Well, as you may have noticed, this story is a literary experiment in having an evil protagonist and my practices of Lovecraftian horror.
This Chapter 12 is a particular experiment in the Lovecraftian horror writing. I hope you enjoy it!
Oh, and Arthur might get himself a nice new ship! Heh!
Chapter 11
Milky Way Galaxy
Ultima Segmentum
Maelstrom Zone
Magog Cluster – Rook System
2nd Anniversary of El Sokauron's Invasion
Screams.
Screams were everywhere. Screams of pain and screams of fear from 55,555 people could have shattered glass and bone had they been long enough and loud enough.
They were cut short and overwhelmed by even greater noise.
The rift of Warp was far greater than mere 55,555 people could possible contend. Thousands were instantly obliterated as their bodies were torn to pieces by the entropy of the Warp, and thousands were horribly mutated to their deaths as their bodies could no longer contain the incredible energy poured into them.
Tens of thousands screams as the Warp-taint wind swarmed over them like tiny blades of poison. Everywhere the blades of wind had touched became different. A light cut on the festered into green pus-covered cancer that turned the hand into a large flesh club with protruding bones. A nick from that Warp wind suddenly turned a woman's hair into blue fire and she screamed as the unquenchable flames burned her mind. The wind turned a man into a hideous mix between a man and a Bloodletter, only to find itself right next to a little girl that suddenly had thirty six arms of claws and pale purple skin of a Daemonette. The two fought and killed each other.
Others who were not swallowed up or killed had fled, but found themselves unable to pierce the powerful barrier that Arthur had set up. Arthur ignored those who fled for the moment. They could not escape, and it was a matter of time. The real challenge was those affected by the Warp. Most would die, but some would turn into Chaos Spawns, and though they would be weak compared to a Chaos Marine turned Spawn, but they would at least put up some fight.
Even as the people were turned inside out and upside down, Arthur was merely pleased. He had properly settled into the rightful mindset of a Chaos Lord. He walked into that hell with his Heavy-Flamer and Assault Cannon on full.
Assault Cannon whirled into life and then began to rend the flesh of all those inside the arc of the fire, while the Heavy-Flamer scorched everything. Screams got louder now, and a child-turned-Chaos Spawn that dared to lunge at Arthur was instantly set on fire and pushed back by the force of Arthur's willpower manifesting as a psychic barrier around him.
The Empyrean Abyss began to subside and the survivors moaned, if only for a second. Where nearly five thousand people had just died, several hundred hulking forms rose among the bloody field of body pieces. Then they were pierced by the endless stream of bullets from the Assault Cannon. With each kill, with each murder, Arthur's psychic power became stronger still. Now, his own mind was dominating the Warp around him, and instead of the multitude of colors and currents, there was only his will. Only the dark indigo of fear and vortex-like swirl of despair were seen in the Warp around Arthur.
Chaos Spawns instinctively fled from this might. Arthur chased them down, only partially aware of the dark indigo flames that sprang up from his footsteps. One by one, Chaos Spawns were hunted down and ended, and with each kill, the dark flames only got stronger. They fed on the fear and despair and horror and all the terrible emotions and the flames burned through blood, flesh and the Warp. The fear began to to taint the Warp, and then swept up by the unfathomable currents of the Warp, they merely added a shade in the color of the Warp.
Once he was done with the Chaos Spawns, he now looked at hundreds of groups that huddled around strong young men. They stood as if they would protect the women and children, but as Arthur took further steps toward them, their courage failed and fear took them. They thought to flee, but they could not.
"Chains of Tormet!"
Another sorcery was cast, and a statue of Morghastur, the beast-form of Arthur's psyche, came up from the Warp and from it shot out hundreds of thousands of chains no thicker than a man's fingers. But these chains were full of thorns and made from the dark flames of fear. Unlike the Chains of Torment cast by pure Tzeentchian sorcerers, Arthur's sorcery was already affected by his identity as a new demi-god. With more sacrifices, he was getting closer and closer to becoming a Warp God, and though it was still long time away, the actions and sacrifices of past two years had strengthened that part of him.
The chains pierced the flesh and bone, and they wrapped around a group of people. Arthur turned to another group, abandoning the group he was just chasing after. Then the chains squeezed. Like jellies, their bodies were torn into hundreds of pieces.
"Doombolt!"
A torrent of Doombolts, exactly five groups of five, exploded out from a point in front of Arthur. They exploded all over, and another group of slaves were ended. Even as the number of slaves began to dwindle, the fuel of the Heavy-Flamer was spent. The Chaos Lord discarded his weapon to the ground and unlocked his 'Fear of All' from his belt. The Storm Bolter growled as if it was sentient and was glad to be killing things. The Storm Bolter and the Assault Cannon continued to kill the humans until the Assault Cannon was discarded also. Then Arthur took out the 'Fang of Tribulation'.
The Fang of Tribulation did not glow as such. Instead it emitted a sort of radiance, but instead of pink, purple, blue or such noticeable light, it emitted indigo so dark it might as well be black. In fact, it looked as if it was devouring the light around the blade. Yet, the sword had no problem killing anything. Even as it moved, its dark flames scored those around the intended victim.
The sun began to set, and the number of slaves dwindled to less than two thousand. Arthur had cast so many spells, as if practicing them against live targets, and he had practiced every swordplay remembered by Kha'lath and Varhir. His Storm Bolter was originally spraying their ammunition, but by the time dusk began to set, Arthur was a fantastic marksman with it.
"How many remains?"
He spoke into the vox, and the Terrorhost Primus answered quickly after looked at a counter held in the hands of a Chaos Techmarine.
-One thousand eight hundred sixty six, my lord. Shall I order your men to round up these creatures?-
"No. I must personally slaughter them. I will just adjust the field."
With that word, the barrier surrounding the crater began to shrink, and people were driven to a smaller area about half way into the crater, just within the limits of the giant pentagram of golden wire that hung above them. They screamed, of course, but they were mostly smothered by the sheer amount of gore that was swept up by the shrinking field.
Arthur was in the center of the pentagram, his eyes watching as the outer sections of the crater was made clean by his barrier. All the gore had to be contained within the pentagram for his ritual sacrifice to succeed. Now, the remaining slaves were within his grasp and all corralled in an area about six times the size of football fields.
"Time to end this, my slaves."
Suddenly, the golden wires of the pentagram flared to life and emitted intense shriek and indigo flames. The energies of the Warp cracked around the five towers of charred iron and those trapped within the pentagram could no longer scream as their voices were silenced by a sense of dreadful terror and horror at the same time. Then they began to scream once more as their eyes witnessed truly abyssal horror. More than one slave blinded themselves by tearing out their own eyeballs, while others bit their tongue, hoping to escape the horror by death. Some with less er minds went insane at the sight, and some with stronger minds closed their eyes and whispered prayers to the God Emperor of Mankind, the only sane thing that they could rely on.
To give true account of what had happened Arthur would drive man mad, but then again, it is fortunate that the languages of man are such that even with the most zealous efforts of master poets could not truly describe the reality of such horror.
The Terminator Armor began to fuse with Arthur's flesh. The gloves began to melt into his growing hands, and bones protruded from the armor without cracking the shells. The Storm Bolter 'Fear of All' disappeared in a whiff of Warp along with the 'Fang of Tribulation'. Indeed, their master needed not such crude and human weapon. Their master, the formerly human Arthur Martin, newly remade as the Lord El Sokauron the Moghastur, the incarnate of Diablo, the new Chaos God of Terror, Despair and Horror, was evolving into something far greater and far fouler than anything in existence.
The size of the man-creature began to grow, and all laws of physics dissipated as the Terminator Armor was absorbed into the creature, leaving only the lightest of vestiges. The fingers were long and with five joints not including the joints linking the fingers to the hand that now looked like a giant flat oval disk of living flame. The fingers themselves were like metallic skin stretched tightly over the bones, and each of the five knuckled had a sharp horn coming out from it. The tips of the fingers had claw like the beaks of eagles. While the palm was flat and was like a mirror wreathed in fire, the back of the hand had grown short stubby tentacles whose ends were made of fang-filled mouths that opened up five ways.
The arms was lengthened, and was lithe. No longer was the heavy muscles of a Chaos Marine, but in their stead, hundreds of thick indigo tentacles of muscle-like texture that writhed within the clear membrane that seemed to have glimmers of crystal. The arms were also with five joints, including the wrist and elbow and the shoulder, and each join could fold in every direction, giving a sense of tentacles in the arms. Yet, these were only primary arms. Much like the Moghastur creature dreamed up by Arthur's deranged mind, it had an extra set of arms, located a little way below its primary set of arms. It was more human like, except for the fact that the arm ended in a stub with five sharp talons. There were no fingers but five sharp talons with a gaping maw that lashed out with horrible tongue that split five ways.
Its torso also held much horror in its formation. It had two slabs of massive rib that seemed to be made of a single bone with four oval gaps filled with flesh covered in living scales that writhed with each breathe that the creature took. Below the ribs were the human-like rib-bones but opened outward, and inside was a giant organ to had five eyes of toads, three noses of lion, two mouths located above and below its eyes and noses. The organ was surrounded twenty-five massive tentacles that ended with five talons that dripped in yellow acid.
Below the open belly and the organ-creature was the hips of the creature, but it had no legs. Its strange triple-spines met against a flat disk-like hipbone from which protruded five thick and enormous tentacles like that of an octopus, but what octopus had boney horns growing out of its every sucker and its skin covered in thick black carapace that oozed bright green slime? At the ends of these five gigantic tentacles were split into five smaller tentacles, each sheathed in charred wrought iron that formed wicked hooks.
On the creature's back were two pairs of wings, both boney like that of Morghastur, but instead being made of bones, they looked like legs of giant spiders, with all the hairy formation. However, the hundreds of hairs on the wing-bones had a burning lidless eye, as small as a human eyeball, and crackling with psychic power that formed a net of lightning that covered the area between the wing-bones, forming wings of indigo lightning.
Despite all its horrible and mind-shattering form, its head and its face was relatively 'normal'. It had a long neck, made up of five separate necks of dragons that merged at the head. The head itself was like a giant balling ball in shape covered in thousands of hair that looked suspiciously like the human spines ripped from its body, but still writhing thanks to bits of red muscle wrapped around the white bones. On the of its head were something akin to a tree in its form but of dark red color and its branches were ended with claws like those of crabs and scorpions. Around the base of this tree-thing were five massive horns that stood like a crown. On its face, the creature had the five eyes like that of Morghasture, each with lidless eye inside that burned in crimson and indigo. Its nose was like that of a tiger, with whiskers that seemed to be made of a chain of skulls fused together on their sides with the jaws continually crackling their screams. The mouth was split in five sections, each filled with fangs and clear, jelly-like tentacles just behind the rows of fangs.
It took a full minute for Arthur to transform into the hideous, foul, unnatural and horrible creature, and for a full minute, it stayed in that form, and in that minute every one of the surviving slaves in that arena died. They either killed themselves or went insane and ran headlong into the iron pillars. The others were not so fortunate. A dark indigo fire burned from within their minds, and it was so intense that they despaired, and their despair and fear fed the flames until it manifested in reality and melted their eyeballs inside the sockets and teeth crumbled into ashes and from every orifice on their head, flames gushed out.
They screamed, tongueless, and they spoke words so un-human that those standing around the edges of the crater could only here whispers of their insane mumblings.
'Ah-mrao-got-hour!'
'Ahmr-aog-oth-o-ur!'
'Ahm-rao-gotho-ur!"
Some seemed to say 'o-goth' while others spoke 'Ahm-ra', 'ra-o' or 'thgo-ur'. Each syllable was so filled with dread that even the Chaos Marines and Cultists shuddered away from it. It was fortunate that the Chaos Marines and Cultists were quite used to the horrors of the Warp, had they not been so, they could also have been driven insane at the creature. Yet, this was the universe of grimdark, the Warhammer 40K universe, where horrors were common, though not at this level.
Then as suddenly had he turned transformed, the giant form that easily reached ten meters in height had vanished. Only Arthur remained in the spot, and around him a veritable storm of indigo colored smoke that behaved like living things. They were consumed through Arthur's mouth, and his eyes glowed in dark pale shadows.
Now all were dead. All 55,555 slaves had been sacrificed to none but Arthur and his dark purpose. Now, he was filled with souls of so many. His power sundered the heavens and hell below.
When Arthur, as Lord El Sokauron, had returned to the edge of the crater, the Terrorhost Primus and Secondus knelt on the ground and bowed with all their hearts, followed in fashion by the Cultists.
"What is this?"
"You have achieved daemonhood, lord. It is a great feat!"
Arthur growled in displeasure, and the Chaos Marines shrank back.
"That was not a daemonhood. I will need to kill millions more for such feat, but even so, it would not be my ultimate goal. What you saw was nothing but a moment of vanity that blinded my reason. When I am truly the God of Darkest Terror, the God of Utter Despair and the God of Horrors Unending, then I shall take that form so that my creatures, the Morghastur, are but a shadow of my true greatness."
Even so, the Chaos Marines were greatly impressed.
"Yes, my lord El Sokauron."
"Come! We still have much to do."
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Milky Way Galaxy
Ultima Segmentum
Maelstrom Zone
Magog Cluster – Rook System
54 months since El Sokauron's Invasion
"We are here, captain."
"At last! I was about to vent the atmosphere to get rid of that smell."
The Rogue Trader Captain Ludris von Ishbael growled as he scratched the eye patch that hid the gruesome scar over his left eye. His second-in-command, former Imperial Guard Captain and a surly man with impeccable work-ethic, was Vilas Collonel. He was no longer a captain, for he was demoted and then as he spent his time drinking, Ludris picked him up. Since then, they have spent three decades together aboard the Lunar-class Cruiser 'Prayers of Far Away', the flagship of Ishbael Rogue Trader fleet, whereupon Ludris was conceived, born and raised by his father the honorable Admiral Oskal von Ishbael.
The Ishbael dynasty used to be immensely wealthy but lost two fleets to Warp Storms was just bad luck, and they turned to jobs that would pay rather than exploring. Of course, they still explored the outer reaches of the Imperium and looted odd world here and there, but two entire fleets were losses that could not so easily be restored by mere three planets in five decades. Had these discovered worlds been rich with loot, the dynasty may have recovered, but they were not, and even now, the Ishbael clans struggles to maintain their dominion over their homeworld as their mighty ships sail once more into the darkness of the galaxy.
"If you had vented the atmosphere, and our cargo died, then you would not be paid."
Cold and reasonable were the words of Vilas, and Ludris sighed.
"Fine! Prepare to unload these... colonists to the Rook Tertius. Let's get them on the planet's surface and find ourselves a new job. A job that is not ferrying three hundred thousand colonists crammed into every nook and cranny of my ship.
"Yes, Captain."
END OF CHAPTER 11