57th Millennium - Bladed Dragon from the Deep Warp and the Dissolution

The red-armoured superhuman Sorcerer of Thousand Sons strode on the battlefield, inspecting the dying Astartes warriors that had opposed him. Many of them had lethal wounds inflicted by the undead Rubricae automata mind-controlled by Heka, and by their own insane allies turned upon them when they were driven mad by him via his psychic means. Heka began to implement a smaller scale version of the ritual of the Rubric, for he needed new warriors as his Rubric Marines had whittled down from his many encounters with the Deep Warp Daemons.

Meanwhile the small force of the Rubricae milled on the battlefield, with the most ancient Rubricae guards near Heka the Red as his guardians, others prowling on the battlefield, hunting the survivors that would attempt to halt this ritual. Some would be executed, and others would be disarmed. These survivors knew that it didn't matter whether they lived or died, Heka would make use of their souls, binding them to their armour, chained to his will for as long as their armours would endure.

As Heka implemented the ritual, he could smell the fear wafting off of the Astartes through the grills of his helmet and his enhanced hearing could pick out their pleading to the Chaos Abominations, the ones they called Gods, for Heka's dread reputation truly frightened them. Unfortunately for them, their gods were not going to save them from Heka's Rubric ritual. They could not intervene, for it was the Mote of Deep Warp that had seen to that. In it's utterly twisted view, It was a fitting punishment for the warband that nearly killed him, sending it back to Deep Warp, and preventing Heka from proceeding with his plans.

The Shard of Magnus within the Red Sorcerer subtly influenced Heka to keep going for there was no time before the servants of the Dissolution reached them. The Shard watched as Heka struggled with the the impure Mote of Deep Warp, an entity that had been with Heka since his escape from the Deep Warp, paradoxically both continued to tempt Heka the Red with the Primordial Annihilator's offers and beseeching the Red Sorcerer to resist it at the same time, which nearly caused his Rubric ritual to stall due to this constant inner conflict.

After an hour had passed due to the intricate nature of the Rubric Ritual, the souls of the dead Astartes, the dead who faced Heka and fell, and were dragged screaming from the Warp, flooding into the armour they wore in life. What remained of their bodies turned to dust. How ironic that their armour once protected them now imprisoned their souls. The new Rubric Marines rose, as the few surviving Chaos Space Marines looked on in horror, while they lay on the ground, struggling to crawl away but were hindered due to the heartless precise shots from the newly created Rubricae, these unfortunate few screamed as they were turned into the Rubric Marines while alive.

Pragmatically, Heka needed the Rubricae for protection and assets to use when raiding certain places, especially the places infested by Deep Warp for they are not mortals but living armour that can withstand much damage from the monsters of Deep Warp. Heka then looked up, observing the floating husks of the burning Chaos ships, destroyed internally by the maddened crew members.

That had not been easy, as he had to use illusions to deceive the crew members and their Astartes guardians, while his Rubric Marines underneath the disguise of their 'allies' callously murdered every Chaos Space Marines they came across in order to ferment treachery in the ships and at same time influencing just the right minds to erode the foundations of the alliance between the individuals in these warbands in this world. This had taken him some weeks to achieve such feats since this was one of the largest warband of the Eye.

Heka would have easily snapped apart the ships with mere gesture… If most of his power wasn't already tainted by the Deep Warp, thus Heka had to resort to more insidious means. At least the difficult part was done, with his foes lying dead around his feet.

Sensing no more difficult resistance to be found on this world, Heka moved forward with his Rubricae, to the partially excavated xenos temple with the artifact he sensed was emanating a lot of power. To his knowledge, this artifact was an ancient book, written by the xenos hand, possibly the Old Ones, and he had seen this book during his first foray into Deep Warp after the Horus Heresy. This book elicited a sense of dread in Heka's mind as in the wrong hands, it could rapidly speed up the expansion of the Eye of Terror into the rest of the galaxy, and open wide the path for servants of the Deep Warp to directly infect the realspace. To bring the Dissolution closer.

But time was not on his side, Heka could not prevent the psychic death screams of the corrupted mortal worshippers that once followed after this warband which easily travelled within the Eye. Even during the Rubric ritual, Heka could sense several warbands making their way from the edge of this system, investigating the source of the psychic death screams, much larger than the one he had just exterminated.

As Heka consolidated his new Rubric Marines, he sensed a brief shrieking quake in the Eye, spilling forth from the deepest core, where the former capital world of the fallen Eldar Empire lay.

The quake had began. Heka thought nothing of it, for it was a usual quake that echoed in the Warp. Yet unusually quake began to slowly build up, each worlds shuddered in the path of the massed Warp quakes.

As Heka walked up the stairs of the ancient xenos temple, he paused when the vision interrupted him. The unlight flashed, and he saw the portal torn open. Space-time continuum itself around his region within the Eye tore at itself, like oil in a glass container being shaken then suddenly made solid before exploding, with the contents turning to liquid once more.

That portal was giant, and dark. Even at the furthest reaches of the now-expanded Eye could see that unlight flashing impossibly bright, or sensing something dreadful coming from the Deep Warp. Heka knew this was an announcement of sorts from his only enemy that mattered to him. Before he even took another step, he could sense a small pressure from the back of his head which he knew this came from the powerful presence coming out of that portal.

Out of the darkness of the portal, the five fingered dragon claws tore open the portal. The monster lumbered its way through the portal. Heka recoiled in horror at this abomination coming from the Deep Warp. He could hear the maddened hate-songs in every breath. The depthless eyes of the Dragon, size of the largest moons, was filled with hunger, and rage, despite the distance between him and the Deep Warp abomination.

The bladed daemon-dragon tore it's way out of the portal from the Deep Warp into the Eye of Terror, the tainted Eyespace shivered for a brief minute. It's claws gripped the entire worlds, as it spread its incomprehensibly massive wings. It's body could not be perceived on a mortal scales, for the nearest ships. Even Dorn's Phalanx and largest ships of Imperium during the Great Crusade of Man would be naught but tiny gnats compared to its overall size.

Khorne the Blood God, Tzeentch the God of Change, Nurgle the Plague God, Slaanesh the Pleasure God, Valchoct the Maker, former Daemon that ascended to Chaos Godhood and even the Star Father, the shard of Emperor that merged with Star Child, turning into the oppressive Lord of Domination. The Pantheon of the Warp felt fear, even temporarily, at the Dragon of Deep Warp's appearance in their deepest core, for they were reminded of their pact, and yet knowing the Dragon of Deep Warp would do no such damage to their plans and plots, they each returned their attentions to the eternal Great Game as they plotted to take over the whole galaxy at the behest of their barely-known master.

And then the dragon roared in all its hatred and fury spilling, driving the unfortunates nearest the Dragon ever deeper into madness, with the nearest worlds covered in blood and flames.

Heka heard the roar, and his vision ended. He looked toward to the core where the Deep Warp now spilled from, sensing a monstrous presence, almost on the level of the Chaos Abominations. He knew this was going to be a hard time, since the monster in the Deep, had been attempting to kill him in countless ways since Horus Heresy via countless means it employed.

The sentient Mote of Deep Warp then showed Heka more visions of what was occurring within the Eye. Heka began to intone his incantations, using the words of power to form protection around for himself, knowing this abomination was sent for him, for he heard his name called within the roar of the dragon that shook the expanded realms of the Eye of Terror.

The Dragon slowly made its way through the diseased regions of the Eye, as it sought out it's prey. Many worlds in the now-expanded realm of the Eye of Terror held many such bright presences, but only one held his attention.

The inhabitants of the Eye, who were in the Dragon of the Deep Warp's path reacted instantly, even long before the Dragon even came near them. All of them with dread and somehow by instinct, they rushed towards to the Dragon, rather than fleeing from them… although by this point, they all lost their sanity a long time ago.

The blood-covered ships of Khorne in their madness flew many leagues far ahead of Tzeentch's sorcerous fleet in the midst of their arcane rituals, while the lumbering rusting ships of Nurgle slowly made their way, spreading sickness to other worlds in their blighted joy at "sharing" the gifts of their Plague God, while creating a new "gifts" for the massive warp horror, while the debauched Slaaneshi ships followed the ships of Blood God in hopes to extract the substances from the great abomination to experiment with their drugs.

The mechanical void whales of Valchoct The Maker began to launch rows upon rows of the lances in disciplined firing pattern, in a machine-like precision, while the mindless blank ships of Star Father formed a large wall of ships, forming like a giant net to cover the Dragon in order to slow it down, and to dominate it.

Though massive in numbers, they were naught but insects buzzing around the Dragon of Deep Warp whose jaws could swallow entire fleets, claws that could grip entire worlds, it's wings filling the tainted space between the diseased stars within the Eye, their numbers only enough to cover the face of the Dragon, not it's whole body.

The crazed butcher-ships of Khorne rammed head first into the Dragon's hides, shooting hooks into its flesh. The insane Khornate Berzerkers continued howling their praises for the Blood God as they leapt out of the ships, running down the massive chain in their desire to kill the biggest thing they could find, to claim giant skull for the Blood God. To shed the greatest amount of blood.

The elegant pleasure barges of Slaaneshi worshippers sent out their troop transports, with the mindless lunatics, drugged out of their minds to land on the massive Dragon of Deep Warp, and to dig in, in order to pull out any substance that could significantly enhance their pleasure, and they were always hunting for the buzz. And perhaps any advantages to gain over their foes.

Along came the lumbering plague-ships, that simply opened up their ports, and began to spill all the manners of disease and sickness on the massive warp abomination, with the giggling nurglings and the morbid diseased Astartes leaping off the plague-ships, slowly making their way to the Dragon of Deep Warp.

Despite the ships' seeming unity however, the followers of the Pantheon that landed on the Dragon immediately fought each other as much as they attempted to enact their will on Antwyr, the Bladed Dragon whose power had phenomenally increased ever since it passed itself between the owners until it fled into the Eye. Ever since it had fallen way into the Deepest Fundament of Deep Warp.

Meanwhile the ever-shifting formation of sorcerer-ships of Tzeentch cast their rituals and psychic strikes and defenses to weaken and to expose the weak spots. Their chants slowly wafted to the stars, while the Greater Daemons of Tzeentch gathered together to focus constant change on this this monster, and at the same time, they attempted to turn this monster to madness, as mad as they are, somehow utterly unaware that this dragon was the embodiment of all the madness in the universe, in their attempts to subjugate the Dragon for their goals.

The hybrid flesh-mechanical ships of Valcocht the Maker began to move in like sharks going after a large prey, and stalking the Dragon of the Deep Warp, they launched countless volleys of projectiles and psychic energies at that monster. For all their warp-borne might, they were not even putting a dent in the great abomination.

Then the mindless adorant ships of the Star Father began to form the massive wall, with countless chants of the angyls creating a massive wall, in order to trap the massive dragon. They praised and beseeched the uncaring lord of Dominion, gathering energies, for they sought to force the will of Star Father on this beast.

And then in a short time, the fleets stopped fighting each other. However, Antwyr had long-since lost its ability to control others after it's previous encounter with Heka the Red, but in exchange for it, it had became far more powerful since fleeing into Deep Warp. For once, the fleets were working together in tandem without a leader to lead them, without attempting to murder each other out of spite somehow.

Despite all the powers that this combined fleets had at their disposal, that would have even overrun the infamous 41st Millennium Imperium of Man, and would had caused even the powerful deathless armies of the now-awakened Necron empires to pause at this awful strength without their Warp-nullifying Pylons.

The movements of the Dragon of Deep Warp turned aside entire fleets, it's gargantuan jaws opened wide, and then in a impossibly short time snapped them shut, swallowing many souls and greater Daemons at once, leaving naught but few insane stragglers in it's path, they continued their efforts mindlessly, despite no damage was done to that Dragon.

By the time the Dragon reached to Heka the Red just at the edge of the star system, leaving trails of broken ships and shattered bodies, Heka knew the monster was near, feeling the intensity of its depthless stare and its eternal hatred for him, yet he could sense it's twisted sense of kinship for him.