| War Witch POV |
Moments before the assault…
Inside the grandest War Witch Bastion belonging to the Sculk Coven, War Witch Queen Griselda was in a meeting with the Arch War Witches of the other Covens on the world.
She had ordered this meeting because of an event long ago, when the previous War Witch Queen, Muriel, had slowly gone insane due to a forbidding danger that no one but her could sense. To discover what it was, Muriel planned to sacrifice approximately 90% of the slave population on the world.
However, she knew she needed more than just ordinary slaves to receive a clear divination; she needed to sacrifice powerful psykers. So, through elaborate deception, she deceived 9 Arch War Witches of the other Covens into believing that the sacrifice of 90% of the slave population would increase the world and their powers beyond imagination.
Soon, they gathered together to perform the ritual, and the 9 Arch War Witches did not learn the truth until it was far too late. Through the sacrifice of 90% of the slave population and 9 Arch War Witches, Muriel received her divination.
She saw that one day, a ruthless Conqueror would arrive from the stars, one who commanded powerful soldiers called Astartes, who, with enough numbers, could rival their Litho-Gholems. So, to combat this, Muriel ordered the War Witches to create more Litho-Gholems no matter the cost. She refused to take any chances.
However, at the time, this order only increased the burning ire of the War Witches. Many of them were already angry due to losing vast amounts of their slaves and fearful that, in Muriel's madness, she might attempt to sacrifice them just like she had done to those 9 Arch War Witches.
With their once uncountable slave population now reduced to only six thousand, the War Witches had to order the slaves to start breeding more slaves to use.
Of those six thousand remaining across the world, only two thousand could be made into Litho-Gholems; the rest were needed to handle labor. Seeing these statistics, Muriel wasn't happy, and in her craze to avoid the fate she had seen, she ordered that the number of Litho-Gholems must go up, even if the War Witches themselves had to produce children and turn them into Litho-Gholems. This order was the last straw for the War Witches on the world. They refused to be reduced into things meant to be bred like the slaves.
The Arch Witches of the remaining 88 Covens gathered together to take down Witch Queen Muriel and the 33 Covens that were still loyal to her. After a long, drawn-out war, the 88 Covens of Arch Witches, led by Griselda of the Sculk Coven, finally defeated the 33 Covens loyal to Muriel.
This led to the final battle between Griselda and Muriel. It was a deadly duel that none of the Arch Witches could interfere in due to restrictions of the warp barrier Muriel had set up using the souls of War Witches under her command.
Griselda was barely surviving Muriel's masterful assault, using her immense experience in warp sorcery. However, this balance was broken when Arch Witch Maldina, Griselda's sister, used her connection to Griselda to sacrifice herself as an offering to empower her.
Not wasting her sister's sacrifice, Griselda used this increase in power and landed a fatal dreadsoul psychic attack on Muriel. Muriel, who was now defeated and dying on the ground, let out a crazed laugh and cursed, "You all will die a worthless and laughably pathetic death at that Conqueror's hands. You will all be joining me very soon."
And with that, Muriel died, and Griselda was crowned as the new War Witch Queen. No one heeded Muriel's words; they all believed that, with their might and warp sorcery, they could handle this so-called Conqueror with ease.
They carried that belief for years to come until the prophesied day arrived. Through their sorcery, the War Witches detected an object of great mass moving far above them in space, along with an utterly immense presence in the warp.
A meeting was immediately convened between Griselda and all the Arch War Witches on the world. Only 5 Arch War Witches were physically present, while the others made themselves psychically present in the command center.
They were all dressed in their war gear and had readied all their technology, Litho-Gholems, and weapons for war, and for a possible meeting with this Conqueror from the stars that Muriel may have been right to fear so much.
Moments later, inside her Bastion's command center, an open signal was detected, and Griselda gave the nod to connect to the signal. Once the signal was connected, seated upon an intricately designed golden throne was an impossibly large, bronze-skinned man with dark hair in ornate golden armor.
His face was slightly aged and stern, like a ruthless ruler. He possessed unnerving, piercing blue eyes that gave off a feeling of near omnipotence. Upon his left eye was a 3-striped claw mark, an ornament on his face that only made him appear much more like the ruthless Conqueror he was foretold to be.
Griselda and the Arch War Witches watching from the side felt themselves falter. This man felt so powerful, yet they all couldn't help but question themselves: 'Why is it that the image of a corpse on a throne keeps overlapping with his actual appearance?'
Griselda, thinking it over, quickly came to a conclusion in her mind, 'This man must be using some kind of powerful ancient warp technology to preserve his life. His current appearance must be a poorly made psychic projection to hide his true appearance as a corpse.'
Assuming her conclusion was correct, Griselda asked haughtily, "Who are you and what brings you here, male?"
The Conqueror she now deemed as a preserved corpse replied, "I hail from Terra, and I am the Emperor of the Imperium. I've come, leading my forces in a Great Crusade, to reunite the scattered worlds of our kin under one banner. We seek not to enslave, but to reform and elevate humanity back to the once-glorious species it was. I wish to open negotiations with you about your world's possibility of joining the Imperium."
Griselda sneered at his attempt at diplomacy. She didn't need to entertain diplomacy with the dead. So she said back, "The War Witches of Venus never bow to any, let alone a male who poses as an Emperor. Our craft has already shown us that the elite of your forces, your Astartes, are utterly inferior to our Litho-Gholems."
"I will offer you this instead: surrender your technology and so-called Imperium, to be assimilated into our empire, and we will consider granting you all rights above slaves. Should you choose otherwise, we will forcefully take your ship and enslave your Imperium. As for you, for your utter arrogance, you will be made into a Litho-Gholem and suffer for eternity under my hand."
The preserved corpse had the audacity to question her decision, asking, "Are you sure? Is this the choice you wish to make? Does this choice of yours speak for the rest of the War Witches?"
Griselda laughed at this foolish question. She was the War Witch Queen, the strongest of them all and slayer of the former War Witch Queen Muriel and her 33 Covens. After a while of laughing at this ignorant and feeble preserved corpse, she replied, "Fool, speaking as if you stand a chance, I will ensure the rest of your existence is miserable. I look forward to the screams of you and your people."
Then Griselda cut the communication. Arch War Witch Thlaka, her right hand, informed her, "The rift teleporters have locked onto the Conqueror's ship in space. All of our forces are ready to move on your command."
Griselda smiled maliciously and issued her order: "All of you move out and join the vanguard. I will personally join you all shortly with the main army and lead the assault to claim the gifts this Conqueror has so graciously brought us."
With that, all the Arch War Witches who were psychically present disappeared as they began to move to their own teleporters. The 5 Arch War Witches physically present walked out of the command center, heading toward the teleporters inside the Bastion.
Meanwhile, Griselda was left alone in the command center, awaiting initial reports of success. Instead, moments later, she received multiple reports that something had suddenly and forcibly blocked their rift teleporters' access to the ship.
Before she could even attempt to question why, Griselda's utter disbelief grew as she sensed that the many powerful warp boundaries and shields of her Bastion had instantly been broken and breached by an overwhelming power.
An alert sounded throughout the Bastion, indicating that there was a breach in the Litho-Gholem forge, specifically the Sacritorium—the area where they sacrifice the slaves, ripping their souls from their bodies and preparing them to be wiped and placed in the Litho-Gholem.
Griselda hastily tried to pull up the surveillance feed in the Sacritorium, but just as she attempted to do that, everything went silent. The Arch War Witches who were once displayed in the command center abruptly cut out, along with all mechanical power in the Bastion.
'It seems he possesses some technology similar to or above ours, but he is naive to believe that merely jamming our signals will affect our command structure,' Griselda quickly calculated. 'The War Witches of my Coven are veterans of my rebellion against Muriel, each possessing Litho-Gholems far beyond average in power. They can handle this intrusion with ease. First, I must coordinate our boarding action.'
With that thought in mind, Griselda quickly tried to reach out psychically to all the Arch War Witches from the other Covens. However, no one answered her. Again and again, she tried to reach any of them.
Originally, Thlaka was supposed to lead the vanguard to claim the ship in the sky, but due to the inexplicable teleport failure and the sudden breach, she should have been finishing up handling the intrusion and was most likely trying to report in.
Though Griselda's assumption was crushed as she heard Thlaka exclaim in distress, "Your highness, the enemy is extremely powerful. They move at speeds I can't process with my bare eyes. They even have the ability to simply vanish after accurately destroying a Litho-Gholem. 214 of the 1,500 battle-ready Litho-Gholems have been destroyed. I fear that we may need to unleash the Progenitor on them."
Griselda's mind blanked out hearing this report. 'How could 214 Litho-Gholems have possibly been destroyed in a mere 4 minutes?' she thought in utter shock.
"Open your soul so I may see for myself," Griselda ordered, as she expanded her psychic power to become in tune with Thlaka. Moments later, Griselda was now able to see what Thlaka was seeing.
In the prophecy and visions she had, the Astartes were not this: these taller soldiers clad in bright gold armor engraved with unknown symbolism.
'They must be royal guards for that corpse,' Griselda mused, looking directly at these royal guards in the distance wielding shields. 'But where exactly are the Astartes I saw, the smaller ones in plain, unadorned grey and black power armor, with IV written on their pauldrons? My vision couldn't possibly be wrong!'
As Griselda was lost in thought, she witnessed something that defied all that she knew. The golden soldiers, who by all rights should be dying after being surrounded by the Litho-Gholems, had simply disappeared.
She didn't feel anything, no indication of unknown technology being used, only a feeling of psychic energy being briefly used. Then they simply ceased to be, at least that was what she assumed, until the golden soldiers reappeared encircling the Litho-Gholems that had once surrounded them.
The golden soldiers proceeded to move at speeds she couldn't process with her naked eye. They moved, wielding well-crafted halberd-like spears that cut through the Litho-Gholems with ease.
'HOW?!?' Griselda screamed internally, seeing the Litho-Gholems she had spent countless hours working on being destroyed like they were nothing. But immediately, it dawned on her that the real problem here was how they teleported like that. Just who or what was powerful enough to seamlessly teleport that many people?
Griselda quickly switched her point of view away from Thlaka. She connected to every Litho-Gholem that was bound to her, going one by one, trying to spot anything that would explain what she had seen.
This continued until finally she connected to a Litho-Gholem that was barely functioning. Looking through its vision, she saw him: that man who was a barely sustained corpse. He was currently psychically dismantling one of the automatons that created the Litho-Gholems.
Around him, 15 of the golden soldiers stood. These soldiers were clad in far more ornate armor than the earlier ones, and they had red capes and robes. One of them had his spear aimed directly at the head of the Litho-Gholem she was peering through. A few milliseconds later, the other golden soldiers followed suit and pointed their spears at the Litho-Gholem, sensing the anomaly now present.
"I'm impressed, Valorian. Your senses have become much more sensitive," said the man, as he turned toward the Litho-Gholem now inhabited by Griselda. "Stand down, she poses no threat."
Hearing that, Griselda, who had originally felt unnerved by the speeds of the golden soldiers, now felt rage at being dismissed like this, and she voiced it.
"YOU DARE DISREGARD MY PRESENCE!?! I AM THE WAR WITCH QUEEN, USURPER OF MURIEL, MASTER OF THE WARP, COMMANDER OF OVER 1,000 LITHO-GHOLEMS. YOU WILL DIE A PAINFUL DEATH UNDER MY HANDS, MY WEAPONS WILL—"
Suddenly, she couldn't speak anymore. He had done something that prevented her from speaking, and she couldn't even sense it. The man then turned, not at her, but at an approaching golden soldier who said, "My Liege, we've received a message from Terra. Alpharius has completed his last training with Valdor and Malcador. He is now with his legion, making preparations for his campaign on Jupiter."
The man smiled, and then replied, "I see. It seems I have no choice but to speed this up. As a father, I refuse to miss even a second of his efforts for his first campaign. After the humans from each Bastion on this world are rescued, besides the select Bastions I chose, the rest may be destroyed. More Custodians will be deployed along with the Sisters of Silence. I will summon Jenetia and have her take command. I expect this world to be fully conquered in the next half hour, so that we can make haste back to Terra."
Griselda listened to this in horror and anger. How could her world possibly be conquered in half an hour? What gave him the confidence? Just as she was about to curse him again, the vision in the Litho-Gholem went dark. It was destroyed.
Back in the command center, Griselda couldn't help but wonder, 'Had she made a mistake? Was Muriel truly right? No, I can still win. What impossible odds haven't I faced?!'
Griselda tried establishing a connection with Thlaka again, but she couldn't detect her at all, leaving her with one conclusion: she was already dead. Immediately, she tried reaching out to the other 4 Arch War Witches that should also have been fighting at the breach.
Still nothing. All of them were dead. Griselda felt more doubts arise within her, but dismissed them all again. She would deal with them personally, so Griselda left her command center, heading down the halls straight toward the Sacritorium, while flaring her own psychic power. She was using herself as a beacon to rally any stray Litho-Gholems nearby to form up with her as she personally took the battlefield.
Little did she know that flaring her power made her a beacon to more than just the remaining Litho-Gholems. And in the blink of an eye, it was made apparent. A sense of dread alerted Griselda, but she was unable to act as she felt something punch her lungs, leaving her winded.
Then, she briefly saw the ceiling of the hallway and was later on the ground face-first, with an armored boot resting atop her head. Against her neck was a blade that slightly cut into her skin. She was disoriented, confused, and fearful at this sudden occurrence, but what absolutely mortified her the most was the presence of the thing above her.
'What is this sense of dread?!? This person doesn't even feel alive!!' Griselda thought in horror as she felt utterly weak. 'Most of all, how is the mere presence of this thing weakening me? What kind of being is this?'
Griselda slightly turned her head toward the blade, and her eyes traced up it, seeing a large, pristine, highly ornate two-handed sword with a silver blade. From the reflection on the blade, she saw a figure that stunned her.
The one who effortlessly pinned her to the ground, the one who managed to make her feel so utterly powerless, was a woman in golden armor. She had a winged tattoo on her forehead and a red topknot on her head. As for her face, it was twisted in a scowl, and her eyes were locked on Griselda, staring at her like one would at something utterly worthless.
Seeing this sight, Griselda wondered, 'How could a woman this powerful, with an ability to weaken psykers like myself, possibly work for that man sustained by unknown means? He must be using something to force their servitude. Perhaps it must be that facemask that covers up the lower half of her face.'
Assuming this was the case, Griselda carefully tried to persuade the woman above her. "You possess incredible powers, and I believe we can work together. I assume that odd mask of yours is perhaps a tool to control you?"
After saying that, Griselda received a heavy stomp to her head, but she only chuckled at it. She assumed that the continued silence of the one above her was a form of acceptance.
So she continued, "I heard him call you the Sisters of Silence. It must be a title of mockery aimed at the free will he has taken from you all. I have access to one of the legendary Men of Stone. From them, I can surely learn a way to remove that odd mask of yours. With your power and my weapons, we can overthrow him!"
From the reflection of the blade, Griselda noticed the woman trembling, as if fighting something. Perhaps it was the device that may have been used to enslave her. With that, Griselda made a sneering smile.
"In fact," she said, with gloating behavior, "I managed to witness his true form."
Griselda noticed that the woman stopped trembling and her eyes narrowed, taking that as interest in what she was saying. Griselda continued, "I saw him as a corpse barely sustained by a machine. He is weak and vulnerable. All that is needed is for you to get close, and whatever sustains him will begin to fail. Then, I can land the final blow, putting an end to that sustained corpse. With him dead, his Imperium will be ours to split between us, to rule over all, both as Queens commanding unimaginable power."
For a while, it was utterly silent until the woman above faced her body toward her left and started making those strange signs with her hands again. Then, to Griselda's shock, someone spoke in reply to those signs. Before she could question how she wasn't even able to sense someone come near again, she heard something that shocked her to the core.
"Knight Commander Jenetia, the Emperor has said that he no longer needs Griselda alive. He has already deciphered all the restrictions on the Man of Stone located here."
Griselda froze and internally raged, 'IMPOSSIBLE, IT WAS SET TO SELF-DESTRUCT IF ANYONE OTHER THAN ME ACCESSED IT!!!'
She felt the blade by her neck rise, and then she realized the danger she was in. The other person who had arrived had claimed she was no longer needed alive.
Griselda quickly tried to scramble to her feet and run, but she was grabbed by the neck and tossed into the wall. She hit the wall hard, leaving her with many broken bones, and collapsed to the floor. Struggling to lift her head, she fully saw the woman called Jenetia, and next to her was one of the Custodians.
Jenetia slammed her large sword into the ground and then made those strange signs with her hands again. The Custodian next to her nodded and said, "She says that you are worthless and that this will be painful."
With that, Jenetia walked toward Griselda slowly, and once close enough, grabbed her and proceeded to hit her violently. Each hit was precise, always breaking a bone or nerve that caused Griselda great pain, but always avoiding anything fatal.
As Griselda was being beaten, she couldn't help but recall Muriel, the former War Witch Queen who had foreseen this day and tried everything to strengthen the War Witches. And in her last moments, as Griselda was picked up by Jenetia and hurled at the sword embedded in the ground.
The last words of Muriel resounded in Griselda's head: "You all will die a worthless and laughably pathetic death." And Griselda's last thought was, 'I died without even putting up a fight, truly laughably.'
In the next moment, Griselda was dead, split in half due to the amount of force Jenetia used when she threw Griselda at her sword embedded in the ground.
Jenetia pulled her sword out of the ground, flicked it forcefully to shake off the blood, and began running down the hallway. She had wasted 2 minutes unleashing her rage on that ignorant self-proclaimed queen. Now, she only had 25 minutes to ensure her Liege's expectations were met.
So, with extreme haste, she, along with the Custodians and Sisters of Silence, waged war on this world, achieving a feat that alarmed the many other Legions. The Emperor brought a world with deadly weapons and psykers into compliance within 30 minutes; the only cost was damage to the armor of 13 Custodians.
Learning of this news, the Legions also hastened their own assigned tasks, hoping not to bring shame upon themselves and disappoint the Emperor. As for the Emperor, at this current moment, he was on his way to Terra, looking forward to witnessing the first campaign of the first-found Primarch, Alpharius.
-To Be Continued...
(A/N: Late chapter, because I had a lot of things planned this past week and I took on extra shifts at work. This upcoming week is also going to be busy for me, but I'll try not to take more than a week again for a chapter.)