Marvelous...

Be'lakor First-Damned allowed a proud smirk to adorn his inhuman, daemonic visage. It was a terrible and cruel expression, one that only grew greater and more wicked in its form as the minutes passed by. Each of those minutes were ones spent witnessing the smoldering carnage of what lay before him.

What he saw, what filled him with such a foul satisfaction was the spectacle of the ruination of his kingdom. The lips lining his fanged mouth split back, the jagged white teeth within clicking together like sets of sharpened knives of bone as his scarlet eyes scanned over the tattered remains of the world of Tolus. Every detail he drank in and tasted of deeply, every lost life he savoured like the finest wine.

Simply marvelous...

Tolus, one of the many kingdoms he had forged in the name of the Ruinous Powers and himself. Tolus, a barren planet, once lush and full of vibrant life until he set his cloven-clawed feet upon it many a millennia ago. He was quick to bring its human populace under his mighty heel, forcing them to worship him as a god and erect unholy monuments in his honour. Toiling under his shadow for countless generations, the land began to spoil and the sky turned dark with corruptive energies from the Warp itself—the realm by which Chaos manifested and from which the fearsome Daemon Prince called his true home.

If there were any to witness him descend from his prime temple and make his way onto the lifeless field before it, they would see that Be'lakor's form was bulky with hard muscle and many times taller than a mortal man. Monstrous and leathery bat-like wings adorned his back, currently folded together as they were not in use. With skin as grey as the ashes of the innumerable foes he had incinerated in psychic flame with his potent sorcerous powers in ages past, upon the center of his pale, armourless chest was something like a brand; a symbol resembling several arrows pointing in separate directions—the mark of Chaos Undivided.

His great, horned head turned about many a time, looking far and wide for any sort of life still active upon this hellscape of rock and iron. Wherever he wandered next and wherever his prying eyes traveled, the signs of great and terrible battle that had occurred from just outside his palace and far beyond it were apparent everywhere. The carnage ranged from the stench of freshly spilled blood and the choking fumes of smoke, to the sight of innumerable corpses strewn about like blades of grass upon a field. The ground itself had become dampened with mortal ichor, and it left a most pungent and familiar scent in the otherwise dry air that tickled his nostrils like the wondrous smell of a blooming flower.

Khorne, the Chaos God of war and bloodshed, among other, equally brutal professions, was sure to smile at this offering. Be'lakor thought this to himself as he ventured onward, knowing he would not return to his regal abode.

And on the subject of the gods, Khorne surely was not the only one witnessing or partaking in this planet's undoing. Truly, each of the gods granted Be'lakor luck enough that both sides had wiped the other out. Swelling with pride, the Daemon Prince continued to walk about the endless battlefield, stepping on or over every corpse to blight his path, making sure no survivors on either side were still breathing and lucid enough to witness him. Lest he allowed certain individuals to know of scant and minor clues to his presence in the universe, he preferred to make sure that no one knew of his existence at all. And now that he was through with this world and its pitiful inhabitants, he knew it was time to move on to greener pastures and begin anew.

His move was made when the Imperium of Man came upon his previously-lost world and realized the extent of how those living upon it had fallen to Chaos. With haste and conviction they sent their warriors to try and cleanse it of the abhorred influence. Like chess pieces being moved, Be'lakor waited his turn patiently before it came. And when it did, he struck without either warning, nor mercy.

At his decree, the people who lived under his rule rose up en masse and fought back against the aggressors and the influence of their false Emperor with reckless abandon, giving their lives in their vacuous lust to please their tyrant. At the Dark Master's beck and call, daemons of all varieties and allegiance entered this dimension at will and ran rampant from one pole to the next, spreading madness, death and mayhem where they went, indifferent to which side their fangs sunk into. The Imperium tried with all the might that was theirs to put down this sudden, rampaging swarm, but try as they might, they were swiftly overwhelmed by it and all was drowned beneath the tide.

With their agents on the earth all dead or dying, unknowing to the true being who orchestrated this entire debacle eons prior, it would be only a matter of time before they put this entire world to the torch through an act of Exterminatus, as was their custom for many human worlds they couldn't keep for themselves.

Excellent he thought again to himself. Everything was going according to his design. This world was due to turn to space dust, and with it would be all traces of his passing. All traces of his doings and his secrets. Though he dwelt deeply on this pleasing fact, Be'lakor's attention on it was snapped away in one sudden motion when a shape, not as inanimate or Chaos-consumed as practically everything else in his sight, caught his eye. He had finally spotted the first sign of life since departing, and most appropriately, he turned his full view upon it.

After a brief examination of the lone character, Be'lakor knew without a shred of doubt that it was a member of the warrior order of the Adepta Sororitas, better known by their more widely-used moniker, the "Sisters of Battle." The Sisters of Battle, an exclusively female organization formed by the Imperium of Man ages ago, specialized in the hunting of those deemed heretical in their view. It was no small wonder why they were here, posing as the Imperium's main strike force. Upon getting a whiff of anything that might test their zealous devotion, they would come running over like a cluster of moths flittering toward a flame.

Be'lakor squinted, intrigued and wishing to gain further insight on this being, mostly out of curiosity as to how she was the only one not to also be resting in death's uncaring embrace. Right now she sat on the end of a collapsed stone pillar that used to be a temple column; the rest of the building which it belonged was a shattered shape far behind her. The warrior nun's body itself was covered in ceramite armour of a black colouration and highlighted with vivid crimson vestments—the style matching the Sororitas order known as the "Order of Our Martyred Lady". Short, snow white hair fell from her exposed head, the only part of her that revealed her pallid flesh. She had not yet notice his presence, given in part due to how she was set.

Her crown hung low, eyes focused on the bloody ground as her gauntleted hands remained clasped together, trembling viciously. She was clearly in deepest thought instead of prayer, and from what Be'lakor could only assume, those thoughts were on the wondrously horrific battle that had just taken place. To her comrades whose cadavers now littered the ground beside her staring at nothing with unblinking, dead and dull eyes. To how they fought beside her. Their final, brutal moments. It was all so very delicious for the daemon to muse on just how it all must have occurred.

With silence unbefitting of something his size, Be'lakor floated closer to the Battle-Sister through the sea of bodies and inspected her further, spotting more things of interest on her person in the process. Resting on one side of the warrioress' sitting shape was a mighty boltgun, and on the other, like a lump of stone, was a heavily damaged Sabbat Pattern helmet; it was a form of helm reserved typically for the more laudable within the Sister's ranks. A large and thick book displaying the Imperial seal laid by her hip, laced with a thin chain hanging from her shoulder, indubitably a tome dedicated to the supposed word of the Emperor.

She must have caught a glimpse of Be'lakor from the corner of her sight, for her head soon lifted and stared in the daemon's direction. Right off her eyes, both pale blue and bearing the characteristics of jagged shards of ice, widened in alarm. Her brow arched in fury soon after and her teeth clenched together. With the overall look she bore both incredulous and full of rage, she burst onto her feet without fail nor care for her ruined helmet, bolter in hand. Aiming at him with a cry demanding vengeance, she fired the weapon several times, sending projectiles the Daemon Prince's way on a loud, fiery stream.

Even if he chose not to act against this assault, there was little worry swimming in Be'lakor's head on the possibility that this attack could hurt, much less scrape over his tainted flesh. After effortlessly dodging the first two shots he lifted the weapon he carried, the legendary Blade of Shadows, to intercept the remaining projectiles. The holy ammunition of the bolter deflected off of the long, wide, dark surface of the Warp-forged etherblade as it flickered into reality, sending the bolts rebounding away and into the stale earth around him. The Sister of Battle continued to take careful aim at her hated foe and fired round after thunderous round in spite of the blatant lack of effect until her clip ran out, upon which she finally halted and slowly lowered her holy weapon.

Smoke left the boltgun's barrel in a thick, black stream. The Battle-Sister took a long, breathless look his way, realizing he was still not on the offense. Be'lakor, after raising his blade upward in a brief stroke until its sheen glimmered in the dim sun's light and then was lowered by his side, cast her as dry a look as he could form.

"You are truly a brave soul to look upon and defy me in such a manner, alone and lacking fear of any sort," he cackled in a voice as rich as an ocean and as deep as an endless abyss, showing her in tone alone that he was amused by her stubborn antics and refusal to flee after what had commenced. "To stand against me, even while your allies lie dead at my feet, is truly a commendable thing to behold. But futility is ever so often a thing from which commendable, albeit pointless, deeds are birthed."

The Battle-Sister did not respond. Her glare merely hardened, as did her shuddering grip around her bolter. A brow lifted upon the daemon's face, his countenance shifting slightly into a more thoughtful mien.

"But then again... my own paltry retinue has suffered just as well a fate." A smaller, crueler laugh left him. "And of that, you have my appreciation, human. Observing them as they were was like watching a pet succumbing to a festering wound. It was a thing of... relief to see a gaggle of Imperial bootlicks put them out of their collective misery. Of that I am sincere."

"Whether or not what you say is the truth, you'll pay dearly for what you have done here." She finally spoke to the daemon, her tone firm as stone, but bearing just enough emotion to betray her sheer, unbridled anger. "I may die as my sisters and brothers have, and I may suffer my final fate to you. But you... you'll not see the end of this day either, daemon."

"Oh, I believe I will," Be'lakor replied. He stroked his free hand over his chin, his relaxed stare mocking to the mortal being. "But even so, what makes you so sure I am to fall here?"

"This world shall soon be destroyed." Her tone was venomous. "Minutes from now, Exterminatus is due to begin. This world and the Chaos infecting it shall die in a blaze of flame. And with it, you will be obliterated as well. With it, you will be sent screaming back into the Warp from whence you came amidst a hail of death. The glory you sought to attain for your dark gods will vanish to nothing."

"And so shall you," Be'lakor remarked.

She scoffed. "My life is of little concern. I would gladly give it to ensure the demise of those who would bring only destruction to mankind."

Be'lakor, though not out malice, fell silent at these words. Her mind racing on the image that her primary weapon would provide little damage to this wretched monster, the Battle-Sister's thoughts went back to a daemon-hunting Ordo Malleus Inquisitor she and her fellow Adepta Sororitas had accompanied to this site. He had perished alongside them, but his body still laid nearby. She remembered he wielded a daemonhammer, a tool crafted from rare ores and other assorted materials meant wholly to deal with the physical manifestations of Chaos. Upon casting her eyes down to him from several meters away, she spied such a thing, still stained with blood at its fore, resting in his dead grasp. Holstering her boltgun onto a chain by her side, she moved quickly his way. Be'lakor watched her go to him calmly, as a hawk might observe its prey from afar. Reaching the Inquisitor soon enough, the Battle-Sister grabbed the sacred weapon from his limp hands, lifting the heavy object into both of her own with little effort. She cast a scowl the daemon's way, the hammer already radiating with energies harmful to those abominations of unreality which spawned from the Immaterium.

"I will not cease my attack until one of us lies dead upon this ground."

A jolt of pleasure coursed down the First-Damned's spine when he saw what she had done, and a wicked grin stretched over his maw when he heard her defiant threat. His body arched forward a small ways, his stance becoming combative. "Then kill me, if you can," he enjoined. "I know you wish so very much to do so. I can see your unkempt vengeance shine like a gem within your heart. And so I bid you to try."

The Sister of Battle heard his taunt well. Unable to contain her wrath any longer, she charged forward at the much larger being of fell origin and lunged with a roar, the daemonhammer held high. Be'lakor stood his ground as he watched her come at him with visible delight, lowering his blade enough to meet hers with ease. Sparks flying and the sound of impacting metal screeching out eerily with every given blow, the weapons clashed together repeatedly.

Feeling the ecstatic, wondrous thrill only combat like this could provide for him, Be'lakor began to indulge himself in the moment. He allowed his sword to simply lift and fall to knock each strike of the baneful hammer away, though he kept enough fluidity in his movements to seem like he was fighting for real. If there was anything he thirsted for more than overcoming a worthy foe when given an opportunity such as this, it was by offering them false hope before pettily stealing it away. Soon enough, when her many attacks came at him, each one truly delivered with the intent to kill utterly, it seemed more like her weapon was hitting off of a shadow of itself upon a wall than it did anything resembling an even duel.

However, when several minutes of it passed, Be'lakor discovered that something was starting to change. It became apparent that she was actually beginning to gain some footing and near-hits upon the daemon's tough hide. Discerning that his swelling pride had potential to bring his downfall, measly a chance for that to happen as it was, Be'lakor quit his feigning at last.

Lifting up the backhand of his mighty claw upon knocking away her next attack, he swung it with a shout, savagely batting the Battle-Sister away as a cat would toss a mouse with its paw. She flew through the air like a tossed stone until her back smashed against a ruined wall of the building she once resting far in front of, rebounding off of it with a crack of damaged stone and dropping to the ground with a loud thud.

"Impressive, but futile!" boomed Be'lakor, chuckling to himself as he so very rarely complemented his adversaries and meant it. He moved swiftly over to his foe while she picked herself off of the ground, pushing up from it with the head of the hammer.

The wind had been knocked completely out of her from the great and inhumanly powerful blow. She wiped the last of the spittle to line her rosy lips with the end of her darkly gauntleted arm regardless. However, it was as she looked up and saw the daemonic shape looming over her when she knew what was coming. Lacking the ability for the moment to even lift her hammer, the Battle-Sister, wheezing as she attempted to recuperate and catch her breath, closed her eyes in acceptance of her fate as he raised his sword upward in preparation for the finishing blow.

He never delivered it. A sound reminiscent of the shrieking whistle of a shell from cannon fire went off in the distance, followed by the appropriate sound of an explosion. Within seconds of hearing it, the ground upon which both of them stood trembled, if just enough to shake up some of the rubble behind them. Be'lakor completely halted in his action when he sensed the unmistakable vibrations gracing the floor, though they did not actually effect his sense of balance. He looked around and then above himself, as though querying what the disturbance was. Seeing him apparently dumbfounded, the warrior-nun rose fully to her feet and decided to sum up the apparent situation to him.

"Those... are the initial orbital strikes. The beginning of... Exterminatus," she scantly breathed, her bruised face twisting into a smug and hateful sneer as Be'lakor's eyes dropped from their view on the sky to meet hers.

Keeping that expression, she continued, "I can see it on your face. You know what this is and what's coming. You know that there are hundreds of ships above this world. They are each firing down all the artillery they have. This planet's surface will be obliterated in minutes. Minutes."

Be'lakor held his gaze on her, eyeing her hawkishly until his visage turned indifferent. "Poor you, then," finally bid the Daemon Prince. At that, the Battle-Sister's satisfied smile immediately vanished.

"What? Do you not care for your approaching fate, abomination?"

"It is not mine to suffer," he casually stated in a smooth and unperturbed tone, slacking his grip upon his blade. "Yours, but not mine."

"What do you mean?" she again asked, traipsing a meter in his direction with the last of her strength returning to her, desperate to know what was keeping him from fearing for the banishment of his putrid soul from the realm his kind loved only to torment and distort. The ground shuddered briefly again as the warrioress spoke, and a series of loud explosions went out, picking up in intensity until they were all that could be heard in the background.

"I mean that I wish to leave now. Not for reasons of shame or because your kind have bested me, but because I have grown weary of this little game," he responded, the thundering growing louder in the background. "The Warp is my one, true home, and I bear enough influence on this hallowed ground to enter it whenever it suits me. And it is where I shall go now, while this world burns to cinder and ash."

The warrior nun tried to form something to combat her shock at this little fact, but found herself unable to do anything when Be'lakor acted next. Looking away from her, he raised his clawed hand upward, and upon summing up a fraction of his power into the stroke, the air a short ways in front of him seemed to start rippling about and actually pulsate from the unstable energies of Chaos, opening up what the observing Battle-Sister could only assume was indeed a pathway to the Immaterium. Teeth bared in outrage, she increased the tensity of her grip around her weapon's metal shaft until her knuckles felt sore.

"No... No!" A wrathful cry tore forth from the Battle-Sister's mouth. The very ground she stood upon quaked violently from the impact of the multitude of orbital strikes hitting the planet from just miles away, mountains splitting open somewhere in the distance as the barrage closed in on their position. With the sheer level of pure hate clouding her mind, she was uncaring of the deafening cacophony of destruction and oncoming death reaching its final climax, focused solely instead on the daemon before her.

"You're meant to perish here! You'll not escape your doom! You'll not escape me! Not this easily!"

For all of the shrill volume born in her pitch, Be'lakor merely ignored her rantings among the all but deafening peal of the world's imminent passing into oblivion. With a sense of leisure in his movements he turned his back on the warrior nun and walked away from his opponent, contenting himself with leaving her to perish alongside the planet.

As he moved into his portal, his forgotten enemy stumbled desperately his way through the scattering tempest of oncoming debris and violently trembling earth with her weapon raised, the earsplitting choir of thunder surrounding them. Scant seconds remained before searing flame and devastating rounds from the ships in the heavens above were due to envelope this very spot.

Taking one more step forth, Be'lakor had vanished into the Warp and disappeared from the material world that most mortals knew so well. Not many moments after his departure, Tolus' entire surface was engulfed in a cataclysm of shell and fire; rendered blackened and charred, ruined utterly, and stripped bare of feature and life from the unyielding hail of cleansing orbital fire.

Exterminatus, terrible as it always was, was complete.