"The ignorant have unveiled the curtain of the feast, tightening the noose around their own necks…"
Asdrubael Vect gazed down upon the cascading waterfall of soul elixirs, a satisfied smile curling across his lips.
At last, he had gathered the long-coveted abundance of souls.
The Supreme Overlord paid no heed to the chaos spreading across the Central District—others would handle that.
He turned and returned to his palace chambers, stepping into a descending lift-shaft.
The lift plunged into the twisted edge of the webway, swallowed by a tunnel shaped like a vast inverted maw.
Downward it rushed, faster and faster.
Before Vect's eyes swept past hooks bearing twisted flesh, machines wrought of agony, pale glimmers amidst the blackness, and the crammed slums of an underworld teeming with refugees and malformed slaves.
He ignored such trivial sights, his gaze fixed upon the webway's fragile veil.
To mortal eyes, it looked like a crimson tide, steeped in desire, scarred with the marks of pleasure, torment, and debasement.
Even the Supreme Overlord's gaze flickered with unease.
These were the not-living, not-dead, beyond-real creatures.
He muttered in the ancient tongue of the Aeldari:
"The Unborn… shards of divinity… the C'tan…"
But across the galaxy, there was a single name they all shared—Daemons.
Vect feared them. More precisely, he feared the "gods" behind them.
And of these, the one he dreaded most was She Who Thirsts—the eternal nightmare of the Drukhari.
So long as She gazed upon Commorragh, Vect would never know peace. His very life remained imperiled.
Worse still, She Who Thirsts was pressing ever harder against the webway, gnawing and thinning the veil between realspace and the warp.
If left unchecked, cracks would soon riddle the veil of Commorragh.
The Dark Prince's gaze would fall entirely upon the Dark City, and none could escape Her pursuit.
Not even Vect himself.
He had no confidence facing a god—one that had already cast down the entire Aeldari Empire.
For now, Commorragh's denizens knew nothing of this doom. They did not need to.
To reveal it would only breed more panic.
And none knew that the one most guilty of causing it all—was Vect.
Time and again he had wielded forbidden artefacts and daemonic bargains to crush rivals. Each time, the veil had frayed, weakened by his ambition.
Vect loathed such instability. He craved a bulwark against the warp.
He sought, and soon discovered the perfect force to resist it: the Emperor of Mankind.
The Emperor was born a psyker of unfathomable might, wielding a body and will that even daemons feared.
Even upon the Golden Throne, reduced to a rotting husk, He still held back the tide of the warp.
Shielding the Imperium from being drowned beneath the flood.
And Commorragh, too, required such a shield.
Vect's excitement mounted. He swiftly dispatched envoys to contact the Haemonculi Covens, weaving lies and plots until they placed their trust in him.
Through treachery and deception, he acquired what he sought—both technology and samples of the Emperor's gene-essence.
"Those short-lived fools believed they had shattered my scheme… yet the true plot blossomed out of sight, where no eye could follow."
Vect smirked in triumph.
He had duped them all. The Imperium's vaunted Lords of Terra—arrogant dolts, blind to his hand.
With the secrets of the Black Throne's forging and the genetic material of both Emperor and Primarchs, the Haemonculi Covens embarked on their experiments.
Experiments that spanned millennia.
Vast wealth, countless resources, and above all—souls—were consumed.
For where Aeldari and human science diverged, vast expenditures of soul-energy were required to bridge the gap.
By design, the Black Throne and its clone were centuries from completion.
By then, the daemonic invasion might already be upon them. The experiments might collapse under warp corruption.
Fortune, however, delivered a fool—the scion of Asurmen, Eden Grant.
So generous, so naïve.
With his offerings of souls, the research succeeded ahead of time.
The lift surged faster still. Through abyss and ancient foundations it plunged, brushing past tunnels that seemed to pierce the roots of the galaxy.
Dark channels, like the Aeldari's own insatiable spirits, swallowing light.
Then opened a cavernous space, thrumming with life.
"Faster, you wretched slaves!"
"All laborers—seal this conduit, now!"
Tens of thousands of construct-engines, legions of Kabalite warriors, and millions of slaves from countless species toiled in frenzy.
Above them, hovering drones patrolled, executing at once any hint of idleness, rebellion, or sabotage.
Few who entered ever returned.
A realm of eternal darkness.
At its heart, a colossal machine continued to grow.
Plundered components, reforged elements, structures pulled apart and reversed—all fused into a mechanical forest of endless expansion.
A fortress buried beneath the earth.
And at its core sat the prize—ensnared by runes and bound in psychic conduits—the Black Throne.
The Haemonculi had mastered its forging, coercing researchers and artificers from countless races until a throne of their own was born.
Compared to the Emperor's crude, hastily wrought Golden Throne, this creation surpassed it in every way.
Even dormant, it seethed with psychic potential.
Vect stepped from his lift, striding the private path to the Throne's very side.
He gazed upon it and let slip his cold, infamous smile.
"The short-lived ones misunderstood the Throne.
If they knew its truth, none would dare accept it.
They would never believe their so-called 'god' owed his stature to a machine.
That it was this device that plunged its master deeper into the warp, drawing in more faith, more energy—
—to ascend as something beyond mortal life. A god."
Vect's eyes gleamed blue, a hunger flickering within them.
Though ageless, unending, elder even to She Who Thirsts herself, he remained… less than a god.
A ruler, yes. But not a divinity.
He would not be gazed upon as prey, nor bent beneath another's will.
"To not climb to that height," he whispered, "is to remain forever a lesser thing—unworthy even to stand in Their presence."
Already, the Changer of Ways tugged at his ambition, sowing whispers, stirring his hunger.
And he could do nothing but endure. To a ruler, this helplessness was agony.
Still, Vect too had learned from the Architect of Fate. He borrowed His secrets.
He knew why Tzeentch courted him: to pit his schemes against She Who Thirsts.
Gods warred even among themselves.
"But who will suspect that this pawn will leap from the board, to become one of the players?"
His will was indomitable. His hatred unquenchable.
From slave to overlord, he had clawed his way to become one of the most feared powers of the galaxy.
Not only in Commorragh—
His forces raided across the stars, spreading fear and hatred.
None could fail to know his name.
For he cultivated these terrors deliberately.
Ever since learning the secret of apotheosis through the warp, he had prepared for this.
Yet ascension was no simple thing.
Eight paths to godhood, and four already filled, untouchable.
Of the path of Ruinous Annihilation, the Emperor of Mankind himself seemed poised to claim it.
Vect had been forced to choose another.
He had chosen Dissolution through Greed.
It was the ouroboros of hatred, feeding upon itself—eternal, devouring, chaotic.
On this path, there were no allies, no companions.
Only oneself.
To tread it, he must forge a transformation across galaxy and warp alike—reshape the perceptions of countless lives into faith, or terror, or loathing.
In the end, it mattered not.
All was warped into the chosen path.
Vect's path.
And he would use the Drukhari to spawn ever more fear, ever more hatred—
Until all of it pointed back upon himself.
The terror and hatred of every living thing in the galaxy, turned upon himself—this too was a form of faith.
The emotions and soul-power of the Drukhari were so intense that they had birthed gods—and ultimately gave rise to She Who Thirsts.
Even after the Fall, the Aeldari of the craftworlds—cousins to the Drukhari—still birthed the embryonic form of a mighty god: Ynnead, the God of the Dead.
Now, with the terror, hatred, and torment amassed for millennia by the Drukhari and countless other lives, a formidable power was sure to be born.
"The innumerable wraiths of fear and hatred spiralling over the Dark City of Commorragh… delightful," Vect murmured.
He issued a command. A batch of human slaves was executed, and he closed his eyes to savor the souls as they were torn free through agony.
The unknown power coiled about the Dark City swelled a fraction.
Fanatic light kindled across his face. "Enough to let this ordinary flesh ascend—a god born in the sight of the galaxy, its greatest miracle."
From abject slave to enthroned divinity—what a thunderous deed!
Vect could scarcely wait to sit upon that agonising Black Throne and make it so.
But he could not—yet.
The "key" to the Black Throne was not finished, though it was close.
Vect's own essence in the warp was too feeble; because of that, he despised and envied those who possessed true, primal substance yet refused to accept it—
—like that short-lived Primarch, Roboute Guilliman, the Imperial Regent.
Such waste. In the name of "justice" or the lives of humankind, he spurned apotheosis.
And the Emperor of Mankind? Still worse. The strength He had gathered was beyond measure.
At any moment He could step across and become a god—the Black King, one of the mightiest beings of the warp—yet He stubbornly refused.
"What folly."
Vect could not fathom such choices.
If divinity were within reach, what of sacrifice? Sacrifice everything.
If sacrificing all Drukhari could make him stronger, he would do so without hesitation.
"Lord, the key's creation has entered its final stage…"
A master of the Haemonculi Covens came to report.
He too was eager. With the key, the Supreme Overlord would seize warp-born godhood and sever the tendrils She Who Thirsts had thrust into the webway.
Then the Drukhari would have a god of their own—more venomous and cruel, yet capable of opposing the other outer gods.
It was, to the Drukhari, their only hope.
Vect nodded, satisfied.
This was what he required: a key—a vessel incorporating the Emperor's blood and gene-sequence, a body mimicking that peerless might.
In ordinary circumstances he himself could not sit the Black Throne.
Nor could the exalted beings of the ancient Aeldari Empire withstand its backlash.
But the Emperor could.
With a body engineered as a key, he could deceive the Throne's bio-interfaces and draw forth the psychic potential within.
This would let Vect merge into the warp, and harvest the twisted powers amassed in Commorragh—fear and hatred gathered over thousands of years from the Drukhari and many other beings.
He would plunge deep into the path of Dissolution through Greed, seize divinity, and become a life of another order.
Then he could use the Black Throne to shear away every tendril She Who Thirsts had thrust into the webway—
—and better command the webway architecture, including Commorragh itself.
Neither the Chaos Gods nor the Emperor could touch him then.
He could even strip webway holdings from other claimants—such as the Savior's Domain—and seize its nexus-rights.
These short-lived creatures had no right to ancient machinery such as this.
"This is what I do for Commorragh and for the Drukhari—becoming the god that will shelter them.
A pity none understand…"
Vect allowed himself a moment's sentiment.
Then he stilled, and went deeper into the tunnel, layer upon layer of forbidden artefacts guarding his path.
No one could stop him now from ascending the Black Throne and becoming a god…
—
"Scion of Asurmen—do not grant Vect a single soul!"
…?
Eden received an unknown warning and tensed at once.
What now?
He skimmed the reports: the Black Heart's cabals were sweeping up souls across every district. Headache.
This warning was late.
He'd already scattered his soul reserves. Retrieving them would be… unlikely.
The warning contained a covert rendezvous point. Eden gathered his people and moved—
—to see what secrets the sender truly held.
Before long, Eden stood amid the wreckage of a ruined webway spur, cold wind whistling through broken arches.
And there before him—clowns. Actual clowns.
"What is this, a stage show?"
He blinked.
With intricate, fluid backflips the clowns vaulted onto the shattered stage and performed a tragedy—the fall of the Aeldari gods.
He even glimpsed the role of the Goddess of Life, Isha.
Harlequins, then—Aeldari masque-players behind their lacquered masks.
To be fair, they had craft.
They rendered the tragedy so brilliantly that even someone un-arty like Eden watched, rapt.
The Harlequins venerate the Laughing God, Cegorach—
—another trickster not unlike Tzeentch in aspect: the galaxy's great jester and master of plans.
Cegorach shields the souls of the Harlequins, warding them from Slaanesh's corruption.
The tragedy ended; the elegant, mournful Song of the Harlequin rose:
"Come, all of you—your long journey waits.
Hear our call, let laughter find you.
When you fall, do not fear what is lost;
May the circuit set you free—brothers, sisters, friend and foe.
Come witness our curtain-call…"
Eden offered polite applause, then turned to Fok beside him. "Not bad at all, right?"
Fok had been pulled in; he wiped a tear from his eye. "Lord Asurmen's Scion, this is the finest performance I have ever seen."
"Right? We could book a residency for them at the arena. That stage would suit them—if the price is sane…"
Their banter was cut short by flamboyant laughter.
The Harlequins withdrew en masse, leaving only one—garbed in gaudy finery and the guise of the Laughing God Himself.
Seeing this, Fok bowed himself away, giving space for the leaders to speak.
Eden had noticed that figure from the start—ever at center stage during the tragedy.
He could guess the identity: among Harlequins, the Solitaire—the "great clown," as some called him in hushed tones.
Only such a figure dared don the Laughing God's mien.
A "king" among the troupes, with the showiest costume and finest wargear.
Usually the first target for concentrated fire—and the one to draw curses like, "Pop that gaudy peacock!"
Yet without doubt, one of the deadliest warriors in the galaxy.
The Solitaire approached with an elegant dance and crushing poise, voice theatrical:
"Behold… the threads of your fate are knotted in dead ends, and in my hand—why, I hold the shears…
—or perhaps a pen?
For the Laughing God revises more than He cuts."
Ugh. Riddle-speak—the worst.
Eden swore inwardly, forcing himself to parse the performance-speech:
"You're saying I'm already boxed in—and only your god can rewrite my role?"
The Solitaire smiled, rose on his toes, and pirouetted like a ballerino. "You stand center-stage and have not even read the title of the play.
Dance with me. At least then your curtain-call will hear laughter, not screams."
"So you hold crucial information, and without cooperation I'll meet an ugly end?"
Eden shook his head, hesitating. "Partnerships should rest on goodwill. Threat-laced 'offers'… I decline."
Plainly, the Solitaire—or the Laughing God behind him—meant to cow and steer him.
To solve this in their way.
The painted face leaned close.
"Refuse, and when the historians turn this page, your name will be 'the fool who amused Cegorach.'"
Eden exhaled slowly, and drew out a high-risk forbidden artefact.
The Solitaire paused—and took several soundless steps back.
"Use a normal tone," Eden said, face hard. "If I snap, I can't guarantee I'll spare myself—much less you."
"If your 'news' is that Asdrubael Vect plans to use the Black Throne and an Emperor clone-key to ascend—dooming Commorragh—
—then save it.
I predicted Vect's prediction. Those souls? I gave them to him on purpose."
Vect hoped to ascend on his porcelain latrine—Eden hoped, while smashing Vect's base of power, to get the Emperor clone early to answer a greater threat.
Vect was in a hurry. Eden was in more of one.
He went on:
"I also know the Prince of Pleasure is about to breach Commorragh. Surely that has the Laughing God rattled?
In short, the secrets I know exceed your imagination. Everything is proceeding according to plan."
His words had barely fallen when a shuddering pressure rippled across the ruined webway spur.
Above, a rent tore open in the veil. Terrible daemon-shapes pressed through.
…?
In the blink of an eye, Eden and the Solitaire both changed color.
(End of Chapter)
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