Immaterium
Sanguinius
Even though he had left the Webway quite close to the place that Seeker had shown him. He still had quite a large area to search, which was always risky in Warp.
Having muffled his presence so that it did not shine for all like a supernova, he used the energy of the Immaterium to move in search of the ship containing the STC or hard copy printout from one.
He might not be able to help the Imperium or his sons in real space for now, but he could grow stronger and wage war in the Immaterium or Wabway. Maybe even build an army in Ilmarin, but all that would take time.
Together with Prophet and the others, they began to make plans, but in this galaxy you never know when something will turn them upside down. Especially since for all their resourcefulness and knowledge, his three mentors were just a shadow of their former selves; what remained, and even then, they were not the most powerful individually.
To his surprise he managed to locate the ship quite quickly, or so he thought. The warrior and commander in it forced him to stop for a moment and look at this marvel of human technology with admiration.
Although relatively small compared to the largest colossi of the empire, really no bigger than a frigate, it was above all much more pleasing to the eye in design and much more slender and elegant, more reminiscent of some Eldar ship.
The Geller Field was clearly active, but thanks to a trick Mind taught him, he bypassed it by teleporting inside, but it took him a moment to adjust to the space-time reality inside.
The interior of the ship was lit by a dim, occasionally blinking blue light, giving the seemingly deserted place an air of dread and uncertainty
This impression was only deepened by the various sounds reaching him from time to time, from simple knocking to groans that could just as easily have been emitted by a strained structure or by some monsters straight out of human nightmares.
For him, however, this was not a first; in his short life, he had seen horrors that no human mind could have conjured up. Evil so repulsive, horrors so terrible, that it seemed there was no escape from it.
Without hesitation, he entered what seemed to be the main corridor. For now, his presence in the Immaterium was masked by one of the techniques Mind had taught him, but he wasn't proficient enough in it to hide him if he got too close to the daemon.
As the Old One herself put it, his aura was too bright and fiery to be properly concealed without masterful skill.
In addition to the C'tan energy flowing through him from the Void Dragon, which he had fully awakened during his battle with Horus, his person generated a sort of gravity of its own that was easily felt in his vicinity.
The dozen or so rooms he passed seemed deserted but remarkably clean, with no trace of the passing of the years. Suddenly, his vision blurred, and he saw a brief vision of scarlet paws and psychic tentacles emerging from the darkness and trying to grab him.
A moment later he was back in the dimly lit corridor, blinking, trying to focus on his surroundings. It was the first vision he had since the defence of Terra. But it was just as imprecise.
Whether it concerned a threat on this ship or some future one, whether in a minute or a year, an hour or a century, he could not say. But he did know one thing: he had to be careful regardless. Arrogance had ruined many, and probably more powerful ones than he.
He no longer knew how long he had been wandering through the deserted corridors and rooms, because in the Immaterium time passed as it pleased. But with every moment he knew that something was very wrong; even by the standards of this place, something was wrong, especially since Geller's shields were still active. If any daemons had gotten inside or possessed the crew, there would have been a massacre here. But there was no trace of any bodies or even bones. There were basically no traces. But who knew what horrors were hidden?
The further he delved into the ship, the more he felt that he was being watched by something, but when he examined the ship's deck with his psychic senses, he detected absolutely nothing, no beings. Perhaps he would have felt nervous if he had not seen so many wonders and horrors that this galaxy had in store for the first 200+ years of his life.
Soon he found himself standing in front of a door that should have led to the bridge or some other command centre of the ship. But it opened on its own before he could even get to it, revealing an equally empty room, large enough to hold a battalion of Space Marines.
The interior itself did not seem to differ from the few Golden Era of Technology ships that were in service to the Empire; at most, it seemed to be slightly more advanced and had a few differences.
Suddenly it hit him what those differences were. He couldn't see any crew seats, screens, or displays; that could only mean one thing. The ship was completely controlled by AL. At that moment he began to feel real anxiety.
One was to fight xenos or even daemons; he had no shortage of methods or experience to conduct such a fight. However, how to effectively fight AI was a completely different matter. He was wandering around in the dark here, especially since he understood how dangerous AI could be. After all, it was AI that brought humanity to its knees at the height of its power.
"Strange. You appear to be human, but you are composed entirely of compressed and stabilised energy, similar to the entities that inhabit this chaotic reality," came a voice, seemingly coming from everywhere. But he could see and sense no one around him.
His suspicions about who was in control of this ship proved correct, but the question remained where the crew was and where to find some STCs.
As the flood of thoughts flowed through his mind, Al continued her analysis. "You don't need oxygen, food, or organs. Pure energy taking on material form. What an intriguing puzzle."
Sanguinius, remaining alert, asked, his hand tightening around the shaft of his spear. "Who are you? Do you have a name?"
The voice fell silent for a moment, then spoke again, but instead of answering his question, the AI began speaking again as if to itself. "Fascinating. I see no division between body and spirit; instead, energy manifests in corporeal form. I can't wait to understand how you function."
Sanguinius frowned at this dismissive approach, as if the AI was treating him like an object. He decided to try to come to an agreement one last time, but he had a bad feeling about all this. Before he could say a single word, however, his attention was drawn to the cracks opening in the walls, from which emerged several dozen humanoid robots, perhaps half a meter shorter than him, who surrounded him from all sides and began to approach him with outstretched arms, which began to generate some kind of energy strands, which began to connect into a large energy network that was probably supposed to trap him.
"I don't know who you think you are, but I am Sanguinius," he told Al in an icy tone, feeling the Black Rage rising within him as if the very energy of the C'tan was responding to the impertinence of this arrogant AI. "Great Angel of Humanity, and no conglomeration of code will look down on me."
With a wave of his hand, he caused a telekinetic dome of psychic energy to strike his opponents, scattering them to the sides with great force. However, it did them practically no harm in the long run.
The moment they hit the walls of the chamber, their bodies disintegrated into billions of tiny fragments for a moment, which, after only a second or two, began to merge back into a whole.
"Nanits, great." He sighed to himself, watching them carefully and waiting for the attack.
"SORCERER! CHAOS DOG! I WILL HAPPILY DISSOLVE YOUR BODY INTO FRAGMENTS!" The AI's voice emerged from all the robots at once in unison, creating a sound so strong that even he winced slightly.
Sanguinius began to notice one thing. The AI, for all its intelligence, had the same flaw as its creators and most other races, led by the Aeldari. Arrogance stemming from technological advancement.
There was clearly something wrong with it. Was it the influence of chaos, a code error, or was it simply created that way? He didn't know. What he did know was that he had no way to fight the artificial intelligence. He could probably destroy it along with the ship using his psychic powers, but he could forget about STC then.
He was comforted by the fact that these machines that he had to deal with right away seemed to be, despite their advanced design, only a prototype of the mythical Man of Iron, each of which supposedly had its own more advanced AI personality than the one on this ship.
When the robots' arms began to transform into plasma cannons, he immediately surrounded himself with a barrier that took the impact of the attacks. He stretched his free left hand in front of him, and a powerful chain of golden lightning emerged from it, which began to branch out, attacking all opponents at once.
Even if they were protected from the electric attack in any way. Aman' Storm was an attack created by one of the Old Ones to fight the Necrons and C'tan themselves and was intended to completely disintegrate the living metals that made up their bodies.
Its power depended on skill and, of course, the amount of psychic energy poured into the attack, but the more powerful it was, the harder it was to control. If it got out of control, it could annihilate the user. According to Mind, this happened to its creator Aman during the fight with Mag'ladroth.
The machines did indeed begin to disintegrate into atoms when they came into contact with the attack, but then the floor beneath him suddenly opened up, disrupting his concentration. Both the lightning and the barrier were broken, and at the same moment a tentacle of nanits struck Sanguinius with such great force that he broke through the massive reinforced walls into another, much smaller room.
More tentacles followed him, trying to grab him, some even trying to pierce themselves with their sharp needles. Sanguinius instinctively covered himself with his wings, but he felt the attacks begin to penetrate the adamantium-hard feathers.
With one thought, he reactivated the psionic barrier, and after it, sent another shockwave of energy, followed by another and another.
Not wanting to risk an attack from below, he began to levitate with the help of his powers, enclosing himself in a cocoon of purple energy.
However, the number of nanite tentacles increased, slowly turning into entire clouds that pressed against him with untamed force, and he could not focus on anything other than defence.
Soon he could no longer see anything, surrounded by nanites on all sides, and his barrier began to lose its strength. However, Sanguinius knew that if he used more psychic energy, his cloaking field would no longer be able to hide him, and he would become visible in the Immaterium like an exploding supernova.
He could not rule out attracting the attention of even one or more of the Ruinous Powers, and this was not an encounter he was ready for.
So he had to try to either win or at least escape with what he had. But it was easier said than done. For it seemed that he was drowning in a sea of nanites.
In this desperation, deep inside him, suppressed anger, untamed fury, and a mad void began to awaken. In his eyes, radiating with golden light, an endless blackness began to form, and a moment later it filled them completely, and a cry of dominance and cold fury emerged from his throat.
"BEGONE!!!"
The nanites suddenly fell to the ground like a huge wave, as if separated from whatever controlled them.
Sanguinius, guided as if by no will of his own, inexplicably sensed the AI hidden in the ship's systems, and his untamed black anger began to press against this pathetic consciousness.
"NO, NOOO! SPARE! PLEASE! NOOO, NOOOOO!!!" Her voice carried through the ship, full of desperation and the will to survive.
But he knew no mercy. This ridiculous creature wanted to kill him; it was only right that he would repay her in the same way.
"SURRENDER TO THE VOID!!!"
A wave of impenetrable, light-absorbing black energy poured out of it in all directions, drowning the ship in eternal emptiness.
All movement and sounds ceased; after a moment, the sea of darkness began to recede, returning to the place from which it was born. The fog drew back into Sanguinius.
After a moment, there was no trace of it or of his own anger. Just like there was no trace of the ship itself.
The Great Angel was floating as if in an open wound in the Immaterium, because even after the chaotic energies that had previously pressed against the ship surrounded by the field, there was no trace within a radius of many kilometres.
Sanguinius grimaced and grabbed his head because he felt the pressure growing inside it, and then the whispers came, louder than ever before.
Destroy! Consume! Drown in the eternal Void! Free yourself from your shackles!
Destroy! Consume! Drown in the eternal Void! Free yourself from your shackles!
Destroy! Consume! Drown in the eternal Void! Free yourself from your shackles!
The voice in his head kept repeating the same words over and over, trying to break through the shields of his will. But he defended himself, despite the panic that was flooding him.
"Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!" he shouted like a mantra, until the voice finally fell silent. However, the terror he felt did not leave with him. Something very bad was happening to him. Black Rage had never been so persistent nor so powerful, and above all, he seemed sentient now.
He looked around the last time at the void surrounding him, which was once again filling with warp energies. Not only had he lost the possibility of obtaining STC, but he had also lost control over himself.
"I have to consult with the others. Maybe they will know what is happening," he muttered to himself and teleported to the entrance through which he had arrived.