Imperium Ascendant

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The View from Ulthwe

Location: Forzare System, the Gloriana Class battleship Ananta-Mandjet

Date: 895.M30 (Imperial Standard Time)

"Prospero" that name tugged at something at the back of Magnus's mind. A vague feeling of recognition and sadness that came uninvited. Quickly discarding the intrusive thought the Primarch readied himself for war. Such flickers were not uncommon for him, his status as the most psychically powerful Primarch came with some baggage. Ever since he and his legion left the Sol System, Magnus could feel the eyes of the so-called Dark Gods upon him. Away from the indomitable aegis of the Astronomicon and his father, Chaos leered at his soul with a disturbing obsession and thirst. Magnus knew why of course, he and his gift were key to the Primordial Annihilator's defeat. For now, he has other battles to fight and Chaos could wait. The mystery of Prospero would be added to the list of mysteries he might uncover, along with his earlier observer.

Departing the command deck the Primarch armed himself for war. The Lightning Bearer has beaten important lessons into Magnus, lessons against hubris and over-reliance on his psychic might. That was not to say Magnus fought with crude blade or bolt like his brothers. He simply acknowledged all forms of power and kept a dagger just in case. As such the arming chamber of the Primarch blurred the line of armory and ritual center. Plates of Ceramite, covered in occult symbols and inlaid with arcane trinkets enclosed the Primarch. A great helm crafted in the image of ancient Magi-King sealed over his head. Its myriad of psycho-reactive materials already glowing at his mere touch. The arming servants of the XV Legion combined the arts of ritualist and armorer, completing complicated pre-battle checks while inscribing symbols of power on polished metal. In his youth, Magnus would have dismissed the bulky power armor and the Plasma Pistol mag locked next to his dagger as unnecessary. Which in truth they would be, anything that could resist his psychic might would not be slowed by mere metal and plastic. Still, Magnus cloaked himself in traditional tools of war as a reminder and symbol. To never let himself fall prey to hubris or ignorance. This act of preparing for war had become a ritual of sorts, which only held power as long as you gave it power.

As the last rivet and neural cable found its place, Magnus reached out his left hand. Sinister, the hand of destruction and retribution. Into Magnus's palm, a blind Astropath placed his chief weapon. It was a Staff, a symbol long associated with power, mystery and the Magi. Yet it was a Staff in the same way the Blade of Psychic Fire the Emperor carries is a Sword. Magnus has "borrowed" extensively from the Sigillites collection and every other trove he could access to craft this tool of Psychic power. The Staff itself was carved from a truly ancient piece of wood that survived a thousand disasters through a mixture of luck, and the intense psychic energy its mother-tree had been saturated in. That near-mythical tree traced its lineage back to an unassuming Fig Tree that sheltered a Prince of a nation long forgotten. A tree that had watched this run-away Prince touch a part of the Warp yet unsullied by Chaos and become a great Teacher. This legend sourced the Staff's name, the Awakened Dream. Of course, Magnus had not stopped with a simple wooden haft, even one with such pedigree. A sphere of polished meteoric stone capped the staff. Its void-black material drinking in light and offering glimpses of the impossible to those who peered into it. Around this dark orb of ritual power floated a halo of fifteen sacred stones. Each cut to mathematical perfection and charged with sparks of psychic power. Ribbons of silk, papyrus, and precious metals coiled down from the orb and along the staff. Every centimeter of each ribbon is covered in esoteric script and occult imagery. The Awakened Dream formed a psychic focus and force weapon beyond compare. A tool of manipulating the tides of the Warp in ways not seen since the height of the Aeldari.

Gripping the familiar heft of his Staff, Magnus closed his eyes as his servants painted the last ritual symbols upon his armor and finished their final psionic-sutras. Leaving the arming chamber, Magnus was flanked by his twin equarries. They had also prepared for War, and would follow him across the battlefield as extensions of his will. A brief telepathic message from the Primarch alerted his Lord-Magi and Coven Chieftains to his intent and orders. He would join the initial assault on Prospero. A flurry of telepathic messages between Primarch and Genesons continued across the fleet as Magnus prepared himself for Teleportation. The XV legion honor guard, the Varaha Shields, clad in Terminator armor awaited the Primarch in the Flagships primary Teleportarium. The Shields membership numbered some of the Legion's best Telekinetics and Biomancy. Experts in turning their minds and bodies into exactly as their name implied, living shields for the Primarch. The Honor Guards Captain, Jedet Geb gave his Genefather a small salute and moved his warriors into position around the Primarch.

A flurry of Telepathic messages poured into Magnus as he prepared for Teleportation. He, alongside close to three thousand of his Legion elite, would arrive in the Amonite Capital of Tizca. They would rip through the enemies defense, push into the heart of whatever psychic threat wormed its way into this planet, and kill it. Under his orders, the Fleet would target the few cities outside of Tizca and blast them to ash. Then unload the full complement of Auxilia and Astartes to besiege Tizca. Where they could either help the Primarchs initial force mop up the enemy remnants or provide assistance if need be. Tizca itself was protected by a combination of mechanical and psychic shields and defenses. Enough to protect, or at least mitigate a true Imperial bombardment. Normally such barriers would stop unguided teleportation, turning it into a near-suicidal task likely to scatter its survivors across kilometers of unfamiliar terrain, if not simply shunting them into solid stone or other obstacles. But by very definition any battle in which a Primarch fought quickly left behind any concepts of normality.

Magnus took his place in the center of the Teleportarium, his most trusted Genesons forming a ring around him. With a deep shuddering breath, the Primarch started to gather up his power. Reaching into the Sea of Souls and making a path through eldritch currents. The esoteric machines of the Teleportarium started to crackle with energy, but not of its own creation. Magnus did not rely on petty mechanical substitutes. If he desired a path through the Warp and back into reality, then he would carve it himself. Magnus struck the center of the Teleportarium with his staff and then his company was gone. In speeds measured in transhuman thought, the Primarch carved a path through the Warp. Dancing between spiritual riptides, arcane break walls, and hungry nightmares with ease. Aside from the Primarch's guards, nearly three thousand other Astartes teleported down to the surface. They used traditional methods but found themselves under their Genefathers Aegis once in the Warp. Each teleporting Squad was guided by the Primarch, slipped through the defenses of Tizca with little effort from Magnus.

The storm stuck Tizca all at once, hundreds of lightning bolts detonating across the city. Punching right through its shields and dropping three thousand Angels of Death into Tizca. Magnus and his Honor Guard arrived at the base of the Great Pyramid. No fanfare, just a flash of light, and then a Demigod stood among broken men. Across Prospero. the Amonite defenders prepared for whatever invasion force the Imperium would throw at them. Their soothsayers and analysts predicted the pattern of bombardment and how the Auxilia would attack. The Astartes offensive had not entered any of their visions. Predicting the future is difficult, preventing others from doing it is by comparison easy. A fact the Seers of the XV Legion were acutely aware of. Gunfire and the telltale sparks of warp-craft soon erupted across Tizca. As three entire fellowships of the Arcanists marched on the Amonite capital. A devastating force capable of ruining entire worlds by strength of arms and psychic power. They were a mere distraction, to keep the brain-bound abhumans of Prospero from recognizing the Primarchs' threat.

Magnus gazed around the plaza at the Pyramids base. Taking in the sights of the expansive nexus of the Amoninte civilization. The roads and buildings of Tizca stood organized in an intricate pattern of mathematical and psionic resonance. Subtly focusing the mental energies of the mega-cities occupants towards the Great Pyramid that stood before Magnus. The shimmering city of Tizca bled latent psychic energy. Controlled and directed with an artisan's touch. It pained the Primarch he would need to destroy it. All of the Primarch's senses extended out to soak in a snapshot of the city around him before it burned with soulfire. The occupants of the plaza finally shook free from their surprise and noticed the Primarch and his guards. They responded quickly. The psychic network connecting them directing its puppets with methodical precision.

Hundreds of different Amonite abhumans pushed towards the Imperial trespassers. The Primarch recognized maybe a dozen distinct castes-races among the Heretics. It seemed whatever mind guided this world had taken advantage of the Warps mutagenic properties. Speeding up specification, birthing specialized abhumans castes. Some were little more than walls of muscle, larger than even Terminator clad Astartes. Kin to the Ogryns of former prison worlds. Bloated parodies of humanity bred for manual labor and unsophisticated violence. Others possessed mutations in reverse of these Prospero Ogryns. Swollen heads pulsing with psychic potential, carried along by spindly limbs. Each abhuman caste showed clear signs of selective breeding and mutation, born for a singular role the ruling intelligence desired. The Amonite Commune was still made up of individual mutants, but for how many more generations, Magnus could not say. It would not be long before any semblance of singular thought had been wiped from Prospero, leaving an Amonite Hive. A psycho-born eusocial organism, a serious threat to the future of mankind the Emperor envisioned. One that would never come to fruition, as Magnus prepared to deal with Tizca's defenders.

Time slowed, and the charging Amonites became frozen like insects in amber. Magnus Rubiracr, Lord of Mysteries adjusted the flow of space/time around him as he responded to the attack. In his little bubble of diluted time, he could spend comparative hours of transhuman brain activity in planning out the perfect economy of destruction. An amused smile crossed the Primarchs face as he looked out across Tizca. It has been a few years since he had needed to use any serious level of effort in battle. His duties across the growing Imperium had kept him from the truly brutal fighting some of his brothers were mired in. He could strike with precise, clean effort, but he was not going to. Magnus expected what he was about to do would provoke the master intelligence of Prospero. A fact he used to justify his desire to cut loose.

Striking the Awakened Dream upon the polished stone of the Plaza and reaching out with his free hand. Magnus reached into the meniscus between Material and Immaterial. Feeling the threads that connected his Abhuman enemies. He traced the strings of Will that bound the Amonites together, gathering up a great bundle of them into his psychic grip. Then he pulled. Raw psychic power latched onto the hundreds of threads and ripped them free of the Souls they connected to. Earlier the twins and Primarch had discussed freeing the Abhumans, using methods of delicate psychic surgery. Delicately cutting the connections, hoping to perverse the minds touched. This was not what Magnus did, his act was of pure and practiced Psychic violence. Instantly almost half of the defenders moving against the Primarchs honor guard fell. The lucky ones died instantly, the psychic shock interrupting the autonomic nervous system or triggering colossal strokes. Most did not get such a clean death. Magnus watched an Ogryn collapse to the ground and beat its head into the stone while screaming its throat raw. Only stopping when its blood and brain matter formed a great halo around his thrashing body. A dozen lithe abhumans with delicate but dexterous limbs turned on each other. Savaging anything they could with a mixture of bladed weapons and precision tools. Many were lobotomized, whatever crucial parts of their brain the Psychic tendril had wormed itself into, irreparably traumatized by the violent extraction.

Watching the scene of madness and carnage unfold, the Primarch reminded his sons with a gentle telepathic message. "This is why the Imperium fears psykers. Our power is great and in the wrong hands could unleash horrors that make this seem tame. Remember that fact and don't ever forget our abilities are as much a danger to us as our foes."

Magnus knew it was terribly hypocritical of him. To be acting the wise sage, counseling restraint while indulging his desire to unleash his power. He hoped his awareness of that fact earned him some leniency in that regard. Besides, showing the raw devastating force of his Psychic might served as a reminder to his sons. What they might aspire to and what they might fear. Turning his focus back to the surviving enemies, Magnus decided another demonstration would prove useful. When he had ripped open the minds of the nearby defenders he had traced the psychic connections back to a nexus of sorts. A more powerful psychic mind that itself was connected to the heart of the web below the Great Pyramid. This nexus had hidden itself, possibly unintentionally in one of the rising obelisk-habs that surrounded the Plaza. Peering down from the shining building, directing the small army that tried to attack the Primarchs honor guard. The Nexus had been also hurt by Magnus's first attack but was already recovering. Magnus could feel it gathering up its own psychic might. Paltry compared to him but surpassing many of his Legions officers.

The Primarch traced the enemy "commander" with his mind as his sons moved in to finish the beleaguered remains of its subordinates. Terminators glowed with psychic flames as they cut down Abhuman fighters with methodical practice. Ahriman and Ohrmuzd never leaving the Primarchs' side. Getting a sense of the creature, Magnus was disgusted. It was like the bulbous-headed mutants of before but taken to a foul conclusion. A warped cranium, rendered egg-shell thin by constant growth teetered on top of a vestigial sack of organs and limbs. Telekinetic effort kept it propped up and floating a few inches from the ground. What passed for a body had been stretched out by the constant pull of gravity, left dangling from the mutated skull. Yet this defilement of the human form was not raised bile in the Primarchs throat. He felt something writhing inside the swollen skull. Its brain grew at a rapid pace for a far more sinister purpose than powering Psychic disciplines. Shadows of writhing maggots fed on the Nexus-Creatures brain, growing fat on psychically active brain matter.

Reacting with the instinctual disgust any human feels when confronted with a Parasite. Magnus reached out with telekinesis to end the abomination. He would not be satisfied merely bursting the creature like an infected pustule, it needed to be wiped out with overwhelming force. The edges of the Obelisk-hab deformed as if gripped by the hand of an invisible giant. Which in a way it was. Magnus ripped the massive spire from the ground. Lifting the three hundred meter tall building into the air and bringing it crashing down. Aiming at one of the entrances of the Plaza like some god-thrown javelin. Even after it struck, Magnus kept up telekinetic pressure. Slamming down on the rubble and closest buildings with a psychic bombardment. Reducing nearly a square kilometer to perfectly flat stone.

The Primarch knew the source of this world's heresy. The nature of what turned Prospero into a planet beyond Imperial Compliance. He had read of many dark and terrible things in his father's library. Of the nightmares that stalked the Warp and fed on those touched by it. Of those Warp Predators, few roused the wrath of Magnus Rubricar like Psychneuein. Ancient hybrid organisms of both the Warp and Material. Taking the form of giant Parasitic Wasps. They laid eggs in the brains of Psykers. Overrunning entire planets in great feeding swarms that would descend on beings with even the slightest psychic talent. Magnus had never fought them before, and what he found on Prospero did not fully match the texts of the Imperial library. Yet the brain-eating parasites were instantly recognizable. Something horrible had happened on this World and Magnus would put an end to it.

The Primarch and his honor guard moved towards the Great Pyramid. The Terminators lagging behind the Archmagi and his twin Equarries. Forming a rearguard as Magnus ascended the Pyramid. It was a grand structure of polished metal and stone. Combining ritual elements and functional architecture. A staircase large enough for even a Primarch to walk cut into the Pyramid. Leading towards a cavity halfway up the structure. The psychic echoes of thousands of minds covered the steps in a spiritual miasma. Each a Psyker of some power bred for an abominable surface and taken to the Pyramids heart. Sparks of lightning rippled around Magnus as he ascended the stairs. He could feel the formidable psychic presence inside the Pyramid. A great tumor of raw power at the heart of an ever-growing Web that stretched across Prospero. To his surprise, the presence offered no resistance to his advance and he wondered if it had even noticed him. Something was wrong with this scenario. On many occasions Magnus had faced down powerful Psychic horrors, yet nothing quite like this. The thing in the pyramid felt… unfocused and unresponsive. A great mass of psychic power lacking a true ego. Power and control without a guiding mind. Prospero found itself shackled to a blind-idiot god, barely aware of its surroundings and content with a sated Id.

It did not make sense, such an entity required direction and intelligence to survive and thrive as it had. The answer soon entered the Primarchs awareness as he neared the Pyramids maw. Nestled within and behind the central psychic nexus was a second mind. A human Psyker, bound up in the Psychneuein infestation's heart. The mind was old and powerful by baseline human standards. Connected to the greater power but not shackled to it like the rest of the population. This was the true mind behind the heresy of Prospero. It would die and its leviathan instrument of psychic dominance with it.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Magnus Rubricar entered the belly of the beast. Beautiful mosaics and carvings lined the passage into the Pyramid. Generations of artistic talent trying to make a Monsters lair beautiful. It did nothing to hide the all prevailing stink of mind-death. The slow and deliberate consumption of psychic minds by parasitic warp predators left a distinct imprint on the environment. Different from the taint of Chaos, festering contamination instead of the lunatic contagion of the Dark Gods. Magnus pushed past it, letting the flames of his soul burn away at the miasma. A brief telepathic message ordered his honor guard to defend the Pyramids entrance. They would be little help against what he was about to face.

The Primarch, flanked by the twin Magi, entered into the abomination's nest. A huge hollow space within the Pyramid stretched out before them. Magnus could only guess at the true size of the chamber as the majority of it was filled. A massive insectoid horror adhered to the roof and walls of the chamber. The form of a Wasp distorted into a twitching mass of warp-soaked tissue. Here at the heart of the psychic web the strings of influence were so concentrated they became visible to the naked eye. Bundles of fiber similar to Arachnid silk and Neuron dendrites covered the monster. Streaming across the chamber and into the Immaterium, then across Prospero. Magnus felt the panicked thoughts and base desires of the entire Amonite commune radiate off the threads. Concentrated psychic filaments leaking a steady stream of primitive spirit discharge into the chamber. The murk of a people dying at his Legions hands only added to the horror as Magnus traced the distended body of the creature.

Long reproductive organs that mingled common biology and warp-born nightmares dangled down to the chamber floor. A dozen of the lesser-nexus Abhumans, of the type Magnus had killed with its own Obelisk, was connected to the stringy ropes of flesh. These abhumans were younger, barely on the cusp of adulthood with bodies not yet fully atrophied. Each had one of the monster's organs inserted into a facial orifice. Magnus did not need to focus with his transhuman senses to know what flowed through the invasive tubes. Psychneuein eggs pumped into a perfect nest. This made little sense. Psychneuein grubs devoured their host in days. How were these Abhumans living, and even functioning with this infestation? The skies of Prospero should be black with Psychneuein wings and its population devoured years ago. Was this some part of the Warp-Parasites life cycle unrecorded by Imperial records? No, this was an unnatural perversion of an already unnatural process. The creature dangling from the ceiling was the infestation's Queen. There was no doubt of that, but it had been altered in some fashion.

A twitch of movement from the horror before him pulled the Primarch back to present. With a mental command, his Staff's meteorite head glowed with crimson light. Illuminating the source of the movement. A human male, withered by time and pain, disentangled himself from the Psychneuein Queens tendrils. He lacked the mutations ubiquitous to Propero, and he reminded Magnus of some of the scholars in his father's employ. With unsteady feet, the man approached Magnus and tried to speak. He doubted the man had used his vocal cords in years. After a few tries, the man spoke in heavily accented Gothic. "I am Amon of Tizca. Who are you Giant? Why have you come to burn my world?"

Magnus looked down on the relic of a man. The guiding intelligence of the Commune that bore his name. A momentary flicker of pity and empathy crossed the Primarch's mind. He did not know the source of the intrusive feelings and quickly locked them away. Peering down at the mortal man who had somehow broken a Psychneuein Queen, Magnus spoke. "I am the Primarch Magnus, fifteenth son of the Emperor of Mankind. I bring destruction not out of malice or hate. I do it because it must be done."

Gesturing up to the Queen, Magnus continued: "This world and its people are an abomination. Heresy in the highest order and not something that can exist in Mankind's galaxy"

Amon let out a breathy wheeze that might have been a scoff. "Heresy? You cannot be serious? You tear down all I have created and slaughter my people because of Dogma"

Magnus looked down at the warped little human, he was surprised this Amon had not reacted to his presence. Perhaps years in the company of the Psychneuein Queen had inured him to the influence a being such as a Primarch could have. In any other case, Magnus would have blasted the Heretic leader from the universe and be done with it. Yet a nagging feeling in his soul sought to justify himself to Amon. "Heresy is a very old and loaded word. At its core, it means something that deviates from the chosen creed. Something that threatens the legitimacy and purpose of a broader idea. My father favors such archaic terms, believing them to hold a certain power later more nuanced words lack. I can understand his reasoning and judge you by his truth as a Heretic. A heretic towards the only creed that truly matters and why the Imperium exists. The survival of mankind is paramount and your actions are a heresy against our cause of survival."

Magnus did not expect the reaction he got. Amon focused on him with a vicious intensity and snarled at the Primarch through age-worn teeth. "Survival? You judge me and exterminate my people in the name of survival? You are an utter fool. Why do you think I took such drastic actions to protect Prospero? Do you think I wanted this? The Psychneuein grew more numerous with each passing year and the Aether grows ever more turbulent. We would have been wiped out, either by the Psychneuein or another Spiritual Predator. I did what needed to be done for us to Survive!"

Amon gestured to the chamber around him and up towards the warp-xeno nightmare. "I saw an opportunity, the Queen was weak just after molting. Nearly two dozen of our greatest mind-walkers died but we broke the Queen. Crippling her mind and finding ways to placate her instincts while also surviving. Prospero's children host her children. Her influence keeps them from fully developing and protects those implanted from the Sea of Souls. We turned a Parasite into a symbiote, yes sometimes the process fails, but we survive at any cost. Surely you can recognize that?"

The shriveled Psykers anger echoed throughout the room and his captive Queen twitched, feedback from whatever telepathic shackles wormed into its mind. Amon continued his rant: "Look at you Magnus, a product of flesh-crafting and soul-stitching. Forged to fight wars you claim are for mankind's survival. You are living proof that in times of darkness we must take extraordinary measures to live another day. You judge me with the certainty of a hypocrite."

With an apologetic flick of his fingers, Magnus gripped Amon with a telekinetic vice and lifted him into the air. The Primarch easily punched through the Heretics defenses and dominated him utterly. Magnus moved the struggling psyker so he could look the man directly in the eye. With a deep breath, Magnus Rubicar opened up his third eye. An occult sigil in the form of a glowing eye ignited on the Primarchs forehead. A manifestation of the Primarch's power and connection to the Warp. Product of years of intense focus and training. The Eye of Magnus acted like a Navigator's own third eye, except crafted entirely from Psychic energy, and far far more capable.

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.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!