Codex: Chaos Space Marines (2007), p35 — Obliterators

The machineries of the Chaos Space Marines include many monstrous, daemonic creations heaving with warp-power and arcane technology. Not even the adepts of Mars possess anything but the most rudimentary knowledge of how these bizarre war engines work, and likely neither do most Chaos Space Marines. Yet there is a cadre of warriors who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of alchemical and mechanical perfection through the power of Chaos, and have turned their bodies into living weapons.

These are the Obliterators. Often once Techmarines of the Emperor's Space Marines, Obliterators are obsessed with the overlap of the material and immaterial, the organic and the inert. They use arcane knowledge they have gleaned from the powers of Chaos, and the sinister adepts of the Dark Mechanicus, to blur the boundaries between biological, technological and daemonic. Infused with this energy they are hulking warriors that can fashion weapons out of their own bodies, grow armoured plates and repair injuries that would fell lesser creatures. They are inhuman, grotesque arcano-cyborgs whose blood can become white hot plasma, whose internal organs generate electricity, whose bones are fused with titanium, and whose brains are as much machine as living flesh.

There is much speculation on the nature of the infernal bond between the Obliterators and the Chaos Gods. They do not sport obvious marks of allegiance to any particular deity, and do not bear the colours of any single legion or renegade warband. Although their exact numbers can only be guessed at, it is obvious that the Obliterators are exceedingly rare fighters. They exist outside of the warbands, moving from one to the other, exchanging their services for the opportunity to claim ancient technologies or capture exotic wargear from the Imperium and alien races.

Some Magos of Mars and members of the Inquisition have proferred the notion that Obliterators are infected with some kind of warp-based, daemon-created virus that alters reality within and around them. These theories are highly contentious, for there is little evidence to back up these claims. Opponents of the theory say that a simple virus could not exist in the way it is claimed, and that it is simple daemonic possession, in a limited way, that gives Obliterators their power. For those that face Obliterators, such discussions are irrelevant. Whatever the source of their unique abilities, Obliterators are much sought after by Chaos Lords. Whole wars have been waged to provide a cadre of these monstrous warriors with the archeotech they seek in return for future support.

"Flesh and bone are weak and mutable, and yet the daemonic is ultimately insubstantial and impotent. To be master of both matter and energy, and blend this mastery with ultimate control of one's consciousness, is to achieve true immortality - neither confined by the material, nor divorced from it.
— Heretical teachings of Magos Elizah Kaudge