AnnouGreetings peeps, Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

  ANNOU!!

  I am going to go on a tiny little pause over the holidays.

  chapter is ing out at Jan 3rd.

  Hope you enjoy the chapter.

  How?

  That was the question of the day, wasn't it?

  How did the Hive-Mind pull me into an Illusion? I might have panicked a bit there and flooded my mindscape with soul-energy ordered to obliterate any fn energy but after a few seds of that and nothing substantial ging, I came to a clusion.

  The illusion isn't in my head. It's not my mind or soul being fooled, but my eyes and senses.

  That was a much more digestible thought than it somehow breaking through my defences without me eveing as much as a warning or a. My senses were just mortal. They were good, a bination of Aeldari and the best the Tyranids had bined with my own Eldritch senses, but I didn't put as much faith in them as the defences around my mind and soul.

  With a bit of trepidation rising in my chest, I extended a dozen soul tendrils along with my aura to survey my surroundings.

  A shiver almost ran down my spine as I felt a colossal mind ed all around my own, it couldn't puncture through my shields but myriad cws and jaws were trying to every sed as infinite eyes filled with malicious hunger gred at me from the shadowy darkness.

  My knuckles went white around my staff as I gritted my teeth. This thing almost made me fear it. ME.

  It wasn't casting an eborate illusion, nor was it just pullio a mental world of its own make. What it was doing was much harder to achieve. It urely iy all around me, so I'd mistakenly believe I was somewhere else, saw something else, a something else.

  The light wasn't fake, nor was the hill, but the bodies were. It created the light to fool me and ed the hill so I'd feel as if they were bodies but when one of my tendrils impaled a body looking just like that first Lictor I killed I felt no feedback, there was no biomass there, nor any new information, just rock.

  My feet left the ground as Atiesh vibrated and glowed with energy. Its pure white form shimmered and seemed to blend with reality one moment and bend it around itself in the . The bodies morphed bato simple rod sto my feet as I pushed back the Hive-Mind's influeer by meter.

  I gred into its mind.

  The tiny smudges of fear and unease were lest behind the cloud of cold fury washing over me as this thing mao fool me.

  The thousands of well-oiled cogs in my mind spun rapidly. Ideas and pns flew by oer the other before I stopped on one. I smirked.

  The Hive-Mind was massive and a, which made it disgustingly overbearing and very hard to destroy, as it could just rebuild itself if there were bio-forms remaining but it was fragile. Spread apart in trillions of bodies across several gaxies, one would think this many bodies would work together and give it an unshakable foundation but iy it was more like a castle of cars that would e crashing down if a suffitly powerful breeze smacked into it.

  Let's be that breeze.

  Unfortunately, I was a rather soft breeze as my only experieh telepathy aal warfare came from being a fly on the wall inside Zedev's and Valenith's head.

  I did build up my mindscape, too. Does that t as Telepathy? It should.

  The mind was a curious thing, ohat I hardly, if at all, uood. It stood on two pilrs, the Soul and the Brain, a pilr of the Immaterium and one of Reality. This made it both esoterid rigid. One couldn't restore a destroyed mind without a backup, despite the ability of the to bend the rules of reality. As far as I know. There might be a way to just reverse time for someone, some Psykers stop time in an area around themselves, but could it be reversed?

  But... the soul should also store most memories... fusing. That meant one could destroy the soul through the mind?

  Telepathy was dangerous, but right now I was the one wielding that danger.

  I didn't know how to attack, but how hard could it be?

  Destroying is always easier than building and maniputing.

  The outermost ser of my mindscape — a rge spherical barrier, one of ten at the moment — morphed into Psychic fmes fused with my io burn into the mind of this thing and exploded outwards.

  The eldritch shriek that shook the air put a smile on my face. I just did the equivalent of using pepper spray on a rapist, who in this instance was an eldritch hive mind. What a weird life I'm living.

  It remained uurbed by my attack, rec after a few seds aurning its attention to me with a mounting fury but that was the moment I uhe sed phase of my offensive.

  A small crack opened up on my mind and like a ravenous beast, the hive-mind instantly rushed back to slip through it.

  Deep in my mind, I just finished putting together a densed 'nuke'. It was dumb, but it should work. I filled it with both soul energy and a fair bit of my fury, so it should make for a nice firework.

  With the hive mind only a sed away from bursting through the tiny hole, the nuke flew out to greet it and my shields smmed shut behind it.

  Sensing something amiss, the monstrous mass of shadows aly appendages scattered away from the nuke. My attack flew, sg away the darkness as it went.

  In the meantime, I shot off to the top of the hill as the Illusion started fading. Dante was already fighting with the Swarmlord up there.

  Then my attack exploded, deep ihe hive-mind. Simple and effective.

  The screech that followed rattled my bones. All Tyranids close and far shrieked in a chorus that made the ears bleed.

  With gratification welling up in my heart, I reached the site of a devastating duel. The top of the hill morphed into aeau as rge as the eye could see.

  Daumbled back, his axe seated into the torso of the t Swarmlord up to the ha was still r as its mono-molecur teeth swirled like a saw, throwing flesh, carapace, and gore all around it while digging itself further into the alien flesh.

  I caught sight of a massive, jagged gash slig through his torso as he turned, blood trailing down and already drying onto his matted gold powerarmor.

  "Hi," I said as I flickered o him and caught him uhe armpit before he stumbled. I quickly soothed his mind just like before and so instead of smashing his other axe into me, he just went still, almost rexing.

  "Where-?" a muffled wet cough resohrough his helmet.

  "It trapped me in an Illusion," I admitted as I pushed down my annoya the fact, "but I paralyzed the hive-mind for a bit. I don't know how long we have until it recollects itself."

  "Finish it," he said as he tore out of his helmet and coughed up some more blood, irely leaning onto my shoulder.

  "And here I thought I'd get a ce to fight shoulder to shoulder with the famous ander Dante," I sighed with exaggerated sadness, but my eyes were ser focused on the rigid Swarmlord. Mine... MINE!

  "Maybe you will get your ce," he wheezed.

  He raised his head, marred with scars and wrinkles. His withered hair stuck to his face with dried blood, his eyes were cold and dark. Weak. Fragile.

  "I will hold you to that," I said with a smile. As I id him down, I sent an ever so tiny wave of bio-energy into his body, "Sleep."

  "I o see it die," he said as he slumped down, bloodshot eyes trained on the beast.

  "Suit yourself~"

  I have a meal to eat~

  ander Luis Dante || Baal || Few minutes ago.

  He stumbled over a corpse. He'd crawled over untable ones already and he lost any sembnce of t or time long ago.

  Men, women, children mixed with myriad of aliens, monsters and his men. All people he killed, few with his own hand and many only through his choices.

  He crawled on; they were dead and he had a mission to do, a final one.

  Suddenly the corpses disappeared and his thirst addled mind reized that he was on a pin and not on a hill anymore. It reised the gigantic Hive Tyrant t over him a few dozeers away.

  The details of the fight were fuzzy in his mind, but he mao sever one of its scythe-like arms before a psychic scream unched him into the air. He sank even more deeply into the thirst, trading sanity for power. He hung just on the edge of falling to the Bck Rage.

  His st flicker of sanity was only kept because he MUST see this monster die. He could go in peace if he did.

  One more step into the Thirst and there would be no ing back from him.

  It was a blur from then on, his head pounded from the tinuous shrieks and screams that aimed to shatter his crumbling psyche, but his single-minded purpose prevailed. He must kill it, he will kill it.

  And then … and then … I rest.

  Sluggish as he was, he fought on, uing, unfiving. His Thirst burnt along with his vi. He'd do his geher proud. 1500 years of life all came together at this one moment.

  He saportunity; he k was a trap, but he didn't care. If the beast gave him a free blow at the price of his life, he is going to make the most of it.

  His jittery jetpack roared o time as he dashed at the beast, slippiween two jagged scythes and raking along a third with his off-hand axe.

  Pushing to the left, he gave himself a spin and as he reached the beast; he used it all to smash his power axe deeply into the side of its torso.

  "GAkhhh," He screamed up in pain as the fourth arm of the beast was impaling him through the stomach but the roar of his axe eating through the monster's carapad flesh drow out.

  He gred up at the beast, seeing its jaws ing closer and closer, ready to rip his head off even as its cws pierced deeper into his body.

  Dante raised his other axe, ready to behead the beast, even if it was the st thing he did.

  The air resonated with an unholy screed the mohrashed for a sed, pushing Dante painfully off of its cws. And then it went still, rigid as a statue.

  "Hi~" Another one, Dahought as he anded his tired body to move again, his axe cut through the air, ready to rip the new enemy apart.

  Then a wave of ess and peace hit his raving mind like a thunder crack, taking all the wind out of his sails.

  "Where-?" he stumbled, the thousands of injuries reasserting their existence as his thirst abated. White hot pain bloomed inside his stomad he coughed a mouthful of blood.

  "It trapped me in an Illusion," the thing masquerading as a woman clicked her tongue as it came close to support him and she held up his much rger body effortlessly.

  "But I paralyzed the hive-mind for a bit, I don't know how long we have until it recollects itself," she tinued and Dante would have had his jaws hanging open if he didn't have his mask on, very dangerous …

  He thought back to how the beast went rigid just as it was about to finish him off; he didn't know whether he'd survive that enter and a part of him — a rge part — wished he didn't, but he khe woman most likely saved his life.

  Later…

  "Finish it," he groaned. If he was to die today, he'd see the monster die before him.

  He wasn't listening to the 'small talk' the woman was doing anymore, bloodshot eyes trained on the rigid monster even as a gentle wave of energy started c through his veins. He didn't notice it.

  "I o see it die," he mumbled.

  Then … Rest … Finally.

  Octavian Gaius || Macragge's Honor || "My Lord?" his hand stopped scribing as the voice of a woman came through his door.

  "Enter."

  "Yes, My Lord!" The woman quickly entered, not daring to meet his eyes as he watched her from his seat.

  "Yes?" he asked.

  "We will be entering the Baal System in an hour, my Lord," the woman said, staring at the floor.

  "I see," Octavian nodded, "You leave."

  "Yes, My Lord."

  The door shut close as the woman scurried away, but Octavian wasn't thinking about her anymore, as ahereal sense htness came over him.

  "So it is Baal," he stood up, "Your will be done, My Lord."

  Years, he'd spent apanying the Lent on his crusade. Years he'd spent waiting, thinking.

  Now it was finally time to act.