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Chapter 264: The Null-Field Activates
🕑 Added 2025-09-02 13:47:13 +0000 UTCChapter 264: The Null-Field Activates
Tzeentch, who had been orchestrating his grand schemes from behind the scenes, had no intention of clashing directly with the Anathema, the Emperor, even if he was only present in a borrowed form. In such a conflict, whether he won or lost, the price would be astronomical.
The Emperor's Sword, held aloft in Guilliman's hand, erupted with a power that seemed capable of incinerating everything. The sacred flames spread, and the crystals that formed Tzeentch's labyrinth began to crack and shatter.
Tzeentch was nothing if not decisive.
He began to sever the section of his domain where Guilliman's body was located. For a Chaos God, their domain is a part of their very being. The loss from this act of excision was far greater than his previous clash with the Emperor through an avatar; this was an act that wounded his very essence. But for Tzeentch, it was the option with the smallest potential loss.
The power sustaining this part of his realm began to dissipate. It was as if a pair of reality-tearing scissors had forcibly cut away a piece of his domain. The Emperor-possessed Guilliman was forcefully ejected from Tzeentch's realm. The Emperor, too, felt a twinge of regret. Opportunities to strike directly at a creature like Tzeentch were rare indeed.
As Guilliman returned from the warp, the Emperor's possession ended, and he regained control of his own body. But he remained in a state of profound shock. He had always firmly believed that the Emperor was not a god... but what he had just experienced... how could it be explained?
When Guilliman looked at Magnus, he saw an exceptionally complex expression on his brother's face. He, too, had sensed the Emperor's arrival. He had considered many possibilities, but this was the one he had never expected.
Before either of them could recover, a wave of power erupted from deep beneath the Blackstone Plains, expanding outwards at incredible speed. Magnus instantly felt his own strength being severely weakened. The warp itself was being muted by this power. This was the energy of the Blackstone Pylons. Cawl had succeeded in activating them.
As the Null-Field spread, the surrounding daemons of Tzeentch began to lose their physical forms. The Thousand Sons sorcerers started to lose control of their psychic abilities, and the Rubric Marines froze in place, completely inert.
Magnus felt incredibly weak. Before him, Artanis and the Protoss felt the same. Artanis struggled to remain standing, but most of the Zealots had collapsed to their knees. Even the Immortals and other Protoss war machines had entered a state of near-stasis. The psi-blades on Artanis's arms had vanished.
The Protoss were in a slightly better state than the daemons, but not by much. Their only advantage was that they still had physical bodies. But for a race that relied on pure psionic energy for their vitality, they now felt as if they had been starved for weeks.
"Leave this place, Magnus!"
The warning from Tzeentch snapped Magnus back to reality. He gathered what little psychic power he could still muster and began to communicate with the teleportation array aboard the Tizca's Revenge. Unaffected by the field, Guilliman was already charging towards him, the Emperor's Sword held ready. Magnus had no desire to fight Guilliman without his psychic advantage.
In the end, Guilliman was a step too late. A shimmer of psychic energy teleported Magnus and his surviving Thousand Sons back to their flagship.
"You will not always be this lucky, Guilliman!"
With that final parting shot, the last of the Daemon Primarchs departed from Cadia. Back on his Silver Tower, Magnus ignored the rest of the Chaos fleet and led his own ships back into the warp. The Emperor's appearance meant he did not dare to linger. He had to accept the reality of his defeat.
The influence of the Null-Field had already spread into the void. The Chaos fleet was severely affected, the blessings of the warp that empowered them rapidly weakening. Even the massive warp storm that had enveloped the Cadian system was beginning to recede.
Under normal circumstances, the few remaining Blackstone Pylons on Cadia would not have been able to produce such an effect; otherwise, Chaos would never have even been able to enter the system. But the SCVs had repaired every pylon that had been damaged or destroyed over the millennia, and with Trazyn's help, all of them had been successfully activated.
Deep underground, Cawl and Pavian looked at the reactivated Blackstone Pylons.
"Archmagos! Success! We've succeeded! The device is actually working!"
Cawl, however, did not share Pavian's excitement. He stood in silence, recording and analyzing all the guiding operations Trazyn had just shown him. It was clear that Trazyn had still held back. Cawl could not connect several of the key processes and operations. This meant he would still need to spend a great deal of time to fully decipher and perfect the technology for activating the Blackstone Pylons.
Cawl turned to look at Trazyn.
"Belisarius Cawl, you did not truly believe that mastering the anti-empyric matrix would be so simple, did you?" Trazyn said, having reappeared. "Did you think I would not anticipate your little tricks? Even I have not fully mastered this technology. Only the Crypteks of the Technomandrites truly can. I have fulfilled my part of the bargain. I expect you to honor your promise. When this is over, I will seek out this 'Lord Lucan' you speak of."
With that, Trazyn tore open a dimensional rift and stepped through it. Cawl's augurs could no longer detect his presence.
As the Null-Field continued to expand, it began to affect both the forces of Chaos and Lucan's own troops in different ways.
All Chaos daemons were banished. The Black Legion, led by Abaddon, lost the blessings of the warp. Even Abaddon himself felt the favor of the Four Gods abandon him. However, after losing these boons, he and his Chaos Astartes were still formidable warriors. On Abaddon's front, the appearance of the Null-Field had paradoxically allowed him to reverse his fortunes and establish an advantage.
Lucan had been on his way to Magnus's position when the Null-Field deployed. With his own Warp Projection, he felt a slight discomfort. The Night Sentinels at his side, however, seemed completely unaffected.
Artanis informed him of Magnus's departure and the devastating effect the Null-Field was having on the Protoss. Lucan immediately ordered Artanis to have all Protoss forces withdraw from the battlefield. The Spear of Adun temporarily warped away from the Cadian system, taking the Protoss with it. The Colossi fighting the Chaos Titan Legions were also affected, their psionic power supply disrupted. The Pylon network began to lag, forcing Lucan to order the Colossi to warp away as well. A malfunctioning Colossus was no longer fit for combat. Leaving them here would be a pointless loss; they had been built at great cost.
Although the traitor Titan Legions were also affected, their situation was much better than that of the Colossi. While their machine-spirits were influenced or possessed by daemons, their technology was still fundamentally of the material universe. They could still fight and operate.
Even more critically, the Zerg's psionic network began to fluctuate. The Overminds lost control of the Swarm. A portion of the Zerg fell into disarray, leaderless and feral. Kerrigan struggled to maintain control over the remaining Zerg.
Before the Null-Field reached its maximum power, Lucan quickly had Kerrigan gather the Swarm and retreat from Cadia, using the Nydus Worms.
