The skull of Skarbrand the Exiled, now nothing more than a broken trophy in my hands, dripped with ichor. His demise had echoed across the realms—this was no minor victory. I had slain a living myth, a fury incarnate.
But I wasn't satisfied.
The demons began retreating—cowards, cowards all. Ripping through space itself, they fled toward the warp, hoping to escape. But I wouldn't let them. I couldn't. My blood burned. My vision was red.
[Grey]: Where do you think you're going?
The words barely escaped my mouth before I surged forward—through flame, bone, and collapsing reality. Before the elves could even raise their voices in protest, I crossed the threshold of sanity.
Into the Warp.
—And the Warp screamed.
My presence was an infection it couldn't digest. A paradox. A Hollow Dreaded Demi-Human with the Flame of the Forgotten and a soul broken and reforged too many times.
Reality-warping pulsed from me like a nova.
Space folded.
Daemonic laws cracked.
The Warp burst.
A catastrophic implosion rippled through its vile dimension, collapsing entire shrines, obliterating warp entities by the thousands, and severing whole realms from their gods. I was fire and silence, death and distortion—a wound in the very dreamscape of the damned.
And then—
—Gravity failed.
—Light devoured itself.
—I fell.
[Later]
My eyes snapped open.
There was no ground.
No sky.
Only the stars—twisting and bleeding into each other—chaos upon chaos, woven into infinity. I drifted through space itself, a falling god-monster torn between dimensions, my body wrapped in a storm of broken time and raw potential.
Around me were countless worlds.
I saw a blue rat, speeding across his universe with light trailing behind him, outrunning physics like it was a game.
A ten-year-old with a strange device on his wrist, transforming into alien after alien with a spark of childish wonder.
A fat panda mastering kung-fu to protect his valley, eyes full of humility and fire.
A teenage boy with a straw hat, laughing with an unbreakable spirit, sailing toward his dream with a crew of misfits and monsters.
Hope. Innocence. Growth. Dreams.
But then…
Everything warped.
The light bent backward, their smiles cracked, and something started to go wrong.
They fractured.
I saw different versions—twisted, diseased, broken by despair, or consumed by ambition gone mad.
One of the ten-year-olds… wasn't right. His eyes glowed red with hunger. His Omnitrix… no, that one was called —Carnitrix, A parasite that fed on suffering through genocide. I watched him kill his cousin. Then his grandfather. Then the very world that raised him.
I saw the panda, now a warlord—bloated with demonic chi, his once goofy smile twisted into a permanent sneer. He ruled over a ruined empire, his iron fist covered in cursed flames.
The boy with the straw hat... alone. He'd sacrificed his crew for godhood, yet that divine power could never satisfy the hole left behind. His eyes were vacant—starved, haunted.
The blue rat—no longer running, but hunting. Devouring everything in his path, desperate to outrun a sun gone supernova. Speed was no longer freedom. It was survival.
Their reflections shattered and twisted, a kaleidoscope of nightmares spinning through my mind.
And then… things got worse.
Did I just… see a teacher eat a student alive?
No—worse.
A man laughed as he hijacked a jet, ramming it into a couple celebrating their anniversary. For no reason.
A dog barked, wagged its tail—then screamed as its owner ate it alive.
The man laughed, then burst open from the inside.
The dog… walked out of the mess… talking.
A baby—just born—eyes glowing, crushed his mother's skull with a thought. His giggles echoed through the nursery.
I turned and saw Robotnik. Yes, that Robotnik. The one from Sonic's world.
But here—
He saved the world.
[Eggman]: If I can't rule the world, I might as well save it.
His voice echoed through the collapsing timeline as he detonated a fusion core in his chest, vaporizing the last eldritch corruption swallowing his Earth. A message played through static.
[Eggman]: Tell Sonic… I get it now.
I wanted to laugh.
I wanted to cry.
I wanted to rip my own soul in half just to stop feeling whatever this was.
And then—ham and cheese tornadoes.
Don't ask me why. Just ham. Cheese. Spinning across time like a fever dream of a broken chef god.
The echoes started next.
Endless screams, whispers, songs in reverse, prayers in dead languages, laughter that hurt my eyes.
More worlds.
Worlds stacked on top of each other like layers of a mad god's wedding cake.
A realm ruled entirely by bees wearing crowns and armor.
A hell-realm choked with demons who screamed with your own voice.
A blinding heaven, filled with angels whose faces were just eyes. So many eyes.
A superworld of capes and laser eyes where justice meant surveillance and freedom meant nothing.
A land of magic and swords where dragons cried over nukes they could not stop.
A world tree taller than reality itself, cracking under the weight of its own branches.
I stared into it all.
My mind, already fragmented, peeled like old paint.
[Grey]: SIGMAR, OR ANY GOD—HELP ME—
But none answered.
Because I was already past the gods.
I reached toward that last world I saw, and my body turned into a ribbon of collapsing gravity. A portal cracked open.
[As Grey goes mad let us return to the Warhammer world]
[Meanwhile, back in the Old World…]
The banners of the Empire hung at half-mast.
The streets of Altdorf were silent for the first time in weeks—not from fear, but mourning. Church bells rang out across the capital, each toll a dirge for the fallen warrior who had become more than legend—the one they called Elector Count Grey.
It had been a month since she vanished into the Warp, a final charge against a demon gods that shattered the realm of Chaos. A blow so great it was said even the Chaos Gods themselves recoiled.
The skies above the Empire were clearer now.
The tides of corruption weakened.
Daemon incursions had ceased, and the blackened scars across the land began to heal.
Grey's final stand had turned the tide.
And yet… there was nobody. Only her axe, now resting across the arms of a grand obsidian sarcophagus carved with runes of honor and grief. The tomb bore no corpse—but it bore her legacy.
Emperor Karl Franz stood among the gathered nobles, generals, priests, and soldiers.
The Captain of Grey's honor guard, a grizzled veteran missing an eye and several fingers, stepped forward holding her weapon in both hands. He knelt before the tomb and placed it down gently.
[Captain]: She was more than a hero. She was the storm that broke the curse. The light in the endless night. My lady... may your soul find peace, if not in this world, then in one worthy of you.
Karl Franz's voice cut through the silence, weary but resolute:
[Karl Franz]: Let her name be etched beside Sigmar and Magnus the Pious. Let every child learn of the women who fought like ten thousand men. The one who faced the darkness... and won.
A cheer erupted—not one of joy, but of respect.
Cannons fired a salute from the city walls.
Priests of Sigmar, Morr, and even the High Elf ambassador gave tribute.
The Empire would never forget Grey Walpurgis.
[Chapter end]