"War machines… and us," Shapeshifter murmured, deep in thought.
Fear surged the moment it recalled the Nightbringer, but it wasn't paralyzing. After all, what they faced was only a shard, not the full entity. Believing that even the Forgemaster's war machines couldn't defeat a fragment would be unreasonably pessimistic.
"Give me your location," Qin Mo ordered.
Without hesitation, Shapeshifter gestured, altering the illusion around them, revealing the star system where it was imprisoned.
It was a lonely system, over 700 light-years east of the Talon Subsector, with no other systems nearby. Shapeshifter theorized that the Necron Dynasty slumbering there might have eradicated all nearby star systems before entering hibernation, typical behavior for the more isolationist dynasties like the Nihilakh or Thokt, who preferred total void around their tomb worlds to avoid interference.
The illusion shimmered and deepened, spreading like ink into water.
The vision expanded, showing the system in full.
There was only one planet in the entire system: a pitch-black world, eerily silent, devoid of active Necron constructs. The dynasty that had imprisoned Shapeshifter clearly remained dormant. Its surface was smooth obsidian, unbroken by oceans or light, as though the planet itself rejected life.
"Which Necron Dynasty holds you captive?" Qin Mo asked.
The Necron dynasties were as different from each other as any human empire. The Sautekh Dynasty, for example, was aggressive and technologically advanced, fielding coherent military campaigns across sectors. The Mephrit Dynasty was known for devastating solar-based weaponry, while the Maynarkh were corrupted, near-insane, and obsessed with pain and experimentation. Knowing which dynasty they were up against would drastically alter Qin Mo's strategy.
The Necrons were no minor threat; any operation involving them had to treat them as a significant factor in the upcoming war.
"…I might remember in time," Shapeshifter said, visibly confused. "But I've forgotten their name for now."
Qin Mo let out a long sigh.
Shapeshifter's fragmented memory and unstable state remained its greatest weakness, a natural consequence of being a broken C'tan shard. The only way to fix this would be to recover and reassemble every piece.
But that was a fantasy. Not all fragments were even confirmed to be within the galaxy. Some might have fallen into the void between stars or worse, into the Warp itself.
Factoring that in, Qin Mo pressed on: "Are you sure you'll be able to fight? I can't have you spacing out or vanishing when the Nightbringer shows up."
"I can fight," Shapeshifter said firmly.
Qin Mo nodded, but mentally noted the risk. Shapeshifter might fail at a critical moment. He would have to build contingencies around that possibility.
"For now, stay stable. Monitor the surrounding systems constantly. Report immediately if either the Nightbringer or Nurgle's warfleet appears. Also, I need you to predict when the Nightbringer's shard will arrive. If it comes late, I'll have time to design more weapons. If it comes early… we'll be stuck relying on the Iron Men, the Nexus Firmament, and one final contingency. The Talon fleet won't participate. Mortals can't survive this battle."
Shapeshifter processed this strategy, calculating the permutations in the background of its fractured mind. It was sound. But it raised a crucial concern.
"I'm trapped inside a Tesseract Labyrinth on that world," Shapeshifter said, pointing to the black planet. "My consciousness can pass through the maze, but my true body cannot. If the Nightbringer breaks through the Necron forces and finds me… it'll devour me instantly."
The Tesseract Labyrinth, a marvel of Necron techno-sorcery. No larger than a clenched fist in physical form, yet containing a vast and impossibly complex sub-dimensional prison within. Entire battlefields could be folded into its impossibly interlaced geometry. Time twisted, motion looped, and physical law bent at right angles inside.
It was not a prison in the conventional sense, it was a paradox given form.
Designed to contain gods and horrors beyond mortal comprehension, these devices were forged by the Crypteks at the height of Necron mastery. If one tried to escape using brute force, the structure would absorb the energy to strengthen itself.
Shapeshifter could never break free on its own. But a powerful enough being on the outside could shatter it.
That meant Shapeshifter was utterly vulnerable. Once discovered, there would be no defense.
"If the Nightbringer wants to devour you, it'll have to break the labyrinth first," Qin Mo said calmly. "Once it does, you delay. A few seconds. Release a massive energy flare. I'll use that to lock onto your position and attempt an extreme-range dimensional teleport to pull you to me."
Shapeshifter didn't find the plan very reliable, but it had no better alternative. There were no better plans, only less impossible ones. After a brief silence, it nodded. "Fine."
"One last thing. Prophesy. Now," Qin Mo commanded.
Shapeshifter obeyed.
Its form shifted into a smooth, transparent sphere. Inside, the Milky Way galaxy spun once, its fate momentarily exposed. Nebulae flared like dying gods. Warp storms flickered like veins of madness.
Then Shapeshifter opened its eyes and returned to humanoid form, shock etched across its features.
"The Nightbringer shard… it will reach my system within seven days," it said, voice shaking. "And I saw it… battling a fleet. Every ship was fused with rotting, pulsating flesh…"
"Flesh-warped ships?" Qin Mo asked, stunned. "You're sure you didn't see my Talon fleet?"
Why would the Nightbringer be fighting Nurgle's forces?
Shapeshifter shook its head furiously. "Positive. These weren't your vessels. They're using my system as a staging point for some plague-warped offensive."
Qin Mo's eyes widened.
"That's perfect!" he said, a rare grin spreading across his face. "One less problem for us to deal with."
….
Two days later.
In that desolate system 700 light-years from Talon, where a lone black planet drifted in the void, a new fleet arrived.
Not ships, but derelicts, hulks twisted by corrupted flesh, Warp-tainted mutation, and organic growths drifted near the Mandeville Point.
Over seventy grotesque ships, each trailing swollen cysts and bloated tumors, now hung in orbit. Though once immobile, the mutation had granted them new propulsion, not through engines, but through spasming, Warp-infused musculature and parasitic thrust sacs.
Their hulls pulsated like infected organs, exhaling clouds of pestilence into the void, leaving trails of toxic spores that shimmered like diseased auroras.
And this was only the beginning.
Soon, functioning warships, capable of battle, entered the system to reinforce them.
Aboard one of the larger vessels, a massive corrupted cruiser crawling with limbs and wrapped in decaying tissue, Lord Inquisitor Horst lay concealed within a vent shaft, recording his findings.
His notes, written on parchment, detailed everything he'd learned since going from the Talon System:
"The plague here resembles that of the Cadian Gate, but it's been diluted... less virulent. I was returning after hearing the Talon governor had purged the local plague, but then we encountered a blasphemous warship. In less than one solar cycle, it annihilated our vessel. Before that, I led a boarding action. The heretics failed to kill me. I hid."
He paused, then scratched out "I hid," replacing it with "I conducted a covert investigation aboard the enemy vessel."
With the record complete, Horst stuffed the parchment into his leather coat, one of his three sacred relics.
A coat once worn by a Ministorum zealot, who preached to the faithful amid plague-infested ruins and gunfire, untouched by disease or bullets, and shattered tanks with a chain flail.
A set of Imperial Tarot cards, ancient and bound in sanctified goldleaf, perhaps the most complete known set in existence, rumored to have once been used by the Primaris Psykana during the Siege of Terra. Each card was ritually attuned to Horst's psychic essence, acting not only as a divinatory tool but also a medium for scrying into the tides of the Immaterium.
A painted scroll depicting the Emperor in the prime of His glory.
Relics of immense spiritual and practical value. They were wards against the Warp. Weapons in their own right.
The air reeked of contagion, a mixture of rot, wet copper, and something faintly sweet like spoiled fruit, yet Horst breathed easily. Rested. Continued crawling through the ventilation maze of the living warship.
A ship this size rivaled a city. The ducts were endless. Membranes of corrupted skin pulsed around him. Bones jutted through walls like veins. Voices whispered from rusted cogitator panels. But something, some intuition pulled him forward.
Eventually, he reached a junction and overheard voices:
"I keep dreaming of some robed figure… carrying a scythe. It's driving me insane."
"Same here. Every night. Black robe. Scythe. Is that the Angel of Death?"
"Wait… sounds like the Grim Reaper. You know, ancient myth?"
"…"
Horst's ears perked up. At first, he thought it was meaningless chatter, until he realized:
He had the same dream.
Nightmares weren't unusual. But everyone dreaming the same one? That was unnatural.
He recorded the phenomenon, then crawled deeper.
As he moved forward, the murmurs continued. Whispers of scythe-wielding shadows… hallucinations of reapers slaughtering crew… men gouging out their eyes… drawing their dreams in blood.
Madness, fear, and hysteria were spreading faster than any contagion.
There were no enemy attacks. But the crew was dwindling through suicide, self-mutilation, and unrelenting dread.
Two days passed. The atmosphere worsened.
Even Horst a psyker trained against fear began to feel despair.
He now believed there was a third threat looming, the plague and this corrupted fleet were not the true danger.
Something else was coming.
A third force. And it was far more terrifying.
Before taking further action, Horst decided to consult his Tarot.
He unwrapped the deck from its cloth, black velvet etched with silver prayers and placed a blood-washed purity seal upon the metal grating before him.
"Oh great Master of Mankind… guide me."
He whispered a prayer, closed his eyes, and shuffled the cards. Each shuffle sent a psychic tremor through the vent like a low hymn.
Suddenly, five cards slipped from his hand, falling to the deck.
"Is this… a sign?" he whispered.
Hands trembling, he flipped the cards one by one.
The first was The Hanged Man — symbolic of sacrifice, perspective, or helplessness.
The second, Death — not mere ending, but transition.
The third, The Tower — catastrophic upheaval and revelation.
The fourth, The Abyss — unknown terrors, the yawning void of unbeing.
The last, The Blank — psychic nullification, the death of all thought or soul. A rare card, and dreaded.
As he began his interpretation, a vision erupted in his mind.
A monstrous, insatiable being.
A thing of pure hunger. A walking manifestation of death itself.
Its form constantly shifted, now bones, now mist, now galaxies of screaming skulls.
Its presence alone induced hopelessness and terror in all sapient life.
It fed not on flesh or soul, but on meaning itself. It unmade sanity. It devoured identity.
The Reaper archetype in every species' myths, the black robe, the scythe.
And it was approaching.
The vision ended.
And Horst knew.
Everything happening aboard the ship was no coincidence. These dreams, the madness, the blood rituals.
This was no plague. This was an omen of death.
A harbinger.
Death was coming.
"I need to get out of here," Horst muttered, eyes darting toward a side duct.
No plan. No clue what was ahead.
But something told him, it was the only path forward.
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