be Creating a poll for what kind of Sapient creature Aetyaern will be setting down upon the worlds. This will just be the first creature he creates and it's not a guarantee for what he will create, just a general feeler poll for what the audience would like to see made. There are four worlds, and each of them is multiple times larger than earth. Theirs more than enough room for multiple sapient species.
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I'm not alone, not anymore. The galaxy is a hellscape soon to be dominated by hungry Gods and carrion lords feasting on what remains. In truth I would like to stay out of the wider affairs of the Galaxy but I'm not so stupid as to not realize that I won't be able to avoid contact forever. Sooner rather than later I'll come into contact with something that I can't just vaporize with a flex of will.
So I need to prepare while I still can, and the best way to do that is to do what I feel I was made to do.
Create.
Deep in my soul I can feel the call of creation singing to me like a siren's song. Even before I learned from the Uetalians data stores I knew how to create. Every element is known to me, even those humanity had never discovered in my previous life. The creation of planets, gas giants, and habitable planes beyond counting fill my head and soul.
Not blueprints but understanding. I need no blueprint to create worlds, I simply know so much about every aspect of their construction that I could do it with little to no thought. Planetoids are the easiest as they are what reality is most accustomed to supporting. However I can do so much more. Stacking planes of existence on top of one another is well within my abilities to accomplish.
Flat words, Discworlds, heavens, hells, Mythological worlds of wonder beyond measure. I could create a world larger than the sun which I so love and make it work through my understanding of physical laws alone. So the question came, what should I make?
At first I began to craft a solar system much like Sol with planetoids of all kinds and shapes. Blue marbles, dust filled hellworlds, gas giants, and methane scapes. Then I stopped myself, why should I limit myself when I was so much more? Why be the same as everyone else in this crapsack of a galaxy? So I wiped it all away with a casual flicker of will and began to reshape the solar system once more.
I didn't believe in working small, only grand. Ring worlds are constructions of metal and rock made from all the resources of a system and wrapped around the system's star. I thought that was too small. Instead of constructs of metal they were fully formed cylindrical rings which would not only orbit my star but also rotate to ensure a true day night cycle.
I made four of them, the smallest of which was closest to the sun and the largest of which was the farthest away, encircling all three of its brother worlds. I could feel happiness flowing through my mind as I began to grow engrossed with my work. On their barren surfaces I carved my vision with light and water, metal and stone.
Cliffs and oceans rose at my touch, continents were shaped at my hand by the hundreds as my form touched upon each of them. With precision beyond mortal understanding I shaped a thousand future biomes. Time stretched and pulled upon me as my concentration grew sharper and my vision focused upon the worlds I had created.
Water and earth flowed and the start of a real home for my future creations took shape. When the continents were shaped I moved onto the biomes themselves which I had planned ahead for. Deserts a dozen times larger than the sahara, Jungles that would have covered Terra, mountains towering higher than Olympus Mons, and dozens more.
Even more than that were the exotic biomes I began to create. Plains and Jungles and all the rest are great and all but I wanted more. What's the point of creation when you create nothing new after all? From the Earth I pulled crystal and metal and shaped them. With a hand of light I spun the inanimate metals and crystals into something more.
DNA made of Sapphires, proteins of iron and copper, bacteria made of pure diamonds. Across an area equivalent to Earth's entire land mass I twisted and remade silica, carbon, and gem into true life. A land of beauty with trees that shone silver and jade. Mushrooms of pure titanium grew along volcanic slopes and leached minerals from the flows.
Iron bacteria killed viruses made of copper, and amoeba of jade consumed and repurposed those made of gold. Crystal forests warred against Metallic ones for suitable areas of natural mineral wealth. What use after all was the sun when all life came from the deeper earth? Metallic roots grew deep, sucking up the metals and minerals needed to sustain the greater organism.
Like icebergs the top most portions were just the tips of the much larger organisms that grew under the earth churning it and bringing great volumes of unused minerals bubbling to the surface. Minerals which the grasses and first animals fed upon. This land of gem and iron was an ever churning and roiling land of scything claws and digging roots in a war to consume the finite materials available.
Mountains became oasis' and volcanoes watering holes where the plants and wildlife flocked for the abundant minerals both held in spades. It was beautiful and my first attempt to create a biome beyond blood and bone as I was accustomed to. It was also just one biome on one part of one world.
I had so much more room to experiment and create that it seemed as if the possibilities were endless, and they were. I don't know exactly how long I spent creating new and unique biomes but by the time I was done the stars looked a little different, distorted would be the best way to put it. I studied the distortions and watched as they began to grow closer to my system.
Warp storm.
I could hear the psychic howling of damned souls as the storm crashed against the edges of the system and my power. I promptly began to push back against the storm of psychic energies and found even within range of my system I couldn't just vanish it away. It had a weight unlike anything I'd encountered, actively resisting my attempts to dismantle it at its basest levels.
In the back of my mind I could hear the soft cackling of creatures that would have sent any normal man insane. I reached across the connection the storm provided and crushed the laughing voice with a flex of will that could have extinguished stars. For half a second I could feel the foreign will fight back against me, for half a second it struggled in vain and then it was gone. I crushed the Daemonic soul under the weight of my will and scattered the powdered remains into the warp.
Turning back towards my true task I created a barrier against the storm. My light enveloped the system and I could feel the will of the warp crashing against my own in an unending struggle for dominance. Unfortunately for the storm within my system I reigned supreme, and even as I felt the stares of greater wills within the warp turn my way and push against my barrier I destroyed any who thought to attempt to touch my domain.
Unfortunately no others were foolish enough to try and touch my soul directly again after I had destroyed the last. They didn't want to make it too easy for me to destroy them completely. Satisfied that my precious creations wouldn't be tainted by the touch of the warp I portioned off a portion of my mind and set it towards maintaining the barrier.
At the same time another portion of my mind was set back towards carving up more biomes and landmasses for my future children. While that was happening I tried to peer into the warp through the storm, touching lightly at its edges. I had believed I was unable to interact with it since I had felt no connection in the thousands of years I had apparently been living in this universe.
I was wrong. So close to its swirling chaos I could feel the barest of connections between myself and the sea of souls. So I could confirm that I wasn't some kind of C'tan, a thought that I had been nursing quietly in the back of my mind since I found out I was in the 40k universe and keeping in mind my attachment to my star.
The connection to the warp was faint, barely a whisper but it was there and with a flex of will I could strengthen the connection if I focused. It was almost as if I was a shadow in the warp compared to the star that I was in real space. A consequence of my lack of worshippers, or maybe I had just been unlucky and was born a low level psyker, or perhaps it was just an inbuilt part of my being. I didn't know and I didn't care.
The warp was a hellscape and I could care less about its promises of power. Reality was my home, and Reality was where my power truly rested. The warp would have no hold upon my creations of that I would make certain.
Gathering my will like a tide I crafted an artifact absolutely flooded with power, an artifact much like the Necron pylons. From the light of the sun I spun a whip-like ring of golden-white star light and wrapped my own silver light around it. Spinning the ring inside my will I lengthened and forged it upon an anvil of purest thought and law.
Reality I set upon its foundations, laws immutable I wrote upon its structure which not even I could bend with ease. Laws which would anchor my system into the material and repel the corruption of the warp without my oversight. The ringing of my forge swept through space and time, a hammer of order striking against the Chaos of the warp with every strike of my will upon the anvil.
The warp roared its defiance. Strike after strike rained down upon my Will set against the storm as Daemons great and small struck my barrier with all their fury. Their Will set against mine trying and failing to overcome that which was absolute.
I am no God nor Mortal. I am no God in the warp feeding on the cries of the galaxy's sentients. I simply AM. I am Hierarin Aetyaern, Highest One and no Daemon in the warp would break my will. Instead I would break theirs.
Even as I forged my ring of absolute reality I struck back against the storm which dared to demand I submit. Through the warp which knew no distance and all distance I lashed out against the hordes. Silver light burned across the Kaleidoscope of Red, Green, Pink, and Blue. On planes of not-rock and ever shifting thought worlds I battled those which thought to touch upon my domain.
With great whips of silver light I battled them. I was not the Emperor, my light was not Anathema, but it was crushing. I tore limbs of soul from bodies of thought and watched the streams of unreal blood stream into the warp. A thousand-thousand Daemons assaulted me, and all fell to my might.
Legions of bloodthirsters were ripped limb from limb. I did not bleed, and I left no skulls behind for the parasite throne.
Ten thousand Daemonettes were inflicted with the pain of soul-death as my light scoured them from existence and inflicted the only true pain they would ever feel.
Horrors beyond counting screamed as they fought and wailed in the name of their blasphemous creators, and Horrors beyond counting were slain by my silver light. I could feel the storm itself shudder as I fought and destroyed its propagators. I was forced to stop my rampage when I felt greater wills begin to manifest, Greater Daemons coming by their dozens to fight against me.
I withdrew from the warp and focused solely on maintaining my barrier, forging the ring, and shaping the worlds. It was a good thing I did so as well, because soon enough the warp storm was a boiling tide slamming against my defenses. Psychic energies wailed and screamed and fought for dominance against my light and found itself unable to surmount my own cold Will.
Soon though I had completed my work and the ring was forged. I set it upon the edge of the system and let its immensity speak for itself. A lightyear in diameter my ring was a masterwork of Reality made solid and given order and law. Physics was a fact and not just a suggestion within its presence and everything within my system was protected by its Aegis.
To my great pleasure that Aegis also included everything within a few light years of the Ring. The warp howled as it was expelled from my space and what I could only assume was every system within range of the Ring. I didn't know if I had saved anybody from the clutches of the storm, but the simple fact that I had dispelled one near me was enough, even if I knew it still raged beyond the Rings range.
Content that the warp would hold no sway inside my domain I dropped my barrier and set only a small portion of my mind to monitoring the outer reaches. The rest of my attention turned towards my worlds to catalog all that I had made. What a catalog it was.
Lands of Crystal and Metal, Mist and illusion, Endless seas, Verdant forests, scorching deserts, living light, and sucking darkness. It was… beautiful. Worlds without end or lack and in which nearly anything would be possible. Worlds upon which I could place my Children and be proud of what they would encounter.
There would be no Warp madness in my domain, but that would not mean a lack of wonder or adventure. Even now across the landscape animals I had created or encouraged the rapid evolution of roamed. Some of them were small, some large, and some monstrously mythical. No biome was without its apex predator or legendary species of creature to test my children's cunning, strength, or adaptiveness.
I had spent centuries crafting the worlds and now they were nearing completion. The final touch would be new artifacts, places of power through which my first true children would be able to travel between the worlds. I could separate them from one another, perhaps encourage them to create their own methods of travel that would allow them to move from one world to the next. But I saw no reason to do that, not when the worlds themselves would be more than enough of a stressor to encourage such innovation.
No biome was truly safe, as I had encouraged the evolution of many predators in every environment which could only be safely conquered through either great numbers or adequate superior technology. I hadn't played Monster Hunter when I was a human, but I liked the thought of an ecosystem with truly epic and monstrous creatures.
Against all that my worlds would throw at them I let myself be a little indulgent and place the artifacts liberally enough, usually around the nesting grounds of Dragons. Yes I had made Dragons, a species for each Biome. Massive beasts of scale and flame who were nearly sapient and filled with a cruel intelligence.
I figured slaying or out maneuvering one was more than a worthy challenge to grant access to the other worlds.
Happy with the placement of the Gates I surveyed the world's one last time. Around they spun both the sun and one another in a beautiful dance like a gigantic celestial Gyroscope. Biomes danced in the light of the sun, plants grew and died, animals fought and thrived, and it was beautiful. It was mine.
Now all that remained was the creation of the Children who would inherit it all. It was time to create my first truly sapient creatures.Last edited: Nov 28, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:Vas7, GodOfPixies, Enchanter and 381 othersNecromancers' DreamNov 28, 2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 3 New View contentNecromancers' DreamNecrotic DreamerNov 28, 2025NewAdd bookmark#43Well humans won the poll pretty handily, but it's also clear from the poll and comments that people also want to see something more than the usual base human walking around. Something I personally agree with. So I'll be making something of a combination of the two.
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When you create new life you can either shape it from what came before or you can create it from the ground up. In more simple terms you can either force evolution or create life Ex Nihilo. Lesser creatures need to rely on evolution, genetic manipulation, and what nature is kind enough to give them. I am not a lesser creature and while many of my creations may have come about through me speeding up their evolution my Children would be hand crafted.
My will began to rise as a tide and from nothingness I began to spin forth flesh. On the basest level I crafted strands of brilliant DNA sequences which worked together in a perfect machine like tandem. From my mind's eye I wove together the strands of proteins, organelles, and biological machines that would perform together to keep my children living.
Originally I had thought to recreate man as I knew them and return to my roots as it were. I quickly discarded that idea. Not only would base men never be able to thrive upon my worlds without technology even in excess of what I remembered them having in the 21st century, but the thought of retreading old ground bored me.
Why should I recreate what I knew already existed when I could make so much more? So as I spun forth possibility from the nothingness of the universe and created my first Child I made them into so much more than what man could have ever been. DNA became Cells, Cells became organs, and Organs combined to create the first of my new children.
At first glance or from a distance he could have been mistaken for a human. When you got closer though the differences became readily apparent. Eight feet tall and lean with muscle strong enough to bend steel, Gun-metal grey skin, diamond hard scales protecting the organs and vital areas like natural armor, and eyes that shone with brilliant silver light.
He was beautiful. His hair was a silver cascade that flowed across his shoulders like a mane, and his features were perfection made manifest. He was beautiful in every way and holding his small body in my hands I felt what could have only been love flow through my soul. My Son, he was my Son. I had made him.
Tears of liquid light flowed from eyes which I did not have and lit the void as I held him as close to my core as I could. Holding him in my embrace the thought of sending him down into the world to struggle and die felt like a dagger through my soul and for a long moment I simply held my child to my body and watched my creation. Could I truly send my children down to fight and die for no other reason than my own inbuilt need to create and watch?
He was mine, I had created him from nothing but my own will and power. His eyes were closed in a peaceful sleep from which only I could wake him from. A sleep which would keep him forever young and safe from all which would think to hurt him. I… I didn't know what to do.
I had dreamed of being a father when I was human, of raising children of my own and showering them with the love that I wished my own had given to me. I had died before I could fulfill that dream, and now that I finally had the chance I would only be sending my child to die against the death worlds I had created.
Could I truly call myself a father when I thought of doing such a thing to my child? Could I live with myself knowing I had created life knowing it would suffer and die? Life that I not only loved but considered my own children?
Staring at my son's still body I wrestled with myself. For a moment I was tempted to wipe away everything that could hurt him, give him all the knowledge he would need to never suffer again, and create a paradise in which he would never want for anything. An Eden of my own where my children would be happy forever.
Then I remembered where I was and just what kind of universe 40k was and I steeled myself. Even as tears of silver light fell from eyes that never should have existed I placed him down upon the inner-most ring in the safest area I could find. An area I had populated with animals and plants that he would easily be able to tame and domesticate with time.
Seeing him there sleeping on the grasses of my creation I felt my heart twist in my chest. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen and I felt something crack within. I could not just leave him to wake alone and without any knowledge of the world around him. I would not do that to my Child.
So I did as I had once done with the Uetalians and concentrated a portion of my consciousness into a body suited for my purposes. Unlike with the Uetalians however I did not make myself divine, instead I made myself much like him. An inch or two taller, a bit stronger, and slightly ethereal in features but overall much the same.
When I was done I was holding him in my now physical arms. He was much larger now that I was no longer my true self but no less precious. "Its time to wake up my son." I whispered into his ear.
"Awaken Aesbel." I said with the force of my will, breaking the hold of sleep that he had known all of his short life. Slowly his eyes began to flutter open and those brilliant silver eyes began to catalog the world around him. His mind worked quickly, the far above average intellect I had encoded into his genes working overtime to figure out what was going on around him.
Then his eyes found me and would not leave. His lips moved and no sounds came out, and his limbs clumsily tried to wrap around me. I smiled and I could feel his heart beat with glee at the sight. "Hello Aesbel, I've been waiting for you my son. My precious child."
I hugged him tight to my chest and I felt his own strong arms wrap around my body in imitation. Strong limbs strong enough to crush stone wrapped around my body gently and I felt wet tears begin to roll down my chest. "I have you now, It's ok." I whispered into his ear as his mind was overwhelmed with feelings he had never felt.
He recognized me, he knew me for what I was in the depths of his soul. I held him like that for what felt like hours, enjoying the feeling of holding my child in my arms. He was never an infant so I couldn't pinch his chubby cheeks, but I would make do with the feeling of his warmth against my body. He was safe, as long as he was in my arms I knew he was safe.
Eventually he began to try and wiggle out of my embrace and I had to end our hug. I watched as he began to try and move around the clearing he had woken up in. He was clumsy the first day, uncoordinated and slow to move much like a baby was. I had to feed him and build a basic shelter but he was learning quickly.
I taught him how to walk, I held his hands for his first true steps. I cheered when he began to run, and I smiled when he said his first words.
"Father" He said with a near perfect cadence. His shining white teeth spread into a smile.
"Yes I am Father, Aesbel." I replied while ruffling his hair. He giggled and began to repeat the word over and over again.
After father came food, shelter, sun, and so many more words. Within a month he was speaking just as eloquently as I, if not more so. He was gathering food by himself, creating shelters, hunting without my assistance, and thriving even without my constant assistance. Sooner than I would have liked he no longer needed me.
Two months after his awakening I could no longer justify my presence beyond my great reluctance to leave him and not be in his direct vicinity any longer. As long as I was here I knew he was safe, as long as he was in eye sight I could save him from anything that might try to harm him. But I knew it was time to leave, and it was time to allow him to do as he was always meant to.
He would live half a millennium before his natural death, a long life with more than enough time for him to experience the world before leaving it behind. More than enough time for me to create a place for his soul and the soul of all his children to rest within my embrace.
It was time, and so while my flesh body went and retrieved him from a hunt my true self crafted Aesbel's siblings. Twenty sisters I crafted, beautiful and lithe creatures who would make excellent partners. Slightly shorter on average at about seven to seven and a half feet tall they wouldn't be as strong as their brothers. They would however have a power beyond the strength and durability of their brothers.
I gave them the ability to commune with animals and plants. Like druids they would be deeply connected with the world. Plants would bend to their will, animals would listen more readily to their voices, and they would have an intuitive grasp of the natural world. Where Aesbel and his brothers would hunt and protect, the women would commune and bond.
I also made sure to add a little diversity into their coloring. One sister I made much the same as Aesbel coloring wise. The others however I gave a slightly wider range of colors, nothing quite like human diversity but enough to where they wouldn't just be all gun-metal grey and silver haired. Black, Purple, Violet skins. Golden, purple, black, and red heads.
Satisfied with the sisters I made Aesbels brothers, and their colorings mirrored their sisters. Larger like Aesbel, strong, and quick to protect they would form a stable breeding population. I made sure to put some failsafes in place to prevent inbreeding and while my avatar told Aesbel that I would be leaving I placed Aesbel's sleeping siblings down where he himself had been awakened.
Walking alongside Aesbel I spoke. He had already begged me to stay and after much crying I had finally convinced him to let me go and show him his new siblings.
"My son, it has come time for me to leave you and your siblings to grow without my interference. To become the great men and women that I know you can be." I explained gently as he walked among his sleeping siblings.
He stared at them for a moment before turning to me. "What will we do without you? I will not lie to them and tell them you were never here Father. They will want to know where you have gone and why you did not stay to see them."
"I will not ask you to, and you will tell them that I watch from on high. I will never be far and I will be waiting for all of you when your time comes to meet me after death. You will never be alone. Not really."
He nodded and looked back at them. He was silent as he stared and I could hear his thoughts as they swam through his mind. He blamed himself for my leaving, he believed himself not good enough for me to stay and no matter how much I tried to assure him otherwise he refused to believe me.
So I did what I should have from the beginning, I left them to find their way, but not without saying one last thing. "Name them Aesbel, name them and awaken them from their sleep. I name you my children, the inheritors of this world. I name your race Hierarites, first born of Hierarin."
His eyes sparkled with tears as he watched me leave and he said nothing but within his mind I could feel his acceptance. He would carry my words to his siblings and they would carry on the name that I had given them. As I watched him awaken his sibling one by one in the months that followed I felt my pride grow.
He taught them much as I had taught him, with patience and love. His brothers he awakened first and he taught them everything he knew of the hunt. He taught them to craft weapons and traps to bring down beasts great and small, language to coordinate, and a dozen other things that they would need to protect their still sleeping sisters.
After nearly a year teaching his brothers Aesbel awakened his sisters in their entirety, and in contrast to his brothers he taught them the arts of foraging, domestication, and animal bonding. He taught them everything they would need to know to not only prepare the food brought back by the brothers, but also everything they would need to know to help said brothers in their hunts by acting as scouts and nature whisperers.
Aesbel was special after all. When I decided to make the sisters druidic I also made a small modification to Aesbel himself, giving him the ability to perform the same feats. After a year with said powers he was well acquainted with them through his own experimentation and shared that same knowledge with his sisters.
As the months passed after their awakening the sisters proved their worth. Plants yielded fruits regularly and without prompting from the gatherers, shelters formed themselves during the nights and winters, and the first animal had been domesticated to act as companions for the hunters. A wolf-like reptilian which the Hierarites found absolutely adorable.
Personally I was a little dumbfounded that they found the seven foot tall creature with a mouth full of blackened teeth cute, but I had been sure to make their psychology suitably different from humans so I wouldn't judge. Instead I watched as the years began to tick by and they explored both more of their environment and themselves.
I hadn't bothered to teach Aesbel about the inner workings of sexual reproduction, but thankfully they figured it out soon enough and by year six after Aesbel's awakening the first pregnancies had popped up. I admit I looked away whenever they got busy, it was incredibly awkward to know your children were copulating with one another.
Soon enough the first children had been born around eleven months after the first of them got pregnant, and watching them fumble around being parents was adorable. Coincidently the first to get pregnant was Aesbel's mate, and as such he was also the first Father among them. I watched as he held his son for the first time in naked wonder.
The adorable child cuddled against his chest reminded me of his own creation and I was forced to look away, but not before learning that he had named the child after myself. Naming him Aetyr Aeslin. My dance with the sun grew a little more ecstatic and I forced myself to turn away from them, confident that they would be ok without my constant oversight while I focused on other matters.
Primarily creating an afterlife for their immortal souls. Unfortunately I was unable to stop the warp from creating a connection to them as it seemed to be a fundamental part of this universe. Thankfully as long as they were within range of my ring or power I knew nothing within the warp would be able to touch them. Now I just had to make something that would ensure their souls all went to me after death.
It was time to make an afterlife in the warp. All I had to do was carve out a chunk of that hellscape for myself and defend it for the rest of time.
The things I do for my children.Last edited: Nov 29, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:GodOfPixies, BlackCat401, Enchanter and 342 othersNecromancers' DreamNov 28, 2025NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 4 New View contentNecromancers' DreamNecrotic DreamerNov 29, 2025NewAdd bookmark#81When creating an afterlife usually someone has a few basic ideas in mind. Either heaven and hell from christian myth, an underworld of some kind like norse and greek myth, or some kind of cyclical system of rebirth. Such systems are well founded and in my own opinion more than good enough ideas for the placement of souls after death.
Things become much more complicated when the afterlife has already been made and it's an actively corrupting hellscape that's just as likely to harm the God maintaining an afterlife inside of it as the souls within. Especially when said afterlife is also the home of various multi-dimensional thought predators and Gods hell bent on destruction and the annihilation of life.
Combine an actively hostile environment with my own aversion to the Immaterium and my comparatively weak active connection to the place and what should have been a relatively simple task suddenly becomes much more difficult. For a moment I was tempted to put off creating an afterlife, I had centuries before my children began to die from old age after all.
I could also feel the connection between their souls and myself. Like the Slannesh and the Aeldari I had a natural claim to their souls on a fundamental level. No child of mine would die and leave me, all would come back to my embrace naturally. Despite that I pushed away that siren call to rest because I knew I couldn't trust the warp to return all of their souls to me without one or two being picked away at by the Daemons and false gods which infested it. One or two souls far too many in my eyes.
So I marshalled my will and strengthened my thin connection to the warp into a cable capable of channeling my essence. I felt my ring pulse against my actions as its inherent anti-warp properties fought against such blatant warp based phenomena in its range. With a small brush of my will I calmed the artifacts attempts to suppress me and returned to my task.
Much like the last time I touched upon the warp I found a realm of madness and un-thought made half-manifest. Some would describe the warp as a blasted landscape of ruin and scorched earth, and others would say it's a paradise beyond measure and infinite abundance. I would say it's neither of these things, because those are just attempts by the minds of mortals to explain something they cannot comprehend.
To me the warp is so much greater. There exists no words in any language to describe the warp that will not break the minds of men, because how do you describe a realm where all is possible? The sands of time are the cobbles upon which you walk, while souls beyond counting hold up a sky that is the ground and also nothing at all.
Madness dominates and from that madness no true structure can survive. Time has no meaning, direction only exists in the vaguest sense, and were it not for the connection to the Materium the warp would be a place where rules of existence never existed at all. Above all of that there is a weight that presses down, a malignant puss which drips upon the mind and claws at your sanity.
There is no sanity in the warp, only that which you make for yourself and enforce through will alone.
In the midst of a warp storm the roiling madness is all the worse and it is in this maelstrom that I began to craft my fortress of light. Reality I spun with ease and from nothing I could pull light and matter without thought or care. In the thought-realm of the warp however my power was limited, a pale shadow of what it was in the Materium.
The firmament of the Warp refused to bend to my Will without being forced and held into place. At the same time I was forced to battle against hordes of Daemons who had been summoned by the warp storm and my earlier battles against them. With whips of light I destroyed horrors and hands of Will pulled pure light from the warp to forge the castle from which I would defend the souls of my children.
Years passed in real space as I battled in the warp. Piece by bloody piece I tore free entire sections of the warps' corrupted and blasted interior and remade it into my fortress. Daemon Legions assaulted my domain for comparative centuries only to be flayed and crushed into basest soul-thought from which they would never reform.
On waves of Daemonic blood I drifted as my Will and soul held together the Domain I had built. My mind fragmented along a dozen-hundred lines of defense and construction and for a time in the warp I was not I but We. A thousand million individual scatterings of unified Will battling against the impossible pressure of the warp which wished for nothing more than to tear my Domain asunder and scatter me to the howling primeval winds.
We battled and bled, and for a time I felt as if I would never again be able to reunite into the magnificence I had once been. Forever would I be consigned to the warp as a collective of struggling Wills fighting against the chaos of the Immaterium. Except I would not allow myself to succumb, I was a God and my Will was unbreakable, unshatterable, unyielding.
I held and I fought and when I had finally completed my fortress I felt the warp itself scream in both pain and acknowledgment. Daemons wailed, predators in the warp fled, and the Gods of Chaos paused their game to turn their attention my way. The warp pulsed under the pressure of their Wills which could crush mine with a single concentrated thought.
The Warp itself cried in pain as wounds began to tear themselves across its firmament and spew forth freshly born Daemons. With a flex of will my silver destroyed the newborns who thought to intrude upon my new Domain even as I stared down the Gods who had corrupted the warp so completely. For a moment I felt their wills begin to build and the presence of Daemons far too great for me to fight in my exhausted state.
Then those wills were redirected at one another and the great game began once more. Chaos had seen me and deemed my threat minimal, just another Godling among the billions that were born and died in the tides of the warp.
Exhaustion unlike anything a mortal was capable of comprehending washed over me. I had no physical body to tire, or mind to overwork. My soul was immense and capable of sustaining wounds which would see worlds crack, and yet despite all that I knew I needed rest. My labor was completed and I longed to return to real space where I could bask in my star's light.
I did not sleep as men would define it but it was the closest approximation of what I wished to do. To turn away from the wider universe and immerse my soul in blissful non-stimulus.
Despite that I could not leave, because the moment I did the warp would wash across my Domain and scatter it as if it had never existed. So I had to stay and hold it all together even as the exhaustion upon me built and built ever greater.
To my surprise the exhaustion began to lighten as souls small and large began to appear from the warp and swarm towards my domain. Souls of silver light and bearing bonds of kinship to my own. Some were mere wisps of personality and light, animals and monsters without intellect or personality. Others were small fires of beautiful silver, intelligent and old creations of mine who were smart enough to have developed personalities even if they were not truly sentient.
The most heartbreaking though were the souls of my Children. Centuries had passed in real space as I labored in the Warp and now over a hundred bonfire souls of purest silver shone like beacons against the dark ugliness of the Immaterium. Some were old souls, sons and daughters I had crafted with my own hands. Others were younger, older than a century on average and well into their lives.
The ones I grieved for most however were the near half of them which could only be called children. My first born reached maturity at age 25 and of the hundred souls in my domain a full half were under that age. A quarter of them were not even a year old.
My children had been waiting for me to create a home for them. They would not find my hearth barred.
Carefully I corralled the hundred souls of my children, and the millions of wisps of lesser souls and shepherded them into my fortress. For my children I set aside the great halls for them to play and relax, to lose themselves in the serenity of death and rest for the eternity to come.
The wisps I gave greater purpose.
Defenders and caretakers, Daemons of my own making. Silver warriors wielding star-light blades and clad in ebony black armor of purest reality. Casting the light of my law unto the chaos of the warp they were my heralds in the warp and they would defend my fortress against the legions of Daemons who wished to sweep away my Domain.
Ten Legions a million strong each I forged from the wisps of my creations, and to lead them I chose ten souls of my children who begged me for the chance to serve. The souls of my children I infused with pure will and upon them wrote in the language of material reality. My Reality-Wardens, Greater Daemons of my own.
Towering creatures of ebony light. Six Eyes radiating blinding silver, and wings reflecting the realness of reality. They held spears I had forged personally, artifacts of power like my great ring. Every strike from their blades would cut the warp and destroy the essence of Lesser Daemons.
Where they stood the warp lost the chaos and corruption which was so inherent in its very nature. In my domain alone reason reigned supreme and the thought-space of the realm of souls became ordered. My Legions can not leave my domain, and my Greater Daemons would never be as strong as those that served the Chaos gods but they would keep my Domain intact while I returned to the Materium and rested.
I made sure to scan my fortress one last time for any breach and appreciate the sight of my Legions battling the tides of the warp before moving the majority of my Will back into the real.
The light of my star was the first thing to greet me, and like an old lover I fell quickly into her embrace. A part of my mind told me that my Children were thriving under Aesbel's leadership and no great threats had appeared. That was all I needed to begin my great rest, the call to non-stimulus was overwhelming and I no longer wished to fight against it.
I would awake again in time.
----
He was Aesbel Aetyrin, son of God. Among the Hierarites he was a Demi-God, and none among their number would dare gainsay his decisions. It aligned with the Logic-thought of their minds to revere him, for he was the eldest and the strongest and the wisest of their people. Those bound by Prey-thought would go so far as to say it was blessed fear which kept their people in line.
He in private was inclined to agree with those bound by the prey instinct even as he derided them in more public places. It was their way to despise Prey-thought and elevate Logic and predator-thought.
The prey ran and hid, the Logical predator hunted and built. Such was what they knew deep in their most primal spirits, instincts bestowed upon them by Aetyaern himself. Pride-love was intense, and for others to doubt your trueness of loyalty was a sin most foul. An accusation towards unloyalty in relation to himself was a direct call for a predator-duel.
Aesbel was no fool-prey however and knew many of his children-relatives only followed him out of fear of what he would do should they not. He was old, eldest among the firstborn and his scales had long ago turned dull and stiff. His rule had grown cruel he knew, but it was necessary to keep the firstborn united until the Fathers return, to prove to him that Aesbel was worthy.
He was six hundred years old now and during his life he had seen his people go from a people who relied on the life of predators-hunters to survive to a people who made settlements and villages that covered the land. His siblings were gone, gone to join his Fathers embrace while he continued to live.
They had begun to turn brittle with age and given up their life-breath without complaint, something he would not allow himself. He had shed tears of liquid prey-thought when they died, the first time he had done so since his father had left him all those centuries before. He had leaked his thoughts most when his mate Kaeliae had finally succumbed to the curse-gift of Age, their love had been far truer than any he had ever known and her loss had hardened his heart.
Now he ruled alone. The tyrant king of his own Children who hated the iron handed rule he put them under. He had to kill a few of them to keep them in line when they had tried to buck his laws. His taxes were fair and his policies wise. Aesbel knew he knew best for the Children, and yet they continued to rebel against him.
Did they not see that the sacrificial altars to the father were needed? Could they not see that their Harvest-hunts were needed for a higher purpose?
"Perhaps I need to begin sending Father the souls of the innocent, to spare them from the suffering he had once thought to spare me." He whispered to himself as his guards listed the newest tribute from the outer tribes. The guards themselves heard and didn't react to their king and fathers words, they knew he wouldn't touch his own line. Not yet at least.
Aesbel Aetyrin, son of God, watched his court from his ebony throne and all he felt was cold. His back itched from the wings that had begun to grow and his scales continued to spread beyond where he remembered them being.
He would have a physician look and see, but he knew none of them would have answers. Only his father would. Only his father would understand and know. He just had to wait for him to return, and until then he would give everything to his fathers flames in the hope that it would bring him back. Like ReplyReport Reactions:GodOfPixies, Vas7, HellMayCare and 305 others