Malkath existed and that's all there was to it.
He existed. He ate souls of mortals to add onto his own.
His name might hold meaning or it might not. Malkath was not one to think on such things. All he knew is that it was his name since consciousness came to him.
Malkath had just finished assimilating the soul of a mortal psyker. They thought themselves smart, Malkath thought on the Pysker's plan. Trying to lure him, a Greater Daemon in with a sacrifice so that they may catch and use him.
Too bad for the Pysker. He had their soul alongside the sacrifice. A two for one meal.
It was then, in the far distance or not very far distance(4 light years - Real Space) that Malkath spotted something. It was so small that any Daemon would pass it by without thought. But he felt it. The purity within it. A pure soul ripe for the taking!
Malkath shot off from where he existed(?) in the immaterium.
It was as Malkath got closer that he noticed some details. The soul was deep underneath the planet's crust. He knew not why a pure soul would exist so far below the planet's surface. He also noticed that in his journey to the soul, he saw not a single other daemon. That was weird, but not too weird. Malkath always had better senses. Always could sniff out the best souls to eat. This was the same.
After devouring the soul, he'd become the strongest Greater Daemon and it was all that mattered right now.
Malkath arrived at the planet's shadow in the Warp.
He looked around at his surroundings(?) and noticed the clear lack of Daemon presence, no there was one. A sorcerer and pet daemons. They matter not, he thought. Ants and one does not hunt for (warp)ants when there was (warp)elephant. Malkath also noticed another detail. The planet was unusually quiet. He could see the souls, but they were just...quiet.
An oddity to study later, he thought.
With a savage grin, Malkath fell into the planet's shadow towards the Pure Soul and pure it was. As he fell deeper into the planet's shadow, he noticed more details about it. A day old, but the purity. It was like nothing Malkath had ever seen before. It rivaled the Chaos gods in its purity.
Malkath reached the soul, his grin even wider. With a raised claw, he prodded at the soul as he moved around it, looking for the best place to bite.
1st prod...2nd prod...3rd prod..
The soul disappeared.
Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong Something is wrong
It was like a veil was ripped from his eyes.. One moment, everything was normal and the next, it wasn't. The Planet's shadow in the warp disappeared and in its place, a wound on reality appeared. One moment, he was free, the other, he was not. Around him and even inside his very essence tendrils coiled around him, neutering him.
Around him sat the inert essence of Daemons, Greater and lesser alike. An ocean of corpses.
Just then, a sense of deep dread entered his being. The sense that something has seen him.
Unbidden, images flashed through his mind and with every image, the dread reached deeper inside him. Like a worm crawling to his very core.
Ships of equal and greater might than the Necrons killing their creators.
A spore mutating into something malevolent.
A planet silenced into one unifying voice in a single day.
A war for the survival of everything.
A flood moving through the galaxy, unifying world after world into one single voice.
A choice of ultimate consequence made. Seven rings leaving in their wake a sterlized galaxy.
The last group of images was that of a spore landing on a human within a factory.
Unknown to Malkath, something inside him shifted.
"Child of the warp, you have arrived" came a deep gutteral voice, breaking him out of his trance.
In front of him a serpant...a flower...a rotting corpse. Malkath knew what it was. The images held the answer.
"The Flood..."
The thing laughed. "Flood, a label created by the Forerunners to give voice to their savior. In the end, what I am called is irrelevant. I simply am".
If Malkath still had the capability to feel dread or fear, he would have probably tried to free himself at this point. In the end, all he could do is ask.
"What do you intend to do?"
"Save the universe from itself. You, Malkath the Beheader, shall start the flood"
Malkath tuned out the moment it said his name, he just didn't understand. He was Malkath. Beheader wasn't his second name...
...Why didn't he have a second name.
"What happened to me"
Malkath The Beheader no longer existed. Only their empty shell.
It began slowly at first. The corpses of other Daemons would slowly float over to what remained of Malkath and merge with the shell.
First it was 10 that merged at once.
After that, 100.
Then came 10,000.
Every dead Daemon merged together to form a blob of concentrated soul. On the outside, it looked like a delectable meal to any Daemon.
Any who took a bite would soon learn what they ate and never come to regret it.
With the firing of a synapse, the Soul Pod was teleported back into the Warp.
"Feast, children of the warp. Feast and reap what you've sown.
My second attempt at writing something. Quality not guaranteed.