I would like to say that I had a plan as I charged the freshly summoned Daemon Prince of Nurgle head-on. I would like to say that I had a cunning scheme in mind, some grand stratagem to leverage the strengths and skills of the powerful allies I had brought with me into this deathtrap in order to seize victory from what was, to all appearances, a rather terrible situation.

I would like to say that, but it would be a lie. The truth was, as Hash'ak'gik rose up in all his awful glory, I kept running towards him because I was too terrified that, if I stopped, I wouldn't be able to start moving again, and Hash'ak'gik would simply cut me down where I stood. Whereas, by engaging him now, I might have a small, infinitesimal chance of managing to change my seemingly inevitable demise.

Usually, a Daemon Prince would grow weaker the longer they stayed in the Materium, like any daemon once it left the Warp. It was one of the reasons for which Emeli couldn't pop up on Slawkenberg whenever she pleased, so I was familiar with (and very grateful for) the concept.

But Hash'ak'gik had plotted his manifestation for a long time, and wasn't going to simply pop up on Cassandron for a quick chat with his followers before being dragged back into the Warp. The Brood of Nergal were thinning the Veil across the entire planet, and his arrival had punched a hole right through it, from which the energies of the Empyrean could pour freely as long as he remained on Cassandron.

So, having missed our chance at preventing the manifestation completely (by so short a margin I wanted to scream in frustration and not just in abject terror), and with no way to get off-planet before the minions of Nurgle caught up to me, the next best thing was to take him down here and now, before he could grow even stronger and turn Cassandron into a daemon world.

Which was why, despite every instinct in my body screaming at me to run away even if I'd to hack a path through the bony walls of this dark temple with Liberation's Edge, I was instead running at Hash'ak'gik, hoping against hope that this would somehow end in a repeat of the confrontation with Gurug'ath in Skitterfall, instead of what had happened to the minions of the Giorba who had had the misfortune of barging in during Emeli's ascension to daemonhood on Slawkenberg.

Although most of them had been consumed to create the Thrice-Damned's enormous body, some of the Broodspawns yet remained. They were utterly unconcerned by the fact that their vaunted prophet had devoured their kindred, and because they'd surrounded the altar prior to the summoning, that meant I had to punch through the thin cordon of them that still stood in my way.

They hurled themselves at the Liberator Armor, shrieking wordless oaths of devotion to their foul divinity, but they might as well have been throwing rocks for all the good it did. The Liberator Armor was a true masterwork of the borgs, and I didn't slow down as I crushed or cut them down with my blade, not even feeling the impact of their rotten bodies as momentum carried me through.

Any sense of victory was swiftly crushed, however, since getting past them merely meant I was closer to the real threat. Hash'ak'gik sneered down at me as I rushed through the final meters between us, a third eye slowly opening on his forehead, pushing aside an eyelid made of congealed blood.

"Ciaphas," he began, using my first name in what was probably an attempt to get under my skin. Good luck with that : I'd heard it spoken by Emeli far too many times to worry about it now. "As I expected, you're right on time to witness my ascension –"

I didn't let him finish, and swung Liberation's Edge at him. The dark matter blade (which the borgs still hadn't come any closer to replicating after over a decade of studying it, much to their disappointment) cut right through the skin of his left wrist, causing a stream of black ichor to erupt. But he was so large that the injury was little more than a nick, and to my dismay, it started scabbing over immediately, leaving behind a scar that, while it looked infected with enough pathogens to kill a grown man ten times over, didn't appear to hinder the Daemon Prince whatsoever.

Brilliant. I could only hope that healing the cut had depleted his stores of Warp energy somewhat, but I'd a sinking suspicion that nothing less than a decisive blow would truly harm him – and, given his size, that was a daunting proposition.

Hash'ak'gik screamed in outrage at my audacity, and before I could blink, his right arm was moving toward me, holding a giant club made of rotten wood and rusted nails he'd pulled out of nowhere.

I leapt, keeping the blow from punching my head off. I really wished I could've kept my flesh-and-blood body inside the belly of the armor, where it would be safest, but I needed to look out of the helmet's eye-lenses to be able to see the Broodspawns, instead of using the armor's elaborate sensor array and internal display – especially since for all I knew, Hash'ak'gik had kept the Vampires' ability to avoid detection by any form of technology : it seemed like the kind of cheap move Nurgle would encourage. So I'd kept the armor in the same configuration in which I'd fought in the underhive of Primus, meaning that the helmet actually contained my fragile skull now.

Unfortunately, while my powered jump undeniably saved my life, it didn't completely clear the blow, which took the Liberator Armor in the side with enough strength to send it flying across the vast open space and crashing onto the ground.

Without the many layers of protections around me, I would have been dead on the spot, reduced to soup inside my armor. As it was, I felt several of my ribs break, but the pain was immediately quietened as the Panacea auto-injectors went to work.

I hissed between clenched teeth (no matter how much Panacea was in my system, the feeling of bones knitting themselves back into place could never be made comfortable) and forced the Liberator Armor into a roll, briefly turning off Liberation's Edge before I cut myself to pieces with it by accident. I eventually came to a stop some forty meters away from where I'd previously been, and rose to my feet, immediately igniting my blade again.

My vision was blocked by the cloud of bone dust my fall had created, but it suddenly parted, pushed aside by an unexpected air current. I looked up, and saw Hash'ak'gik stalking toward me far faster than anything that size ought to be able to move, dragging his club behind him, murder in his infernally burning eyes. Judging by the fell-colored steam that was pouring out of his nostrils, I'd found the source of the wind which had cleared my sight just so I could see death come for me.

Well, frak, I thought. But before panic could completely seize me, something smashed into the side of Hash'ak'gik's skull, sending him reeling into an undignified tumble that crushed several of the surviving Broodspawns under his monstrous bulk. In the brief moment of impact, I saw Akivasha, flying through the air and punching the immense Daemon Prince with her bare fists.

Crazy people. I was surrounded by crazy people.

Vlad had never seen his Maker fight in the fullness of her power. The only time she'd needed to while he was alive had been during the Thrice-Damned's first rise, and back then, Vlad had been kept well away from the fight, along with every human soldier. Lady Akivasha had spent most of the millennia since slumbering, but even when she'd been awake, there had been none foolish enough to challenge her, and casual demonstrations of her immense might were all that was required to keep her lessers in line.

Now, however, the Paragon was holding nothing back. She was completely focused on Hash'ak'gik, ignoring the Broodspawns as she flew around the Daemon Prince.

The whole thing was a combination of Talents, pushed to their maximum, in a way only a Paragon could manage. Akivasha was flying using her telekinesis, boosting her reflexes using Quickening so she could manage the incredible speeds at which she was moving, while boosting her physical strength with Puissance and, if Vlad's guess was right, further amplifying her punches with Haematurgy by moving the blood that was still in her arms.

Any single mortal enemy would have been obliterated by such a combination instantly. But Hash'ak'gik was no mere mortal.

"Do you really think you can defeat me, Akivasha ?!" roared the Thrice-Damned. "You, a mere consort, who was only Turned because of your beauty ?"

"Strong words coming from you, Thrice-Damned," retorted the Paragon, dodging the Daemon Prince's return strike. "At least I wasn't Turned because my sibling took pity on me."

Hash'ak'gik's reply was an anger-filled shriek. As if in answer, the air ripped apart, creating dozens of openings into a realm Vlad's senses perceived only as a perfect, infinite blackness, and daemons began to emerge. Most were akin to the footsoldiers they'd faced in the underhive, but there were other types as well : enormous flies, huge slug-like tentacled things, and swarms of foot-high cackling fiends, which charged the party along the surviving Broodspawns.

Vlad chuckled. And to think, he had been worried he wouldn't have anything to contribute to such a clash of titans.

Wielding his power sword in a two-handed grip, a war-cry which hadn't been used by anyone living in centuries on his lips, the Volkihar Regent waded into the melee.

Hektor and Suture fought back-to-back once more, falling into the easy coordination that was ingrained into every Space Marine, regardless of bloodline or allegiance. Together, they formed a whirlwind of death as they tore through the remaining Broodspawns, keeping them from swarming their more fragile allies, before punching into the newly-arrived daemons.

Hektor wielded his great chainaxe two-handed, while Suture held a chainsword in one hand and a bolt pistol in the other – the standard equipment of an Astartes for ten thousand years, both weapons clearly having gone through as many cycles of damage and repair as their wielder, with their origins equally impossible to identify.

Despite everything – the entire planet at risk, the Daemon Prince's summoning, how, even after the mass sacrifice, they were still morbidly outnumbered – Hektor couldn't help but smile under his void-sealed helmet.

It had been so long since the World Eater had fought with a brother at his side. Working with the Unified Slawkenberg Army had reminded him of the brotherhood the Twelfth Legion had lost when it had succumbed to the Nails, but despite all their martial excellence, the USA troopers couldn't match a true Space Marine.

Still, there was something strange about this. Every Space Marine's fighting style bore the mark of his initial training : a Dark Angel fought very differently from a Space Wolf or a Thousand Son, and the thin-blooded Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes fought very differently from the old Legions, due to being meant to prop up a failing Imperium instead of pushing its borders forward in glorious conquest. But there was nothing in the way Suture fought that gave Hektor any clue as to the other warrior's past, which could mean one of two things : either this was a deliberate effort to obfuscate his origins, or he'd once belonged to a Chapter Hektor had never even heard of.

Oh, well. Cain trusted Van Yastobaal enough to bring her with him on this little hunting expedition, and the Rogue Trader obviously trusted Suture with her very life. Hektor would leave the mystery of his cousin's origins for those better suited to such investigative work : he'd never been an intellectual sort, even before the Nails had been pounded into his skull.

For now, there was plenty of enemies to kill, and more coming through the Warp portals. If not for the Daemon Prince and the risk of doom to the entire world, this would be as close to paradise as the World Eater was ever going to get.

"Blood for the Blood God !" he roared, ripping a Beast of Nurgle in two. "Skulls for the Skull Throne !"

And let the fires of Liberation spread across the galaxy entire, he added silently.

Jurgen had trained during the last seven years since he'd last faced a greater daemon of Nurgle at the Liberator's side. As the aide to Slawkenberg's supreme ruler and assistant caretaker to young miss Zerayah, his duties didn't leave him much in the way of free time, but he'd still spent many hours sharpening his psychic talents, with the help of the magi of Tzeentch and Slaanesh both.

Despite the birth of many psykers in the years since the Uprising, Jurgen was still the most powerful psyker in the Protectorate, at least in terms of raw power. He wasn't a man much given to pride, but there was a certain satisfaction in the knowledge that he possessed qualities that made him uniquely suited to stand at the Liberator's side.

But against the might of Hash'ak'gik, that power meant very little. He tried to hurl bolts of Warp-energy at the Daemon Prince, but they fizzled in the air before hitting him, dissipated into nothing by his greater influence over the Empyrean. He wasn't even distracting it from Lady Akivasha's own efforts – which, truth be told, weren't doing any lasting damage, regardless of how impressive they looked.

He was considering running through the battlefield to where the Liberator Armor had fallen when a hand fell on his armored shoulder, and he turned to see Areelu Van Yastobaal looking at him with a focused expression on her face.

"Listen to me carefully," said the Rogue Trader. "I think I can perform a ritual of banishment, and if we work together, we can make it powerful enough to affect even a Daemon Prince."

Well, that was more than Jurgen was achieving on his own.

"What do you need me to do ?" he asked.

She thrust her staff between them. This close, Jurgen could feel the power of the object, as well as the ancient, alien sentience dwelling within, subjugated to Van Yastobaal's will but ever waiting for its chance to break free.

"Hold this with me," she instructed him, "and when I give you the order, channel as much power through it as you can. Oh, and if it talks to you, don't listen to it."

"Alright, ma'am," replied Jurgen, nonplussed. He'd already heard that sort of warning plenty of times before when working with the magi of the Liberation Council, although he had a feeling Lady Van Yastobaal's gear was of a much higher quality and danger level than anything they'd been able to obtain on Slawkenberg.

Surrounded by death and Decay, Malicia Mortalyss danced as she had never danced before. She had discarded her ranged weaponry due to the press of the melee, and mutants and daemons alike fell to her blade and whip, while none of their pathetic blows landed on her person.

She felt the brand of Slaanesh on her chest burn with heat as it kept her safe from the unnatural sicknesses and contagions of her foes, that she might continue fighting alongside Cain. Emeli wouldn't let her die from something as mundane as a plague, even one brewed in the Rotten One's own cauldron – not while her beloved Ciaphas still might need her help.

Although she would never admit so out loud, the Vampires made Malicia nervous. Not because they were mutants : Commoragh was full of horrors spawned by the Haemonculi, from the Scourges to the Grotesques, and the countless other creations of the Drukhari surgeons' demented minds. No, it was their power which unsettled Malicia. The bloodlines of the Covens, the different Talents and how they grew with time, their immunity to being detected by technology – it all spoke of a deliberate design. And that design had to have a purpose. Akivasha's brief exchange with Hash'ak'gik had all but confirmed it.

But what was that purpose ? Weapons seemed the most obvious choice, but what enemy could require the creation of the Vampires ? Malicia was no scholar, and her people had little interest in the affairs of the mon-keigh in any case. Even the infamous Heresy of their mightiest warlord, which had sundered their upstart empire and doomed it to a slow, painful demise, was barely a footnote in the histories of the Dark City : the past of Cassandron (since it seemed the Covens hadn't spread beyond it) wouldn't even register.

Which was a shame, because she was certain the arenas of Commoragh would have paid a fortune for Vampire fighters. Even in the Dark City, lair of a thousand Kabals and a million times that number of hardened killers, sights like Akivasha flying around the colossal Daemon prince and punching him with her gloved hands were very rare. Surely, even the Queen of Knives would find her a worthy opponent.

And then, right as that thought crossed Malicia's mind, she saw Hash'ak'gik cast some kind of spell from his left hand, which stopped the Ancient in place. It only lasted for a moment, but that was enough for the enormous club the Daemon Prince was wielding in his other hand to connect, and Akivasha was hurled to the ground.

"No more flying around," Hash'ak'gik laughed, walking ponderously to where his opponent had fallen and was struggling to get back up, her regeneration straining to overcome the damage. "Now, you wretched courtesan. Time to break; time to scream; time to die !"

Malicia evaluated her options. Her odds of breaking through the press of the melee and getting to Akivasha before the Daemon Prince were good, but she didn't think there was much she could do even if she managed it. She could carry Akivasha, but that would make her much slower, and she didn't think she could buy enough time for the Ancient to recover. But if she died, then they would lose the one combatant who had managed to even keep up with Hash'ak'gik so far, and –

"NO !" roared Hash'ak'gik suddenly, turning away from the down form of his old enemy. "I will not be denied again !"

Surprised – but not enough not to sever the heads of three more Plaguebearers and kick the eyes of an enormous fly-thing with enough strength to make them burst – Malicia looked in the direction Hash'ak'gik was moving, and saw that the Daemon Prince had started running toward Jurgen and the Rogue Trader witch, who were holding Van Yastobaal's staff together.

There was nothing she could do, Malicia realized. She was too far to intervene, and Hash'ak'gik wasn't moving slowly anymore. A quick glance showed her that the two Astartes and Vampires were also otherwise engaged.

And then Cain was there, straight in the Thrice-Damned's path, that scavenged blade of his held defiantly aloft, and Malicia's blood froze at the sight of the mon-keigh she was soul-bound to protect throwing himself into such lethal peril.

As I stood between Hash'ak'gik and where Jurgen and Areelu were doing whatever it was they were doing, I swore I could hear the Emperor laughing at me. But I had no choice : fighting the Daemon Prince regularly clearly wasn't going to work, not with even Akivasha failing to inflict any real damage.

We might be able to eventually wear him down, but all it would take was one mistake, one lucky blow, like what had already happened to Akivasha, and our numbers would go down – and then it would all spiral into a complete defeat. Death was already something I was rightly terrified of under most circumstances, but dying here and now, with the local Empyrean so clearly dominated by Nurgle, wasn't something I wanted to even think about.

So, once again, I was forced to balance the chances of my likely and painful death right now against those of certain, agonizing demise followed by an eternity of torment in the Garden of Nurgle, later.

The Liberator Armor was still functioning, and the Panacea had only needed a few moments to heal the various bruises, broken bones and internal injuries Hash'ak'gik's blow had inflicted upon me. I had been fighting the Daemon Prince's minions, hoping that Akivasha could somehow win – certainly her powers were even more impressive than I'd expected. But that hadn't panned out, and now I was forced into this desperate gambit.

The smart move would have been for Hash'ak'gik to simply ignore me, to just move around or even above me – it would have opened him to a few strikes with Liberation's Edge, but he'd already proven he could take those without issue. So, I needed to do something to make sure he wouldn't do that, and unfortunately, I knew exactly how to draw his attention away from Jurgen and Areelu.

"HASH'AK'GIK !" I bellowed, pushing my armor's vox-speakers to maximum volume and using all of my many years of experience lying to people I was terrified of to keep any of my fear from being audible in my voice. "Face me, you coward ! Face your doom, slave of a false god !"

He should have ignored me and kept going for the other two. It would've been the logical, rational, sane course of action, and if he had done it, he would have won the day.

But if Hash'ak'gik was sane, he would never have turned to Nurgle worship in the first place, and I was betting on the God of Decay's grudge against me overcoming his slave's common sense.

And, much to my resigned horror, it worked. Glaring at me, his three eyes literally glowing with hatred, Hash'ak'gik snarled and struck with his club, all thoughts of Jurgen and Areelu seemingly forgotten. But this time, I was ready for his physics-defying speed. I ducked under the blow, and managed to score another cut with Liberation's Edge on his wrist as the weapon passed over me with enough strength that even my armor stumbled in its wake due to the air displacement alone.

Moving fully on instinct, for to think in this situation would have paralysed me with terror, I stepped closer to the monstrosity, giving him less space to swing his club. Before he could recover his balance, I stabbed my blade into his chest, plunging it almost to the hilt. But what would have been a killing blow on any living creature was only painful to a Daemon Prince.

At least it made sure he was focused on me and ignoring (what I was really hoping was) the real threat, I told myself, though that was poor consolation as I had to jump to the side to avoid being stomped by Hash'ak'gik's free hand as he slammed it down, pulverizing the bones of a hundred poor souls in the process. The mortal remains didn't merely break apart under his punch, however : the corruptive energies which dripped from the daemon's incarnation seeped into them instead, and I watched in horrified fascination as they twitched in a sordid parody of life, assembling to form grotesque, headless centipede-like creatures that crawled on limbs made of finger bones.

Thankfully, I was promptly distracted from that dreadful sight by Hash'ak'gik's continued attempts to kill me, and was too busy staying alive to think about this latest piece of nightmare fuel. I knew I couldn't keep it up for long, but all I could do was hope whatever the two witches behind me were doing would work, and quickly enough to save my miserable hide.

Areelu had underestimated how powerful Jurgen really was. She didn't think anyone had truly realized the depths of the psychic potential of Cain's aide, except perhaps for the Warmaster himself. The fact Jurgen was casually throwing around the kind of psychic manifestations which would require a focus item of great power for most psykers to even attempt should have been all the hints required, but the way he carried himself and fought with a las-weapon had distracted her.

Now, however, as Jurgen channelled raw Warp energy into her staff, the two of them holding the artefact up together, she was faced with incontrovertible evidence. She wondered whether Jurgen had always been that powerful, or if his proximity to Cain had caused his psychic rating to increase over the years due to the favor of the Dark Gods.

In addition, the flow of power had spiked when Cain had interposed himself between them and Hash'ak'gik, risking his life without hesitation to protect them. Areelu wasn't the kind of woman to swoon, and this was hardly the time for it anyway, but she had to admit the Liberator had impressed her yet again.

Whether Jurgen's sudden increase in, for lack of a better term, psychic output, was due to the added motivation of seeing his lord in danger, or because the Dark Gods themselves had taken notice of the Warmaster's heroism and sought to reward it, Areelu wasn't certain, but it didn't matter right now (although she was going to investigate that question later, because it sounded very interesting either way).

Right now, as the energies within the staff reached critical mass, Areelu cast her mind down mental paths she had carved through her own mind over her decades of following Tzeentch. As she was no born psyker herself, the only way Areelu could manipulate the currents of the Sea of Souls was through rigorous discipline, and by following the metaphysical grooves left in the Empyrean by untold magi before her. One mistake, one misstep, and the powers she sought to wield would destroy her instead. It was a ridiculously dangerous path, only slightly less so than the life of an unbound psyker (since she could stop and step away from the Warp for a time, whereas they were always linked to the Sea of Souls).

Blood dripped from her mouth and nose as she continued the incantation, for all such sorcery was, at its core, an attempt by mortals to impose order on Chaos. As such, it was by nature imperfect, and Areelu's body was paying the price for her temerity.

But this was a path she'd walked willingly in order to save her daughter, and if there was one thing the Rogue Trader had in spades, it was willpower. She had sworn to assist Cain in this battle, and now and always, Areelu Van Yastobaal would keep her promises. So she ignored the pain, knowing that any damage could be healed by the Panacea as soon as this was done – but only if they won.

She spoke the words of banishment, pouring every bit of the gathered power into them. Her mind extended through the staff, and she saw the torn fabric of the Materium where Hash'ak'gik had punched a hole through in order to manifest his essence on Cassandron. She saw, too, how ragged the veil between dimensions had become, not just here, but across the entire planet. Cassandron wasn't a Daemon World yet, but like Harold had warned, it was well on its way to becoming one.

But a gateway could be used both ways, and as Areelu finished her incantation by speaking nine of the names of Tzeentch she had learned during her studies, she turned that simple principle to her advantage.

The many Immaterial rifts through which the daemonic reinforcements Hash'ak'gik had summoned were pouring through suddenly pulsed and fused together, becoming one single, immense Warp portal. Areelu, whose mind had been opened to the secret truths of the universe by her occult studies, caught glimpses of the things that dwelled on the other side – vast, unspeakable shapes in nameless colors, endlessly surging and retreating, pushing against one another in an endless struggle.

As if caught by a gravity well that only affected him, Hash'ak'gik's back end lifted in the air toward the portal.

"NO !" screamed the Thrice-Damned, letting go of his weapon to claw at the bony ground in a desperate attempt to keep himself in place. "NO, NO, NO, NO, NOOOOOOO !"

Taking advantage of his foe's distraction, Cain strode forth, his armor sparking from the damage it had suffered as he somehow single-handedly held the Daemon Prince at bay, and swung his black blade in a horizontal arc that severed Hash'ak'gik's hands at the wrist.

With one final shriek, full of hatred and terror, the Daemon Prince of Nurgle was dragged back into the Empyrean, his incarnated form immediately ripped asunder by the anarchic energies which held sway in that dimension.

"CURSE YOU, CAIN ! I SWEAR YOU –" he howled, right before his head passed through the gateway and dissolved in the kaleidoscope of madness that was visible through the hole in reality.

Without taking a breath to celebrate her and Jurgen's exploit, Areelu immediately began to recite an incantation to seal the portal, but the words turned to ash and died on her tongue, as she saw what now stood on the other side, looming over Cain.

Jon was certain that he was going mad. As he kept fighting, kept smashing monsters with his power hammer, he couldn't help but think him going insane was inevitable.

After all, how could anyone face the horrors he was seeing and not go mad ? The Broodspawns were bad enough, but the daemons – many of which somehow looked even worse than the ones they'd encountered in the Nergalite lair under Hive Primus – were nightmares given form.

Yes, you'd need to be some kind of monster yourself not to go crazy. It was only the thought of Lizbet, of his promise to come back to his wife, which kept Jon fighting instead of freezing in place and being torn to pieces by the horde.

Then Hash'ak'gik was cast down into the hell from which it had come, and the daemons – which, by this point, were all that was left of the enemy, the last Nergalite having been felled some time before – followed suit. They moaned and shrieked as they were swallowed by the rift, and for a moment, Jon dared to hope that this was over.

But as Hash'ak'gik's body dissolved and his essence was dragged back into the Empyrean, another face appeared in the great breach between realms. It was …

It was …

It was huge, larger than a hive-city. It was ugly, in a way even the worst of the Brood and their infernal allies couldn't compare to. It was powerful, more powerful than anything the Vampire had ever seen, heard or dreamt of. It was a nightmare more horrible than what happened on the day of Jon's wedding, except it didn't and would never end, would never relent, would never leave even the hint of a possibility of things getting better.

It was, Jon knew in his heart of hearts, Nergal, and it was smiling. But there was no joy in it, only the pretence of it, a facsimile as false as the immortality promised to those who swore allegiance to it. It was a bitter and hateful thing that enjoyed only the suffering of those it tricked into worshipping it, an endless downward spiral that sought to draw all things into its spiteful embrace.

It was looking at Cain, and in that moment, Jon Skellan had never been grateful for anything more in his entire existence than the fact it wasn't looking at him.

CAIN, the visage of Decay said, and its voice made Jon want to puke, to weep, to start screaming and never, ever stop. Yet the Liberator stood his ground in the face of this horror.

"Nurgle," Cain replied, his voice betraying no fear, no hesitation – only cold wrath and contempt.

It smiled, showing teeth which were the gravestones of worlds :

INEVITABLE, it said, and the word buried itself into Jon's mind like a rusted, filth-covered knife. He fell to his knees, weapons slipping from his fingers – but he couldn't take his gaze away from the horror.

"Liar," declared the Warmaster, and fired his wrist-mounted gun into the face of the horror.

It didn't do anything, of course, but Jon felt that, in this case, the intent behind the gesture mattered more than its effect. And as the visage dissipated with one final bark of laughter, before the tear in reality imploded with a crack of displaced air, Jon thought he could hear a hint of frustration behind the mockery.

Silence fell in the wake of abruptly ended battle. Everyone had fallen down when the manifestation of Nergal had appeared, even the Astartes and Lady Akivasha – everyone but Cain, of course. Slowly, they rose to their feet, shaking off the paralysis that had befallen them when the … the thing had shown itself, and, at least in Jon's case, doing their very best to suppress that memory.

The two unaugmented humans in their group took out Panacea injectors and immediately used them on themselves, as did the two Space Marines, the one in red handing one to the other. A few seconds later, they started moving much more freely, and Jon felt distantly jealous, as his own regeneration was taking a lot more time to repair the various injuries he'd received during the fight – and the resulting thirst wasn't helping, either.

"Harold, this is Cain," Jon heard the Warmaster speak. "Hash'ak'gik has been dealt with. What's the situation on the rest of the planet ? Did it work ?"

Thanks to his enhanced hearing, Jon was able to hear the response :

"We're detecting a steep decrease in Empyric energies planet-wide, my lord. The Broodspawns are still fighting, but their daemonic allies are already starting to discorporate."

"Of course. It'd have been too easy if they'd all just fallen dead the moment the Thrice-Damned was banished." Cain sighed. "We can only hope Emeli is able to save as many of the poor bastards' souls from Nurgle as possible."

Wait, what ? Like everyone else, Jon had assumed the Broodspawns' souls were damned, lost to their foul god forever more. Did Cain really think they could be saved ? And who was this 'Emeli' he was talking about ?

"What about our extraction ?" continued Cain. "I don't think we'll be able to make it to the surface in anything less than a few weeks, and I'm afraid we didn't pack nearly enough rations."

"Help is already on its way, Lord Liberator," assured the magus. "Stay where you are, please."

"That won't be a problem. Thank you, Harold."

"Of course, my lord. If I may, congratulations on your victory."

"It was a team effort, but thanks. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to check on how everyone's doing."

As the group began to gather, having miraculously not lost a single member despite the overwhelming odds they had faced, Jon had many, many questions he burned to ask. But he also had a feeling none of the answers would help him in the short term, and might end up bringing him more trouble than they were worth. So, as he wearily made his way toward his allies, he instead asked the most pressing question on his mind :

"Anyone got any spare blood ? That was thirsty work."

Hash'ak'gik's first realization upon returning to awareness was that he was surrounded by metal in all direction. He blinked, and his second realization was that he now only had two eyes.

He looked down at himself, and froze in horror at the third and most terrible realization. Instead of the mighty, glorious body Nergal had bestowed upon him, he was a barely pubescent human male. He raised a trembling hand to his head, and instead of the great horns that had crowned him as a Prince of the Warp, he felt only soft curls.

"Hello, little Armand," purred a voice that seemed to come from all around him.

"My name is Hash'ak'gik !" he roared, or at least tried to. The voice that came out of his small, frail frame was puny and weak, and he despised it.

"That is the Name that Nurgle bestowed upon you, but it isn't your True Name, is it ? Merely a mask to hide your true nature. Armand. Little Armand, too weak and frail to fight in the war that consumed everything around you. So afraid, he begged the one family he'd left to share the Gift with him, even though he had done nothing to deserve it, only to regret it as the centuries passed and betray everyone you knew and offer up the very sibling who granted your request to Decay."

"How ?! How do you know this ?!"

There had been no witnesses to his actions, apart from those who had become members of the Brood afterward. He had made sure of it, knowing that even his mantle of Regent and his status as brother to the mightiest of the Ruthven Coven's Paragons wouldn't have protected him if his intentions had been discovered.

"All things are possible through the power of love," replied the voice, and there was something in her tone – a hint of an obsession so strong, it went beyond madness and circled back to a terrible form of sanity – that sent shivers down the memory of a mortal spine he now possessed. "It took me quite a lot of work to uncover the truth, but the Ancients of Cassandron still remember you for what you once were, even though they erased all traces of your previous existence, seeking to expunge the shame of your betrayal. I reached into their dreams of blood, and plucked the knowledge from their slumbering minds."

"Who are you ?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"I am Emeli, little Armand, and you are mine to do with as I please."

Emeli. He knew that name, from his time in the Garden. Gurug'ath had named her when he had finally made his way back to Great Nergal's domain after his own defeat at Cain's hands. And then, more recently, she had been the one leading the Legions of Excess against Hash'ak'gik's own daemonic hosts, fighting him in the Empyrean. Her efforts had failed to keep him from manifesting, but now, with his hold on Cassandron broken and his essence freshly cast back into the Sea of Souls, he was weaker than he had ever been.

An unfamiliar emotion, which he eventually recognized as fear, crept on him as he realized just how much trouble he was in.

"I cannot destroy you, much as I want to," there was a sudden surge of blackest anger in the words, before the voice returned to her sweet mockery. "But I can imprison you here for the rest of eternity."

"You cannot do this !" screamed the Thrice-Damned. "Nergal won't allow it !"

"Oh, poor Armand," Emeli laughed. "Haven't you realized already ? Nurgle has abandoned you. You had already failed him once, and the only reason you were elevated to daemonhood was because the God of Decay foresaw that my beloved Ciaphas' path would lead him to Cassandron, and he needed a weapon to aim at his direction. Now that you've failed even in that, the only reason Nurgle would want you freed from my clutches is so that he could punish you himself."

No, she was lying, or just – just wrong. He had served Nergal faithfully ! He'd done everything his god had asked of him, and when he'd failed, he'd done his penance and been forgiven. He would suffer again, yes, as was only right, but then Great Nergal would give him another chance to spread His glory in the Materium.

"Your god had his chance to recover your essence when you were banished," Emeli mercilessly continued, crushing that hope. "Instead, he attempted to scare my beloved – in vain, I might add. That is how important to him you are, little Armand. He discarded you just for a chance to make Ciaphas fear him."

No. No, it couldn't be. Everything he had done to earn Nergal's favor, to escape the miserable stasis of the very body he was now back into … it couldn't have all been for nothing.

"But don't worry. I wouldn't be so cruel as to leave you trapped all alone without company."

The wall in front of him parted, and a monster stepped through, stopping right in front of the disgraced Daemon Prince – not because it wanted to, but because of a silver chain wrapped around its neck which held it in place.

The beast was huge, especially compared to Arm – no, Hash'ak'gik's small stature. It was naked, revealing ivory-white skin and hideous, wiry muscles. Its upper limbs were a pair of black, bat-like wings, while its lower limbs ended in clawed feet, but it was the monster's skull that drew the Thrice-Damned's attention the most. Warped and twisted by bestial hunger it may be, but he still recognized it as that of Mannfred Volkihar, the fool he'd manipulated and used as a sacrifice to bring about his return.

"It turned out a little of Mannfred's soul survived your summoning," gloated Emeli. "Truly, you must admire his resilience, if nothing else. Of course, his intellect didn't survive the process, but when I realized it had come along with your essence due to how your sacrificial ritual intermingled the two, well. I just had to do something with it. Have fun !"

And with that, the presence of the Daemon Princess of Slaanesh vanished, leaving Hash'ak'gik alone with the bestial specter of Mannfred, who stared at the reason for his hideous demise with a hunger that had nothing to do with revenge – and, somehow, that made it worse.

The silver chain started to fade away, and Armand turned and ran, hoping to lose the monster in the labyrinth long enough to figure out a way of escaping this predicament. He didn't find any, for the labyrinth had been built to be as inescapable as the maze of madness in which the Brood of Nergal had been trapped by his betrayal.

And though his rejuvenated body was weak, deprived even of the strength granted to the weakest and most newly-Turned Vampire, he still ran for a long, long time, driven by fear. But eventually Mannfred caught up to him and ripped him to pieces – and, stripped of his Talents and of Nergal's blessings, Armand felt every injury in full. Then he woke up back where he'd started, his spiritual body perfectly healed. For a moment, he merely laid still, until he heard the grunts of Mannfred in the distance, echoing across the twisted corridors, and the hunt started again.

And again. And again. And again …

The thought that Mannfred would be horrified by his transformation was a poor comfort to the being who had betrayed his Coven to the God of Decay in order to escape his eternally immature body. But then, Emeli hadn't intended to offer any comfort to one who'd come so close to truly harming her beloved Ciaphas.

AN : This chapter was brought to you earlier than anticipated by the announcement of Soul Reaver's remaster, which I saw as a sign of the Muse.

As I said in the last Darth Cain chapter, action scenes aren't exactly my forte, but I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and look forward to your thoughts and advice on how to improve. And yes, Mannfred's transformation is basically a Vargheist from Warhammer Fantasy / Age of Sigmar. It seemed only fitting, and I really like the design of these monsters for some reason.

Next chapter will wrap up the Cassandron mini-arc, which, as someone on the SB thread reminded me, is only a sidequest in the greater Torredon Arc. But then, Cain wanting to ignore the main quest to go on a seemingly safe sidequest that ends up being absurdly dangerous is very in-character for him. That chapter will also contain bits of the lore of the Covens I made up - like the list of the Covens, their respective Talents, and what those are capable of. The origin of the Vampires, which was teased at in Malicia's POV, will be something to explore further in the story.

The next chapters of AYGWM and DCRSL should be finished soon, but I make no promises. I have finally gone back to playing Baldur's Gate 3, and it is consuming my free time at an alarming rate.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Zahariel out.