Everything faded in an instant; the land, ploughed into a greyish-brown by war, turned completely ashen white; the sky, dyed red by flames, lost its color; the Astra Militarum uniforms looked as if they had been washed too many times; the Necrons's silver bodies became dull and lifeless.
Even the Burning One Star God Fragment in mid-air lost its color; the flames around it turned into black and white blocks, no longer the scorching heat of before, leaving only a dull silence.
Overlord Szarekh watched this scene with complete confusion; the anti-Warp force field in front of him, represented by intersecting vertical and horizontal lines, was trembling and roaring wildly, like a sea surface experiencing an undersea earthquake.
He felt everything about him becoming slow, faded, and hollow.
This was not a trick playing with time, Szarekh was very sure of this.
It was more like... more like Szarekh's existence had become thin, more like his existence had stagnated.
Everything around him was like a receding tide; the sounds of the battlefield drifted to the distant horizon.
He could vaguely hear human exclamations, prayers, and praises; they were shouting the name of the God-Emperor, but their existence also became thin.
Just like all existences on this battlefield, whether mechanical or flesh and blood, whether memory or soul, were falling into isolated abysses.
Only that human girl, the girl named Joan, walked barefoot on the gravel-strewn battlefield.
Fire, the fire that burned away reality, flowed beneath her skin, then broke free from the constraints of her flesh and blood body, transforming into a surging tide that roared out.
Joan spread her arms, allowing flames to gush from her body, tearing through her skin to descend into reality.
Everything crackled, but unlike the The Burning One's fire, the sound of the golden flames burning around Joan was so soft, like silk gliding over water, like a silent death.
Fire gushed from her eyes; Joan slightly opened her mouth, spitting out starlight; linen cloth and solar flare-like fire intertwined, like layers of ribbons, lifting Joan's body and carrying her into mid-air.
Her body was charred by the burning fire, but the radiance around her grew even brighter, as if she were a star during an eclipse.
The The Burning One let out a roar; he struggled and twisted in that grey, white, and black mass, continuously drawing energy from reality, and for a moment, even regained some color, with orange-red flames beginning to burst forth around him.
But Joan in mid-air just slightly raised her face; fire had almost devoured her features, her eye sockets were deeply sunken, and her flesh was nearly shriveled.
Yet even the Necrons, who were insulated from the Warp, could feel that Joan was almost like a vessel for a god.
And human perception of the Warp was even more acute; they saw behind Joan, in the burning golden flames, a figure vaguely appearing, seated upon the Golden Throne.
The The Burning One roared, engulfing Joan in crimson and orange-red flames; the extreme heat from the dawn of the universe melted everything in its path; many Necrons dissolved into molten iron under its roar.
Joan did not dodge or evade; instead, a dagger forged from obsidian had appeared in her hand at some point.
A ritual dagger, a Warp artifact forged from fragments of the weapon used in humanity's first murder.
She raised the dagger with one hand and heavily swung it down towards the The Burning One.
In an instant, the dagger transformed in mid-air into a magnificent greatsword, burning with golden flames, almost as vast as a continent, pressing down on the The Burning One.
For a moment, even the The Burning One's Star God body seemed insignificant before that golden longsword.
Szarekh's nonexistent heart suddenly skipped a beat.
He remembered something.
The Tech-priests seemed to have warned him that if the Blackstone Pylon were to be penetrated by high-intensity Warp energy, it would reverse its polarity, changing from suppressing the Warp to amplifying it.
No, no, no, it's fine. Blackstone itself has the effect of suppressing the Warp and is extremely hard.
Such a large Blackstone Pylon wouldn't be easily penetrated, right?
Szarekh suddenly realized something.
He saw the Fiery hot golden longsword in Joan's hand actually pressing the The Burning One down onto the Blackstone Pylon.
The The Burning One's superheated body struck the Blackstone Pylon, emitting a sharp shriek; the flames emanating from him melted the Blackstone Pylon.
The powerful Warp energy concentrated on Joan surged into the pylon like a flood.
Scalding golden flames continuously poured into the Blackstone Pylon through the opening melted by the The Burning One.
The increasingly violent Warp energy and the Blackstone's Warp-suppressing ability clashed with each other.
The Blackstone was now like a small plug blocking a crack in a dam, trying with all its might to prevent the flood of the Warp from pouring into reality.
But the torrent surging from the Warp was too powerful; the Blackstone's polarity was pushed to its limit, and finally, like a spring compressed to its fullest, it suddenly began to reverse.
The polarity of the Blackstone Pylon was reversed at this very moment.
The dam, originally used to block the Warp, disintegrated, and in turn released an endless torrent of Warp energy.
A grotesque Warp rift formed above the Blackstone Pylon, flickering with boundless desolation and scorching golden flames.
In an instant, even the The Burning One was swallowed by this rift, engulfed in the torrent of the Warp, and carried away to an unknown location.
Then the rift continuously collided and expanded, releasing more and more surging Warp energy, instantly sweeping everything around into that tide.
Humans were unaffected by it; on the contrary, their spirits became more fervent, their emotions more elevated; they loudly praised the God-Emperor and Saint Doraemon, and their praise itself strengthened the Warp energy.
The Necrons, however, began to burn under the onslaught of those Warp energies; these Warp energies seemed to ritualistically slaughter the Necrons, and countless Necrons were submerged and obliterated in this tide of flames.
Overlord Szarekh could not escape the scouring of the Warp torrent either; he looked at Joan, suspended in mid-air like a scorching star, and at the figure, as if possessed by a god, amidst the rolling flames; an almost unreadable expression appeared on Szarekh's metallic face.
"Your species is truly sick," Szarekh sighed, and then was swallowed by the Warp torrent, his living metal body turning into ashes and dissipating into the air in the blink of an eye.
This Warp rift orbited the planet, continuously unleashing the power of the Warp into the real universe.
Because Szarekh had previously concentrated the effects of the Pariah Nexus entirely on the planet's surface, the Warp energies spread almost unhindered into the surrounding star systems.
Everything was so precise, as if an invisible pair of hands was manipulating it all.
And at the edge of this star system, the Light Lord was bathed in the torrent of the Warp.
Reyna stood on the bow of the ship, her physical body standing in the void, feeling the continuously strengthening Warp energy.
Stimulated by that energy, her psychic powers also continuously grew and improved, becoming even more ferocious.
Reyna was one of the few Psyker who could still use her psychic powers normally within the Pariah Nexus.
Mephiston and Tigurius, puzzled by this, had even specifically studied it.
They speculated that it might be because Reyna believed her psychic powers were a gift from the Emperor, strength given by faith, so her psychic powers, like the "faith" of the Battle Sisters, could function within the Pariah Nexus.
This was also why Reyna was dispatched here.
She suddenly stretched out both hands, shouldering the immense Warp energy continuously gushing from the distant planet.
This heavy Warp energy pressed Reyna to bend slightly; she felt this energy was heavier than an entire planet, and her face became veined with effort.
Reyna took a deep breath, crushed the high-efficiency pill in her mouth, and the portable pyramid above her head also took effect.
The high-efficiency pill amplified Reyna's efficiency in mobilizing psychic energy, while the portable pyramid strengthened Reyna's psychic potential.
Her body swayed slightly, her figure becoming indistinct; strong psychic energy surged from her soul, permeating every cell and even every macromolecule within her flesh and blood.
In an instant, Reyna almost transformed into a glowing human figure composed entirely of psychic energy.
But this alone was not enough.
As the Blackstone Pylon, controlled by Joan, continuously amplified the Warp, the Warp rift grew larger and larger, and the Warp energy gushing from it became heavier and heavier.
Reyna couldn't help but grit her teeth, her psychic-wrapped body trembling slightly.
She struggled to push this Warp torrent towards the next Pariah Nexus Blackstone node, but with every push, she felt her body tremble.
After all, Reyna was essentially manipulating the Warp with brute force, with almost no skill involved.
She couldn't help but calm herself and began to recall the mentors who had taught her how to use psychic powers over the past few decades.
The Grand Master of the Astropaths, Chief Mentor Keir Preem of the Terra Astropath Academy, said to Reyna:
"Lady Reyna, you are a miraculous Psyker; in a sense, you have achieved the grand aspiration of all Psyker. It is not the Warp controlling you, but you forcefully controlling the Warp."
Tigurius, Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines, and Curator of the Macragge Ptolomaic Library, said to Reyna:
"Lady Reyna, please understand, my way of controlling psychic energy is through knowledge, wisdom, and practice, while yours is through instinct and talent."
"Furthermore, my specialty is prophecy, which is different from your psychic attribute. Perhaps you should go find Mephiston!"
Mephiston, Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels, who controlled the Black Rage by himself, once said to Reyna:
"I once lamented that it was a loss for someone like you, born a woman, not to become an Astartes."
"Now I exclaim, it's a good thing you didn't become a Blood Angels Librarian, otherwise I would have succumbed to the Black Rage."
Ezekiel, Chief Librarian of the Dark Angels, who had met Reyna a few times over the decades, said to Reyna:
"Are you some new interrogation method invented by Asmodai?"
And the changer of ways, the Lord of Change's young lord, that demon extremely skilled in psychic powers:
"If Tzeentch's butt is on top, and the cursed one could mass-produce things like you, the Lord of Change could just find a rope and hang itself."
Finally, Ariman, Tzeentch's Chosen, the most powerful Psyker Reyna knew, said:
"You're just an idiot."
"Give up, you're not suited for learning psychic powers, stop torturing the Warp."
Those teachings echoed in Reyna's ears; she drew strength from them, letting out a roar almost like a beast, forcefully twisting this Warp torrent and smashing it into the distance.
In the distance, on a planet where the Necrons and Blood Angels clashed, beneath a Blackstone Pylon,
A dark-skinned youth, shirtless and dressed in primitive Stone Age attire, was dancing gracefully.
And dancing with him was a tall, bald figure.