Crossover Apotheosis (D&D x Berserk)
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Gladiator
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Spruced up a few chapters, 20, 28, and 29 mainly, and here is a preview of the big finale. About half way there.
Spoilers, obviously.
Spoilers, obviously.
Chapter 30: Apotheosis
"War always changes. It is the only thing that ever does. The way they are fought? The places they are fought in? The nations that fought in them? They always change. If you want a world that is worth living for? What you have got to change are people, because they never do. You never change. They never change. Change yourself. Change them. Change the world. Don't come to my doorstep, and complain about how it is impossible. Do it, because you got to. Do it, or none of this will ever mean anything. Do it, because you got somebody back home waiting for a fool like you."
- The Courier
The Godhand was no more. I had seen to it. This world, this Earth, which I had grown to love as my own, and which I would christen as Holy Terra? This universe would know of peace. This crystal sphere? The plane I had won by conquest. There was only one stitching in my soul that had persisted throughout it all, but it would not last. It would come undone, and it would come undone because I was not satisfied with this.
The Heart of Darkness had to answer for every crime. What it had done to every person on this planet. The Sword of Damocles was hungry for retribution, it was starving for justice, and it would collect on that life. Just as it had collected on the lives of every monster. I would not be denied, and I would meet the Abyss. I would become the bane of every demon lord. The Hero of Many Faces. Then I would return, but not as myself.
No, I would be The God Emperor of Mankind.
This I had woven. The choices I had made would be what led to my damnation, but there was a chance. It was with that grievous miracle. I would leave my Golden Throne, and I would save all of them. The Imperium of Man was not lost. The road I would need to tread had revealed itself, and at the end of it? There was a home. A house I could call my own. There were people I loved who were still waiting for The Crow, The Knight Commander, and The Emperor!
They were waiting for Arlan Vorlesh, and I would be there to greet those children who meant everything to me. Whether I had to face a dozen demon lords! A hundred of them! A thousand of them! The Abyss could throw every obstacle it had at my doorstep. There was nothing that could stop the anathema. What I had become? It would lead to transience. The ephemeral would overthrow the ethereal.
This world would not be the same. It will not be eternal. That stasis which had entrapped it? It will be no more, and it will be no more because that is what I have chosen!
In the grim darkness of the far future?
There was only hope.
Leman Russ had been searching for it. That which he lost. Which he had relinquished. An heirloom of the past. When he was not lost in The Warp. He had embedded it into Yggdrasil, or whatever amounted to it in this realm. The Tree of Life, and many other names besides that one. The weapon had stood by him whenever he was alone. It was family. That blade had never failed him, and whenever he was in need of it?
The sword would make itself known.
It had a name, and it was Grunbeld. There were stories that claimed this had not always been the case, and that it had another name. Only Leman Russ could say for certain. The blade had divulged all things to the primarch. The Lord of Wolves was the person that had won the loyalty of it, and from that came a bounty of knowledge. Who his father had been. When war had not consumed the galaxy as it had. The stories were hard to believe, but if there was any truth to these tales? These myths that had been shrouded in mystery and hearsay?
Dragon Slayer would be salvation.
The wound had to be unmade, and it could only be unmade, if history was rewritten. The power to do this did not exist in The Imperium of Man. It did exist in this relic.
There was only one problem.
"It is a pleasure, brother." Angronius of Nuceria, the Daemon Prince, had been given a task. This great sword had to be concealed. It could not be found again. "The Lord of Wolves has come to my lovely abode."
Yggdrasil had been desecrated. The Tree of Life made to be a monument to death. It had been decorated with the corpses of countless valkyries. These Sisters of Battle who stood watch over it, if only for the sake of their duty. Who had been impaled on many of the branches. They fought bravely against The Lord of the Red Sands, but it was for naught. Angron was the epitome of what it meant to embody violence. He had inherited that. It was the only thing I had ever given him, and there was no escape from the mortification I felt now.
It was all poison. That which I had bequeathed to my children? There was always a price for it. This blood was no gift, and through it they had known parts of my soul. The Warp played no part in it. These were the flaws of a mortality that was unfiltered. They had to endure all that I was. Both good and bad. Both love and fury.
The grievous miracle did not come without any consequence.
The Red Thirst, and The Black Rage. The Flaw. Sanguinius was not the only one who had to live with that insatiable thirst. However, when The Brightest One had won against it? The Red Angel reveled in the act of lascivious barbarity. It was a comfort. When all things had been taken from him? War had come to claim him, and in the same way it had claimed Arlan Vorlesh. The Immaterium despoiled this holy land, and only for what one could claim was dreadful truculence.
This is what I was. This is what I could have been. This is what I deny now.
"Do you have anything to say? Anything at all, or will you die a mute?" The Red Angel would not hesitate. Not even against any of his siblings. "If silence is to be the last thing on your lips--"
"Only this, Angron." Leman Russ wears a condescending grin. Those fangs of his glistening, in this sacred realm which had been painted red, and left violated by the corruption of The Warp. "Do well to remember it." As if in response to this declaration? This plane began to convulse. There was a storm in the distance. The rain would wash away all of the blood.
It would purify this sin.
"I am the wind."
The Heart of Darkness was born when murder was conceived. There was a brother, he held an envy, and that envy grew. He saw the love that he was denied. Envy would become hatred, and from that hatred? There came an idea. This idea would become an ambition of sorts, and from that ambition there came tragedy. The demise of the favored son, and the birth of malice.
This palpitation drew The Idea of Evil. The beat of this heart in everyone. There was no mortal who did not know of it, or who could escape it. The intimacy of this matrimony of sacrilege. This act of fratricide had become a contract. The price was not only his soul, but the soul of everyone like him. Those who had his blood. Which would be pumped in and out of every heart. Those children would prosper, and they would have children of their own. The heart would grow with every life, and those lives would nourish it. Until there was not a person on this Earth, that did not feel it, this beat.
This rhythm of frenzy.
The problem lied in the womb. That place from whence it came. Conception had led to divergence. Duality had been born. The destruction of the other? It had to be followed by the destruction of self. This was the balance.
The Heart of Darkness had to devour itself, in a way not unlike Ouroboros, and that was part of this purpose it had. It would eventually die, and all things would die with it. The covenant would be complete, this compact brought to a close, and renewal would come afterwards. There would be another Earth, and the people would call to it. This was the stability.
How many turns of the wheel had it been? The Idea of Evil had lost count. This link in the chain would be one of many, and the memories it had would begin to fade. Only purpose had the capacity to endure. Whether it was as a scapegoat, or as an excuse? The people always had need of it. It was easier than acknowledgment. Their guilt was a foe they could not understand, and did not want to even permit. This was the dependence.
These three things are what it served. It did not serve anything else. It could not serve anything else. It was like a machine, and it could not deviate. This was a program, and one that had been executed already. Which is why it had been disappointed by the conqueror. It had desired exquisite defeat, but the conqueror did not meet that expectation.
I did.
The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade. Arlan Vorlesh. That which bore the conqueror. Who would become a wandering specter entrapped in battle-scarred armor, and eventually return to the progenitor. The anathema. The Idea of Evil had found it. The death it had been seeking, and war which had clouded my vision. I was absolutely perfect.
I would be the executioner, and the absence of love would prevent any more interruptions. The wheel would turn. There would be no hesitation. It was war that would save it.
"No." I murmur. "It is not war."
It would be love.
It began with the death of Void. When Destiny's Embrace had disappeared? This Earth, that would become Holy Terra, had changed. It was like The Eclipse, but rather than being localized, the whole of this plane was drawn into it. Not just this planet, but the galaxy as well. I had no doubt the universe would be enveloped by it too.
This cascade of ether could only come from the birth or rather rebirth of a god. This was The Heart of Darkness as it truly was. The Idea of Evil made manifest. The heart was floating at the center of it all. That nexus where all the souls it had devoured lived. Their torment which had been unending, and I could hear their screams. This was my doing.
The death of this plane, and I was the harbinger. At least, that is what the heart thought. That I had come to answer that prayer. That I would be the hero. No, I was the villain of this story. I would challenge it. The natural. The nature of this world. The evil that had become the purpose of it. The corruption which I reviled.
If this was what world was? Then I would remake the world. It would be from the ashes of this monstrosity. This abomination. I would build my empire on these ruins of the past, and from it what would flourish? If not this love that I would venerate.
No more dead fathers and mothers. No more dead brothers and sisters. No more dead sons and daughters.
No more war. No more, no more, no more!
This was the end of tragedy, and it required of me a miracle. One that I no longer had, but there was always a way. I had learned that much. I could not use Radiance. That ardent grace would mean my end. This soul of mine was about to break. After it had been fractured by the effort of casting Wish.
The Godhand were all slain. I had made certain of that, and there was only one stitching I had left. That kept those shards of The God Emperor of Mankind fastened together.
That tied me to this dark god.
"That was a mistake." I had every intention of using it. I had been at a loss. How could I sever everyone from The Heart of Darkness? The answer was that I couldn't, but I didn't even need to. I should have seen it but I didn't. That was because I had forgotten that I would not survive this. The solution I had been searching for?
I already had it.
I cast Tether Essence, using that stitching as a medium, and draw The Idea of Evil into myself. It becomes my heart. I embolden the spell with Conduit Surge, and pour as much of the ether as I can into it. I did not need to separate them all from this monster.
I only had to separate it from them.
I turn towards Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh. The White Swordsman, and The White Wolf. The Lord of Wolves who I had nurtured into a hero. The son I could rely on.
"How about another spar?" I knew that he would triumph. He would not lose. "Do not disappoint me." Victory was always in his blood, in the very marrow of his bones, and in his heart. Whatever that obstacle would be? It would feel the bite of Dragon Slayer.
His father was no exception.
The White Wolf almost seems to recoil. He could sense it, and what I had done. The divinity that was afforded to him by birthright? It had expanded every faculty. All five of his senses, and it even granted him a sixth. This hyperactive intuition that had the ability to discern transcendental phenomena like this. "What the hell did you do? You crazy fucking bastard--"
The Eclipse is dismissed with a snap of my fingers, and the vortex of souls is torn asunder! They would be free, and their torment would end! That torture is of their past, and their deliverer was none other than Arlan Vorlesh!
Regardless of the protest of this treacherous heart beating inside of my chest. The Heart of Darkness was livid. It could not predict an action born out of love. The portfolio it had claimed hatred, and only that hatred. These deities were always constrained by their domains. If it had been war? It could have seen it. It would have anticipated this, but this was not part of the plan, and any dissent from it would amount to nothing. I was in control.
ł₮ ₩łⱠⱠ ₦Ø₮ Ⱡ₳₴₮.
It just had to remind me. The ring has been broken, and I have broken it. There will be no Earth that replaces this one, and your game is over. Die miserably. Die a failure. Die bereft of any purpose.
"Show me what you have become, my son."
I would make it count.
"Sanguinius always did wonder where those wings came from." They unfurl themselves from beneath my robes, and burst from my back. "If only I revealed the truth, and before he met his end at the Eternity Gate." Those black wings which I had inherited from my incarnation as The Crow, and which I would entrust with the most benevolent of my progeny. It was no wonder that I drew the attention of Andoletta. I was one of her flock.
Grandmother Crow watched over us all. Ember was my sister, and she had been sent as a lesson. That I would have an example of what The God Emperor of Mankind needed to be. That war had been a lie. This love was not. It never would be.
"If it is any consolation, Guts? I never asked for them." I was not Griffith, and I had no intention of becoming like him. "They are most unsettling."
I evoke Mordenkainen's Sword, and an entire plane of force is folded onto itself. The universe is reforged into a blade, and I reach for it, grasping it tightly in both of my hands. I could not use Radiance as I was now, but that did not mean I was ever helpless. Normally, this spell could only be used sparingly as an attack. I would wield it as my weapon, and eschew that tradition.
It was nothing compared to Dragon Slayer, but it would suffice. At the very least? It would be able to withstand the temporal abolition the great sword was known for.
"I am not going to do this, Arlan." The White Swordsman plants his blade into the ground. "I can't." Uncharacteristically? That crusader of mine began to tremble. If he did not have the strength to do this? I have only delayed the inevitable, and I would fall victim to the succor of that nightmarish heart.
"If you do not? The Heart of Darkness will prevail." That smile I had? It could only belong to a father. "I am going to die anyway, and I would have my story end at the hands of someone I love." I tilt my head. "Why not, Guts?"
"Why not?" The White Wolf practically roars. How could I be this selfish? "Why not!" The wolf had become frantic. There was an unease. This had to be a dream. This just had to be a nightmare. "I thought it was over."
"What was over?"
"The Eclipse... but it never ended."
"It did, Guts." The White Wolf had to know. That this was how he would ascend. This was his apotheosis, and in turn it would become mine. "I brought an end to it."
"No." The White Swordsman grips the hilt of Dragon Slayer, and the great sword ignites. "I don't think it did."
"It did." I affirm. "I promise."
The tremors begin to stop. Guts Vorlesh looked at Arlan Vorlesh, and he realized that truth. There were only a few things that he was certain of in life, and one of them was that a promise had power.
If anything could change the world? It had to be a promise.
"That is where it began. It is the grievous miracle. That promise made by my mother at the grave of Caelum Vorlesh, and which I inherited from her." I smile at him. "Which you will bear. This is an heirloom, Guts. It will remain when I am gone."
"I don't want this kind of inheritance!" The White Swordsman sobs. "I don't want any of this, if this is what I have to do!" The tears would flow freely.
"Oh, I think you will come to regard it with pride." There was a clarity. What exactly would come forth from this decision I made? It was laid bare before my eyes. The White Wolf who would journey to Faerûn. "It will be the way back home."
The hero who would slay The Dead Three, and lay waste to Avernus. Zariel brought to heel, and in the distance? I saw a tree.
Yggdrasil.
"Remember this: three lives, three deaths, three sacrifices. The second life, death, and sacrifice was never resolved. When I had cast myself into The Worldwound? The Idea of Evil postponed it. This prophecy? Complete it." The God Emperor of Mankind needed to die. That was the only way he could be reborn. "If you manage to do that? I promise that I will return."
The God Emperor of Mankind as he was always meant to be. The Eye of Terror would be closed. The Warp would know of loss. I would begin my counterattack.
I would bring an order to the chaos.
"No waterworks, Guts." I assume a stance with Mordenkainen's Sword. "Time is of the essence."
"I hate you." The crusader prepares himself. "I won't forgive you." He grits his teeth. "Not for making me do this, Arlan."
"I know." There is something mischievous about my grin. "I want you to use it."
This feeling would be transformative. It would take that whelp I had met, and from it forge another grievous miracle. Those who watch can only be spectators. Their dice will be broken.
This destiny our own.
Mjalnar had been broken. The frost blade failing to pierce the hide of Angronius of Nuceria, and Leman Russ is flung backwards by a swipe of noxious claws. Elavagar is fractured by the blow, and the artificer armor fails this primarch. It had survived the Horus Heresy, but it did not survive this. If not for luck?
The Lord of Wolves would have died.
"Did you not learn from Krakenmaw?" The Red Angel snorts, and brushes away the shards of the frost blade that had embedded themselves in his carapace. "This weakness is because of your mortality. Accept the Ruinous Powers, if you mean to win." Angron growls in displeasure. "Swear fealty, and become death. Imagine it. War everlasting!"
There was no death in The Warp, for all things beholden to it? They had become immortal. There was eternity in service, but who would ever want that?
"War everlasting?" Leman Russ already knew what that was like. "No, I have had my fill of war everlasting." Ten-thousand years of tragedy that befell their empire. "I refuse, Angron." The Imperium of Man made to be a mockery of what it had represented. Only the highborn, those despicable nobles, had managed to reap a bounty from it. On every Imperial World they grew in influence and affluence, and the citizens of the empire were treated as nothing more than their slaves. They call themselves the finest, but they were the worst. The Emperor would have seen to their punishment personally.
Leman Russ knew that much.
How I abhorred a tyrant, but I had turned that ire towards the clergy instead! I had become a tyrant myself! Only those Rogue Traders, who I had granted a Warrant of Trade, stood against the horrors of what my empire had become. The Star Child would meet the dragon, and that corpse on a throne.
What I had become.
Uriah Olathaire, if only I had heeded your warning. I was wrong but my arrogance had turned my vision towards war. Sanguinius had wisdom I did not. The people had to be free. There was no world in which my proposal would have worked. I could not starve those lurking in The Warp. The Immaterium would last, and what it would become? It rested entirely in the hands of those who lived in this galaxy!
It had been known as the Abyss, but after I routed every demon lord as The Hero of Many Faces, and cleansed it of that corruption? It had become malleable. Permeable in ways unknown to many. All save for those privy to the matters of The Phlogiston, and hailing from planes external to this one. The people had become the master of it. Their feelings, their thoughts, their imaginations, and their dreams? They would paint that canvas.
Otherwise, I would have to sterilize everything that made mortals worthy of life to begin with. They would become like any macabre servitor. Those slaves stripped of their identity, and malformed into drones. I would have to abolish it. That practice was unseemly, and definitely absent of any morality.
The rot in my empire was everywhere. I had a lot of work to do, if I was to rebuild it from the ashes. I had to pray. I grew to loathe it in this life, but I had to do it.
If only for the sake of my legacy.
That spark of divinity had fled. It had gone with death, and the life that Guts Vorlesh had lived as The White Wolf. Only my own blood could be found in his veins. Fenrir had gone silent, but there was something else.
There was a fire. A light in the darkness. This was a sun waiting to be born.
It was a grievous miracle.
"Then join our brothers, Leman Russ." Angronius of Nuceria plunges his axe into the heart of the wolf. "Join them in death."
There was a memory.
Garnets he could never forget. Those eyes belonging to a woman he loved. Her amethyst hands wrapping around him, and there was an undeniable warmth. The drow had been a paladin. Just like his Casca, but unlike her there was a brutality in Minthara Baenre. There was ruthlessness. The dark elf had her flaws, but he saw in her what he had lost. The wolf knew that it was inevitable. When you are immortal? The patterns become obvious. Reincarnation was always predominant in these realms, and it could be seen everywhere. Casca sought him out, and she had found her Guts.
In turn, Guts had found her.
"The Lord of Wolves about to die at the hands of his own brother, and all he can do is reminisce? I didn't take you for a sentimental fool." Minthara scolds him in the way that only she can. "I did not marry Drizzt Do'Urden. I married The White Wolf." The drow forces the wolf to rise from his grave. "In Menzoberranzan, blood feuds were as frequent as in The Imperium of Man. The answer was always the same." Dragon Slayer almost seems to materialize in her hands. "They can only be solved with violence, and in this case a disproportionate amount of violence." The drow shoves the great sword into his hands. "Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh! This is not a request from your wife, but an order from Minthara Baenre! I want to see Angronius of Nuceria dead at your feet! Honor our house with his life, and bring me his head as a trophy!"
"I must apologize, Angron." Leman Russ had stopped the axe. It was caught in his hand. "I'm not allowed to lose." There is a savagery. This desire for victory. The wolf was roused from his slumber, and he was on the hunt. "The wife is watching."
"What?" The Daemon Prince only had a moment to indulge in confusion, and that is when a fist dug itself into his face. Angronius of Nuceria is hurled backwards into Yggdrasil. The Tree of Life was the size of any Hive World, but it shook regardless of that. The branches began to fall, and the trunk had splintered. The strike had untangled this plane from the taint of The Warp, and banished those demiurges. Those maidens who had sacrificed their lives to protect Grunbeld? Their souls had been set free, and they would return to my side in the Astronomican. They would be celebrated in a Valhalla of my own craftsmanship. "What nonsense is this? The Warp has already made you take leave of your senses--"
"I never had any to begin with!" Leman Russ grabs the betrayer by the throat. This coward who spurned his own flesh and blood. "There is nothing to take, but I do have something I can share with your masters." The grievous miracle began to coalesce. It had searched for something familiar. Anything that spoke to Leman Russ, and what he symbolized. "It is this pain."
It was always the wind. That which would fan the flames. This coaxing of the fire.
The Storm of Vengeance is evoked, and they are both caught in the tempest. That gale had become a tornado. The wind would never harm Leman Russ, but the same could not be said for his sibling. The Lord of the Red Sands screams in agony. This was a pain he had never known, and not even the immortality granted to him by those Ruinous Powers, could protect his soul. The Red Angel would not return to them, and his fate was to be the same as Horus Lupercal.
Oblivion.
Yggdrasil is disintegrated by the spell, and Dragon Slayer is able to escape those roots. The great sword falling back into the hands of Leman Russ.
"How I have missed this." Grunbeld could only whisper. "Welcome home, Guts."
The White Wolf had returned.
"War always changes. It is the only thing that ever does. The way they are fought? The places they are fought in? The nations that fought in them? They always change. If you want a world that is worth living for? What you have got to change are people, because they never do. You never change. They never change. Change yourself. Change them. Change the world. Don't come to my doorstep, and complain about how it is impossible. Do it, because you got to. Do it, or none of this will ever mean anything. Do it, because you got somebody back home waiting for a fool like you."
- The Courier
The Godhand was no more. I had seen to it. This world, this Earth, which I had grown to love as my own, and which I would christen as Holy Terra? This universe would know of peace. This crystal sphere? The plane I had won by conquest. There was only one stitching in my soul that had persisted throughout it all, but it would not last. It would come undone, and it would come undone because I was not satisfied with this.
The Heart of Darkness had to answer for every crime. What it had done to every person on this planet. The Sword of Damocles was hungry for retribution, it was starving for justice, and it would collect on that life. Just as it had collected on the lives of every monster. I would not be denied, and I would meet the Abyss. I would become the bane of every demon lord. The Hero of Many Faces. Then I would return, but not as myself.
No, I would be The God Emperor of Mankind.
This I had woven. The choices I had made would be what led to my damnation, but there was a chance. It was with that grievous miracle. I would leave my Golden Throne, and I would save all of them. The Imperium of Man was not lost. The road I would need to tread had revealed itself, and at the end of it? There was a home. A house I could call my own. There were people I loved who were still waiting for The Crow, The Knight Commander, and The Emperor!
They were waiting for Arlan Vorlesh, and I would be there to greet those children who meant everything to me. Whether I had to face a dozen demon lords! A hundred of them! A thousand of them! The Abyss could throw every obstacle it had at my doorstep. There was nothing that could stop the anathema. What I had become? It would lead to transience. The ephemeral would overthrow the ethereal.
This world would not be the same. It will not be eternal. That stasis which had entrapped it? It will be no more, and it will be no more because that is what I have chosen!
In the grim darkness of the far future?
There was only hope.
<<X>>
Leman Russ had been searching for it. That which he lost. Which he had relinquished. An heirloom of the past. When he was not lost in The Warp. He had embedded it into Yggdrasil, or whatever amounted to it in this realm. The Tree of Life, and many other names besides that one. The weapon had stood by him whenever he was alone. It was family. That blade had never failed him, and whenever he was in need of it?
The sword would make itself known.
It had a name, and it was Grunbeld. There were stories that claimed this had not always been the case, and that it had another name. Only Leman Russ could say for certain. The blade had divulged all things to the primarch. The Lord of Wolves was the person that had won the loyalty of it, and from that came a bounty of knowledge. Who his father had been. When war had not consumed the galaxy as it had. The stories were hard to believe, but if there was any truth to these tales? These myths that had been shrouded in mystery and hearsay?
Dragon Slayer would be salvation.
The wound had to be unmade, and it could only be unmade, if history was rewritten. The power to do this did not exist in The Imperium of Man. It did exist in this relic.
There was only one problem.
"It is a pleasure, brother." Angronius of Nuceria, the Daemon Prince, had been given a task. This great sword had to be concealed. It could not be found again. "The Lord of Wolves has come to my lovely abode."
Yggdrasil had been desecrated. The Tree of Life made to be a monument to death. It had been decorated with the corpses of countless valkyries. These Sisters of Battle who stood watch over it, if only for the sake of their duty. Who had been impaled on many of the branches. They fought bravely against The Lord of the Red Sands, but it was for naught. Angron was the epitome of what it meant to embody violence. He had inherited that. It was the only thing I had ever given him, and there was no escape from the mortification I felt now.
It was all poison. That which I had bequeathed to my children? There was always a price for it. This blood was no gift, and through it they had known parts of my soul. The Warp played no part in it. These were the flaws of a mortality that was unfiltered. They had to endure all that I was. Both good and bad. Both love and fury.
The grievous miracle did not come without any consequence.
The Red Thirst, and The Black Rage. The Flaw. Sanguinius was not the only one who had to live with that insatiable thirst. However, when The Brightest One had won against it? The Red Angel reveled in the act of lascivious barbarity. It was a comfort. When all things had been taken from him? War had come to claim him, and in the same way it had claimed Arlan Vorlesh. The Immaterium despoiled this holy land, and only for what one could claim was dreadful truculence.
This is what I was. This is what I could have been. This is what I deny now.
"Do you have anything to say? Anything at all, or will you die a mute?" The Red Angel would not hesitate. Not even against any of his siblings. "If silence is to be the last thing on your lips--"
"Only this, Angron." Leman Russ wears a condescending grin. Those fangs of his glistening, in this sacred realm which had been painted red, and left violated by the corruption of The Warp. "Do well to remember it." As if in response to this declaration? This plane began to convulse. There was a storm in the distance. The rain would wash away all of the blood.
It would purify this sin.
"I am the wind."
<<X>>
The Heart of Darkness was born when murder was conceived. There was a brother, he held an envy, and that envy grew. He saw the love that he was denied. Envy would become hatred, and from that hatred? There came an idea. This idea would become an ambition of sorts, and from that ambition there came tragedy. The demise of the favored son, and the birth of malice.
This palpitation drew The Idea of Evil. The beat of this heart in everyone. There was no mortal who did not know of it, or who could escape it. The intimacy of this matrimony of sacrilege. This act of fratricide had become a contract. The price was not only his soul, but the soul of everyone like him. Those who had his blood. Which would be pumped in and out of every heart. Those children would prosper, and they would have children of their own. The heart would grow with every life, and those lives would nourish it. Until there was not a person on this Earth, that did not feel it, this beat.
This rhythm of frenzy.
The problem lied in the womb. That place from whence it came. Conception had led to divergence. Duality had been born. The destruction of the other? It had to be followed by the destruction of self. This was the balance.
The Heart of Darkness had to devour itself, in a way not unlike Ouroboros, and that was part of this purpose it had. It would eventually die, and all things would die with it. The covenant would be complete, this compact brought to a close, and renewal would come afterwards. There would be another Earth, and the people would call to it. This was the stability.
How many turns of the wheel had it been? The Idea of Evil had lost count. This link in the chain would be one of many, and the memories it had would begin to fade. Only purpose had the capacity to endure. Whether it was as a scapegoat, or as an excuse? The people always had need of it. It was easier than acknowledgment. Their guilt was a foe they could not understand, and did not want to even permit. This was the dependence.
These three things are what it served. It did not serve anything else. It could not serve anything else. It was like a machine, and it could not deviate. This was a program, and one that had been executed already. Which is why it had been disappointed by the conqueror. It had desired exquisite defeat, but the conqueror did not meet that expectation.
I did.
The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade. Arlan Vorlesh. That which bore the conqueror. Who would become a wandering specter entrapped in battle-scarred armor, and eventually return to the progenitor. The anathema. The Idea of Evil had found it. The death it had been seeking, and war which had clouded my vision. I was absolutely perfect.
I would be the executioner, and the absence of love would prevent any more interruptions. The wheel would turn. There would be no hesitation. It was war that would save it.
"No." I murmur. "It is not war."
It would be love.
It began with the death of Void. When Destiny's Embrace had disappeared? This Earth, that would become Holy Terra, had changed. It was like The Eclipse, but rather than being localized, the whole of this plane was drawn into it. Not just this planet, but the galaxy as well. I had no doubt the universe would be enveloped by it too.
This cascade of ether could only come from the birth or rather rebirth of a god. This was The Heart of Darkness as it truly was. The Idea of Evil made manifest. The heart was floating at the center of it all. That nexus where all the souls it had devoured lived. Their torment which had been unending, and I could hear their screams. This was my doing.
The death of this plane, and I was the harbinger. At least, that is what the heart thought. That I had come to answer that prayer. That I would be the hero. No, I was the villain of this story. I would challenge it. The natural. The nature of this world. The evil that had become the purpose of it. The corruption which I reviled.
If this was what world was? Then I would remake the world. It would be from the ashes of this monstrosity. This abomination. I would build my empire on these ruins of the past, and from it what would flourish? If not this love that I would venerate.
No more dead fathers and mothers. No more dead brothers and sisters. No more dead sons and daughters.
No more war. No more, no more, no more!
This was the end of tragedy, and it required of me a miracle. One that I no longer had, but there was always a way. I had learned that much. I could not use Radiance. That ardent grace would mean my end. This soul of mine was about to break. After it had been fractured by the effort of casting Wish.
The Godhand were all slain. I had made certain of that, and there was only one stitching I had left. That kept those shards of The God Emperor of Mankind fastened together.
That tied me to this dark god.
"That was a mistake." I had every intention of using it. I had been at a loss. How could I sever everyone from The Heart of Darkness? The answer was that I couldn't, but I didn't even need to. I should have seen it but I didn't. That was because I had forgotten that I would not survive this. The solution I had been searching for?
I already had it.
I cast Tether Essence, using that stitching as a medium, and draw The Idea of Evil into myself. It becomes my heart. I embolden the spell with Conduit Surge, and pour as much of the ether as I can into it. I did not need to separate them all from this monster.
I only had to separate it from them.
I turn towards Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh. The White Swordsman, and The White Wolf. The Lord of Wolves who I had nurtured into a hero. The son I could rely on.
"How about another spar?" I knew that he would triumph. He would not lose. "Do not disappoint me." Victory was always in his blood, in the very marrow of his bones, and in his heart. Whatever that obstacle would be? It would feel the bite of Dragon Slayer.
His father was no exception.
The White Wolf almost seems to recoil. He could sense it, and what I had done. The divinity that was afforded to him by birthright? It had expanded every faculty. All five of his senses, and it even granted him a sixth. This hyperactive intuition that had the ability to discern transcendental phenomena like this. "What the hell did you do? You crazy fucking bastard--"
The Eclipse is dismissed with a snap of my fingers, and the vortex of souls is torn asunder! They would be free, and their torment would end! That torture is of their past, and their deliverer was none other than Arlan Vorlesh!
Regardless of the protest of this treacherous heart beating inside of my chest. The Heart of Darkness was livid. It could not predict an action born out of love. The portfolio it had claimed hatred, and only that hatred. These deities were always constrained by their domains. If it had been war? It could have seen it. It would have anticipated this, but this was not part of the plan, and any dissent from it would amount to nothing. I was in control.
ł₮ ₩łⱠⱠ ₦Ø₮ Ⱡ₳₴₮.
It just had to remind me. The ring has been broken, and I have broken it. There will be no Earth that replaces this one, and your game is over. Die miserably. Die a failure. Die bereft of any purpose.
"Show me what you have become, my son."
I would make it count.
𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕶𝖎𝖓𝖌
𝕮𝖔𝖗𝖛𝖚𝖘 𝕬𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖈𝖙
𝕮𝖔𝖗𝖛𝖚𝖘 𝕬𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖈𝖙
"Sanguinius always did wonder where those wings came from." They unfurl themselves from beneath my robes, and burst from my back. "If only I revealed the truth, and before he met his end at the Eternity Gate." Those black wings which I had inherited from my incarnation as The Crow, and which I would entrust with the most benevolent of my progeny. It was no wonder that I drew the attention of Andoletta. I was one of her flock.
Grandmother Crow watched over us all. Ember was my sister, and she had been sent as a lesson. That I would have an example of what The God Emperor of Mankind needed to be. That war had been a lie. This love was not. It never would be.
"If it is any consolation, Guts? I never asked for them." I was not Griffith, and I had no intention of becoming like him. "They are most unsettling."
I evoke Mordenkainen's Sword, and an entire plane of force is folded onto itself. The universe is reforged into a blade, and I reach for it, grasping it tightly in both of my hands. I could not use Radiance as I was now, but that did not mean I was ever helpless. Normally, this spell could only be used sparingly as an attack. I would wield it as my weapon, and eschew that tradition.
It was nothing compared to Dragon Slayer, but it would suffice. At the very least? It would be able to withstand the temporal abolition the great sword was known for.
"I am not going to do this, Arlan." The White Swordsman plants his blade into the ground. "I can't." Uncharacteristically? That crusader of mine began to tremble. If he did not have the strength to do this? I have only delayed the inevitable, and I would fall victim to the succor of that nightmarish heart.
"If you do not? The Heart of Darkness will prevail." That smile I had? It could only belong to a father. "I am going to die anyway, and I would have my story end at the hands of someone I love." I tilt my head. "Why not, Guts?"
"Why not?" The White Wolf practically roars. How could I be this selfish? "Why not!" The wolf had become frantic. There was an unease. This had to be a dream. This just had to be a nightmare. "I thought it was over."
"What was over?"
"The Eclipse... but it never ended."
"It did, Guts." The White Wolf had to know. That this was how he would ascend. This was his apotheosis, and in turn it would become mine. "I brought an end to it."
"No." The White Swordsman grips the hilt of Dragon Slayer, and the great sword ignites. "I don't think it did."
"It did." I affirm. "I promise."
The tremors begin to stop. Guts Vorlesh looked at Arlan Vorlesh, and he realized that truth. There were only a few things that he was certain of in life, and one of them was that a promise had power.
If anything could change the world? It had to be a promise.
"That is where it began. It is the grievous miracle. That promise made by my mother at the grave of Caelum Vorlesh, and which I inherited from her." I smile at him. "Which you will bear. This is an heirloom, Guts. It will remain when I am gone."
"I don't want this kind of inheritance!" The White Swordsman sobs. "I don't want any of this, if this is what I have to do!" The tears would flow freely.
"Oh, I think you will come to regard it with pride." There was a clarity. What exactly would come forth from this decision I made? It was laid bare before my eyes. The White Wolf who would journey to Faerûn. "It will be the way back home."
The hero who would slay The Dead Three, and lay waste to Avernus. Zariel brought to heel, and in the distance? I saw a tree.
Yggdrasil.
"Remember this: three lives, three deaths, three sacrifices. The second life, death, and sacrifice was never resolved. When I had cast myself into The Worldwound? The Idea of Evil postponed it. This prophecy? Complete it." The God Emperor of Mankind needed to die. That was the only way he could be reborn. "If you manage to do that? I promise that I will return."
The God Emperor of Mankind as he was always meant to be. The Eye of Terror would be closed. The Warp would know of loss. I would begin my counterattack.
I would bring an order to the chaos.
"No waterworks, Guts." I assume a stance with Mordenkainen's Sword. "Time is of the essence."
"I hate you." The crusader prepares himself. "I won't forgive you." He grits his teeth. "Not for making me do this, Arlan."
"I know." There is something mischievous about my grin. "I want you to use it."
This feeling would be transformative. It would take that whelp I had met, and from it forge another grievous miracle. Those who watch can only be spectators. Their dice will be broken.
This destiny our own.
<<X>>
Mjalnar had been broken. The frost blade failing to pierce the hide of Angronius of Nuceria, and Leman Russ is flung backwards by a swipe of noxious claws. Elavagar is fractured by the blow, and the artificer armor fails this primarch. It had survived the Horus Heresy, but it did not survive this. If not for luck?
The Lord of Wolves would have died.
"Did you not learn from Krakenmaw?" The Red Angel snorts, and brushes away the shards of the frost blade that had embedded themselves in his carapace. "This weakness is because of your mortality. Accept the Ruinous Powers, if you mean to win." Angron growls in displeasure. "Swear fealty, and become death. Imagine it. War everlasting!"
There was no death in The Warp, for all things beholden to it? They had become immortal. There was eternity in service, but who would ever want that?
"War everlasting?" Leman Russ already knew what that was like. "No, I have had my fill of war everlasting." Ten-thousand years of tragedy that befell their empire. "I refuse, Angron." The Imperium of Man made to be a mockery of what it had represented. Only the highborn, those despicable nobles, had managed to reap a bounty from it. On every Imperial World they grew in influence and affluence, and the citizens of the empire were treated as nothing more than their slaves. They call themselves the finest, but they were the worst. The Emperor would have seen to their punishment personally.
Leman Russ knew that much.
How I abhorred a tyrant, but I had turned that ire towards the clergy instead! I had become a tyrant myself! Only those Rogue Traders, who I had granted a Warrant of Trade, stood against the horrors of what my empire had become. The Star Child would meet the dragon, and that corpse on a throne.
What I had become.
Uriah Olathaire, if only I had heeded your warning. I was wrong but my arrogance had turned my vision towards war. Sanguinius had wisdom I did not. The people had to be free. There was no world in which my proposal would have worked. I could not starve those lurking in The Warp. The Immaterium would last, and what it would become? It rested entirely in the hands of those who lived in this galaxy!
It had been known as the Abyss, but after I routed every demon lord as The Hero of Many Faces, and cleansed it of that corruption? It had become malleable. Permeable in ways unknown to many. All save for those privy to the matters of The Phlogiston, and hailing from planes external to this one. The people had become the master of it. Their feelings, their thoughts, their imaginations, and their dreams? They would paint that canvas.
Otherwise, I would have to sterilize everything that made mortals worthy of life to begin with. They would become like any macabre servitor. Those slaves stripped of their identity, and malformed into drones. I would have to abolish it. That practice was unseemly, and definitely absent of any morality.
The rot in my empire was everywhere. I had a lot of work to do, if I was to rebuild it from the ashes. I had to pray. I grew to loathe it in this life, but I had to do it.
If only for the sake of my legacy.
That spark of divinity had fled. It had gone with death, and the life that Guts Vorlesh had lived as The White Wolf. Only my own blood could be found in his veins. Fenrir had gone silent, but there was something else.
There was a fire. A light in the darkness. This was a sun waiting to be born.
It was a grievous miracle.
"Then join our brothers, Leman Russ." Angronius of Nuceria plunges his axe into the heart of the wolf. "Join them in death."
There was a memory.
Garnets he could never forget. Those eyes belonging to a woman he loved. Her amethyst hands wrapping around him, and there was an undeniable warmth. The drow had been a paladin. Just like his Casca, but unlike her there was a brutality in Minthara Baenre. There was ruthlessness. The dark elf had her flaws, but he saw in her what he had lost. The wolf knew that it was inevitable. When you are immortal? The patterns become obvious. Reincarnation was always predominant in these realms, and it could be seen everywhere. Casca sought him out, and she had found her Guts.
In turn, Guts had found her.
"The Lord of Wolves about to die at the hands of his own brother, and all he can do is reminisce? I didn't take you for a sentimental fool." Minthara scolds him in the way that only she can. "I did not marry Drizzt Do'Urden. I married The White Wolf." The drow forces the wolf to rise from his grave. "In Menzoberranzan, blood feuds were as frequent as in The Imperium of Man. The answer was always the same." Dragon Slayer almost seems to materialize in her hands. "They can only be solved with violence, and in this case a disproportionate amount of violence." The drow shoves the great sword into his hands. "Guts Vorlesh, of House Vorlesh! This is not a request from your wife, but an order from Minthara Baenre! I want to see Angronius of Nuceria dead at your feet! Honor our house with his life, and bring me his head as a trophy!"
"I must apologize, Angron." Leman Russ had stopped the axe. It was caught in his hand. "I'm not allowed to lose." There is a savagery. This desire for victory. The wolf was roused from his slumber, and he was on the hunt. "The wife is watching."
"What?" The Daemon Prince only had a moment to indulge in confusion, and that is when a fist dug itself into his face. Angronius of Nuceria is hurled backwards into Yggdrasil. The Tree of Life was the size of any Hive World, but it shook regardless of that. The branches began to fall, and the trunk had splintered. The strike had untangled this plane from the taint of The Warp, and banished those demiurges. Those maidens who had sacrificed their lives to protect Grunbeld? Their souls had been set free, and they would return to my side in the Astronomican. They would be celebrated in a Valhalla of my own craftsmanship. "What nonsense is this? The Warp has already made you take leave of your senses--"
"I never had any to begin with!" Leman Russ grabs the betrayer by the throat. This coward who spurned his own flesh and blood. "There is nothing to take, but I do have something I can share with your masters." The grievous miracle began to coalesce. It had searched for something familiar. Anything that spoke to Leman Russ, and what he symbolized. "It is this pain."
It was always the wind. That which would fan the flames. This coaxing of the fire.
The Storm of Vengeance is evoked, and they are both caught in the tempest. That gale had become a tornado. The wind would never harm Leman Russ, but the same could not be said for his sibling. The Lord of the Red Sands screams in agony. This was a pain he had never known, and not even the immortality granted to him by those Ruinous Powers, could protect his soul. The Red Angel would not return to them, and his fate was to be the same as Horus Lupercal.
Oblivion.
Yggdrasil is disintegrated by the spell, and Dragon Slayer is able to escape those roots. The great sword falling back into the hands of Leman Russ.
"How I have missed this." Grunbeld could only whisper. "Welcome home, Guts."
The White Wolf had returned.
<<X>>
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