Before Nareth, the forge blazed, and in the next instant, the flames turned gold.
A dazzling light erupted skyward, illuminating the entire city.
The Nocturne natives stared wide-eyed toward its source.
The golden radiance shone upon Nareth's figure, divine and overwhelming, and they suddenly recalled the words of the pale-skinned man.
"He will surpass everyone in the contest, including you, Vulkan."
Alpharius watched Nareth closely. If Vulkan's method was the pursuit of perfection through refined craft and balance, then Nareth's was sheer, overwhelming power, repeatedly hammering and refining raw ore through force until its properties transcended their limits.
Ore was consumed at an incredible rate, each batch purified anew in the golden flames.
The Nocturneans worked tirelessly, carrying materials for him far beyond what had been prepared for the contest.
By the twenty-third hour of forging, Vulkan was quenching his silver hammer in the heartfire when Nareth finally began to forge his own weapon.
By then, he had already consumed hundreds of times more materials than Vulkan, but since the contest's rules had never restricted material use, the noble elders did not intervene.
A master smith from the warrior-city of Themis, recovering from his awe at the golden flame, murmured a craftsman's critique:
"Though the outsider's fire is divine beyond compare, his forging lacks artistry, too coarse, too raw."
Vulkan, still hammering, heard and replied evenly, his eyes flaring with inner flame.
"Nareth's method has its own genius. He tempers the metal in multiple stages, introducing different alloys each time, each with its own traits."
"With every quench, the crystal structure tightens, density rises; it grows harder, more resilient, perfect for a sword's body."
"The tip will be sharper, its penetration greater."
He paused before concluding quietly, "He's maximizing his control over flame itself."
Nocturne's day matched Terra's, twenty-four hours.
In truth, Nareth had forged for only one.
When it was done, he held a golden longsword; Vulkan, a silver warhammer.
Both primarchs then traveled together toward Mount Deathfire, the largest, most lethal peak on Nocturne, the world's heart and molten soul.
From afar, the volcano resembled a monolithic black spire.
Nareth reached the crater first. Peering down, he saw rivers of molten rock and the forms of massive creatures sprawled beside the lava flows.
Fire drakes.
Among all the beasts he had seen, only krakens were larger. Even Fenris' thunderwolves would not reach their heads in size.
He opened his spirit vision, and within the drakes' eyes and fangs glimmered faint auras of spiritual light.
'As expected… their bodies contain alchemical materials.'
Beside him, his gyrinx John, who had studied the divination arts of the Fra'al, offered eagerly, "Shall I divine the location of the largest drake?"
"No," Nareth replied. "This is between me and him. Your turn will come soon enough."
Then, with deep focus, he activated Warp Insight. His vision filled with countless lights, some faint, some vast.
Usually, the greater a creature's strength, the larger its reflection in the Warp.
Within moments, Nareth locked onto the largest flare of all.
He leapt from the mountain's peak, landing before a cavern entrance far below.
No life stirred within; he did not intend to slay the drakes; it would be a waste of alchemical materials.
Deeper and deeper he descended through the tunnels until, at the planet's core, he saw them, enormous shapes coiling around Nocturne's very heart.
The World Serpents.
They were colossal beyond imagining, bodies like pythons but scaled as dragons, triangular heads like wedges of living stone.
Nareth instantly realized his mistake.
He had searched the Warp for the most powerful lifeform, and the mightiest on Nocturne were not the fire drakes, but the World Serpents themselves.
Legends said they were ancient beings, older than myth, sleeping for millennia, wrapped around the planet's molten core like living mountains.
'According to Vulkan, the World Serpents lie beyond human comprehension.'
'Even to an Astartes, to behold one is an experience of the impossible.'
'The Salamanders' bravest warriors hunt fire drakes for their teeth and scales, but the World Serpent… that is something far higher.'
Activating soul-sight again, Nareth beheld their hearts and minds glowing with blinding spiritual brilliance.
Compared to the fire drakes, their essence was like moonlight beside candle flame.
'These serpents… they might not just be beasts. They could be mythical creatures.'
Then, suddenly, their forms shifted.
The sleeping serpents turned into vast dragons of flame, crimson and radiant.
A moment later, the vision shattered, and Nareth plunged into a sea of magma.
His companions, the black wolf Freddy and the gyrinx John, both slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Nareth stood amid the inferno unharmed; the flame could not touch him, for he bore the fragment of the Burning One.
He willed his golden wings to unfurl, but they vanished.
'Impossible…'
'What force could sever me from the essence of a C'tan, without me even feeling it?'
The flames surged higher, devouring him. Pain flared across his body.
He tried to summon the psychic energy to raise a shield, but there was nothing.
'No… there's no Warp presence at all.' His eyes flashed with astonishment, and he couldn't even feel the existence of warp tides.
Accidents occurred continuously, but Nareth still thought calmly.
'I just saw countless World Serpents, and in an instant, they were engulfed by flames.'
My golden wings vanished, I couldn't sense the presence of the Warp.'
'This sudden shift defies logic. Even if the World Serpents breathed fire or used other abilities, they couldn't possibly strip me of my golden wings so abruptly.'
'Unless this is a dream.'
The realization hit, and as though glass shattered around him, the fire vanished.
Before him lay Freddy and John, asleep upon the ground.
He remembered: the World Serpent always slept, and always dreamed of fire.
'So I've fallen into a dream of their making.'
'Vulkan must be trapped in the same vision.'
'These serpents can drag even a Primarch, and a Sequence Four "Nightwatcher" like Freddy, into slumber. What kind of beings are they?'
Through spirit vision, their massive bodies gleamed with inner light.
'Dreamcraft belongs to two paths: the Visionary pathway, who weaves dreams, and the Darkness pathway, who drags others into them.'
'These scaled dragons match the Visionary pathway.'
He analyzed further, 'To ensnare me, Vulkan, and Freddy at once… it must be not one serpent but a collective, hundreds of World Serpents dreaming together.'
'Each must be at least Sequence Four, perhaps even Sequence Three, "Dreamweavers."
A legion of mythic beings creating a single shared dreamscape… no wonder we fell so easily.'
Nareth's mind raced. The serpents slumbered before him, coiled around the world's heart, dreaming their eternal dream of flame.
'A whole nest of Sequence Three creatures… a treasure trove.'
'The question is, can I claim it?'
His thoughts sped through every moment since his arrival, his insight, the trap, the awakening.
Then his eyes lit up.
'Even while dreaming, I remained conscious, thanks to the Kingdom of Disorder. Its essence keeps me awake in dreams.'
'The Dionysian Spear can slay them.'
'My golden wings can reach them.'
With that thought, he spread his radiant wings once more and drew the Dionysian Spear.
He shot toward the greatest of the serpents, the one coiled around the planet's equator.
With a single strike, the spear pierced its scales, each plate as thick as a fortress wall, yet splitting like parchment.
The weapon drove through its neck. Nareth avoided the head, preserving the precious materials.
Grasping the serpent's skull, he hurled it onto a magma platform. Even in death, its immense body still coiled around the core.
The other serpents quivered, their shared dream collapsing with the death of their mightiest Dreamweaver.
Still, they slept, yet their colossal forms began to stir and crawl away through deep tunnels.
'So the Nocturne underworld network was carved by them… no wonder even the Salamanders never mapped it.'
Nareth's golden wings flared; he hunted the next, and the next.
When he slew the fourth, Freddy awoke suddenly, gasping.
"I who draw others into dreams… was drawn into another's, no, another serpent's dream!"
By the time Nareth stopped, forty-eight World Serpents lay slain.
He watched as the rest vanished into the depths.
'Enough.'
'No need for extinction, let them breed. I can always return for more.'
He descended to the molten heart once more, releasing his grip on the Dionysian Spear. It fell into the flames and vanished.
He smirked.
"Ah… my hand slipped."
With that, Nareth chuckled and began dragging the colossal serpent corpses one by one into the Kingdom of Disorder.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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