The Warp, or the Immaterium as it is referred to by the more educated in its vagaries, is a chaotic place filled to the brim with warp entities of all sizes and shapes. Nothing is fixed and everything is allowed. Colors that should be able to exist flowed like liquid along side planet sized claws made of trillions of tiny mutating demons moving like a malevolent shoal of material fish. Rolling clouds of living lightning, mountainous faces of monsters and men, physical waves of emotions, floating cliffs made of reverse flowing ice cold screaming lava, sounds that came from everywhere and nowhere that could never be forgotten, all of this and more impossible things were made possible and then impossible millions, billions, trillions of time per 'second' in the Warp as its corrupted nature took its course.
The only one constant thing was the giant beam of golden light which no demon dared to enter directly. The light of the enemy of the Dark Gods, the light of the Anathema, the Light of the God Emperor of Mankind. The Astronomicon.
Fed by the souls of a thousand sacrificed psykers every day through the Emperor it's light acted like a literal lighthouse in the Warp, guiding the various ships of Humanity through the impossible directionless nature of the Warp so that they might appear at their destination in a somewhat reliable and timely matter. Though it does not always work.
The demons of the Warp are always constantly attacking any ships that entered their realm. Their desire for souls a never ending hunger to match that of the most ravenous of material entities.
Sometimes the protections surrounding these ships flickered and a few demons could flood in during that instant moment of weakness, manifesting in their own preferred forms to cause havoc and slaughter onboard. Other times the defenses fail completely and the demons descend like a pack of piranhas leaving nothing but corrupted wrecks behind with laughter and screeches abound.
This time however a rare occurrence appeared in the currents of the Warp. A tiny visible fraction of the Astronomicon broke off before surging off into the depths of the Warp while the rest of the Astronomicon visibly dimmed just a bit.
The demons in its way were instantly obliterated or heavily wounded after getting slightly grazed. Looking at the direction at where it went the demons followed in curiosity.
They saw the light compress and curl around something, a human, a rather angry one judging by the roar of rage coming from it, much to the pleasure of the Khornate daemons, which they immediately began to assault even as some of their numbers swarmed and devoured the multitudes of orks and their ramshackled machines ahead of the mortal.
The first minor demons that reached the light encompassed human were almost immediately destroyed as their very essence burned on contact with the sheer amount of the Anathema's power compressed in such a small space. They did not even get to finish burning before the now visibly identifiable spike festooned red armored human pulled out a roaring, flaming, chainshovel that had a golden blue glow around it crackling with power from what seemed like the Warp itself and swung it at speeds beyond their expectations.
What happened next caused every demon watching to feel something they had never felt before in their existence. Fear.
The mortal's shovel flashed and all of the burning demons surrounding him were instantly cut down, but the horrifying part was that their essence burned with golden fires and did not return to the currents of the Warp.
Over a dozen servants of the Dark Gods had just suffered a True Death.
They had typically never felt fear in battle for they knew for a 'fact' that they were immortal, they could not die, nothing but the Gods could kill them.
Now they met one of the very few beings that could.
Unlike most mortals the being did not deign to flee as those with 'sanity' and 'common sense' usually did, instead it somehow began to fly through the Warp and began massacring them. Normally their sheer limitless numbers would be enough to educate the fool on trying to fight the denizens of the Warp while being in the Warp itself, but the fear had paralyzed the less willful ones and the sheer speed of the shovel combined with the Anathema's light weakening them on proximity allowed the being to begin digging and carving his way through the hordes of demons that tried to surround and stop him.
First into the fray were the demons on Khorne whose god would no doubt do unspeakable things to them should they attempt to flee from a single challenging mortal, empowered by the Anathema or not.
They did not last long as those without weapons were cleaved through before they could dodge, while those with weapons were cut down along with their weapons, their warp formed weaponry proving not the slightest hindrance to the potent technological artifice empowered by a physical god.
Needless to say the rest of the demons failed to do much better as most of their warp based abilities simply refused to work in the proximity of the Anathema's Light or quickly fizzled out when it did.
No one but the Gods could say how long, but the Demon Slayer Ripped and Tore his way through the Warp causing True Death on all those that died to his weapon and permanently scaring and destroying the various immaterial domains of the gods with his passing. Even the higher ranked demons began participating in hordes as they tried to stop the mortal from causing even more damage to their master's domains.
They lasted little longer than their lesser counterparts as the light surrounding the Demon Slayer refused to dim and instead seemed to be getting stronger and frighteningly enough, so did the Demon Slayer.
It was visibly larger, stronger, and faster than when it was first encountered. It's pace sped up over time even as it escaped the various ambushes set up by the greater demons that sought to win the favor of their respective masters.
Wherever it went the demons of Chaos fled as if the Anathema himself was present.
At this moment the minor demon looked behind it to see the roaring form of the Demon Slayer gaining on it and it prayed to the Dark Gods for a unholy miracle to save its life.
Right as the shovel of the Demon Slayer was about to split the demon in twain, it disappeared and the demon was sent head over ass flying as a flattened pancake before eventually stopping and resuming its form with a pop. It looked around in confusion as it could not see the Demon Slayer anymore but instead the passing form of a speeding starship that the humans liked to use to traverse the Warp.
It broke down in hysterical giggling as it realized what just happened.
The Demon Slayer just got ran over by a starship from its own side.
It thanked the Dark Gods for this miracle, but if it had listened to the currents of the Warp, it would have heard the distant cries of "NOT AS PLANNED!! NOT AS PLANNED!! NOT AS PLANNED!!"
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I instantly snapped my eyes open as I went from complete sleep to wide awake and instantly sat up. My mind briefly ached as fragments of memory of what I did under the influence of Berseker came back to me. with more fragments being present later in the fight as presumably my skill level rose.
Jesus I really went off the deep end huh? I quickly looked around and was confused. The last thing I remembered being about to kill a demon before suddenly something immense slammed into me causing enough pain to make me instantly black out.
How I was not dead despite blacking out while in the Warp was a Emperor damned miracle, but that did not explain what I was seeing.
Why was I in a very well lit, clean, and futuristic looking hallway with English directions written on the walls?
Where the hell was I and what hell was my current status?
Keeping a ear out I open up my notifications tab to see what exactly happened since I activated Berserker and my eyes bugged out.
"BWAH!?"
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AN: Enjoy this short little interlude, actual update still slow going as I am still busy with work, and still need to actually calculate all the gains from the ork fight to now. So wish me luck and stay safe everyone.