De’gis’ik’lik, Everprescient, Master of Difference, The Permutable, stepped out of the warp and onto the inner surface of the Black Reef. A Lord of Change, agent of the great master Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, the Architect of Fate. Standing amidst the wreckage of the Aeternitas Colony after its orchestrated crash landing at the hands of the Eldar of the Laughing God. Glorying in the sensation of manifestation. To have form once more. Corporealness. Solidity. With every step, feeling the gravel underfoot, draining away the energy, absorbing existsance from the ground itself. The footprints left behind in the now-dead dirt crawling off into the rubble. The crisp north air flowed, turning stale and dry after passing by, all energy lost. The gleam of the silvered armour, shifting in the remains of a toppled building, shine fading into dullness in proximity. The coolness of the armor as it was lifted into the air, becoming hard and brittle while grasped in the newly forming talons.
“N-no. P-please don’t-.” The sweet song of the voice as it was abruptly cut off by talons piercing its chest. The dull thud of impact as the corpse hit the ground, now a dull lifeless husk, its vibrancy and life drained away. Talons returning once more to formless arms.
Coming to the edge of the colony’s remains, seeing the trail back into the ruins. The ever spreading decay of the lost colony’s energy. The still-expanding circle of dull, lifeless ruination caused by De’gis’ik’lik’s passage.
Feeling the distant strength of the Hades Gate grow both stronger and nearer, its influence strengthening, the ebb and flow of the warp coming forever closer. Flexing powers, pulling strength through the empyrean. All traces of passing, each footprint, each scrach upon the rock, the very air itself, shimmered and turned. Coalesced. Manifested. Hundreds upon hundreds of forms began to emerge from the storm of De’gis’ik’lik’s splendor.
“Go.” The multi-layered voice flowed from each of the mouths that grew to speak a single word before decaying and falling away, then growing into new forms that walked out into the plains outside the wreckage. “Bring to the galaxy the true message, and let it burn.” Forming to face the wonder of its passing. Each newly created daemon leaving a scar upon the land. A visible sickness. A gash in reality. The entirety of the destroyed colony was now nothing more than a collection of rents into the warp. The power of the no-longer distant hades gate leaking through, and at its center the emerging crust of the daemonworld. The Crucible of De’gis’ik’lik’s remaking.
One thousand years banished to the warp. Locked away in that planet. One thousand years of patient torture. Not allowed to roam the galaxy. Unfree. Things would change this time. Be different. Adjusted. The mortals would have their fun in the Eye, but true power, true magnificence, walked in the Black Reef, as it was called by the mortal traders even now entering the sphere. A fitting name. This place would be the Black Reef that tore apart the entire sector. Gazing longingly through sightless eyes out into the vast expanse of blackness to glimpse the cold, distant light of the artificial sun, a smile crawled out from the blank face.
“The Great Game continues.”