"He was only born from sin, an Eldar, and he already thinks he is something! We have ruled the galaxy for tens of thousands of years, and he will never be our equal!" Tzeentch cried loudly, as his crystal penetrated every detail of the Knight.
Along with this, the soul of the Machine, Mordred's soul, and of course my soul were distorted. The door to the warp was opening wider and wider, and this time Tzeentch was not going to personally do everything for his servant, he gave the opportunity and the tool, and everything else depended only on willpower.
The warp currents flowed in a furious stream and the bird actively drew its own patterns, breaking them into small parts. I tried to direct them in the right direction, so that too much pressure would not cause a breach in the soul. I managed to cope, thanks in part to the help of the Machine and Mordred, whose monolithic souls served as an impenetrable barrier. However, this will not continue forever, because everything has a limit and the more power you take from the warp, the stronger its corruption becomes, bringing the moment of the great fall closer.
And again missiles flew out of Camelot, this time decoys. Some were just dummies, others created an impenetrable heat curtain, and still others sprayed a cloud that dispersed even the most powerful laser beams. After that, missiles with atomic warheads flew. Dozens of explosions shook the ground behind the eastern wall and the shock wave blew off the hats of soldiers sitting in the trenches under the Knights' feet. However, the nuclear mushrooms had not yet had time to grow, when the signal to attack was given.
Right now, the daemons had begun an attack on the Rangdans, giving us the opportunity to push through their positions. It was a risky move, but the command decided that the Rangdan Empire was far more dangerous than the daemons. However, no one was fooled by the possibility of a possible alliance with the warp fiends, because they were unpredictable and dangerous. It was simply more advantageous at the moment to strike at the strongest of the opponents.
I almost immediately broke forward, strengthening the frontal ion shields to the maximum. The crystal began to grow and turned into something like spikes or rather pyramids on the armor. Additional protection will help protect the Machine, which has already suffered. After all, I had to go into the very heat, in front of everything and everyone, so that my allies would be watching my back and have the opportunity to finish me off at any moment. This did not depress me, because I myself understood the danger of making a deal with Tzeentch. Therefore, if I lose control, it would be better to have Lancelot closer, who will not hesitate to tear me to pieces.
"Bird, how about creating a warp storm?" I asked, harassing the vehicles with my head cannons and taking precise aim at the vehicles with the powerful lascannon on my arm.
— The Dark Prince rules the warp here, I cannot challenge him.
- What about a small local storm? You translated the witch's warp streams, created a pretty strong spell. How about trying to increase the scale?
- This will require much more energy. Where will I get it? My writings are barely holding back the pressure of Tzeentch, who seems to want to completely subjugate our souls to his will.
- What will be, will be. Take his power and make it yours.
- But…
— Becoming better now is the only way to beat him in the future. Try, make mistakes and develop. That is the essence of change. That is what he expects from you, so that you become stronger and can bring benefits. Otherwise, an unenviable fate awaits you.
I don't know how right I was in my assumption, but my words had an effect on the bird and it stopped resisting the force tearing the shackles of the physical world. Instead, it began to look into the stream and flounder in it, trying to stay afloat. I did the same, starting to hear countless voices again. Tzeentch carefully watched his servants, because even the dark gods did not need weak-willed servants who immediately carried out any order. Willpower determined whether another chaosite would become just meat or be able to claim the title of daemon prince.
Therefore, the longer the candidate resisted the influence of the god, the longer he refused the gifts, the higher the probability that he would eventually enter the ranks of the chosen ones by force of will. Will determined everything in this world. But how to develop it, constantly avoiding the gaze from the darkness? I did not know the answer, and I also needed strength, which forced me to take risks.
Meanwhile, the winds of change began to sing in the universe and the warp currents began to obey the new sorcerer. Amidst explosions and screams, a storm was born, bringing with it hail and rain, in which the light was refracted, revealing the truth of the changes to this world. The visibility of the Rangdans worsened, communications began to malfunction and the accuracy of the shelling decreased, and the hail resembled pieces of crystal. Laser guidance became impossible because of this, and blind shots did not melt the hail, but scattered.
The storm was rapidly expanding and began to cover not only me, but also three kilometers of the front. And right inside it I was, rushing to the enemy positions and leading the first wave of Camelot's defenders.
"Now do you understand why you were wrong?" Bedivere's voice came over the senior officers' speakers.
"He could betray us at any moment. The demons within grow in power from our suffering and torment. And eventually he will bring a curse upon us all," Lancelot replied, slowly following the storm, leading the third wave of attackers.
- That's why he goes first, so that he can die before he loses control. And if he manages to survive in hell, you will finish him off. Either way, he will become our weapon and allow the King's servants to die elsewhere with greater benefit.
I did not hear these words, because there was no connection in the epicenter of the storm, as in general in the storm any electronics were seriously malfunctioning, while weak-spirited soldiers sometimes fell into apathy. Only the brotherly shoulder nearby did not allow me to forget what was happening around and for what purpose they were running forward with a cry of war. And breaking against the united souls of the soldiers, the winds of change floated on, looking for a more suitable victim.
And the victims of this were the slaves, whose minds began to be overwhelmed by fear and horror. Fear of change fought with horror of the masters, and this fight broke their already crippled minds even more. As a result, the first meat train was simply overwhelmed by apathy. I immediately stepped over the trenches with slaves, rushing towards the barrier detachments of the Ragdans, who, without thinking twice, gave the order for a massive artillery bombardment, intending to level out the accuracy with the number of shots.
The defenders poured into the trenches, bayonets plunging into the hearts of the slaves with screams, carnage reigned on the enemy's first line of defense, torn apart by its own shelling. Dozens of people died every second, but the first wave was already pushing forward, and I began to destroy long-term defense points, reducing the cost of a breakthrough for the allies. Hellish combat engulfed the minds of mortals, giving birth to fuel for the dark gods.
Suddenly, a wild cry engulfed the entire battlefield and every corner of the planet. Incredible rage and pain sounded, and the Dark Prince himself was screaming, once again realizing the plan of his enemy. This cry was echoed by the ringing laughter of the Universal Manipulator, who lured the Dark Prince to this planet with his intrigues, making him believe that there was a whole world here with a bunch of Knights, who would be easy to persuade to his side and thereby gain many strong followers.
And the Dark Prince believed in this, that he could obtain what the other dark gods had failed to obtain. He had set a goal for himself and now suffered from the knowledge that he could not fulfill it, because less than three percent of the Knights sided with him, and among those Knights, almost all refused the gifts, preferring to maintain relative purity. They made only small concessions and solely to achieve their own goals.
The Dark Prince had lost, he knew it, and he knew he had been disgraced once again. And Tzeentch's laughter only further hurt his anger-blazing pride.
"This is the true essence of your perfection, Slaanesh," Tzeentch continued to taunt, piercing his opponent's soul with words that were more painful than any sword strike. "First you went after Khorne because you were foolish and trusted me. Then you decided to butt heads with Nurgle, whose garden even I am forbidden from entering. Now you have lost here too, for you are no match for us."
"I will kill your champion," the scream turned into a poisonous whisper, full of thirst for revenge.
"If you succeed, I have nothing to lose. If you fail, your pride will eat you from the inside," Tzeentch replied, laughing, reducing the situation to the fact that he would be the winner either way. "However, the odds are on my side today, and the second outcome will be the logical result of your shortsightedness. You are predictable, you are weak, you will lose. Again."
At that moment, all the attention of the Dark Prince, gathered above Alba, materialized in a rift of incredible power. He had summoned his servant, the Daemon Prince, not to strengthen his position, but only for pitiful and petty revenge. It became extremely important for Slaanesh to take something from Tzeentch, even if it was not even a champion, but just some kind of consumable in a tin can.
— A breach in the immaterium! — because I stopped to finish off the enemy equipment, the storm moved further, deeper into the enemy positions and the connection was able to reach my transmitter. — Something terrible was born on the left flank! We need the support of the Knights! It's a demon! It's... it's huge!
"I'll take it upon myself," I said immediately, realizing that Tzeentch expected this from me.
— Requesting a missile strike on myself! Use everything you have, but take it to hell with us! It must not exist…
The connection suddenly broke off, after which there was a pause.
"We're heading to Rangda's headquarters," Lancelot said, then added, "Prepare the atomic weapons, if Mordred can't handle it, he'll at least hold the creature in place for a precise hit."
I quickly deployed Morgana's Curse, and quickly established visual contact with the target. The enemy was tall, and I was tall, which pushed the visible horizon back tens of kilometers.
A spawn of Slaanesh, a vile daemon prince, he stood taller than my knight. His head was covered with four pairs of horns, and a long writhing tongue hung from his mouth. His skin was pinkish, he had three pairs of breasts with eyes instead of nipples, and two pairs of hands. The first pair ended in five claw-like fingers, and in the right he held a cursed blade. The second pair also ended in claws, but they resembled spikes and were only one of a kind, like those of some insect. His only clothing was a loincloth made from the skin of fallen enemies, and it reached the ground.
The demon looked at me with his black eyes and right in the depths of my consciousness I heard his vile voice:
- Your soul will be mine, mortal.
And then he rushed towards me, developing a surprisingly huge speed for such a huge creature. At the same moment, a flurry of psychic energy fell on my mind, but everything was smashed against the Throne of the Mechanicum, and the rest was absorbed by the bird. I was practically invulnerable to outside influence inside this machine, and even if someone strong enough to break through such a barrier was found, then he would still have to clash with the will of Tzeentch.
I could only be killed in the physical world, which the Daemon Prince was about to do, tearing apart all mortals with his limbs as he went: Rangdans, humans, and xenos slaves. His blade spun like a mill, cutting through tanks and absorbing the souls of the fallen. Anyone who died near the Daemon Prince became food for the Daemon. Not a single soul flew into the warp, being absorbed right here.
However, in any case, nothing good awaited the dead, because if they had not been eaten by the Daemon Prince, then the soul would have been devoured by other creatures of the warp that swarmed Alba along with the storm. Although it is better to be torn apart and swallowed by small creatures than to become prey to the Daemon Prince and his damned blade, slowly digesting souls, condemning them to long centuries of torment.
My servos hummed louder and louder, my plasma core accelerated to its maximum, and the spirit of the Machine blazed. With anticipation, Morgana's Bane moved toward the apotheosis of its existence, while Tzeentch poured more and more power into me, and into the transmutation of the Knight's metal, saturating it with his gifts. Mordred's soul rejoiced, he was finally able to achieve that his life became something more than a series of drunkenness and orgies. And the bird flapped its wings, torn between the currents of the warp and trying to make sure that the exploitative power of Tzeentch did not cause irreversible damage to my soul.
"Look upon the face of God, mortal. Behold perfection!" the demon prince screamed as he attacked, forcing me to close my eyes.
However, although my human body closed its eyes, lowering its eyelids, the Knight did not have such a function, looking at his enemy. The demon moved extremely quickly and only at the moment of his attack was it possible to hit him, which I did by firing a laser cannon at point-blank range, giving it a good third of the power and almost blowing up the cannon itself.
The metal melted and creaked. With a gaping wound in his stomach, the demon prince continued the attack anyway and his blade sank into the hull. The blade passed just above the top of my head, causing another fire. But with the furious roar of the Machine's heart, I immediately brought down the chainsword on the hand holding the sword and the chain, under monstrous pressure, cut through the bone.
At the same time, the demon continued to scream, striking with his second pair of claws. The blows were powerful, but unlike the blade, they only crumpled the sheets of armor, and if they did penetrate, then not very deeply. And yet the difference in strength was colossal, the demon prince felt great even without a limb with a hole in his belly, while the machine was held together only by the warp and crystal.
"I request fire on myself," I said into the transmitter, realizing that I had no chance and I believed in myself too much, deciding that I could kill the demon prince.
Immediately after that, the demon prince knocked me down with a furious kick. The formidable war machine simply fell, unable to maintain its balance, and the sword was immediately torn away by the left hand of the upper pair of limbs.
- YOUR SOUL WILL BE MINE!!! - the demon prince roared and tried to finish me off, this time aiming straight at the pilot compartment.
At the last moment I managed to cover myself with the sawsword and the metal sparked, trying to stop the damned weapon. But it was not destined to find out which was stronger, because with its second pair of limbs the demon pierced right into my shoulder, after which it tore off my hand with the sawsword with a jerk.
- DIE!!! - the demon prince screamed again.
But even though death was the most inevitable, neither I nor the Knight were going to give up. The shot from the laser cannon released all the remaining energy. And the demon prince almost died, because he was too carried away by the desire to kill me. Only the dark forces and reaction saved him from death. At the last moment, distorting physical reality itself, he covered his face with a blade and the beam only burned the damned metal and horns.
The demon himself, although he took a step back in surprise, was ready to finish what he had started a moment later. At that very moment, a missile launched over Camelot disappeared in a warp storm, which was supposed to destroy everything within a radius of ten kilometers around the demon prince and the demon prince himself.
"What a strange soul you have... as if it were sewn from different pieces... that will make it even tastier," the demon prince licked his lips and began to lean over me, slowly scratching the Knight's armor and with his claws, opening the Machine's metal skin.
The demon really wanted to enjoy this moment to the fullest, but he could no longer hold back. He wanted to prove his loyalty to the Dark Prince with all his might, and so he was already swinging his sword, when suddenly an incredible force fell with all its might on the entire battlefield.
And this power was so great that it made every man who was too close to it writhe in agony. The Daemon Prince almost died. I broke my voice in a scream and felt that even the will of Tzeentch suddenly retreated, and the screams of Slaanesh died down.
What can I say, the universe itself suffered because of this power and I could not even imagine who could possess such power.
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