Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 575 Ahriman
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The face of Ahriman as a Thousand Sons warrior stared directly at the visor of what Ahriman would become ten thousand years later, and Ahriman's own face was dimly reflected in the silver visor, like two ends of a mirror.

They were silent.

At this moment, everyone was so shocked by the solidified invisible force that they held their breath. Even the dust in the web seemed to have stopped falling.

The giant in silver armor stared with his deep blue eyes, which were almost ink-black and came from his Prospero bloodline, at Azek Ahriman, the leader of the Exile Warband, the favorite toy and chosen one of God by Sinrezhi, the former chief think tank of the Thousand Sons exiled by the Gene-Father, the intruder and thief of the Black Library and the Terra Library, and the man who had lost himself for infinite time in the pursuit of answers that would never come.

From his evil staff with a small bag of Prospero's dust hanging from it, to the evil eye in the center of his helmet that was connected to his senses, to the six exaggerated and ornate curved horns that were clearly visible on the Great Crusade helmet.

The pair of deep blue eyes gently but cautiously brushed over Ahriman's broad shoulders, sliding across the wizard's gorgeous power armor that emitted a bright blue glow. At the end of the wide holy belt hanging from both sides of his neck hung the skull of a powerful psychic creature, and on the gorgeous cloth were written spells composed of many lost characters.

The power accumulated by Tzeentch's beloved creature for countless tens of thousands of years is so overwhelming that in the eyes of psychics, the entire body of this great wizard exudes a bright blue fluorescence, and his eyes are even more powerful, as if psychic energy has been condensed into the molten magma core of a planet, constantly churning and bursting out with vast power radiation.

"Ormuzd?—Is that you?"

They saw something trembling beneath Azek Ahriman's famous horned helmet, stolen from Magnus's adoptive father, and asked the question that concerned many people.

Even the top of the staff held by the chief wizard was emitting unstable instantaneous flames of psychic energy, showing how uneasy his mind was, but soon, the initial joy in his voice was replaced by a kind of anger and deceived hatred and the return of calmness.

"It's the same again. It's the same mimicry again," he said. "Do not call me by that name, you demonic creature of the damned. It's not the first time a demon has tried to exploit my weakness and my defenses in this way. You are just a statue made of flesh and blood, sent to shake me and confuse me. You are not my brother."

"Really? I'm sorry." The other smiled sadly but tolerantly, and when the suddenly appearing warrior did not speak through the loudspeaker grille of his helmet, his voice sounded disturbingly more like Ahriman's, and the passage of time and stories in their voices were like two barrels of fine wine placed at opposite ends of a cellar, indistinguishable.

What made the Supreme Sorcerers around Ahriman who were familiar with him feel even more terrified from the bottom of their hearts was the habit of this silver-armored Astartes to turn his eyes to look at them: with his head slightly tilted to the side, his stern deep blue eyes that also radiated bright blue light in psychic vision and his tightly pursed thin lips seemed as if he was about to spit out severe criticism and precise nitpicking on the content and format of the papers they had carefully written late at night.

For a moment, the tension, panic, and the aching feeling at the back of the teeth during the Prospero School thesis defense ten thousand years ago seemed to be awakened from ancient memories and once again swept through the minds of the Thousand Sons wizards, and it felt as if they were in a lifetime ago.

"Manutek." The terrifying face of the first captain, the lecturer of the Black Crow School, opened his lips and began to call out the names, as if it was the sound of doomsday, making people tremble with fear, "Sanakht, Ignis, Ctesis, Ziu, Gilgamesh, Gomoda, Jonatla..."

Every Supreme Wizard or Warband Wizard Sergeant named by him subconsciously shrank his neck - some wizards who had been blessed too deeply by Tzeentch and turned into bird-headed humans were uneasily trying to hide their beaks or mutated limbs, while some people subconsciously looked away.

——How could this warrior of the cursed with the face of Ahriman recognize the names of each of them?
A strong sense of uneasiness surged into their hearts, and the thread of fate became a tangled mess before their eyes, but they could not get away - the structure of the Thousand Sons wizards, where nine people are loyal to one person, meant that as long as Ahriman did not intend to retreat, they would not be able to leave here.

At the same time, they became even more uneasy to realize that as he called out their names, an equal number of warriors stood up from the silent and battle-ready line of silver warriors behind him, also holding long-handled weapons, with sacred, heavy, restrained and patient bright silver armor tightly wrapped around their entire bodies, and each of them was a powerful psychic.

The human defenders who were watching the battle were also quite surprised.

"Are all these warriors think tanks? This is a serious violation of the staffing regulations of the Astartes Codex."

"It's more than a violation. Even without the Codex, this is still wrong. Moreover, the style of their Terminator Power Armor has been adjusted, and the quantity is obviously exceeded. I dare say that it is not the mass-produced type on Mars and other forge worlds. Perhaps, it is a secret forge world or base that has never been discovered."

"Well, at least we can reasonably speculate that they are most likely not the sons of Guilliman. As the descendants of Dorne, I have never seen members of the Faction dressed like this at the Feast of Blades."

"The scope of the Chapter that can be examined and judged is suddenly reduced a lot. A very suspicious group of people. What do you think about this, Inquisitor?"

But the Inquisitor, who was always suspicious of everyone, did not make any accusations this time, which was quite unusual. She pursed her lips, seemed to be looking at the necks of all of them, and finally said dryly, "I just verified that they are one of the absolutely trustworthy partners of the Inquisition. I have no other comments."

The rest of the people generally maintained a tactful silence on this news, but the great sage made an inappropriate remark.

"Really? I thought you looked at everyone except the Custodians as a traitor."

"You too, Great Sage." The Inquisitor gave him a stern look. "Among these technologies of yours, there are at least fifty products of alien technology..."

"These are all academic samples necessary for research..."

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The black embers fell softly to the ground.

"Well, everyone is here."

The warrior, who seemed almost like another possibility for Ahriman to remain in the empire, nodded and paused with the long halberd in his hand.

At first glance, the shape of its blade is just a little more curved than the common power halberd, but now the Thousand Sons wizards have discovered that it is actually a long-handled Prospero sickle sword, which is the elite terminator of the Sekhmet Guard.

The battle blade on it is not driven by the common power decomposition position - the reason why the orchid-colored aura can effortlessly split the void and metal flesh is entirely because it is a special battle blade for psychics condensed from pure psychic energy.

The weapon, designed by an unknown genius, is forged from moonsilver, pure silver and other silver metals, perfectly combining a staff, a psychic binder and a halberd, making it an invincible blade against psychics, wizards and anything related.

Azek Ahriman clenched his staff, but remained calm - if they really had to compete in magic and psychic power, he was confident that in this universe only Magnus, who had exiled him, could match him. As for the powers above him... his sharp and intelligent mind strangely ignored the comparison between himself and Sinrezhi.

The leaders of both sides raised their weapons. A sense of fear of the destruction of heaven and earth suddenly enveloped everyone's heart, and they subconsciously turned their backs or turned their heads away.

The next moment, those protected by the shield drawn by Malcador had to close their eyes or turn their heads away - especially the psykers - they could only hear the mumbling of the great sage who was the only one who could observe through mechanical observation data to judge the progress of the matter:
"Oh, my God, this psychic energy and the equivalent of photothermal radiation... This level of high-energy ray readings, Ohm Messiah's battery, are they really still human? This has reached the collision energy that should theoretically begin to produce basic high-energy particles! Two Alpha+ level? How can flesh and blood bodies contain such violent and destructive power without being burned to ashes... Wait, if you look at it this way, drawing a protective shield for us that can withstand this level of penetration... doesn't it mean... Oh! We have reached the upper limit..."

With a crisp sound, the sound of some kind of lens breaking and falling to the ground made some people close their eyes tighter.

"…How did you do that? Stellar-level flames followed by temperatures close to absolute zero… But he only cracked and didn't die… Hey! Damn it! Using multiple fission attacks that destroy the structure of space and time here is a serious foul! Do you want to kill us all?! What? This can also be eliminated? Who are you? With power like yours, why is the empire in such a state of decline?!"

"Hmm...? I thought it would be killing, burning and pulverizing, but what is this? Fusion? Devouring? Attachment or proliferation? Interesting... This processing scene reminds me of how the most primitive mitochondria became part of our cells... It feels a little... not pious... Maybe... Hmm... But it's very inspiring..."

“Oh, the Holy Toolbox of Om Messiah!”

The synthesized sound of the Great Sage's thoughts suddenly rose an octave, and finally the Inquisitor, who was also a powerful psychic, could not help it. She turned slightly, forcibly resisting the innate instinct to avoid danger that warned her whole body not to watch, and used her peripheral vision to observe the battle between the group of silver-armored warriors and the Thousand Sons army.

Gorgeous hollow power armors decorated with blue enamel and gold were scattered on the ground. She was surprised to find that they were clean - there was nothing inside, no blood, no corpses, not even bones or anything else. They just lay there empty, like ownerless things or things that had been forgotten. After a while, the Inquisitor found herself staring at some very strange yet familiar power armors.

She frowned. This shape looked like a special type of Chaos Warrior, a hollow automatic humanoid power armor driven by sorcery... Why were they here?
Above these empty power armor plates, the outcome of the two teams of warriors had already been decided. Not surprisingly, the silver-armored warriors had won an overwhelming victory. Now, only nine supreme wizards and Ahriman were still fighting with them, but what was strange was that the other silver-armored warriors just formed a circle silently, and it seemed more like they were performing some ancient ritual than watching a duel.

"Now take out that potent voodoo or whatever you have prepared to kill me - it's time to use it! Now is the time for Ahriman to die!"

Ahriman and the cursed creature with the face of his dead brother were almost hugging each other, but they cursed with gnashing teeth. Their psychic energy and spirits tried fiercely and violently to invade every inch of each other's existence. All kinds of miniature and incredible changes in matter and rules were ignited at the place of confrontation, which was exactly what the Great Sage had just observed and exclaimed in amazement.

"No...how dare we, sir..."

"Stop pretending here! Do you think I haven't noticed? Hurry up and use everything you want to use against me on him! I can feel that his body must have been cultivated using a part of my flesh and blood that I may have lost at some point in time, in order to replace my existence. Your spells and attacks will have twice the result with half the effort on him!"

"Ahriman..." The face opposite sighed, but the halberd in his hand slowly pressed the staff towards his neck, and the distance between them closed to one finger in a heartbeat.

After just a brief pause, nine vicious attacks of different attributes came simultaneously from nine different directions towards the silver-armored warrior with Ahriman's face.

"You bunch of traitors! Cowards! Cowards! You really prepared these things!" Ahriman was furious, but he did not forget to entangle the other party and let his body bear the vicious attack against "Azek Ahriman".

Although the wizards who launched these attacks were immediately overwhelmed by the silver silent opponents, these attacks on the root components were indeed effective. The solid silver armor began to crack and burn, revealing the flesh inside.

Prospero's brown skin, the very faint scars that seemed to be deliberately preserved, the black neural interface, and the pair of amulets hanging around his neck -

Azek Ahriman's gaze froze.

Even when the source of his life was cut by the psychic light blade, it remained tightly attached to the pair of amulets that had become one.

His mind suddenly became clear at this moment. He put aside his disappointment in his father, his hatred for the wolf, the pain of his own actions, and the loneliness, pain, struggle, and sorrow of ten thousand years or more. He only remembered the taste of the pomegranate syrup pie they had eaten on the day when his mother gave him and Ormuzd a pair of amulets respectively when they were mortals. It suddenly surged to the taste buds on the tip of his tongue ten thousand years later.

The two souls that were split into two in the womb have reconnected and live intimately in the same body in the material dimension.

It turned out to be the case.

Olmuzd did not die this time.

So is Azek.

This is indeed Ahriman, the most complete.

But he is not Azek Ahriman.

He wanted to say something, but thick blue fluorescent blood had already begun to flow out of his mouth and nose.

"I'm sorry." He wanted to say no, but he was surprised to find that the next words came from his own vocal cords. "But at least your soul is finally free from Him."

He looked down, and finally saw through the eyes of Grand Master Ahriman a body gradually losing the restraints of its human form, transforming into the appearance of Tzeentch, wearing his original armor.

A warm hand rested on his shoulder.

He turned around.

Hugging his brother.

(End of this chapter)