Roboute GuillimanThe reborn Primarch had some atrocious days, this o even being close to the worst handful. As, it had still proven to be a miserable experience.

  He khe Tyranids were one of the primary threats to the Imperium, but he hought they would have anything that could hope to beat him.

  Staring at the mohat towered even above himself, he had to resider. It had a missing arm, its head was scorched and its body had more scabs than armour on it, but he could feel the da represented deep down in his bones.

  If it weren’t for his father’s sword, he wouldn’t have a bsp;

  In the momentary standoff, he cast a g the two people that he fought the beast with just before it knocked him out. Dante rayed against a wall, attempting to stand before he colpsed back down.

  Ea, that strange alien, was o be seen. For a moment, he thought she fled when his previous pn backfired so atrociously. Then his gaze nded on a pile of translut bones.

  So it to him, the fate of this mission, the p, and quite possibly the Imperium as well. Again.

  He held down a sigh as power, unlike anything he had felt before flooded through his body. It was one part terrifying and one part relieving.

  His father stood behind him. Or what was left of him did so, anyway. The memory of meeting him still weighed on his mind and would tio do so until the day he died.

  He felt a tiny fra of that brilliant golden light suffuse his body, sink into his sword, and make the fmes coating it fre up.

  He took a step. He was before the beast, almost too fast to prehend even for him. It didn’t matter, his arm was already swinging the sword and just a mome cut into the beast.

  His body moved faster than his mind, but the light and thousands of years of experience guided it where his mind could not.

  He dodged a strike and struck out. An arm fell limp. He struck thin air a psychic power dissolve around him.

  He squirag dozens of barely visible bolts of power rushing at him.

  His power fred for an instant, gone before even his eyes saw more than a mirage. Along with it went the psychic barrage.

  He unched himself at the beast. He could feel his body straining from the power surging through it, he only had seds, a mi most before it failed him.

  The beast had to die by then.

  *****

  If I had an eyebrow still, it would have twitched in annoyance as I watched Guilliman battle the Emissary.

  The beast held out, for now. I doubted it would survive the minute if things tinued as they were.

  Well, fuck you too fate. I grumbled internally. Guilliman stole any ce of this fight being iing.

  I turned my attention toward the t psychic shield, though I might as well call it a fortress. An idea formed in my mind. If he stole my fight, I’ll steal his spotlight.

  While we are at it … I thought abeing my body … but it would be more fun this way.

  Psychic power ed around my bones, flowing through the translut matter and linking them back together piece by piece.

  Then I stood. Arcs of energy took the puscles and telekinesis filled in the gaps. I took a step, then another. My third step in my new bony form almost looked fluid, while by the tenth step, I could strut.

  Few saw me, but the few who did were staring. Who wouldn’t? It’s not like you saw a skeleto up and start walking around every day, even in this gaxy filled with all sorts of bullshit.

  Do I t as a Lich? … No, my soul isn’t anchored to a phyctery or anything. I’m still just an eldritch puppeteer. Oh well, they don’t know that … but they don’t know what a Lich is either.

  With how absorbed I was iing stronger and staying alive so far, the distinct ck of good old eai hadn’t touched home yet. There were so many shows, movies, and books saved to be watched/read ter on that I never got around to. It really was a shame.

  Mephiston didn’t quite gawk, like the trio of Librarians who swung around and aimed various foci at me. Before he could stop them — if he was even going to do that — a trio of basic Smite lightning bolts rushed at me.

  I didn’t even raise a hand, just fring up the energy flowing through my bones. All three touched a translut barrier just inches away from my bones and exploded against it without doing much. I kept walking; they didn’t even make me stumble.

  “Stop that,” I used my trusty Illusioo project my voice at them. “It’s annoying.”

  I think I saw one of them gulp. Then they collectively g Mephiston, asking fuidahe man himself merely frowned. Feeling his aura brushing up against mine, I allowed it to linger for a sed before brushing it off..

  “Get back to work,” he whispered, turning back to the wall. “Will you help us?”

  “That is why I’m here,” I huffed, striding up to the wall and pg a palm on it.

  The Hive-Mind was uionably a master of the biological form, though I would much rather call what it did ‘trolled chaos’ than engineered perfe. The e was very simir, but I could tell from all the Tyranid temptes I had that none of them were really a model made from a blueprint.

  It was really a ‘throw shit at walls and see what sticks’ method, ked up to a thousand and on loop. Each loop optimizing the result just a bit more, which added up to produce spectacur results over the aeons.

  Its application of psychic powers was much the same. It was effit, streamlined, and powerful. Still, it tasted of brute ford little to no creativity behind it. It was ‘good enough’ perfected, weird as that was.

  Which meant the ehing before me was uniform. Every single psychic bio-form that was liogether to create this barrier was using the exact same tried-and-true barrier. It was something impossible for humans. I doubted I could cast the same barrier twice, and I had quite the trol over my energy.

  That, of course, didn’t mean the barrier was easy to break. I poked and prodded as my aura spread over it and my energy pierced into its weave wherever the ti gap was found.

  It fluctuated, making it impossible to make out any ots, since while I was sure there were some, they popped up and disappeared in nanoseds before new oook their po human would have noticed them, and I doubted even the most powerful psykers would have been quiough to do anything, even if they did.

  I wasn’t most psykers. A hundred mind-cores watched with rapt attention for any signs of weakness as my aura ed around the ey of the barrier. One sed. That’s all it took to find one.

  A nail of psychic power pierced before even my enhanced mind could react. The barrier held though it weake that segment for a brief instant. Still, I grinned internally as two dozeyranids shrieked and colpsed into bloody heaps and new ones rushed to take their pce.

  They probably would have taken up the s under a sed. I could already feel the new power surging to reinforce the part I just weakened. Unfortunately for them, they were in for a ride.

  Over the en seds, awenty nails pierced into vulnerable gaps, another fifty just a moment too slow to do any damage. Still, twenty made it. Then thirty, then a hundred.

  I was holy floored by how well the Hive-Mind was terag my attack, shifting the energy around and doing its best to keep the ehing running. It wasn’t enough though; it was far from enough.

  Whehing was suffitly weakened and my Libraria gallery was suitably impressed, I let my power flow without holding back. If I still had flesh and skin, the amount of energy surging through my bones would have ripped them to shreds at this moment.

  There were positives to having a body made entirely out of soulbone. Even if the downsides made it impossible to sustain it most of the time. It took an exorbitant quantity of energy to sustain the body and trol it. Doing so was only possible without exhausting my reserves much faster than I would have liked because I was currently syphoning even more energy from the than I ending.

  Still, as I opehe floodgates, I dipped into the ives. Heavily. It was so worth it though.

  I didn’t bother with fancy coating, leaving the energy pure as it was and not turning it into fmes htning. I didn’t use any spells, just letting it flow and bst into the barrier. My old and trusty Eldritch Bst didn’t disappoint.

  The barrier cracked with a sound I felt more in my soul than through my ears the moment the burst of power touched its surface. Then the beam tinued on and crashed into the densely arranged waves of Tyranids.

  It left nothing in its wake as I swung my hand from left tht. Matter, be it anic or not, a simple piece of rock or ayranid, evaporated.

  I cut off the beam, not willing to feed it more power than needed. I still wao have more energy ing out of this fight than I came in with, furthermore, I couldn’t get temptes and bio-energy from the carbon dust my Eldritch Bst left in its wake.

  I stepped through the widening crack, quickly followed by a bolt of lightning ughing like a maniad an armour-covered Selene, who fell into step behihe swarm was in disarray, only a few of the psychic beasts survived, the backsh of the barrier shattering and their desperate attempts to meld what remained of it would only hold back the rabble for a few more minutes.

  I could feel Mephiston follow behind me, his power crashing into the crad easily overp the few beasts. He held it open as his men flooded in, and then he pushed and widehe crack.

  Not that I gave him muy attention. The Norn Queen had the dubious honour of being a target of my focus. With the way Guilliman was demolishing the Emissary, not even ash would remain of that thing once he was doh it.

  I had mostly written the Emissary off as a lost cause. I couldn’t even damage the damhing. Unless I could get my tendrils oire corpse or some broken parts … didn’t Guilliman cut off an arm?

  A fra of my mind split off to search for the thing and found it without fuss. What remained of it, at least? A bck scorch mark on the grey stone ground. Stelr. Damupid overpowered fming sword. Whatever. I didn’t even want it.

  This one won’t get so lucky, though. I gri the Norn Queen, hastily shuffling away even as its broken body failed it. I only touched it a tiny bit with the beam, and it was damaged goods even then. It was truly and utterly fucked.

  I didn’t give it a ce to do much, if anything. A blink brought me up behind the beast, a bst of telekinesis sent everything other than my target flying, most of them in more ks than they were a moment before.

  For the sake of dramatics, I opened my skeletal jaw just as a tendril of eldritch flesh phased through my skull and shot out of my mouth like a horrific mockery of a tongue. I could tell the Queen wao do something, and while I doubted it would work, I just … sent one of those mental bsts right into the Shadow down in the .

  The alien monstrosity shuddered, all of its minions falling into a mindless frenzy as I disrupted their e to the Hive-Mind. Then my tendril split into a hundred hair-thin threads that ed around the t Norn Queen.

  It would have taken minutes, if not hours, to break through its armour and flesh, had it been in top dition. As it was, the white co I ed it up in shrunk just a sed ter, my ‘tongue’ pulling bato my mouth and disappearing into my skull.

  I turned around.

  age, utter age filled the cavern. Alien screeches, mad cackles, and much more echoed in the hall. The Tyranids were broken, their node creatures mostly dead, and with a rge ti of very angry gold and blue marines bearing down on them.

  I let my normal Psyker Form rebuild itself around my skeleton as I watched the battle. The barrier was all but gone, mostly a faint mirage that couldn’t hold up against even the weakest of marines crashing into it.

  Beyond it, I saw the other battle had e to aoo. Guilliman stared at me, into my empty eye-sockets as he stood above a giant bed mark with his sword still glowing.

  As skin flowed over my newly made muscles and my set of emerald eyes finally popped bato their pce, I quirked a smirk. I didn’t know why, but I felt like I won somehow.

  I watched his grip tighten around his sword for a moment, his gaze steely as he stared at me amidst the age taking pce. Then his sword sputtered. Its light went dim and the fmes all but disappeared.

  He stared down at his on, a measure of shock clear on his face, and my grin widened.

  [Notification: A chip of the Emissary’s sword has been collected by one of the i-drones.]

  I let out a giggle at that.

  Take that fate. I don’t need a whimsy bitch like you to win, to succeed and to matter.

  AnnouI finally figured out how to schedule posts on SH. Am feeling mighty stupid.

  Anyway, this means chapters will be perfectly on schedule from now on. 18:00 CET on every Wednesday and Saturday.

  P3t1