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9. Breaking Point
🕑 Added 2023-11-30 19:15:19 +0000 UTCOrikan the Diviner observed with his green cyclopean eye from deep within the confines of the Bringer of Darkness the battlefield unfolds in its every layer, from past, present, and future in all their alternate possibilities all at once.
The Necron Crypyek's focus was on a grand party on one individual that he could only gaze through the lens of the present and very blurry through the immutable past that was made by his action for this creature was not of this Universe.
Time manipulation was of little to no use against this utterly alien being on any personal level, this wasn't an unseen case far from it. C'tan and other vastly powerful entities had similar innate resistance to it or had countermeasures against this obvious weakness but both didn't, couldn't grant this degree of protection. If that could even be called that.
The Anomaly's alien nature to the Universe made it so there was nothing to protect in terms of belonging to the various chaotic timelines, what doesn't exist can't be attacked, targeted, or manipulated, at least that's how Orikan understood it. This being acted like its own mini reality with its own rule, one that dabbled in both Realspace and the Seas of Souls and beyond.
'Fascinating creature but his action… Kindness is truly the greatest of sin, in its purest form mixed with hints of despair and arrogance in particular. No matter the individual be it, the Silent King, Revelation, or him… The Magician, those three actions born out of empathy always result in the most deplorable outcomes. Ironic truly.', Orikan revised the Anomaly's first action, comparing it to others of which one would not be born for more than half a hundred million years.
Tapping his staff on the Necrodermis ground his focus switched back to the battlefield where he directed it all with the hundreds of other powerful Necron Overlords and Crypteks within the fleets. Messages of extensive and complex knowledge flowed at speed beyond relativity and immense quantity as together they stalemated the fight as best as they could.
Their goal was not to win in that current condition, the likelihood of something like this becoming a reality was abysmal to begin with. The goal was to stall time, no matter the damage received both materially speaking and to their pride and honor, though it wasn't like they had a say in the matter.
Still, they were having great difficulty doing so, nevertheless not completely losing terrain from the force under the direct command of the Aeldari God of Art, Creativity, and Trickery and multiple Old Ones.
The terrain played an important role in why their force was buckling under their enemy's heel but not only that, Cegorath outpaced anything that they could come up too far before they even could think of it.
The big three, Hoopa, Khaine, and Aza'gorod fighting and destroying both camps as collateral damage with the Necron causing the worst leading to the battle constantly shifting into an utterly incalculable mess didn't help in the matter.
As such it was not in Orikan's power to change the course of such a fight, not even his true lord, Imotekh the Stormlord, Phareon of the Sautekh Dynasty would have fared any better. It was unfair, even without any disadvantage fighting against such enemies without the C'tan or highly powerful and dangerous weapons often ended in the best circumstance as a pyrrhic victory.
The Aeldari Gods without exception were what Orikan and his fellow Necron of similar sapience might call an utter pain in their metallic rump. Cegorach the Laughing God was the worst offender of all, a close second was Isha the Merciful Mother, Aeldari Goddess of Fertility, Love, and Life, both playing almost fully supportive roles.
The Laughing God made entire battlefields his board game to play upon all while amusing himself at their failure while the Everqueen revived and granted her ally immortality and brought great and unstoppable ailment upon their undying body of Necrodermis that would eat the living metal but also permanently damage their minds and technology.
Neither were the strongest psychic constructs of the Old Ones, far from it and by themselves not that much of a true powerhouse but they never were by themselves. In any case, the presence of Cegorach mattered little, at least to Orikan for he had calculated every minute details and outcomes from this surprise attack they had made on the Great Old One Cthylla.
Still skilled as he may be as an astronomancer, errors were inevitable, particularly at the moment but it was a bargain he was ready to make for his goals to be realized. If he failed then so be it but either outcome would not change that his survival was assured.
"Hmm… It seems the time is coming. Aza'gorod has stalled long enough for the Obelisk to have charged…", he mumbled under his nonexistent breath as he observed one of the enslaved is of his people, a being that was a God of Realspace on the verge of being shattered by Hoopa and Khaine as the two had trapped him and the Blackstone Fortresses was ready to fire.
It was a very amusing sight that was certain, at this very instant he would love to see this aberrant abomination be turned into billions of mindless fragments and suffer for the rest of eternity across the cosmos. But his needs were not important compared to the needs of his plans.
Plans that would affect the fate of the Milky Way and the incomprehensible amount of lives that would be changed by simple cause and effect but those were a second thought, they were not of the Necron after all. It was for his people he was doing this, to fix mistakes that shouldn't have been if he had been listened to.
Sighing out of a habitude from his mortal day Orikan turned around to gaze at the Null Obelisk, a massive pillar that was dozens of kilometers in length, it absorbed in its totality all manner of light and other types of vibration leaving it both impossible to perceive and the most evident part of this room.
It was a creation of Mag'ladroth the Dragon, the most powerful and second most intelligent of C'tan. It was mostly composed of Blackstone, the same material of which the Old Ones mobile mega fortresses were made, and it used those very same psychic properties that made those esoteric structures so powerful but it used its property in reverse.
It was one if not the most important piece of technology of the Infinite Empire, far higher than the Celestial Orrery and other exceptionally more potent tools, and this for one simple reason… It was within its name, it was a nullifier.
And it nullified one thing in particular, their one and true weakness within the local reality, instilling the strict laws of Realspace and them only, everything else banished, suppressed, or annulled.
This Null Obelisk aboard was unique compared to others, normally they were placed on 'immobile' celestial bodies due to several limitations such pillars held in how they operated. It was modified to fit here and something never seen before.
And so when Orikan activated it the battlefield changed in its entirety. One single button was pressed and formless unseen waves began to be emitted from the Null Obelisk as toxic green runic symbols lit up, a soft and constant humm reached his sensors and the spectacle began.
Those waves of conceptual repulsive nothingness swiped through the battlefield and far beyond at unprecedented velocity, their effect instantaneous and devastating, psychic energy in all its form was swiped away like a weak sand castle on a beach before the unstoppable force of the crashing waves.
The Labyrinth Dimension and the Sea of Souls were the first to be affected the bridges of light evaporated just as the gash pouring out malevolent Neverborn did like a flowing curtain the void of space and the stars within in the distance took their place and the rules of Realspace hammered themselves trues.
Daemons and Neverborns were banished and annihilated if two close while in the same instant aetheric technology broke apart or failed with almost no faults, it was the fates of untold Cruisers such as the Aldeari as the material that made them mostly Wraithbone, a hyper-advanced psycho-plastic material.
Their body armor fared no better as it was also made of the same solidified psychic polymer creating many holes for which the void could take advantage, but the most affected was the cluster of Blackstone Fortress that was violently stopped during the critical moment of their firing protocol.
But there was no cataclysmic explosion, the fuel for it having been banished from this plane of reality and the design itself stopping such possibilities. Instead, the flower-shaped cannon crumbled on itself while the Fortresses outer defenses dissipated yet the mega structures held on by the sheer ingenuity in their built design the Blackstones that made them.
Though… On the front line, the sudden malfunction of the vast majority of psychic races' technology led to untold deaths, the disappearance of any footing and a far more dangerous environment only increased the death toll, but both combined could not rival the sudden disappearance of any psychic energy.
The Krork were the ones who suffered the most, their gestalt field giving them the ability to bend reality with their minds was crushed causing instant devastating feedback in the form of billions of heads popping like balloons within their helmet. Their number divided by thousands as billions died not understanding what had even happened.
The second most affected were the much less numerous but far more devastating Aeldari, their connection to the Sea of Souls d made to be only second to their Creator was ripped away from them, their souls, their powers, their very essence vanishing in an instant leading to much like their greener cousin to mass death within their ranks.
And this fate was shared by many of the Young Race and it was only the beginning, their enemy of living metal would not be wasting time decimating the remaining lives.
Billions died and far more will follow as panic and despair spread within this field forcing Realspace and denying life itself for it was the source of psychic energy.
"Ahh… How does it feel to have your being stripped away? Observe how much death and despair it brings on the weak and unworthy! Can't you see the entrancing beauty within my salvation?", Aza'gorod said with a contemptuous smile as he shattered all chains around his body, swatted the six three-clawed hands away, and purged all of the psychic energy that had slipped in him… However one remained, one alien and of pure darkness that stopped all potential healing even from others' damages but he didn't truly care for such parlor tricks at the moment.
Why worry about such trivial matters and sour his mood? He could have fun and take care of this later.
The only answer to his word was a massive serrated bronze sword from the Aeldari God of War moving toward his neck alas it was not to hit for the C'tan was shackled no more while his adversary was greatly weakened by the nullifying field and less than in full shape for even the battle of before not been without energy expanse.
"Pathetic, truly but befitting of a creature of your standing, a sluggish prey animal unable to gauge its own meager capacity in front of a predator. Even your blade has become limp, the fire all but fragmented memories.", the C'tan said, his smile turning deranged as he infinitely increased the distance of Khaine's assault from home to the point it looked frozen in time.
Then with a lazy swipe of his scythe cut the offending hand of the Aeldari God that held the blade. Golden fiery ichor spurted out in abandon but the newly amputee only growled with primal rage and glared with a fury never seen before as he charged again, his hand shaping itself of blood while the blade came back.
The sight snapped Hoopa who had been flung back here by force out of the Sea of Souls. The sudden snip in his connection to this dimension of primordial emotion and all that was psychic had shocked him to his core, he felt violated, and it felt wrong on such a fundamental level.
Half of what he was became forbidden from him to access, shattering the delicate balance that was in his being but it wasn't fatal or dangerous. It was like a flip was switched, the imbalance was not a problem only a stimulus that was to start a natural process built in his being to counteract such a weakness.
But it came with secondary effects even if minor, it was extremely unpleasant and the powerful hold he had on his emotions weakened and that was enough to unclench a snowball reaction.
The orders of Mother were never clearer in his mind as they aligned with what he was feeling as the most important being to destroy aside from her herself but with it came a pleasant realization… He wouldn't be able to hear her orders in those conditions, of course, it was obsolete information at this exact moment but it opened many doors.
Dark energy hissed in contact with reality as it exploded outward from his form, so thick was it he became a living clock of shadow as his body bulked up to a point where he appeared fifty percent bigger. His eyes turned a bright purple almost red equal to two stars while his six claws hand popped off their respective socket and with a piercing roar fueled with a desire for destruction, he rushed in.
However Hoopa had not become a mindless beast, at most he became less emotionally stable, it was simply that there was no holding back anymore as doing so would prove fatal since he wasn't authorized to run away, and at this point, he didn't care about the consequences, there was a time for everything and it wasn't now. Most of his 'hindrances' aka 'allies' were dead anyway.
"The little coward is joining again, how wonderful!", the Necron God of Death exclaimed with eyes smile as he flicked his scythe and effortlessly cut Khaine's other hand all the while grabbing the incoming punch with his free not caring much for his skin melting or the waves of destruction behind on his fleet or even the two other shadowy fists coming straight at him.
He merrily crushed the disembodied hand between his fingers into paste leading to a howl of agony from the owner that he savored as pure dark blood, ivory-white bone carved in runes and crimson-red flesh floated in the void before getting absorbed by the portal of a golden ring from which they came from.
His wide smile showing needle-like teeth however vanished as hundreds of alerts directly from his flagship pingged his mind, alert he found very, very, very displeasing. The Null Obelisk was being attacked by Hoopa through punches with his rings, hammering it ceaselessly, immediately weakening the anti-psychic field, each hit weakening it further and further as cracks formed and grew.
This wasn't the danger it represented for him if it were to be broken that caused the displeasure. In the C'tan's twisted mind, the source of the displeasure was something far more infantile and as such far more dangerous, it was his property that was being damaged, one of his most precious toys was getting destroyed, and worse of all… It was not him making it so.
"HOW DARE YOU HARM WHAT IS MINE!", Aza'gorod roared in outrage, space and time breaking as all sadistic playfulness vanished from his Necrodermis body.
The rusted blade of his scythe tripled in size, glowing an intense negative grey far more potent than ever before then it moved at a speed that ignored relativity to grant the gift of death.
"DODGE!", Hoopa screamed, his voice twisted and demonic in his current state traveling through the void as no mere sound waves reached Khaine whose only reaction was a widening of his orange fiery eyes at the approaching grey curved blade.
The Aeldari God didn't dodge, couldn't have hoped of even doing so, he was too close, too slow, too unprepared, and too weakened. The incoming blade reached its target, cutting through one of his armored shoulders, and continued behind his bronze codpiece until he was fully dissected leaving behind a grey corrupting aura of death as the two bisected parts parted away stopping esoteric organs from spilling out.
Yet before the second swipe of scythe befell the injured deity two shadowy hands appearing from the portal grabbed both halves, melting the bronze armor as they dragged the two parts back where they came from denying the C'tan his rightful prize as the downward strike split but the void of space.
If before he was irritated and even angry, this… This was the breaking point for the Nightbringer.
He didn't want to play anymore, he didn't want to grant his future toys the most exquisite form of agony, and he didn't want to make them his playthings for all of eternity. All of this evaporated as all but one thing came for him to desire, their death and the first who would have the honor of receiving it was the Anomaly, the source of so much dissatisfaction.
