Satoru glanced down at the battlefield below, hands in his pockets, and tilted his head. Smoke and ash billowed in thick, choking clouds, blotting out the sky. Fires raged across the shattered landscape, consuming what was left of tanks, trenches, and makeshift barricades. In the distance, Cursed Spirits of Tzeentch clawed their way through swarms of Orks and Guardsmen, their warped forms writhing like maggots in an open wound. A massive green-skinned brute swung a rusted axe into the chest of a pink, giggling horror, only for three more of the Cursed Spirit's brethren to leap onto its back, dragging it down in a squelch of flesh and ichor.
For a moment, Satoru wondered if maybe – just maybe – he'd overdone it. The sheer scale of destruction, the number of lives snuffed out in mere moments, was enough to give anyone pause.
His lips twitched. The moment passed.
He shifted his weight lazily, glancing at the portal he'd torn open to the Cursed Realm, still spewing endless legions of Tzeentch's horrors into the material world. In truth, he wasn't sure how many people or Orks had died since he started this mess. Hundreds of thousands? Maybe millions? The thought didn't linger long. It didn't matter. They were all just names and faces he'd never know, tied to lives he didn't care about.
Satoru sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. If he really thought about it, he could probably fit every single thing he gave a damn about in this galaxy on a single sheet of paper. And the list wouldn't even fill half of it. His grin faded, just for a second, as his mind wandered. Everything he'd ever truly cared about – his students, his friends, his old world – was long gone, reduced to nothing more than memories. It was an ache buried deep in his chest, one he rarely let himself feel.
The grin returned. He straightened, brushing the thought away like dust from his shoulder. None of it mattered now. This galaxy was a cesspit, full of people who either worshiped uncaring gods or killed in their names. No one here had earned his mercy. No one here deserved it.
The Imperial Guardsmen below scurried like ants in their trenches, desperately firing lasguns at anything that moved. Bright streaks of red light shot into the darkness, but their targets—hulking Orks and chittering daemons—barely flinched. A wave of blue horrors rushed over a line of Guardsmen, tearing into them with needle-like claws. The screams were distant, almost muffled beneath the chaos. Satoru tilted his head again, watching without blinking.
His gaze shifted to the hulking forms of Space Marines further back. Their ceramite armor gleamed even under the soot and blood, the wolf motifs etched into their pauldrons catching the flickering light of fires. They were stronger, faster, more disciplined. But even they struggled against the sheer madness of the battlefield. Daemons leapt onto their backs, claws tearing through armor plating. Orks roared and charged, battering them with crude weapons, breaking through lines with sheer brute strength. One Marine, his leg crushed beneath a fallen tank tread, still tried to swing his chainsword at a daemon before it dragged him into the mud.
Satoru's lips curled into a faint smirk. Not human, he thought, watching the Astartes fight. They couldn't be. No human moved like that, fought like that. Maybe they'd been human once, but now? Not anymore.
He turned his attention to the largest structure in sight – a fortified base nestled between two shattered ridges. Its walls were thick, reinforced with layers of plasteel, bristling with turrets that fired endlessly into the chaos. The symbol of the Imperium, an aquila with wings spread wide, loomed above the main gate, blackened with soot but still standing defiantly.
The smirk widened into a grin. That was their command center. Their last stand. The heart of their resistance.
Satoru raised his hand lazily, palm open, fingers spread wide. A flicker of blue and red energy began to swirl at his fingertips, tiny at first, but rapidly growing, twisting and coiling into a sphere of impossible density. The air around him hummed, vibrating with raw power. The ground beneath his feet cracked, lines spidering outward as the energy pulsed. He closed his fingers into a fist, the sphere compressing, the blue and red merging into a deep, shimmering violet.
Hollow Technique: Purple.
The sphere expanded slowly at first, tendrils of violet light snaking outward, rippling through the air. The sheer weight of it pressed down on the battlefield, silencing everything around him. Even the daemons seemed to pause, their twisted forms turning toward him as if sensing the magnitude of what was coming.
Satoru cocked his head, lips parting in a lazy chuckle. "Let's see how much this galaxy can take."
With a flick of his wrist, he released it.
The world erupted.
Purple exploded outward, devouring everything in its path. The reinforced walls of the command base disintegrated on impact, the aquila above the gate shattering into dust. Guardsmen, Orks, Cursed Spirits – all erased in an instant, their bodies folding inward, collapsing into nothingness. The shockwave followed, tearing through the air with a deafening roar, flattening everything within its reach. Tanks crumpled like paper, trenches caved in, and the ground itself split apart, leaving a deep, smoldering scar across the battlefield.
Satoru stood at the center of it all, untouched, his Infinity shimmering faintly in the heat. He felt the energy fade, the pulse of Hollow Purple dissipating as the light dimmed. The battlefield was silent now, save for the crackling of fires and the distant groans of collapsing structures.
He looked down at the devastation, one eyebrow raised. The base was gone, nothing left but a smoldering crater. Bodies – what little remained of them – were scattered like ashes, blending with the dirt and soot.
"Oops," he muttered, a grin tugging at his lips. He stuffed his hands back into his pockets, rolling his shoulders as he turned away. "Guess I overdid it. Oh well."
As he walked, the portal behind him surged again, spewing another wave of Cursed Spirits into the world. Their shrieks and laughter filled the air, but Satoru barely paid them any mind. He had more important things to do. The Space Wolves were still out there, and he wasn't done with them yet.
Not by a long shot.
Lelith Hesperax perched on the jagged edge of the mountain, high above the chaos below, her predatory eyes narrowing as she surveyed the devastation. Smoke rose in thick plumes, black against the dim, blood-red sky, and the ground below churned with bodies and fire. Her long, crimson hair whipped in the wind, strands sticking to her pale skin, glistening faintly under the sickly light. Behind her, her Wych sisters clustered in a loose formation, their postures tense, their blades trembling faintly in their grips. No words passed between them; none were needed. The raw awe in their wide, unblinking eyes spoke volumes.
Lelith's gaze locked on the epicenter of the destruction, where flashes of violet light erupted, tearing through the battlefield like an artist's brushstroke slicing a canvas. Even at this distance, she felt the ripple of power, an oppressive wave that made her heart race and her breath quicken. Her lips parted slightly, and a flicker of a smile danced across her face.
Strength. Pure, undeniable strength.
She recognized it immediately. It was an instinct honed through centuries of battle and bloodshed, a primal intuition that told her who was prey and who was predator. And the one who wielded that power – the one they called Britheim, or as the Asuryani whispered in cautious reverence, Gojo Satoru – was no predator. He was something far beyond that. Something untouchable.
Something divine.
The first time she laid eyes on him, that sense of overwhelming might had hit her like a blade through the chest. It wasn't just the sheer weight of his presence or the way the battlefield seemed to bend to his will. It was the ease of it, the careless, almost lazy way he wielded devastation, as though wiping entire armies from existence was no more effort than flicking a speck of dust from his shoulder. Her body had reacted immediately, tingles rushing across her skin, her fingers curling, her breath catching in her throat. The memory alone sent shivers cascading down her spine, her body tightening in response.
Her Wytches stirred behind her, exchanging glances, their movements hesitant, almost nervous. They, too, could feel the raw power radiating from the battlefield, even from this distance. One of them, a younger Wytch with a fresh scar running down her cheek, whispered something inaudible, her voice trembling. Lelith ignored her.
Instead, she leaned forward slightly, balancing effortlessly on the jagged rock. Her lips twitched as she watched the Britheim unleash another wave of destruction, a swirling mass of violet energy that expanded outward, devouring everything in its path. A column of Astartes and their mortal auxiliaries vanished in an instant, the ground itself scarred by the force. Her heart skipped a beat.
But something nagged at the back of her mind, a faint itch she couldn't quite scratch.
Was this... normal?
The Britheim was meant to be powerful – that much was clear. The prophesies, as cryptic as they were, spoke of his strength in almost reverent tones. Yet Lelith had always dismissed them as little more than Asuryani superstition. She lived for the blade, not for the mutterings of Farseers and their visions. Still, even she couldn't deny what she saw now. The Britheim was stronger than anything she had ever encountered, far stronger than the stories suggested. And that strength was intoxicating, arousing, filling her veins with a rush that no gladiatorial arena ever had.
But this… this was something else.
Her eyes flicked to the legions pouring through the massive chaos rift. Pink and blue horrors scuttled and shrieked, their grotesque forms gibbering as they tore into the mortal defenders. Towering monstrosities with wings of fire and bodies that writhed like liquid flame soared overhead, their shadows casting the battlefield into even deeper chaos. These were not the creatures of She-Who-Thirsts, the ultimate foe of her people, but they were close enough. The Great Enemy, She-Who-Thirsts, was not here, yet its scent lingered in the air, a taint that made her skin prickle.
These were daemons of Tzeentch, the Architect of Fate, and their presence raised questions she had no answers for.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. Could this still be part of the prophesy? Was the Britheim supposed to wield the power of the Sea of Souls so effortlessly? She didn't know. She didn't care much for the specifics of prophecies, but this felt... wrong. Disjointed. As if something had shifted, something no one could have predicted.
Her Wytches murmured behind her, their voices hushed, almost reverent. She turned her head slightly, silencing them with a single glance. They fell quiet, their eyes dropping to the ground, though their hands still tightened around their weapons. Even they could sense the oddity of it all.
Her gaze returned to the Britheim. From this distance, his figure was small, but she could still see the gleam of his silver hair, the lazy confidence in his stance as he stood amidst the chaos, untouchable, untamed. Despite the madness surrounding him – the daemons, the Orks, the Astartes – he remained unmarked by it all. No mutation. No corruption. The warp-tainted energy that twisted reality itself seemed to slide off him like water, leaving him untouched.
It was as though he existed outside the rules of this world.
She tilted her head, the corners of her mouth twitching in amusement. The Farseer Caoimhe, the Britheim's enigmatic right-hand, might have been able to explain this. That annoying seer was always muttering about fate and threads and how the Britheim was "the fulcrum upon which reality pivots." Lelith usually ignored her ramblings, but now... now she wished she'd paid more attention.
A flicker of doubt crossed her mind. The mission was complete. The chaos unleashed. It was time to leave. But the Britheim... he was getting too caught up in his game. The destruction he wrought was no longer measured or precise; it was wild, reckless, like a beast reveling in its own power. She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms. Approaching him now, in the middle of this storm, would be dangerous, even for her – too risky, no matter how exciting and pleasurable it would be to do so.
Lelith's eyes narrowed, her breath steady despite the rising tension in her chest. She turned to her Wytches, gesturing sharply. They fell into formation without hesitation, their movements sharp, disciplined, but their eyes betrayed their unease.
"Prepare to leave," she said, her voice low, cutting through the howl of the wind.
As they moved, Lelith cast one last glance at the battlefield, at the figure standing at its heart. Her lips curled into a small, almost predatory smile. The Britheim was dangerous, yes. Reckless, chaotic, unpredictable. But he was also the strongest creature she'd ever seen.
And that, above all else, made her want him even more.
AN: Chapter 61 is out on (Pat)reon!