10. Death's Reaper

'Shit.', Hoopa internally cursed as he became the sole focus of Aza'gorod, this was not ideal, adding the pain from his mostly healed hand raw in his mind and something he didn't want to experience again.

But what he wanted wasn't what he was going to get, at least he managed to bring Khaine to Cthylla for her to hopefully take care of him as the Aeldari God of War had for all intent and purpose been eliminated, bisection tended to do that, particularly when at such level both physical and metaphysical.

He didn't know if it was a fatal injury but in any case, Khaine had become more of a hindrance than anything else in the fight with the banishment of all that was psychics. He was and would have been an even greater distraction with the possibility of being used as a hostage or most likely one being turned into a meat shield. The Bloody-Handed God had become an exploitable weakness, a weak link as wrong as it sounded.

In the end, Hoopa was still only a newborn fresh out of his egg, and even if his mind had been twisted beyond humanity he was not a megalomaniac monster with no care for life, and saving what was equivalent to at least an equal could but be beneficial. At least that's what he had in mind, Khaine was not the most amiable of people but a favor from what was a prideful warrior of immense might would prove useful.

'Fuck this is bad!', he cursed again with an animalistic growl glaring at the incoming Star God through senses that let him feel the tapestry of the Universe, and his eyes widened, the golden ring-like outermost part of his iris thinning as he sensed reality to be bent, the millions of kilometers separating the two of them became but naught.

Yet Hoopa had already predicted he was going to be the immediate next target to be killed, it was obvious and as such he was already two-thirds through the ring he invoked behind him and had five more to create a protective cocoon all around.

But he had made several mistakes that were due to his lack of experience and knowledge of the full capacity of the being he was fighting as such he had underestimated the speed with which he was going to be reached and that he wasn't the only one able to slip through time and space, even if in this case it was vulgar in how it was done and extensively worse than what he could do.

Still, it meant it wasn't going to go as he desired when his head and most of his torso and abdomen had passed through the liquid-like constellated surface of the portal. He understood that he was going to be in a world of hurt but he wasn't going to not fight back.

As the blade of the scythe draped in a negative grey eldritch energy swiped down upon his lower half with only defense the dense veil of darkness around him that thickened immensely.

Then it exploded outward at the contact with the scythe, the darkness enveloping both weapon and wielder, the deathly energy of the blade dimmed, and the tattered cloak was burned to nothingness burning the tattered cloak to nothingness and causing deep burns within the cracked Necrodermis skin leading to further and deeper cracks

Aza'gorod felt agony, but it was not the first time in his existence he felt what he loved to inflict upon others' life form, pain, how could he not? He was the one who both giveth and taketh this aspect of life before its inevitable end, being foreign to it would make his acts sloppy as he wouldn't understand how to inflict it and he had fought to become this strong, pain was as inevitable as death.

But this one, it wasn't like the one he had ever felt or seen in his existence, it wasn't like the one he felt as his essence within this body of living metal had been disturbed to the point it would have shattered out of decohesion if the Null Pillar wasn't activated and the Blackstone Fortresses had fire… It wasn't one he remembered his weaker fellow C'tan felt when they were devoured by him or others.

No… It was far deeper, it was the result of an attack on the very existence of his essences on a conceptual level, it was an attack on Death itself, it was small barely a fractal of a fractal but little by little it progressed, and the implication of such a thing were far too clear even in his state of mind.

This substance alien to this Universe had the potential to grant true death to him and his fellow Star Gods. Until now this anomalous energy had just not been in enough concentration to show its true power, he understood at this instant how deep was the madness of the Old Ones.

At this moment the Necron God of Death felt the first few inklings of fear, a foreign feeling he found he abhorred, this only fueled his raging emotion to burn stronger and brighter than ever. But this changed little to what Aza'gorod's goal was, it only added reason to press on further and weed the inexperienced seedling before it turned into a tree and then a forest.

The blade became brighter fighting against the darkness and it connected to the body of the Anomaly…

Like ripe wheat upon the field in the harvest season the rusted yet sharpened edge of the blade cuts with ease through the right side of Hoopa's hip, from the purple fur to the grey skin, followed together by muscles, nerves, veins, bones, and organs as it continued on its course until the blade was out and half of the lower abdomen and a more were separated.

But these injuries were used by Hoopa like a lizard losing its tail by autotomy and escaping within rock crevices, forbidding its predator its meal, the Nightbringer his rightful prize as he vanished into his portal, causing the C'tan rage to reach new heights and a primal howl of fury escaped his throat.

"YOU CANNOT ESCAPE YOUR FATE ANO-", Aza'gorod's scream was violently interrupted by those body parts that as a twisted parting gift detonated into an ocean of corroding darkness that caused him further agony… And rage as the darkness slipped further within like the deadliest of poison but it would take far more to be a threat.

"Fuck my legs, fuck my tail! Fuck this shit, fuck this war and fuck him, and fuck the bitch that destroyed my life!", Hoopa screamed, appearing within the empty and scattered command room of the Bringer of Darkness, oddly nothing was attacking him.

Rhythmic tremors spread within every level of the moon-sized Cruiser making it shake violently, Necrodermis and complex machinery fell to the ground the ones on their way to him melting in the exponentially increasing dark aura around his massive form increasing the damage his punch was making on the Null Obelisk and the reason of his surrounding current less than pristine state.

He never stopped attacking this master-crafted structure, his six hands teleporting around with rings, leaving an innumerable amount of massive deep spider webs cracks wherever they appeared.

The dark anomalous energy they were imprinted with melted and infiltrated everything they hit, spreading like a mold within what was once the carefully carved structure and this from its two extremities as no points of its surface were spared. Weakening the nullifying field further and further to the point the Sea of Souls began to come, droplets by droplets.

It truly showed the advantage of disseminated controllable limbs by a method of levitation not fully based on psychic energy letting him move freely in this psychically barren environment, how it worked exactly Hoopa couldn't care less at the moment but from the little he observed it seemed to be a mix of primarily gravity and magnetism.

Nothing could break his focus, nothing would stop him from attaining his objective. Nothing. Not even his emotions, and even less the agonizing pain and disturbing feeling born from his mutilated lower half from which his ebony black blood was dripping by the hundred of litter on the cold metallic melting it and his guts not spilling out further by the combined force of the regenerative capability of his body and instinctual flexes of internal muscles to keep it all inside.

Then as his jaws opened to a point it appeared to be unhinged as he prepared to use them as a focus to fire a beam of purely destructive energy time folded right in front of him and something manifested.

It was a small dark grey sarcophagus with on its front green light in the shape of tel circles connecting via straight while being encapsulated by two half circles themselves connected with others lines. It vaguely reminded Hoopa of crop circles but he also recognized it from the knowledge forced down his mind by Chtylla as the insignia of the Sautekh Dynasty, one of the Infinite Empire's most powerful factions.

His immediate response was to destroy this contraption but he stopped himself before doing so, if it was a trap or defense system it would have been fired off earlier which also reminded him that none did, just like all guards and any other Necron that were either absent or turned off.

Clearly, he wasn't the only one not working in his slaver's best interest, as such he decided to take the risk and not destroy this object that popped out of a parallel time stream and showed all signs to be intended for him.

By a flex of his will he opened a portal that sucked the miniature sarcophagus, this portal wad led to hundreds of millions of light-years away in the only location far enough from everything here he could think of within that instant, it was none other than an old blue planet third in orbit from its star, a yellow dwarf.

On the end side of the ring, the Necron device fell right into a clay nest full of eggs it was equal in size to, it was the eggs of a young theropod and one of the largest land predators of its time, it was a female Tyrannosaurus rex and it was in for a surprise once it awakened from its sleep with the new 'egg' in its clutch.

This minor action didn't interrupt any of Hoopa's ongoing ones, it wasn't even a distraction as such the next instant a compact sphere of pure darkness congregated from the infinite well they were from. Then with a clack of his jaws, the sphere compressed into a singularity the diameter of an electron, and with a low hum the pressure within reached a critical point and it turned into a hair-thin beam.

It traveled and reached the Null Obelisk instantaneously, digging in a fault line made by earlier assault and traveling to the middle of the Blackstone megastructure, from this point the beam reflected against every deep fissure using them as a route leading to every corner of the massive pillar by Hoopa careful calculation.

Calculation that came to fruition the next instant, there was too much trauma at once from every millimeter of the Null Obelisk for oy function properly any longer, nevertheless held itself into one solid then.

And so like glass, it shattered with a strident sound, millions of unrecognizable fragments flying everywhere as the remnants of anomalous energy flew back to Hoopa whose face sported a maddening grin.

It was like a floodgate had been opened, the torrential force of Sea of Soul reeled its head back upon the battlefield with unimaginable force feeling all that was starved of it gorged themselves in it, Hoopa the one most of all. But there was no relief for the battle had not ended.

Then scattering his flagship into primordial particles with sheer speed and destructive aura came the Nightbringer, Aza'gorod, his Necrodermis body adorned with untold dark fissures holding together with difficulty.

He howled in a ghoulish voice lacking in any complex thought behind but fury, agony, hate, and fear all brought to reality by one individual to which he was swiping his scythe down on his wide-open chest, "REPENT FOR YOUR GRIEVOUS OFFENSE IN MY EMBRACE ANOMALY!"

'Strong and fast but predictable… A fucking animal with far too much power that what he is.', Hoopa thought far calmer than before as balance slowly trickled down onto him but it wasn't the only reason he was so tranquil.

C'tan true powers were based on what concepts they were intricately part of giving them authority over it to a degree but how they could effectively use it in a meaningful way stemmed from their capacity to control Realspace in nearly whatever way they so desired, their only limits their only true limit their imagination which they greatly lacked in baring few unique cases. They were ironically very two dimensional in how they operated making them both more dangerous and the exact opposite.

And so Hoopa didn't even try to dodge instead six of his rings manifest all around the Necron God of Death, then he did something he instinctively understood would have cataclysmic results. Something he wouldn't have done before with the number of deaths it would have caused within the Young Race

He opened the gates between the Real and Unreal, the Causal and Paracausal, all that was and wasn't mixed together as the Sea of Souls invaded Realspace in the form of incomprehensible chaotic waves of nonexistent color and shapes, accompanied by states of matter that shouldn't exist and pure primordial emotions that warped reality itself to their most primal urge, hope, anger, lust, despair and many more.

Aza'gorod staggered in his track taking the full brunt of it all, his body licked by pure chaotic esoteric energy furthering the damage as it infiltrated the many cracks that never healed. His howl only gained in intensity but it changed nothing, his mind unable to process anything aside from anger, hate, and despair leading to those very same emotions being siphoned in him creating a vicious self-destructive cycle.

Hoopa with his body still embalmed in dark energy grabbed the scythe, the Scythe of the Grim Reaper, pushing his fully regained psychic energy into his flesh and bones he increased his strength manifold and managed with difficulty to forcefully yank the weapon out of the confounded Star God's weakened grips.

Wasting no time a ring appeared and the stolen weapon flew through the nightblue portal, its destination the only natural satellite of this same blue planet he sent the Necron apparatus instant ago for he still lacked any safe area to use as a vault.

One of the six rings pumping out the Sea of Souls had its destination suddenly shift, the chaotic psychic energy flux stopping, the usual constellation-like pattern upon the portal switching to the point where all begins and where all will all end, the Well of Eternity. The Heart of the Universe and Womb of Reality and Unreality that birthed and will conclude time and space.

"Farewell Aza'gorod, Nightbringer and Primordial Fear of all Life, may we never meet again in this life and all that will come after.", Hoopa said darkly, his eyes gleaming and darkness encroaching his form as he pushed more raw psychic energy from the deepest and oldest layer of the Sea of Souls onto the C'tan as well the rest of his psychic might.

Then as the Nightbringer unable to resist slowly passed through the ring his dark void that had the purpose of eyes regained its clarity and what Hoopa saw would forever be ingrained in his mind, it was a terror so intense of magnitudes he never thought possible and this was a fear all sapient being held, the prospect of an inevitable end. The fear of death, a fear Aza'gorod had instilled and fed himself of, one he was the source of.

Alas, it disappeared as soon as it appeared, if not for his memories of would have appeared to be a mirage born of the Well of Eternity swallowing the Necron God of Death in his entirety until nothing remained.

Once Hoppa couldn't feel the C'tan presence he closed all of his rings and stood still in the demolished command room. Unknown to him he wasn't the only one to feel the disappearance, shock spread through all other Star Gods as the new alien sensation of one of their most powerful brethren had perished, turned back from where he was from.

'I have done it… It's finished…', Hoopa thought, closing his eyes more out of relief than exhaustion as his wound mended faster with his psychic energy working on biomancy by instinct, a faint smile full of fangs formed yet he was not happy as a realization dawned on him.

It was only the beginning.