The rune bled into the sky.
Its eight points tore through the cloud cover like a wound that refused to close, a symbol carved into reality itself.
Red light poured down in waves, drowning the tundra in its hue. Snow stained to rust. Steel caught the light and shone as though slick with fresh gore.
Faces—human, beastman, even the dead, twisted in the glow, made masks of blood.
The valley answered.
—
The beastmen roared, tusks flashing, hooves tearing into the snow with blind abandon. Their frenzy lost what little shape Mira's silence had given it; they hacked at anything that moved, foe or kin alike, laughter and howls echoing in the frozen air.
The Xarcarions, who had moments before faltered, turned as one. Fear drained from their eyes, replaced by an empty, manic devotion. Wounded men tore off bandages and flung themselves forward.
Bayonets, shovels, bare hands—all became weapons, their owners shrieking oaths they did not know they had learned.
Order dissolved. The battlefield no longer had sides. Only frenzy. Only slaughter.
Every sound became a warcry. Every heartbeat became a drum. The rune pulsed, and the valley pulsed with it.
—
Kochav felt it strike deeper than bone. His foresight fractured into red, every thread he reached for ended in slaughter.
Futures collapsed into a single knot of gore. No clarity, only hunger. His cursed hand seared, violet light leaking between his fingers like blood from an open wound.
—
Across the storm, Jaeger strode through the red haze.
The rune burned behind him like a cursed halo, every step of his dragging shadow pulling the frenzy tighter, harder. Snow hissed under his boots. His grin split wider with every scream.
And amid the chaos, Mira stood ringed by beastmen. For the first time, their eyes did not obey her. They stared through her, past her, faces lit red with the rune's glow, mouths foaming, tusks gnashing.
The battlefield had become a shrine to Khorne.
And the duel between them was its altar.
—
The rune pulsed.
Its red glare thickened until it seemed the air itself bled. The light smeared across steel and snow, painted tusks crimson, lit glassy eyes from within. Every surface reflected war.
Then the madness took them.
Beastmen bellowed, tusks snapping as they turned on kin and foe alike. Their axes fell at random, hacking horns from brothers, splitting skulls still crowned with tribal paint.
The Xarcarions, their discipline already faltering, broke altogether. Men laughed as they stabbed, shrieked as they tore at one another with bare hands. A soldier shoved a comrade into the mud and crushed his head beneath a bootheel, grinning wide with teeth red as the rune.
Laughter, screaming, roaring — the valley had only those three sounds now, woven into one song of frenzy.
A beastman lunged at Mira, eyes wild, axe whistling down—
—only to be stopped mid-swing. Another beastman, his eyes clear and steady, caught the haft. He wrenched it aside with a guttural snarl and rammed his tusks into the frenzied one's throat. Blood sprayed hot across Mira's gorget before the corpse hit the ground twitching.
—
The null's presence. Where she stood, the madness faltered.
The beastmen nearest her still roared, still fought, but their eyes remained their own. They formed a ragged ring around her, snarling outward, killing anything that tried to force its way in, man or beast.
Beyond that circle, though, the rune reigned.
The tundra was red, every body thrashing, every hand clutching for a weapon, every scream echoing the mark of Khorne.
Mira stood unmoving, calm at the storm's center, her silence making her untouched by frenzy. But all around her, the world had gone mad.
The rune's glare unraveled the field, turning ranks into rabid packs. Kochav and Jaeger's duel remained the storm's eye, but Mira's silence became its opposite pole.
—
At first, the frenzied clashed with each other — beastmen tearing kin, Xarcarions cutting down comrades, laughter and screams indistinguishable. But soon the red-lit eyes began to swivel.
They turned toward the stillness.
Toward the silenced.
Mira's null-aura stripped the frenzy from those closest to her, but that only made her stand out all the more. In the red glow, she was the defiance, the single figure untouched, unbent.
The frenzied began to converge. Beastmen frothing, tusks snapping. Xarcarions with jagged teeth bared, blades dragging through snow. They weren't thinking. They weren't choosing.
They were obeying an instinct Khorne himself had painted into them: destroy what will not bow to the blood tide.
—
Mira braced, fists coiling tight. The loyal beastmen around her snarled and pressed in, tusks flashing as they hacked back the maddened tide. But the press grew thicker, a wall of red-eyed killers closing from every angle.
The fight pulled Mira away from Kochav. The living tide drove her downhill, step by step, swallowed by the crush. She fought calm, unshaken, but her silence could not bridge the gap as she was being pulled apart from the Apex, and the Khornate rune had made certain of it.
The tide pressed in, frenzied eyes fixed on her. Every step Mira took forward became a battle just to keep from being swallowed whole.
Her beastman guards fought in brutal tandem, tusks clashing, spears thrusting, axes hacking wide arcs that cut down anything too close. Their devotion was unshaken, but even they were straining against the madness rolling in from every side.
Mira's eyes flicked once, over the tide of bodies, up the ridge where the world seemed to burn blue and crimson.
Through a parting in the storm, she saw it.
Jaeger, his flesh steaming red, his grin cut like a wound across the battlefield, bearing down on Kochav. The Apex stood bloodied but unbowed, revolver in one hand, cursed light in the other.
The two shapes closed, predator and prey, hunter and hunted—she couldn't tell which was which.
That was the last she saw before the crush swallowed her.
—
The tide of frenzied soldiers and beastmen forced her back, dragging her into their chaos. Her guards bellowed and hacked, pulling her free from snapping jaws and clawing hands.
A spear struck the air where her throat had been a second earlier, her gauntlet snapping up to shatter its shaft before the wielder could finish the thrust.
They fought like a moving wall, her beastman guards forming a ring around their Queen. But for every kill, another red-lit foe hurled itself at them, screaming laughter in voices that were no longer their own.
Mira's breath was steady. Her silence did not waver. Her eyes scanned for openings, always forward, always toward survival.
But the battle had turned into something worse than slaughter. It was madness unchained.
And in that storm, the Queen and her guards would have to carve a way through or be buried beneath the frenzy.
A spearhead thrust from the left — she knocked it aside with her gauntlet and shattered the wielder's throat with the heel of her palm.
A tusk lunged from the right — she pivoted, grabbed it, and wrenched, tearing horn from skull with a meaty crack.
Behind her, boots crunched; she spun and her elbow met a visor, caving it flat before the man could scream.
Her beastman guards bellowed, axes cutting wild, but already the crowd pressed closer, driven mad by her defiance.
A blade came down — she caught the wrist, twisted until bone split and the sword fell, then buried it in his chest before he could cry out.
Another rushed from behind; she shifted, letting him slam into her shoulder, then snapped his spine across her knee.
A beastman swung a club the size of a tree-limb; she ducked, felt the rush of air, and drove her fist into his gut. The tusked brute folded and vomited blood across the snow.
Her guards roared kill-counts between strikes:
"Eight!" one bellowed, ripping his axe from a man's ribs.
"Ten!" snarled another, headbutting a beastman so hard tusks snapped loose.
Their numbers thinned, but their ferocity thickened the air.
—
The mob surged too tight. She had no room to swing.
A hand clamped her arm. She broke its thumb and shoved the bone into its owner's eye.
A tusk scraped her flank. She hammered her fist into its owner's jaw, splitting it like stone under a hammer.
A knee cracked against hers. She shifted her weight, tripped the attacker, then crushed the knee sideways, dropping him screaming.
Her breath came steady, precise—never wasted, never ragged. Each strike was a note in a rhythm only she heard.
She pivoted through bodies: Crushing a throat with her knuckles, twisted a wrist until the joint gave way with a pop.
—Using a Xarcarion's own rifle as a bludgeon until the stock snapped and the man's chest collapsed.
Blood sprayed her pale features. The crowd pressed tighter. A cleaver whistled down — she caught it on her gauntlets, twisted it sideways, and let its wielder cut himself open.
Still they came. Screaming. Laughing. Howling.
—
One of her beastmen roared too loudly, too long—and three blades found his back at once.
He went down gurgling, tusks red. Another tried to pull him free and lost his head in the same instant.
Mira saw it. Her face did not change. Her fists only struck harder.
She caught a soldier by the chin, shoved another by the crown of his helmet, and snapped their necks in opposite directions with one motion. A beastman clamped her wrist; she tore free, the gauntlet's edge peeling his skin off with it. She smashed his face into another's tusks, leaving both twitching.
Blood slicked her boots. Her guards tightened the ring around her, bellowing oaths to the Silent Queen, tusks dripping. Every second was bought with bodies.
—
She set her jaw, raised her fists, and kept breaking bones. But the crush grew worse.
Beastmen and Xarcarions surged without thought, a tide of tusks, horns, steel and screaming. Her fists broke faces, her gauntlets shattered bone, but the wall did not thin.
Every blow she struck was replaced with two more bodies.
One of her guards bellowed beside her, then disappeared beneath a dozen blades. Another fell with his tusks broken, dragged under by the stampede. Their voices — their kill-counts — went silent one by one.
—
And then it was her turn.
Hands clawed at her arms, shoulders, even her throat. Horns rammed her ribs. Steel clanged against her gauntlets as she fought to keep space—but there was no space left.
The press of bodies closed around her, a wall of red eyes and frothing mouths, shrieking laughter and guttural roars.
She struck, struck, struck—until her arm was pinned to her side. She kneed a soldier in the gut, but another slammed against her from behind. Her guard ring broke. The tide sealed.
The horde swallowed her whole.
For a moment, there was no air. No light. Only weight.
She was buried alive under bodies that screamed and clawed, trampling, pressing, fighting even as they smothered themselves. A tusk cut her cheek. A rifle butt jammed into her ribs. Sweat and blood slicked across her face that wasn't her own.
Her jaw clenched. Breath came in ragged bursts. Her gauntleted hand flexed once, then curled into a fist.
From beneath the pile came a muffled CLICK.
And then—
BOOM!
The bodies heaped above her lifted as if struck by a buried mine. Flesh, tusks, and armor burst outward in a wet blossom. Limbs cartwheeled through the air. Blood sheeted down in arcs. The snow drank crimson.
The horde staggered, momentarily stunned by the eruption. In the center, a crater of steaming gore marked where Mira had been buried.
—
The boom still echoed off the mountains, red haze hanging in the air.
Jaeger's grin split wider. "Now that an obstacle is out of the way," he growled, voice a duet of man and daemon.
"Shall we continue?"
—
Kochav's head turned back, slow, deliberate. His face was pale beneath blood and grime, but his eyes—blue shot through with orange, locked on Jaeger with a fury that said more than any words.
His grip tightened on the revolver. The cursed hand twitched.
And then he moved.
No warning. No sound. Just a surge of psychic pressure that split the snow at his feet and hurled him forward in a blur of steel and psychic might, he circled around Jaeger and started shooting.
The tundra cracked open under the force of his launch. Blood-mist whirled in the wake. His dagger came low, his twin-barrel hand came high, and all of his rage collapsed into a single, wordless reply: violence.
—
Jaeger laughed—the sound was thunder in a throat full of knives—and met him halfway, bone-tail lashing, chain rattling, the rune burning behind him like a god's cruel eye.
The storm closed again. The tundra groaned beneath them.
Blood pooled in the snow, steaming against the cold. For a heartbeat, nothing moved—just the hiss of vapor and the whisper of the rune's red glow.
—
Then Jaeger's grin split wider.
The crimson around him stirred. Blood soaking the snow began to tremble, then rise in jagged lines. Spikes of frozen gore erupted upward like a forest of knives, bursting from beneath corpses, skewering armor, splitting tusks.
Screams tore through the air as both beastman and human were impaled, hoisted writhing in mid-air before being cast down like broken banners.
Kochav thrust his cursed hand outward, psychic light flaring violet and blue. The spikes bent away at the last instant, shattering against a barrier that rippled like glass under strain.
Few paces away, Jaeger stooped, claws sinking into a corpse at his feet. He dragged a skull free by the sockets with a slow, obscene crunch, the spine tearing loose in wet segments. He weighed it once in his palm, then hurled it with a flick of his wrist.
The skull spun, shrieking like a mortar round, and when it struck the snow—
BOOM!
It detonated.
Bone shards sprayed outward in a storm, each fragment burning with crimson light. They smashed against Kochav's force field, hammering it in dozens of rapid-fire strikes.
The shield flared bright, then dim, before finally cracking open like a pane of ice.
—
Kochav staggered, teeth bared. "Fine."
His cursed hand blazed. He swept it upward—
The ground heaved. Boulders tore free from the permafrost, rising into the air like planets around a star. Snow and blood sluiced off them in streams, turning to vapor as they spun.
With a snap of his wrist, he sent them hurtling. Stones the size of carts screamed through the air, shattering the ground where Jaeger had stood.
—
But the Khornate warrior was already moving. His chain unfurled, vertebrae clattering in a manic rhythm. It coiled around one of the boulders mid-flight, spine biting into stone, and with a savage heave he swung it back.
The boulder smashed into another, exploding into shards. Blood soaked into the fragments as they fell, and Jaeger's smile gleamed brighter.
The shards quivered—then detonated in the air.
Shrapnel rained down, red-hot, forcing Kochav to shield his face as the storm pelted his coat. His psychic aura strained, shimmering wildly as rock and bone hammered it.
—
Still he pushed forward.
The revolver in his hand barked cerulean rounds, each one a comet of burning light. They streaked through the storm, smashing into Jaeger's defenses with thunderclaps that split the ridge.
Jaeger didn't dodge. He let the rounds strike, his grin unbroken as the rounds went through his shoulder, destroying his flesh.
Each impact shattered into sprays of gore and fire—but for every wound opened, he drew more blood from the corpses around them, knitting himself whole again.
Their powers clashed again and again, every strike erasing more of the battlefield:
Snow boiled into steam.
Corpses were ripped apart, then detonated into fresh waves of shrapnel.
The tundra split open in ragged wounds, rocks jutting skyward where Kochav's will had twisted them.
Every shockwave hurled men and beast alike aside, until only the two of them still stood at the heart of the storm.
—
Kochav's breath came ragged, frost smoking from his lips. The revolver glowed bright enough to blind, his cursed hand trembling with power.
Across from him, Jaeger rolled his shoulders, bone-chain rattling, grin steady and unshakable. His crimson skin steamed in the cold, his eyes burning with hate and joy.
The world shrank to two shapes.
Kochav and Jaeger. Apex and butcher. Psyker and Khornate. Everything else was slaughter-dust at the edges.
—
Kochav's boots dug into the churned snow, revolver holstered in a blink, dagger sliding free with a hiss. His cursed hand glowed, phasing faintly, violet threads coiling with blue. The air bent around him, snow lifting in spirals.
Jaeger's grin widened again. The bone-chain slithered down his arm and stiffened, vertebrae locking into a jagged sword, its edges serrated by marrow-stubs. From his back the tail flexed, vertebrae glistening, tip twitching with hunger.
Two weapons. One hungers.
"Closer," Jaeger growled, teeth flashing black with gore.
"Bleed where I can smell it."
—
Kochav answered with a sprint.
The tundra cracked beneath each stride, a blur of blue coat and cursed light. He meant to cut the distance, to smother Jaeger's tricks before they could multiply.
Kochav's dagger slashed low; Jaeger's sword caught it with a scream of marrow against metal, sparks and blood spraying in equal measure.
The tail lashed forward, a whip of vertebrae seeking his throat.
Kochav phased his cursed hand into smoke, the tail cut through, then the hand reappeared, snapped back solid and slammed a palm-strike into the tail's length.
BOOM!
The vertebrae cracked like stones under a hammer, splinters spraying. Jaeger only laughed, hauling the sword back with both hands in a brutal overhead swing.
—
Kochav ducked, rolled forward, slashing his dagger across Jaeger's ribs—the blade cut, but bone welled up from under the skin, sealing the wound even as it opened.
Blood hissed in the snow.
The tail came again, snapping like a spear.
Kochav twisted aside, hurling his dagger in the same motion. It sank deep into Jaeger's shoulder with a meaty crunch.
—
Jaeger snarled but did not slow. He raised his sword for another blow.
Kochav's hand twitched—and the dagger ripped itself free, flying back into his palm with a trail of red.
He caught it in reverse grip and struck upward, sparks of condensed psychic energy running down its edge.
The blow clanged off bone, shaving splinters from Jaeger's jaw.
The Khornate only replied with a maniacal smile, teeth streaked with blood.
The sword came again, horizontal this time. Kochav phased through the cut, vanished a split-second, then reappeared at Jaeger's flank, revolver already drawn.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Three rounds cracked into Jaeger's side, cerulean meteors punching into crimson flesh. Each exploded in miniature stars of psychic force, scattering gore and shards of bone.
—
Jaeger staggered. His laugh was guttural, bubbling through blood.
He gripped the holes with his free hand—and the blood hissed, boiled, then slithered back into him. The wounds sealed as though time itself rewound.
"Pretty lights," he rasped, tail snapping toward Kochav again.
"Do it again."
—
Jaeger's bone-sword slashed forward in a brutal arc, forcing Kochav to leap aside. Snow blasted up under his boots as he vaulted, but Jaeger pressed the attack, driving him further back with another sweeping strike.
Still mid-air, Kochav twisted defensively, psychic aura flaring to catch the follow-up.
Behind him, Jaeger's tail snaked outward, vertebrae clattering as it coiled around a nearby corpse. With a wet pull, it tore the skull free, strings of gore dangling.
The Khornate hurled it without pause.
Before it could reach Kochav, the skull swelled grotesquely, veins of bloodstuff ballooning it.
BOOM!
The detonation ripped the air apart, shards of bone shrieking outward. The blast threw Kochav further off balance, driving distance between them, the snow erupting in crimson haze.
—
Kochav's aura surged. He thrust his palm outward—
Jaeger was slammed back, feet gouging into the snow as if shoved by a forceful gale.
The Khornate staggered closer to the ridge wall, crimson steam spilling from his frame.
—
Kochav's eyes burned. He clenched his fist and a scatter of grenades ripped free from the belts of fallen soldiers, their pins snapping loose mid-air.
With a flick, he hurled them straight at Jaeger.
BOOM BOOM CRASH!
The blast swallowed the ridge.
Stone split apart in an avalanche of smoke and shattered rock.
The wall collapsed, burying Jaeger under a thunder of debris.
Kochav didn't wait. He slid forward across the churned snow, revolver already raised, cursed barrel pulsing above it.
Both muzzles locked on the shifting rubble.
"Stay buried," he muttered.
The twin barrels thundered—BOOM! BOOM!
But the ruins exploded upward before the rounds could strike.
—
Jaeger spiraled into the air, body twisting in a grotesque arc. His claws flared wide, and with a violent heave he hurled them down.
Shards of bone rained like jagged spears.
Kochav dove and rolled, the snow erupting behind him as the spikes drove into the tundra like stakes. Steam hissed where marrow burned.
He came up crouched, dagger drawn, barrels still sparking with heat.
—
A shadow fell over him—Jaeger landed with the force of a falling meteor. Bone-sword screaming downward.
Steel met marrow in a spray of sparks and blood.Dagger locked against sword.
The two killers crashed together again, blades grinding, their faces inches apart, snarls clashing louder than steel.
—
"You tried to bury rage?" Jaeger rasped, blood and spit gleaming on his grin.
"But I am rage unchained."
—
Jaeger crouched over Kochav, their blades locked.
Sparks hissed as the bone sword and the dagger ground against each other, teeth-gritting pressure in every inch of steel.
Kochav twisted, letting the momentum drag his dagger down into Jaeger's shoulder.
The edge cut deep, splitting crimson flesh.
Jaeger only laughed. A guttural, wet sound that vibrated through his ribs.
His grin split wider, spitting out saliva and blood, and he snapped his head forward—fangs bared, jaws lunging for Kochav's throat.
Instinct surged.
Kochav's cursed hand flared violet-blue, psychic force exploding outward.
The blast hurled Jaeger back, ripping him off like a predator torn from its kill, blood and snow spraying between them.
"Sorry, but I don't roll that way." Kochav muttered after quickly stood up, wiping saliva and blood off his face.
—
The tundra around them was ruin. Corpses shredded, trees toppled, snow boiled into slush. The air reeked of iron and ozone.
Kochav stood on one side, dagger in hand, revolver smoking, cursed barrel glowing faintly violet. Blood streaked his coat, his face pale with exhaustion.
Jaeger stood opposite, sword of bone in one hand, tail flexing behind him like a serpent. His body was carved by cuts and burns, but every wound healed in grotesque fits. His grin never faltered.
Between them, silence stretched.
Only the rune overhead pulsed, bleeding red light across the snow, watching like a god's eye.
Jaeger tilted his head, voice low and amused:
"Again?"
—
Kochav lifted his dagger, cursed hand sparking blue and violet in tandem. His teeth bared in a bloodied grin.
"Again."
—
And the tundra screamed as they closed the distance once more.
Kochav lunged again. But this time the motion wasn't to carve Jaeger's throat.
It was to watch.
The moment steel met bone, the world folded in on itself.
Sound fractured.
Screams, gunfire, the bellow of beastmen—all smeared into echoes, dragging across his skull like long notes. Snowflakes hung in the air like beads of glass.
Even blood, spraying from a broken body, slowed until each droplet glowed like rubies suspended on invisible strings.
The enchantment whispered awake inside him.
His vision split—a thousand tiny threads of possibility crisscrossing every inch of Jaeger's body. Every sinew hummed with tension. Every fracture in bone shone like hairline cracks in glass, illuminated for him alone.
—
Kochav struck again.
The dagger kissed Jaeger's side, shallow, fast. He watched.
The wound gaped open, muscle torn—then, impossibly, stitched itself shut. Not by will alone. Not by daemon's hand.
—
No, his blood touched the rent, and the fibers of his flesh drank it. The wound sealed.
Time tugged at Kochav, urging him back into its river.
He forced the enchantment wider, straining against it, holding the world slow. His eyes burned. Veins bulged around his temples.
—
He struck again.
The revolver barked. A psychic round flared blue-white, blasting through Jaeger's forearm. The limb tore raggedly, flesh dangling by sinew. Kochav held his breath, heart thudding like a war drum in the stillness.
The wound twitched—waiting. Craving.
Then, when blood sprayed from a dying Xarcarion beside them, droplets spattered across Jaeger's broken arm.
Instantly, the fibers seized it. The wound pulled tight, the flesh smoothed, the limb whole again.
—
Kochav's throat tightened. He blinked sweat and blood out of his eyes, forcing focus.
Again. Another strike.
His cursed hand snapped upward, blasting Jaeger's ribs with a violet surge. Bone cracked inward. Ribs shattered like glass rods. Kochav stared.
The damage held. No healing. Not until a gout of gore from another corpse spattered across the wound. Then, like thirsty roots drinking rain, Jaeger's chest knit whole.
—
"Not infinite…" Kochav muttered, voice trembling in the slowed air.
—
Time stuttered, fighting him. The strain of the enchantment chewed at his nerves, threatening to snap him back into chaos.
He refused.
One more strike.
Kochav hurled his dagger, the blade sinking into Jaeger's thigh.
He saw it clearly: torn muscle, gushing blood. But no closure. The wound remained raw.
Until—Jaeger stepped across the churned snow. His foot splashed into a pool of blood.
The moment it touched him, the thigh closed, knitting smooth as if the dagger had never been.
His breath fogged, hanging motionless.
"He feeds on blood, any blood."
—
Kochav's lungs burned. The enchantment faltered. He could feel his foresight fracturing, bleeding at the edges.
But he had seen enough.
Jaeger's healing was hunger.
His body was a furnace. Blood was its fuel.
Without it, the monster bled like any man.
—
The enchantment collapsed, reality rushing back. The screams, the gunfire, the storm of snow and gore slammed into him, deafening after the silence.
His knees buckled, his head spinning from the weight of what he had forced himself to see.
The cursed hand trembled, violet light strobing between his fingers.
The daemon inside it stirred, the eye in its palm splitting wide, pulsing with laughter.
It whispered. Not cruel. Not mocking. But hungry.
"Sear…"
The word bled into his ear like molten iron poured down a channel.
"…Burn."
—
Kochav's eyes widened, his bloodied lips pulling into a slow grin.
If Jaeger's hunger demanded blood… then Kochav would starve him. He would cauterize every wound, burn away every drop, seal every cut so no crimson could be drunk.
He had the key. Now he needed the fire.
—
Every roar, every scream, every gush of blood around them faded beneath the collision of two forces—Kochav's psychic fury and Jaeger's blood-soaked might.
Kochav circled, boots dragging red furrows in the snow, eyes narrowing on Jaeger's steaming silhouette.
"Time for a test," Kochav muttered, his cursed hand twitching with violet light.
—
Kochav thrust out his cursed hand, air warping with violet static. Invisible pressure wrapped Jaeger's arm like a vice.
CRUNCH!
The forearm twisted inward, bones snapping, blood spraying in thick arcs. Jaeger staggered, grin widening as if the pain amused him.
But instead of collapsing, the crimson torrents hissed and crawled back into the ruin, veins knitting in seconds. Flesh reformed around jagged splinters.
Jaeger laughed, bone-sword sweeping wide.
Kochav had to throw himself back—
WHAM!
—the blade clipped his force shield, sending cracks spidering through its surface. The shockwave bowled over beastmen and Xarcarions nearby, shredding them into chunks.
Kochav steadied himself, muttering through clenched teeth.
Crush alone isn't enough.
—
He drew cold from the air, breath clouding into a frozen mist.
The snow crackled underfoot. Blood on the ground seized into red crystal, creeping up Jaeger's legs like jagged shackles.
Kochav clenched his fist—
SHRANG!
—a cage of frost spears impaled around Jaeger's torso.
The Khornate warrior roared, straining. Blood vessels burst against the ice, spraying scarlet across the cracks. Steam rose, hissing, melting seams open.
With one violent surge, Jaeger shattered the prison into shards, whipping the bone chain through the air like a flail.
Shards and blood rained across Kochav's shoulder, burning on contact. He hissed, raising his revolver just in time to blast the chain aside, sparks flying.
Frost buys seconds, not victory.
—
Kochav steadied his revolver, breath fogging the chamber.
Instead of pulling the trigger outright to shoot a psychic round, he loaded a bullet, poured psychic focus into the cylinder, compressing energy until the weapon hummed in his palm.
The barrel glowed faintly cerulean, runes across the frame flickering to life, as though the cursed hand itself had joined in the ritual.
BANG!
The shot was a combination of kinetic and warp.
It screamed across the snow, a line of searing blue fire that struck Jaeger square in the chest.
Where it hit, the wound didn't bleed—it burned.
Flesh seared shut, blackened at the edges.
The regenerative tide tried to rise, but blood boiled on contact, steaming instead of stitching.
Jaeger staggered, his grin slipping into a snarl, steam pouring off the wound.
For a heartbeat, the chest-mark remained, a black scar across crimson flesh.
—
Then Jaeger roared and slammed his fist into the snow. Blood geysered from nearby corpses, splattering across his skin.
The sizzling hiss died; the The flesh knitted itself with a hiss, drinking blood as thread.
He rose, lips peeling back into a grin again.
"Clever shot. But Do you have more bullets than I do blood?"
—
Before Kochav could recharge, Jaeger hurled his chain in a wide arc. The bone links whistled through the air, smashing against Kochav's shield.
KRANG!
The impact spiderwebbed cracks across the psychic barrier, forcing him back on his heels.
Kochav hissed through his teeth, keeping his revolver raised, chest heaving.
"It works. But not enough. The blood still answers. I need something hotter."
—
Kochav's gaze slid to his dagger.
He focused, pushing—not frost, not raw force, but something wilder.
Sparks jumped across the blade. Psychic currents twisted, condensed.
Lightning crawled up the steel. It sizzled and spat, arcs snapping into the snow and blasting craters into the ice.
The dagger became a white-hot brand, vibrating in his grip with hungry violence.
He slashed it once through the air and the stroke left an afterimage, a scar of light that lingered like a second cut hanging in reality.
Kochav's lips curled into a grin, his eyes flashing blue and violet.
"This will do."
—
Jaeger's grin faltered just enough to show he'd noticed.
The dagger hummed in Kochav's grip, arcs of warp-fed lightning crawling up its length, sizzling as they leapt from steel to snow, burning holes in the tundra.
The glow painted his face in blue and violet, his eyes mirroring the storm.
He lunged.
—
The first cut blurred faster than sight. The blade kissed Jaeger's shoulder, not carving wide, but pressing a single focused line across crimson flesh.
SZZZHHHH!
The sound was wrong—less a cut than a cauterization.
Flesh split, blackened, and fused in the same heartbeat, a burning welt stretching across Jaeger's frame. Blood hissed but did not flow; it boiled away the instant it touched air.
—
Jaeger jerked back a step, expression shifting. His grin remained, but tighter now, lips twitching at the corner. The wound smoked. It did not close.
Kochav exhaled through his teeth, savoring the confirmation.
"Finally."
—
Jaeger growled low, rolling his shoulders. He pressed his claw to the scorched line—only to recoil as sparks snapped into his hand.
His regeneration surged, blood pooling beneath his skin to seal it, but every droplet that surfaced met the heat and evaporated.
The wound stayed.
His crimson eyes burned hotter, veins bulging black beneath the skin. Then, slowly, the corners of his mouth tore upward, a rictus of mania, stretched, twisted, feverish.
—
"Good," Jaeger rasped, voice doubled with the daemon's echo.
"Make me bleed."
—
Kochav spun the dagger once, arcs lashing outward in bright, snapping whips of static.
The weapon pulsed with a storm barely contained, and he bared his teeth in answer.
"Gladly."
—
Kochav lunged again, dagger humming like a caged storm.
Each strike wasn't just a cut—it was an experiment.
Every angle tested the crimson monster's limits. Every arc of static hissed, searing through flesh that should have closed but didn't.
—
Jaeger snarled, his grin never fading.
He swung the bone chain up in a brutal arc, but when Kochav's lightning edge skimmed across it, the vertebrae cracked and splintered, scorched black at the joints.
The Khornate roared, not in pain—in delight.
"YES!" he bellowed, voice twinned with the daemon's shriek.
"Make the blood burn!" He answered by slamming his clawed hand into the snow.
—
The ground bled.
Every patch of crimson-soaked frost around them shivered, boiled to a warm sinking red pool, it pinned Kochav. Then spiked upward where his leg was, jagged lances of frozen blood erupting in the circle, one went through his knee.
—
Kochav groaned slightly, before pulling cold air into the revolver's barrel,
BANG!
shot it at the pool, freezing it.
CRACK!
Then he used telekinesis to vibrate the ice, breaking it.
The spikes erupted, following his movement as he broke free, he dove sideways, revolver barking—cerulean rounds cracking several spikes into shards before they could impale him.
—
Jaeger dragged two bodies to his sides, claws sinking into their backs with a wet crunch.
With one savage heave, he ripped the spines free, the heads still dangling, eyes glassy and jaws slack.
He hurled them forward.
Mid-flight, blood stretched between the vertebrae, weaving itself into a glistening net.
The two spines twined together, the gore-thread knitting until it formed a hot web of crimson that snapped shut around Kochav.
—
He twisted, tried to dodge—but the net constricted, whipping tight.
The stench of burning iron filled his nose as the blood writhed, coiling around his arms, chest, throat. Every strand tightened, a noose from every angle.
Kochav's eyes flared bright blue. Rage cracked through his breath as he shouted, voice booming through the storm:
"Enough!"
—
Frost spilled from his words, dragging cold from the very air.
The crimson web froze solid, every vein and strand turning brittle white in an instant.
Kochav's aura pulsed. The frozen net shattered in a storm of ice and gore, fragments clattering to the snow.
—
The spines dropped limp at his feet—then detonated.
BOOM!
Bone shards blasted upward, exploding like mines beneath him. His shield flared violently, light straining against the impact as the shockwave hurled cracks through the ice around him.
The tundra groaned. Kochav braced, aura guttering but unbroken.
He burst through the smoke, boots crunching over shattered bone.
His dagger hissed in his grip, arcs of lightning crawling up its length.
The revolver above it pulsed cerulean, the cursed barrel still glowing faint violet.
Together they throbbed like twin storm-hearts, feeding each other.
—
Jaeger surged, crimson flesh steaming, his grin stretched wide.
He clawed fresh blood from a nearby corpse and smeared it across his wounds. The gashes sealed—then jerked open again with a violent crackle. Sparks leapt across his skin, snapping into his veins.
He snarled, teeth grinding, as static hissed along the scorched wounds Kochav's blade had carved.
Every time the blood tried to mend, the lightning struck, searing it shut and burning it raw.
Jaeger roared, shaking his shoulders, trying to drown the pain with fury. But the wounds stayed black, alive with sparks.
—
Kochav leveled both weapons, eyes blazing. His voice cut through the storm, ragged but sharp as glass:
"You can't heal if it doesn't bleed."
—
Jaeger tilted his head, grin splitting wider, bone chain unfurling into a long sword. The tail behind him coiled high, vertebrae gleaming like hooked fangs.
"Then I'll drown you," he said, voice thick with daemon-static,
"in more blood than you can burn."
—
They collided.
Jaeger's chain-blade hammered down with bone-shattering force, the impact cracking the tundra stone beneath them. His tail lashed in wide sweeps, a serpent of jagged vertebrae that cut the air with murderous speed.
Kochav met him head-on. His dagger sparked arcs of lightning with every swing, his revolver barked bursts of cerulean fire, and his cursed hand phased in and out of reality, deflecting blows that no mortal reflex could catch.
—
At one moment he hurled his dagger.
It spun, sizzling arcs trailing in a spiral of light. Jaeger's grin split wide at what seemed like a reckless throw—only for the blade to dissolve mid-air and reappear in Kochav's grip.
The return slash carved deep across Jaeger's ribs, lightning crawling into the wound. Flesh boiled black and hissed, refusing to close.
—
Jaeger's laughter only deepened, fever-bright and guttural. He swung his tail low, vertebrae snapping forward like a flail.
Kochav snapped both barrels up.
BANG!
The twin muzzles roared, the blast annihilating the tail's length and hurling him backward. He rolled in mid-air, twisted, and braced against a force-shield of his own will, boots slamming down to launch him forward like a cannonball.
But Jaeger had already shifted. He sidestepped with predator's speed, letting Kochav smash through a jagged crystal of frozen blood. His shield flared violently on impact, absorbing the worst of it, then burst him out the other side in an explosion of shards and steam.
—
They circled again, the tundra itself collapsing into ruin—spikes of frozen blood jutted like jagged teeth, arcs of lightning carved trenches, and gore boiled into steam.
Two predators. Each adapting. Each learning.
—
Every clash drained Kochav further.Every sidestep, every parry, every tail-lash drove him closer to the mire of corpses.
By the time his blade struck again, he realized too late: Jaeger had already made the field his own.
—
The Khornate was ringed by bodies—humans and beastmen alike, their blood pooled thick in the churned snow. His shoulders trembled with a silent laugh, chest hitching in manic delight.
The crimson pools quivered.
THOOM!
Blood geysered upward, shooting beneath Kochav, trapping him in a vertical torrent. A prison of gore swallowed him, drowning him in searing heat.
He raised his shield on instinct. The psychic barrier flared, violet and blue light straining as the crushing pressure bore down.
—
"Your field is mine now," Jaeger growled, dragging a talon through the air.
—
The bodies surrounding them split open—ribs cracking, entrails spilling, bones snapping like dry twigs. The snow drank it all.
With a gesture, Jaeger remade the carnage. Viscera and bone reformed into a storm of crimson shards, hurled straight into the blood-prison.
CRANG! SHRACK!
They smashed against the barrier, chipping it away, each impact rattling Kochav's bones.
Inside the waterfall of gore, his aura burned, violet and blue light humming against collapse. The shield buckled. It screamed.
Then—
BOOM!
Kochav thrust both hands outward. Psychic detonations erupted in every direction, blowing the geyser apart in a shockwave of shrapnel and steam.
The prison shattered. Blood and bone rained down, sizzling into the snow as the air cleared.
—
Kochav landed on one knee, teeth gritted, revolver barking into the crimson haze.
BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Each round detonated in arcs of blue. One shot grazed Jaeger's chest, leaving blackened flesh that hissed and refused to knit.
The Khornate only laughed, louder, as blood-soaked snow surged around him like a living tide.
"Bleed with me," Jaeger snarled, raising his clawed hand.
—
The ground convulsed. Scattered blood and corpses erupted, spines and ribs twisting skyward until a jagged crown encircled him—a grotesque forest of crimson glass.
Each body he had claimed locked into the structure, a weaponized altar to his dominion.
The battlefield bent to his will. Snow, corpses, blood—everything screamed his name.
—
Kochav staggered on the churned snow, revolver flashing, dagger sparking in his grip.
He saw the pattern too late: every strike, every movement only pulled him deeper into the Khornate domain.
The cursed whispers pressed into his skull, oily and cruel:
"His blood feeds him.
Your blood feeds the earth.
Every drop you spill sharpens his blade.
You cannot win his way."
The world narrowed to red.
Every step Kochav took sank into snow soaked black with blood. His boots dragged through slush that writhed like it wanted to pull him down.
When he tried to circle wide, the ground buckled, ribs jutting up in jagged thickets to drive him back.
—
Jaeger didn't press with speed anymore. He didn't need to.
He stalked slow, each step dragging Kochav deeper into the mire of corpses. With every strike, the Khornate fed his domain—blood soaking into the tundra until it steamed with red haze.
—
Kochav raised his revolver, channeling a frost round.
BANG-CRACK!
Blue light slammed into Jaeger's chest and shoulder, ice blossoming across crimson flesh. For a heartbeat it held, until ribs split outward, bone plating itself across the wound in snapping layers.
Kochav hissed and switched, arcs of electricity leaping from dagger and cursed palm. Lightning scorched the plates, crackling static hissing over marrow, but Jaeger only threw his head back and laughed.
"Wound me more," he rasped, teeth flashing red.
"The ground is thirsty."
—
Beneath Jaeger, the snow heaved.
Flesh and bone welled up from the crimson slush, knitting into a grotesque dais that lifted him high above the fray. Veins pulsed along its surface, steaming in the cold, as though the ground itself bled to bear his weight.
He raised a clawed hand, dragging his talons through the air.
Two broken bodies jerked upright from the snow, dangling like puppets. With a sweep of his claw, he dragged them close, sinking his fingers into their backs.
Blood seeped out in ropes, twisting into the air, hardening into jagged crimson shards.
The corpses split under his grip, entrails spilling free, organs twitching and pulsing with unnatural heat as though still alive.
Then he hurled it all down.
Bodies, blood-shards, and steaming viscera rained like a storm of javelins and bombs.
—
Kochav's shield snapped into place, psychic light blazing violet and blue.
The storm hammered against it like molten steel, each strike cracking sparks from his aura, each explosion forcing his boots deeper into the snow.
Entrails burst wetly against the barrier, spraying fire and gore.
Shards ricocheted wide; others splintered, detonating in concussive bursts that rippled across his defenses.
He fought back with desperate precision—crushing falling limbs into powder mid-air, flinging twitching organs aside in arcs of telekinetic force, shoving shards away before they struck home.
But it was rushed. Overwhelming, every motion bled him thinner, every breath scraped raw.
The storm didn't abate—it only fed on his desperation.
Kochav blasted the flesh dais out of desperation.
The structure split apart in a wet, cracking collapse, hurling Jaeger down onto his feet. The Khornate barely staggered—his landing shook snow into the air as though he had meant to descend that way all along.
Kochav lunged, lightning sparking wild through his weapons. His dagger flared in arcs of static fury, each strike aimed to carve deeper, to cauterize wounds before blood could answer.
But every blow met bone. Spikes surged from Jaeger's flesh, catching the blade, slowing it, smothering its bite. Sparks skittered off marrow. Kochav's foresight tangled into a blur of crimson threads, every glimpse collapsing into chaos.
And in that press of ruin, the whispers coiled tight in his skull.
"Dying in someone else's circle," the daemon hissed.
"Losing to the ignorant." It chuckled, oily and cruel.
"You are clever… but not clever enough."
—
The rune overhead pulsed faster, carving its fury into the sky.
Each beat pressed deeper into the battlefield, feeding the butcher below.
Jaeger crouched low, dipped his face into the gore pool, and rose slow, crimson steaming from his skin. When he lifted his head, his face was still human—yet no longer mortal.
Blackened horns replacing the one before, their ridges glowing faint with heat, as though forged in a battlefield's furnace.
His body swelled—not the hulking frame of a daemon, but lean muscle stretched taut across his form, every cord of flesh thrumming with bloodlust.
The jagged plates of bone on his shoulders blackened, reshaping into brass-stained pauldrons that gleamed wetly under the rune's light.
The mark of Khorne burned itself into his chest, lines of fire searing into flesh until the symbol branded bright as molten iron.
He threw his head back and laughed, the sound carrying like steel dragged across stone.
Behind him, the bone-tail writhed.
Flesh swelled across its length, knitting over vertebrae that erupted back through in jagged black spikes, each segment pulsing as though alive.
His arms followed, elbows cracking, bone forcing its way outward into long hooked protrusions that glistened red as fresh-forged blades.
Steam curled from his skin. Blood dripped from his grin.
Every inch of him was still Jaeger—human enough to recognize, but corrupted into a vision of Khorne's chosen: a slim, predatory shape remade in brass, flesh, and blood.
And overhead, the rune swelled brighter, as if approving the offering.
—
Before Kochav could comprehend what he was looking at, Jaeger's claw rose from the gore pool—gripping something that wasn't bone, wasn't flesh, but both. A whip of sinew and vertebrae unfurled from his palm, hissing wet as it lashed forward.
Kochav's instincts flared. His cursed hand blazed, psychic force gathering in a shimmer of violet light—
—but the rune above pulsed.
The red glare throbbed once, heavy as a heartbeat. In that instant, the psychic barrier cracked and fizzled out, his power severed like a cut tendon.
The whip struck.
It ripped across the snow with a shriek, cracking toward him with speed that made the air itself scream. Kochav threw himself sideways, coat snapping in the wind, but the edge still grazed his arm, tearing cloth and flesh alike.
Steam hissed from the wound. His jaw clenched. The rune was not just feeding Jaeger—it was strangling him.
—
Kochav sagged, one knee sinking into slush dyed red. His chest rose and fell in broken bursts, each breath slicing like glass.
The aura of his cursed hand guttered, flickering like a candle on the edge of death.
His dagger hung loose at his side, the blade trembling with every heartbeat.
Jaeger loomed just beyond the steam and gore, crimson flesh hissing, blackened horns curving like a profane crown.
Blood seeped across the snow, his jaw twitching, teeth grinding with a joy too feral for words. The tundra seemed his dominion now.
—
That was when the whisper came.
Not from Jaeger. Not from any human throat.
From his hand.
The veins of the cursed forearm bulged, skin crawling with violet light, and the voice slid from it like silk dragged across bone.
"Ask me…" it hissed, soft and gloating.
"Ask me for peril."
—
Kochav froze, teeth grinding.
He'd heard its mutterings before—scraps and temptations drowned beneath the roar of battle. But now the voice was sharp, focused, certain.
"Peril for power," it purred, pressing closer with each word.
"Let me in, and I will give you the strength to break him."
"One cut. One bargain. One chain for another."
—
The cursed hand twitched, eager, its flesh stretching as though it wanted to move without him.
Kochav could feel the daemon smiling beneath his skin—patient, hungry, waiting for him to fall forward into its embrace.
—
"You bleed. You stumble. You will fail." The voice thickened, oil and smoke dripping with certainty.
"Let me burn in your stead. Let me feed. Sear his flesh, cauterize his false gifts."
"I will unmake him for you."
—
Kochav spat crimson into the snow, the hiss of heat rising from his arm turning it instantly to steam. His head bowed for a moment, breath broken, and the daemon pressed harder.
"Say it. Just one word. Let me wear you—and we win."
—
Kochav's lips cracked into a grin, split and blood-slicked.
He lifted his head, eyes blazing with stubborn defiance.
"…shut up."
—
The daemon recoiled, then chuckled—the sound like a thousand pages turning in fire.
It did not leave. It never would. But the rejection was enough.
Kochav's mind cleared, if only for a heartbeat. And in that sliver of clarity, he knew he would have to find his own way.
Without chains. Without bargains.
—
He exhaled once, long and ragged, then muttered through a grin:
"…For all these years, I have never fallen."
—
The cursed hand shuddered, veins bulging with light as though straining to rebel against him.
But his will pressed harder.
"You are a parasite," Kochav spat, voice hoarse but steady.
"And I am not your host."
—
"You killed my family," he rasped, voice raw with frost and fury. His gaze burned brighter, one eye blue fire, the other orange embers.
"Remember this—" he raised the cursed arm, fingers curling like claws—
"you're on my death's list as well."
—
And then, before the daemon could laugh, he did the unthinkable.
TWISCHH!
With a roar that tore his throat raw, Kochav seized the forearm with his free hand and ripped it away. Flesh tore, veins shrieked with light, the air filling with the stench of charred meat and ozone.
SHRIEKKKKK
The daemon's scream echoed once—high and furious—before it was gone, leaving only the hiss of cooling flesh.
The severed limb writhed on the snow, violet light bleeding in spasms before it blackened, cracked, and crumbled to ash.
The shockwave still burned in the air, the snow hissing where embers of daemon-taint sizzled themselves to ash.
Kochav staggered, chest heaving, blood striping his coat.
—
Then Jaeger's laughter rolled low and wet across the tundra.
"You cast aside the fang that made you bite?" the Khornate rumbled.
"Now you're just meat."
—
Jaeger's body bulged with crimson muscle, veins glowing like molten iron beneath his skin. His tail flexed, vertebrae rattling like a war-drum.
A pulse of gore-charged energy burst from him—
BOOM!
Kochav was hurled from his feet, crashing into the snow and skidding until red slush caked his hair and cheek. His body twitched with exhaustion, strength bleeding out of him like the warmth steaming from his wounds.
For a moment, even his aura guttered—the glow snapping like a candle about to die.
—
Jaeger advanced slowly. Not charging now. Not raging.
He came on like inevitability—step by step, savoring the sight of a rival broken. The rune above pulsed in time with his stride, its glow swelling larger with every step.
"You've cast off your chain," he growled, voice doubled with daemon-echo, crimson steam curling from his grin.
"Now you're just meat."
His shadow fell over Kochav, the bone-sword dragging furrows in the snow.
—
Kochav's lips curled into a grin. His bloodied teeth shone in the violet haze.
"No..." he rasped, "I believe…" his breath misting in the cold,
"…in my own strength." His voice firmed, cutting through the roar in Jaeger's ears.
"…And hers."
—
Jaeger's eyes widened. He spun his head, instincts clawing at him—
TOO LATE.
A blur cut in from the side, silent as a knife through silk.
Mira.
Her gauntleted fist slammed into Jaeger's chest—not to strike, but to plant.
Wedged in her palm, clutched like iron, a shock grenade.
His crimson eyes flicked down—too late. The pin was already gone.
Her gaze met his for a heartbeat. Cold. Wordless. A verdict.
Then she let go.
—
The grenade blossomed with a crack of white-blue light.
BOOM!
The shock slammed through Jaeger's chest, the rune flaring crimson as shards of his bone-plate tore free and scattered across the snow.
His grin vanished into a snarl, his body jerked back, crimson flesh seared with burns that hissed and smoked.
For a heartbeat, the battlefield froze.
Kochav, half-staggering, sucked in air through bloodied teeth.
Mira dropped back into stance, gauntlets steaming.
—
Then came the roar.
It tore from Jaeger's throat like the earth itself had cracked open. A sound deeper than rage, thicker than steel grinding, a bellow so raw it seemed to split the air.
The Khornate rune above him pulsed violently, its light swelling until every snowflake turned red.
—
The shockwave hit.
A tidal blast of sound and force surged outward.
Mira was hurled from her feet, boots skidding through blood-slick snow.
Kochav was thrown off further away, his body ragdoll.
—
At the center of it all stood Jaeger, his horns steaming, his flesh boiling with blood-heat, his breath fogging the air in crimson vapors.
His chest heaved once, twice. The burns knitted over in grotesque fits, flesh bubbling, reforming into something stronger. His grin returned, wider, madder, a hymn to the slaughter.
"Did you think a spark…" he rasped, saliva and blood trailing from his teeth,
"…could drown the fire?"
—
Kochav staggered, breath ragged, blood slick across his cheek.
For a heartbeat, the world dimmed. Everything muted, Jaeger's laughter bent away, even the rune's pulse stuttered. A hollow silence opened in the storm.
Then the voice came.
Not the daemon's hiss. Not foresight's tangled whispers.
Something older. Heavier.
"…Rise…"
It grated through the air like iron dragged across stone, rough and inexorable, a command spoken from behind walls of steel.
Kochav's head jerked, eyes flicking open beneath lids, searching for a source that wasn't there. His grip faltered, his stump shuddered, pulsing faintly in defiance.
Instinct told him to resist—to treat it as another trick of the warp.
But this presence carried no mockery, no temptation. Only weight. Only command.
And for the first time, the rune above them faltered, its glow thinning like a candle guttering in wind.
Cerulean light pierced through his shut lids, faint at first, then swelling until it leaked in radiant streams.
Kochav's eyes snapped open. No longer fractured between blue and violet—now they burned pure cerulean, bright as molten steel quenched in frost.
The air bent around him. Snowflakes hissed to vapor before they could touch his skin. His aura radiated outward in arcs that warped the blizzard into spirals.
Jaeger froze. For the first time, his grin wavered.
The rune pulsed harder above, its glow flaring in protest. But the cerulean blaze pressed back against it, carving a circle of clarity through the storm.
And in that clash of lights, Jaeger's crimson eyes narrowed, disturbed—not by power alone, but by recognition.
—
In the Underwoods,
the soulstones dimmed—light guttering like candles starved of air.
Shadowgaze froze mid-step, hazel eyes snapping to the altar.
Bergelmir lay unchanged to mortal sight: silvered armor still, Nemesis hammer cradled in his gauntlet.
But to her attuned senses, the skein quivered wrong. The chamber sagged, emptied, as though a vast weight had been torn away.
Her breath hitched.
"…His soul," she whispered.
"It is gone."
—
The felinids stiffened, ears flat, unease rippling through their bodies.
Then—
CRACK!
The Nemesis hammer shuddered violently in Bergelmir's gauntlet.
Lightning spat from its head in jagged bolts, lashing the altar and hurling arcs across the chamber walls. Roots split, spirit-light seared, the felinids leapt back with snarls.
—
For a few unbearable heartbeats, it burned like a star too bright for the cavern.
Then, as suddenly as it had flared, it died—settling back into stillness, heavy and mute, as though nothing had stirred at all.
Shadowgaze's breath came sharp, eyes narrowing.
Helsin turned, gaze locking on the Grey Knight—not alarmed, not surprised, but sharp, deliberate, like a man seeing a prophecy arrive.
"Something pulled him away," Shadowgaze murmured, voice taut with dread.
—
The Inquisitor's lips curved into a faint smile.
"Someone."
—
Back to the battlefield.
The Khornate rune above the battlefield still burned like a brand across the sky. Its light drenched the tundra in red, and everything it touched snarled and tore at itself.
And yet—
In the center of it, Kochav rose.
His body trembled, blood steaming in the cold, but he forced his boots into the crimson snow. His breath came ragged. His left arm—the cursed hand now severed—bled freely, yet no weakness carried in his stride.
His eyes were pure cerulean fire, devoid of pupil and iris.
From his back, a halo flared into being—twin rings of blue and yellow light, interlocking like burning suns.
The halo's radiance clashed with the rune.
Where the red haze fell across him, the cerulean fire pushed it back.
The ground around his feet stayed untouched by frenzy; beastmen recoiled, Xarcarion troopers faltered, their madness stuttering.
Even Mira's guards, pressed in the crush, felt the pressure ease, their oaths no longer drowned in blood-hunger.
—
Jaeger stopped mid-swing.
For the first time, his grin wavered.
The daemon inside him hissed, a guttural snarl of recognition.
"That light…" the voice rumbled, unease bleeding into its tone.
"The hated fire. The Titan's curse. The Grey Ones…"
—
Jaeger's breath came heavier, his crimson skin steaming more violently.
His eyes locked on Kochav, not just with hunger now, but with rage curdled by memory.
"This glow…" Jaeger muttered, voice low, guttural. His grin returned, wider, but strained.
"It's you. You are the anomaly."
—
His tail lashed, vertebrae clattering with fury, snow hissing as blood pooled upward at his feet.
Across the field, Kochav's halo flared brighter. His voice cut through the red storm, steady and defiant, each word falling like a hammer:
"I am but a knight, a son of your Anathema."
His steps pressed deeper into the snow, each one carving out clarity in the red haze.
"I am your reckoning. The weight you could not crush."
The halo blazed like a sun behind him, cerulean fire licking across his shoulders, wreathing his bloodied form in a mantle not his own, but one he had seized.
"And this time," he roared, voice carrying across the ruin, shaking both beast and man alike,
"I will see you broken, and I will see you stay dead."