The psychic effluence surrounding Konrad Curze oscillated with frenetic perturbation, configrating with the chromatic intensity of umbral pyre.
The ambient shadows animated themselves. They coiled and extended about his inferior extremities in sinuous, unfamiliar rhythms. They comprehensively enveloped him — and his three fraternal successors.
This was not the customary umbralinsinuation of the Night Haunter's occultationprotocol.
This was the translation of corporealconfiguration across cosmic expanse — an apotheosis comparable to the 'Forest Walk' of the Lion.
At this chronological juncture — when he was, at last, prepared to encounter his predestinedexistential trajectory — the constraints that had immobilised him disintegrated.
Curze no longer regarded himself as a captiveof fate.
He was, henceforth, its sovereign arbiter.
This cognition had effected the substantivetransfiguration of his innate faculty.
Wherever darkness manifested itself — there, the Night Haunter held dominion.
He was, however, acutely cognisant that the Nightfall could accommodate only a singularNight Haunter.
Between himself and that traitorous iteration— one must encounter existential termination.
"We have ARRIVED!"
Curze's enunciation reverberated throughout the umbral dimension.
The subsequent instant, the four specimenscomprehensively evacuated the materialplane.
It was as though they had never occupied it.
At the surface perimeter —
The advance element of the Night Lords had been comprehensively exterminated prior to Curze's departure.
Upon the cessation of his biometric signaturefrom the auspex displays, the celestialvessels in orbit did not dispatch additionalreinforcements.
They awaited Curze's arrival — as though this circumstance had been predestined.
With the abrupt attenuation of Night Lords offensive pressure, the Resistance — which had sustained attritional expenditureexceeding fifty percent of its initialcomplement — recalibrated its ordnancedisposition.
Every available weapon was reoriented upon the Khornate host.
The offensive pressure remained considerable.
These mortal combatants, however, had survived the Night Lords' pre-eminent terrortactics. They were, accordingly, considerablymore resilient to the Khornate Daemons' directsanguinary menace.
Under the Resistance's ordnance suppression, the Captain and his three fraternal associatesregistered a transient interval of respiratoryrecuperation.
The Bloodletters under Skullmaster's command, however, remained formidableadversaries.
Notwithstanding the Resistance's disciplinedordnance disposition, these Daemons' tacticalcoordination was exceptional. They recurrently executed unspoken flankingmanoeuvres, constraining the four equerriesinto desperate defensive perimeters.
Power sword and Daemonic battle-axe collided. Fulgurant scintillations erupted from their engagement.
Within the Khornate forward perimeter —
The protracted engagement between Nyx and Skarbrand persisted.
The duration of their duel was exceptional. The substratum within their immediateperimeter had been comprehensivelytransfigured into a sterile, sanguinarywasteland.
Innumerable lesser Daemons had been pulverised into particulate suspension by the collateral effluence of their martial encounter.
As Nyx progressively attained tacticalsuperiority, the Warp's erosive influence upon the material cosmos attenuated.
He registered, with visceral clarity, the progressive dissipation of his adversary's Daemonic puissance.
"It appears your capacities are INADEQUATEto this commission. It is, accordingly, UNREMARKABLE that Khorne regards you with such CONTEMPT!"
Nyx's derisive enunciation was analogous to incisive laminar implements. It occasioned in Skarbrand a fulminant ululation of impotentwrath.
Nyx's assessment, however, was objectivelyaccurate.
As the temporal increment extended itself, his puissance progressively reinforced the barriers of reality.
Skarbrand's Warp effluence attenuated. He could no longer discharge his comprehensivemartial investment.
"This INCOMPETENT RESIDUUM!"
Upon his Brass Throne, the Blood God observed this engagement with accumulatingwrath.
He had conferred upon Skarbrand His exceptional beneficence. He had explicitlypromised reinstatement within the BrassCitadel contingent upon Skarbrand's successful repatriation of Nyx.
What Skarbrand had delivered, however, was exclusively failure.
Khorne's incandescent fury threatened to lacerate the Warp itself.
His regard traversed from Skarbrand to Nyx.
His wrath was instantaneously transfiguredinto unalloyed concupiscence.
Nyx's martial valour transfixed Him. His obsessive investment in this specimen was such that He risked transfiguration into a chromatic degenerate.
Observing Skarbrand's incompetent martialdisposition, Khorne registered only vexation at His own incapacity to personally intervene.
...Personally?
At this chronological juncture — in the interstitial interval between derangement and fury — the Blood God, whose cognitivefaculties were customarily exclusivelyinvested in slaughter and haemorrhagiceffluence, manifested an unanticipatedeffulgence of strategic lucidity.
His regard fixed itself upon Skarbrand.
Notwithstanding His contempt for this incompetent instrument, He was constrainedto employ it as His terrestrial vessel.
A particulate quantum of the Blood God's divine cognition detached itself from the Warp's profundity.
It perforated the membrane separating the immaterium from the material cosmos. Its translation was instantaneous.
Skarbrand's autonomous volition was obliterated before this irresistible agency. The velocity of this transfiguration was such that even Nyx — who was, at this juncture, engaged in proximate martial encounter with this vessel — registered zero indication of its occurrence.
"Your axial offensive calibration is enfeebled! Your marginal offensive investment is INADEQUATE!"
Nyx's derisive enunciation continued its uninterrupted trajectory.
"Has the Warp's profundity exhausted its reservoir of concupiscent Daemonicpersonnel eligible for your fraternalassociation?!"
Nyx — whose tactical superiority was, at this juncture, progressively crystallising into decisive predominance — escalated his provocative discursive investment. He registered zero deference to his adversary'smaxillofacial configuration.
"With martial capacities of this calibration, even should Khorne personally intercede on your behalf — I should compel Him to designate me His 'FATHER'..."
*BOOM——! *
EIGHT simultaneous fulgurations of axialeffluence.
Their velocity was such that Nyx's perceptualfaculties failed to register their offensivecommencement.
His corporeal configuration was instantaneously reclassified as an atmospheric projectile. Its trajectory was characterised by uncontrolled rotationaltranslation. Its terminal phase concluded with catastrophic impact upon the substratum.
Nyx forcibly arrested his translationalmomentum through comprehensiveinvestment of his power sword into the terrestrial configuration. This expedientexcavated a chthonic fissure of considerablelongitudinal extension.
"...Keh. My osseous infrastructure has, oncemore, sustained comprehensivefragmentation."
Nyx disgorged a volumetric quantum of haemorrhagic effluence from his oralcommissure. He elevated himself from his recumbent configuration with considerablevolitional exertion.
"Why has this specimen suddenly manifestedcatastrophic offensive augmentation?! Do all Daemons presently undergo SECONDARYTRANSFIGURATION PROTOCOLS?!"
His regard traversed to Skarbrand.
His adversary's semi-skeletal maxillofacialconfiguration had been comprehensivelyremediated. Integumentary substrate and vascular infrastructure had been restored to their primordial configuration. His fracturedpinions had been reconstituted to their original morphology.
They emanated an oppressive, sanguinaryeffulgence.
"...I REGISTER this transfiguration. It is, indisputably, a SECONDARYTRANSFIGURATION PROTOCOL!"
Nyx sanitised the haemorrhagic effluencefrom his oral commissure with his manualextremity. He secured his power sword and re-committed himself to offensive translation.
He attributed his catastrophic attritionexclusively to his own tactical complacency. He registered zero suspicion that the entity he was engaging had been substituted with an existential configuration of superiorontological calibration.
"Skarbrand! You should repatriate yourself to the Warp and procure Salis to designate you her 'FRATERNAL ASSOCIATE'!"
Nyx's derisive enunciation preceded his blade's offensive trajectory.
His power sword — suffused with his comprehensive martial investment — descended upon Skarbrand's colossalcephalic extremity.
He was confident that this offensivecommitment would terminate his adversarywhile his target remained in a state of post-transfiguration disorientation.
*CLANG——! *
The acoustic signature of this collision was deafening.
The apex of Nyx's power sword was arresteda single centimetre from Skarbrand's frontalintegument.
Nyx's maxillofacial configuration registeredcomprehensive astonishment.
His catastrophic offensive commitment had been intercepted with effortless facility — by two of his adversary's manual digits.
*The pre-eminent martial doctrine of the material cosmos enunciates that 'velocity'constitutes the sole determinative parameterin offensive engagement. *
*This doctrine is, however, applicableexclusively to entities incapable of comprehensive ontological transcendence. *
Skarbrand — or, more precisely, the entitythat had appropriated his corporealconfiguration — elevated the commissures of his oral aperture into a grotesque simulationof maxillofacial gratification.
His ocular organs — incandescent with unalloyed sanguinary ferocity — were fixedupon Nyx with unrelenting concentration.
Their investment was such that they endeavoured to ignite every vestigialresiduum of apprehension within Nyx's existential substrate.
"Nyx... I shall personally ESCORT you to my Citadel."
At this chronological juncture —
Every sensory receptor within Nyx's corporealconfiguration simultaneously REGISTEREDMAXIMUM EXISTENTIAL THREATCALIBRATION.
The entire upper hive environment underwentcatastrophic transfiguration.
A phantasmic effigy of the Brass Citadelpropagated throughout the battlefield.
At its epicentre — Nyx and Khorne — a colossal brass coliseum materialised itself.
Every sentient organism present was instantaneously reclassified as spectator.
They were constrained to register the consummation of this primordial martialconvocation.
"...Is my charismatic effluence of such exceptional magnitude that it necessitates the terrestrial manifestation of a Warp DEITY?!"
Nyx suppressed the comprehensiveexistential apprehension suffusing his sensorium. His enunciation was studiouslyequanimous.
"I had projected our inaugural proximateencounter to occur before my Brass Throne. This INCOMPETENT RESIDUUM, however, has EXHAUSTED my FORBEARANCE..."
Khorne's enunciation was saturated with undisguised contempt for Skarbrand.
As He enunciated this assessment, sanguinary configration erupted from His temporary vessel's corporeal configuration.
Nyx registered, with visceral certitude, the tortured essence of Skarbrand's existentialsubstrate — configrating and ululating within this divine pyre.
The sanguinary configration condensed itself within Khorne's manual extremities.
He elevated the two legendary battle-axes — 'Slaughter' and 'Murder' — and fused them into a singular, colossal, double-headedimplement of catastrophic martial investment.
Its blade exuded haemorrhagic effluence of primordial provenance. Each denticulatedprotrusion along its edge recountedinnumerable chronicles of existentialexpenditure.
The instant the brass coliseum attained complete morphological consolidation —
The laws of the material cosmos were comprehensively recalibrated.
This perimeter was, henceforth, Khorne'sexclusive jurisdiction.