As the first conduct-line was coupled into place, the Nova Cannon atop the testing platform was primed.
An ashen beam of light lanced into the deep void. Unlike the contained reactions of a standard atomic pulse cannon, this energy manifested as a piercing lance. It streaked through the vacuum, plunging directly into the area of effect generated by the Pariah Nexus.
In this state of psychic gathering, the weapon appeared to suffer interference; sensor readings indicated that the energy dissipated more rapidly than it would under a conventional power supply. Nevertheless, the beam successfully struck its distant target.
The grey-white energy slammed into the phase-shields protecting a Necron construct on the planetary surface, instantly corroding a breach through the shimmering hexagonal tiles. The beam then hammered into a colossal, obsidian pylon. The Warp-suppression field of the Pariah Nexus quickly dispersed the remaining energy.
The Necrons, however, offered no retaliation. Axion was unaware that the conflict between the Stormlord and the Silent King had reached a fever pitch; the local Necron garrisons were far too consumed by the fires of civil war to concern themselves with a stray weapons test.
For Axion, the success of the discharge was a boon. Subsequent trials with the Antimatter Annihilation Beam, the Fragmentation Cannon, and other energy-based armaments proceeded without incident. Upon switching to the new power source, each weapon cycled and fired with optimal parameters.
Only the solid-slug Railguns encountered unforeseen complications. The ashen-black psionic energy proved incapable of mimicking the electrical current required to generate the hyper-magnetic rails, unlike the smaller, "pure" psychic crystals used in previous iterations. Worse, the energy actively corroded the weapon's internal assembly, leaving the rails pitted and scarred, rendering the weapon structurally unsound almost instantly.
After repeated failures, Axion directed a nanite swarm to devour the warped rails. The corrosion was so severe it appeared as though a portion of the weapon's total mass had simply ceased to exist in the material universe.
Once the viable weapon modules were confirmed, the Void Sword commenced its inaugural combat outfitting. Weapon systems that had sat dormant were brought online: antimatter ray arrays, colossal laser defense batteries, and Nova Cannons were integrated into the ship's logic-engines.
However, since the specific destructive properties of the ashen crystals remained mathematically vague, Axion required a more substantial target for live-fire calibration. Fortunately, within Segmentum Ultima, worlds held by pure xenos were plentiful. The T'au Empire lay directly to the north of Ultramar.
After the ashen-black crystal was retrieved from the testing platform, the assault ship was restored to its original configuration. Shortly thereafter, the massive fleet tore into the Warp.
The moment the silver fleet entered the Immaterium, a tide of daemons began to claw at the Geller Fields. But the Void Sword was a Titan-class behemoth; its Geller Field, backed by near-limitless power reserves, was an impenetrable aegis that no unaligned warp-predator could breach.
Under normal circumstances, daemons avoided the fringes of the Pariah Nexus, where the Warp was thin and lethargic. Now, however, the area seethed with chaotic turbulence.
…
During Axion's compression of the million souls, the psychic tides within the Warp had been upended. To a daemon, such a concentrated mass of unaligned psionic energy was an irresistible lure.
Yet, when the Neverborn arrived, riding the back of the warp-surge, they found the tide had turned ashen-black, saturated with a profound, soul-crushing despair. The once-"ownerless" energy now felt as if it had claimed a master, radiating an aura of hopelessness so potent it caused even daemons to recoil in revulsion. That grey-black light sat like a stagnant rot within the shifting kaleidoscope of the Immaterium.
The Iron Men, being soulless machines, were immune to the psychological weight of the crystal. The emotional miasma flowed around the mechanical units without leaving a mark.
The psionic power siphoned from a million mortals had carried with it the dregs of their final emotions. This confluence had inadvertently birthed a strange, nascent psychic entity, a gestalt consciousness, mired in confusion yet possessing the spark of independent thought.
Then, the compression arrays had begun their work. From the moment of its birth, the entity was taught only one thing: the primal terror of extinction. It roared and thrashed, and when the first accidental shockwave breached the containment field, Axion simply increased the power.
What followed was a futile struggle. The entity's "body" was crushed into a liquid state as the pressure intensified. The negative emotions within the consciousness were magnified a thousandfold, precipitating the birth of the black impurities. Finally, as the mass was forced into a solid crystalline lattice, the nascent mind shattered completely.
Axion had no inkling that his clinical experimentation had nearly birthed a new psychic race. Had he known, he would not have cared.
The black crystals, saturated with horror and terminal despair, had contaminated the entire mega-structure. As the daemons gathered in the thinning warp-veils to investigate the lure, the Warp-conduits tore open. The massive mechanical fleet plowed through the formless horrors, crushing a path through the Warp with unstoppable momentum before vanishing into the deep currents beyond their reach.
With the energy-drain of the Pariah Nexus looming, the daemons quickly abandoned the area, receding back into the Great Ocean.
Meanwhile, the psychic ripples emitted by the Void Sword during the compression event washed over the Segmentum Ultima and the neighboring Segmentum Ultima's Eastern Fringe.
As the ripples swept through the Warp across several Imperial worlds, every psyker planet-side felt a soul-deep surge of despondency. More than half of the "unsanctioned" rogue psykers, unable to withstand the sudden onset of suicidal despair, took their own lives.
Their deaths were anomalous; their souls appeared to undergo total structural collapse. Beside their remains, small shards of black crystal were often found, objects radiating a crushing weight of negative emotion. Anyone who looked upon these shards was instantly seized by a drowning sensation of hopelessness.
In response, the Inquisition across multiple sectors reported the phenomenon, recovering vast quantities of the artifacts. Because the mere sight of them induced such profound misery, the crystals were designated by the Ordo Malleus as Despair Stones.
Through the coordinated efforts of the Tetrarches of Ultramar, the influence-radius of the event was mapped. By back-calculating the surge, they identified the point of origin: the galactic edge just beneath the Pariah Nexus. Every world affected fell within a specific radius of light-years from that coordinate.
The Imperium's analysts quickly reached a grim conclusion: this had been a localized, high-intensity psychic eruption within the Warp, the likes of which suggested a new and terrifying variable in the war for the galactic east.
——————
If you want to read ahead of everyone, go to my pat-reon: pat-re-on.c-om/magnor (remove the hyphen to access normally)