32 Unity Among Monsters

In the tomb of an unknown tomb world, Stardeath stood tall once again, in a room surrounded by his fellow C'tan. His body looked no different than the one that had been destroyed shortly ago. The C'tan were a species of living energy which were incredibly hard to kill. Not only were their bodies disposable, but at a moment's notice they could phase in and out of existence, dispersing in between the natural radiation that persisted throughout the universe.

Stardeath had appeared here, on this no-name tomb world, for one singular purpose; Alliance discussions. The C'tan are dark and twisted beings, that only know how to cooperate if they must or a last resort. Ever since they had tricked the Necrons into their current state, the C'tan and their respective troops had gone to accomplish their own selfish objectives. They had not considered the need to unite with each other to fight the Old Ones, until now.

The Old Ones had proved to be difficult. The infuriating energies of the Warp were much more difficult to fight against than they had first considered. And considering the Old Ones had taken to engineering their own set of 'legions' for themselves, the C'tan being divided could no longer stand if they were to win this war.

Aza'gorod, the Nightbringer moved forward to begin speaking to the rest of the C'tan. His Necrodermis body was alight with thick grey and black smog, and the aura of dread he emanated was the most powerful among the C'tan. It was as if death itself walked among the mortal earth. The Materium seemed to recoil from him far more than most others, as the shadows and darkness stretched to the smallest corners of the room, reached out to him like he was their father.

"Division amongst ourselves can no longer be tolerated," Aza'gorod spoke, his voice gravelly and demonish.

"What do you suggest, Nightbringer?" Emberesh questioned his sun-like appearance contrasting with Aza'gorod's like polar opposites.

"We should unite with a common purpose. The Old Ones and their armies draw power from the psychic dimension called the Warp." Aza'gorod began explaining.

"Void Dragon, is there anything that can be done about this?" Aza'gorod asked.

Mag'ladroth moved his gigantic 50-meter-tall draconic frame to consider an answer. His body was covered in void blackness, with green neon stripes occasionally flashing with power. His eyes flashed green and green radiation lightning condensed in the room. Mag'ladroth moved a piece of his Necrodermis body which acted like a dragon's scale, and began to reshape it into a black obelisk-like device. Unknown mechanical knowledge that only he knew of, went into its construction perfectly demonstrating Mag'ladroth's absolute control over the technology of the Materium.

When he was finished, what remained was a human-palm-sized Blackstone Obelisk, which radiated a natural repulsion to psionic powers.

"With these Blackstone Obelisks, the Warp dimension can be temporarily cut off from the Material world," Mag'ladroth spoke in a deep voice that might belong to a dragon.

"Hm," Aza'gorod said, playing with the tiny device in his palm.

"With enough of these placed in the Materium, would we be able to cut off the Warp dimension for good?" Aza'gorod questioned with some hunger in his tone.

"True," Mag'ladroth answered.

"But I can see that it would kill all the beings with souls in the Materium." Mag'ladroth continued.

"Troublesome. Can you modify it to direct the life energy evenly amongst us?" Aza'gorod questioned. 

Aza'gorod was not worried about the death of all life on the Materium, he was only concerned about wasting the food. 

Mag'ladroth glanced at Aza'gorod with a knowing look. 

"The remaining life energy of their souls would remain trapped in their organic bodies. We may feast on the directly at any time." Mag'ladroth commented with some cruelty in his robotic dragon tone.

The meeting then continued for a short while longer, with the C'tan forming a temporary agreement of cooperation. Their goal; was the death of all life in the Materium through the use of the Blackstone Obelisks and the separation of the Warp from the Materium.

...

Unknown place.

Arlow had felt himself beginning to fall into an incredibly realistic dream world as he reached the crux of the transformation. As the title and his soul became one, a kind of identity crisis had descended on him. The title was nameless and should represent a concept or figure, but instead, it represented himself, and not only that but with his 'truth' ability it represented his true self.

To deal with this, a kind of dream world was created for himself. And he became the same regular human he had once been in his past life, except he seemed to be living in a long-forgotten era of the Greeks. He instinctively knew that what he did here in this dream world, would be incredibly important to himself. It was as if the title in his soul was 'learning' who it was, who he was. And every decision he made while living his life in this dream world, was under scrutiny. 

He continued through these lives in the dream world in cycles. After he finished one, he would once again reenter the world as a different person under different circumstances.

He lived a life filled with as much good as he could here. Constantly giving to the poor, providing a place for the orphaned during the wars. He took on the identity of an ordinary orphanage director named Arlow. He lived a good life.

And yet, there was something that seemed to have followed him into this dream world. In every life he lived, a similar occurrence of betrayal would happen to him, like what had happened with the Old Ones. Sometimes it would be his son, his wife, or even his country that betrayed him. They would betray him at the most crucial moment, leaving him to die or to endure extreme humiliation from the public.

...

"Kill him!"

"Kill the traitor!"

"Off with his head!"

Random human citizens shouted from the crowds around him, as Arlow stood at his public execution with a peaceful look on his face. In his heart, there was the familiar piercing sorrow at having felt another betrayal of himself in this life. His own adopted daughter, having informed the state of his refusal to pray to the king, betrayed him out of fear for her life. 

'It's always one reason or another. Fear, Anger, Jealousy.' Arlow thought to himself as he watched the faces of the humans from up on the executioner's stand. Their faces were twisted with forms of excitement and revelry like they were watching a good show. Those faces, made him feel sick to look at.

'Am I like that? I have just reason to be angry.' Arlow thought as the executioner moved him into position to be beheaded.

But after thinking for a moment, he shook his head.

'Anger, the desire for vindication, is a complex passion.' He contemplated.

'That is not who I am.' He thought.

'But then, who am I? Or who should I be?' He thought as the executioner's head lopped off his head. 

The last thing he heard was the roaring of the crowd, cheering for his death.

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