Dead Man's Dreams

[Okor]

A shriek of pure agony echoed across roiling nexuses of energy the colour of bruised flesh, a harrowing howl borne of soul-shattering pain. Gaping holes burnt their way into his rusted carapace, the shimmering sheen of Omnillium tearing him apart as it left him, rending decrepit flesh in its flight. With a sigh, the gangrenous giant collapsed, slumping to the ethereal surface of the immaterium, dead flesh refusing to trespass on where the smiling god's grace had fled.

Rejected.

His failures echoed through his maggot-ridden brain, reinforcing the undeniable truth: He had been denied. His own self had scorned him, cast him off. He had kept them alive, hardened their soul and hide, suffered through the millennia. And yet, he was spurned. He had paid the cost for immortality willingly and eagerly, and all he had to do was accept the gift. But he had failed to do that. And so, he was without purpose, without form.

Just what was he now? He ran a claw through the tides of dreamstuff, plague-ridden digits twitching in the languid river of imagination. He was banished to the etherium, but he was no Daemon.

He was Okor Paleblood, son of Barbarus, gene-child of Mortation, veteran of the Long War, Champion of Nurgle.

He was alone.

The whispering susurrus of his symbiotes was silenced, their incessant hunger vanished. With a groan, he forced himself to his benumbed feet, ceramite and machinery creaking as it augmented the strength of mummified limbs. A lone ravaged eye blinked in the sunless light, minute tunnels left by parasite suffusing his vitreous humours. He took a rattling breath, inhaling a wide variety of toxic gasses into his decrepit lungs. Rusted steel stomped on a strand of raw potential, its infinite surface supporting his titanic weight. Deathly breath seeped from gaping wounds in his hide, glimmering sparkles of Omnillium residing within his tormented corporeal form.

He was alive.

He took another lumbering step, his corruption seeping into the disparate threads and spinnerets of dreams. A gurgling laugh spilled forth from his infectious maw, echoing around the numerous nebulae present in this realm of raw power. For once, he was in something approximating home. The Warp. He stood in the realm of souls, in the home of Gods. He trespassed upon their deific domains, inhaling their atmosphere of ambrosia. Decayed digits twitched, settling into clenched fists. This was something he could work with, a realm he was familiar with. Oh, the endless intrigues and manipulations that affected the Legions was a hard-learned lesson, but The Warp? It was intrinsic. Its infinite power, its potential, its dangers.

He was no longer ensnared the The Smiling One, enthralled by an empowered child's whims.

He was home.

He laughed as he ensnared power in his dead hands, twisting the strength of the Gods themselves to his will. He forced purposeless energy together, setting it in place as a rusted trail of steel. Claws dangled behind him, leaving furrows of rot, the eternal life promised by The Grandfather. With every stride, he spread the glory of his Lord, the tormented immortality that was offered by the God of Entropy. Infinite possibilities solidified as he walked, coming to the inevitable conclusion: Death. It was a spreading disease, a cancerous lump of pure silence in this world of raucous noise. A manic grin blossomed beneath his ancient helmet, a rotten visage warping as its jaundiced skin pulled back, revealing blackened, broken teeth. There were no Gods here, no Daemons, no one to stop him.

There was only Okor, and his will was reality.

And he would make this new realm into paradise, a gangrenous garden of living death, an eternity of half-dead revelry and life. He cackled as he waved his necrotic hand over an expanse of dreams, watching them grey and slowly still, hopes quietly fading away at his whim.

Mad laughter echoed in the Astral Realm as the Dead God did his eternal work.