The psychic assault of the Prime Conductor was a thing of chilling, seductive perfection. It was the promise of an end to struggle, an end to fear, an end to the painful, chaotic burden of being an individual. The minds of the Deathwatch marines, forged in the fires of war and shielded by the adamant of faith, began to crack under the sheer, logical weight of that promise. Their struggles, their sacrifices, their very identities began to feel like meaningless noise in the face of this eternal, silent harmony.
But the assault shattered against the mind of Rimuru Tempest like a glass wave against a mountain.
His will was not a solitary fortress like theirs. It was a nexus, a capital city, a nation unto itself, built upon and reinforced by the powerful, individual wills of every soul who had ever sworn loyalty to him. He felt the cold, empty peace offered by the Osseous Praxis and found it utterly repulsive.
"You call this unity?" Rimuru's voice, now infused with his own immense will, pushed back against the psychic tide. It was not a scream; it was a clear, resonant note that brought clarity to the Astartes' minds. The crushing pressure on their souls lessened. "You are a prison, a silent collection of ghosts who feared the burden of having a name."
He raised Soulcleaver, and the sword began to glow, not with its own light, but with the reflected light of a thousand other souls. "I am a King of Monsters, and I am a king because they have names. I am strong because Benimaru is proud, because Shion is devoted, because Diablo is loyal, because Gabiru is an idiot, because every single citizen of my nation chooses to stand with me!"
He unleashed his own will, not as a silent, crushing force, but as a glorious, multi-faceted broadcast of pure, sovereign individuality. It was a feeling of a thousand different voices all singing the same song of loyalty. The Deathwatch marines felt the enemy's cold, logical temptation replaced by a feeling of immense, protective warmth, the undeniable presence of a true and powerful leader. The spell was broken.
"The Emperor demands we keep our souls!" Captain Arken roared, staggering back to his feet, his mind his own again, his fury incandescent. "Death to the soulless xenos!"
The Deathwatch veterans rose with him, their faith and fury reforged and stronger than ever. They had been offered a choice between a silent eternity and a bloody duty, and they had chosen duty without hesitation. They opened fire, their bolter shells tearing into the lesser Mind-Wardens who were now reeling from the psychic backlash.
With his allies freed, Rimuru advanced. The Prime Conductor, its mind in disarray, fought with the desperation of a dying concept. It fired bolts of pure psychic energy and lashed out with limbs of hardened bone. Rimuru walked through the assault as if it were a light rain, Soulcleaver parting the psychic blasts, his body moving with a grace that seemed to bend space around him.
He reached the crystalline figure and swung his sword. The Prime Conductor was unmade in a silent, clean arc of silver light.
Rimuru did not pause. He leaped towards the great, pulsating gestalt brain, the true heart of The Osseous Praxis. He raised Soulcleaver high.
"You wanted silence," he said, his voice echoing in the now-defenseless mind of the collective. "Then have it."
He plunged the sword into the core of the neural sphere.
There was no explosion. Instead, a single, pure, silver note rang out, a sound of such profound finality that it was the only thing in the universe. And then, for the first time in millennia, the trapped souls of the xenos screamed. It was a single, unified psychic shriek of agony, of release, of terror, and of a final, merciful oblivion as their eternal, silent prison was shattered.
The ghostly lights within the orb flared into a brilliant, blinding nova, and then went dark.
The psychic hum that had permeated the entire system ceased.
Aboard the Divine Right, Canoness Celestine was in the midst of leading a glorious charge against the enemy's flank. "For the Saint! For the Emperor!" she cried, her voice a beacon to the entire fleet as her ship's cannons tore a bone-white cruiser apart.
And then… the enemy died.
All at once. The entire fleet of The Osseous Praxis simply went dark. Their engines failed. Their weapon-ports went silent. Their strange, graceful movements ceased, leaving them as inert, drifting coffins in the void. On the decks of the Imperial ships engaged in bloody boarding actions, the silent, puppeteered corpses their enemies were using as soldiers simply collapsed, their animating force gone.
The battle was over. The victory was absolute, instantaneous, and profoundly, miraculously confusing. Celestine stood on her bridge, her sword still raised, in the sudden, deafening silence of a war that had just ended without a final battle. She knew. In the deepest part of her faithful soul, she knew. The Saint had performed another miracle.
Back in the Mind-Spire, the structure was dying. The bone-like walls began to crack and crumble to dust, the translucent membranes turning grey and dissolving.
"The spire is collapsing!" Arken yelled.
"It is time to leave," Rimuru said calmly. He placed a hand on the Captain's shoulder, and in the next instant, the entire strike team was standing back on the deck of the Whisper of Judgment, the silent moonlet before them. They watched as the great, coral-like spire crumbled into a fine, white powder, vanishing completely.
The Deathwatch marines were silent, their helmets hiding their expressions, but their reverence was a palpable force. They had been saved from a fate worse than any death they had ever imagined. They had not been saved by the Emperor, or by faith, but by a monster king who had championed the sanctity of their individual souls.
A vox-channel chimed. It was Lord General Maximillian, his voice choked with an emotion that was beyond tears, beyond joy. "My… my Lord Saint…" he stammered. "The xenos fleet… every last ship… they are inert. Lifeless. Their armies on the contested worlds have collapsed. The war… after a century… the war is over. What… what did you do?"
Rimuru looked from the dust of the fallen spire to the silent, victorious Imperial fleet hanging in the bleak sky. He thought of the silent, screaming prison he had just shattered.
"I reminded them," he said, his voice soft, "of the value of having a name."