Bishop Soth of the Blood God Cult presented as a middle-aged male of attenuated constitution and haggard visage. His ocular organs, however, housed an inextinguishable conflagration. Beneath the sanguine vestments he affected was concealed a corporeal configuration unique to the Blood God's faithful — those who had received the Dark God's benediction and been transfigured into vessels of formidable puissance.
His affect could, with disconcerting facility, oscillate between that of a benevolent senior and a sanguinary deviant. More disquieting still was his capacity to preserve lucid cognition beneath the overwhelming impetus of homicidal compulsion.
This faculty rendered him the pre-eminent terrestrial instrument of the Blood God's will — the authorised conduit for His oracular transmissions.
His provenance was unknown. He had manifested within Nostramo's umbral interstices with the same silent, exudative facility as haemorrhagic effluent issuing from an unperceived laceration. Since his arrival, the Blood God Cult had undergone rapid propagation within this ferrous hive conurbation; a sequential cascade of sanguinary incidents had ensued.
Within a metropolis long since acclimated to criminality, however, such tragedies were as aqueous precipitations descending upon a marine receptacle — they could not, by any conceivable metric, be characterised as exceptional.
Those truly apprised of the esoteric substratum underlying these phenomena, however, recognised that the Blood God's faithful were, by their essential nature, practitioners of slaughter and sacrifice.
That Soth had thus far succeeded in suppressing his almost-uncontainable sanguinary impetus — that he had, with prodigious exercise of will, deferred its consummation — was attributable to a single, overriding imperative:
The accumulation of sufficient sacrificial offerings to facilitate the terrestrial manifestation of the Blood God, Khorne Himself.
"What is the current status of the sacrificial accumulation?" Corset's enquiry was importunate, unrestrained by conventional diplomatic protocol.
Soth elevated his regard with deliberatelanguor. His ocular organs irradiated a crimson effulgence. His maxillofacial configuration assumed the subtle curvature of anticipated consummation.
"Soon... When the haemorrhagic effluent has saturated the eighth diurnal-nocturnal cycle of Nostramo's firmament, the Blood God's puissance shall descend in its comprehensiveplenitude."
"He shall, with His own transcendentextremities, rupture the perpetual darknessenshrouding this world. The firmament and the substratum shall be reintegrated into His eternal dominion."
His superior extremities were elevated in a gesture of anticipatory supplication. His vocalisations were suffused with the unmistakable modulation of incipientderangement.
"And you, Lord Corset — you shall receive the comprehensive satisfaction of your everydesideratum."
Corset's internal assessment of Soth, however, was that he was indistinguishablefrom the innumerable devotees of esotericconvictions he had encountered throughout his protracted existential trajectory.
He was fully cognisant of the existentialhazards attendant upon commercialtransactions with the Dark Gods.
This cognisance had not, however, dissuadedhim from enrolment.
His protracted occupancy of the upper hive — notwithstanding the most sophisticatedatmospheric sanitation infrastructure — had ineluctably compromised his somaticintegrity.
The pain. The fragility of the mortal corpus.
These were intolerable affronts to his aristocratic sensibility.
Shelter within the Blood God's cultrepresented his sole remaining expedient.
Even should this transaction entail the comprehensive annihilation of Nostramo in its entirety — he was prepared to gamble upon the prospect of Daemonhood.
"Excellent... I anticipate, at that juncture, the authentic renovation of my existentialcircumstances."
Corset's phonation assumed the raucous, deranged modulation of incipient ecstasy.
He then executed a perfunctory manualgesture, indicating that Soth should withdrawfrom his august presence.
He did not accord the Bishop's recedingdorsal configuration any further cognitiveinvestment.
He was, by this juncture, entirely submergedwithin the phantasm of his imminentapotheosis.
"...Fatuous specimen."
Soth, having effected his egress from Corset's convocation chamber, manipulated his recently-acquired cephalic acquisition with the indolent facility of a connoisseurexamining a curio.
His ocular organs were saturated with contempt.
Specimens such as Corset — whose devotional investment was contingent upon craven self-preservation and acquisitive self-interest — could never authentically attractthe Blood God's regard, let alone His benediction.
They persisted, however, in the delusionalconviction that they were the sovereignarbiters of their own existential trajectories.
Were it not for the consummation of the Blood God's grandiose eschatological protocol, Soth would have derived considerable satisfactionfrom detaching this self-satisfied aristocraticextremity from its proprietary cervicalconfiguration and incorporating it into his personal collection.
At this juncture, however, he was constrainedto suppress the homicidal compulsion that threatened to perforate his thoracic cavity.
He would await the terminal instant.
...Soon. When the final sacrificial ritualcommenced, every occulted acupunctureinstrument he had insinuated into Nostramo's substratum would detonate in concertedconsummation.
The entire planet would howl in haemorrhagicand combustive ecstasy.
Simultaneously —
Upon the Resistance's recently-constructed training courtyard, the corporeal configurations of Nyx and Curze collided with the fulgurative velocity of oppositionalatmospheric discharges.
Curze prosecuted his offensive exclusivelyfrom the umbra. His velocity was such that only Nyx — himself a Primarch — could register, let alone interdict, his trajectories.
In the absence of his magnetic field rotation— which he had undertaken not to employ for anticipatory auspication of Curze's intentions— Nyx could barely sustain his defensiveperimeter. His corporeal configuration was progressively acquiring a comprehensivecatalogue of Curze's ungual signatures.
An adamantium-reinforced bulkhead fractured.
Curze, exploiting the aperture in Nyx's defensive tessellation, committed himself to a counter-offensive trajectory. His silhouette was indistinguishable from a fulguration. His lightning claws, enshrouded in azuredisruption-field effulgence, descended upon Nyx with unrelenting ferocity.
This engagement — sustained at an intensityapproaching existential termination — was the customary calibration protocol for these two Primarchs.
CLANG——!
Lightning claw and power sword encounteredone another with catastrophic velocity.
The concussive reverberation propagatedthrough both adamantine implements — and simultaneously induced catastrophicstructural failure.
Both weapons fractured into inert fragments.
"Curze... My esteemed fraternal associate... Is it excessively presumptuous to request that you moderate your offensive investment...?"
Nyx's respiratory apparatus was audiblylabouring. His vocalisation was saturated with existential weariness.
This training iteration had already exceededits scheduled duration by a considerablemargin.
Curze's feral offensive intensity had necessitated the replacement of an indeterminate quantity of power swords. Even the specialised lightning claws integrated into Curze's own gauntlets had required recurrentremediation following successive catastrophiccollisions.
"Nyx. This is combat." Curze's delivery was affectless, absolute. "An authentic adversary will not accommodate you by attenuating his offensive investment."
His offensive momentum, accordingly, sustained zero deceleration.
He discarded the fractured lightning claw residuum and translated his superiorextremity into a devastating percussiveimpact upon Nyx's anterior thoraciccompartment.
Nyx was propelled rearward across the training courtyard.
"You explicitly represented this equipment as 'economical' and 'readily replaceable'!" Nyx's remonstration was audibly aggrieved.
He retaliated with a commensuratepercussive offensive.
Their engagement transitioned from armaments-based contention to exclusivelysomatic contention. Their comprehensivemartial repertoires were recurrently deployed, refuted, redeployed.
Nyx had, by this juncture, formulated a comprehensive hypothesis:
His esteemed fraternal associate was exploiting this training protocol as an expedient for gratuitous 'complimentary'equipment acquisition and complimentarysparring partnership.
Nyx furnished the equipment. Nyx served as the oppositional combatant.
At this chronological juncture, they had encountered one another in thirteen discreteengagement iterations.
Nyx had prevailed in eight. Curze had prevailed in five.
The majority of these outcomes had been adjudicated by the most exiguous of margins.
In the absence of his 'magnetic field rotation'— which Nyx had, at Curze's insistence, withheld from these calibration exercises — Nyx's martial superiority over his fraternal associate was only marginal. It was attributable to the essential substrate of his 'Space King' inheritance, which had not yet attained its maturational apogee.
When he did deploy this puissance, however, the disparity became catastrophic.
He overwhelmed Curze with absolute, unambiguous predominance.
"Nyx. What is your assessment of our collective prospects against that iteration of myself?"
Curze had, at this juncture, suspended his offensive. His regard was fixed upon Nyx with uncompromising gravitas.
These calibration engagements had facilitatedhis progressive augmentation. He was, nevertheless, acutely cognisant that he remained considerably inferior to his futureiteration.
That oppressive momentum. It remained indelibly inscribed upon his sensorium.
"Forty percent probability of favourable outcome... If the Emperor intervenes with timely alacrity — ninety percent."
A complete traitor Legion. A renegadePrimarch.
Even should Nyx and Curze prevail against such opposition, the attritional cost would be inconceivable.
This assessment excluded, of course, the Blood God Himself.
Whose regard remained unwaveringly fixedupon Nostramo.
"It is barely one standard year since our terrestrial arrival upon this world."
"Though the Primarch developmentaltrajectory is considerably accelerated relative to the baseline human paradigm, we remain, at this juncture, in a state of immaturematuration."
Both Nyx and Curze had, nevertheless, attained a corporeal stature of approximatelytwo metres.
This considerably exceeded the Emperor's projected developmental parameters for Primarchs at this chronological station.
Nyx's accelerated ontogeny was attributableto his essential aberrancy and his comprehensive comprehension of his own Primarch substrate.
Curze's accelerated ontogeny was, in Nyx's assessment, inexplicable by any conventionalmetric. It approximated spontaneousmetamorphosis.
Had the Emperor not intervened to certifyCurze's existential legitimacy, Nyx would have entertained considerable scepticismregarding his fraternal associate's authenticity.
This anomalous developmental accelerationwas, however, strategically advantageous.
Nyx had no investment whatsoever in 'paternal fulfilment' on the Emperor's behalf.
He preferred, decisively, to cultivate a fraternal associate capable of sustainedcollaborative combat than to prosecute this conflict in isolation.