Emperor

by dominatusimperator


Daemon

The term “Daemon” was a mere technicality, a term owing more to religion than to reality. But while I had expunged religion from every corner of my Imperium, I could never truly remove terms such as “angel” or “daemon”. Even while I remove every last vestige of superstition from human society, they continued to insist on referring to the Astartes as “angels of death”. Calling the neverborn “daemons” only played into it.

But “daemon” was only a word, a connotation. It had no real religious significance. It was just a name. If anything, it was a name far more accurate than “neverborn”, for the denizens of the warp were constantly being born. Since my son, Horus, fell to their malign grip, they had become increasingly common. There was a twinge of sadness to this. Horus was my favourite son, and he had been too weak.

There are many kinds of daemon. Tzeentch has the Lords of Change, perfidious creatures that rely on trickery to win, much like their master. Nurgle’s greatest children are known as Great Unclean Ones, and they spread filth and vermin wherever they go. Slaanesh (the bitch), posses the Keepers of Secrets, hermaphroditic manifestations of pure perversion. They attest to how decadent the Eldar truly were. This particular daemon was a Bloodthirster, a favoured son of Khorne, the blood god. They were perhaps the most dangerous of all daemons, feeding and gaining strength from blood.

I strode towards the howling daemon, blade Worldslayer clenched firmly in my fist. I could feel the warp turbulence pouring off of the daemon. The Xenos obviously felt it too, because they immediately fell into an orgy of violence and bloodshed. Weak minded creatures have a tendency to fall with greater ease to chaos. This was partially why I made a point of exterminating primitive Xenos such as these ones.

“Anathema,” the daemon growled the pet name that his masters kept for me, “Have you come to face your death?”

I almost smiled at the sheer ridiculousness of the daemon’s arrogance. My death? I had singlehandedly fought the Four Gods of Chaos for millennia. In the warp, I might add. It is worth noting that the Chaos Gods are not, in fact, gods. Rather, they are simply the most powerful of their kind. It is also worth noting that they manifest in a physical sense in the warp, and that they are vulnerable to human-like emotions. Including lust. Khorne still hates me even more than even Tzeentch after I caught him with Slaanesh during one of my psychic raids on his realm. It is worth noting that this was extremely disturbing, since Slaanesh is a hermaphrodite, and covered in tentacles. I believe a subsect of the Asiatics referred to this as “hentai”.

I will not elaborate regarding my feelings on that particular subject.

“No, bloody one, I have not,” I replied to the daemon’s query, "thou hast."

The daemon was a red-skinned monster of both claw and fang. It possessed brazen armor made of bronze. Clutched in its hand was a sword that wept blood. Its eyes glowed with a crimson fire, like its master’s. A chain of skulls hung around its neck, among other totemic fetishes. Great leathery wings spread about its back, giving it the look of a giant bat. Rage boiled from the creature.

Behind me, I heard screaming and the sound of blood squirting from opened arteries. The daemon seemed to be basking in the bloodshed its presence was creating. I knew that the violence was feeding it. The white Xenos was still resisting the madness with all her might, and she had backed a safe distance away from my blade. I could feel fear resonating from her. No matter. I would deal with her later.

Now, it came to a standoff, staring at each other, daring the other to move. The standoff lasted roughly half a second. The daemon struck first, its massive blade lashing out to cut me in half. I jumped back, ducked under another blow, and promptly hacked at the daemon’s arm. The blade, forged by my own hand, bit deep. The daemon screamed in agony as Worldslayer began to burn away layers of its unnatural skin. The blade was anathema to the warp born, just as I was. Blood poured from the open gash in the daemon’s arm.

I withdrew the blade, and sidestepped around a clumsily aimed backhand that nevertheless would have removed my head. These daemons were strong. One of them had broken Sanguinius’s back at the beginning of the Betrayal. He hadn’t fully recovered from it by the time Horus had reached Terra. He had pleaded with me to let him go, and against my better judgement, I did. Sanguinius died at Horus’s hand.

I struck my blade through the bloodthirster’s chest, black, foul blood sprayed from the wound. It smelled like rot mixed in with copper. That last blow had made it angry.

“I will flense you alive, Anathema!” It screamed, “I will eat your bones and drink your blood! Then my father will be pleased with me!”

The ground shook, and blood rained from the heavens. Bloodstorm. That was not good. The bloodthirster would imbibe itself on the blood. It would grow strong from it. Of course, it took time to imbibe blood. Time I spent decapitating the daemon with my sword.
A primal psychic death scream echoed in my mind as the beast collapsed to its knees, black blood spraying wildly in the air, creating a small waterfall down the hill. The creature’s head continued screaming, even as it rolled away. Purple warpflame consumed the creature, and it sank into the earth, continuing to scream the whole way.

I heard the white, winged Xenos screaming as well. I could well imagine why. The death scream had exerted enough psychic pressure to kill many of the lesser Unicorni. Some of their heads had literally exploded from the violence of the primal howl. The town was completely awash with blood, every square inch was coated with it, and there was a variable stream of the crimson vitae. Brain matter flecked the streets, and organs lay scattered about like the twisted play of a demented child. It was hard to distinguish between the one’s I had killed, and those that had been killed in the blood rage.

Several of the survivors were weeping in complete and utter horror. I perceived that all of them were the ones who had fired the rainbow-colour lance of warp energy at me. They all seemed injured in some way, save for the pink abomination. The cyan one had a large gash in its wing. It seemed panicked as the wing refused to respond to it. The yellow one lacked a leg. It would likely only take a few minutes for it to bleed out. The white, highborn Unicorni, was missing its horn. The orange one was missing part of its face, and blood pooled around its unconscious form. The innards of the purple Xenos that possessed both horn and wing had been opened to the air. This unfortunate remained conscious and in agony.

The white Xenos, which had proven to be their leader, glared balefully at me. This glare failed her as I strode towards her and the other Xenos, blade in hand. Her eyes filled with fear, not for the first time that day. I raised my blade, and...