30th Millennium
Segmentum ObscurusCalibanSeveral Decades Later[One of the Perpetuals POV]
A blonde woman walked through the ancient corridors of a starship.
The sound of her footsteps echoed through deserted compartments and silent bulkheads, shattering the deathly stillness that hung over this relic of human science.
She had awakened only recently.
The vessel's systems, engineered with extraordinary durability and still functioning thousands of years after its construction, had forcibly roused her from slumber. Her stasis capsule had opened, releasing its occupant back into the world.
Blue eyes calmly surveyed the darkness around her.
The ship was nearly powerless. Even the emergency systems had long since failed. As the vessel's owner had quickly determined, every reserve power source had been drained.
Even the miniature stellar generators.
Manipulating time, even across a space barely two meters wide, consumed a staggering amount of energy. Unfortunately, it had also been the only method capable of placing her body into true stasis.
Cryogenic preservation had never worked.
Neither had any of the countless advanced variants developed by the Human Federation.
None of them could overcome the extraordinary physiology of her kind.
Yes.
Her kind.
Because she was not Homo sapiens.
She was still human.
But she belonged to a different branch of humanity.
She was a Perpetual.
A subspecies that neither aged nor died, capable of surviving injuries that would have annihilated any ordinary human. For millennia, they had served as shepherds and guides to the rest of mankind.
The blonde woman had never wanted such a role.
Not even slightly.
Unlike her ancestor, who had once served as a physician to an Imperial dynasty long forgotten by history, she had chosen a different path. Like many of her countrymen from a civilization lost to time, she refused to become another wise mentor standing above ordinary people.
Many of her kin were undeniably brilliant.
Enlightened.
Wise.
Yet they had also become distant from humanity itself.
She had realized that during her childhood, at the dawn of the Second Millennium.
Perpetuals had always sought one another out.
Only their own kind could truly understand an existence that stretched endlessly onward, untouched by old age or the countless frailties that claimed mortal lives.
The blonde woman had chosen another solution.
She simply refused to live continuously for thousands of years.
Instead...
She slept.
Her own death became a substitute for rest.
Whenever possible, she deliberately suffered injuries severe enough to suppress her regeneration for a time. She then instructed her followers, and their descendants, to revive her only during humanity's greatest crises.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Again and again, the cycle repeated.
Until humanity advanced so far that even time itself became another tool.
At last, she escaped that strange state between life and death. Her immortal body could now be frozen within a single instant.
Even so, she continued awakening from time to time.
And every time she did, she resumed her secret war.
A war against the Neverborn.
Against daemons.
Against the creatures of the Immaterium that gnawed at the foundations of the Human Federation from the shadows, corrupting even its artificial intelligences.
She had fought for so long that even she had stopped counting.
The essence of her soul had become saturated with Warp-taint and daemonic residue.
In some ways, she had begun to resemble the very creatures she hunted.
Yet she remained an implacable enemy of every servant of the Trinity.
The Three Dark Gods.
Now, as she strode through the kilometer-long corridors of her ship, she realized with painful clarity that another Chaos God had been born.
The Trinity had become a Quartet.
And she could feel the echoes of this newborn power disturbingly close.
Close by galactic standards, at least.
"Oh?"
The single word was the first she had spoken since awakening.
Her steps halted instantly.
With its defenses drained, the vessel no longer possessed adequate protection against Warp intrusions.
She had just sensed one.
The foul presence of the Neverborn.
The blonde woman accelerated.
Compartment after compartment flashed past.
Moments later, she arrived at the primary reactor chamber.
The ship's main power source was housed there.
A sophisticated system built around controlled wormholes and, inevitably, a limited interaction with the Warp.
Apparently, that connection had attracted the daemons.
These particular specimens, however, were unfamiliar.
"A human?"
The creature's voice carried genuine confusion.
The daemon before her was grotesque.
Yet the Perpetual sensed something distinctly different from the servants of the other Dark Gods.
Not Khorne's rage.
Not Nurgle's decay.
Not Tzeentch's labyrinthine schemes.
No.
This thing radiated corruption.
Lust.
Perversion.
"And such a beautiful human," the daemon purred, licking her lips with an unnaturally long tongue. "A very beautiful human..."
Pure desire burned within its eyes.
The Perpetual shuddered involuntarily.
The temptations of rage had never affected her.
She had never considered herself a bloodthirsty barbarian.
Decay disgusted her.
As a woman who appreciated beauty, Nurgle's gifts inspired nothing but revulsion.
Tzeentch's endless convolutions held no appeal either.
Yet this daemon appealed to something older.
Something primal.
The instinct to reproduce.
Even Perpetuals possessed such instincts.
Unfortunately for the unfortunate owner of hooves and claws, one principle remained unchanged.
The principle of the woman known as the Daemon Hunter.
A good daemon was a dead daemon.
What difference did its breed make?
Neverborn were Neverborn.
And Neverborn deserved only one thing.
Death.
There had never been innocent daemons.
There never would be.
So when the daemonette reached toward her with a strangely mesmerizing motion, psychic power surged through the black substance forming the core of her blade.
Noctilith.
"Kraaaaah!"
The daemon shrieked in agony.
It had recognized the weapon's nature.
The Warp itself recoiled from it.
As always, the Noctilith performed flawlessly.
Absorbing the Perpetual's psychic energy, it released that power as a blazing blade.
Other daemons already knew to fear such weapons.
Without the direct authority of greater entities, most Neverborn simply fled from those who wielded them.
This particular blade was one of the finest prototypes the Perpetual had ever created.
Ignoring the seductive scent hanging in the air, the blonde woman swung.
The daemonette's clawed arms separated from her body.
The first servant of this new Chaos God she had encountered erupted into a scream of pure terror.
The scream ended abruptly.
The broadsword entered the creature's open mouth.
"You wanted to penetrate me, huh, you claw-handed bitch?"
The blonde bared her teeth.
By now, she had already grasped the nature of this newest Chaos God and its servants.
"Well then, here's something bigger than anything you'll ever find."
Refinement had never been one of her virtues.
Especially not when speaking to daemons.
They didn't deserve politeness.
Besides, remarks like that always infuriated them.
Enraged daemons made mistakes.
"Kill her!" another daemonette screamed from the rear. "Make her experience pleasure through death!"
"Oho..."
The blue-eyed Perpetual grinned.
"Oh, I'll definitely experience pleasure."
She cracked her neck.
Then her massive sword swept forward in a blur.
The first three daemonettes were cut cleanly in half.
Gods...
It felt good.
Good to return to her favorite pastime.
Killing daemons.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Afterward, she would visit the Aeldari and find out exactly how they had managed to create another Dark God.
She wasn't naïve.
There was only one possible explanation for a Warp deity of such a specific nature.
And only one species capable of creating it.
But that could wait.
For now...
She had daemons to kill.
Both gloved hands tightened around the hilt of her sword.
The blazing blade rose before her face, nearly concealing her now-hardened expression.
Then the Daemon Slayer charged.
…..
Note: The Perpetuals are one of the more contradictory elements of Warhammer lore. In this story, they are simply the next stage of human evolution. Naturally born humans blessed with terrifying regenerative abilities who can only be killed through the complete destruction of their bodies.