Axis took a deep breath.
An aura of golden Super Saiyan ki instantly enveloped his entire body. The dazzling light illuminated the bridge as if it were day, and a surging tide of life energy churned like a tangible force as he prepared to unleash his ki, rich with the power of life itself.
The legendary Super Saiyan state, and Super Saiyan 4, would not suffice for this task.
The ki of one was inherently malevolent, the other feral. He had to use the most serene form, the standard Super Saiyan transformation. In many ways, the original Super Saiyan form was nearly perfect.
Even the Primarchs who had witnessed Axis's power before, such as Kasha and the Golden Legion's Khârn, were once again struck with awe at the pure and immense energy.
Guilliman's eyes were sharp.
Jaghatai Khan tightened his grip on the hilt of his Blade. Sanguinius, meanwhile, gazed into the light with an expression of almost devout focus.
This was the power of life, the great and glorious energy of living things.
"I am starting," Axis's voice sounded strangely divine from within the light, "Scream if the pain becomes unbearable." He placed his hand, burning with a golden aura, firmly upon Chaos Khârn's head, a skull covered in twisted spikes and blasphemous runes.
"Aaarghhhhh!"
The instant Axis's power made contact, Chaos Khârn unleashed a shrill, inhuman scream. This was no cry of simple physical agony.
It was the ultimate torment of a soul being torn asunder and seared. The Chaos energy coiled within him thrashed like a viper thrown into boiling oil, writhing and lashing out in a frenzy.
A dark crimson light and the profane power of the Warp radiated from beneath his skin, attempting to corrupt Axis's hand.
The energy even coalesced on his body into the twisted, screaming phantoms of daemons.
"Help me hold him down!" Axis barked.
The golden Khârn reacted fastest.
He took a single step forward and pinned his other self's convulsing body with his powerful arms. Guilliman and Jaghatai Khan immediately moved to assist, each taking a limb and restraining Chaos Khârn.
Sanguinius placed a gentle hand on the golden Khârn's shoulder. A soft but resolute psychic halo spread outwards from him, forming an invisible barrier that shielded the others from the stray whispers of Chaos and the maddening murmurs that bled into the air.
As the Great Angel of the Imperium, Sanguinius had further developed his psychic abilities after some persuasion from Magnus. His power was now incredibly pure, in some ways even more so than the Emperor's. This bright and gentle force seemed to ease Khârn's torment ever so slightly.
Axis ignored the chaotic backlash that would have driven any mortal insane in an instant. His mind was focused with absolute precision as his golden life energy probed into Chaos Khârn's brain like the most delicate of surgical instruments.
His target was the metallic nightmare deeply embedded within the brain tissue.
He enveloped the first nail with his life energy, clamped down, and pulled hard. Chaos Khârn's eyes rolled back into his head. His body began to tremble violently, but he was held fast by the others.
With a sickening sound, like flesh being forcibly ripped apart, Axis extracted a thick, crude nail stained with dark red gore and rust.
Chaos Khârn's body arched upwards violently, his eyes bulging as if they might burst from their sockets while a strangled, choking sound rattled in his throat.
The moment the nail was removed, the brain tissue it had long suppressed and warped began to collapse into necrosis. Black, corrupted blood gushed from the wound.
Axis's ki roared as an even more powerful torrent of golden light poured into the opening.
The necrotic tissue dissolved like snow under a blazing sun, washed away by the potent life force.
At the same time, the surrounding healthy cells were stimulated by the energy and began to divide and regenerate at an unprecedented rate, filling the void. This process sent a cascade of violent nerve impulses through Chaos Khârn's body, causing him to shudder like a man in the throes of a grand mal seizure.
This was only the beginning.
Each of the Butcher's Nails acted as an anchor, dug deep into his soul and entangled with the energies of Chaos. To remove them was not just a matter of physical damage to the brain, but a spiritual evisceration. Without the life-giving ki, any attempt to remove the Nails would have resulted in instant death. Furthermore, these implants had been a part of Khârn for ten millennia, thoroughly corrupted by Chaos and suffused with the power of chaos.
As the second and third nails were torn free, the Chaotic backlash reached its zenith. It was as if a legion of venomous insects was squirming and burrowing beneath Chaos Khârn's skin.
Corrupted blood seeped from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and blasphemous, inhuman curses and roars escaped his lips. It was the death throes of his daemonic nature. The very air on the bridge grew thick, cold, and heavy with the stench of decay.
"Drink the juice!"
With the last vestiges of his willpower, Chaos Khârn clamped his teeth down on the straw in his mouth and sucked hard. The juice of the Tree of Might, laden with a colossal essence of life, flooded his parched and burning throat.
A warm, powerful current of vitality surged through his body, reinforcing his failing system like alloy struts fortifying a collapsing dam. His body, on the brink of disintegration, was stabilized. The trend of collapse was halted and reversed. The foul curses were replaced by groans of relief, a sound originating from the very core of his being as life returned to him.
With each Nail that Axis removed, Khârn's condition steadily improved. Soon, only one remained.
After it was finally pulled free, his brain, nourished by Axis's life force, regenerated completely, slowly knitting itself back together.
"How do you feel?" Axis asked.
He had learned from his experience helping the Second Primarch. Back then, his control over his ki had been less refined, and he had accidentally damaged part of the Primarch's brain, causing some memory loss. This time, he had been exceptionally careful.
"Better than I have ever felt, Lord Axis," Chaos Khârn said, a pale smile gracing his lips.
"Then, Khârn of another reality, the physical bonds are now broken. Now the true purification begins."
"Do it, Lord Axis. I will see this through, one way or another."
Axis nodded.
The golden aura flared with even greater intensity. He did not remove his hand, but instead channeled a purer, more concentrated stream of ki into Chaos Khârn's body. This time, the objective was not to repair, but to utterly cleanse and expel.
"Rooooaaar!"
Chaos Khârn's body shot up, and even with several Primarchs pinning him down, the primal, inhuman roar that erupted from his throat made the entire bridge hum. Axis's ki was actively destroying the essence of Chaos within him.
The blessing of the Blood God began to surge forth as a roiling tide of crimson power. The dark red energy of the Blood God manifested as roaring, skull-faced phantoms that sought to consume the golden ki Axis was pouring in. The two opposing forces began a war of unprecedented ferocity within Chaos Khârn's body.
"Ugh, ahh! No! Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne! No… I… I am a warrior of the War Hounds!" Khârn's screams became incoherent, a garbled mess of chaotic ranting and agonized cries.
His consciousness felt as if it had been split in two.
One half was the Chaos-fueled madness ingrained in his very soul. The other was the faint fragment of humanity, the true 'Khârn', that was struggling to reawaken under the nourishment of the life energy.
Through Khârn's eyes, Axis could even see him, the god sitting upon a throne of skulls.
Following that connection, Axis's own spirit was pulled before Khorne himself, and he stood face-to-face with the immense entity sitting upon a throne of brass.
"We meet again, Axis, my most anticipated opponent," Khorne boomed, his voice full of excitement, "Unlike the others, I truly look forward to the day we can fight."
Only war and slaughter held any interest for him, and Axis's personality and fighting style suited his tastes perfectly. More importantly, Axis felt no fear of him and dared to raise his fists in defiance.
That was the most commendable quality of all. Thus, even though they were on opposing sides, Khorne held a great deal of admiration for Axis. The Emperor was the Emperor, and Axis was Axis. They were not to be conflated.
"I also look forward to fighting you," Axis replied, "Though you are a god of ill repute, you are undeniably a pure warrior.
"However, I know my own strength. I am not a god, and I cannot face your true form. Even the body you inhabit in this world is merely an avatar. You are a being of the multiverse."
"Hahaha! If you but wished it, I could find a way to help you ascend to godhood. I believe the two of us could become good friends," Khorne offered.
For Khorne, friendship meant fighting endlessly and gloriously.
"Perhaps," Axis said, getting straight to the point, "But I am not here for a chat. I am here to cleanse Khârn."
"HAHAHAHAH, go on right ahead, My friend! I have kept a fragment of his soul here. If you need it, it is yours." As he spoke, Khorne offered a sliver of soul to Axis.
This gesture took Axis by surprise.
He had expected a fight with Khorne, not for the Blood God to agree so readily. Axis was not concerned about treachery, however.
This was Khorne, and he liked to use only an axe and pure, overwhelming force.
"Then I accept, my friend." Axis nodded and took the soul fragment of Khârn. In all honesty, among the four Chaos Gods, Khorne was the one who most appealed to him, or rather, to the Saiyan nature in him.
"That is the spirit, my good friend Axis," Khorne said, "And let me tell you something else. It was not I who sent this Khârn to you, nor was it any of the other three. It was the one upon the Golden Throne."
"What?" Axis's expression changed, "You mean the Emperor sent him?"
"Not the Emperor," Khorne corrected him, "The one who sits on the Golden Throne is not the Emperor. He is the Dark King."
...
..
.
Bonus Chapter!!!