[The aging that the repeated entropy field exposures have catalyzed in your body has reached something close to a ceiling. Your physical strength and reaction speed are at a level that should not exist in a body aging at this rate. A Primarch's ceiling, accessed through a mechanism you still do not fully understand.]
[But as each new entropy field closes around you in the approach to the Great-Horned One, the residual time that had accumulated in your frame is being drawn back out again.]
[The strength is declining. Not slowly.]
[What the entropy gave you was borrowed. Time gathered in a mirror's surface rather than earned through your own making. The fields that elevated you are now reclaiming the loan.]
[You do not need a mirror to know what is happening to your face. Your senses are precise enough to read it directly: deep lines cut into the bronze skin beneath the skull helmet, creasing the forehead and the jaw like old bark. The white hair on top of your head is thinning to nothing.]
[No fear comes with this. What comes instead is a stillness you have not felt in a long time. Something close to peace.]
[One target remains in your field of vision.]
[The Great-Horned One.]
[The distance is closing. The bodies of Hrud along your flight path are falling behind you in a trail. The chieftain sees you now. Its dark eyes fix on you across the cavern and it lets out a low, angry roar.]
[Thud.]
[The long ring-limbs slam into the cave floor and launch it forward, gravel spraying from the impact. Both entropy blades come free from behind its body simultaneously, grey-white and cold. It is charging to meet you.]
[You fly through the outermost edge of its entropy field and feel the time leaving your body in handfuls.]
[You breathe in. You do not look at what your strength is doing. You do not think about the shadow at the edge of your body's awareness, the one that is spreading toward the center.]
[Boom.]
[The sound of the impact fills the cavern. Starfire Glory enters the entropy field's full depth and something inside the armor begins to age alongside you: the pale gold surface dimming, the internal systems degrading in a cascade the armor was never designed to resist.]
[The propulsion cuts out. You are on the ground, driving yourself forward on legs that are heavier than they were a second ago.]
[You swing the Staff of the Covenant.]
[The arc is wide and the weight of the weapon has become enormous in your palm, but the blow lands across the junction of the chieftain's shoulder and chest, and what it does there is absolute: flesh and bone along that entire span crumbles and fragments, thick blood bursting from the wound in every direction.]
[Hiss. Hiss.]
[The chieftain's remaining limb does not stop. The entropy blade on it drives forward through the decaying surface of Starfire Glory and through your chest.]
["Hahaha—"]
[Pale gold blood fills your mouth. Your teeth are coming loose. The sound that comes out of you is not a roar or a grunt. It is a low, unhurried laugh.]
[You draw another breath. The entropy field is still working. Your body shifts slightly under the weight of it.]
[You raise the Staff of the Covenant one final time.]
[It comes down on the Great-Horned One's skull without hesitation.]
[The skull shatters.]
[Thud.]
[The entropy field collapses as the chieftain falls, and the absence of it hits your body like a wave. Your legs go. The Staff of the Covenant goes into the floor to catch you, holding Starfire Glory upright through the support of the shaft, the armor now entirely inert around you.]
[Across the cavern, the remaining Hrud fall into frenzy. They charge the nearest Astartes in every direction, screaming, no longer concerned with tactics or entropy field coordination.]
[You turn your trembling body toward them, leaning on the Staff, the green light still burning in its length. You look at them.]
[Your consciousness is going.]
[The last image that reaches you before your eyes close is this: the Deathwatch veterans, pushing past their injuries, driving forward with weapons raised. The surviving Dreadnoughts roaring, the iron of their voices filling the cavern. All of them converging on your position.]
[You exhale. Slowly. The last breath.]
[The prolonged exposure to entropy energy has spent the last of your body's remaining life force. Your material form has reached its end.]
[You have died of old age.]
[Simulation concluded.]
[Duration: three months.]
[The following items may be retained from this simulation:]
[I. Staff of the Covenant (Master Craftsmanship)]
["This weapon was recovered by Deathwatch over a thousand years ago from a Necron expedition fleet during a fierce engagement. Based on extended study by Deathwatch Techmarines, only Triarch-level Necrons and above are considered qualified to wield this advanced weapon. The Staff of the Covenant operates in both ranged and melee modes. In ranged mode, its energy discharge is sufficient to melt the living metal body of any Necron into smoldering liquid. In melee mode its destructive capability matches or exceeds that of most powered weapons. 'I have at least ninety-nine ways to kill any living being. Ninety-nine.' A mad Triarch Praetorian, draped in blood-soaked skin, muttered this to a pile of human bones."]
[II. Hrud Entropy Blade (Unknown)]
["As a mysterious and ancient alien race, the Hrud possess an exceptional talent for assembling functional weapons from salvaged junk. They favor melee weapons powered by entropy energy and solid-projectile firearms. It has been noted that examples of Dark Eldar poison crystal weapons have been found on captured Hrud, as has evidence of Imperial mechanical prosthetics. However, the use of entropy energy weapons by humans through technological means remains effectively impossible: the driving force behind these weapons is the Hrud's innate racial ability, which cannot be replicated through engineering. 'Don't be too presumptuous. It's useless...' A Tech-Priest, holding an entropy blade, was reading the Hrud script engraved on the hilt aloud, word by word."]
[III. Sword-Class Frigate (Standard)]
["Sword-class frigates are standard Imperial Navy vessels, deployed in large numbers across both Navy and Adeptus Mechanicus fleets. Their origins trace back to the Great Crusade, though virtually every component in current production has been redesigned and refined through centuries of warfare. Among vessels of their tonnage class, Sword-class frigates are noted for armor thickness, hull integrity, and void shield performance that exceeds most comparable designs. Their weaponry is limited to short-range laser arrays with no long-range offensive capability, but their plasma engines are simple in construction and reliable in operation — straightforward enough for a newly ordained Tech-Priest to maintain without difficulty. 'All frigates, advance four — ram them! Sink Abaddon!' A frigate captain, his eyes burning, roared into the vox channel in a final furious transmission."]
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