The demigod was dead.
His death throes had reverberated across the Warp; even up until his final moment, he had spewed venomous curses upon the Chaos Gods.
"SPLENDID! SPLENDID! SPLENDID!"
Deep within the Realm of the Blood God, Khorne sat high upon his Skull Throne, striking his chest and stomping his feet as he released a bloodthirsty howl of sheer joy. Khorne celebrated combat; he was fanatical for bloodshed. Witnessing the demise of a demigod was something the Blood God would savor for a very long time, straight through to the end of time itself.
"Magnificently done!"
The Void Dragon danced with wild delight, letting out a lingering groan of profound gratification as though it had attained an unprecedented form of transcendental bliss: "Witnessing the death of a Warp demigod with my own eyes—this is absolute euphoria! This joy is far more worthy of remembrance than the day I slew my own siblings."
Blazkowicz possessed no understanding of such warped psyches. Standing tall with his blade drawn, his expression remained locked in extreme vigilance as he stared intently at the Supreme Overlord's remains.
The entity's vital essence had not yet fully vanished; its brain matter still twitched violently, and its vocal organs continued to vibrate, struggling to force out broken, intermittent curses against the pantheon: "Today... I... die... in... the future... you all... shall likewise... PERISH!"
Before drawing his final breath, the Supreme Overlord's single remaining eyeball detached, floating into the air to cast a parting glance at Blazkowicz.
RUMBLE—!
Deep within the Warp, a foundational aspect of existence shattered, triggering catastrophic shockwaves.
The death of a demigod never occurred in silence. This was especially true for the Supreme Overlord—an entity wielding a complete, unbroken divine authority, fully qualified to stake his claim upon the Eightfold Path of Chaos.
The Sea of Souls wept, crying for the fall of a deity it had birthed. A rain of blood fell from the skies, dripping onto the denizens of the Warp, as a pervasive sense of sorrow radiated outward to boundaries beyond the vision of the gods.
Among the Warp's native inhabitants and daemonic hosts, those possessing sapience felt the shift, dropping to their knees toward the vector of the fallen deity. Those devoid of intellect acted on primal instinct, sensing that a paramount presence had ceased to exist, falling into silent genuflection all the same. The entities of the Warp paid solemn homage to a deity.
In the material universe, species maintaining deep ties to the Warp felt the monumental shift as well, an uncontrollable surge of grief swelling in their hearts. Yet a moment later, the mourning vanished, replaced instantly by an overwhelming tide of ravenous greed that swallowed all other emotion.
The creatures of the Warp knew with absolute clarity that the fall of a god holding sovereign authority represented a once-in-an-eon windfall. Sorrow faded in an instant—for greed was the true, underlying canvas of the Warp.
Native beasts came gliding along the tides of the Sea of Souls like sharks catching the scent of blood, licking razor-sharp fangs, eager to claim a fragment of the god's corpse.
The Chaos Four readied themselves, eager to seize the authority over intangible distortion.
The divine duel originating in the material realm had reached its end. Yet within the Warp, a brand-new tempest was gathering storm.
---
Upon the dueling stage, as the last breath of life ebbed away, an ethereal fluctuation slowly coalesced.
It was mystifying and vast, radiating an ancient aura that felt as though it had existed since the genesis of the universe. An intangible phenomenon rose from the Supreme Overlord's corpse, swallowing light and dark alike as it squirmed outward to test its boundaries. Wherever it drifted, physical laws ceased to exist, and the Warp twisted into a swirling vortex.
It had manifested—the very thing even the Chaos Gods could not ignore: a Godly Authority!
The authority was intact. Barring any anomalies, it would retreat back into the Warp to cultivate a new consciousness, embarking once more upon the path toward godhood. Yet under the predatory gaze of the surrounding gods, there was zero possibility for this authority to slip back into the shadows of the Warp. When hidden, the gods could not track it; now, exposed beneath the gaze of all, its return was thoroughly cut off.
To Chaos, the authority of another deity offered the completion and expansion of their own domain, allowing the tendrils of their power to break free of existing rules and reach into brand-new realms. The weight of a divine authority was simply beyond comparison to mortal souls. They could comfortably abandon trillions of souls, but they would never allow an authority to slip through their fingers.
The atmosphere turned instantly hostile. The daemonic armies of the Four—once idle spectators—immediately snapped into battle-ready formations, guarding against rival daemonic legions. Khorne raised his blood-red broadsword, Tzeentch wove scheming threads through his fingers, Slaanesh sat up from a fragrant couch, and Nurgle tightened his grip on his cauldron ladle.
The demigod battle had concluded; the war of True Gods was looming like an impending storm. A chilling, lethal silence gripped the Warp, low daemons trembling as the oppressive majesty of the gods enforced total silence.
Right at that moment, an unperceptive Bloodthirster scratched its horns in utter bewilderment, completely unaware of what was transpiring.
That cluelessness spread like a plague, sweeping through the armies of the Four in an instant.
Daemons exchanged blank glances, thoroughly bewildered by the scene before them. Even the Warp natives who had navigated the tides to fight for the fallen god's authority ground to a complete halt. A bizarre light flickered in their eyes, revealing a crystal-clear stupidity—they no longer had any idea why they had come.
The Crucible's concept had been unleashed.
By executing the demigod, the god-slaying daemon had erased the Supreme Overlord from the conceptual fabric of existence, triggering a catastrophic cognitive collapse.
Why am I here? Why did I leave my lair?
Low-tier daemons racked their minds without answer; scanning left and right yielded no clarity, prompting them to turn back toward their dens in sheer confusion.
The armies of the Chaos Four were equally lost. They knew they had been watching a fight, but the specifics of what had occurred had been completely erased from their souls. Everything pertaining to the name "Supreme Overlord" was fading into blurriness across both physical reality and the Warp, heading toward absolute erasure.
In the material universe, the Rangdan species plunged into total chaos as their collective species memory vanished. Solas found himself entirely unable to command his forces—his authority no longer possessed a logical source, and the Rangdan would never accept the commands of an alien. Written records, carvings, murals—the name and likeness of the Supreme Overlord were erased as cleanly as pencil marks under an eraser.
Across both dimensions, only a tiny handful of powerful demigods retained full awareness of what had actually occurred.
The Crucible itself possessed demigod status, standing at an absolute high position—a supreme authority that subordinate entities possessed no capacity to resist. Furthermore, the concept of "God-Slaying" extended this absolute erasure directly onto the Chaos Four themselves.
Even entities as formidable as the Four suffered a momentary lapse in focus.
Upon the dueling stage, Blazkowicz moved with lightning reflexes. Seizing the exact split second the gods stood dazed, he brought the Crucible down in a decisive cleave!
SHRRRR—!
Like a white-hot blade slicing into freezing water, a bone-jarring tearing sound echoed as profane power evaporated into black fog. The Crucible cleaved straight through the complete authority, severing it cleanly in two!
Before the fury of the Supreme Heavens could erupt, Blazkowicz clamped his left hand firmly around one half of the authority. With a sweep of his blade through the air, he carved a Warp rift directly into physical reality.
Delivering a heavy kick, he sent the remaining half of the authority tumbling straight into the Warp.
With the furious curses of the gods echoing in his ears, he executed a light leap, backing far away from the Warp rift.
Beneath the starry expanse, the armies of the Four vanished in an instant, departing alongside their masters. A war of gods erupted within the Warp, tearing physical space-time into distorted ribbons and causing countless Greater Daemons to perish in the crossfire.
Blazkowicz had calculated with absolute certainty that the gods would not pursue him into physical reality. Extending their power into the material universe to wrest half an authority from his grip presented a difficulty far exceeding a scramble within the Warp. At the end of the day, war was simply the gods' method of dividing spoils.
---
As the daemonic hordes withdrew and the gods departed, the battle in the material universe finally drew its curtains.
The Emperor's golden barrier dispersed, bringing the World Engine back into the line of sight of the human armada.
"The Rangdan leader has been slain by the King of Warriors."
The voice traveled along the golden light, saturating the entire star system. Though bearing an undeniable weight of exhaustion, the joy of victory rang far louder. The Emperor made no mention of the "Supreme Overlord"—that entity had been erased, replaced merely by a generic title to reference the fallen demigod.
"LONG LIVE HUMANITY!"
"LONG LIVE HUMANITY!"
"LONG LIVE HUMANITY!"
Roars erupted from the planetary surfaces, from the warship decks, and from the frontline trenches. Soldiers shouted with burning enthusiasm, tears welling in their eyes in sheer disbelief.
Throughout the brutal conflict against the Rangdan, many veterans had fought from their youth into middle age, never imagining they would survive to see the end of the war and welcome the day of ultimate victory.
The troops cheered in unbridled joy. Aside from isolated pockets of resistance, humanity had secured total victory in the theater of war.
---
Inside the World Engine's dueling arena, Blazkowicz withdrew his gaze from the Warp.
Following a brutal clash, the half-authority left behind in the Warp had been torn into four fragments amidst agonized shrieks, completing the distribution of spoils among the Four. Demigods lurking in the shadows gathered the remaining shards, while the discarded specks were greedily devoured by Warp natives, leaving not a single crumb wasted.
It was a grand feast of divine downfall, fitting the ancient philosophy of "A whale falls, and a million lives flourish."
Blazkowicz had eliminated humanity's dire threat, while the gods obtained their share of authority—each party striding toward their respective future. As for the Supreme Overlord, no one would remember a loser. Though his death curse had been venomous, the gods gave it no mind: if a failure could not challenge the gods in life, what threat could his post-mortem curse possibly pose?
"Bring him along," Blazkowicz ordered his sons, gesturing toward the battered Wise One.
The Rangdan leader's eyes were filled with total confusion, its memories severed into disconnected fragments. It harbored an infinite grief within its heart, yet had no idea where the sorrow originated.
Several legion veterans hoisted the Rangdan Overlord, falling into step behind their Primarch as they evacuated the World Engine.
The extraction path met no resistance. With the Supreme Overlord conceptually erased, the artificial intelligence had lost its primary directive, falling into a state of logical breakdown.
Guarded closely by his Legion, Blazkowicz gripped the divine authority and the Rangdan artifact tightly in his left hand while keeping his right hand locked firmly onto the Crucible, elevating his alertness to absolute maximum.
The gazes of the Four lingered subtly, piercing through the Warp into physical reality, their avarice unmasked.
This divine authority needed to be handed over directly to the Emperor for initial sealing before further arrangements could be made. For maximum safety, Blazkowicz refrained from using teleportation, fearing the Four might seize the split-second window of a transit to tear through the veil and steal the authority.
Physical reality was his strongest shield.