Warhammer: The 11th Primarch - The Black Emperor

Nareth noticed the gray orbs hanging above like grotesque fruit.

Some showed signs of activity within, Jorgall hatchlings writhing sluggishly inside.

Just as he examined the egg-trees, he sensed several massive xeno entities charging in his direction.

A deep rumble passed through the sandy ground, bones seemed to crack beneath his feet. Around him, trees swayed and bent, leaves rustling and falling.

Five massive monstrosities, as tall as Titans, emerged from the egg-grove and rushed toward Nareth.

Typical adult Jorgalls were only slightly taller than a Primarch, but Jorgall Augmentors were ten times that size.

They resembled oversized Jorgalls, towering up to the tree canopies, monstrous amalgamations of scaled flesh and metal.

Unlike their kin, Jorgall Augmentors no longer had visible insectoid features within their glass-domed torsos.

They had no arms, only dozens of gray metallic tentacles, writhing from beneath their shoulders.

Some tentacles coiled tightly across their chests; others flailed like striking serpents.

132 members of the Honor Guard, selected from 12 Chapters, raised their boltguns in unison.

A storm of fire erupted, hammering the Augmentors, spraying black fluid everywhere.

But their vast bodies were resilient; the Augmentors did not fall.

Their metallic tendrils lashed out, slicing through the ground like plows, tearing up roots and turf.

One Honor Guard was swatted away, crashing into the trunk of an egg-tree.

"Big boys, huh? Let's give you a proper welcome."

Nareth flicked the fire selector on his bolter to full-auto.

With a shout, he raised his silver gauntlet, his psychic energy surging.

With the ability of "Bribe Weaken," his bolter rounds now cut through the metal like a knife through butter.

The Primarch fired with inhuman speed and precision, targeting every joint with lethal accuracy.

Though their metal frames rivaled Titans in size, they lacked void shields, their alloyed bodies no match for the God-Machines of the Mechanicum.

The Augmentors' tentacles were severed, their metal joints blasted apart.

Nareth's actions were so fluid and elegant, it was like watching a deadly performance of artistic slaughter.

For a few seconds, the Order of Shadows stood stunned, their transhuman minds etching the scene into memory like a perfectly captured war film, one they would revisit in awe for years to come.

With a final thunderous crash, the five towering Augmentors collapsed into piles of twisted scrap.

The Honor Guard had barely recovered from the breathtaking display when the entire "forest" trembled.

The black fluids sprayed from the Augmentors' corpses were absorbed rapidly by the roots.

Unnatural noises echoed from the trees.

Then, the Honor Guard sensed something… wrong.

The air changed, suddenly oily, slick, their skin itched with a rising stench of ozone.

Several warriors spoke simultaneously over the vox:

"Warp energy!"

That single word unleashed a storm.

The yellow Jorgall eggs began to shake violently, smashing together mid-air.

With cracking sounds, several of them ruptured, and the warped hatchlings within began to emerge.

These were grotesque conjoined mutants, malformed fusions of two or even three Jorgalls.

Their massive heads were divided into four or six chambers, no longer the egg-shaped skulls of ordinary Jorgalls.

They twitched, arms and legs spasming, pale eyes squinting as they stared at the Honor Guard.

And then… their voices were heard, not by ears, but directly within the minds of every warrior.

"Astartes… so confident in your justice, yet so terrified of cracks in your psyche…"

"The end comes! We have seen tomorrow. You should as well. All your revere will wither. Everything shall—"

But just then, Nareth's eyes lit up.

'You're just ingredients for my potions!'

With that thought, light and shadow swirled in his gaze, his Warp Imagery, his personal perception of the Immaterium, the vision that manifested when he wielded psychic power.

To wield the Warp well, one had to understand and shape their own inner "vision" of the Sea of Souls.

In his past life, he'd joked that the Warp was little more than the cosmic toilet, but he wasn't insane enough to drown himself in filth while channeling its energy.

Beyond the crude metaphors, his understanding of the Warp aligned closer to the dualistic mastery of Iskandar Khayon, a man who walked the path of sorcery and science.

Khayon once said: "The Realm of Chaos will grant you what you desire… though perhaps not in the way you expect."

To a fragile mortal, it shows seductive lies that lead to ruin. To Horus and Abaddon, it granted direct power, personally backed by the Chaos Gods.

Yet the Warp had a cruel sense of humor. If your plans failed (and they almost always did), it would mock you mercilessly, branding you with epithets like "Corpse-Emperor."

Similarly, daemons were not purely twisted and malevolent.

The first possessed Astartes, Argel Tar, and the demon Ram, who bound to him were practically soulmates.

Even the daemonic familiars the Thousand Sons would soon summon weren't always schemes of Tzeentch; some were fiercely loyal, remaining faithful even as their pyramids fell and their Primarch Magnus wept blood.

Just like Order, the Warp too had light and shadow.

Nareth's light and shadow vision now twisted and intertwined, unleashing a storm that shook the entire world-ship.

Everything in the "forest" and throughout the cylindrical world felt the impact of that soulquake.

Every warped Jorgall hatchling in the hatchery, those who had faced him directly, had their minds obliterated, and they died instantly.

Their corpses drifted down like dandelion fluff, lifeless and limp.

At that same moment, all Shadows of Order aboard the Jorgall world-ship felt it too, a soul-shockwave emanating from their Primarch himself.

To the Thousand Sons, it was like a psychic tempest, unlike anything they'd ever known.

Apophis was in the middle of linking 99 Thousand Sons' minds into one cohesive battle-group.

Azhek Ahriman foresaw the enemy attacks.

Apophis coordinated and shared real-time intel.

Ormuzd unleashed Warp-lightning to tear through the xenos.

Protective shields blocked arcs of electricity. Flame incinerated metal and flesh.

Their slaughter was efficient, but at the moment of the soulstorm, all of them froze involuntarily.

Within the mindlink, Ormuzd sent an excited psychic pulse:

"Such overwhelming power! Did one of our brothers awaken?"

Ahriman's eyes flickered. 

"I saw a great figure. Within the tide, so vast I couldn't look directly."

"That isn't our brother… it came from the Primarch."

"Even Apophis couldn't conjure a storm like that."

Apophis calmly admitted:

"Indeed. That wasn't me. It must be from the Primarch of the Eleventh Legion."

"Only our own gene-father could rival such power."

As the Thousand Sons stood awestruck by the Primarch's psychic might, Nareth withdrew his power, and the light in his eyes faded.

He activated his vox and contacted Marlena.

"Put down your work for now. There are xeno secrets here worth studying."

Jorgall biotech would prove valuable to her development in the Sequence levels, Sequence 6: Biologist, and even Sequence 4: Classical Alchemist.

Moments later, Marilena's magnetic voice responded:

"Understood, my lord. I'm on my way."

Nareth ended the call and turned to his Honor Guard.

"Establish a perimeter around the hatchery. No one approaches without my order."

He began collecting the spoils of war.

.....

If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.

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