67 – Throwing Fists with an Eldritch God

67 – Throwing Fists with an Eldritch God Announcement

Greetings peeps, Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

ANNOUNCMENT!!

I am going to go on a tiny little pause over the holidays.

Next chapter is coming out at Jan 3rd.

Hope you enjoy the chapter.

How?

That was the question of the day, wasn't it?

How did the Hive-Mind pull me into an Illusion? I might have panicked a bit there and flooded my mindscape with soul-energy ordered to obliterate any foreign energy but after a few seconds of that and nothing substantial changing, I came to a conclusion.

The illusion isn't in my head. It's not my mind or soul being fooled, but my eyes and senses.

That was a much more digestible thought than it somehow breaking through my defences without me even getting as much as a warning or an alert. My senses were just mortal. They were good, a combination of Aeldari and the best the Tyranids had combined with my own Eldritch senses, but I didn't put as much faith in them as the defences around my mind and soul.

With a bit of trepidation rising in my chest, I extended a dozen soul tendrils along with my aura to survey my surroundings.

A shiver almost ran down my spine as I felt a colossal mind wrapped all around my own, it couldn't puncture through my shields but myriad claws and jaws were trying to every second as infinite eyes filled with malicious hunger glared at me from the shadowy darkness.

My knuckles went white around my staff as I gritted my teeth. This thing almost made me fear it. ME.

It wasn't casting an elaborate illusion, nor was it just pulling me into a mental world of its own make. What it was doing was much harder to achieve. It was purely warping reality all around me, so I'd mistakenly believe I was somewhere else, saw something else, and felt something else.

The light wasn't fake, nor was the hill, but the bodies were. It created the light to fool me and warped the hill so I'd feel as if they were bodies but when one of my tendrils impaled a body looking just like that first Lictor I killed I felt no feedback, there was no biomass there, nor any new information, just rock.

My feet left the ground as Atiesh vibrated and glowed with energy. Its pure white form shimmered and seemed to blend with reality one moment and bend it around itself in the next. The bodies morphed back into simple rock and stone at my feet as I pushed back the Hive-Mind's influence meter by meter.

I glared into its mind.

The tiny smudges of fear and unease were lest behind the cloud of cold fury washing over me as this thing managed to fool me.

The thousands of well-oiled cogs in my mind spun rapidly. Ideas and plans flew by one after the other before I stopped on one. I smirked.

The Hive-Mind was massive and ancient, which made it disgustingly overbearing and very hard to destroy, as it could just rebuild itself if there were bio-forms remaining but it was fragile. Spread apart in trillions of bodies across several galaxies, one would think this many bodies would work together and give it an unshakable foundation but in reality it was more like a castle of cars that would come crashing down if a sufficiently powerful breeze smacked into it.

Let's be that breeze.Upstodatee from n(0)/ve/lbIn/.(co/m

Unfortunately, I was a rather soft breeze as my only experience with telepathy and mental warfare came from being a fly on the wall inside Zedev's and Valenith's head.

I did build up my mindscape, too. Does that count as Telepathy? It should.

The mind was a curious thing, one that I hardly, if at all, understood. It stood on two pillars, the Soul and the Brain, a pillar of the Immaterium and one of Reality. This made it both esoteric and rigid. One couldn't restore a destroyed mind without a backup, despite the ability of the Warp to bend the rules of reality. As far as I know. There might be a way to just reverse time for someone, some Psykers can stop time in an area around themselves, but could it be reversed?

But... the soul should also store most memories... Confusing. That meant one could destroy the soul through the mind?

Telepathy was dangerous, but right now I was the one wielding that danger.

I didn't know how to attack, but how hard could it be?

Destroying is always easier than building and manipulating.

The outermost laser of my mindscape — a large spherical barrier, one of ten at the moment — morphed into Psychic flames fused with my intent to burn into the mind of this thing and exploded outwards.

The eldritch shriek that shook the air put a smile on my face. I just did the equivalent of using pepper spray on a rapist, who in this instance was an eldritch hive mind. What a weird life I'm living.

Commander Luis Dante || Baal || Few minutes ago.

Sluggish as he was, he fought on, unrelenting, unforgiving. His Thirst burnt along with his conviction. He'd do his gene-father proud. 1500 years of life all came together at this one moment.

He saw an opportunity; he knew it was a trap, but he didn't care. If the beast gave him a free blow at the price of his life, he is going to make the most of it.

His jittery jetpack roared one last time as he dashed at the beast, slipping between two jagged scythes and raking along a third with his off-hand axe.

Pushing to the left, he gave himself a spin and as he reached the beast; he used it all to smash his power axe deeply into the side of its torso.

"GAkhhh," He screamed up in pain as the fourth arm of the beast was impaling him through the stomach but the roar of his axe eating through the monster's carapace and flesh drowned it out.

He glared up at the beast, seeing its jaws coming closer and closer, ready to rip his head off even as its claws pierced deeper into his body.

Dante raised his other axe, ready to behead the beast, even if it was the last thing he did.

The air resonated with an unholy screech and the monster thrashed for a second, pushing Dante painfully off of its claws. And then it went still, rigid as a statue.

"Hi~" Another one, Dante thought as he commanded his tired body to move again, his axe cut through the air, ready to rip the new enemy apart.

Then a wave of calmness and peace hit his raving mind like a thunder crack, taking all the wind out of his sails.

"Where-?" he stumbled, the thousands of injuries reasserting their existence as his thirst abated. White hot pain bloomed inside his stomach and he coughed a mouthful of blood.

"It trapped me in an Illusion," the thing masquerading as a woman clicked her tongue as it came close to support him and she held up his much larger body effortlessly.

"But I paralyzed the hive-mind for a bit, I don't know how long we have until it recollects itself," she continued and Dante would have had his jaws hanging open if he didn't have his mask on, very dangerous ...

He thought back to how the beast went rigid just as it was about to finish him off; he didn't know whether he'd survive that encounter and a part of him — a large part — wished he didn't, but he knew the woman most likely saved his life.

Later...

"Finish it," he groaned. If he was to die today, he'd see the monster die before him.

He wasn't listening to the 'small talk' the woman was doing anymore, bloodshot eyes trained on the rigid monster even as a gentle wave of energy started coursing through his veins. He didn't notice it.

"I need to see it die," he mumbled.

Then ... Rest ... Finally.

Octavian Gaius || Macragge's Honor || Warp

"My Lord?" his hand stopped scribing as the voice of a woman came through his door.

"Enter."

"Yes, My Lord!" The woman quickly entered, not daring to meet his eyes as he watched her from his seat.

"Yes?" he asked.

"We will be entering the Baal System in an hour, my Lord," the woman said, staring at the floor.

"I see," Octavian nodded, "You can leave."

"Yes, My Lord."

The door shut close as the woman scurried away, but Octavian wasn't thinking about her anymore, as an ethereal sense of rightness came over him.

"So it is Baal," he stood up, "Your will be done, My Lord."

Years, he'd spent accompanying the Lord Regent on his crusade. Years he'd spent waiting, thinking.

Now it was finally time to act.