Multitudes of Skaven had converged upon this site. White-furred, horned rats offered sycophantic praise to Chief Grey Seer Pattriksh, their hollow congratulations masking a deep-seated, simmering envy.
Pattriksh, who had ascended by murdering his own mentor and survived countless insurrections and betrayals from his own apprentices, was no fool. He understood their nature perfectly. He remained vigilant, yet his pride swelled. Surely, it was due to his peerless brilliance and might that the Great Horned Rat had granted him, the Chief Grey Seer of Clan Moulder, this transcendent opportunity.
Once his apotheosis was complete, he would become a being as grand as Kritislik, the ascended Seer Lord. He already fantasized about casting the old patriarch down from the Great Horned Rat's favor, monopolizing the True God's glory, and lord-strutting before the entire vermin-kin!
Throt the Unclean was absent. While all clans afforded the Grey Seers a measure of respect, their theological interpretations of the Great Horned Rat differed. More importantly, Throt was green with envy.
An escort of a dozen Rat Ogres cleared the way, followed by hundreds of Clanrats who brought the foul "sacrifices" forward with trembling reverence. The lead Grey Seer of the escort, clad in rare robes of indigo and violet, bowed low with grotesque flattery.
Pattriksh scurried forward, stroking the containers as if they were his own spawn. "Yes-yes! They are mine-mine... the Horned Rat's blessing, his power-might!" He then turned and snarled at his underlings, "Prepare-start the rite! The Great Bell of Doom must strike thirteen times!"
A massive Rat Ogre reached for the Warp-tainted, frayed rope of the Great Bell, muscles tensing to herald the ritual.
In that heartbeat, a bolt of superheated plasma streaked through the darkness, a blue flash erupting from the cavern walls of the Hell Pit.
Searing heat—Splatter!
The plasma blast melted the Rat Ogre's skull into a puddle of glowing, electrified sludge. Its gargantuan corpse collapsed like a falling mountain.
"AH? What-what is happening?!"
Pattriksh shrieked in terror. He spun around just in time to see three massive blue giants, propelled by jump packs, diving straight toward him from the heights.
"For the Emperor—! KILL!"
Pattriksh flinched but reacted with instinctive malice, thrusting a hand forward to unleash Skaven magic: Scorch. A torrent of Warp-fire erupted from his talons, billowing toward the three descending giants.
Titus, leading the charge, stared down the emerald flames. As a man who had fought the Thousand Sons and stared into the abyss of Tzeentch, he knew he could endure this. The Warp-fire licked at his ceramite, charring his plate, but it could not halt his momentum. He raised his bolt pistol and unleashed a rhythmic execution of fire upon Pattriksh.
Discarding all dignity, the Chief Grey Seer scrambled away on all fours, dragging a nearby Skaven acolyte into the path of the bolts to serve as a meat-shield.
The Stormvermin, finally reacting to the intruders, leveled their Warp-halberds and lunged. Arcs of green Warp-lightning leapt from their blades, but to their horror, the lightning danced across Titus's armor to no effect. He plowed into them like a frenzied tank.
In close quarters, the Stormvermin were as fragile as Schola progenium cadets before a demigod. Titus shattered one skull with a single gauntleted fist, kicked another's torso into a spray of bone and fur, and swung his chainsword in a wide arc, reaping a harvest of dozens in seconds.
Meanwhile, Metaurus and Gadriel bypassed the melee, sprinting directly for the gene-seed sacrifices.
The Skaven tenders fled in a panicked scramble. Metaurus took down a guarding Rat Ogre with a sliding strike that severed its hamstrings before cleaving its skull asunder. They had fought these beasts enough to know exactly where the weakness lay.
"NO-NO! That is mine-mine! Great Pattriksh! Mightiest Grey Seer!" The Seer's mind was a frantic knot of two competing urges: the desperate need to survive and the hunger for godhood.
Titus seized the opening and lunged.
Driven by a surge of panicked power, Pattriksh glared at Titus and raised his triangular staff. A terrifying bolt of sickly green psychic lightning tore through the air. This was no mere spark—the force hit Titus like the fist of a Dreadnought, hurling him backward through the air.
"Hahaha! Man-thing! Iron-pot thing! You are no match for Pattriksh, hee-hee-hee!" Seeing his strike land, the Grey Seer cackled and turned his attention to Gadriel and Metaurus.
The two Astartes were preparing their jump packs to extract the gene-seed, but Pattriksh would not let his prize vanish. He unleashed his sorcery again, overriding the mind of a nearby Brood Horror. The sausage-like monstrosity bucked its master's control and charged toward the Seer.
Pattriksh scrambled onto the beast's back, shrieking, "No one, no man-thing stops me! This is the gift-reward of the Great Horned Rat!"
Auraed in psychic bile, the Seer urged the Brood Horror forward. Gadriel and Metaurus, unable to dodge in time, were bowled over. The gene-seed canisters tumbled away, skittering across the stone until they were snatched up by the Grey Seer in the indigo robes.
"Oh... oh... my cunning master, it is yours, yes-yes!" The subordinate Seer acted with surprising deference, cradling the prize as he approached Pattriksh.
"Yes-yes. Good. I shall remember you, vermin!" Pattriksh reached out, clutching the gene-seed to his chest. He glared at the three giants struggling to rise. "You... you shall die too! Become my-my sacrifices!"
In the moment he turned his back, a feathered, crystalline blue dagger drove through Pattriksh's heart. The Chief Grey Seer's eyes bulged.
"No! No, no-no-no! Great Horned Rat!" Pattriksh could not believe it. He, who had built a career on the art of the ambush, had been backstabbed in the moment of his greatest triumph.
The Grey Seer in indigo robes began to warp and twist. Rat fur turned to iridescent feathers; a massive, hooked beak erupted from a face that was no longer rodent. The Brood Horror beneath them was consumed by a burst of silver-blue flame, transformed by the sorcery of a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch.
Amidst the terrified shrieks of the fleeing Skaven, a ten-meter-tall Lord of Change emerged. Holding a writhing staff in one hand and a blade of shifting flame in the other, it gazed upon the scurrying vermin with predatory satisfaction.
"This domain shall belong to the Architect of Fate. Rejoice, despair, for knowledge shall consume you!" Sarthorael the Ever-Watcher, Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, let out a booming laugh. He struck his staff against the ground, and a massive sorcerous circle engulfed the entire subterranean altar.
"Oh, throne... I didn't realize we were so popular with the Changer of Ways, my lord," Gadriel said, struggling to his feet.
"I have grown used to it," Titus replied with a grim nod. He braced himself; though this was a clash between xenos and Chaos, this was the territory of Ultramar. He would not stand idly by.
Titus charged.
"Foolish." Sarthorael sneered. With a casual flick of his staff, a wave of psychic force slammed the three Astartes back once more.
When Titus had previously banished a Greater Daemon, he had merely prevented its manifestation. He did not possess the raw psychic might to duel a Lord of Change in the material realm.
"You shall remain... forever within the Crystal Labyrinth," Sarthorael declared, having recognized the man who had thwarted Tzeentch's schemes time and again.
Suddenly, a shadow flickered. A massive Warp-star, the size of two men, spiraled through the air with a hum of lethal energy, severing the Daemon's staff in a single stroke!
In a flash of movement so swift even Titus's enhanced eyes could barely track it, a shadow passed through the Lord of Change. The daemon's body froze; its avian head slid from its neck, cleaved perfectly in two.
A ten-meter-tall Verminlord, draped in black tattered robes and crowned with thirteen pairs of wicked horns, stood in a sheathing stance. Its presence was cold and absolute.
"My Master's holy ground is not to be defiled," the Verminlord spoke, its voice a rasping chill.
The creature turned its cold, predatory gaze toward Titus. "You disappoint me... offer up your head."