Chapter 162: Tzeentch's Stuff Never Disappoints You (Patreon)

As everyone knows, with Tzeentch's lot you never need to figure out what they're thinking, because even they don't know.

Their plans always pick up some small, peculiar twist, and piling extra difficulty on themselves for the sake of that twist is perfectly normal.

After all, in Warhammer, when in doubt, ask Tzeentch. That holds even if the one you're asking is the scheming Tzeentch daemon himself.

They're happy to hand over a little useful information, too. Every time you ask, they give you nine sentences. Usually those nine are neither all true nor all false, and sorting the true from the false is up to you.

As for the case where every word is true…

Even Tzeentch himself probably wouldn't believe he'd tell the whole truth. That would be far too Tzeentchian.

As for the pack of Thousand Sons clowns in front of him, Guilliman took a deep breath and told himself to stay calm.

Part of why he could manage it was that everything around him was just too absurd, especially the Great Ultra One being carried off by his own stretcher bearers.

That alone had been enough to make him lose his composure, and now Kairos was still off in the distance fighting 1v8. Honestly, the guy had the strength for it. He was trading blows with eight opponents at once and even holding a firm edge.

Meanwhile, the Red Corsairs' Space Marine contingent looked visibly lost. And that was before they learned that two people aboard Macragge's Honour were, at that very moment, eating melon and watching the show.

This wasn't a figure of speech. It was literal melon-eating, spectator-style. As soon as Heydrich heard that Old Thirteen was about to make a move, and against one of Tzeentch's creatures no less, he dragged the Lion over, stools and watermelon in tow.

Then, under the twitching stares of a crowd of Ultramarines, the two of them dug into the melon with great enthusiasm.

"What are you up to?"

Guilliman took a deep breath. He wanted to see what these Thousand Sons types were really after.

"We know the passage to the core of the Blackstone Fortress. Once we get there, we can take control of the entire fortress."

"You…"

But hearing them out, Guilliman didn't feel excited. He felt worried. What he really wanted to ask was whether there was something seriously wrong with them.

"We met the great Ancient Sage Rylanor and the still greater Dragon Emperor, and we came to understand…"

"Lead the way."

He gave the lunatics no chance to start raving. After hearing Heydrich's codename, Guilliman had chosen to believe them, just a little. Mostly, he had given up on judging anything connected to that man by common sense.

By common sense, after all, the Great Ultra One should not exist under any circumstances.

So with that name mentioned, Guilliman decided to trust them for the time being. Mostly he wanted to see what kind of surprise this bunch of nutcases had in store. And yes, nutcases. Everything was so absurd that Guilliman felt he was no longer on a battlefield at all.

Well, in that case, let's give it a try…

*

Meanwhile, aboard Macragge's Honour in the rear, Heydrich and the Lion watched it all in stunned silence.

"Holy cow, Kairos Fateweaver is pretty strong."

Heydrich lowered the super telescope in his hands and had to admit it. The guy really was strong, and his Warp sorcery had reached a state of utter mastery.

Of course, however powerful Warp sorcery might be, this was the material universe. Without an elaborate ritual prepared in advance, its power was only so-so.

But with preparation, it was another matter. Take the chain reaction when Lorgar brought about Angron's ascension to daemonhood: it sealed off Macragge and Holy Terra outright.

It even made those three brothers believe the Emperor had died and that the legendary Second Imperium had been set in motion. But that has nothing to do with what comes later.

"What are they fussing over?"

Heydrich was clicking his tongue in amazement. The Lion, beside him, just looked baffled.

"Who knows?"

Heydrich couldn't be bothered to dwell on it either. He had caught sight of his Great Unclean One getting blown away by Kairos's Warp sorcery.

Of course, with that thing's thick hide and tough flesh, it was no problem. Its recovery couldn't match the Great Ultra One's, since that one simply tanked everything on its health bar and regeneration. Its defense was far stronger, though, and its recovery, while worse, wasn't nonexistent.

"Let's go take a look. Guilliman has no psychic skill at all, so he could easily get hurt."

The Lion wasn't much better at psychic power than Guilliman, but that didn't mean he knew nothing. At the very least he had some means of countering it, instead of purely tanking it the way Guilliman did.

Mostly it came down to his shield. Against the Emperor's shield, whatever psychic junk hit it was as good as nothing. Add the short-range, pinpoint jumps of the Jungle Walk, and control-type psychic power simply couldn't land.

"What brotherly devotion. If you're worried, go ahead. But I think Guilliman is most likely fine. Kairos has no time to bother with him right now."

Heydrich shrugged helplessly, but the Lion dragged him along anyway as he charged over.

Kairos was locked in an even fight with his own side and had no attention to spare for Guilliman. As long as Guilliman didn't go crazy and charge in to take out those eight Lords of Change, there'd be no great problem. But since the Lion was worried, Heydrich followed.

And so, very soon…

"A lion should belong on the wastelands. Why is it jungle? On ancient Terra, that's tiger territory."

Heydrich had just experienced the Lion's Jungle Walk for himself. The Lion's Warp essence really was a lion.

What it originally was doesn't matter much, just as Guilliman's elbow strike on his own Warp essence gave him a magic resistance of almost metaphysical grade.

Primarchs and their essences influence each other. Sanguinius's Warp essence, for instance, was a filthy Ghoul.

What it is now is hard to say. Either way, that guy hasn't died for good, and there's still a chance he'll come back.

In fact, after GW's 30K story "Death and Rebirth," nearly all of them are not really dead, except for the vanished Eleventh and Second.

"…"

The Lion pretended not to hear Heydrich's grumbling. He couldn't be sure whether those words hid some little secret that, once spoken aloud, could blow up the entire Imperium.

Heydrich, for his part, felt rather moved. The Jungle Walk was actually very handy, mainly because it was so precise. His tavern doors were, first, fairly random, and second, limited in number within any given area. His army of five hundred thousand still hadn't fully withdrawn.

One thing about Warhammer is that the older the veteran, the wilder the little stories they tell. Heydrich's little stories were the kind that could blow up the entire Imperium, which is why nobody had ever doubted his identity.

"Guilliman seems to have gone inside the Blackstone Fortress. I'll go see what's happening over at Kairos's place."

The two big tin cans, Heydrich and the Lion, had suddenly appeared right in front of the Chaos Space Marine warriors, who were staring in blank confusion. Heydrich grabbed two of them, one in each hand, and squeezed. Their heads, helmets and all, burst like eggs, leaving the surrounding Chaos Astartes dumbfounded.

Where did this guy come from? That was terrifying. He'd just crushed a tin can's head with his bare hands.

"I'll go find Guilliman."

Like Heydrich, the Lion paid no mind to the Red Corsairs around him. Once he had the device Heydrich gave him, one carrying the signal of Guilliman's vox, he set off in pursuit at once.

Heydrich flickered, then transformed into a divine dragon and vanished on the spot.

The mobility was just too much fun. It gave Heydrich the feeling of being the wind itself, like playing Yasuo in LoL. He didn't know what other people felt, but he was having a blast.

That was exactly how he felt now. As the saying goes, a dragon rides the wind, and only those who have truly experienced it can understand the joy.

After all, people will try wingsuit flying just to chase this feeling. It's an extreme sport among extreme sports, where one slip means they'll need a shovel to scrape you up.

*

Up on the Blackstone Fortress, Kairos Fateweaver was seething.

One of his heads looked to the future, the other back to the past.

It sounded very impressive. But what now? What was he supposed to do now?

Especially against someone like Heydrich, who was neither in the past nor in the future, who appeared in none of the ancient histories at all. It left him effectively blind.

It wasn't that he couldn't see the present. But that required using his eyes, and Tzeentch's creatures often rely on prophecy. Kairos in particular almost never used his eyes.

On top of that, with all his attention fixed on Guilliman, he hadn't noticed the change in Tzeentch back in the Warp.

"You blasphemous wretches!!!"

Kairos was nearly choking with fury. With these eight Crouching Dragons and Fledgling Phoenixes around, there was no way he could catch Guilliman.

A Primarch was still a Primarch. To lay hands on one, you had to be a Greater Daemon at the very top, like him.

After all, Guilliman couldn't take down Skarbrand any time soon, yet at the Battle of the Lion's Gate he had choked out eight Bloodthirsters with his bare hands.

The gap between a top-tier Greater Daemon and a second-tier one was huge, so even 1v8 didn't scare Kairos.

But the problem was that if this kept up, his plan was ruined.

What was more…

What was wrong with these eight? And why were they a bit stronger than usual?

"Blasphemous Kairos!!!"

The eight Lords of Change were unusually united, and they bombarded Kairos together. They had Tzeentch's permission, and he had even granted them some extra power. Otherwise they could never have beaten Kairos.

Of course, the eight also carried some personal grudges. Kairos was the most Tzeentchian being in all of Tzeentch's camp, so these Lords of Change had been tricked by him more than once.

"You're begging for death!!!"

Now Kairos was truly enraged. Guilliman had lost his target entirely, and his plan was about to fall apart, so Kairos went all out.

As everyone knows, Tzeentch's creatures rely mainly on psychic power. To unleash their true strength, they share one trait with Type-Moon's magi: they need to build a sorcerous stronghold of their own.

In a head-on encounter, Tzeentch's combat strength isn't great, only a little better than those addict Slaanesh types.

But once their preparations are done, the pressure they exert becomes overwhelming.

Take the Thousand Sons sorcerer in Space Marine 2, who alone stood against the Ultramarines' entire First and Second Companies.

He even pushed the Chosen of the Emperor and Khorne Titus and Calgar, the true ceiling of the Ultramarines, onto the back foot. Only when his stronghold was destroyed did he collapse and flee.

This trap was Kairos's own design, so he had prepared the most means. In an instant his sorcerous stronghold activated, and in the blink of an eye it enveloped the Lords of Change on the field.

"Get lost!!!"

BOOM!!!

In that instant raging lightning and ice spread outward, and within a blink they formed a storm above the Blackstone Fortress powerful enough to tear apart a star.

Except for him, the other Lords of Change were swallowed up almost at once and sent tumbling back into the Warp. The storm's aftershocks were absorbed by the fortress's blackstone and did not spread.

"Hah…"

Kairos drew a deep breath. Unleashing a storm like that put great strain on him. And with his plan in ruins, he knew it would be hard to catch Guilliman now.

His melee strength was nothing special, after all. There was no way he could catch Guilliman.

But just then…

CRACK!!!

At the sound of a sharp, crisp crack, Kairos froze.

One head looked to the past to find the source. The other looked to the future to find the result.

And then…

There was no "and then."

?

Kairos was utterly baffled. But at that very moment…

BOOM!!!

Two enormous claws tore straight through the already fading storm, and an eye as large as he was appeared behind him.

"…"

Feeling that cold gaze, Kairos could not help breaking into a cold sweat. He turned and looked with his physical eyes, and what he saw made the sweat pour down.

An eye as big as he was, fixed on him unblinkingly, and in it was his own reflection.

*

Meanwhile, a little earlier, Heydrich had watched the raging psychic storm with a twitch at the corner of his eye.

Stelle and March 7th could tank stellar flares with their bare bodies, and Heydrich's stats were no slouch either. Still, a psychic storm like this was a bit troublesome, so he pushed his Path of Preservation to the maximum.

His body swelled to many times its size and its toughness rose a whole tier. Now he forced his way through the psychic storm with his flesh alone and tore open a gap.

Then he saw a smug Kairos. Heydrich looked at this legendary hard-luck case with some curiosity.

After all, Tzeentch had been ruthless enough to throw a whole group of his own Lords of Change into the Warp, and this lucky one was the only survivor. He had even gained a second head and become Tzeentch's favorite Greater Daemon.