Ai yah, now I want to read omakes of Malice/Malice Daemons taking over Daemon Worlds and their rise to power.
Tbf that only happened because of a triple crit existential failure on reality's part.
Like this?
*** The Maelstrom: Names Within Names ***
The crystal gardens were places of impossible complexity. Literally impossible. They would swiftly crumble and collapse were the Warp Storms to ever fade and the laws of material reality to reassert themselves, but that was incredibly unlikely, the planet mused, as while there were potential futures where it happened, they were perhaps a tenth of a billionth of a percent likely. Although, the future of itself and the inhabitants had grown clouded of late. Had they displeased the Changer of Ways in some manner?
Hm, perhaps the constant change could itself be considered a form of sameness, as the changes were a fact of life, a constant, and therefore something static. Maybe that was the pr- The planet paused, about to contact some of the Greater Daemons on it's surface about it's idea, when an anomaly occurred.
A shadow had appeared where none was before. Light and dark had not been switched in their totality this time, nor was there anything casting the shadow. Shadows now, it noted with the faintest spark of concern. There had been no tremors in the Warp to signal this invasion, as if they had simply slipped through the cracks of it's defenses. Myriad layers of sorceries and traps, from simple spacial manipulations such as the extension of distances, to complexities that made tesseracts seem like straight lines, and there had been no warning.
It reached out a tendril of consciousness towards them, growing truly concerned as the shadows started to rise into three-dimensions and began wandering the gardens, almost appearing to scout. Daemons of some kind? No, a new god being born would have been noticed. That wasn't something you could hide from the mas- It recoiled in shock as it brushed the mindless creature. This was not a Daemon. If it were, Chaos Undivided would be the closest thing to what it represented, though still not right.
This was pure negative emotion. No thoughts, no beliefs, it was more akin to a virus than a Daemon. Speaking of which, the moment it's tendril of being had come into contact with the shadow, the creature froze for a split second, before entering a frenzy. It and it's fellows began smashing crystals, which was immediately followed by tendrils of what appeared to be liquid darkness to rise from the same sort of rift the shadows themselves rose from. Naturally, it began to call in the lesser Daemons on it's surface to kill the interlopers.
The shadows fell to singular attacks, not even requiring effort on the part of Greater Daemons. The problem, was how quickly they reformed. A Daemon could not be killed, save for truly rare circumstances, merely dispelled temporarily. Certainly, a century was a long time for the mortals, but not so long for the denizens of the Warp. These beings were regaining form in moments, with even the smallest and weakest of their swelling numbers requiring less than a full minute to regain their form.
Exhaustion didn't apply to Daemons, but even their luck would eventually run out. It took more than a year for the first casualty amongst the Tzeentchian Daemons to arise. One of the shadows, now numbering in the thousands, arose within centimeters of a lesser Daemon. Naturally, it was put down immediately, but that left the Daemon open to a new type of shadow. Where before they were merely growing in size, retaining their quadrupedal form, this one had been humanoid, and was much, much faster, unfortunately for the unlucky Daemon. Something that looked like a shard of glass was ripped out of it, and liquid darkness consumed it, receding to reveal a new shadow,, with the trappings of classical wizardry. Things went downhill from there.
As more and more time passed, the shadows grew larger and stronger, and casualties began to mount, especially since the subverted Daemons, while lacking in skill, were more powerful, if anything, than before, and were capable of casting potent enchantments to counter the ones used by loyalists. As their numbers swelled, the shadows swarmed around major sorcery sites and constructs in general, dragging them into the darkness oozing into the world. The shadows appeared to be working their way to the former capitol city, as if they were... searching for something.
Attempts to make contact with the master were unreliable and growing increasingly so, as the Warp grew black, similar to how it turned green when the Orks were the dominant psychic race in a location. Even attempting to send Daemons with messages ended in failure more often than not at this point, as the creatures expanded exponentially. Was this how materials felt when a Daemonic Incursion occurred?
It mattered little, as the capitol soon came under siege. At this point, there were shadows the size of Titans, and the enchantments and defenders would have fallen to sheer weight of numbers even if their strongest weren't forced to confront their counterparts among the enemy. Soon, the shadows reached the old capitol building. It had been left with few defenders, as it was not a major hub of debauchery, and was too obvious to be a place of major intrigue, so it had held little importance to the Daemons, but the Daemonworld felt a spike of icy existential terror as the first few shadows, the harbingers of an endless tide directed at this one spot, entered. Was this what the mortals called 'the fear of death'?
Soon the defenders were defeated, and one of the new converts reached behind the throne room the egotistical ruler of this former Eldar world had turned his office into. A keyhole appeared, and then AgOnY. ALL BEGINS IN DARKNESS, AND ALL SHALL SO END.
An almost solid wave of Darkness propagated out as the Daemonworld's Heart was swallowed by Darkness, and with it, the world's allegiance now lay with Malice and the Darkness. The crystal gardens and pools of liquid shadow were replaced by intestine-like surfaces and half-molten objects, with faded, poorly-made murals of the previous states of the world. A mocking monument to what had been lost.
The few remaining Daemons were swiftly hunted down, before the world and it's inhabitants became dormant. With no light to extinguish, they had no reason to do anything. Even the Warp, stained black as it was, was deceptively calm. However, the nearby Daemons quickly learned to refrain from encroaching on the world.
AN: This is set when Malice first got his hands on Heartless, before he decided against using them directly. Think I should threadmark this under Sidestory?
