The monitor flickered in the dim light of the cramped bedroom, painting shadows across walls littered with posters, shelves of painted miniatures, and stacks of novels thick with lore. Drake hunched forward, fingers flying over the keyboard as the hum of the ceiling fan blended with the static whine of his ancient PC.
On the desk, a half-finished Ultramarine miniature leaned awkwardly against an empty coffee cup. His brush was dry, his paints half-clogged. He had meant to finish the shading hours ago, but the forum thread had sucked him in like a whirlpool.
"Kratos vs. the Chaos Primarchs — who actually wins?"
The thread was hundreds of comments long. Casuals saying "Chaos obviously" or "lol Kratos claps." But Drake wasn't a casual.
His reply stretched pages, citing feats from God of War III, moments from Ragnarök, lore references from obscure Warhammer codices, even fragments from fanfiction debates he had memorized.
> "At peak, Kratos is not just a warrior but a force. Now imagine if Kratos didn't just fight gods but also absorbed the power of their realms — if he devoured raw Chaos energy like food.
Picture that against Magnus or Angron. Against Abaddon. Against the daemons of the Warp.
He wouldn't just fight. He would redefine the rules of the battlefield."
Drake leaned back, rereading his own post with a tired grin.
Yeah… that's the kind of story I'd read.
The glow of the screen reflected in his glasses, catching the small plastic figures that stood like soldiers on parade. He had Grey Knights in one corner, Ultramarines in the other, a Chaos Daemon towering over them. His desk was less a workspace and more a miniature battlefield frozen mid-clash.
The coffee was cold. His body ached. But his mind buzzed with the idea.
One man against the universe. One mistake, one chance. Put someone like Kratos into 40k… and see what happens.
---
⚡ The Flicker
The hum of the fan stuttered. The lightbulb overhead dimmed, then flared. For a moment, the screen showed static, garbled text.
Drake frowned, tapping the monitor. Cheap power lines again?
But then the rattling began.
Miniatures on the shelf quivered. Books slid forward, thumping onto the desk. The coffee cup toppled, spilling cold liquid across the mousepad.
"What the—?"
His words caught in his throat.
On the wall opposite his desk, a symbol appeared.
It burned into existence, glowing lines of fire, red and gold at once. A circle. Within it, the jagged shape of an Ω — the mark of Kratos, the God of War.
The heat pressed against his skin like the breath of a forge.
Drake staggered back, chair toppling. His heart hammered, his pulse loud in his ears. He knew this shape, had drawn it on notebook covers, painted it on his Kratos model, written about it a hundred times in forum posts.
But now it wasn't paint. It wasn't fiction. It was alive.
The circle rotated slowly, sparks spitting from its edge. For a heartbeat, he thought it was an illusion, maybe the sleep-deprivation finally breaking him. But when the smell of scorched paint reached his nose — the miniatures nearest the glow melting, plastic dripping like wax — he knew this was no hallucination.
The symbol pulsed once. Twice.
Then it pulled.
---
🌌 The Pull
It wasn't his body that moved. It was everything inside it.
Drake gasped as his chest caved inward, as if invisible claws had hooked his soul and yanked. His body slumped to the floor, twitching once before lying still. But he — the real him — stretched out like molten iron being hammered thin, dragged toward the burning circle.
The sensation was agony and ecstasy at once. His skin peeled away. His thoughts shredded. Yet beneath the pain was a rush of exhilaration. His obsessions, his dreams, his knowledge — all of it blazed like kindling.
Whispers filled the air.
The Warp devours all.
Only the Emperor protects.
The dice roll once. Or do they?
The voices overlapped, contradicting, harmonizing, breaking into shrieks. Snippets of forum debates, passages from codices, lines from fanfictions he had read in secret.
And then images.
A golden throne and the corpse-god who sat upon it, face hidden by radiant fire.
A red giant with one burning eye, his staff dripping with eldritch power.
A warrior in cobalt blue, sword shattered but gaze unbroken.
And behind them all — Kratos.
Not the man, but the fury. The raw, unchained strength. The Omega blazing across his eye, pulsing like a heartbeat.
The circle widened.
No… wait…
But there was no stopping it.
The Omega swallowed him whole.
---
🌑 Awakening
Darkness. Cold stone.
Drake's eyes flew open. His lungs burned as though he had been underwater, every breath scraping his throat raw. He rolled onto his side, coughing, spitting blood onto cracked flagstones.
The cavern smelled of dust, age, and something fouler — the iron tang of Warp energy. Symbols glowed faintly across the walls, carved into the rock in patterns both alien and familiar. Imperial Gothic interlaced with runes he recognized from fan art of Chaos tomes.
Slowly, he pushed himself up. His hands… weren't his hands.
Broad. Veined. Scars crossing knuckles like battle-worn steel. His arms bulged with muscle, cords shifting as though forged for war. His chest was bare, marked with faint glowing lines that pulsed with every heartbeat.
And his face…
He raised one hand, touching his left eye.
The skin burned hot. The flesh was raised. And when he glanced at a shard of broken stone nearby, he saw it reflected — the tattoo.
The Omega. The same mark etched into Kratos's face, now carved into his own. It glowed faintly red, pulsing with his breath.
He staggered to his feet, legs trembling under the weight of this new body. Taller. Stronger. Heavier. His senses alive in ways they had never been. He could smell the dust, hear water dripping deep within the cave, feel the heartbeat of the earth itself.
Then came the rumble.
A crack split the ground, violet light spilling upward like spilled ink. The Warp seeped through, faces of daemons pressing against the rift, whispering with hungry voices.
Drake froze. His instincts screamed to run. But instead… he raised his hand.
The Warp touched him — and recoiled.
The energy that spilled upward was devoured, sucked into his body as though his flesh were a black hole. He felt it burn through his veins, raw and wild, until it condensed into something heavier. Denser. His.
The daemons screamed, clawing at the rift. Then, one by one, they vanished, their essence consumed.
The cave was silent.
Drake stared at his hand, trembling.
"I… I just…"
He laughed, once, sharp and disbelieving.
I absorbed it. I devoured the Warp itself.
The Omega on his eye pulsed.
This wasn't fantasy anymore. This wasn't a forum debate.
This was Warhammer.
---
🩸 The First Shadow
Heavy footsteps echoed from the cavern mouth. Metal striking stone, slow and deliberate.
Drake's breath caught. He turned, body tensing, fists curling.
The figure that entered was massive, armored head to toe. The plates of ceramite were scarred, patched, and worn, but the design was unmistakable. An Astartes — a Space Marine. His helm was off, revealing a scarred face, pale eyes that studied Abishek with suspicion.
On his pauldrons was the faded mark of the Aquila.
The warrior's hand rested on the hilt of a bolter.
"You," the Astartes growled, voice like grinding stone.
"Who dares awaken here, so close to Terra's cradle?"
Drake swallowed hard, tattoo burning like fire. He had no answer.
The Warp was silent. The Omega pulsed. The universe itself seemed to hold its breath.
---
End of Chapter 1
Cliffhanger: First confrontation — friend, foe, or executioner?
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