I sent the obnoxious psiflame phoenix flying off into the distance without me, and like I hoped, a good number of Tyranids turned towards it and ignored me as I finally made use of my proficiency in Illusions and made myself invisible.

 

I floated down to the depths of a gorge, carefully evading any little monster that climbed the sandstone walls. I could have strode in with my aura flaring and sword blazing, but a nagging feeling at the back of my mind made me decide against it. My danger sense wasn’t quite activating, but it was restless ever since I came within a kilometer of these caves.

 

With my heart beating faster and an eager smile on my face, I landed in front of an opening just enough to the side that the Tyranid that rushed out of the darkness every so often, didn’t crash into me. None of them seemed to have noticed me, digging claws into the steep cliff walls to climb up or just hopping into the stream, letting it wash them downriver and towards their presumed target. The Fortress.

 

The first thing I noted was the cave walls and even the mouth of it. Claw marks weren’t just covering every inch, it was obvious that it had been dug out with claws. Tyranids hiding underground, building hideouts? Suspicious … curious.

 

I hopped up, floating just high enough to have the occasional ripper or gaunt rush out under me without touching my body. I headed inside, my aura spreading hundreds of meters ahead of me and my senses picking up the constant clank of claws on stone resonating through the earth along with the familiar scent of Tyranid bile and odour.

 

My eyes could easily pierce through the darkness, but with the increasing sense of danger coming from the seemingly endless caverns, I was feeling a bit of anxiety grip my heart and twist my stomach.

 

I huffed, the sound silenced by the veil of invisibility conjured around me. I just killed the damned Swarmlord, what could they throw at me that is worth being anxious about? Nothing. Calm down.

 

Still, the danger sense had never been wrong so far. It might have over or underestimated danger, but whenever it activated, there was some sort of danger around.

 

With that in mind, I let some soul energy and bio-energy course through my body. Not doing anything with them yet, but having them just circulate along my veins and psychic channels should I need a boost.

 

The Danger Sense only barely lessened, but I kept floating onwards into the darkness.

 

Only a minute later I found myself in a cavernous hall I sensed before, with Tyranid flesh and biomass covering the walls along with bulbous sacs shining with luminescent green light. I could see the alien shapes growing inside of them, the light of the birthing fluid making their dark outline even more visible.

 

I had the template of these birthing sacs from the Bio-ship I absorbed, so I knew it wasn’t the most efficient form of reproduction for them, especially on the surface of a planet. These things worked best in no gravity and under the control of a Norn Queen.

 

Could that be it? I wondered, eyes squinting at the pulsing veins criss-crossing the floor in crevices, crevices that seemed to be claw marks left by appendages as large as my whole thigh.

 

I doubled down on my psychic senses, my aura peering into each living being in the tunnels I could sense. I found the expected and nothing else, the slew of alien monsters I battled not too long ago on the surface.

 

While I didn’t find any Norn Queen hiding down here, I couldn’t find the end of these tunnels either. Caverns, caves, tunnels, halls and even more tunnels twisted and bent in all directions like some enormous replica of an ant-hill and my senses couldn’t find the end, many tunnels turning to head straight down after a while, continuing on until my senses went dim at the edge of my sensing range.

 

I debated absorbing this amount of biomass lying around for the taking, but my danger sense once again stopped me, flaring up just before I shed my veil of invisibility.

 

A compromise it is, I don’t want to lose this Avatar this soon. A single drop of white biomass dropped from my fingers, transforming into a streamlined alien monster before its clawed feet even touched the stone ground.

 

The Hunter Drone’s carapace shimmered as its invisibility turned on.

 

‘Find out what is hiding down there.’ I commanded and without making a sound, it disappeared, dashing off into the darkness with an acknowledging telepathic signal.

 

I carefully made my way out of the caverns, trusting my drone much more fitting for a stealth scouting mission than me to find out whatever the hell was hiding there.

 

After spending a moment memorizing the location, I Blinked back to the battlefield surrounding the Fortress, plunging down into the row of aliens swarming the walls despite the constant scream of the auto-cannons and the occasional bolter round exploding in their midst.

 

I tore through them, bio-sword and my armour vibrating with energy as I went for maximum damage in the briefest timeframe without using large-scale psychic bullshit. When I was far away, it was fine, but even Space Marines had a slight dislike of non-Marine Psykers. I don’t remember how much the Blood Angles hated them — us — so I’ll hold back on it a bit.

 

As I ripped apart the aliens by the dozens or even hundreds at a time, the Marines jumped into the fray. Of course they did, charging the enemy with chainswords and rocket backpacks is the most logical thing to do when you are under siege, perfect military strategy.

 

Not that I could speak much, I was also doing it, but I wasn’t in any danger. The Marines might take down hundreds of Tyranids before they fell, but with thousands being born every minute, that didn’t matter. I aimed some Eldritch Blasts at aliens about to finish off Astartes or even send a Rejuvenation spell their way, flexing my Biomancy.

 

I kept monitoring the telepathic channels I had, keeping track of Valenith, Selene and the Hunter Drone as I circled around the fortress, clearing out Tyranids and taking some of the pressure off of the defenders. I wanted Dante to respect me, to fear me and to think at least five times before he decided to backstab me.

 

I would know it too, his mind was easy to breach even on his better days and he didn’t have many of those nowadays. Still, manipulating him would be almost impossible, especially with Mephiston being around him every time we meet. The old Librarian would sniff out any telepathic fuckery before too long and all pretense of diplomacy between us would be off the table.

 

Humming to myself, I pushed the brooding to the back of my mind. My mind cores could handle strategizing. Instead, I focused on my combat and my movement. There were instincts I inherited from the Eldar and Tyranid templates, but none of them fit me perfectly, I was a chimera and their perfected body movements started to feel a bit off when I pushed myself.

 

So I practiced, shifting my feet just a bit before a jump, angling my wrist just a nanometer to the right or just trying to figure out exactly how hard I could push my body before muscles started tearing.

 

I sank into a semi-trance, still aware of the telepathic channels I had open and still assisting some Astartes in need, but aside from that I focused entirely on testing, training.

 

Time became meaningless.

 

---

Valenith

“AHAHHAHAHAAAA!” Valenith laughed, his voice healing faster than it could be damaged by his constant laughter.

 

Arcs of lightning playfully ran along his body as he flickered in the air, he was somewhat proficient in telekinetic spells, but he mostly used bursts of electromagnetism to send himself barreling this way and that.

 

This power, this freedom, it was sweeter than he could ever have imagined it. He’d studied old Aeldari literature, poems, tales and anything he could get his hands on under his master’s guidance and he thought he had an idea of how it could have felt to be free of the Prince of Pleasure’s tyrannical boot.

 

He was not. He was wrong; he was so very wrong.

 

Valenith imagined himself relieved, maybe a bit happy, but nothing compared to this. He thought a single boot was on his neck before, but when Echidna set him free, he realised he was a prisoner clad in shackles with the weight of a sun crushing him into the ground.

 

He didn’t realise how deplorable and unbearable his previous existence was up until he was freed. By Her. He could never in his thousands of years of remaining life ever make up for this, there was nothing he could give to her in return that would even be worth a fraction of what he received. Freedom and not even just from She Who Thirsts, but from the corruption of Chaos and the monsters of the Warp.

 

If She was satisfied with him, he could imagine he might even have gained immortality like the Aledari before the fall. A shiver rushed down his spine, sending dozens of lightning bolts flashing out of his body, pulverizing gargoyles and crashing down into the ground teeming with lesser Tyranids hundreds of meters below him.

 

He shouldn’t be getting greedy, he received something he couldn’t pay back on nothing but a whim, there was such a thing as being greedy and then there was wishing for more than his wildest dreams. He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t be wanting for anything else in his life, all he should focus on is to not make his benefactor take back this gift.

 

She wouldn’t. He calmed himself, still a lingering anxiety remained. Her power which he somehow failed to accurately sense before was clear as day with his soul in Her Realm. She was all but omnipotent in this small chunk of the Warp, or was it even the Warp? Everything was pure, untainted and refreshingly clean.

 

No whispers, no rush of unnatural joy and no Mindrot trying to take his senses away. It was blessed calmness after centuries of constant chaos and he would do everything in his power to make sure he could remain in this calm little pond.

 

The idea of forcing Her hand never even crossed his mind, before this he thought he could maybe take Her down if he managed to surprise Her — which wouldn’t have been too hard based on his observations —, but now he knew how misinformed even that observation was.

 

All he could harm was a puppet, an Avatar that couldn’t even channel a fraction of her might. What would that achieve? She could just make another puppet, and with time, he was sure She could make Avatars more and more capable of channeling Her power.

 

He was insignificant in the face of this power. An entire realm and the unknown expanse of energy beyond this realm was firmly held in Her grasp, he felt each trickle, each tiny stream of energy in this Realm conform to Her will. Where he felt the Warp eager before, that was a malicious eagerness that dared him to use its power, the energy here was pure like a newborn babe.

 

Well, it was to Her. To him, it was dismissive; he had to mentally guide and channel any energy he wanted to use on every step of the way. It was tedious at first, but he got the hang of it within the first hour and now he could finally wield the power he was born to wield.

 

Valenith felt the energy surge in his body, he didn’t even have to set rigid boundaries for it as the energy only ever did what he commanded it to do. Unlike for Her; for Her he saw it surge to be used, more eager than he’d ever seen even the Warp be.

 

He understood the difference. He could feel the faint power of her colossal soul beyond the veil of this Realm which She graciously shielded from the rest of the Sea of Souls.

 

“This,” he breathed in, spreading his arms wide. “Was worth centuries of suffering, this is what it means to LIVE!”

 

In the back of his mind, his anxiety rose along with the joy he felt at exercising his power. He needed to make sure She wouldn’t cast him out; he had to make sure he was of great worth to Her.

 

His mind turned, ideas on possible futures flickering through his mind before he settled on some possible ideas.

 

I will give her Master Eldrad, and along with him, Ulthwé will be hers.

 

That was but the first seed of an idea, not even planted or watered in his mind, but it was a promising idea. You will thank me Master … sooner or later, She might even save you from that miserable end you’ve been staving off for so long.

 

Yes. This is good. With this … the Asuryani might even see a new dawn under Her.

 

First Ulthwé and then the rest.

 

From there, his mind hopped from idea to idea before it paused on one that drew a smirk on his face. It wasn’t a plan for the near future, but he was an Eldar, if he could pay off even a fraction of his debt in this millennium, he would be satisfied.

 

What use are the Ynnari with their dead god and false promises, when a live one walks the stars.