Chapter 30
Epilogue
The Fifth God
The dark shrouds and multicoloured swirls of gas within the second Eye of Terror were stirring, moving in towards the centre as if driven by some unknown force. The Chaos gods were manifesting themselves in one of only two places that they possibly could, the only place where their amazing energies could appear in solid form. The thousands of colours that made up the warp clouds swirled and mixed together forming incredible patterns.
From the massive wormhole which connected the two eyes together thousands of vessels of different shapes and sizes were arriving, from private cruisers and destroyers belonging to individual champions and sorcerers to massive battleships whose origins dated back as far as the Horus Heresy, perhaps even further back. The sheer mass of the warships seemed to converge into a giant cloud which blocked out the magnificent colours of warpspace and the planet that they were gathering around. The massive silhouette of a battle-barge appeared from the wormhole and immediately the hundreds of ships that were in its path banked away allowing the monstrous battle-barge to pass, they gave it a wide birth, lest they become the victim of the wrath of the battle-barges owner.
Deep within the battle-barge, known and feared throughout the other galaxy as the Planet Killer Chaos Warmaster Abaddon the Despoiler stalked down the daemon infested corridors of his vessel, his pale, horribly scarred face set in a mask of pure, hate filled anger, he was about to begin a new conquest of the Imperium and was preparing to launch his attack when the Chaos gods had summoned him, telling him to report to this new Eye of Terror. He had felt the shockwaves of power which signalled the birth of this new Eye of Terror and the new Chaos god, Shingai.
Personally he revelled in the idea of a new galaxy to conquer, a new galaxy to enslave and shape as the forces of Chaos saw fit, perhaps once they had taken this galaxy they would have the resources and the manpower to overrun Cadia and cut a path of destruction all the way to Terra itself, where he could do what his predecessor could not and finally rid the galaxy of the corpse emperor, he smiled at the thought, showing rows of yellow, blood spattered, filed sharp teeth and laughed, his laughter making several of the nearby daemons back away in fear as their Warmaster passed them by on his way to the hanger.
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Millions of Chaos warriors stood on the obsidian plains of the planet once known as Lwhekk, awaiting the arrival of their dark gods and the revealing of this new god, among the scores of Chaos generals and warlords were a number of Daemons, Greater Daemons, Daemon Princes and Princesses, the mortals around them giving them a wide birth lest they have their life energies removed from their bodies by their cursed weapons and implants. At the front of this large congregation was Abaddon the Despoiler, standing proudly and defiantly with his arms folded across his armoured chest, his own power-sword, Drauch'nyun, sheathed, its blade glowing like a signal beacon in the cloudy darkness of the tainted world.
The wait ended as the dark grey clouds overhead parted and several rays of red light flowed down, striking the obsidian rock of the planets surface, gusts of wind suddenly billowed across the ground, the swirling winds appearing as lines of multicoloured light, the shrill scream of the sudden storm was enough to destroy the mind of any weak minded Chaos servant, still Abbadon remained unmoving, his cloak, made out of the skin of those he had vanquished billowing in the wind, surrounding him like a shadowy shroud.
Five massive thrones suddenly rose from the rock, sucking the life of any warped creature or Chaos servant that was too close to the site, as the thrones took form four of the five Chaos gods appeared, Khorne was the first to appear, his blood covered form shimmering in the red light, next to arrive was Nurgle who appeared as a massive hideous creature, his entire body blistered and infected with every disease known in the universe, next was Tzeench, the Great Schemer, his body was encased in armour similar to that of a Chaos sorcerer but along his exposed skin was the contorted forms of thousands of faces, each one alive and screaming in agony, last to arrive was Slaanesh, she who thirsts, who appeared as an incredibly beautiful woman, dressed in armour that left very little to the imagination, her long flowing hair was the colour of Eldar blood and her skin was a smooth pink, the Chaos warriors averted their eyes when her gaze ran across them for they knew to gaze into those eyes was to lose their free will.
"Abaddon the Despoiler" Khorne bellowed, blood spitting out of his mouth and forming pools on the rock below "Step forward!"
Abaddon did so, his honour guard of Chaos Terminators stepped forward with him, the ground resounding with their united, steel booted step forward, without a moment or a hint of hesitation the Warmaster came down to a knee and hit his arm against his Chaos armoured chest in salute, he then bowed his head.
"Abaddon the Despoiler" Slaanesh said, her voice sending chills of lust up the Warmasters spine "You know why we have called you"
"Yes, you should know" Tzeench added, his entire body enveloped by red static electricity "We are questioning your competence in invading this new galaxy"
"We have given you thirteen chances Despoiler" Nurgle spat, bile and a myriad of poisons dripping down his toothless mouth and from the rotting opening in his throat "And thirteen times you have failed, miserably!"
"I assure you my lords" Abaddon said, his eyes averted from the gazes of the four gods, even then he felt their furious gazes upon him, charring his armour and blistering his skin "That given the chance this galaxy will fall before my armadas, the corpse emperor will follow"
Abaddon the Despoiler
The voice made every one of the millions of Chaos generals and daemons look around for the source, it was a few moments before they realized that nobody spoke, the voice echoed in their minds. A being appeared on the fifth throne, a pair of black feathered wings wrapped around his armoured form, which shinned with thousands of warped colours, his exposed skin was a dead grey, long black hair, dampened by the blood of a thousand souls flowed from his head down past his armoured shoulders, several of the generals looked into the shinning red eyes and fell to the ground, dying of pure fear and horror which stopped their hearts.
I am Shingai, Chaos god of Fear, the fifth, and I question your ability Despoiler
"My lord" Abaddon began, but was cut off as the newly born god brought his blood red gaze upon the Warmaster. He felt tendrils of shadow start to claw at his brain, pushing his mental defences back as if they were paper.
Thirteen times you have tried Despoiler, the others may have infinite patience with you but I do not. One more chance, that's all you get, if you fail then your position as Warmaster will be called into question.
The Warmaster tried to muster a reply, but couldn't, those eyes were filed with such undying hatred and thirst for blood, those eyes screamed a psychic scream of a thousand horrified souls. The screams resounded through his brain until he called all of his will and psychic talent to shut them out, no mortal could take that stare and remain sane.
Go, prepare your armadas, launch your invasion Despoiler, and remember my warning.
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From the safety of the command deck of his star destroyer Admiral Vensis watched in fascination as the multicoloured gases of the eye of terror swirled and clouded together, mixing and reforming to create incredible and near supernatural patterns. His ships had exited hyperspace two hours ago, hovering just over ten thousand kilometres from the outer territories of this sector spanning gas cloud, his ship, specially modified with state of the art scanning equipment continued to scan and map out this strange phenomenon.
Its splendour and power strangely reminded him of a number of similar phenomenon's across the galaxy, including the grouped together black holes of the Maw Cluster, the recently discovered living planet of Zonama Sekot and the supposedly impossible number of life habitable planets of the Corellian system.
"Admiral we have ship signals from within the distortion" his aide reported from the crew pits of the bridge, a full level down.
"Impossible" Vensis said certainly "Recent results confirm that no sane creature could survive within this" he called up a ten meter long hologram of the area of warp-space in front of his fleet, he scanned the expanse and finally saw what his aides saw, the black, spine covered hull of a warship, partly hidden by the swirling warp clouds. He zoomed in on the vessel and saw that the rows of spines were actually alien like weapon emplacements.
"Unknown vessel" he heard his communicator called over the communications system "This is the Galactic Alliance Ship Deliberator, please respond, over"
There was no reply to the message, instead the warship fired up its engines, its nasals glowing with red light as it left the clouds of warp space, the vessel was large, at least 12km in length, bigger than anything that his fleet possessed, the scanners of his ship began to beep and scream as the unknown ship began to power up its weapons.
"Raise shields, power up weapons, full battle alert!"
As his fleet moved into a defensive formation another black ship appeared from the swirling clouds of the anomaly, then another, and another, until at least a dozen ships, ranging from 6km in length to 12km could be clearly seen heading towards his fleet of warships.
"Admiral they are in range"
"Fire"
As one the six capital-ships of his fleet fired in unison with their long range turbolaser batteries, the powerful beams of green light sliced across the dark fabric of space and smashed into the lead ship, the 12km long vessel they saw first, the beams cut into the front of the warship, charring and leaving deep craters in its thick armour, as the vessel got closer the smaller picket ships of the fleet added their own firepower to that of their much bigger cousins, the battleship exploded in several places in its bow, disintegrating its front. As the massive ship began to spiral out of control into the abyss of space the others opened fire with their own weapons, long thick beams of red energy cascaded out of their weapon emplacements, streaming back across the void and hitting the Alliance fleet head on, several picket ships disintegrated under the deadly barrage but the shields of the capital-ships held firm, if only just.
It was then that the Deliberator and her supporting capital-ships launched their first waves of starfighter squadrons, the clouds of X-wings, A-wings and TIE interceptors meet with their enemies equivalents between the two fleets, beginning incredible, fast paced dog-fights, the greater manoeuvrability and speed of the Alliance fighters giving them the advantage against their more powerful counterparts. A massive flash blinded him for a moment and the Admiral turned to see the frontal section of the Galactic Star Destroyer Poisonous explode under several beams of red energy, the front of the warship just started to break apart under the pressure, its shields shattering like a pane of glass.
Gritting his teeth the Arkanian had to grab onto a railing as a wave of explosions rocked his 3km long command ship, weakening the shields of his ship even more, small flashes of light signalled the destruction of his starfighter squadrons, their greater speed and manoeuvrability only lasting for so long under the far superior numbers of their rivals craft, larger flashes showed the destruction of several more escort vessels.
"All ships, turn around" he shouted into the comlink, one on one they could hold their ground but with more warships appearing from the swirls of multicoloured cloud they didn't stand a chance, they would just be overrun "Prepare for an emergency hyperspace jump to Bakura"
Another magnificent flash signalled the death of another of his capital ships, this one a Liberty-class Mon Calamari Star Cruiser, the Corral Lady was next to join its sister-ship in death, its entire portside smoking and cratered and its engine exploding in a blinding flash that took the back half of the ship with it.
Before the admiral could repeat his order to jump he saw several red flashes scattered across his bridge, he didn't see the daemon until it was charging him, he spun around, whipping out his blaster pistol from its holster, he didn't get a chance to squeeze off a shot as it jumped on top of him, using its long claws to tear into his throat, spattering his own blood across the floor.
I may have called this chapter an epilogue but I am not going to turn it into a series of stories, I decided to keep it as one big story after asking a few readers what they think I should do, their answers were to keep It as a single story, so I am. Stay tuned for Episode II of the story, the Chaos Wars.