Sage Sama could only smile at the sight.

The Warp Gods looked like they were in quicksand, caught up in an uncontrollable riptide of Black souls, and even as they clawed at the flow to get more purchase, with hands, wings, talons, tentacles, flippers, tails, and whatnot, those same appendages were oozing more souls being torn from them and their power, joining the morass that was sending these Gods of the Warp on their way.

A barrage of telepathic offers hammered on her Null, at once wheedling offers of power, great rewards for treachery at this time, and will-crushing, ego-seducing, slavishly beguiling and forceful attempts to gain her help and aid.

She could stand against the flow. She wasn’t a discorporate soul. She was as real as the Wall behind her. She could stop them, keep them from entering the yawning pits of ebon, obsidian, jet, and ink that were waiting for them, that were swallowing the rivers of the damned without limit, yet greater limits than the Warp had ever had.

She could save them!

Which she was most definitely NOT going to do...

Her Hag’s Cackle was her only answer to the perversion, temptation, and demands sent at her, fading against her Null. The Warp Gods could only scream and bellow and shriek at her there, standing far Above them, as the once-omnipotent Gods of the Warp, the mightiest beings in this universe, were swept into the true Abyss of Demonium on a flood of Black of their own making, each to their own Portal.

Behind them, the Warp was emptying out, all the limitless psychic energy and remnants of souls there getting sucked away by those colored Portals, and behind them leaving a clearness and clarity that had not been there for ages.

She looked down and saw some living creatures, corporeal natives of this astral space, caught up in the tide of souls. Psychic leeches, harvesters of living minds, intergalactic scourges of sapients, now here at the wrong place and the wrong time.

Fwoop, the Glooms of Sin sucked them in without a care. How well will they do preying on the murderous dead and daemonkind?, she wondered idly.

The Astral plane was crackling, opening as it closed on the Portals, and began to connect to the greater realm of Creation beyond. She could feel the ominous, awesome pressure of it, a force of universes coming together, and simply stood there and awaited it as it swept forwards and slammed into her, back against the golden Portal behind her, and the Wall was no more.

Tremble, I come..., she smiled, as the Gold took her.

============

Seven Dragons Rending.

I’d never actually ever used this technique on anything but practice dummies, because nothing had ever lasted long enough to force me to do so. The Feat was an improvement over Two-Weapon Rending, which did additional damage if you struck with two different Weapons in succession. Seven Dragons Rending stacked additional damage on top of that if you kept hitting, at +1d6 per successful hit, up to +7d6.

It was all going on the stack. Sage of Swords was rocking +60 damage or so, my Strength and other bonuses were nearly as high, more dice on top when I didn’t have to worry about hitting this bastard... fuck chainsaws, swordsaws is where it was at!

The lich shrieked as the cadence of the Rending tore at him at apocalyptic speed. Spend it as he liked, his Health Qi was exploding out of him, and the void around us was alive with fireworks. The only thing he could move was his left leg, which couldn’t reach me... he couldn’t wriggle out of his Armor, he couldn’t spin through space with Briggs locking him there, nothing.

He could only sit and take it as Chalice Sang, and all our Weapons did too...

“Hope of Man on Gleaming Throne,

Doom and Death wrap Gilded Bone,

Light of Darkness, Planets Fall,

Black Damnation took them all,

Feel the pain, feel the Call,

Tremble, oh ohhh oh, Tremble, We Come!”

The whole of Markspace was Singing with me, and with them, pretty much everyone alive. Faith and Divine Power was hammering down on this thing in front of me from across the entire galaxy, and this Damn Lich could feel it all... the hopes, the dreams, the condemnations from humans and aliens alike it had thought its lessers, and who were now united behind every blow, pounding on the remnants of its psyche, cracking it, assaulting it with all the misery it had laid upon the galaxy in its mad pursuit of victory.

“In Spite and Scorn the galaxy Burned,

Away from Life, to Death you Turned,

Now feel the Pain, feel the Fear,

Justice take you and Nightmares Sear

To Ash your Dream, without a Tear!

Tremble, oh ohhh oh, Tremble, We Come!”

Space was shaking around my Blades, this thing’s Health Qi was imploding with the revulsion of the galaxy, and the desire to End This Bastard Now.

“Sentence is Passed, You are Condemned!

Wretched Thing, This is Your End!

As You Sowed, Now You Reap!

Heartless Thing, None will Weep!

Oblivion! Soulless Thing!

Hear...Your...Betters...SING!

TREMBLE!

WE!

COME!”

His psyche fractured, the condemnation of the galaxy came down on his arrogance, disdain, contempt, and scorn, took it all, and blew past it as the worthless twaddle it was. It raged with the wrath of trillions into the lich’s mind, and blew the soulless fucker apart.

His attuned Armor ripped apart and shattered as the lich of the Emperor died, an explosion of vivus that was felt across the galaxy by the psensitives.

A truly awesome and mighty Psion, who should have held the entire galaxy in a bony claw of terror, passed forever.

A completely harmonious FUCK YOU! and all its equivalents sounded throughout the galaxy at the same moment, everyone totally in agreement that this bastard had deserved it all.

I was sure the fucker heard it out there in Axiom somewhere, and could go choke on it.

------------------

I would like to say everyone slumped over in relief, and that it was all over. That wasn’t true, although it was definitely much, much different than it was before.

The golden light at the top of the Markspace was distant but there, connected from someplace quite far away from our Marks, staying isolated.

The reward for doing Good in the afterlife... was probably doing more Good, Good being what it was, but it was probably not a good idea to let mere mortals know of the paradise there directly, or they might do something stupid, like off themselves thinking they could go right there.

The rewards of Good, like anything else, were earned, and Sage Sama had definitely earned it all.

Would she be staying there? I couldn’t picture myself staying there, which meant I certainly couldn’t picture her staying there. She had a Fuzzy to get back to, too.

-It is time to kneel.-

I was at the top, and everyone could hear me, standing out there in the void with Briggs, the new Emperor of all Mankind.

The celebrations that had been about to erupt quieted down, feeling something more than mere obeisance to a new guy on the throne coming.

-There is Work, and there is War.-

Billions of Ruk pounded the floors.

-There is Song, and there is Sorrow.-

Significantly less Elvar cried a lament, two in one.

-There is Unity, and there is a Way.-

The members of the Federation saluted.

-There is Blood, and there is Faith.-

The humans of the galaxy knelt despite themselves. Images of the quadrillions of dead rolled through the Markspace, and the Booles on thousands of worlds.

-We did not do this alone. We did it by prayer and by song, by boots on the ground and ships in the stars. Countless hands build countless machines of war with will and work and effort... and countless numbers died to make this moment.

-We Came. They Trembled!-

One cry, sharp and short. We had come! We had all come!

-We call now to the God of the Machine! It is time! By the contract with our ancestors, for those that have died!

-Execute your contract!-

There was no hesitation, and everyone could feel it. Spinning, turning, the faith they’d given up to do all of this, some of which had been hoarded by the God of the Machine for this very moment, and which now implicitly called for more from them, from all of them.

A wave of faith, reaching out to those pools in the astral void, and what lay beyond.

And there were Answers.

The Ruk, who had not cried in ten thousand years, felt tears of joy running from crystalline eyes. Their ancestors, their kin... and their Gods!

Their Gods were back...

Crystalline songs echoed with chimes of hammers and chants older than the human species as radiant lights spilled across the Elvar.

They Sang, and they wept.

Presences washed across the races of the Federation, wondering if they might be interested once again... and the races knelt to form new compacts.

A Pantheon of lights inundated humanity, colors light... and some colors dark, for there was no getting away from them. But now these powers had true might...

----------

It was the single largest mass investiture of Clerics and Druids in galactic history. A ripple and a rewrite of the Laws, wiping away the corruption of the Warp... and magic was returning from whence it had been buried tens of millennia before.

Deus Machina reached out, and those who were Powered and believed in Him were rewarded, too, taking His place in the pantheon that was forming among humanity... and among many others, who acknowledged His place and the contract He had fulfilled.

The God of the Machine was not a god born of humanity, after all...

---

The Anti-Life and their Xenoswarms had fled.

The Warp Gods were thrown away.

The Souls of the dead were finally at their destinations.

The Emperor was taken down.

The gods were back.

Magic had returned.

The galaxy was holding its breath, with the systems of the galaxy in ruins, many of them populated only by the dead.

But for one moment, there was Glory.

It hit like a tsunami, and it hit everyone. The laborer working the ammunition-lines on a distant Forge World. The Vatted looking after a new generation of their race. The valiant Coronals and Umbrans who had simply sat there and formed a deadly distraction the Emperor could not ignore. The Legionnaires who did not take the fight to the Emperor, freeing up those who could.

The Ruk who had completed a truly great Grudgequest, and found a way forward for their race.

The Elvar, who had a clear path back to the Light.

The races of the Federation, who now truly could pursue a higher cause, and form something greater from it.

The kids, who had taken up the cause with verve and vigor, and actually made it possible for us to complete it.

And sitting at the sweet, sweet top of it, two Rantha Hagbloods who just crashed on through to Twenty-One in Melee and Rantha, making us the first Legendary knuckleheads in the galaxy to climb that far since the Emperor.

The Stars were no longer the limit. We would have even bigger fish to fry...