8 8. Battle of Gods

Hoopa's golden and purple iris stared at the deadly blade glowing an intense negative grey coming toward his neck to claim his life, many emotions sprung force at this instant, many of which were simple artifice products of this fundamental parasite of reality that wanted to end him.

It was the second time he felt it but it was much more visceral, much more real and concrete, but it still had little to no effect on his mind. However, it sent his body into a response equal to an extremely potent adrenaline rush.

Psychic energy from the Sea of Souls was directly pumped into his being, his bone, skin, muscles, and nervous system were enhanced, and veins popped below his taut grey skin as his perception of reality clarified and slowed down manifold. It was a fit of instinctual biomancy, his second time using it as well but without violent mutation this time.

However, this spurt of power didn't change his predicament for his attacker was still faster and stronger but also far more apt at battling as such Hoopa couldn't hope to dodge, escape, or even formulate any complex amateurish spell in that fraction of a time far smaller than a nanosecond.

Maybe if he was more experienced and knowledgeable he could have had another solution but it wasn't the case. His only option was to block and reduce the incoming damage as much as possible.

His immediate response was in the form of empowering his psychic shield to a high degree, though it was only a part of his answer to potential crippling injury. He also used as a makeshift physical shield the ring held in his middle right hand by stretching it like a solid rubber band using three other clawed hands, the dark blue portal akin to the most beautiful night sky manifesting with it.

Then the impact came and the color of the world faded and turned in several gradients of black, white, and grey for the briefest of moments aside from them.

Everywhere the color shifted was erased from reality to the deepest level of existence, a fourth of the battlefield disappeared as it touched all and didn't discriminate, be it Cruisers of Necron, Aeldari, Krork, and beyond in origin, the infinite paraphysical light bridges and the armies fighting on and below it no matter the camps.

The walls of the Labyrinth Dimension that had been damaged by the Necron entry like clothes facing a wall of thorn were ripped off in many places creating thousands of passages to the raging and tormented Sea of Souls boosting the psychic power of all connected to it to new height.

But it came with a price, it gave way to monsters that had been only spectators until now, endless swarms of Neverborns, predominantly Daemons, predatory malicious psychic abominations of all shapes, colors, and raw primal emotions poured out by the millions from the tears to feed upon the delectable souls of the Young Race as they joined the endless frenzy of flesh, psionic, and metal.

While this was happening the hastily overcharged psychic shield boosted further by this rise in ambient psychic energy shattered into countless fragments like glass, it never had the chance to hold against the scythe of the Grim Reaper, the tool of the personification of the end, a tool that would bring swathes of entire galaxies to ash.

Then this very weapon slammed against the pure golden surface of the ring however it didn't didn't slash through it in one full swipe.

Sparks of impossible color and sounds akin to a chorus of nails on chalkboards that would cause insanity were emitted as the rusted blade rapped against the ring, leaving deep scratch marks.

Ultimately the unorthodox weapon cut halfway through the ring while the other half of the blade glowing grey plunged into the portal and the curved blade prepared behind, digging three forth within its owner's tattered grey hood and Necrodermis skull.

Alas, it didn't go further, and neither did it kill the attacker. And the ring didn't stay still even with the hold of his arms, the power behind the hit had been transferred to it, one far beyond simple kinetic energy, reality, and unreality melding together from the shock.

Hoopa felt it all slam against his chest causing him to widen his eyes in pain and spit droplets of obsidian black blood and saliva with the impact as the hit affecting both reality and irreality pushed him violently downward at unprecedented speed.

'Son of a bitch that stung.', the ex-human thought as his already fully healed body flew through a ring that he preemptively invoked right in the direction he would be thrown.

This let him dodge the following chain of attack that would have inevitably come but it also stopped him from inadvertently killing everyone on the light bridges far down below or up or left or right, the concept of direction was not paramount here. Many had died but it was no reason to kill more when the option not to was available.

"Oh running away already after such an underhanded attack on my person… I see the traits of your creator, the traits of your Mother are clear in you. But that is a pointless endeavor, like her, my dear little foreign friend. You cannot escape, hide, and run from Death for I'm inevitable.", Aza'gorod spoke amusedly trying to rear the Master of the Rings back with no apparent success, his voice enough to kill.

And it did, Aeldari and others of the Young Race died on the spot everywhere within the local reality, their souls for the elves-like creatures never to be reincarnated as true death claimed them. Only the blessing of the Laughing God stops untold more death from happening, his presence supporting.

The Nightbringer possessed a deranged smile that split his face as his dark void that served as eyeballs shifted around and a frown formed on his nonexistent brow while his skull and hood mended themselves back together leaving no hint of damage.

However, his void-filled eyes suddenly locked onto a burning crimson-red star flying toward his direction at an extreme velocity that rendered photons sluggish in comparison, controlled hate, mastered rage, and focalized bloodlust oozing to the point the world broke with its radiation.

"NIGHTBRINGER, COWARD! STOP SLIPPING AWAY FROM MY BLADE FILTHY HONORLESS MONGREL, FIGHT ME LIKE THE TITLES YOU LAY CLAIM TO!", the booming raging voice of Khaine filled with righteous fury echoed as the Aeldari God in question thrust his flaming sword at the C'tan chest.

"Why so much anger, Godling of War?", the Necron God of Death taunted with a dark chuckle, barely parrying the flaming blade of the bronze giant with the pole of his scythe before dashing backward and parrying the flurry of blades with difficulty as cuts appeared over his unliving body and healed far slower than the failed bisection from his scythe.

Then without warning golden rings appeared around them and from the portals psychic beams of infinite darkness came raining down on the Nightbringer leaving a bone-deep burn that like acid kept on eating his body stopping all possible mending while doing so.

"You join again, little one? Then you are not far, I can feel you now, hiding nearby in this false dimension of mortal emotions out of my reach. I must confess, this eases my work greatly.", the C'tan said his power exploded outward, detonating the black beams with a pale grey veil of his power.

But it only worsened his situation, the beams of the Anomaly retained the same nature as the ones that destroyed the Necron Cruisers by the thousand, the only difference was that they were far more powerful.

The veil blocked beams, neutralizing them but it led to holes to form where more beams came of equal power as they did not obey any laws of reality and were fueled by one of the most powerful creatures that had ever and will ever exist.

The more of those new beams were ended the more they divided, divided, divided, and divided in a never-ending cycle of dark waves, drowning the Nightbringer in a tenebrous sea of corrosive water.

The multiple layers of veil that followed only marginally stopped the onslaught and the sudden apparition of incoming punches from the golden ring fueled by this same bizarre psychic aura only aggravated the C'tan's predicament as they hit randomly, hard, viciously, and accurately, always focusing on weak points for the Aeldari God to cause more damage with his sword Widowmaker.

Khaine took full advantage of the Archdjinni aid as the two worked in perfect tandem, telepathic messages continuously exchanged.

Their coordination was beyond any right it should be even with their godly status, their assault exponentially gaining in power as the clock ticked. In normal times the fact his duel was broken by a third party would have displeased Khaine greatly but the circumstances here were far different.

He was not mindless rage and bloodlust, the third party, Hoopa had been forcefully brought in by his adversary by cowardly means, and that made it so that those emotions were channeled to those who deserve them, the C'tan.

A foolish action Khaine thought even from such a creature. C'tan were not known for their logic or wise mind even with their unparalleled intellect, at the best of times they acted like bipolar petulant toddlers, barring a very select few that the Nightbringer was excluded from even with his might.

But they weren't foolish to this degree, voluntarily adding an enemy of equal power to a losing fight was very strange, and this with the choice of a disadvantageous battlefield on top of it. Like Hoopa, he knew something was off, but neither could tell what and that was pressing them to work harder at their task given by the Great Old One.

As such the battle, the heart of the conflict of destruction dwarfing all others within the battlefield continued as the trio responsible for it moved across its endless size passing by spaceships, light bridges, the many shattered planets destroying them further, and even the two stars that had been sucked in by the gate to the Labyrinth Dimension were not spared.

One of such stars was even their current battleground, slashes of sword and downward strikes of scythe cut off large parts of the blue dwarf chromosphere while living darkness drilled straight through the multiple layers up to the solar core and far beyond before coming back to their target creating massive tunnels that couldn't be closed, the laws of reality unable to subsist after their passage.

Then the star began to collapse on itself, the damage too large for it to sustain its existence any further, and heat and pressure built up to an extreme point.

Yet it did not affect them in any meaningful way and the collateral damage of their attack continued to ravage its existence further up to the point it couldn't hold anymore and exploded in a fiery hell blinding the battlefield for a moment, the damage it should have caused largely muffled by shields of many origin but the one clause didn't survive.

Blades against blades Khaine continued, the death of the star barely worth a glance as he struck true more and more, the result of his assault in the form of deep fleshy wounds that did not mend just as the wounds brought by Hoopa's barrage of both physical and ranged attack.

The reason was simple, the living metal that made the Nightbringer's body could not purge all the aetheric energy that sipped in with each blow faster than it was purged, and so little by little both psychic essences began to cause the Necrodermis to break and crack, the lines forming burning with green, black and red.

Yet, and yet… Aza'gorod did not show fear, nor did he show worry or any kind of negative reaction to his rapidly approaching end. Not even anger, in fact, the more the battle went on, the more his warriors were destroyed and the force of the Old Ones progressed onward.

-Hoopa, Khaine my children, trap this abominable creature in place so that the Canon of the World Song will be fired upon it. Fear not for no mortal damage shall befall you.-, the voice of Cthylla reached the two minds leading to an instant shift in how they acted.

'Fucking bitch… I know they can regrow or be regrown. It's going to hurt but not worse than what she did after she fucked me over however…', Hoopa thought with a snarl and clenched jaws his presence granting true death to all Daemons that were unlike enough or stupid enough to approach him.

The order forced him to act against his will and so he brought forth his three pairs of hands pulsing with his dark psychic presence and grabbed the battered C'tan by the forearms, neck, and ankles holding with enough force to crush the strongest of metal.

The dark aetheric energy, and their very nature cause the Necrodemis to sizzle on contact. It created a paste-like substance that acted like glue, his telekinetic grasp brought to its strongest only increasing his hold on the Necron God.

Simultaneously thorny blazing brass chains exploded from Khaine's chest plate, they perforated and entangled themselves to the C'tan chest, abdomen, and legs, resulting in the Aeldari God chain himself while doing so, his belief in his Mother unwavering as he was ready to die for her at any moment.

It was within his very existence, after all, it mattered little if he was self-aware he was a very specialized and powerful tool, just like the entire Aeldari race. He wasn't infuriated about Hoopa's feelings about their Mother for that reason too, she was perfect in her craft and reason must be behind such a feature of his being.

A light akin to the brightest of stars bathed the battlefield in its kaleidoscopic lights, Daemons and Neverborns shrieked in agony, Aeladari felt their wounds mend and weary mind settle, and Krork screamed in triumph, their massive muscular green-skinned body behind power armor trimming with the power of their psychic gestalt.

The collective of Blackstone Fortresses in the very far distance had lit up, their esoteric organic metal shifting into the shape of a flower reassembling that of a hybrid between an orchid and a lotus flower.

Pure psychic energy flowed through matrixes of runes and complex aetheric technology that made its petals as the will of the Great Old One Cthylla spread far and wide, the Cannon of the World Song, the stigma and heart of the flower under her control in the process of accumulating and harnessing the power of the Universe in a singular beam.

"Any last words that may be in your decadent mind to share before your destruction, star parasite?", Khaine said with a calm fury as he tightened his chains, digging them deeper into the Necrodermis body of his interlocutor whose smile had never been this wide.

"FUC-", Hoopa's voice full of realization exploded outward just as the words of the Nightbringer deafening it echoed in a megalomaniac cackle, "My little diviner is due for a reward!"

Then Aza'gorod's flagship, the Bringer of Darkness without fanfare or bright light or any distinction emitted an omnidirectional wave of conceptual repulsive nothingness, enforcing the strict laws of Realspace and banishing all that violated them.