Aboard the Khrave web-ship designated D-52 by the Shadows of Order.
The steam from teleportation dissipated in the corridor. The unsettling stench of the Khrave ship, seeping through their respirator grilles, faintly reached the nostrils of Lord Adams of the Fourth Chapter and his Honour Guard.
Having walked the paths of "Corpse-Collector" and "Grave Digger," they had trained in far fouler places; they felt no discomfort.
Around the "Gatekeepers'" Tartaros-pattern Terminator armor, countless shadows seemed to lurk, layers deep, cold and dark.
Adams's instincts prickled. He raised his right arm.
A rift opened in his palm. A burst of ethereal light, in an instant, spun outward from a point, collapsing inward to form a slightly blurry, double bronze gate.
The gate was covered in mystic patterns, radiating an indescribable stillness and depth.
Creak!
The gate shook, cracking open a sliver. Within the gap was an endless darkness, like the void of a starless night.
An icy wind, cold enough to freeze a mortal's bones, rose from within. Black-green vines, bearing faces, extended outward.
Withered hands, cracked and lined with teeth, grasped at the air, some screaming, some laughing.
Amidst the cacophony, Adams's upper right half grew rapidly ethereal, as if becoming a wraith himself.
His arm and forearm stretched, phantom limbs forming and extending like building blocks.
With a shrieking howl, a pale hand grasped the Khrave's tendrils.
At the appearance of the wraith that had willingly entered him when he became a "Gatekeeper" on Sodhiem, the Khrave went numb, its body seeming to freeze.
The swift Khrave offered no resistance. The pale hand already held the tendrils beneath its head.
The Khrave's body withered rapidly, as if it had not fed for millennia.
Pale green mucus dripped onto the bat-like form, which quickly became a desiccated corpse.
The pale arm retracted. Within the bronze gate, hundreds of other arms writhed, but none dared approach.
As the bronze gate consumed the first Khrave, the "Gatekeepers" either tapped their foreheads or opened their palms, summoning their own gates to the underworld.
Khrave wraiths, their wings dry and withered, their tendrils waving, leaped from the gates.
Their bone wings beat as they lunged at the living, who resembled them but were several times larger.
"Shameful desecration!" the Khrave roared in fury. Their Exterminator carbines unleashed waves of psychic energy.
A blast of aetheric energy struck a Khrave.
Bang!
The Khrave wraith's form exploded, its body dimming, growing faint.
Its eyes glared at the living with venomous hatred, screaming in defiance.
The Khrave answered with a piercing psychic shriek, its own hatred echoing through the corridor.
The blue-black radiance of the dead clashed with the aetheric light. Khrave tendrils, one after another, withered.
With a crackling sound, a Khrave wraith materialized beside a living Khrave, firing its carbine and screaming psychically.
It swung a green-black blade, shaped like a Warp Distortion, at the joint where the right wing met the spine.
The Khrave retracted its carbine, spinning. Its right claw, clenched, blazed with aetheric light.
It swung its newly formed Warp Distortion to meet the wraith's venomous blade.
The blades clashed with a shriek.
The shockwave hurled the Khrave back. The wraith's strength and agility were still terrifying, and its right arm, wielding the Warp Distortion, radiated a bizarre energy that eroded both body and mind.
In its thousand years of existence, it had never encountered such energy. The closest thing was a corrupted Khrave.
Before it could regain its balance, the wraith that had been screaming at it moments before gripped it from behind. Its withered arms wrapped around its multi-jointed body.
The wraith's form was folded and contorted, more flexible than in life, locking the Khrave's body tight.
Another Khrave wraith followed, swinging its blade without mercy.
The venomous blade struck the psychic shield with a sharp crack.
The Khrave thrashed wildly, its right arm bending backward, unleashing psychic blasts.
Bang, bang, bang...
The Khrave wraith's form was shattered, knocked askew, twisted and bent, but it never released its grip, as if it felt no pain.
Its hatred growing, its withered, branch-like tendrils pierced the living Khrave's skull.
"Ah!"
A venomous scream tore through the Khrave's mind, seeping into its soul.
The Khrave stiffened. The venomous blade struck its forehead.
A "Gatekeeper" raised his pale hand, speaking the "Speech of the Dead."
The Khrave's empty eyes blazed with blue-black light. The wraith released its hold, and the Khrave, instead of falling, shuffled towards the bronze gate.
A step from the gate, black-green vines reached out, pulling it inside.
Death Lord Adams surveyed the scene, nodding in satisfaction.
'My Chapter grows stronger with each battle.'
In the beginning, the "Gatekeepers" and "Spirit Guide" could only overwhelm the Khrave with numbers but as victory followed victory, the situation changed.
In the six homeworlds of the Ghoul Stars, the dimensional overlap with the Khrave's source domain had warped spacetime, leaving many souls to linger, providing opportunities to enslave the dead.
With each Khrave wraith enslaved, the undead legions commanded by the "Gatekeepers" and "Spirit Guide" grew significantly stronger.
As Adams led his Honour Guard in attacking the Khrave, building their strength, Nareth received a report from Santiago Borgkamp.
The daemonologist had successfully located and pinpointed the entrance to the source domain within the vast expanse of the Khrave's six homeworld systems.
Nareth was delighted.
'This saves me from using the Dice of Prophecy.'
'It's time to launch the final battle.'
He opened the comms and issued the order.
"Seventh Chapter, all Court members, proceed to the entrance of the source domain."
"Second Chapter's intelligent machines, stand by to support."
With Nareth's command, black warships broke off from their engagements and converged on a single point.
The movement of the Shadow's Sovereignty quickly drew the attention of the Progenitors who had fought Angron, the one whose War Crown had been shattered.
His tendrils twitched. His mind reached out, touching fifty other Progenitors.
"Nareth has found the entrance. We must act now. Stop him from striking at our home."
An ancient voice spoke. It was the Progenitor who had appeared on Indra-Sul.
"You will all go to face him. I will seek my revenge on his Reaper Lord, and find an answer."
"Go." The Progenitor with the shattered War Crown hissed. "The arrogant and foolish Nareth will not foresee that he will face fifty-one World-Enders."
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu