Sothaviel realized that his body had begun to twitch uncontrollably.
His form, condensed from pure warp energy, flickered in the void like a candle in the wind, its edges beginning to blur and unravel.
His countless eyes rolled wildly in their sockets, and for the first time, panic appeared in his gaze.
The fingers gripping his Staff began to tremble uncontrollably, making it rattle in his hand.
He looked down at the Crystal Staff in his hand, his pupils contracting sharply.
Fine cracks began to spread across the Staff's surface, creeping like a spiderweb from the gem at its tip down the shaft, starkly visible in its eerie blue glow.
Every crack represented a loss of his power. Every crack reminded him that he was slowly losing ground in this war of attrition.
His spells for manipulating space and time grew increasingly unstable.
The structures of space and time that he had once controlled with precision now began to produce unpredictable backlash.
Sometimes, he tried to shift a star's position, only to trigger a chain reaction that caused the structures of nearby Star Systems to collapse.
Sometimes, he tried to create a Temporal Storm to disrupt Lorgar, only for the storm to dissipate before it could even take shape.
Reshaping the Labyrinth demanded more power. Each reconstruction cost him twice as much energy as before, as though the Labyrinth itself were developing some kind of resistance, fighting his control.
"Great Lord of Change, please grant me more power, so that I may accomplish this glorious feat," Sothaviel prayed quietly, bowing his head, his voice rasping like metal scraping against metal.
Deep within the warp, inside the Fortress of Illusions.
This fortress was Tzeentch's abode, a vast structure without a fixed form, composed of countless ever-changing crystals and mirrored surfaces.