In the Osiris star system, the Eleventh Legion unleashed orbital bombardments upon nine inhabited worlds within the system.
Nareth led his Honor Guard in an aerial drop toward the primary planet.
As the drop pods hurtled downward, the Primarch extended his consciousness outward.
The conditions of the drop zone quickly fell under his awareness, vaporized defensive installations from orbital strikes, mangled corpses of the War-Born, and countless human bodies far outnumbering the Astartes dead.
His mind continued to expand, covering a five-kilometer radius around him, and widening still.
Then, his consciousness collided with something inhuman, a psychic shockwave.
He sensed thirteen threads of icy force lash toward the gates of his mind.
His thoughts momentarily froze, and a cold, echoing voice resounded within:
"Submit to me! Submit to me…"
Flames erupted along Nareth's spine, radiant and fierce, as he ascended into the first layer of Thelema.
His mind blazed like the fires of the planet's core.
The invading cold vanished in an instant.
Following the trail of the psychic assault, the Nareth's awareness locked onto a strange creature.
It had a humanoid form, but its head resembled a crystalline heart, translucent like ice, gleaming with psychic brilliance.
From that heart extended countless frigid tendrils, thirteen of which had reached for his mind and now burned away in psychic fire.
Many more threads stretched outward, connecting to other beings, controlling them all.
'Control the mind… but who controls whom?'
As that thought crossed Nareth's mind, his psychic fire shattered the creature's mental defenses.
Across the planet, the Psybrid screamed in agony. Their psychic network ruptured as they severed links to their kin to escape the burning pain.
"I command you, come forth!"
The drop pod slammed into the surface of Osiris Prime.
As its doors blasted open, Nareth turned to Arsen.
"I've seized control of a Psybrid. When we land, scan its body in full 3D and upload the data to the Legion's tactical network."
"At once, my lord."
The Primarch's aide, his long blue eyes wide with astonishment, gazed ahead, where an alien figure floated before them.
Surrounded by a shimmering psychic field that defied gravity, the creature drifted in the air.
Its heart-shaped head was veined with ice-blue filaments, clutching a long azure staff like hands made of light.
Around it, countless filaments recoiled and retracted toward its crystal core.
At the same time, armed humans nearby stopped in confusion, their faces dazed, as though awakening from a dream.
Arsena recorded the image of the Psybrid, thinking grimly to himself:
'The 13th Legion lost over ten thousand men… and never realized the hand behind it all was xeno.'
'Yet the Black Emperor identified their puppet master the moment he landed.'
The Psybrid floated toward Nareth, writhing in invisible torment, its psychic threads hissing as they burned.
The Primarch's gaze deepened. His consciousness infiltrated the alien's mind, tearing through its thoughts.
He learned the Psybrid were a psyker species, their name a reflection of their mastery of mental domination.
He also learned how they could control so many minds at once.
Beyond innate talent, the answer lay in the blue psychic staves they wielded.
They differed from the psy-staves the Imperium would forge in later ages.
Imperial psy-staves, derived from xeno black rods, relied on psychic batteries for power. They could store a psyker's energy, serving as both melee weapon and auxiliary energy source in battle.
But the Osiris staves were more sinister, they could draw power directly from the minds they controlled, absorbing psychic energy and storing it for further domination.
'Drawing power from enslaved minds… then using that power to enslave more. A perfect self-sustaining cycle,' Nareth thought.
He memorized their technique, compared to the broad yet unfocused psychic craft of the Fraao species, the Psybrid were more refined in one domain: mind control.
His understanding of psychic domination advanced instantly. He sent a mental pulse to his aide.
"Upload this intelligence to the Legion network, and dispatch a separate order to the Librarium. I want live specimens of these Mind-Controller."
He refrained from commanding the entire Legion to hunt them, knowing that would invite catastrophe.
The Librarium, however, once informed, would know how to capture them safely.
'The Osirian Psybrid weave a psychic web across the planet, sharing thought and information instantly. It is their greatest strength, and their fatal flaw.'
Nareth's awareness expanded once more.
'Hmm?'
From the captured alien's mind, he sensed that the strength and range of each Psybrid's influence varied.
The nearest one was barely a hundred kilometers away, well within his reach.
'Stealth?'
Nareth's eyes shimmered. He summoned the power of the Warp.
He found four Psybrid lurking in the darkness below ground.
Synchronizing his mind's frequency with theirs, he infiltrated their psychic web, and perceived it all: tens of thousands of connected minds blanketing the planet.
He donned the "Howling Mask."
Opening his mouth, he unleashed a single, shattering psychic scream.
The psychic shockwave rippled through the entire network, spreading in all directions.
From the point where Nareth stood, the minds of the Psybrid convulsed in terror. One by one, they fell from the air, dead or comatose.
Elsewhere, a squad of the Thirteenth Legion fought desperately against waves of frenzied human rebels.
Their ammunition was long spent, they swung chainswords and combat blades amid rivers of blood.
Only four War-Born remained, their armor drenched in gore and viscera. Supplies gone, communications severed, they stood alone.
Byrne slashed wildly with his chainsword, engines roaring, flesh flying.
The rebels, unfazed by horror, charged endlessly into the slaughter.
Bullets pinged harmlessly off Byrne's power armor.
"Watch yourself!" barked Sergeant Eddy.
He knew the rebels' aim wasn't to kill, only to exhaust them, waiting for the moment to strike with heavy fire.
He couldn't fathom how the enemy tracked their movements in real time… or how their morale burned so high after losing leadership and command centers in the first assault.
While Eddy pondered this, his visor flared, warning runes spiking at three o'clock.
"Three o'clock! Artillery nest, CHARGE!"
Even facing annihilation, Eddy sought any chance of victory. The four warriors surged forward like a living spear.
Explosions erupted behind them, had they hesitated, they'd already be vaporized.
Moments later, Byrne's visor blazed with danger sigils.
"Incoming!"
He barely shouted before the world vanished in thunder and flame.
Shells rained down, engulfing everything within four kilometers, friend and foe alike.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The bombardment reduced the War-Borns to wreckage.
Byrne's rune vanished from Eddy's visor. The Sergeant understood, the enemy had baited them deliberately.
A trap… but they would not die slowly. Even in death, they would bring ruin to the foe.
The remaining three charged through the inferno, until the bombardment abruptly ceased.
The rebels froze mid-stride.
Nareth, through the "Howling Mask," had annihilated the Psybrids network.
He ordered the Shadows of Order to collect their corpses and relics.
The bodies were transferred to the Kingdom of Disorder, while their psychic staves were sent to the Librarium for study.
On the surface, the Honor Guard recovered fifty-two surviving War-Borns.
Following Nareth's command, they were brought aboard the Judgements Glory.
.....
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