A titanic rift in the Empyrean tore open amidst the cold silence of the void.
The gargantuan hull of the Titan's Spear breached back into the Materium. Clusters of Sapient Machine Automata, coordinated by Eight-Legs, hauled massive replacent components toward the cavernous chambers housing the Geller Field generators.
The targeted strikes of chaotic sorcery had left the area in a state of taphysical ruin. Residual Warp-energy had corrupted the shielding arrays, causing the very tal of the Geller Field apparatus to fuse into aberrant, semi-organic shapes. Worse, the brief imrsion in the realm of Khorne had inflicted severe spatial distortions upon the contaminated compartnts.
The machinery, now sprouting jagged tallic barbs and pulsating with unnatural growth, had lost all functionality. It required imdiate disposal.
For the Iron n, "disposal" was a matter of clinical efficiency. To prevent the corruption from tainting the ship's nanite swarms, the automata simply cut the entire section away from the ship's skeleton. Under the precise coordination of the nanite networks, an internal atmospheric seal was established, and a direct corridor to the vacuum of space was opened.
The Eight-Legs then grappled the severed, warped compartnts and hurled them clear of the Titan's Spear. Simultaneously, the nanite swarms mobilized raw materials to begin the structural reconstruction of the hull. While the ship repaired itself, the machines and Eight-Legs began the assembly of a fresh Geller Field generator from prepared spares.
As for the contaminated wreckage, it was towed by several Heavy Combat Drones into the path of the Titan's Spear's primary thruster banks. One of the conventional propulsion units flared to life; within seconds, the terrifying high-energy wake reduced the corrupted scrap into a globule of molten slag drifting in the void. The concentrated thermal energy purged the residual Warp-taint, restoring the materials to a mundane state.
The Titan's Spear, equipped with its own internal life-support and fluid-managent systems, possessed the necessary diums to flash-cool the reclaid mass. A temporary, spoon-like tallic scoop was ford by the nanite swarms, catching the molten slag and drawing it back into the ship's maw.
Massive quantities of water were injected into the reclamation chamber. Superheated steam hissed out into the void, crystallizing instantly into a trail of boiling droplets. With the material recycled and the new Geller Field activated, the Titan's Spear adjusted its heading and burned directly for the Nachmund Gauntlet.
Following that first ambush, the remainder of the journey proceeded with ominous smoothness.
The Titan's Spear continued its linear path through the Warp, but with a new, aggressive protocol. Every few minutes, the ship's antimatter beam arrays fired blindly into the forward trajectory, an "area-denial" sweep designed to atomize anything lurking in the path of the vessel.
It was brutally effective. After several hidden sorcerous traps were prematurely triggered and shredded by lances of raw energy, Magnus the Red, the architect of the ambush, finally abandoned his efforts.
Yet, while the Titan's Spear had evaded the sches of the Thousand Sons, it had drawn the gaze of Khorne. Eschewing the now-mindless Angron, the Blood God turned to another warrior he held in high regard: Khârn the Betrayer.
Khârn, once the Captain of the World Eaters 8th Assault Company, had glutted himself on the blood of loyalists since the days of the Great Heresy. Khorne had long since marked him as his chosen mortal champion. Even after Khârn fell beneath the blade of the Imperial champion Sigismund, Khorne had seen fit to resurrect him. Having tasted true death, Khârn's devotion to the Blood God had only deepened; he lived for nothing but the ecstasy of slaughter, death, and ruin.
Unlike Angron, whose mind had been hollowed out by the Butcher's Nails, Khârn remained tactically sharp. For ten millennia, he had offered such a mountain of skulls to the Brass Throne that the Blood God occasionally wondered if he had chosen the wrong champion for daemonhood, perhaps Khârn was the one who truly deserved to be a Daemon Prince.
On the crimson earth where blood and fla entwined, Khorne's fury seethed. The massive gouge in the landscape, carved by the Emperor-possessed Vulkan, had yet to heal. Through that jagged wound, the infinite depths of the Sea of Souls were visible.
Khârn, clad in his blood-slicked power armor, knelt on one knee. The air around him shimred, distorted by the sheer violence of his aura. Beneath his helm, his eyes burned with a murderous light as he gazed toward the throne adorned with pale skulls and a sea of boiling blood.
Upon that throne sat the blurred, colossal shadow of Khorne, the god of eternal slaughter.
"PUNY MORTAL!"
A voice, woven from the agonized screams of a billion souls, thundered in Khârn's ears, causing ripples in the warp-saturated air.
"I SENSE YOUR RAGE HUNGERING FOR AN OUTLET!"
Khârn looked up, a twisted, fanatic grin hidden behind his faceplate. His armor, notched and caked in gore, looked predatory in the red light.
"Blood God! Your will is the only compass we follow! Where there is slaughter, there is my ho!" Khârn's voice was a dry, rasping growl, dragged from the depths of his throat.
"HAHAHA! GOOD. YOU PLEASE FAR MORE THAN THAT FAILURE, ANGRON. GO. SATE YOUR LUST FOR RUIN."
While the Iron n's presence was an affront to the natural order of the Warp, the death toll they had exacted across the galaxy had ironically fed Khorne's strength. Hatred, whether born of man or machine-inflicted, was still fuel.
Khorne remained incensed that the Dark King had invaded his domain to liberate those chanical interlopers. However, looking upon Khârn, the Blood God chose to bestow a dark favor. His booming laughter shook the foundations of the Immaterium.
"I GRANT YOU GREATER MIGHT. GO! TEAR ASUNDER THE CURS OF THE DARK KING, AND THE ABOMINABLE CONSTRUCTS THAT GUARD THEM!"
Khârn stood, his gauntlet tightening around the grip of Gorechild. The runes upon the massive chain-axe flared with a baleful light, thrumming in sympathetic resonance with the Blood God's command.
"SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"
Khârn roared, his muscles coiling, every inch of his being trembling with the anticipation of the coming carnage.
"I will show them the futility of defying Your will! I shall offer You a sacrifice of blood so grand it shall eclipse the stars!"
A hint of a satisfied, monstrous smile touched Khorne's shifting features. A bolt of crimson light shot from the Brass Throne, enveloping Khârn and imbuing him with boundless, berserk strength. A pair of solid wings, forged from condensed warp-energy, unfurled from his back.
With a casual gesture, Khorne tore open a vortex leading to the Materium. Khârn stepped through without hesitation, ready to unleash damnation upon an unsuspecting battlefield.
Behind him, Khorne's terrifying laughter echoed through the Warp, a premature celebration of the slaughter to co.
On the other side of the vortex, a certain "Undefeated" Warmaster stood in stunned silence, staring blankly at the nightmare-clad form of Khârn as he erged, wreathed in the terrifying stench of the Blood God.
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