C211: Destruction of the Bronze Citadel
Alt Title teaser: Dramatic Exit
Date published: 4/22/2025.
Thank you for everyone's patience, we are so back baby. I had fun with this chapter.
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"Sure…you can have it" Axel extends his hand to the orb and the barrier dissipates but before the orb could fly up to Khorne, Axel grabs it and condenses it into an arrow.
All that power, for just one arrow, now aimed at Khorne himself. The arrow is soon released, a myriad of colors is emitted by the arrow as it shoots off at a speed that is just faster than a regular arrow. Khorne takes no action to dodge the arrow as he summons his own weapon, a double sided great hammer, specifically a Hamaxe.
With one hand, the lord of skulls grips his hammer and turns it around so the pickaxe side is facing out. He lifts it up and brings it down on the arrow.
VWOOM (beyond boom or bang)
At the moment of collision, the bronze around Khorne and Axel became no better than stone near a typical tnt explosion. It split apart by cracks before the secondary explosive shockwave struck and directly atomized the bronze. To be more clear, the bronze citadel itself is the size of a hive city, reaching over 60k feet into the sky (taller than mount everest), and just as deep into the ground.
(pic here for ref to Hive Primus)
Roughly 50k feet in all directions was obliterated by this power compressed bomb that directly fought against the lord of war himself. If this collision had not occurred then the range of the explosion would have been doubled and directly reached the forge of souls some distance away.
As such, the large majority of the Bronze Citadel has been atomized, this includes the remaining demons serving Khorne, keeping the bloody decorations properly arranged aka not decaying. Forges for various mechanical constructs like the daemon engines as well as a few of the larger power weapons and many…many gun factories, all rendered to dust by the explosion of over 500 years of daemonic influence and psychic energy.
Only a tops of a few pillaring buildings akin to towers remained as they now fell the full height of the city to the newest underground space. Yet this is far more convoluted within the span of the Warp itself. For you see, there is nothing below the bronze citadel, unlike other hive cities that would have dirt, stone or simply magma due to going underneath the crust. There is nothing in the warp. Below the bronze citadel is empty space, so when these chunks of the fortress fall into it, they were demolished by the etheric energy of the unstable space.
Of course both Axel and Khorne were fine. Axel simply teleported away but even if he didn't, he could have set up multiple layers of devouring energy, constantly looping the absorbed energy back out into the barrier surrounding him until the explosion effect subsided. As for Khorne, other than his armor being singed and seared, turning near black under the erosive psychic energy yet not a single change in his expression as he maintains the same calm commandeering attitude. Yet that same attitude changes when it witnesses the devastation.
"Gram, you have destroyed that…which is mine. I care not for the lives you have taken but all that you have destroyed was mine. That I can't forgive." With no more words, the lord of blood chases after Axel who gives a peace sign and uses his second magic to finally leave this universe. Of course as he is in the warp, he naturally holds the attention of all 4 gods once again. Yet unlike before, Khorne is not welcoming, he madly chases after Axel, his Hamaxe striking against the barrier and due to the cracks that form on his warp gate/shuttle. Creating sword orbs, the war god breaks them apart but not without suffering some minor injuries as his durable war suit simply absorbs everything thanks to its high quality material and energy barriers, both psionic and mechanical.
Axel already has all his attention on Khorne when a pink mist rushes the area around Axel, the mist is so thick that normal vision does not allow anything to be seen but Axel has more than one vision type thanks to all his laws powers that he realizes who or what it is that is coming in.
Slaanesh.
The Lord of Excess appears this time akin to some sexual tyranid hybrid creature with claws that make MaulerFiends jealous, A pair of reptilian breasts that have mouths instead of nipples. These mouths also spit out toxic venom in the form of acidic aprodisiac.
The dark prince's pink purple form is a thing of work, with 3 sets of arms that all wield exceptionally long claws of noxious liquids dripping off them. It's mouth is seemingly expressionless with the exception of its wide open mouth that has hundreds of teeth in a circle akin to the Kraken from Pirates of the Caribbean [1]. A long thick tongue is the only thing that comes out of this nightmarish mouth as the Prince of pleasure acts akin to an Assassin. Going for Hit and run tactics.
Axel has to divert his attention every so often to fend off the Eldarian chaos god. This allows Khorne to deliver more damage but luckily Axel finds that creating a miniature sun inside the bubble seems to disrupt the war gods capabilities. Axel is sure that this is more akin to a flash bang and the war god will adjust to this annoyance but it buys Axel precious time to allow him to make a greater escape.
Pant. Axel is breathing hard as the two chaos gods go full force on him but he gets a plan for how to deal with one of them. He waits patiently and when the time is right, he unleashes his [world break] attack onto Slaanesh. Yet it's not a simple punch like it was when he killed the gods in Ragnarok. No, this punch was channeled into a new weapon that heavily channels his [Great Devourer/Beelzebub].
A shining blade of silver, blue, and bronze. A weapon supposedly forged by the gods to slay the titans, this weapon is also used as a vessel for the powers of others, eternally enhancing its power when the requirements are met.
The blade of Olympus.
It is this blade that stabs into Slaanesh's guts and drags the infernal creature into the bubble where it is encased inside a miniature dungeon block as Axel's own clones work to keep the Dark Prince pinned underneath the sword. The [world break] had shattered the gods body but it rapidly mends but the real kicker is that the more power the god uses, the more is stolen from it, yet with the infinite power of the chaos gods thanks to the warp, such a thing would rarely be an issue.
But, Slaanesh is currently inside Axel's spatial bubble, traveling to a whole other universe where the laws of the warp do not apply and thus Slaanesh has no ways to recover their power. It is no more than a matter of time before the chaos god would permanently die. In other words, Axel's full attention returns to Khorne who has still been unleashing ravenous attacks to get his due back.
To change up his battle style, Axel summons a spear made of solid gold in his hand. It appears with a small fanfare of golden sparkles as Axel lowers his center of gravity before bulking up his physique akin to Kratos' and stabbing out with the weapon.
The spear collides with the Hamaxe and shatters in a silvery explosion before another appears in Axel's hand. Yes, this is Draupnir, the ring spear that the dwarves gifted to Kratos in his pursuit to save his sun from Odin. The ring itself endlessly duplicates if left alone but if properly channeled, the extra spears also explode. That is Axels current plan for Khorne.
He knows that he cant defeat the god of war with war as his very essence would increase in response to the intense conflict. Instead, Axel would stall him in proper moments with a large array of explosive Draupnir spears that have been enhanced by Rebecca's own destructive energy to make the explosions stronger and bigger. This should effectively stun lock the angry god.
Axel throws out one spear after another, initially the god took his anger out on the spears but upon finding that they are extremely fragile and the force applied to the throw itself is not applicable to harm him, he stops caring and continues his onslaught against the barrier. Though his movements do grow stifled due to the large number of harmless spear seemingly sticking to him due to their wind suction nature.
When there are enough spears that Khorne is about to burst out with energy to outright shatter all of them, Axel slams the butt of his spear on the 'ground'. This initalizes the explosive energy with the fragments of Axels own to enhance the explosion. With a unified explosion, Khorne is sent blasting away yet Axel can not relax just yet as while he is halfway home, he finds a new obstacle in his way.
"AXELLLL GRAMMMM" A giant echoing voice calls out Axel's name a green noxious mist surrounds him but the real kicker is the mountain sized ball of fat and flesh absolutely covered in an army of adaptive dandelions nurtured by Axels seed of Life. Nurgle seems to have bulked up since anyone last saw him as he has easily grown over 50 times 'larger' in every sense of the word.
His massive belly flopped right on Axel 'from the top rope' as it could have very well created a completely new valley if he pulled this maneuver in any world. To protect himself, Axel created his own mountainous spike of metal that Nurgle happily flopped onto but due to the size difference as Axel was quite unprepared, he found the spike only went halfway through Nurgle and nowhere near possible to directly split the granddaddy of plagues in half.
As if sensing the tremor that rocks the entire warp bubble around Axel, Slaanesh is invigorated as it thrashes against his clones yet that is actually to Axels advantage. He lowers the walls around the dark prince and grabs the handle of the Blade of Olympus. The stolen power flows into Axel but he rejects it and instead gives another seed of devouring that merges with the first. This effectively triples the absorption power of the sword as it is stabbed back into the guts of the chaos hermaphrodite.
Of course Axel doesnt use all the stolen power for the 2nd seed as otherwise the absorption power would have increased ten-fold, no, Axel condenses the power into a new arrow and this time shoots at Nurgle. As the arrow is released and comes in contact with Nurgle, contrary to popular opinion, it does not actually explode. Instead the arrow is absorbed into the life seed within Nurgles putrid half purified heart. The seed's power is enhanced many times over.
The simply looking dandelions covering the plague lords skin begin to glow a holy light as akin to the Greatsword of Damnations Golden Crux. A move where the target erupts in a flurry of golden astral thorns and spikes. A call of agony is heard as a spike is coming out of the gods mouth and wraps around his fat neck, the barbs on the thorny vine stab into the tub of lards throat.
Yet that all was just stage 1 of the seeds new boost, stage 2 involves a new pulse of life that sprouts Kale of all things. Renowned for being highly nutritious, the bad tasting fake lettuce replaces the dandelions as the rate of absorption and adjustment to Nurgles power is dramatically increased.
Axel collapses the mountainous spike and Nurgle falls off behind Axel. The plague father reaches out his hand in misery as his original visage can hardly be seen through the intensive foliage growing upon his body. One might have assumed he was a giganta-maxed Venosaur from the amount of actual plant life sprawling all over him.
With a moment of breather, Axel restores the integrity of his transportation vessel, this restores it's original speed and Axel begins to zoom off into the distance. Axel expects Khorne to appear at least once more before he properly makes an escape, yet Axel cant help but feel something is going on and making his journey too easy.
Thats when it strikes him, where is Tzeentch in all this. The lord of change was the last to arrive last time around and had been the sneakiest in attempting to corrupt Axel's power for himself yet the immortal monkey lizard has made no moves thus far. With no immediate sensing, Axel takes a deep breath and begins to scan over every inch of his magical space ship.
As Khorne finally makes his appearance, Axel spots the one shadow that does not fit into the current situation, a snake appendage that sticks out just next to Slaanesh's own reptilian tail yet this one is closer to gorgons snake hair, independent thought and action which should not be possible unless it's a creature that is equal to 'She who thirsts'. That can only mean one thing. Tzeentch had stuck himself onto the she-bitch for this exact purpose.
Tzeentch had likely hoped to act as a stowaway until Axel got to his destination and reset the 'game board'[2] with new elements to serve as resources and materials to forever more expand his realm of mystery and knowledge of magic far beyond the simply intricacies of psychic energy from the warp.
Axel is having none of this, thankfully everyone except Khorne and Nurgle are inside his miniature territory in the form of his second magic space bubble. This means the effect of what he wants would be contained to just the immediate area but also much more concentrated far beyond its normal means to boost its power to actually affect the two chaos lords.
[Divine Domain-Reversed Cycle of Reincarnation]
As Axel started speaking and putting his hands together, a blinding white light beginning to emanate from him causes the snake to try escaping but as Axel had already fixed the damages, it could only helplessly scratch against the walls as blast after blast of magical power is released to help it escape but it is all for naught.
Three individuals find themselves in a pure white space. It's quite cramped due to the limited space and the many orbs that fill up the vicinity. Axel locks gazes with Tzeentch who has transformed into a wizened hunchback old man. Besides him is also a young Aeldari woman, this is naturally, she who thirsts, the chaos goddess Slaanesh.
Tens of Thousands of years of orbs from their memories, emotions and powers line up next to them but all currently feel 'nothing'. Due to the limited space, the orbs are all flowing around each other as if a gmod lobby where stuck prevention is attempting to fix the physics to unstick something.
As Axel is further away, his own orbs are perfectly arranged around him akin to three rings like those of Saturn and Neptune. This is a little trick he made for himself as Axel made a spiritual note for himself to always take in the closest memory shard to regain what his purpose here is. With his short term memory restored, Axel is the first to move as he grabs the spirit line connected to his powers and tugs them into himself, the orbs begin to slowly phase into him and help him regain his power.
Slaanesh randomly grabs an orb but it was actually one from Tzeentch, she gained his memories related to learning pyromancy as well as the powers linked to it. Afterall, Slaanesh's innate power is to feed on Aeldari souls to strengthen herself, her dominion is the eruption of desires and emotions which means she feeds on them to grow stronger. While the majority of that power is gone, she is still able to gain an inkling of power from the magical memories of her fellow chaos god.
As for the Lord of Change himself, he studies the orbs for a moment before rushing to take in as many orbs as he can while Axel charges at him with the shade of Radahn above him. Controlling the demigod spirit like a gundam. While he had lost the power of the fragment of the shard of Radahns great rune, his own power is still overwhelming, especially since everyone here is massively weakened while he already knew the rules thanks to mentally reviewing the spell in his latest memory.
He brings his two sword down onto Tzeentch but as it comes down, he finds a barrier set up in front of him. The lord of change had gotten access to his own knowledge and power of barrier magic. He unleashes a few more blasts but it's to no avail. Seeing that he cant immediately kill either of the chaos gods, he decides to pull off something unexpected. Grabbing a set of memory orbs that are linked to Slaanesh, he stuffs them into Tzeentch and vice versa with the lord of changes into the dark princes.
As both chaos gods gain the memories of their counterpart as well as their own, they begin to undergo a personality disorder, this is especially so as they gain both their original and other powers. Slaanesh can tell that with Tzeentchs memories she should be capable of so much more magic and the same but opposite is true for the Lord of Sorcery as they know so many hedonistic possibilities yet it's as if something is blocking it. Axel himself devours both their memories of the recent time so they forgot about Axel and he simply collapses the divine domain and then kicks them out of his bubble. Believing Axel to just be another Imperium psyker, they pay him no mind as they turn their full attention to their counterpart chaos god.
The two begin to fight over the right of their magics, memories and overall dominions.
Khorne who had been ignored this whole while has been constantly attacking the barrier to make his way inside. As for Axel himself, he is digesting the memories of so many magics that he stole from the Changer of Ways which are augmenting his [Rhongomyniad]'s power. There is no corruption here as Axel set up intense barriers to protect his mind from any influence there.
With another repeat of memory shuffling, Axel changes his target destination one last time. The sudden shift disrupts Khorne's attacks but he ravenously begins his pursuit once more. Yet Axel has a new idea that capitalizes on the current situation.
Creating a new [doppelganger], he has it leave the barrier and stand just beside the lizardman Tzeentch before unleashing a flurry of magical attacks that strike at Khorne. The god of rage turns his attention to the source of the attack and finds the two other gods fighting each other. True to his name, the Blood god's rage is redirected to the two gods that it already has long standing animosity to.
Thus leaving Axel alone as his clone had used up all the energy fueling its existence to unleash that magical barrage. With peace of mind, Axel finally departs from the universe of Warhammer.
"[Raphael], plot a course, we have one last destination to reach"
["Where are we going this time?"]
"I'd like to meet my father"
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Alt Title: Escape from 40k, Nurgles Misery, Switcheroo
Word count: 3365
Drop a comment if you wanna judge my writing or the story. I'll try to respond, especially if you're confused or anything.
[1]: that moment when the kraken spat out Captain Jack's hat before swallowing him at the end of the 2nd movie.
[2] the chaos gods fight amongst each other for dominion but in the end it's all considered 'the Great Game'