He clenched his fists, his knuckles popping with a sharp crackle as he walked step by step toward the daemon slumped on the ground, the smile on his face growing more “radiant.”
“Ah, my friend, don’t worry. When I’m through with you… I won’t leave you a single speck of air!”
For the next while, the daemon’s voice echoed across the square.
“…Despicable dregs of the material realm! How dare you… Ow! How dare you humiliate an emissary of the Changer of Ways like this! Aaaaagh! Not the face! My knowledge! My logic!”
Guilliman’s fists rained down, each punch accompanied by the faint shimmer of Smart Atoms, dealing solid, devastating blows directly to the daemon’s essence.
The daemon’s furious curses began to crack and waver, interspersed with painful gasps.
“Stop!
Foolish Primarch!
You are desecrating…
desecrating the great…
Argh!
It hurts!
Stop!
You barbaric…
barbaric muscle monster!
Chaos…
Chaos will devour everything!
Your resistance is mean…
meaningless!
Spare…
spare me!”
The agonizing pain made its words incoherent, a desperate mix of threats and enticements.
“Don’t…
don’t hit me anymore!
I beg of you!
Great Primarch!
This wasn’t my choice!
I am willing to submit!
I’ll sign a pact!
I can become your servant, spying on the secrets of the Warp for you!
Spare my life!
Spare my life, I beg you!”
Its voice grew shrill and wretched, utterly consumed by terror.
Seeing that Guilliman had no intention of stopping—his fists only growing heavier as if to shatter its very existential structure—the daemon finally broke down completely.
“I was wrong!
I shouldn’t have desecrated your majesty!
I shouldn’t have tried to corrupt your sons!
I am willing to repent!
I will trade all my knowledge…
just for a quick death!
Please!
Don’t make me feel this…
this horrific ‘sense of presence’ anymore!
Let me return to the void!
Just kill me!
Use that sword!
The Emperor’s Sword!
Give me a quick death!
I beg of you!!!”
It even began to babble, reciting random fragments of loyalty and honor stolen from who-knows-where, trying to move Guilliman:
“For the Emperor!
For…
for Terra!
Loyalty…
urgh!…
Loyalty is an eternal fortress!
I…
I surrender!
Unconditional surrender!
I’ll sign any treaty!
Just please don’t…
don’t ‘beat’ me anymore!
I can’t take it!
This is more painful than being torn apart by Khorne’s Bloodletters!
More despairing than being rotted by Nurgle’s plagues!
Aaaaaargh!!”
In the end, its wails devolved into meaningless, intermittent sobs and whimpers.
Like a broken, leaking bellows, all that remained was the most primal desire for utter annihilation.
It slumped on the ground, lacking even the strength to shift its form, wishing only for this endless “physical persuasion” to conclude as quickly as possible. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
From its initial, profanity-laced mockery to its impotent, raging curses, and finally to its heart-wrenching pleas…
…until at last, only the dazed, numb groans of a repeatedly brutalized entity remained.
Guilliman, in the most straightforward and unadorned manner, had verified the effectiveness of “physical exorcism” on Warp creatures.
The surrounding Ultramarines had gone from anger to shock, and now…
they stared at their father, who looked like a god of the forge as he pummeled the daemon, shrouded in what seemed like a burning golden aura.
Their eyes held nothing but absolute fanaticism and adoration!
*(Father… can beat a Warp daemon to tears with his bare hands! Is there anything Father cannot do?!)*
Looking down at the pool of flickering, semi-conscious, convulsing psychic residue of the Tzeentchian daemon, Guilliman decided it was time to test his final hypothesis.
He summoned Chief Librarian Tigurius.
“Son,” Guilliman pointed at the daemon.
“Can you place a soul brand or a tracking beacon on this thing? The kind where even if it discorporates and reforms within the Warp, we can use the brand to pinpoint its location and drag it back into the material universe.”
Hearing this, the blue psychic fire in Chief Librarian Tigurius’s eyes flickered slightly, tinged with confusion.
“Father, I do not quite understand… Our usual duty is to purge them completely or banish them. Why would we deliberately summon it back?”
“Because I want to conduct an experiment. A vital one.” Guilliman’s gaze was sharp.
“To determine whether I—or rather, we—can find a way to kill them permanently, at their very core. You know as well as I, son, that the nature of Warp daemons makes them exceptionally difficult to destroy. Even if we disperse them temporarily, they will eventually reform in the tides of the Warp. It is only a matter of time.”
“I see… I understand, Father.” Tigurius nodded, asking no further questions.
He stepped forward, his hands tracing glyphs in the air as he chanted ancient, obscure psychic incantations.
Intricate, complex runes glowing with a deep blue light flowed from his fingertips.
Like living chains, they slowly branded themselves onto the core of the Tzeentchian daemon’s unstable, shifting form.
The daemon seemed to have abandoned all resistance.
Or rather, its very will to resist had been thoroughly shattered by Guilliman’s “physical persuasion.” It simply lay on the ground, whimpering insignificantly, allowing the brand that would drag it back into this nightmare in the future to be carved deep into its soul.
“It is done, Father.” The Chief Librarian lowered his hands, his psychic radiance slowly fading.
“When it coalesces in the Warp once more, I will be able to clearly sense its location. With this brand and a proper ritual, we will stand a high chance of dragging it back out from whatever corner of the Warp it hides in.”
“Well done, my son.” Guilliman patted Tigurius’s shoulder guard appreciatively.
“It is my honor, Father,” the Chief Librarian replied with a bow.
Guilliman turned his gaze back to the Tzeentchian daemon, his eyes cold and focused.
“The time has come to test my final hypothesis.”
He extended his right hand, pressing his palm—now shimmering with the faint light of Smart Atoms—slowly onto the daemon’s “head,” which was made of pure energy.
There was no violent explosion, nor any blinding flashes of light.
Just a gentle squeeze.
*Pop…*
Like popping a tiny pocket of air, the Tzeentchian daemon’s psychic form instantly disintegrated, dissolving into countless thick, viscous wisps of Warp energy that radiated an eerie blue light and the foul stench of forbidden knowledge.
They drifted in all directions, as if trying to follow some instinctual pull back to the chaotic dimension that spawned them.
Yet at that exact moment, the dormant Viltrumite Smart Atoms within Guilliman’s body suddenly flared to life with unprecedented activity, transmitting an unmistakable sensation of deep, ravenous hunger!
It was as though they had laid eyes upon the most exquisite feast, thrashing in a wild frenzy, wanting to devour these dispersing blue wisps—this purest form of Warp energy!