leaking from its ducts. Shaking itself back to stability the Xeno was shocked and confused. The Q'hrel knew no predators, they had driven such creatures extinct millions of years ago on their home-world. Naalrac-Aou barely had time to regain a little composure when the alert-glands of the Inner Sanctum began expelling news of the worst case scenario. The entrance to the Steel-Flesh had been breached.
Utter dread filled the High Prelate. It could already sense the deaths of the first defenders. Slaughtered by some terrible monster the Terrans had unleashed. Nothing could stop this. Panicking slightly the Q'hrel closed off every gate and unleashed every defense available. It knew this would do little more than buy time. Time to unleash something the founding members of the C'er colony had buried.
The Steel-Flesh core of C'er was more than a bunker and command center for the Q'hrel colony. It was also a vault. A place where wealth, treasures, weapons and horrors could be kept safe. It could be sealed away from outside threats or lock up things that should never have existed. The first and most terrible item in this collection was the very reason the Naalrac clan ruled C'er as first among equals. An ancient artifact from a previous era of Q'hrel history. This weapon was far too powerful to control and beyond the understanding of the Xeno's current sciences. Even so, the threat it possessed and the danger of its activation kept them in control.
Now the time had come to activate it. Frantically Naalrac-Aou scuttled into the deepest vault. Tucked away behind layers of Terran-Steel and Q'hrel energy barriers was a Stasis field of phenomenal potency. A vice-grip on space-time protecting its occupant from the passage of time and the universe from its malice. To human eyes, it would have appeared a single massive diamond. A more careful observer would have realized it was no mere bauble. It was easily the size of a mortal man's head and bedecked with countless scriptures of warding. Trembling slightly the High Prelate started the process of deactivating the stasis field. All while praying to its pantheon for salvation.
Naalrac-Aou knew it would perish in this endeavor, in fact, most of the Steel-Flesh's occupants would as well. Once this thing was unleashed it would form a tide of devastation that would sweep through C'er. As its main manipulators and sensors worked to unlock the artifacts wards its secondary sets worked to open and shut the various apertures and tunnels in the core. If Naalrac-Aou could give the abomination a path of least resistance towards the invaders it would leave its kin alone.
With a little luck, the nightmare-tide would sweep up through C'er and drive the Invaders back. The artifact would be destroyed, the Terran fleet would ensure that. Yet if it could do enough damage the meatlings would be driven back and quarantine the planet. Letting the Q'hrel hibernate for as long as they needed. It was beyond risky but if it succeed at least some of Clan Aou would survive.
The High Prelates book-gills rattled with tension as the last bindings dissolved. The stasis field flickered out of being and time caught up to the artifact. For a moment the oily green diamond hung in the air as the ancient consciousness inside it awoke. A ripple shimmered along its perfect geometric edges. A voice in the Nether punched into Naalrac-Aou's mind. It scream/sang/begged the dread call of the abominations kind "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!"
That was the last thing Naalrac-Aou ever sensed as the Ancient Servent-Tool detonated into a mass of hungry flesh and consumed it. In far distant eons at their species height, the Q'hrel had sought to create the ultimate slave. A species that would serve perfectly and do any duty. Using Nether-Spawned mutants as the basis of the work they had succeeded for a time. An ever-shifting mass of flesh and matter that could take any shape and follow any order. Like so many other species that dived too deep and too greedily into the Nether domain the fruits of this labor were poisoned. For the Eldar it was the birth of She who Thirsts, for the Kinebrach it was the living decay of Nurglite apathy, the Q'hrel's folly came in the form of a slave revolt. The Shoggoth Insurrection.
After nearly a hundred thousand years of unending conflict in the dark and dank parts of the universe, the Q'hrel triumphed. The Shoggoths were nearly driven to extinction and their former masters recovered. Willingly giving up the powers that had made them mighty and relying only on the most tested and faithful sciences the Q'hrel retreated to the universe's corners. Growing rich and happy feeding off the labor of lesser slaves. The only reminders of the cataclysmic Servant-Tool revolt were fear-sagas to tell the spawnlings and a few prisoners of the war. For the mightiest of the Shoggoths could not be killed by the Q'hrel only imprisoned and sealed away. That was what High Prelate Naalrac-Aou had unleashed.
Nearly a 100,000 tons of ever-shifting mutant flesh had been compressed into a living Diamond. Those seals that kept it trapped in that shape were now gone. A living-tide of flesh poured forth. Gallons of hungry mouths roared through the tunnels searching for enemies to kill and matter to feed on. It was ancient, it was unstoppable, it was a living nightmare. The shoggoth was the ultimate product of Q'hrel science and sorcery. To any mortal man, it was doom-in-flesh. To the Firstborn of the Anathema, it was prey.
Location: Somewhere inside the mechanical Heart of Ceres
Date: 812.M30 (43 Mins and 12 Seconds since the Fall of the Ceres Gate)
Eddard Fendragon felt a shift in the Warp. Some great and terrible presence bloomed into being. A body and soul to swallow the world erupted screaming for vengeance and flesh. Quickly the Primarch sent a series of telepathic and Vox communiques to the other strike force commanders. The Primarch led the main thrust with various lieutenants splitting off as they drove deeper into the floating city. Xeno defenders had put up little fight. The bizarre architecture and gravitational anomalies in truth proved to be a bigger danger. The Q'hrel seemed to only have a tentative level of control over the Hearts gravitational abilities. It was still enough to generally impede and harass the Astartes.
So the frantic order to retreat came as a surprise to the Astartes, advancing so far had been difficult and tedious. If it had come from anyone other than their Primarch the Legionaries might have questioned it. The First Formation quickly moved towards the broken gate as the Primarch and his honor guard moved deeper into the bizarre relic-city. They traveled along a direct thoroughfare that had opened up when the presence was unleashed. It had been obscured from the Astartes by gravitational twists and turns. Now free of those oddities it formed a straight path from the Gate to the inner sanctum of the Xeno infestation.
It did not take the Primarchs transhuman genius to understand something was being aimed at him. The Black Circlet honor guard took formation and waited. With a thought, the Ebony Grails shield flickered into being and the Primarch raised his sword and shield in preparation. They did not have to wait long. An epic gale poured down the tunnel. A mass of air being pushed forward by a huge object. The winds roar was soon matched by another. A thousand mouths and vocal cords grown singularly to issue this challenge let loose a defining clarion call.
The tunnel was easily two dozen meters wide and tall. The oncoming flood filled it entirely A wall of mutant flesh that gushed down the tunnel. Mouths, eyes and other more unknowable organs and orfacies formed the wall. It barreled forward, the raw destructive power of such sheer momentum and mass enough to flatten a Mechanicum Knight-Walker.
Moving at speeds even an Astartes vision could not track the Primarch charged the oncoming storm. The Ebony-Grails energy field widened and took the brunt of the impact. Nightmarish-Flesh boiled away as it crashed into the force-field. Whispering psionic mantras the Emperor's Son gathered huge amounts of warp-power. The immaterium flowed through the Primarchs muscles, enhancing and protecting his body from the strain of blocking the Shoggoth. The name of the creature became known to the Primarch when they clashed. Its identity and its dread cry of "Tekeli-li!" were screamed into the Immaterium.
The thing was utterly mad and extremely dangerous. Despite, or because of this Eddard Fendragon was grinning savagely. This would be his first Dragon to slay, a mighty foe to test himself against. The Emperor's Sword would strike the beast down, and it would be the first among countless. Telekinetic force enough to reduce an Astartes company to a wet stain was used to bolster the Primarch. Waves of mental energy pushed back at the beast, yet the Primarch was still losing ground. Slowly but surely he was being pushed back. The scrape of his sabatons along the metal floor added to the cacophony of creature's hisses, the energy fields crackle and the Black Circlets fire.
Bolts of Plasma, Volkite rays and exotic bolt-shells vollied around the Primarch. Slamming into the flesh-tide and alleviating the transhuman champions burden the smallest amount. Dragon and Dragonslayer clashed. The Primarch snarled under the pressure like a great feline dueling its rival for control of the Pride. Reaching out with his warp-sight the Primarch realized the true bulk of the Creature. He was only facing down a tendril of it. To defeat the Shoggoth the Imperiums Apex Predator would be unleashed.
The Primarch voxed his sons, a simple order to protect them from the Beast's wrath and the Primarchs fury. "All units retreat to the surface and wait. If I do not return within six hours prepare to implement the ultimate sanction"
The Legion was shocked, what sort of horror could their Primarch have encountered to warrant such a thing. Nearly a hundred Astartes Librarians delved into Cere's core astrally to find the answer the moment the order came through. One went insane, thirty-one were comatose for anywhere for an hour to a week and the rest came back screaming about a mountain of flesh-hungry for souls. The Astartes left the core of Ceres all heading to the various occupied fortress built into the crust. They would let the Emperors Sword fight but they would not abandon their genefather. The Legion was poised and ready to hold the line against the horror if it broke through the Primarch.
The last to leave were the Black Circlet. It took a direct psychic order from the Primarch to get the honor guard to evacuate. Each and every one of them wanted to fight and die alongside the Primarch. It was only when the knowledge that their presence would hamper their gene-father's chances of surviving the fight was hammered into their brains did they finally retreat. Once they and the rest of the First Legion were to safety the battle could truly begin.
Eddard was surrounded, the Honor Guard had had to blast their way through various corrupt tendrils to escape and now those writhing waves of tainted meat were closing in. The Shoggoths great lumbering intellect was focused on the Primarch fully, it had focused on surrounding and consuming him over escaping. For such a being absorbing a Primarch would bring about an Apotheosis of evolution. Despite its great age and experience, the Shoggoth did not see it was playing into the Primarchs hands. It had not learned from its mistakes in the Insurrection and greedily coveted the secrets of the Anathema.
Masses of twisted flesh poured down both ends of the corridor, pinning the Primarch between itself. As the second front of the tide edged closer to the Black Knight his stance changed. A wave of telekine force pushed the mass that pressed against his shield back just a little bit and gave him an opening. The Ebony-Chalice force field simmered into nothingness, and its golden glow was replaced with the light of the Primarchs weapons.
The Titan-Sword ignited, its blade becoming a solid mass of purifying white-hot light. Psychically imbued claws crackled with disrupter energy and the Lion-Fire Plasma-Weapon readied itself. A stream of Plasma funneled in a vague cone by electromagnetic bindings poured into the original tendril-wall. Enhanced and controlled by the Primarchs Pyrokinesis it atomized the Shoggoth on contact. Soon the very walls of the tunnel started to run molten and burnt as flickering lashes of plasma-fire licked across it.
With his Left hand pouring death into the original Flesh-tide the Emperor's Sword struck with his own weapon into the second wall of shoggoth. Where the blade touched, the creature died. Ever mutating cells popped into sparks of plasma if they were so much as caressed by the sword's energy. With only a single hand and reduced mobility, Eddard kept the ambushing beast at bay. Moving faster than the Materium should have allowed the blade was everywhere the Shoggoth was. Soul-Fire, disrupter-energy and a perfect killing edge erased it into unliving atoms.
Adjusting slightly the Primarch let the Shoggoth creep closer and closer. Whirling about he unleashed Sword and Flame on both tendrils, becoming a maelstrom of destruction. Striking faster and faster in a smaller and smaller radius. Eddard Fendragon slashed and burned, drawing the full attention of the monster to himself. A steady layer of base-elements that had once been the Shoggoths flesh coated the walls of the chamber. The metal growing blacker and blacker from plasma fire and ash. Reaching out mentally the Primarch could feel the creature diverting its flesh to strike him. Tendrils that had originally probed the Hearts reaches searching for escape were now being added to the bulk attacking him.
On and on the deadly duel continued. The Primarchs killing-storm becoming a sphere of extinction. Everything from semi-liquid living acid to organic-diamond spines seeking his heart was destroyed. The Titan-Sword was everywhere at once and accompanied by the Lion-Fires wrath the Primarch battled. Feeling the titanic body and mind of the shoggoth utterly devoted to the battle he smiled. Every last inch of the Shoggoth was dedicated to ending him. With that certainty, Eddard Fendragon let out a triumphant roar. Now the day would be his.
The Lion-Fire increased in intensity tenfold as most of the Primarchs power-packs output was pushed into the unique plasma weapon. The walls of flesh could not press through the inferno even as the Titan-Sword halted its dance of doom. The Black-Plate could not maintain this for long but the Primarch did not need long. A few moments of concentration were all he needed.
The Primarchs willpower reached out into the Warp and touched the reflection of his sword. The Titan-Blade like so many legendary weapons dwelt in both material and immaterial. For its legend and nature made it an object of both domains. Dominating and grasping both Sword and Dream-of-Sword the Primarch prepared to strike the ultimate blow.
Eddard Fendragon unleashed a technique that was the pinnacle of the Force-Sword arts. The blade became a conduit into the Warp. A Warp-rift in the shape of a Sword. The connection between the sword and sword-legend became a bridge into the Sea of Souls. Forming a distort weapon of unimaginable potency. The silver blade became as black as the void. No longer a swords killing edge but a Psychic black-hole forged into the shape/idea of a blade.
Time slowed as the Primarch focused. Searching for the greatest concentration of the Xeno monsters flesh. Watching the tides of flesh ripple and roll until the opportunity presented itself. With the Blackened Titan-Blade, the Emperor's Sword struck. Thrusting it forward the Swords distort rift/blade expanded. Becoming longer and longer as the material veil was split.
For a moment the material universe struggled to understand what now existed within the tunnel. A mile-long gash in existence that both began at and was the Titan-Blade. Once the universe settled and the laws of physics could interpret the rift, doom was unleashed. Everything that came in contact with the blade/rift ceased to exist. Ripped between the laws and domains of the material and immaterial. A "normal" distort weapon would have stopped their, the technique the Primarch had invented and named "The Strike Dolorous" was far far more destructive. So much so he had needed his Sons to leave him for fear of damaging his Legion more than his enemy.
Un-Gravity of the Warp dragged the Shoggoths mountainous flesh into the rift. A spiritual event horizon that hungered eternally. The Primarch held himself perfectly still, focusing every ounce of his willpower into controlling the Titan-Sword. If he failed and let the rift break from his control it would sputter and leave him to the shoggoth. Or far more horribly open up a screaming chasm into the farthest reaches of the Deep-Warp.
Ton after ton of mutating frantic meat was pulled into the Immaterial, shackled together by tendons and chemical bonds. The creature fought with every ounce of its being to pull itself free. Clawed and fanged tendrils lashed at the Primarch, cracking his armor, desperate to pierce his flesh and claim his soul. Eddard paid them no heed as his mind dived deeper and deeper into the Immaterial. He plunged his consciousness and his sword into the darkest most impossible reaches of the Warp. Making the conduit a mightier and more terrible thing.
The Shoggoths very mind body and soul was pulled into the Deep-Warp. Where the congealed stuff of unborn universes erased it utterly. This struggle of wills continued for an uncountable period of time. The rift twisted spacetime itself making time pass strangely in those twisted flesh-filled tunnels. Fendragon himself did not know if the battle had lasted seconds or centuries. All he knew was he must outlast the abomination. Even as a fleshy diamond-tipped drill tendril cut its way through one of his armors knee-joints and into his flesh he paid it no heed. Rasping miniature maws gouged away at the flesh of his leg. Seeking to pain him enough to break the rift.
Still, he stood strong as molecular acids designed to maim while keeping nerves alive enough to suffer pumped through his bloodstream. Mastercrafted biology battled Alien insanity as the Primarch and Shoggoth dueled. The duel was fought on the countless battlefield, from the sea of souls to the individual tendons of the Black-Knights calf.
Slowly but surely the creature was fed into the Warp. Dragged out of its nests and burrows in Ceres like a parasite being excised. It frantically tried to plant elements of itself in untouched crevices. Disconnecting itself and hoping to survive the Warps hunger even if its main body did not. To the monster's terror, this was not enough. Its soul was also being consumed by the rift, dragging its consciousness into the pit leaving its protected flesh-caches without a mind. Reducing them to puddles of inert protoplasm. The assault on the Primarch intensified as toothed tendrils ripped his flesh apart from the inside. Organs were punctured, muscles ripped, bones burrowed into. Psychic power kept the Primarch standing.
Finally, the struggle started to come to its close. Shoggoth tendrils burrowed deep into Eddard started to be pulled taught. Digging in with spurs and barbs it fought to keep its hold on the Primarchs flesh, but the Shoggoth was quickly running out of material. Over 90% of its body had been sucked into the Warp and it lacked the matter to continue the attack. The Shoggoth howled in desperation as its clawed feelers were pulled out of the Primarch. Eddard bore the mind-breaking pain with stoicism as the creature was pulled out of his wounds.
At last, the Shoggoths entire body was dragged into the warp. One Hundred Thousand Tons of ancient horror was dragged into the Warp. Screaming and thrashing the entire while. With a final desperate howl, the monster was pulled fully and finally into the Warp.
Now the true battle began. Roaring with stress the Primarch fought to dominate the Warp and keep the rift from growing. He pulled himself out of the nightmarish domain of the multiverses innards and back to the Sea of Souls surface. Breaching and returning to the domain of sanity and certainty the Emperor's Sword sealed the rift shut. The black nothingness shrunk and shrunk until it was gone. Finally, all that was left was the Titan-Sword. Its Nothingness-Blade slowly faded as the psychic energies summoned to rip open space/time were used to seal it.
Time returned to its normal progression and the Titan-Swords blade once again became the mythic silver it was supposed to be. The only evidence of the rift or the Shoggoth was the bizarre grooves left where it had been erased from and a few puddles of primordial ooze awaiting collection and study by the Mago Biologis.
In truth, Eddard Fendragon did not know how much time had past during the duel but his Armors chronometer indicated about two hours had gone by for the rest of the Universe. Exhaling deeply the Primarch attempted to sheath his blade. Only then did he allow himself to feel the mind wracking pain his body was experiencing. Catastrophic internal damage nearly caused him to topple over from the simple act of returning his Sword to its scabbard.
His mind utterly exhausted from the effort of the Strike Dolorous and his body ravaged by the Shoggoth Eddard Fendragon allowed himself to slump to his knees. Despite all the suffering and stress, he had endured the Primarch was proud. He was the Emperor's Sword, pointed at humanities foes, and today he had struck down his first true foe. Throwing his head back and letting loose a triumphant roar through bloody cracked lips Eddard Fendragon celebrated his victory. The primal shout that echoed from his mouth and mind reverberated through the mechanical heart of Ceres and the waiting Astartes minds. To all who heard/felt it the meaning was obvious. They were triumphant.
Rapidly the First Formation returned to Ceres's heart and found their Primarch. The Emperors Knight had managed to heal partially. Anathema-taught biomancy and their Genesires own formidable augments had stopped the bleeding. Organs were being patched, muscles reknit, and toxins were contained and excised. Despite the wishes of the Black Circlet Eddard Fendragon insisted on leading his sons till the conclusion of the battle.
Together they marched into the farthest reaches of Ceres. Through tunnels and chambers distorted by the unmaking fury of the Primarch and the Shoggoths fleshy detonation. The Legionaries were surprised to discover vast parts of the Relic-Fortress untouched by the Shoggoth as if something had steered it away from these gates and doors. High Prelate Naalrac-Aou had succeeded in guiding the Shoggoth away from his kin. It did little good for them. They would have been swallowed instantly by it. The Imperium would not grant them such a peaceful fate.
The few remaining guards were butchered by the First Formation and their charges were left vulnerable. Over a thousand Q'hrel hibernation pods had been built into these hidden chambers. Along with countless technological and cultural relics to help them restart their fetid civilization. Knight-Master Landuin, the second selected of the Black Circlet raised his plasma pistol to burn the sleeping Xenos. Eddard stopped him was a motion and ordered the contents of the room to be presented to the Adeptus Terra and Mars for their purposes.
Technological and biological secrets would be pried from the Q'hrel and their artifacts. The foulest looking would be used in Public Executions and show-trials. Allowing humanity to see the enemy and know they could be killed. Brutal justice for the freed slaves would be extracted.
Deeper still into Ceres was a collection of Golden Age human relics. Machines of gravity and time that stymied even the Primarchs intellect. Musing to himself Eddard wondered how much favor he could curry with the Mechanicum when the contents of these hidden vaults were handed over.
At long last, the entirety of Ceres and the Inner Belt of Sol was cleansed. In a few days the First and Second Legion and effectively subjected a region of valuable territory that would have taken even the finest of the Unification Troops months to crack. While maintaining its resources, usefulness, and protecting human civilians. Something the Thunder Warriors had never been good at. Bloody and Battered but still regal and strong Eddard Fendragon returned to the Ty-Prydwen and announced to the Legions and Imperium in general that the Battle of Ceres was over.
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