The battlefield was still steaming.
Valdor strode through the wreckage, his golden armor scorched, his spear dripping with alien ichor. Guilliman's gauntlets were dented from crushing bio-titans bare-handed. Valen knelt in the dirt, psychic aura dimming as he released the last fragments of warp-born pressure that had blanketed the front. Even Eristan's Mechanicum cohorts — machine to the bone — moved slower, their augmetic limbs weighed with exhaustion.
Above them, the Tyranid swarm was gone.
They hadn't been beaten.
They'd been dismissed.
The Ripples
Within hours, astropathic channels burned with rumors.
The Eldar whispered of "the flame that consumes shadows" and tightened their craftworld patrols.
The Necrons, scattered and awakening in their tombs, reevaluated their timelines. The loss of the Silent King had been catastrophic; the annihilation of a Tyranid apex beast so soon after was a second shockwave.
The Orks heard only that there was a fight worth chasing — and the WAAAGH! began to shift in his direction.
Even the High Lords of Terra, long since broken to Shawn's command, took note: the balance of power had shifted again.
Council in the Ashes
The war council convened among the carcasses of Tyranid monstrosities.
Shawn stood apart at first, helm under one arm, eyes locked on the weapons at his side — the Blade of the Infinite Cut and the Phaseheart Chestplate. Two more shards of the Silent King's C'tan were being reforged by Eristan even now, their future forms unknown.
Guilliman spoke first.
"These… artifacts are beyond anything I have seen since the Emperor's prime. And they are yours."
Valen's gaze was sharper.
"They are not just yours. With the wrong bearer, they could unmake reality. Even Haki has limits — these could break them."
Shawn didn't flinch. "Then they stay in my hand. The galaxy already fears what they think I can do. Let them see what I will do."
The Decision
Later, alone with the shards laid out before him, Shawn weighed their future.
The Shard of the Deceiver pulsed faintly — a fragment of a god that had once rewritten perception itself. In his grip, Observation Haki wrapped around it like a fist around a throat, holding its deceit in check.
The Shard of the Nightbringer radiated hunger — the concept of death itself. Armament Haki suffused into it, forcing the shard to bend, shaping its lethality into a weapon that would serve, not consume.
The plan crystallized.
One shard would become a cloak, bending light, sound, and even psychic presence — perfect for infiltration or evasion without ever touching the warp.
The other would be forged into a spearhead, a weapon that could pierce anything, even the metaphysical protections of daemon princes and C'tan alike.
Shawn closed his eyes, his Conqueror's Haki rippling out into the silent night.
These aren't trophies. They're tools. And every tool I keep is another nail in the coffin of every xenos, traitor, and parasite choking my Imperium.
When his eyes opened, the war council was waiting for orders.