Several more Space Wolves Astartes arrived at that mont, drawing their weapons and aiming them squarely at the tallic skeleton before them.
At the slightest hostile movent, they would not hesitate to open fire and annihilate him.
"Although boarding your vessel uninvited may seem discourteous, I had no choice but to take such asures.
"But expecting to lay down my weapon is a bit too much. A Chronomancer will never relinquish his weapon," said the Necron Chronomancer, Grandu, standing before them.
"In that case, we have no choice but to take you by force," the Lieutenant replied, his voice cold.
Two Space Wolves imdiately drew their chainswords and swung at the Chronomancer.
At the sa ti, more than a dozen others squeezed the triggers of their boltguns. Grandu's cloak flared as he conjured a protective shield, effortlessly deflecting their combined assault.
Then he raised his staff.
The blue crystal atop it shone with a faint azure glow, forming a bubble-like construct that enclosed the two charging Space Wolves and froze them in place.
In the span of a heartbeat, he had neutralized more than ten attackers without harming a single one.
"I bear you no great malice. I simply wish to use your vessel to leave this place. Grant this request, and there will be no conflict between us. You cannot bring down. On the contrary, I could easily kill every living being aboard this ship," Grandu said, raising the Aeonstave.
As a Chronomancer, he possessed considerable ans of self-preservation.
Through his staff, he could unleash a stasis field charged with temporal energy, trapping any struck target inside a ti bubble, unable to move.
His Tisplinter Cloak could weave together overlapping strands of ti, making him formidable both in offense and defense.
In truth, with the arrogance typical of a Chronomancer, he normally had no interest in dealing with the so-called "lesser civilisations" of the galaxy.
But his own race had been struck by a calamity. All of his forr kin had turned into skin-hungry abominations, and the curse was still spreading.
Many who had awoken in a sane state had likewise begun to degenerate into flesh-craving monsters.
Grandu understood all too well that if he did not escape quickly, he might succumb to this plague himself, losing all sense of self and becoming nothing more than a puppet.
If not for his tily discovery and the use of advanced temporal technology to isolate himself, he would have already been infected. Even so, he knew he could not hold out forever.
Then hope arrived swiftly.
Through the central command system of his tomb world, he detected an incoming alien vessel.
Spotting this ship of a foreign civilisation was like seeing a lifeline. Without hesitation, he had used teleportation to board it, intending to hitch a ride away from this perilous star system.
"Do not think for second that such a trick can contain us," Mader replied coldly.
He raised his force staff, unleashing a surge of psychic power that shattered the stasis construct and freed the two trapped Space Wolves.
Such a thod might work against ordinary Space Marines, but using it against a Rune Priest with powerful psychic ability was a grave mistake.
"Oh? I did not expect to find such a powerful psyker here. I may have underestimated you," the Chronomancer admitted.
"If you surrender now, we can still talk terms. Otherwise, I will fight until you are disard," Mader warned.
Grandu silently produced a Chronotron, an eye shaped device capable of truly manipulating ti within a given range.
The instant he flipped it, temporal fractures split the ship's interior.
Mader saw bolter rounds hanging motionless in the air, their trajectories stretched and frozen. The charging Space Wolves were locked mid-stride, encased within lattices of crystallised ti.
Everyone seed to move in slow motion, but Grandu moved the sa. Mader, with his highly developed psychic sense could perceive it.
The entire Strike Cruiser seed to be enveloped in a mysterious temporal field. Everything was slow, utterly slow, at the molecular level. Ti itself had slowed down..
"Oh mighty psyker," Grandu's voice echoed from sowhere beyond the mont, "if you underestimate a Chronomancer, I will find that most troubling."
Mader dared not show the slightest carelessness. He imdiately raised a psychic shield, lifting his staff high as he began weaving a psychic art.
After so long training on Prospero, he was no re psyker, he was a master of the psychic arts.
The Rune Priest's armour shimred with a faint blue light, dispelling the temporal restraints that restrained his movents in an instant.
"My Chronotron allows to see countless possible futures. You cannot defeat , psyker. There is no need for us to fight; I only wish to borrow your vessel to escape," Grandu said. Truly the psyker was futilely struggling.
In truth, if it were not for sheer necessity, he would never have spoken so much to a species from a lesser civilisation.
Their vessel was crude, using so ancient warp engine for travel, aning they had to enter the Immaterium. And it just so happened that he needed such a vessel to escape.
Though he was a powerful Chronomancer, he could not safely navigate the Warp alone, he needed the strength of these humans.
With a cold snort, Mader unleashed a surge of psychic might that shattered the temporal bindings in an instant.
His power closed around the Chronomancer's true form like a great invisible hand, collapsing the temporal shield.
A flicker of surprise crossed Grandu's tallic features. Never had he imagined a human psyker could so easily tear apart his ti ward.
Mader's psychic force surged like a tidal wave, wrenching the Necron sorcerer bodily out of the temporal layer and into the material realm.
"Impressive strength," Grandu's chanical voice wavered slightly as his Tisplinter Cloak flared, desperately trying to reweave the strands of ti.
But Mader's power had already locked down his every movent.
"Your tricks with ti are over, Xenos. Now it's my turn." The tip of Mader's force staff blazed with blinding azure light. Drawing deeply from the Warp, he unleashed the most powerful spell he had learned on Prospero.
A massive arc of psychic lightning erupted from the staff, shattering the Chronomancer's temporal barrier like glass.
The eye shaped Chronotron shook violently, cracks spiderwebbing across its crystal surface before it burst apart with a sharp crack.
"No! Impossible!" For the first ti, panic entered Grandu's voice. Never before had he seen psychic power capable of directly interfering with the laws of ti.
Mader seized the opening.
His psychic assault struck like a storm, hurling the Necron backwards to crash into the deck plating before he slumped to the floor.
The surrounding Space Wolves instantly regained their freedom of movent.
Several lunged forward, pinning the Chronomancer and wrenching away his Chronotron, Tisplinter Cloak, and Aeonstave.
Grandu tried to resist, but Mader placed his palm against the xenos's forehead, using psychic force to shut down his thoughts.
Only then did the Rune Priest finally exhale.
That had been dangerously close.
Without his presence, the entire crew would have fallen to this Chronomancer.
"Mader, is he secured?" the space wolf Lieutenant asked as he approached.
Throughout the fight, neither he nor the others had been able to intervene; they could only watch their Rune Priest the and xenos fight alone, their movents blurread as if the ti around them was accelerated.
Fortunately, his strength had carried the day.
"I've suppressed his mind with psychic power, putting him in a comatose state. Get him into a stasis field imdiately, I need to report to Lord Axis," Mader ordered.
It had been a close battle.
Without the ki-infused strength Lord Axis had granted him, tempering both his soul and body, he might not have won.
The xenos's mastery over temporal technology was formidable indeed.
The Lieutenant, Odoro, nodded and ordered several Space Wolves to escort the captive Necron Chronomancer below.
"Guard him well. Once I report to Lord Axis, I'll personally take over his custody. I trust no one else with him," Mader said.
Only after confirming the threat was neutralised did the Cruiser slowly enter the Warp.
On his end, Mader opened a psychic link to Axis.
"Lord Axis, we have captured a Necron Chronomancer alive."
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Bonus Chapter! WAAAAARGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!! POWERSTONES! MORE !!! WAAARGGGHHHHH
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