The Cosmic Azure Dragon, Cosmic Vermilion Bird, Cosmic White Tiger, Cosmic Great Water Buffalo, and Cosmic Fire Phoenix Baton all immediately flew out.
They formed a barrier of cosmic phantom beast energy around the Void Dragon C'tan, preventing this C'tan fragment from escaping and further suppressing its power.
Elena's Cosmic Frost Leopard, Guilliman's Cosmic Black Tortoise, the Cosmic Ice Beast Guigass, Cosmic Flame Golza, Cosmic Flying Crane, and two Cosmic Giant Pythons also revealed their true forms.
A total of seven cosmic phantom beasts surrounded the Void Dragon, beginning to absorb its C'tan power.
The Void Dragon was horrified to find that its proud cosmic law power—the ultimate energy of the real universe—was being slowly absorbed by these beings.
"This... This is impossible! You... You're actually able to absorb my power? What kind of monsters are you?" the Void Dragon roared in terror.
Even the Necrons, even the ancient Old Ones, could not truly kill the C'tan of this universe!
They are the darlings of reality, true incarnations of cosmic law—on par with the Chaos Gods of the Warp, theoretically immortal, though unlike the Chaos Gods, they are not pure concepts nor do they exist in the Empyrean.
That's why the Necrons could shatter their bodies with high-tech weapons and imprison them, but even when shattered, these C'tan possess nearly limitless cosmic energy!
Yet now, its most fundamental law power was being absorbed by these strange lifeforms!
Unlike the previously weak cosmic C'tan fragment Rhodes had subdued, this Void Dragon shard was exceptionally powerful—at least ten times stronger than the fragment from that minor dynasty.
"Master, this C'tan fragment is enormous. I doubt the others can absorb it all," said the Cosmic Great Water Buffalo.
As the strongest and eldest of the cosmic phantom beasts, he could see this fragment far exceeded the last in power.
"Alright, once they reach saturation, you can help out. Remember to be careful and extract its negative emotions. I suspect the Void Dragon's negative emotions are not weak," Rhodes instructed.
Once the cosmic C'tan was suppressed, its most dangerous element was its negative emotional energy.
Rhodes had kept this strange energy before, intending to give it to Daram to absorb. However, now that Daram has transformed into a Giant of Light, switching back to absorb this darkness might pollute his light, so Rhodes decided to wait.
"Don't worry, Master. Last time we were unprepared, but this time we'll be cautious," said the Cosmic Great Water Buffalo.
"Good. Caution is wise," Rhodes nodded.
As the Void Dragon's power was absorbed, it screamed in agony. This was a premeditated attack—Could these mortals really be the end of him, a true god?
He was the largest fragment of the Void Dragon. If destroyed, the Void Dragon could never reunite!
This would mean the powerful cosmic C'tan, the Void Dragon, would die completely; even if other fragments reassembled, true resurrection would be impossible.
The Void Dragon struggled madly, but more than a dozen cosmic phantom beasts—half of which had absorbed another C'tan's power and even devoured a star—were not something he could resist.
"No, don't kill me! I possess the ultimate knowledge of this universe, the pinnacle of science! I am the end point of science and of all machinery!
I can teach you my knowledge—spare me! I am the concept of science—if you kill me, you destroy the concept of science!" The Void Dragon, seeing no hope, began to beg Rhodes, realizing Rhodes, not the Emperor, was the leader here.
"Only now do you beg? Too late! Face reality; you're finished. As for your cosmic science knowledge...
Sorry! I don't need that—killing you won't erase the concept of science from the universe, and you know it," Rhodes sneered.
The Void Dragon did control the laws of science and machinery, but that didn't make him the law itself.
Killing him wouldn't erase the concept of science; on the contrary, the knowledge Rhodes brought from the Ultraman Universe would fill the Warhammer universe's gaps!
Destroying the Warhammer universe's science C'tan would benefit humanity and all races.
"No! Mortal!
I can't die here! I am a noble true god, the mightiest being in the universe! You ants!
How dare you harm my body?" The Void Dragon went berserk, struggling violently, but the cosmic phantom beasts increased their energy output, pinning him down.
Even Magnus and Ahriman joined forces to suppress the Void Dragon with psychic might.
As its energy was devoured, the Void Dragon's resistance weakened, its consciousness fading. At first, it cursed madly, then its curses turned to pitiful pleas, cycling between rage and begging, then falling silent.
A few hours later, the seven cosmic phantom beasts reached saturation, unable to absorb another bit of the C'tan fragment.
"Master, I'm stuffed—if I take in more, the C'tan's energy might overwhelm me," several phantom beasts told Rhodes telepathically.
"Alright, you can stop for now. Go absorb stellar energy! With the Void Dragon fragment, you should instinctively be able to consume star energy now," Rhodes said.
"We understand, Master! We're eager to devour stellar power," the beasts replied, transforming into their kilometer-tall forms and diving toward the red giant.
For now, they could only absorb energy from less dense stars like red giants or red dwarfs; other stars were still too violent for them.
"Incredible! According to the Eldar, the C'tan are called star vampires because they can consume stellar energy.
Unexpectedly, after absorbing a C'tan fragment, your phantom beasts can do this too," Guilliman marveled.
After fusing with the Cosmic Black Tortoise, he'd gained unimaginable benefits, feeling his power increase as the tortoise absorbed the C'tan's power.
As the phantom beasts absorbed stellar energy, the primarchs remained linked to them, sensing their constant evolution.
"They are truly miraculous, the perfect lifeforms of the real universe," Lion El'Jonson praised.
They could survive independently or fuse with other beings—these so-called cosmic phantom beasts were incredibly versatile.
"The power they absorb will also be shared with you all, greatly increasing everyone's strength. But we have other matters to attend to.
Sanguinius, Magnus—come help me!
We need to use psychic power to speed up the flow of time in this star system. Otherwise, it'd take them thousands of years to fully consume this red giant," Rhodes said.
"We can help too—our psychic power isn't as strong as Magnus or Sanguinius, but we can speed things up," Guilliman said.
The other primarchs nodded. Now that they'd awakened their demigod powers, accelerating time with psychic might was easy.
"Alright! Let's do it together—use our psychic power to manipulate this system's time," Rhodes said, combining his power with the primarchs to accelerate the entire system's timeflow.
The Warhammer universe is truly magical; here, you can toy with time and space—speeding it up or slowing it down—but not travel to the future or past, only accelerate or delay time's passage.
Or teleport something to a future moment, but all of this requires Warp power.
Without the Warp, human time technology could only freeze an individual's time or accelerate/rewind an area.
Warhammer's time tech is extremely broken, even more so than in the Ultraman Universe, which is direct mind over matter time travel.
Rhodes could even spend a million system coins to buy special monsters with time-travel abilities, like Goldra from the Dyna TV series, or other such monsters from the Showa Ultraman series.
…
Time flew by—outside, only a dozen days passed, but inside the star system, 1,500 years went by.
Rhodes and the primarchs stood outside the time barrier; inside, the phantom beasts devoured the entire star and the C'tan fragment.
The red giant had become a black dwarf; the star system was now pitch-black, with all planets turned into wandering worlds.
Rhodes ordered Tartarus to bring these wandering planets to his domain, to become new worlds in his star systems.
Nothing would be wasted; these could all be terraformed. As for the black dwarf, Rhodes took it too—excellent material for living metal.
"Master, it was a complete success. We've devoured all the C'tan fragments," the Cosmic Great Water Buffalo reported.
"What about the dark negative energy? Is it secured?" Rhodes asked.
This was his greatest concern—no mistakes allowed.
"Don't worry, Master! Look—this is the dark energy left behind by the C'tan fragment, and I've sealed it completely," the Great Water Buffalo said, spitting out a pearl that landed in Rhodes' hand.
The pearl was wrapped in phantom beast energy, while inside was a deep, venomous, cursed darkness.
"Good. I'll keep this."
"At your command, Master! All the phantom beasts have absorbed the C'tan's power, and some remains undigested, which I've stored.
If any phantom beast needs it in the future, it's theirs. Your child has a Cosmic Ice-Fire Dragon—when the time comes, their phantom beast can absorb this C'tan energy," the Buffalo said.
"You've thought it through! But we'll get plenty more C'tan fragments in the future—the Warhammer universe has no shortage, and many have been shattered," Rhodes replied.
This is just the beginning; Warhammer's C'tan are numerous.
"C'tan are even more advanced than we are. If whole, they'd be unimaginably powerful, at least ultimate lifeforms—maybe even stronger. If we need to absorb more, we'll need more companions."
"Rest assured, your kind will grow," Rhodes nodded.
"Rhodes, I wonder—if we extract new gene-seed, would the Astartes become even stronger?" Guilliman asked.
By now the primarchs had re-fused with their phantom beasts, their power enhanced, able to ignore cosmic radiation.
Extracting new gene-seed now would grant their genetic sons space survival abilities.
This would be discussed with the Emperor. At least the legions of these primarchs must extract new gene-seed.
All the primarchs' physical attributes had doubled; not extracting this evolved gene-seed would be a waste.
"With your physical attributes now, you're on another level entirely—your gene-seed is now in a super-evolved form."