The Grasp of the New World[Warhammer/Overlord Fanfiction]

[TheGodof ThronesAboundant]

The Anathema's Grasp was a cathedral-sized vessel, a relic from a different era. Its bridge, a vast chamber of dim light and humming machines, felt more like a fortress than the command deck of a ship. It was here, within the Navigator Sanctum, that Novator Valerius Vhoron stood. His face was calm, his silver hair pulled back tightly, revealing the crystalline third eye set into his brow. He wasn't watching the star-charts on the screens but was focused inward, reading the shifting chaos of the Warp.


"We have a clear path, for now," he said, his voice steady and low. "There's a break in the storm ahead."


Beside him, the younger Navigator Quintus Thorne was struggling. His third eye was clenched shut, his face pale and slick with sweat. He was a Novator by title, but the sheer malevolence of the Warp was more than his training had prepared him for. He could feel the ever-shifting oceans of the warp—a sea of raw emotion, thought, and malevolent intent. Every second was an agonizing battle against the insidious whispers of the Daemons of Chaos that promised an end to his suffering and sanity, voices that promised to rip his mind apart. Daemons flared anytime he made progress, intensifying their efforts twofold, sixfold, twelvefold. They doubled their efforts, confusing and tormenting him, showing him paths of doom and salvation, a sea of lies so deep that truth could not be separated from them. Their intent was clear: they hoped he would despair and fall to their schemes.


"I can't see it," he stammered, shaking his head. "The whispers… they're too strong."


Valerius didn't look at him. "Your duty is not to listen to them. It is to see through their lies to the truth of the currents. Open your eye. Our ship depends on it."


With a choked gasp, Quintus forced his third eye open. It was a raw, red orb, and in it, he saw a landscape of twisted, impossible shapes. He glimpsed a path, a fleeting moment of calm, but he cried out as it vanished, swallowed by a sea of red and green energy, of doom and suffering. The whispers were so loud his ears burned and his mind pounded. Pain triumphed, and he collapsed, his eye snapping shut as blood streamed from the corner.


At that moment, the ship jolted violently. A harsh alarm blared as the main screen flickered, replacing the star-field with a swirling vortex of sickening colors. The ship's energy shield, the Gellar Field, began to fail.


"Shield integrity at sixty percent and dropping!" an officer shouted, his voice high with panic. "Outer hull breaches on the starboard side!"


A high, unnatural shriek echoed through the metal hull. The air on the bridge became heavy, charged with ozone and a foul, coppery smell. A portion of the main viewing port seemed to melt, the glass distorting into a pulsating membrane of chaotic energy. Amorphous, shadowy shapes with too many eyes pressed against it, clawing at the barrier.


Valerius took control. He knew time was running out. He didn't try to reason with Quintus, who was lost. He placed his hands on the console, focusing his will not on the Warp itself, but on the failing shield. It was a forbidden act for a Navigator, but it was their only hope. He poured his psychic energy into the ship's systems, forcing the Gellar Field to hold.


With an agonizing groan, the shield stabilized, and the daemonic shapes recoiled from the glass. The breach in the hull sealed itself with a sickening sound of groaning metal. The immediate threat was over, but the cost was high. Valerius was bleeding from his nose and ears, and the veins on his forehead throbbed painfully. He had bought them time, but not a solution. The ship was still lost in the Warp.


"The storm is hunting us," Valerius said, his voice strained. "I need more than a simple vision. I need a path!" He looked at Quintus, who was being tended to by a servitor, and then at the ratings officer. "Get me the Prognosticator," he commanded. " Don't just stand there, I need Isadora Nysos! NOW!!"


The young ratings officer, his face pale and body fill with fear, rushed to complete his order.


------


The door to the sanctum, and in she came. Isadora Nysos moved with a almost detached air, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond the physical world. Unlike Valerius, her silver hair was loose, falling around a face that bore the faint, silvery scars of her visions. Her third eye was entirely closed, protected by a simple metal band across her forehead. She was a different kind of Navigator—a scryer of fates, a seer of truths hidden in the madness of the Warp.


Valerius watched her approach. He did not trust her power. He was a practitioner of maps and currents, of finding paths that already existed. Isadora, by contrast, created a path through the act of seeing it. He considered her methods dangerous, a direct invitation to the whispers of Chaos. Yet, as the ship shuddered again, he knew his traditional methods were useless. He needed her.


"Prognosticator Isadora Nysos," Valerius said, his voice strained. "The Deamons are confusing my navigstions and the paths the warps could be telling me are nothing but lies, I cannot find a path. I can only hold the shield."


Isadora nodded slowly, her expression unreadable. She walked to a smaller console in the sanctum's center and lowered herself onto the chair. She did not need to see the external screens.


"I will look," she said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper.


She took a deep, shuddering breath, her body going still. A moment later, she began to vibrate with a low hum. With a final, agonizing gasp, the metal band across her forehead snapped, and her third eye opened. It was a swirling vortex of deep purple and black, a miniature version of the storm raging outside. Valerius felt the psychic pressure, the force of a mind wrestling with the future.


Isadora's body went rigid. Her hands, clenching the arms of the chair, became stark white. She was lost in a vision, navigating a world of infinite possibilities and terrible outcomes. Valerius could see flashes of it on the screens around her: fleeting images of a burning star, a lone world, and aliens—torn apart by a sea of screaming, skeletal faces.


After what felt like an eternity, she shuddered, and her third eye snapped shut. The psychic pressure vanished, leaving a cold, eerie silence. Isadora was slumped in the chair, her body exhausted, her face pale.


"What did you see?!!!" Valerius demanded, his voice urgent.


Isadora lifted her head, her eyes wide clarity. "A point. It is a world. it the realm of psychic energy is nonexistant,"


"Its it a dead world?" Valerius repeated, his mind racing for a logical reason.


"A beacon," Isadora insisted, her voice growing stronger. "Its power will be our guide. I can pull us within."


Valerius stared at her, his thoughts a whirlwind of disbelief and dread. The Warp was full of such promises, and they were always a lie. Yet, the conviction in Isadora's voice was undeniable.


"Give me coordinates," he said, his mind made up. The path was illogical, her method dangerous. It however was the only path they had.


Isadora began to speak, her voice a calm litany of numbers and celestial headings. As she spoke, the ship was shaken by a new, more powerful tremor. On the main screen, the chaotic storm seemed to part, revealing a single point of light in the distance. Its was a green-blueish, world, a power non native to the warp seem to be reaching out to another plane, though it warp pressence was nonexistant.


Valerius stared at the planet on the main screen, its glow a stark contrast to the swirling reds and greens of the warp storm. The coordinates Isadora had given him were logged, a series of complex numbers that made little sense to the ship's machine spirits. A cold dread settled in his gut.


"Log the new course," Valerius commanded, his voice echoing with finality across the bridge. "We are heading for the planet."


An older, grizzled officer, the ship's Captain Marius Volkov, him he had been watching the work from his chair, only now found his voice."Novator, with all due respect, that is an unknown entity. A Prognosticator's vision is not a chart."


"It is all the chart we have," Valerius replied, his eyes still fixed on the screen. He knew the Captain's concern was valid, but his traditional maps were useless. To stay was to die. To follow the light, however insane the path, was their only chance.


As the ship's ancient engines groaned, adjusting to the new, illogical course, the warp storm intensified. The ship was being hunted. The chaotic energies outside seemed to converge on the ship, lashing at the Gellar Field with renewed fury. The shield, still weakened, flickered violently.


Valerius felt the psychic pressure rise, a terrible weight pressing down on his mind. He could feel the eyes of the Warp on them, a million unseen horrors turning their attention to the tiny ship that dared to defy its will. Beside him, Isadora sat quietly, her own third eye once again closed, a placid calm on her face that belied the horror of her vision.


They saw things that defied description. Glimpses of impossibly large entities that swam through the Warp. Whispers that promised power and salvation, all in oblivion. The green planet its strange power pulling forward.


After what felt like a lifetime, the light grew larger. It power reaching into the plane. The power was entirely silent and still, a mausoleum of immense scale, and the beacon that had guided them was the psychic echo of its absolute and utter stillness.


"This is it," Isadora murmured, her voice filled with an unsettling mixture of awe and dread. "The planet."


Valerius felt a shiver run down his spine, a cold that had nothing to do with the ship's failing life support.The psychic stillness radiating from it didn't feel lika a sign of safety, but death so complete that not even the Warp could touch it.


As they approached, a new set of alarms began to shriek across the bridge. The Gellar Field, which had barely held against the chaos of the storm, was now being violently repelled by the stillness of the world. The field sputtered, unable to coexist with the unnatural power. The ship was caught between two opposing forces: the screaming madness of the Warp and the absolute silence of the seemingly dead world.


Captain Marius Volkov's face, usually a study in grim professionalism, was a mask of anger and fear. He pointed a shaking finger at the world on the main screen. "Novator! What is this madness? We are about to be torn apart! We have to turn back!"


Valerius turned from the console, his own face grim but unwavering. "Captain, your charts are useless here. My traditional methods of navigation are useless. We are not sailing a star-chart; we are lost in a sea of pure chaos. This path, only one we have."


"A vision from a Prognosticator? You would risk my ship and my crew on a dream? Navigators are meant to guide, not to follow omens! This is heresy!" Volkov's voice rose, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of his chainsword.


Isadora, still seated at her console, remained calm. "It is not a dream, Captain. It is a point of absolute stillness in a sea of warp. The psychic power is nonexistent that are our only way."


"Silence, Witch! " Volkov spat, his gaze snapping to her. "You have no authority here! What you saw could be nothing but lies!!"


"Your correct, Captain," Valerius stated, stepping between them. "She has no authority. I do. And my command is to continue. The Gellar Field is failing under the strain of a new, opposing force. We cannot simply turn back. We must find a way through or we will be torn apart by both the storm and these deamons"


A new, more violent shudder ran through the deck. Lights flickered and died, plunging the bridge into a red emergency glow. A series of alarms began to shriek, a different, more chilling sound than before.


"Life support is failing!" a ratings officer screamed from a darkened console. "We're losing power to the warp drives!"


The ship was now caught in a metaphysical tug-of-war. The screaming chaos of the Warp pushed inward, while the absolute stillness of the world pushed back, repelling the Gellar Field. The very laws of reality were being stretched and torn.


Valerius stared at the main screen, his mind racing. The beacon was not a place of safety, but a dangerous point of transition. They were being squeezed between two unyielding realities. He knew what he had to do, but it was a risk that would either save them or condemn them to a fate worse than a simple death in the void.


"I will not allow it!" Volkov roared over the alarms, grabbing Valerius by the front of his coat. "You will turn us around now, Novator, or I will have you removed!"


Valerius's third eye flared with a cold, blue light, a power far older and more absolute than any captain's rank. He met Volkov's rage with a chilling calm. "You will not. As head of my House, I hold the authority to navigate this vessel through the Warp. That authority supersedes your command. Captain, I require your crew, not your opinion."


With that, Valerius forcefully pulled away and spun back to the console. The ship was dying. The duel between the storm and the stillness was tearing it apart. The only way to survive was to commit fully to one side or the other. He had to drop the Gellar Field entirely and pass into the dead world's domain.


"All hands, brace for impact!" Valerius shouted, his voice amplified by the ship's vox-system. "The Gellar Field will be dropped! Prepare for Warp exposure!"


A horrified gasp went through the bridge. Dropping the Gellar Field in the Warp was a death sentence. It was a mad gamble, but Valerius knew it was the only option left. He plunged his mind into the console, pouring his will into the ship's systems, not to reinforce the shield but to sever its connection.


A moment of agonizing silence. Then, with a groan that tore through the very fabric of the vessel, the Gellar Field collapsed. The viewports instantly dissolved into a swirling nightmare of colors and impossible shapes. The daemon faces that had been pressing against the shield were suddenly there, in the room, their gibbering forms rushing toward the bridge crew.


Before the daemons could reach them, a new force slammed into the ship. It was the absolute stillness of the dead world, an oppressive calm that instantly snuffed out the chaos. The colors of the Warp vanished, replaced by a suffocating blackness. The daemons, halfway into the bridge, simply ceased to be. They disintegrated into nothing, unable to exist.


The ship lurched, its momentum carrying it out of the Warp and into real space. The bridge was now dark and quiet. Outside the viewing port was, a sphere of cracked, green-bluish planet. Its sun, stretching into the void, that seem to be lit with coountless stars.


Valerius sagged against the console, his body drained, his mind screaming from the psychic violence of the transition. He had done it. They were safe from the storm, but they were now stranded. The ship's warp drives were offline, and without the Gellar Field, they couldn't risk a return.


"My Lord Novator..." Volkov's voice was a whisper, stripped of all its authority and anger, replaced with a dawning horror.


"We are here," Valerius replied, his voice hoarse.


A new, chilling thought entered his mind. The stillness the warp not the lack their of that had saved them wasn't a natural phenomenon. It was an active force, a kind of psychic vacuum. Something had created it, and whatever had, was still there.