[4-12] The Mines

[Okor]

Quiet, little mortal.

The words pierced the blaze that was his mind, the thought momentary quelling the hatred he had manifested about himself.

Why do you oppose me? You are but an insignificant little… Morsel, to my glory. Why do you resist, when you can have everything you could ever want? You care nothing for this realm, for the lesser beings that inhabit it. Join with me, and Ascend.

A snarl and a bolter round heralded his reply, a Serpentine monstrosity skull vanishing in a cloud of red mist and ivory shrapnel. ”Because this world is… Wrong. I want no part of it." An armoured shoulder rammed into the twisted torso of another abomination, a phosphex round detonating within its maw as the barrel of the pistol shattered its crooked teeth. ”But like hell I’d let you claim Dominion over it.”

The horde was thinning. Great rents ran down his side, twisted talons impaled his torso, and the soul-fuelled fire consuming his body slowly dimmed. But unlikely the mockeries of man left broken behind him, he still remained standing.

You would dare, mortal?

From the darkness came a figure, an emaciated posthuman corpse, its face frozen in a scream of both terror and ecstasy, blood running in crimson streams down the ragged beard cultivated before its death. Too many limbs extended from it, giving it the appearance of some abominable arachnid come to entrap and ensnare the wayward souls open this island. Within its sunken chest laid a perfect sphere of Omnillium, black tendrils slowly pulsing a steady rhythm, the massacre’s instinctual beat, a hundred hearts all beating in a fearful and impassioned chorus.

”Do you not know what I am?” A dozen mouths tore themselves open in the carcasses carpeting the cavern, gibbering the entity’s thoughts. The people of the Omniverse, united under a singular purpose.

A thousand cowering nations worship me, chanting my name in praise! Know my title before you fall, Paladin of a False God! Kneel bef-”

Crack.

A shot pierced the silence, the rocket-propelled rad-round detonating inside the rotting umbilical cord that bound the spirit to its cavern, its deformed host falling to the quivering floor, its minions suffering the ravages of their transformation, now lacking its will to sustain them. ”Shut up.” A dozen limbs scrabbled against the slimy surface, attempting to drag its corporeal form away from the Legionnaire. ”You speak of glory, of worlds underneath your heel…” A heavy boot slammed down upon a leg, splintering the bone and pinning the Demon to the ground, forcing it let loose a warp-spawned screech of agony. ”... But here you are, cowering beneath the earth, hiding with your spawn. You never reached for the stars, in fear of being scorched by the sun.” A talon, burnt black by the conjured flame of Okor’s hatred, wrapped around the spindly throat of the aspiring arch-demon, lifting them from their prone position, a wet snap heralding the severing of the trapped leg, ebon ichor flowing from the wound.

The cavern wall shivered as the maimed mad god was pressed against it, the burning eye of Okor glaring into their glazed orbs, consuming the entirety of their attention. Even the long-rotten eyes of the Flesh’s host were tinged by fear, the limbo-bound corpse in front of them promising a torment that would reach beyond the petty boundaries of life and death.

”But you’re in luck today, whelp. For displaying the… arrogance to assume yourself above me, I shall show you what it is like to burn.”

A withered tongue flapped within an atrophied jaw, broken teeth babbling through rivers of blood for mercy. ”Anything… You want…”

”I want your skull, pathetic wretch.”

A cry of despair was cut off as claws pierced its skin, sliding through flesh as they wrapped themselves around a rib, wrenching it from its rightful place in a spray of vitae. With a vicious thrust, the bone was driven through a sunken eye socket, plunging the ivory blade into the diseased brain

His talons dug into the cranium of the carcass, determined to deny it any semblance of rest. Flesh strained and ripped under the pressure applied by the Ancient Warrior, performing motions perfected after centuries of being none too picky where the next meal came from. With a final surge of strength, the spinal cord came free, proving that despite appearances, the Ascended did possess a backbone. A similar show of brutality tore the diseased core from its torso, strands of corrupted flesh falling from the parasitic power as it was extracted. It took only the destruction of a few teeth to ram the orb into the jaw, infested ivory serving as the receptacle of absolute power.

His corroded gauntlet closed around the vertebrae of unholy flail, the strength promised by every scarred bone enveloping his senses. At this point, it was nothing more than himself, a Daemon-bone weapon forged of ten millennia of malice, and last he checked, a wounded secondary and a false-man.

Hells, he’d had worse Odds.

He pulped the dying abominations under his feet, each step casually defiling the unlife that had enfolded them as he made his way back to start of his slaughter.

”Fiara! Marcus! Report!”