The grand hall of the Sweet Liberty stretched before them like a cathedral of war and liberty, its vaulted ceiling adorned with the rich history of Humanity. Holographic displays flickered along the walls, showing star charts of the Independence Sector, tactical readouts from a dozen ongoing campaigns, and the gentle pulse of the ship's massive heart – the Zero-Point Power Core that powered humanity's mightiest vessel.
Franklin reclined on a sofa that could have comfortably seated a squad of Astartes, his massive frame making even the oversized furniture seem almost normal-sized. Across from him, Eldrad Ulthran stood with the assurance of someone familiar with the ebb and flow of history.
Between them, holographic displays flickered to life, showing star charts, genetic sequences, and images so ancient they predated human civilization by millions of years. The Farseer's elongated fingers danced across the projections, each gesture revealing new layers of horror and wonder from the Eldar's vast archives.
"Once again, Primarch, as we approach the Independence Sector to stop Glorblasta" Eldrad began, his voice carrying the weight of eons, "we find ourselves discussing the terror that's currently laying waste to your sector. The Krorks." He paused, letting the name hang in the air like a curse. "I had hoped our previous conversations would have... impressed upon you the magnitude of this threat."
Franklin's perpetual grin widened slightly. "Come on, Eldrad. You know me by now. When have I ever listened to good advice the first time?" He gestured lazily at the holographic displays. "Besides, I've got a good feeling about this one. Call it Primarch intuition."
The Farseer's sigh was audible even through his helmet. "Your so-called intuition has, in the past, led you to challenge an Ancient Khrave to single combat for casting aspersions upon your regalia, to unilaterally declare war and bring extinction upon them for what you deemed 'discourteous encroachments upon neighboring systems, and to quote "Slapping a Military base" on top of their planets' —Asuryan preserve us—only to attempt diplomatic overtures with a shard of the Burning one later on, on the grounds that it appeared unduly burdened.
"Hey, that bat faced Bastard had it coming," Franklin protested, settling deeper into the sofa. "Nyadra'zatha had a nice chat about the inherent meaninglessness of existence. Very philosophical. Besides his attempts to burn me to ash "
Eldrad's helmet tilted slightly, a gesture Franklin had learned to interpret as the Eldar equivalent of rubbing one's temples. "Indeed. Your millinery choices aside, the Krorks represent something far beyond your previous... adventures." The hologram shifted, displaying images of towering green-skinned behemoths in technology that seemed to be more advanced than the Greater Imperium. "These are not the simple-minded Orks that currently plague the galaxy. These are the Krorks as they were meant to be – the Old Ones' ultimate stopgap against the Necrons and their star-gods."
The projection expanded, showing vast armies of the creatures, their ranks stretching beyond the horizon of some long-dead world. Each warrior stood tall as a Hablock, some even taller, their weapons crackling with eldritch energies. At their center, massive war machines of strange but undoubtedly lethal design.
"After the War in Heaven," Eldrad continued, his voice taking on the cadence of a saga-teller, "when the last of the Old Ones were finally killed off by the Necrons, who then turned against their C'tan slave masters in the greatest act of rebellion the galaxy has ever witnessed, the Old Ones' creations – the Grand Alliance that had been formed to fight off the Necrons – fell apart the moment the Necrons went into their Great Sleep."
Franklin leaned forward, his expression growing more serious despite the lingering smile. "You've shown me these records before, Eldrad. The grand campaigns, the technological marvels, the way they made us look like amateur hour. But you're building up to something new, aren't you?"
"Your perception improves with age," Eldrad replied dryly. "Indeed, I have accessed deeper archives since our last discussion. Records that detail exactly how the Eldar Empire – at its height, mind you – dealt with the Krork threat."
The hologram shifted once more, now revealing Eldar warships threading through the void with ruthless precision, their movements more akin to calculated executions than traditional void combat. They emerged from the Webway like spectral knives drawn across the fabric of reality, unleashing coordinated volleys at blistering speed—incisive strikes honed by aeons of doctrine—before dissolving back into the folds of their interdimensional sanctum. Yet despite their peerless maneuverability and temporal advantage, the Eldar forces looked strained—outpaced by the relentless scale of the Krork onslaught. Every engagement bore the signs of mounting desperation; it was not a war of conquest, but a battle for survival against an enemy whose numbers and resilience threatened to drown even the most disciplined armadas beneath a tide of raw power.
"We quickly discerned that direct engagement was... unwise," Eldrad confessed, his tone tinged with reluctant reverence. "The Krorks possess an innate capacity to stifle the empyrean itself—our psychic arts faltered before their crude yet impenetrable gestalt. Deprived of our traditional supremacy, we were compelled to adopt a more... ephemeral doctrine—striking with precision, then vanishing into the Webway before the foe could react. Their so-called 'Great Green' allowed them to traverse the stars with alarming swiftness, but even it could not rival the elegance of our hidden paths."
Franklin's eyebrows rose. "Suppress your psyker abilities? That's... actually concerning. I thought you space elves were too arrogant to admit weakness."
"We are not arrogant," Eldrad replied with what Franklin had learned to recognize as wounded dignity. "We are simply... confident in our superiority. There is a difference."
"Right. And I'm humble."
"Quite. But in this case, humility – or at least pragmatism – saved our race. We digress...The Great Green, Their version of Warp travel, channeled through the realm of their twin gods, Gork and Mork. Unlike the Immaterium as we know it, the Great Green is a place of pure, focused violence and cunning. It allows them to travel vast distances while remaining connected to their gestalt consciousness."
Franklin whistled low. "So they had their own part of the warp, nothing new, but powered by divine brutality. That's... actually pretty impressive."
"When we fought the Krorks directly, it required the intervention of our entire pantheon." The hologram now showed godlike figures descending from the heavens, their forms barely contained by the projection's limits. "Khaine, Isha, Kurnous, Cegorach, Vaul, Asuryan, Morai Heg– all of them, the Entire Pantheon, manifesting their full power simultaneously. Even then, they had to contend with Gork and Mork, the Krork gods, in direct divine combat."
Franklin whistled low. "The whole pantheon? That's... actually impressive. I mean, I know Khaine personally, and he's not exactly the type to share the spotlight."
"The Krorks were the rank and file troops," Eldrad emphasized, his voice growing more urgent. "The ultimate foot soldiers. They knew no fear, no hesitation, no doubt. While the Necrons and C'tan represented the ultimate manifestation of death – leaving only sterile void where they passed – the Krorks were life incarnate. Their spores could grow anywhere, in any condition. A single Krork could seed an entire system given enough time."
The Primarch's expression had grown thoughtful, his usual humor tempered by genuine consideration. "And you Eldar were the specialists. The ones who took out high-priority targets while the big boys slugged it out, Okay, so they're tough. I get it. But surely I could just go full god-mode immediately? Channel Khaine's power and—"
"No," Eldrad interrupted, his voice sharp with concern. "That is precisely what I have been trying to explain. The Krorks' ability to shackle and suppress psychic prowess is not merely a side effect of their presence – it is a fundamental aspect of their nature. Even with Khaine's empowerment, even with your considerable power , you would find yourself diminished in their presence."
Franklin's confident smirk faltered slightly. "Well, how did your people manage to defeat them then? And if they dampen psychic abilities, wouldn't that have affected the Old Ones and psychic races like you space elves even more?"
Eldrad nodded gravely. "You ask the right questions, Franklin. Yes, the dampening effect did hinder us greatly. However, this psychic suppression was merely a secondary effect of their primary purpose. The Krorks were designed to dampen the material realm itself, to make the C'tan's control over physical reality unstable. The star-gods' tremendous reality-warping abilities were weakened in the presence of the Krorks."
The holographic display shifted once more, casting the chamber in a sickly green hue as it unveiled the inner workings of Krork society. At its core were not towering behemoths, but smaller figures—compact in stature, yet clad in ornate power armor that shimmered with impossible energy. These were no mere warriors. Each radiated a psychic charge so potent it left a residual distortion across the hololithic display. They moved with purpose, directing the teeming hordes of larger Krorks with precise, synchronistic control.
"We discovered their weakness," Eldrad said solemnly, his voice as heavy as the memory itself. "Through painstaking observation and grievous losses. The Krorks' greatest strength—their collective gestalt consciousness—was also their singular vulnerability. At the heart of this network stood the Great Minds… or as your people crudely call them, the 'Brain Boyz.'"
Franklin's eyes narrowed with growing clarity. "Cut off the head… and the body flails."
Eldrad inclined his head. "Indeed. But make no mistake, Primarch—these were not mere officers or coordinators. A Krork Great Mind, when fully enmeshed within the psychic field of its kin, could rival even the most gifted Eldar sorcerers of the Golden Age. Their minds were crystalline engines of thought and will, capable of shaping probability, bending technology to their desires, and even making the impossible manifest—so long as the collective belief of their race supported it."
He gestured to a particular projection—one Great Mind standing at the center of a thundering Krork legion. Energy pulsed outward in psychic waves, reinforcing weapons, shielding war engines, and distorting the laws of physics within a localized area
"They did not wield the Warp as we do," Eldrad continued. "Rather, they weaponized belief. In the presence of their kin, that belief formed a psychic crucible—an echo of divine will. Isolate them from that chorus, sever them from the gestalt, and their power diminished. But surrounded by others of their kind, a single Great Mind could reshape the battlefield itself."
Franklin leaned back into his massive sofa, processing this information. "So the key is decapitation strikes. Fast, precise, surgical removal of their command structure."
"It worked for us," Eldrad confirmed, "but the cost was enormous. And that was when we commanded the full might of the Eldar Empire at its height. Today..." He gestured vaguely at the stars beyond the windows. "Today, we are a dying race, scattered across the galaxy in our Craftworlds, barely a shadow of our former glory."
"But you're still planning to fight them," Franklin observed.
Eldrad's voice carried the resonance of ancient resolve.
"The Phoenix Lords have already begun the mobilization of the Craftworld hosts. Though the younger races may deem us a relic of a bygone age—perhaps rightly so, in the wake of our near-annihilation at the moment of She Who Thirsts' birth—we remain the rightful rivals of the Krork. It was our hands that once shaped the fate of the stars, and our blades that once turned back the tide of green. To face them again is not merely duty, but legacy. The pride of the Eldar who once ruled the galaxy has not withered; it endures, forged into the marrow of our kind."
"Pride's a hell of a thing," Franklin observed. "Gets people killed."
"Indeed. Which is why I grow concerned when I see it in you." Eldrad's gaze fixed on the Primarch with unsettling intensity. "You speak of finding Glorblasta, of killing him as though he were merely another enemy to be overcome. But you do not understand what he represents."
Franklin's confidence reasserted itself, and he leaned back into his chair. "I understand plenty. Big, green, probably loud, definitely ugly. I've got guns, biggest ones on the galaxy and I've got enough ordnance to crack planets. What more do I need?"
"Wisdom," Eldrad said simply. "The wisdom to recognize that some enemies cannot be defeated through conventional means. The Krorks are not daemons, Franklin. They are not even like the Ruinous Powers, who must work through intermediaries and corruption. They are what the Chaos Gods *wish* they could be – direct, unstoppable, and utterly real."
"The Four are probably keeping their heads down," Franklin mused. "Smart move. Gork and Mork wake up, and suddenly the Warp's got new management."
"You jest, but you speak more truth than you know," Eldrad replied. "The influence of the Ruinous Powers has indeed diminished as the Krork presence grows stronger. They fear what approaches, as should you."
Franklin stood, his massive frame unfolding with casually. He moved to one of the chamber's vast windows, gazing out at the stars beyond. "You know what the difference is between you and me, Eldrad?"
"Enlighten me."
"You've been alive for thousands of years, seen the fall, watched the galaxy burn and rebuild itself. You've got perspective." Franklin turned back to face the Farseer, his expression serious despite the smile that played at his lips. "But I've got something you don't."
"And what might that be?"
"I've got hope." Franklin's grin widened. "And really, really big guns."
Eldrad's shoulders sagged slightly, the gesture conveying millennia of accumulated frustration. "This is not our first conversation about the Krorks, Franklin. I have warned you before about underestimating them. Each time, you respond with the same confidence, the same certainty that your weapons and your will can overcome any obstacle."
"And each time, I've been right," Franklin countered. "I've been beating everything the galaxy's thrown at me since I was old enough to hold a bolter."
"The Krorks are not just any Xenos," Eldrad said, his voice carrying a note of desperate urgency. "They are not Chaos, or any other enemy you have faced. They are the ultimate expression of war made manifest, guided by gods who exist purely to fight and win."
Franklin was quiet for a moment, studying his old friend's face. When he spoke, his voice was gentler, though no less confident. "You're scared."
"I am *concerned*," Eldrad corrected. "There is a difference."
"Not really." Franklin moved back to his chair, settling into it with the casual grace of a predator. "Look, I get it. These guys are bad news. They're probably going to be the toughest fight I've ever had. But that's what makes it worth having."
"This is not a game, Franklin!"
"Everything's a game," Franklin replied, his humor returning in full force. "The trick is knowing the rules and playing to win. The Krorks want to fight? Fine. I'll give them a fight they'll never forget. Assuming they live through it."
Eldrad closed his eyes, seeming to commune with forces beyond mortal understanding. When he opened them again, the weight of possible futures hung heavy in his gaze. "I have seen the threads of fate, Franklin. The paths that lead to victory are few and narrow. Most end in darkness."
"Then we'll have to make sure we take the right path," Franklin said simply. "Besides, you've got a pretty good track record with the whole prophecy thing. I trust you to point me in the right direction."
Eldrad shook his head, the gesture subtle beneath his helm, but inwardly he was already composing his third scathing mental letter to Isha about the utter lunacy of mon-keigh leadership structures.
"By the stars," he thought, "why this one?"
Among all the Emperor's genetically wrought warlords—the Angelic One, the Red Madman, the...Proud one, the Paranoid Lion, there's Guilliman, even the smug wolf-obsessed barbarian—it was this one. Franklin Valorian. The so-called Eagle of Liberty. The one with the eternal smirk, the one who thought capes were a strategic priority and once attempted peace negotiations with a C'tan shard because it "looked tired."
Truly, the Primarchs were reflections of their creator—but Franklin? No, Franklin was the Emperor's stubbornness, inflated to planetary scale and stuffed into a bipedal tank with a nice jawline and questionable taste in guns. He didn't bend, didn't yield, didn't listen—he simply decided, and the galaxy followed whether it liked it or not.
And that, Eldrad mused bitterly, is probably why Khaela Mensha Khaine chose him instead of any Aeldari champion.
That thought alone nearly caused Eldrad to audibly gag in his respirator.
He sighed again. Not the melodramatic kind he gave Franklin during diplomatic meetings, but the soul-weary exhalation of someone watching their civilization's ancient war god buddy up with a libertarian-shaped wrecking ball. He turned toward the Primarch, who was deep in thought, brow furrowed and fingers unconsciously drumming against Anaris.
It was then Eldrad saw it—the Visage of Khaine. A shimmering afterimage that hurt to gaze upon, the echo of the Bloody-Handed One's presence standing directly behind Franklin like an eternal shadow. The pain of that proximity was immediate. The resonance made his teeth ache.
Ah. The revelation hit Eldrad like a collapsing star. It wasn't Franklin's skill that had attracted Khaine's attention. It was his absolute, unshakeable belief that he could not lose. The God of War had chosen not the most skilled warrior, but the most certain one. In a universe where belief shaped reality, where willpower could crack the foundations of existence itself, such certainty was a weapon more powerful than any blade.
But certainty, Eldrad knew, was also blindness. And blindness in the face of the Krork tide would doom them all.
The Krorks were not merely an invading force—they were the storm made manifest, the half-forgotten memory of a war so ancient that even the gods spoke of it in whispers. Eldrad's farsight had already shown him the grim trajectory: the green tide would not stop with the Independence Sector. Within mere solar weeks, they would overflow from Segmentum Obscurus like a breached dam, drowning all resistance in a flood of war and spores.
And then? The galaxy would fall. Not in fire. Not in Chaos. But in unrelenting, fungal entropy.
Krork spores choking every biosphere. War-machines fashioned from ecosystems. Suns converted into orbital forges. And in the end—only green.
And by extension, the death of the universe.
For Eldrad knew—knew with certainty—that the Milky Way, this galaxy the mon-keigh so proudly defiled, was the last bastion of organic, meaningful, chaotic life in all the void. The Necrons, in their arrogant cleansing during the War in Heaven, had extinguished all other hope beyond it. The Eldar had never bothered to seed the stars outside this galactic cradle. Why would they? Everything else was beneath them.
Who knew if life had rekindled elsewhere in the eons since? But 65 million years was not enough—not for any new civilization to grow mighty enough to stop the Krorks. Not when their nature rejected stasis, diplomacy, reason, or surrender. The Krorks knew no defeat. Only annihilation.
And annihilation was the only answer to them in return.
To end the Krorks utterly, one required either Necron-level material supremacy, or Eldar-level psychic dominance at its absolute zenith. Nothing less. Not even the gods could kill them cleanly. Not without a cost.
Eldrad paused. Considered. The Independence Sector, ironically, might be the only place in the galaxy where Mankind's apex designs still flourished unspoiled—where the Men of Iron had not rebelled. The only place where the Golden Age of Technology hadn't folded in on itself like a collapsing star of hubris and idiocy.
But even then, even with the Emperor… Could his Imperium hold? Could the Fledgling empire of Terra truly halt a force that had broken pantheons and could go toe to toe with the Necron Empire at its Zenith?
The Legions were mighty. The Primarchs were fearsome. But the Krorks number in the Trillions, and every death seeds more.
And then there were the Men of Iron—the silicon gods of Mankind. They were once soul-less legions that rivaled even the Eldar's elite. Eldrad remembered. The Aeldari Empire had fought them. And won. But that was ten thousand years ago.
And Humanity? Humanity never stopped inventing ways to kill itself harder. More creatively. More violently.
The Cybernetic Rebellion proved it.
"They would rather burn their own civilization to ash than let their enemy taste victory," Eldrad thought bitterly. "A kind of spite so pure, even the Laughing God would pause to applaud."
He turned his gaze inward again, letting the strands of fate unspool.
Darkness. All paths, blackened.
But—a thread.
Blurry, frayed… but real. A single vision among countless ruinous branches: Franklin. Standing face to face with a massive Krork, both statues of purpose. A standoff. No words. Just weight. Just inevitability.
And then—
Oblivion.
Gone, like a dream yanked away upon waking.
Eldrad exhaled. Not a sigh. Something heavier.
"It always comes down to you, doesn't it, Valorian?"
He turned to face the Primarch again.
The smirk had returned.
Of course it had.
------
The void shimmered not in black, but in radiant emerald — the unnatural hue of the Great Green, that empyrean corridor forged not by science but by sheer collective will. Glorblasta, Lord of the Krork, sat upon a throne hewn from the relics and bones of powerful Xenos Empires, surrounded by the murmur of the psychic gestalt — the thoughts of a Trillion Krorks humming in harmony. His crimson eyes did not blink, for they stared beyond matter, beyond space, into the furnace of fate itself.
"The galaxy trembles," Glorblasta mused aloud, his voice a thunderous growl tempered by an ancient intellect. "Not from entropy, nor from the decay of ages, but from the return of purpose... from me."
His clawed fingers drummed slowly on the obsidian armrest, each impact echoing like a war drum in the minds of his kin.
"I was once Ork, no more than a brute bellowing for war, incapable of reason beyond rage. But battle, true battle, is clarity. And in the crucible of combat, I glimpsed my true form. That clarity came not from slaughter, but from defeat."
Valorian.
A Primarch unlike the others. He had not fought like the others—did not duel for honor, or crusade for dominion. He fought to liberate. A contradiction... and yet a challenge so pure it left a scar upon Glorblasta's soul long before he ascended to Krorkdom.
"Good enemies are hard to find," Valorian had said.
Those words... they had lingered. Not as an insult. Not even as a boast. But as a truth.
Glorblasta nodded slowly.
"He knew... even then. That to face me is to face a mirror of war itself."
But it hadn't started with Valorian. No—his first foe had worn violet and gold. Fulgrim, the Phoenician. Proud. Arrogant. All silk and venom.
"Like the Eldar," Glorblasta mused, "But with less poetry."
He remembered the duel vividly. Fulgrim's strikes had been beautiful—elegant, refined. Each blow a flurry of technique. But that was it, all style no substance.
"He broke like a porcelain cup."
Yet even then, something had shifted. Valorian had arrived next. Not out of vengeance. But duty. Not to conquer. But to stop him. And he had.
Oh, not by raw strength—Glorblasta had dwarfed him then. No, Valorian had wielded willpower, ingenuity, and firepower—the "dakka," as his lesser orkoid brethren called it. He brought it in spades. He earned that title.
"Dakka Bringer... a name carved into the memory of the Orks... impressive."
He had lost that day. But from loss, he evolved. From defeat, he remembered.
Now, he was Krork once more—not the broken shard of a species the galaxy knew as Orks, but the full might of the ancient war-beasts bred by the Old Ones themselves. And through him, the Krork were rising.
Glorblasta stood from his throne.
"I was made for war. Forged by gods who feared extinction. Crafted as the final gambit. And now, I see clearly what must be done."
He gestured then, silently, to the Krork commander who knelt at the base of the throne.
"Summon them. The Four. My generals. Pillars of The Krork Race"
The Krork pounded his chest with a thunderous clang, his voice reverent as he barked:
"HAIL, WARLORD!"
He looked back into the void—no, not the void. Into the Great Green. The Warp made obedient. The WAAAGH! made holy.
"Valorian once told me… 'Good enemies are hard to find.'" Glorblasta chuckled, but there was no mirth in it. "He was right. And I have returned… as your best one."
"When Valorian falls, so too shall the Imperium. The Emperor of Mankind will gaze upon the ruin of His dreams and understand that His empire was built upon hubris and delusion. For what He fashioned in defiance of the stars shall now be unmade by that which predates Him… and drowns out His silence with a warcry older than time itself.
We shall march upon Terra, the cradle of Mankind, and its defenders shall know despair. There shall be no parley, no pause, no pity. For the Green does not falter. The Green does not rest. The Green only grows. Let the annihilation of Mankind's dominion be a beacon—a thunderous proclamation across the cosmos: The Krork have returned."
Then he cast wide his massive arms, as if to embrace the destruction yet to come—
"I am the Avatar of Gork and Mork. The Warlord reborn. I am Glorblasta—First Sound of the Last War!"
---------------
The corridors of the Krork Flagship stretched for kilometers in every direction—vaulted halls of green and xenos metals, their interiors carved with runes of conquest older than most stars. Along these war-temples strode four living relics of a forgotten age, the high warlords of the Krork—the perfected designs of the Old Ones, forged for war, intellect, and proliferation.
Each step resonated with seismic weight, the very hull of the vessel singing with psychic harmonics and gravitational warping. Lesser beings would have been driven mad by proximity alone. They were not mere generals—they were facets of godhood. Each represented a pathway in the fractal design of Krork supremacy. And they hated one another with a purity only ancient rivals could understand.
At the head of the procession strode Synaptikharn, eight meters tall, though appearing smaller beside his titanic brethren. His stature was irrelevant—for he radiated psychic density like a collapsing star. His cranial structure was enormous, his eyes shimmering with veils of higher dimensions. His intellect had long ago surpassed the boundaries of causality, and he wore his superiority like a mantle.
"Let us be honest with ourselves," he began, his voice smooth, sonorous, and unyielding. "We are not marching to war in the name of Krork destiny. This is no tactical imperative, no grand unifying strategy. This is ego—Glorblasta's vendetta against Franklin Valorian. We pursue personal animus in place of grand design."
Behind him came the thunder of Warmskragga's stride—twelve meters of armored sinew and mechanized augmentation. A warlord sculpted for battle, refined over Millions of years of historical knowledge and technology. His voice rumbled like the tectonic shifting of continents.
"And if it is ego—what of it? A leader must impose will. And what better display of will than to crush the apex of human military endeavor beneath our heel? Franklin Valorian is a symbol. Destroying him unifies the war-host like no campaign of attrition ever could."
Fumigork, the Spore-Father, pulsed and undulated, an immense biomass engine cloaked in a miasma of regenerative spores and mutagenic pheromones. Life and decay flowed through him in constant cycle. He did not walk; he grew forward.
"Unity," he echoed, voice gurgling with polyphonic resonance. "A lovely illusion. A story we tell our spores before we send them to die. There is no unity. Only adaptation. Victory feeds evolution. Loss feeds adaptation. All else is transitory."
At the rear marched Rendakraal, part Krork, part machine, his form a monument to calculated function. His optic sensors flickered in crystalline rhythm, his movements guided by internal simulations of probability and outcome.
"Our current directive lacks optimality," Rendakraal said, emotionless yet final. "The cost-benefit analysis favors direct action against Terra. Remove the Emperor—disintegrate their morale. Yet instead, we aim at a sector less central, guided by Glorblasta's personal sentiment."
Synaptikharn's eyes gleamed. "Indeed. Sentiment. Emotion. Affection. None of which are reliable strategic principles. One might even speculate that Glorblasta's communion with the Twin Divinities has... thinned."
The others did not respond, but the air grew heavy with meaning. That suggestion—blasphemous, treasonous—was also undeniably tempting.
Warmskragga spoke at last, slower, more contemplative. "His communion remains intact until proved otherwise. And while it does, we are bound. His will is Gork's will. His rage is Mork's wrath. We follow—because we must. Not for faith, but for survival."
"Until he falters," Synaptikharn whispered. "And when he does—when his spark flickers—we shall see which of us ascends. The limit is four. But time is infinite."
They passed beneath towering glyphs of the Krork Triumvirate—the symbols of Mind, Combat, Logic, and Propagation. Murals depicted the fall of the Necrontyr, the collapse of the Old Ones, the Aeldari cataclysms, and the long slumber. Now, the galaxy stirred once more.
Synaptikharn turned his gaze toward the void, his psychic senses drinking in the echoes of the galaxy's civilizations.
"Once, we faced worthy foes. The Aeldari—arrogant, yes, but refined. Powerful. Their empire spanned the stars, their minds rivaled our own. And now? Shattered. Reduced to remnants because they dared create a god from their own indulgence."
"Hubris made manifest," Rendakraal murmured. "A predictive error of fatal magnitude. They miscalculated the psychic boundary thresholds. An entire species undone by overclocking their emotional subroutines."
Fumigork's voice thickened, his form flowering with spore-sacs and dissolving again. "They were a dying breed before their Fall. Slaanesh was merely the reaper. They forgot that existence is struggle. That entropy claims the decadent first."
"And now," Warmskragga said, his tone clipped, "we face the humans. A species that barely existed when the stars last knew our tread. Thirty thousand years of civilization—and they imagine themselves masters of the cosmos."
"Upstarts," Synaptikharn scoffed. "Their Great Crusade is a monument to ignorance. They believe expansion proves ascendancy. They believe unity is strength. But unity without wisdom is mere inertia. They are children—ambitious, dangerous children."
"Yet dangerous nonetheless," Rendakraal added. "The Independence Sector demonstrates atypical innovation. Franklin Valorian's doctrine is anomalous. He may represent a point of instability."
Warmskragga's gauntlet flexed. "Then let us stabilize him. With orbital bombardment and ground-flesh pulverization."
Their path ended at a vaulted hall of command displays—tactical data of Fifty thousand star systems glimmering in solar dioramas. The Independence Sector. The stage for their convergence.
Synaptikharn paused, absorbing the scale. "We attack not the head of the serpent, but one of its arms. Because Glorblasta desires a duel, not a conquest. And we indulge it. We, who were designed to fight and destroy."
Rendakraal's processors hummed. "Indulgence breeds inefficiency. The longer we delay, the more time humanity has to fortify Terra. Logic demands redirection."
"Logic," Warmskragga growled, "must sometimes kneel before instinct. War is not only numbers. It is theater. And Glorblasta is building a stage upon which Krork dominion will be reaffirmed."
Fumigork's mass split briefly into fractal forms, each giving voice. "Reaffirmed... or tested. If we fail here, we scatter. If we win, the spores will sing."
"Then we follow," Synaptikharn concluded. "Not for loyalty. Not for belief. But because the alternative is eradication or replacement. The succession matrix permits only four. Our survival, therefore, demands cooperation. Until Glorblasta dies."
"And when he does," Warmskragga murmured, "we shall see which vision claims the mantle: mind, war, growth, or machine."
They stepped into the shadow of the command bridge, the voice of Glorblasta echoing from within. The Will of Gork and Mork thundered ahead—and behind it, four rival gods walked, bound by purpose, divided by vision.
Their war had not yet begun. But its true battlefield lay in the space between them.
A/N: My Journey across the Pacific Side of Latin America can only be described in one word "Work" , port after port within the span of a week, I couldn't find time to actually write until a few days ago, Every Other day it's Either Port Papers or problems with the Reefers Blyat!
A/N:But as I said I will not stop writing, I'm just constrained by time.
A/N: In any Case I hope August will be good to me and to you guys as well, See yall in a month or so we returning to Yokohama in.