It was without his mortal body and the interference of the others in this new plane that he was truly able to stretch his mind.
Sigan would quickly learn there was no mortal soul to flay, and his attempts to rend the soul even with the full power of the warp did little, and Raphael was before Sigan on the peninsula not as a man cowering in fear, but a strange light, radiating feather like tendrils out in every direction.
Thrice damned chains came up, but with no limbs to bind, they seemed to pass right through the strange being that stood before Sigan.
The burning wood was incinerated as Sigan moved it towards the strange being, but something seemed off, the entity before Sigan wasn't interested in Sigan, no it was Tzeentch that it was interested in.
Two omniscient entities, meeting each-other for the first time would write compelling drama. It wouldn't be Tzeentch ripping Raphael's mind asunder and feeding off his power, but the two enveloping one another in a game of mental chess beyond mortal comprehension, infinite dimensions played all at once between Raphael and the Chaos God Tzeentch.
A Curiousity that would keep the ascended being entertained for some time. A millenia? A few hours? Eternity? Only the guiles of Tzeentch and the vast knowledge and understanding of the ascended Raphael could tell. What might have been seconds for them in their game of mental fisticuffs could sunder entire dimensions. While Raphael could not influence the warp alone, neither could the warp corrupt him, leaving him ample time to study these entities and the raw chaotic energies that created them.
Two omniscient beings trying to learn something they didn't know.
---
Back in Realspace, the Aurora had vanished, with Raphael having left, the ship left as well, slipping out of phase and vanishing to some unknown dimension, leaving the Aschen alone to contend with the Crimson Slaughter once more.
"We need to take out that capital ship if we're going to turn the tide of this battle in our favor." Admiral Grayson called out, as the entire rapid Conversion shuddered from weapons fire impacting it's shields.
Looking to the tactical readout, he checked several holographic icons. The two other Reverence IIs, the Twlight Compunction and the Revenant were both operational, their task groups holding out against the Daemonic fleet that was gunning their way for the planet.
He drew up plans, the two Aschen ships would sandwich the large 20km vessel, with size and firepower slightly erred on the side of the Reverences, being 30km in length, Grayson figured they could sandwich the Armageddon, and pummel it until it succumbed.
He plotted FTL Jumps, the spacial displacement of a jumping ship was theorized to be capable of consuming anything in it's way, as evidenced by chasms being carved out in mountains when a ship's jump was miscalculated near a planet.
The resulting spatial shockwaves would wreak havok on the Armageddon's Void Shields, and Grayson could have two Reverence IIs concentrate all their batteries on one side of the Armageddon.
Two on the side, one on top shelling with Turbodisruptors and Energy Projectors, while redirecting the Aegis Cruisers to envelop the entire formation in an Aegis field, to keep out the incoming fire of a redirected fleet.
"Sir, The cannon fired again, we lost one of our Iconoclast Battleships, and two Hastati cruisers in the firing line." A Lieutenant reported.
Growling; Grayson transmitted the tactical data to the other two Reverence IIs; it was one last ditch effort to turn the tide of the battle.
"Execute battle plan, Jump!" Grayson called out.
All three Reverence IIs immediately winked out from their respective engagements, leaving their task forces to fend against enemy cruisers, and Capital ships, but as quickly as they disappeared, they winked in, danger close within a scant 50 Kilometers from the Armageddon.
Aschen Reverence IIs winked in both on the port and starboard sides of the Armageddon, with the third jumping in above them. The resulting spatial shockwave washed out in every direction, stretching void shielding to it's maximum.
The instant the ships appeared, they began opening fire, with the pair of Reverence IIs opening fire with every weapons battery they had, concentrating everything in a sustained bombardment of the Armageddon's Void Shields. 1,500 massive Dual-Barreled Turbodisruptor banks unleashed their withering firepower, slinging massive bolts of green that struck like a drum against the Armageddon's Void shields.
The fire didn't let up.
Above the Armageddon, the Revenant jumped in, unleashing all seven-hundred fifty Turbodisruptor batteries in a sustained bombardment, on top of all six energy projectors unleashing a steady stream of energy against the void shields, pummeling them with a sustained broadside. It would only be a matter of time before the void shields collapsed on three sides, exposing the hull to massive sustained fire, that did not let up.
"Sir, weapons capacitors are beginning to deplete, we're discharging more than main engineering can replace." The weapons officer reported.
"Keep firing!" Grayson ordered.
With the sustained, concentrated fire of not one, not two, but three 30km long Reverence IIs, it would only be a matter of time before the void shields of the Armageddon gun collapsed, exposing it's hull.
The two Battleships, if they weren't consumed in the spatial distortion of the jumping ships weren't spared either, as every single weapons battery on the quadrant of the ship facing them were concentrated on them, thousands of powerful Turbodisruptor batteries pummeling their void shields without respite.
Nearly a million km away, a quantum plasmid warhead went off, enveloping millions of Helldrakes in what amounted to a supernova, as an Athena cruiser, at full burn collided with a Crimson Slaughter cruiser, detonating it's missile payload in a brilliant explosion.
---
On the surface, the denizens of the Cosmora Archipelago held strong, despite staggering losses in the face of what was nearly a limitless swarm of Daemons, ghosts, traitors, and cultists.
Entire cities were slowly beginning to fall, but the Aschen defenders held every city block, forcing the Daemonic invasion to earn every block of planet.
A blinding flash, and a mushroom cloud surged upwards, as a nuclear missile detonated in the sky, consuming thousands of Helldrakes in Nuclear fire; while thousands of Stormbringer AA Emplacements locked on, and pummeled anything in the air, though it seemed to make little difference.
Another flash, this time in an area almost totally under Daemonic control; a last ditch effort to cut a hole in the hoardes as a Thalaron warhead detonated, everything within hundreds of kilometers of the flash were instantly petrified as the cascading biogenic pulse attacked organic matter at the molecular level, anything with flesh was destroyed in an instant, even if it only meant that they were replaced by more invaders.