I stared at the beautiful creature, watched as it nded on a nearby isnd and roared. pared to Ka’Bandha’s roar, this one was … cute.

  Not that I care. A lizard-like build, four muscur cwed limbs covered in jagged obsidian scales, a rge head ending in a snarling snout and a mouth filled with serrated teeth.

  Oh, and the eyes. Beautiful fming e eyes with slitted pitch bck pupils. Fuck Trazyn’s fancy silver noodle, this was a real fug dragon.

  It probably couldn’t fly, but I could solve that ter. Anyway, I still wanted a dragon of my own.

  “A SALAMANDER?! Here?” The captain of the Marines shouted, but I decided to ignore him and his silly name.

  It was a dragon, my dragon, and not a damned samander. Nope.

  “You are so pretty,” I cooed, hopping over the river and walking up to the beast. “Aren’t you just majestic? Here, who’s the goon? You are! e to mommy.”

  The dragon snarled and its jaws shot forth, widening to gobble me up in a sie.

  “That’s right! You’re a goon, give mommy a hug!”

  The world went dark as the maw of the dragon closed arouhen I felt it swallow me whole. Well, that wasn’t too nice of him … or her.

  “Bad dragon,” I mumbled, getting a mouthful on saliva in my mouth. Bad drago eaten by mommy. Should have been a goon.

  My body dissolved into a mass of ravenous white tendrils that shot forth and buried into the flesh of the beast. I heard it scree agony even from is throat.

  Tendrils burrowed deep, dev its flesh, ans, bile, bones and even the scales with startling ease. It hadn’t even been five seds sihe dragon swallowed me, and I was already reassembling my humanoid form with tendrils writhing around me dev the st scales and droplets of blood coating the surrounding ground.

  My eyes focused on the dragon, it roared, as did the other ten of them that made their way out from the volo’s depths while I was busy.

  “Are you a goon?” I hummed, and perhaps predictably, the dragon barrelled towards me with its jaws wide open and cwed feet readied. Obviously, it was also a bad dragon, as were its friends. “Don’t you worry, when I remake you, you’ll all be good and proper dragons.”

  Sadly, it arent that these dragons of mine were as dumb as a basketful of kitten-shaped rocks. That was something else I’d have to remedy when I remade them.

  I shot off nine spikes filled with still active eldritch flesh, all of them pierg into one of the nine dragons while I myself jumped into the mouth of the closest one aed the previous dragon’s treatment.

  Once I was doh him, I quickly pulled the nine globules of eldritch flesh remaining in the pce of the five other dragons and allowed myself a grin of satisfa.

  Drago. Selene’s going to love these.

  The ground rumbled again, stronger and much louder this time. Cracks formed on the cavern walls and two of the colossal pilrs holding up the ceiling fractured and crashed down, crushing hordes of daemoh them.

  [Reminder: you ted a dozen approag foes. That means twelve. You have only ralised eleven of them.]

  “I fug t, thank you very much.”

  [You are wele.]

  I’d have given a snarky reply if the ground didn’t buckle underh me just then. Large cracks formed just beh my feet and I betedly realised that maybe I should get the fuck away from there. Which I did, and just in time as the moment I kicked off the ground, it caved in, rge granite fragments falling down into a deep chasm.

  Out from it shot a torrent of magma, surging over the ground and carrying away whoever was unlucky enough to remain there. Which were, once again, a rge number of Bloodletters.

  I almost felt sorry for them. Almost.

  The surface of the magma rose, then a gigantic head several times the size of the dragons’ I’d just eaten rose out from it. It looked simir to its smaller kin, but had a of jagged horns and its entire hide was covered in molten rock.

  It crawled out, raising its titanic body out of the newly made magma ke. Its eyes glowed the same fiery e as its brethren's, but as it opes jaws wide, so an e fme lit up the depths of its maw.

  My eyes went wide, and I bouny feet iement, then, just as I was hoping, the fmes shot forth from its throat and swept over … Trazyn and the marines.

  Luckily, I could tell that my barrier-drones were doing work, and that they were holding up just fine uhe assault, otherwise I might have been a bit worried.

  Not that I feared for Trazyn’s safety, but if he lost a body of his in this excursion, where my task was to keep him safe, then I doubted he’d invite me along for any other adventures.

  I was already standing on shaky legs as it was, what with me attrag this much trouble.

  Anyway! That dragon just breathed fire! Awesome!

  “A FIRE DRAKE?!” The silly marine captain shouted again, sounding shocked. “Look at its forehead! That’s what we’re here for! The Song of Entropy!”

  I did as he asked, though I doubted he was talking to me. Right on the gigantic dragon’s forehead, a pair of horns were curling around what looked like a … staff?

  It was encased in a ruby-like gem, along with the two horns around it. It made the dragon look like it had a single rge horn in the middle of its forehead like a uni.

  My eyes narrowed instinctively as I stared at the beast, I knew deep in my bones from just looking at it that it was dangerous. More so than its smaller kin.

  I could feel its soul. It was strong and a. Somehow, that artefact kept this beast alive throughout the millennia.

  There was a glimmer of intelligen its fiery gaze that its lesser kin cked, and when it looked around, it instantly reised the distant grappling forms of the Silver Wyrm and Ka’Bandha as the greatest threats present.

  Its ruby hlowed, power and energy sapped from the flowing into it in droves and then a beam of crimson energy shot out from it.

  Unfortunately for the beast, whatever the artefact was supposed to do, it didn’t have any effe either target. The two tinued rolling around and crushing daemoh them like nothing happened.

  The beast then turs gaze at me, then at Trazyn and finally at the group of Samanders behind him. Its hlowed once more, and when the beam swept across the rows of space marines something finally happened.

  “Dodge!” They shouted, and most of them mao leap out of the way but at least ten of them were just a bit too slow.

  Power armour colpsed, separating to its posite parts as the bodies of the marines inside disappeared and flowed out of them as dust. They’d been reduced to just that, dust and ash.

  Trazyn ig, the beam doing nothing at all to his immortal frame. Still, I decided to ask. “You good there Trazyn?”

  “I am funal,” he said gruffly. “Aropic beam, quite the curious on, that o aged my frame by twenty thousand years in just a moment. It's a fair bit more powerful than the Hrud’s simir natural ability.”

  My eyes widened as I thought of the implicatioher I’d be simirly ued by the beam as Trazyn, since my geic strain was made to be ageless and non-deg, or I’d be dusted since my bio-energy would run out much soohan 100k years.

  The dragon tur me at st, and its horn lit up again. I made a split sed decision and Blinked over to Trazyn, leaving behind a fake copy of myself with the same teically non-aging, geic strain as my main body.

  The body didn’t turn into dust, nor did it remain unharmed. Instead, it swivelled up like a mummy and slumped over, smming face first into the floor.

  “Got it, ing hit by the beam,” I mused, making Trazyn whirl around with his obliterating staff poi me. “What?”

  “You teleport?” He asked, l his staff. “Ah, of course you . So? What do you think about your ces of getting that artefact from the beast?”

  “Pretty good, I’d wager,” I said, my eyes lingering on his staff. It looked cool. As that thought swam through my head, I felt a wave of distent press up against my awareness just as my fingers had been forced open and a smooth white staff materialised between them. It pushed itself into my grasp like a needy uzzling my palm for some head scratches.

  I smiled subsciously, rubbing my thumb over the marble-like body of the staff, making it hmm in happiness. Silly staff. You’re still the bestest staff around. o feel jealous.

  The dragon rounded on me, a primal anger burning in the depths of its slitted eyes. It growled, a deep rumbling sound like rocks crashing and rolling on each other. It pois horn at us again, and I likewise poihe tip of my staff at it.

  Atiesh, a on of my own making against one of the greatest masterpieces of Vulkan, one of the greatest on smiths mankind has ever produced. I saw a movement in my peripheral vision, a hint of gold glowing in the llow of the cavern and I grinned.

  The beam shot forth, sizzling and hissing as it tore through the air, aiming to kill me where I stood. Atiesh hummed in my grasp, practically drowning me in its naked o be used. I plied with an indulgent smile, drawing on my diminished soul energy reserves, a feast on it.

  It devoured about 5% of all that I had remaining, which almost made me grimace, but the results were so very worth it. Space bent the beam’s path, diverting it to the side and sending it rag right towards that green form I’d seen sneakily crawling out of the magma river just a few dozeres to the side.

  To my immense disappoi, the Custodian rolled out of the way just in time, leaving the beam to smato the ground without effect. I clicked my tongue in annoyahen stared back up at the big angry dragon.

  It tried to make its hlow again, but it was not w very well. Its ruby horn flickered like a lightbulb on its st leg, its gloearing uain and powerless, uo fully light up the horn. No shooting beams for that guy for a while.

  The dragon looked stipated, its scaly hide pulled into a grimad its eyes glowing with annoyand growing rage. It shook its head like a wet dog, then threw its head bad let out a loud roar.

  It didn’t waste any time after that. Its head came down, its gaze locked in ohen its cws sank into the granite floor and then it rushed me. Muscur legs stretg and straining as it pushed and urged its body to be faster and faster, to reach me just nanoseds earlier so it could rip me to shreds that much sooner.

  I smirked, feeling and seeing all that py out in the a beast’s mind. Its eyes were surprisingly expressive, and its emotions clearly broadcast over its powerful aura. The emotions of beasts and animals were usually less than a fart in the wind, their flimsy animalistic souls too weak for even some of the better psykers to sehat wasn’t the case for this dragon, as I suspected even non-psykers could feel its tremendous fury radiate throughout the cavern.

  Its jaws parted, plumes of fmes lig across its lipless mouth as it moved to devour me whole like its lesser kin tried before. As, I wasn’t that willing to go along with that idea this time, seeing as its insides were on fire. I might be a powerful eldritch alien shapeshifter thingy, but even for me, bathing ihat could melt rock wasn’t ducive for my health.

  So I dodged, fluttering over to another isnd and away from Trazyn and the probably gawking Samanders. I saw the Custodian follow as the dragon’s cws tore into the ground to arrest its momentum. It slid for a few metres, cws tearing long gashes across the ground before it once agai itself bounding after me.

  Its jaws fully opened and a plume of fmes shot at me. There was no psychic power in the fmes, not a lick of energy, so I just swung my staff and, with a slight application of Telekinesis, parted the fmes down the middle, making them sweep past me on both sides but leave me unharmed.

  From the er of my eye, I caught Ka’Bandha trying to disengage from the silver Wyrm to join the fray, its eyes practically alight with glee as it stared at the fire-breathing dragon. As, the Wyrm had other pns and a titanic tail-sp sent the Greater Daemon crashing into the wall.

  Then I had to hop to the side just as the fmes died off, defleg a vibrating power-spear that came for my neck with Atiesh. I gave a narrow-eyed smile to the custodian, veying that I wasn’t too happy with him jumping in on my fight.

  He didn’t seem to care, letting my parry carry his spear along before he brought it back from the other side with a spin. I flooded my body with bio-energy to parry that strike, still sliding back a bit and then the dragon on us, its jaws shooting to bite my head off.

  Oher side, the Custodian had his spear aimed at me and I saw the moment the bolter shell ignited in its barrel. How rude, shooting a girl in the face from this close.

  Seems like I’ll have to make use of that ash of bio-energy I got from the little dragons after all. Letting my avatar get destroyed here would be pretty embarrassing. I g Trazyn, the Ne overlord just standing there with his hands behind his back as my drones left behind held off the Samarying to take advantage of him being ‘alone’. It’d also look pretty bad on my resume, wouldn’t it? Getting killed on my first job. Yep. Let’s show these fuckers why they shouldn’t have messed with me.

  Bio-energy flowed through my body in droves and I used up just about every lick of energy I had left to restruct my Psyker Form. The ohat I would have trusted to keep me alive in a fistfight with a Primarbsp;

  Let’s get started!

  P3t1