AN: Never mind, I apparently write faster and more consistently when injured than not.
--
Three months after Thanquol is elected Underlord
A man once known as Diedrick Kastner came to the base of a mountain and knew his trial was at last complete. He sighed as he felt the weight of decades, or perhaps centuries or even millennia slide off his shoulders. Here, at the peak of this one insignificant mountain in the World's Edge Mountains, he would at last shed the inner turmoil that had driven him all this way. The gods would lift his humanity from him and grant him freedom.
All that they required was the world. A small price.
Diederick's colossal figure vaulted off his steed, an equine shadow of fire and hate that stood taller than any mortal horse. His black armor burned imprints of his boots into the stone as he landed. He laid a gauntlet on the daemonic beast's flank as it chuffed. "I must ascend alone, Dorghar. Find me once I have attained the Crown." In response the hellfiend merely huffed dismissively and stamped its foot, disappearing in a blaze of warpfire. Diederick's eyes narrowed through the jet-black eyeslits of his helmet. He had broken the Steed of the Apocalypse to his will many decades before, yet the beast always seemed contemptuous of him, as if obeying his commands was only a passing fancy. It did not matter so long as the thing obeyed him, however. Shaking his head, Diederick turned on his heel and began trudging up the rocky slope of the nameless mountain, the heavy thudding of his footsteps the only sound in the lonely valley it sat in at the end of the world.
--
An imposing figure encased wholly in black armor ascended a mountain. His footfalls were like earthquakes in miniature, the plate itself weighing more than most men. Yet the figure's breath was no more labored than if he were slumbering in a downy bed. A baleful eye hung from a metallic cord around his neck, the iris darting around and changing colors with a blurring malevolence. Slung on his back in a sheath filled with blood was a screaming sword that burned with the rage of one of Khorne's greatest champions trapped within. Upon his brow was seared the eight-pointed star of Chaos, the mark of the gods visible even from within his helm. His was a figure made to end the world, and he walked up the slope of a nameless mountain forgotten by everyone.
From the base it did not look like an imposing obstacle - it was not a high mountain, its peak was clearly visible far below the clouds, and it lacked any steep cliffs or rocky falls that could potentially pose an inconvenience to one such as Diederick. Were it any ordinary mountain, the black-armored warrior would have ascended the peak in a matter of hours.
He walked for four days and nights up the slope, the peak growing no closer. He looked back just once, and saw nothing but the slope of the mountain stretching downwards into infinity. He quickly snapped his gaze back to the peak, away from such an impossible sight. He walked onward, even as the air grew thicker and more foul as he progressed upward in contrary to all physical laws. Diederick was unflinching even as the air took on a pungent odor that burned his nasal passages. Eventually the unchanging slope took on new form quickly enough that the warrior was slightly startled. Instead of the everpresent peak above him he stood on the edge of an endless mire of rot that gave off a stench foul enough to kill any mortal man. Diederick was forced back a step by the sheer force of the smell, but no more. He steeled himself against it, and took comfort in that Be'lakor had not steered him wrong.
Make your way up the nameless mountain, the ancient daemon prince had told him,
And the gods will test you. You will pass their tests, and reach the peak of the mountain. Your goal lies therein.
Diederick strode into the mire of Nurgle without hesitation, the congealed muck clinging to his armor, trying to sink him down into the murk. The smell was omnipresent here, a scent that burned the flesh hidden beneath the armor of Morkar. He wrenched one leg out of the sucking grip the bog exerted upon him and took a step forward, only for the mire to sink his leg knee-deep as soon as he planted his foot. Eyes set in grim fatalism, he pulled his other leg out of the sludge and sunk it into the murk ahead of his other foot. In this manner he slowly, inoxerably made his way into the mire that stretched out endlessly before him.
--
Wrench. Step. Sink. Wrench. Step. Sink. This was the rythmn that defined Diederick's journey through Nurgle's realm. He made no attempt to find out where he was going, for the mire spread out endlessly in all directions. The air grew yet more foul as he went further in, enough to lend the air itself a foul greenish cast. All around him was squelching, bubbling, and the release of yet more stench, the process of decay bloated to a trillion times what it was in the mortal realm. He could dimly see the outlines of monstrous cities in the distance, their skeletons eternally rotting yet not toppling over. They never grew any closer, nor did there seem to be any other inhabitants of this place. There was only him, the muck, and the stench.
He tried to keep passage of time by counting the seconds, though they seemed to grow longer as he progressed deeper into the fetid swamp. Minutes stretched into years, days passed by in seconds, and hours took centuries to elapse. He could not be sure whether he had been treading through the place for seven seconds or seven eons. He kept walking forward.
His progress became more and more difficult as he continued. The air grew more foul, the murk clung to him ever more, and at times the atmosphere was so hostile Diederick could feel his eyes being eroded in their sockets from the sheer toxicity. He was assailed seven times by what could only be described as plagues; it was impossible to tell if they came all at once or centuries apart. First he was afflicted by a fever so intense his skin began to slacken as if it were going to fall off his bones and his eyes shriveled up in their sockets as the heat in his body began drying them out. He continued walking with a bloody-minded determination, and it was joined by a roiling from within his body as his gut rebelled against him. Meals he had eaten centuries before frothed up from within his stomach as the foulest acid, dissolving his lips and teeth and tongue. The whole of his digestive tract was filled with horrible cramps as the reflux ate slowly away at him from within. Still he walked. Next he was afflicted by a gruesome pox, a layer of boils the size of eyes carpeting his skin, bursting, and regrowing painfully, leaving him festering in pus inside his armor. Still he walked, the endless rhythm continuing. Wrench. Sink. Step.
Diederick's lungs filled up with blood, mucus, and other unnameable substances. A swarm of flies enveloped him and laid their eggs in his flesh, the larvae eating their way through him to freedom, laying yet more eggs in the crevices they left behind. He could feel them crawling through his muscles as he forced himself onward. Some sort of fungus began to sprout within his skin, spore caps poking out of every orifice, clogging what little breath he had left and draining his vitality with supernatural force. Still he drove himself on, more with his will than his body. Yet all this was merely a prelude to the Rot.
His diseased flesh began to bloat within his armor, pus seeping out of every crevice. Diederick could feel it as his flesh began to eat itself alive, rotting inside his armor. His body began to decay though he was still living, slow enough that he could feel every muscle fibre turn to muck. It began in his extremities, his fingers and toes, and spread up his limbs as he walked, the plague taking its time. It made its way to his torso and slowly spread upward, infecting all his organs and turning them into unstable mush that rotted infintisemally slowly. It seeped upward, into his heart and up through his spinal cord into his head, his brain slowly decaying inside his softening skull.
As his body rotted, so did his spirit, for the twisted genius of Nurgle's Rot was that it was not wholly a physical ailment, but also mental and spiritual, a philosophical affliction. His iron will wasset upon by acidic tides of self-doubt and despair. Hungry thoughts swirled around inside his head, whispering incessantly to him.
You're not going to succeed
aren't you tired
It's useless
just give up
nurgle loves you even if you fail
no use trying
what am I doing
lay down and rest
Diederick's inoxerable steps forward faltered, then halted. His head was spinning and he did not see the muck in front of him. His gaze was fixed upon the past, upon all of the things he had done to get to this point. He saw for the first time how meaningless it all was. What was his anger and spite in the face of the end of everything?
His knees buckled and he fell onto all fours, head bowed down. Unmentionable fluids dripped out of his eyeslits.
There was no use in continuing on. No use in anything at all.
He wrenched his hands out of the decaying muck and raised himself to one knee. His bones cracked inside his armor from the effort.
He was going to die and anything he did would be forgotten.
He pulled his other knee out of the bog and struggled to stand. His heart ceased beating, clogged up with pus.
He was doomed to meaninglesness. His body was all but dead.
He stood up and continued walking on nontheless. He gave himself no choice.
--
It may have been seven steps later, or seven eternities. But between one step and the next he was no longer in the unending mire and back upon the slope of the mountain. His armor was free of filth, and no contagion touched his flesh.
The man who had been Diederick Kastner continued upward.
--
Three Days Upward
The man in black armor stood at the entrance to a labyrinth of crystal. Its infinite facets shone in every color there was and some that were not. The walls stretched out as far as he could see to his left and right, twenty feet high and twisting on themselves even as he watched, shifting their composition. His sword stirred briefly in its bloody sheath, faintly sensing the presence of its bitter foe.
Seeing no other recourse, Diederick stepped forth into Tzneetch's labyrinth.
Instantly he regretted this decision, as he found himself hopelessly lost from the first step. Somehow the labyrinth looked completely different than it had just a few seconds ago, and space warped oddly inside its multifaceted structure, allowing the pathway to split off in impossible directions - curving upward while remaining level, staircases that led him upward while he walked down them, pathways that had geometry that shifted erratically from second to second. There were sections where he had to jump from platform to platform suspended above a swirling vortex that led to the reverse side of the platforms, make his way through intricate networks of pipes that curled in upon themselves to infinity, and other noneuclidean impossibilities.
He learned quickly not to look too closely at the walls, for upon closer inspection of their shimmering facets each one showed a vision - some of the past where only one inconsequential event was changed in some way, and others where almost everything was a distorted rendition of itself, where Sigmar was a crippled ape with three eyes and the dwarves were fifty feet tall and made entirely of fingernails. Some showed bloodshot, insane eyes looking desperately back at him, others revealed glimpses of immense sleeping horrors deeper in the labyrinth, and still others showed things entirely disconnected to the world at all, strange visions of tiny sprites made of shadow that spirited those near sleep off to a realm of eternal darkness and pigs that did nothing but be eternally consumed by their own body parts, which were upon closer inspection, more pigs. None showed the future.
He met many in the eternally twisting passageways of the labyrinth - those who, like him, had entered into the labyrinth and were now trapped with no way out. All, unlike him, had been driven insane from the impossibilities contained within the maze. Many were reduced to incoherency, while others had spent subjective millennia attempting to deivse the secrets of the maze. They had created elaborate systems for keeping track of how the maze's passageways shifted, all of which were meaningless in their complexity, for the labyrinth was impossible to predict by mortal minds.
Diederick wandered in Tzeentch's labyrinth for an indeterminable amount of time before he determined that it was pointless trying to make sense of it. He closed his eyes and instead wandered wherever his feet took him, for relying on his senses would accomplish nothing. He had about as good an idea of where he was going with his eyes closed as open, after all.
He wandered for a short time like this. Whenever he came upon a split in the path he took whichever one he felt inclined toward without thought. Two upward turns, two down. A left turn, followed by a right, followed by a left, followed by a right. He opened his eyes on an urge from his gut and found himself once more at the entrance to the maze. Stepping through, he found himself back on the slope of the mountain, heading upward to the everpresent peak. He merely shrugged and continued on his path. His steps quickened slightly in anticipation.
--
Two days later, the next test of the gods began.
It manifested initially as a slight scent drifting on the air, a faint aroma reminiscent of what a great feast smells like to a starving man. It slowly intensified, taking on other aspects, becoming infinitely more complex as it grew stronger. A woman's perfume, the scent of burning flesh, of the air after a rainstorm, the venom of a Khuresh python, the aroma of a happy home, and an infinitely larger variety of scents blended together, clashing together yet cooperating in some chaotic harmony. Diederick's skin prickled as it washed over him.
It was soon joined by a chorus of heavenly sounds, slowly rising from the background of his mind and swelling to overcome his thoughts. It was the distilled essence of every singer who had ever lived, what perfection would sound could it speak. It tugged at his body, driving his thoughts out together with the scent of perfection. Sibilant voices appeared in his mind, encouraging him to stop, to stay and enjoy them. He felt ghostly hands running over his skin inside his armor, leaving lines of subtle fire across his skin as they roamed. He flushed as though he had a fever, his body induced to be hypersensitive by Slaanesh's influence. His movements became strained, his willpower tested by the sibilant song of the god of joy. He kept walking up the mountain.
Soon She Who Thirst's next temptation revealed itself. Beginning as mere flickers of smoke in the corners of his vision, six capering daemonettes appeared, dancing all around him, laying their hands and other appendages upon him, attempting to look into his eyes. Diederick steadfastly kept his gaze off them, never seeing more than a stray arm. They spoke in siren tones, promising him unending ecstasy if he only stayed with them. Any mortal man would have been unable to resist their dulcet promises, for they were six of Slaanesh's 666,666 chosen handmaidens. But bodily pleasures had lost their appeal for Diederick lifetimes ago, and when one of the daemonettes grew impatient and took his head in its hands, shoving its tongue down his throat in a grotesque parody of a kiss, he bit the tentacular appendage off at the base and spat it in the daemonette's face. He continued up the mountain, heedless of their joyous cries of rage behind him.
The Prince of Excess was not done with him yet, however. There appeared a figure on the path ahead of him, indistinct at first but rapidly gaining definition. An incredibly tall and muscular barbarian, an emperor's crown upon his brow and a golden warhammer in his fist. He was fair-haired and blue-eyed, and his bearded features shone with an ethereal clarity.
"Hello, Diederick," spoke Sigmar of the Reik.
Diederick stared, stopped in his tracks by the presence of the Ur-Emperor. This was the god of his birthplace, the defier of darkness, he who's name he had served for many years as a Templar -
"No," he uttered, and continued walking toward the peak. "I renounced you."
Sigmar impassively watched him approach, and halted him once more by placing a gigantic hand upon his shoulder.
"It doesn't have to be this way. Fate does not bind you as tightly as you believe."
The god's words stung Diederick, and he angrily shrugged the emperor's hand off of him. "You lie! You lie by your very being here, you lie by denying your followers the truth of the world, you lie by your very existence! You're nothing more than a lie made up by weak men in order to hide from reality!" He furiously strode away, the honeyed tune of Slaanesh intensifying as he marched up the mountain, the sound only aggravating him more. He was stopped yet again by Sigmar, the Unberogen god overtaking him in but two strides.
"You always have the choice to turn back," he explained, his expression seemingly saddened by Diederick's refusal to see reason.
"Your choices are always and forever your own, no matter what any who belong to the Dark Gods may say. You say you have renounced me, renounced your name and everything that you once were, but I can see that you have not. They are merely hiding in a dark corner in your heart. All you have to do is see that and you can still be forgiven. You bear the arms and armaments of monsters, but you still possess the heart and soul of a man."
The god-king approached Diederick once more, clasping both of his shoulders and looking deep into his eyes.
"You could have been the greatest of all the scions of the Empire if you had stayed. You could be that still if you turn back now. Let the world endure, see this oncoming storm of Chaos beaten back like all those before it, and you will know peace, Diederick. Continuing on your path will only bring you pain."
There was silence for a long time afterward, as man and god looked each other in the eye.
"How dare you."
Sigmar took his hands off of Diederick's shoulders and stepped back, staring solemnly at him.
"Where were your words of forgiveness when I got my squire killed by beastmen? When I read the prophecies of Necrodomo and burned down the church I grew up in? Where were you when I kneeled before your golden statue in Altdorf and begged for a sign? No," he ranted as he again began walking forward, "You don't exist. The fact that you only try to dissuade me now is proof enough of that. Your empire is built off a falsehood, and I will end the charade that this world is anything more than the plaything of the gods."
Sigmar sighed and stood aside, disappointment written upon his face.
"If that is the path you choose. We will meet each other again soon, Diederick. Do not expect me to be so forgiving then." The Ur-Emperor began walking down the mountain's endless slope, but paused momentarily.
"You will soon recieve an opportunity that I would murder an entire people to get, Diederick. Don't waste it." And with that the god was gone, striding off into the mists of infinity.
Diederick strode onward, his mind blazing with righteous fury from the sheer hypocrisy of the thing's words. He knew rationally that it couldn't have been Sigmar, that what the people of the Empire worshiped as Sigmar was merely an echo chamber of their own bleated thoughts, that Slaanesh had no doubt sent a phantom to strike at his will. It still didn't stop him from churning in cold anger.
Many other figures from his past life appeared to him, people had once been happy to know. The priest that had raised him, Heironymous Dagobert, Sieur Kastner, his knightly mentor and namesake, Nils, his fellow squire while in Kastner's service, Emil, his own short-lived squire. All of them begged him to reconsider and turn back while he still could. Their pleas incensed Diederick, and with the music of Slaanesh playing in his ears he unsheathed his sword and cut through them until he could not smell the scent of She Who Thirsts over all the blood. He decapitated people he had only known for a day and those he had walked beside for years, his blade swimming through them, an evergrowing crowd of people, the faces of everyone he had ever known begging him to turn back. In a blinding rage, he murdered them all until only one remained.
She was a slender woman, who had fair skin and brown hair; plain to some, but marvelously detailed to him. Her features were delicate and slim, more befitting a goddess than a mortal. She was still clad in the clothes she had worn the last time he'd seen her, a relatively simple dress with a flour-stained apron overtop of it. She'd been getting their maid Helga to teach her how to bake, he recalled.
"Selma," he breathed to the face of his dead wife.
"Diederick," she replied, face solemn.
Time passed, the two staring at each other unwavering. They had met each other in one of his investigations into corruption in Nuln; she, as the last known person in contact with Diederick's target, a suspected cultist of Tzeentch, was likely to be in danger from the cult's agents. Several dizzying escapades and one burned-down cult headquarters later, they were romantically involved, and kept in contact over the next several years even when Diederick's duties drew him away. He eventually asked her father, a wealthy merchant, permission to marry her and obtained his blessing with a minimum of trouble. The two of them had lived a happy life together, until he killed her and burned their house to the ground in a fit of nihilistic insanity after having the truth of the world revealed to him.
"Why, Dieder? What possessed you to destroy our life?"
she's not real she's not real she's not real he repeated to himself frantically, but words slipped out of his mouth nontheless. "Selma, understand, please. The world was revealed to me, in all its truth and all its horrific inevitability. My entire life was revealed as a lie. It was ... I was irrevocably fated to become what I am now. I saw it in the books written by Necrodomo the insane. The gods are a lie, a mere echo chamber composed of the worship of their followers. Do you understand what that means? We were slaves to ourselves, our own slavish whims manifested in what we thought was our god. Everyone in the world, from the elves in Ulthuan to the mutants we cast out of our homes as babes, are slaves to the gods we ourselves make by merely existing. Living, loving, birthing children and teaching them to be good followers of Sigmar like we planned ... it all feeds into the same cycle. Even the afterlife is a lie, the gardens of Morr a sham. When this was revealed to me ... I couldn't stand it. If the world was composed of a lie, and I was fated to end it, who am I to deny it? It will be a mercy."
Diederick looked up from his manic pacing at the apparition with the face of his wife. "I don't know why I'm talking to you. You're not my wife, my wife died long ago by my hand. It ... it was necessary."
Be'lakor had convinced him of the necessity of it all those years ago. If he was to purge the false Empire from the face of the earth he could not afford to have people he cared about still living in it. He could no longer recall the words the ancient daemon prince had used, but the message behind them was still there. It must be, for if he failed then he was merely a weak man who had succumbed to the temptation of madness. He must be right.
Selma's face was a rictus of confused terror. "Diederick, I don't know what you're saying. I ... I remember ... screaming, and fire and blood, but that doesn't mean I'm dead. I'm here, Dieder! Please, I know that if you stop what you're doing now, everything can go back to the way things were, before all this. We, we can go back to Reikland, my father has properties far from the city we can live in, we can forget everything that happened, forget Sigmar and the gods of chaos and all the gods if that's what you want. We'll still have each other, Diederick." Her face was streaked with tears.
The man gripped the Slayer of Kings hard enough that the metal hilt creaked. "Don't call me that."
"Don't call you what? Diederick? I am your wife, what else am I supposed to call you?"
"You are not my wife and that is not my name."
Selma's eyes flashed in an achingly familiar way that she'd had when angry. "Dieder, you're being foolish. This is your chance to turn back! If it's your destiny to end the world like you say, then your future will only hold misery for you, won't it? There's no reason you have to do this, Diederick."
"Stop calling me that."
"Stop calling you by your name? You are still the man I married, are you not? Diederick Kastner, a pious brave man ashamed of the rape of his mother that led to his birth? Templar of Sigmar, faked his last name in order to get his knight's wife to sponsor him? Loves his god, his empire and his wife? That Diede-"
She was cut off as with a choking roar, the man plunged his sword through her gut, the blade greedily drinking of her blood. She looked in disbelief down at the entry point of the sword, then up into his crazed eyes. She managed one more word, reaching with a shaking hand towards his helm. "Dieder..."
The name incesed him, and he drew his blade from her gut and struck her head from her shoulders, bellowing, "THAT IS NOT MY NAME! I AM ARCHAON AND I AM THE HERALD OF THE WORLD'S END!" He fell upon her corpse with a savagery unmatched by most Khornate reavers, hacking his wife's body into meaningless bits. He looked up from the spattered gore to behold her head looking at him with an empty expression. The sight of her eyes staring soullesly at him drained his rage from him in a sudden burst, and he felt himself numb as he processed what he had done. Regardless of whether she had just been an apparition fabricated by the prince of pleasure or not, he had killed his wife in cold blood. There was no going back for him.
Archaon strode up the mountain, oblivious to any other temptations Slaanesh threw his way.
--
Archaon strode up the mountain for a day before he came at last to the peak. There stood there a grand stone temple, hundreds of feet high and adorned with images of daemons tormenting helpless mortals without end. The building itself had a malavolence to it that lent it a sense of supreme self-assurance; it had stood for several thousand years and could last for eternity. It stood on the other side of a smooth plateau, and as Archaon stepped onto the glassy surface the skies turned red. With a thunderous bellow reminiscent of a colossal wolf's howl, a flaming meteor of blood rocketed down from the sky and crashed into the ground fifty feet from Archaon. The crimson figure stood up, towering over the black-armored champion, grasping a massive double-bladed axe in one hand and a gargantuan bullwhip in the other. Molten eyes flared under black bull's horns as the Bloodthirster of Khorne spoke in a voice like murder.
KHORNE SEES NO POINT IN FOOLISH TRIALS OF THE WILL, HE WHO WOULD BE NAMED EVERCHOSEN! BEST I, KA'BANDHA, IN THE FORGE OF BATTLE OR BE CAST INTO OBLIVION LIKE SO MANY BEFORE YOU! PREPARE YOURSELF, HUMAN!
The beast threw back its head and roared to the skies, sparks exuding from its mouth. The earth shook from the volume and the stink of blood filled the air. Any other man would have been driven into a frenzy, but for the man who had been Diederick Kastner it was like he had ice in his veins. He dispassionately unsheathed the Slayer of Kings and took up a ready stance, awaiting the daemon's charge.
He did not have to wait long as Khorne's chosen dashed forward quicker than thought, axe coming down with a crushing blow. Archaon ducked under the strike, hewing as Ka'Bandha's ankle, only to have his sword snatched away by the clutches of the Bloodthirster's whip. Before he could move any further, the daemon's knee rocketed forward and struck him in the face, sending him flying back a great distance. It was only by chance that he managed to grap hold of the edge of the plateau to keep from falling back down the mountain. As he arduously lifted himself back up, head ringing from the thunderous blow, the Slayer of Kings clattered to the ground in front of him. He heard Ka'Bandha's voice echo out once more, twisted with contempt.
THIS IS ALL THAT YOU ARE, SO-CALLED CHAMPION? YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF MY AXE OR THE SKULL THRONE. TURN BACK AND FIND A MENIAL EXISTENCE WITH THE MORTALS YOU ABANDONED.
Archaon rose to his feet, one hand gripping the eye on a chain around his throat until it began glowing in multifaceted colors. "I think not, daemon," he replied in an even tone. "Turning back is not an option for me anymore."
Ka'Bandha snorted in disgust.
THEN DIE UNDER MY HOOVES, WEAKLING! The daemon blurred forward, axe raised high.
But the Eye of Sheerian showed Archaon the truth; the axe was a decoy strike. The bloodthirster intended to tear his legs off with his whip and spear him through the heart with his left horn. He preempted this, ducking and rolling toward and under the incoming axe, Slayer of Kings whirring downward to cut through the retaliatory whip strike. A shard of magically supercool ice manifested in his off hand, which he plunged into the small of Ka'Bandha's back. The daemon roared in pain and hatred, and whirled around with blinding speed, ebony hoof raised high to crush the upstart into the ground. Archaon interrupted his strike once again, sidestepping and stabbing upward into Ka'Bandha's thigh as his hoof impacted the ground hard enough to splinter the stone. The Bloodthirster, now bleeding black ichor from two wounds, ground his teeth in rage and threw himself into the fight with tripled vigor.
Their battle was like that of two gods striving against each other. Each of Ka'Bandha's blows split the stone which it struck and left the very air hissing in their passage. The bloodthirster fought with a fury beyond the wildest beasts and a skill surpassing the greatest mortal warriors. No man could have stood against it and lived. But Archaon had the blessing of all four Chaos Gods, granting him unnatural speed and strength, and the Eye of Sheerian's powers, even incomplete as they were, let him forsee all of Ka'Bandha's strikes before they were made. He slipped around them by mere inches, the Slayer of Kings tracing cruel arcs through daemonic flesh in the fleeting instants between Ka'Bandha's sweeping blows. In stark contrast to the daemon, who bellowed with incomprehensible rage as the battle went on, not a sound escaped the black helm of the prospective Everchosen.
The struggle between the two went on for what must have been eternities. A blood-red sun rose and set eight times, with Ka'Bandha growing more and more frenzied with each repetition, but time was meaningless in the realm of chaos. Ultimately the signs of their struggle faded, the gouges in the ground sealing up and the scorch marks caused by Archaon's magic disappearing. They fought on an endless plain of glass, with four gargantuan figures looking on from the horizons.
Eventually the battle ended as quickly as it had begun. For all his unholy vitality, Ka'Bandha grew weary from the numerous wounds inflicted upon him. His motions slowed by a mere fraction, which was all Archaon needed. He unleashed the power of the daemon trapped within his sword for a fraction of a second, a terrifying howl of insane desperation echoing out across the endless battleground as the Slayer of Kings glowed with a blinding red light and split Ka'Bandha's axe in two. Effortlessly sidestepping the daemon's lunge, he grasped the writhing end of the bloodthirster's own whip and wrapped it tight around the daemon's throat, leaping upon his back and pulling with all his unnatural strength until the daemon at last succumbed and collapsed.
He strode off the decaying corpse of Ka'Bandha and walked across the suddenly small plateau to the small shrine that had been the first statue erected in worship to chaos in the world. It was a simple thing, comprised of plain stone with the eight-pointed star crudely etched into the foundations. It was barely large enough to accomodate Archaon's armored bulk, and looked fragile enough that it was a surprise it had lasted a day, to say nothing of millenia. Upon a crude stone throne sat the shrine's sole inhabitant, a dusty skeleton with a simple iron circlet upon its brow.
"At last," Archaon ground out, and strode forward to claim what was his.
Of course it wasn't that simple. The shadows in the corners of the room pulsed, and before Archaon had taken a step forward the shrine was plunged into utter darkness deeper even than that within the temple in which he had recieved his Mark. He felt nothing, but heard claws settling down on his pauldrons, and he looked upward to where he knew Be'lakor would be.
"You have no idea how long I have waited for this, my seed," the daemon prince hissed, his voice seeming to seep out of everywhere in the shadow.
"The gods denied this prize to me in ages long past, but I found a way around them. Now we together will fulfil our ambition, and end this world to move on."
The darkness coleasced into multiple streams of perfect shadow that flowed into the skeleton on the throne. It stood up, the shadows giving it the likeness of a man; the face was unclear but his eyes shone through, piercing and ancient.
"Take the crown from my brow," it urged with the voice of a million orators throughout the ages.
"Let me into your soul, my son. With my knowledge of the ages and your god-given gifts we will cast the world back into the abyss, and damn the gods if they attempt to stop us from doing as we please. It is everything you could wish for - an end to the lie of the world, an end to the pain of betraying everything you were, an end to your humanity. Just let me take control."
Archaon stared at the ebony figure standing in front of him for but a few seconds before smashing it to bits with one crushing punch. "This is my destiny alone, and my soul is my own. Father or not, I'll turn you to dust should you oppose me, Be'lakor."
The shadows screamed at his retort, rushing at him, gushing through the holes in his plate, through his eyeslits and darting into his body through his eyesockets and the pores of his skin. They flowed into his spirit, attempting to overwhelm him and possess his body and mind, and Archaon could hear his daemonic sire screaming into his mind as he did so.
UNGRATEFUL WRETCH! ALL THAT YOU ARE, YOU OWE TO ME! YOUR MOTHER WOULD HAVE ABORTED YOU A THOUSAND TIMES OVER HAD I NOT STOPPED HER! YOU THINK YOU'D HAVE SURVIVED YOUR FIRST DAY OF SQUIREDOM WITHOUT MY HELP?! A FUCKING HORSE BIT YOUR THROAT OUT! EVERY PART OF YOUR LIFE I ARDUOUSLY SHAPED TO GET YOU THIS FAR! AND NOW, AFTER UNTOLD EONS AND AGES WHERE THE GODS MOCK ME, YOU'RE GOING TO DENY ME? I THINK NOT! YOUR BODY WILL WITHSTAND MY PRESENCE LONG ENOUGH TO CRUSH THE MORTAL PLANE OF EXISTENCE, AND YOUR SOUL SHALL BE CAST INTO OBLIVION!
Archaon struggled against the Master of Darkness with every fibre of his being, his iron will being put to its greatest test as the first daemon prince attempted to overthrow his soul. It was a battle of wills, the primodial selfishness of Be'lakor contending against Archaon's loathing and hatred. It was a credit to Archaon's strength of conviction that he was not obliterated instantly, but he could not hold out forever against the daemon prince. His mental battle lines were slowly ground back until eventually he was on the cusp of being overwhelmed. Be'lakor swelled in triumph, and it was in that moment that the gods snatched victory from his jaws as they had countless times before.
There was a single instant for the daemon prince to utter
"No-" before he was wrenched out of Archaon's body by unseen forces, unwillingly kneeling before the Everchosen. His face was twisted in a rictus of hatred, and his shaking arms slowly scooped up the Crown of Domination from where it had toppled on the floor.
"Three-Eyed Archaon,", he intoned in a voice that was not his own,
"You have proven yourself worthy of the choosing of the gods. Take now this crown, and with it dominate your allies and strike fear into your foes. Be known as Everchosen, and end the world of mortals as was decreed at the beginning." He bent his head downward and offered up the circlet to Archaon, who wasted no time in plucking it from the daemon's hands and placing it upon his brow.
His body was immediately wracked with an immense surge of chaos energy, swelling his frame with power as he threw back his head and reveled in it. He could ... feel the presence of every creature of chaos near the mountain. With a mere thought their wills were enslaved to his, and they came. This was true power!
Archaon made his way out of the shrine to find the mountain vanished; instead the formless expanse of the chaos wastes stretched out before him. And standing in the wastes was an army. A force which seemed almost beyond number, a sea of chaos armored warriors stretching out to the horizon, Khornates standing side by side with followers of Tchar and Slaanesh and Nurgle with no complaint.
An army fit to end the earth, he thought.
There was one last thing to do before he addressed his army as Everchosen, however. The Eye of Sheerian had prophetic powers that rivaled the greatest sages, but its full potential could only be unlocked when placed within the Crown of Domination. He plucked the artifact from its chain, the metal snapping without any effort on his part, and set it into the indentation in the circlet. This triggered a transformation - the Crown and his helm fused, and Archaon stumbled as the crown stretched into a bone-white helm with two immense horns arcing upward. The Eye was set into the helm, at a point just above his other two, and it shone with baleful light, illuminating countless possible futures to the Everchosen. The gods spoke to him then, and Archaon straightened up, enlightened as to the true scope of his task. Men, dwarfs, elves, lizardmen, ogres, orks, even those such as the fimir and the godspawn of Ind ... he could see all their destinies converging into one apocalyptic confrontation. He must emerge victorious.
"Be'lakor," he spoke, for he knew the master of shadows was still nearby, "There is a task that only you can accomplish. Take what daemons the gods will gift to you and go to the southernmost continent. Of all the enemies of the gods present in the mortal realms, only the lizardmen pose a significant threat if not quashed early. My own destiny lies in crushing the mortal realms, and you only failed in your task to bring the lizardfolk to heel by mere happenstance. They are weak enough now that you will prevail. Now go," he bade, and the Crown forced the daemon prince to obey. Archaon turned to his armies, his mantle of power swelling but discontent still in his heart. He was still not free of his internal turmoil, no matter how far he had come. An impossibly small part of him still felt guilt for all he had done. Despite all his accomplishments, he was still human.
He dispersed orders to men and daemons alike with a dismissive air while in the recesses of his mind a voice spoke to him, quietly whispering sweet sentiments of betrayal and mutual obliteration.
--
Across the world, the winds of chaos were felt blowing like they never had before. The Chaos Wastes swelled with power and expanded, hungrily consuming ground as they inched forward. Beastmen population worldwide exploded as the call of the gods was felt, and warherds eagerly mustered. Vast thunderstorms cropped up across the mountain ranges of the world, and showers of lightning illuminated roaring dragon ogres awakening from their slumber of eons. Every creature even slightly attuned to the warp could feel it in their soul.
The End Times had come, and it rode in on a storm of chaos.
