Chapter 230: When the Gods Rage
How ignorant.
Vulkan suppressed his discomfort and nodded curtly to the assembled natives. His voice carried the weight of Imperial authority.
"In the name of the Imperium, I declare sovereignty over this world."
"We are glad you have come," the tribal leader said, stepping forward. "We have waited long for this day. The gods foretold your arrival. They once blessed us with—"
Vulkan raised a hand, cutting him off.
"I have no interest in your gods. From this day forward, you will acknowledge only one truth, the Imperial Truth, and the sovereignty of the Emperor's."
The leader's expression shifted to confusion and dismay.
"This... this is not as it should be."
"Yet it is," Vulkan said. "I have come. I have declared the law. You will comply. The matter is settled."
"But you must know the truth," the leader insisted, desperation creeping into his voice. "The truth about yourselves, about what you truly are. Help us correct this error and restore the proper order."
"The proper order stands before you now," Vulkan replied, his tone hardening. "Your beliefs are obsolete. They belong to a bygone age and must be discarded."
"No! The gods represent eternal truth; they can never be obsolete!" The leader's voice rose. "They are—"
"There is no eternity in this universe," Vulkan interrupted. "Even the entities you call gods will one day face oblivion. I bring you technology and enlightenment. You may not comprehend this yet, but in time, you will learn."
"Never!" the leader shouted. "We will never abandon our faith! We believe in—"
Vulkan took a single step forward.
The sheer force of his presence crushed the words in the leader's throat. The Primarch towered over the mortal, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet but absolute.
"Tell me. What is a god?"
The leader's guards reacted instantly, drawing their weapons. White paint marked their faces, and ritual runes covered their bare, muscular torsos. Despite knowing they faced certain death, none hesitated.
Numien, standing at his lord's side, noted their courage with grudging respect. He gestured subtly to his own men, signaling them to stand down and lower their weapons.
Such mortal armaments could never harm a Primarch. Even weapons empowered by the Warp would fail, not as they once might have succeeded, but as they would fail now. The Raven and the Emperor had bestowed new gifts upon the Primarchs, elevating them beyond the reach of such crude threats.
Vulkan raised his hand. The barbarians' swords and axes shimmered, their metal forms unraveling into cascades of blooming flowers.
Terror swept through the warriors. They dropped to their knees, weapons forgotten. Even the leader stood frozen, his mouth agape.
The power before him exceeded anything in his understanding. Only gods could perform such miracles.
"Are... are you a god?"
Vulkan shook his head. "I am not. There are no Gods."
"What you witnessed was technology, not divinity. I redefined the fundamental structure of those materials, rewriting their molecular information and replacing it with organic matter. A simple application of reality manipulation."
"Do not speak to me of your primitive deities. They are worthless, mere conjurers playing with parlor tricks. You stand at the threshold of a new age, an age that does not need gods."
The leader opened his mouth to protest, but the flowers blooming where steel had been rendered his objections meaningless.
A being of supreme power had just denied his own divinity. What right did a mortal have to contradict him?
"Let this debate end," Vulkan declared. "We will rebuild your world. Transform it into a paradise. Your suffering ends today."
Just as he believed the matter settled, unease prickled at the back of Vulkan's mind.
[Warning: Detecting abnormal immaterial energy signatures]
The leader's body convulsed.
An invisible force seized him, tearing at his flesh from within. Blood poured from his mouth, eyes, and nose. His skin sloughed away like melting wax, muscle following, until only a skeleton remained. Then even the bones shattered like glass, fragments scattering across the ground.
From the bloody ruins, something crawled forth.
The creature defied description, a grotesque amalgamation of nightmare and blasphemy. Twisted features were embedded haphazardly across its malformed face. Its limbs were horrible fusions of writhing worms and serpents, constantly shifting and coiling in ways that induced physical revulsion.
"A daemon." Vulkan's expression hardened as he activated his warhammer. Brilliant arcs of energy crackled around the weapon's head. "You dare manifest before me?"
"I mean no harm," the daemon rasped, its voice like scraping metal. "I bring only knowledge. Important truths concerning the very essence of your soul."
"Your existence itself is harm," Vulkan said coldly.
"The Emperor lied to you," the daemon pressed on. "Did you truly believe him mortal? A mere immortal human?" Its grotesque mouth twisted into something approximating a smile.
"He required powerful progeny, so the gods granted him forbidden knowledge. You were crafted from divine essence, genes blessed by the Ruinous Powers themselves, infused with psychic might beyond mortal comprehension."
"The gods are your true fathers. The Emperor is nothing but a skilled deceiver who stole what was rightfully theirs."
"See the truth, Vulkan. Only the gods can offer you genuine understanding."
Vulkan's warhammer came down in a thunderous arc.
The blow caught the daemon squarely, crushing it beneath the Primarch's boot. The creature's body cracked and splintered; it had exhausted most of its strength simply manifesting and speaking.
"Everything... I said... is true..." it wheezed.
"I care nothing for your truths," Vulkan replied, his voice glacial. "If I wished, I could craft a thousand truths more compelling than yours."
The daemon struggled to turn its shattered head, desperate to speak further.
Vulkan brought his hammer down again, obliterating the creature's skull in a spray of ectoplasmic gore.
"Erase all data pertaining to this entity's existence."
[Command accepted. Initiating erasure protocol]
[Erasure complete]
The daemon's corpse dissipated, fading like dying embers.
A terrible immaterial storm erupted outward with Vulkan at its epicenter. Above Cadia, the Eye of Terror blazed with furious light. Waves of roiling energy burst forth, threatening to consume the planet entirely.
The Dark Gods had taken offense at Vulkan's actions. Such defiance could not be tolerated.
"I spit on you all," Vulkan said, his gaze fixed on the writhing storm above. He spoke each word with deliberate clarity, ensuring his contempt reached the Pantheon itself.
The warp-storm intensified in response. The entire sky transformed into a churning maelstrom of impossible colors.
The native Cadians trembled in terror. This was a war between gods, forces beyond mortal comprehension. They were leaves caught in a hurricane, powerless to do anything but endure.
"Prepare yourselves," Vulkan commanded his sons. "The terrors of Old Night return. It seems the Ruinous Powers are unwilling to retreat quietly into the Immaterium."
The storm grew more violent with each passing moment—a manifestation of divine fury.
Reality itself fractured. Physical laws that the gods themselves had sworn to uphold since the dawn of creation were now being torn asunder. For their own survival, they abandoned even that compact.
Once Vulkan completed the warp suppressor on Cadia, the Immaterium's influence would wane dramatically. Its reach would diminish, its power would fade.
That future was intolerable to the Dark Gods.
The daemon hordes came like a tide.
Overwhelming. Endless. Innumerable.
The Imperial army responded with practiced precision. Artillery fire descended in a torrential storm, saturating the battlefield with explosive fury. Tower-high flames erupted skyward, and brilliant mushroom clouds blossomed on the horizon, expanding rapidly before dispersing into the ash-choked air.
The concussive blasts swept across the landscape like tidal waves. Mountains cracked and crumbled. Rivers boiled away. Everything was consumed by surging fire, reduced to scorched wasteland.
"Evacuate the civilians," Vulkan ordered his sons. "And inform the Archmagos, construction of the suppressor must be accelerated."
He shifted into his combat form, his body erupting into living flame as he grew to titanic proportions.
Half the legion moved to shepherd the native Cadians to safety. The other half stood with their Primarch, forming a bulwark against the daemonic flood pouring from the warp.
The gate stood open on the planet's surface, a wound in reality itself.
A deep, resonant tone echoed across the battlefield as God-machines emerged—'Titans', walking cathedrals of destruction. They carried weapons the size of buildings, and when they fired, their beams shone with the intensity of newborn stars.
A single shot produced a blinding mushroom cloud that rose over a distant hillside, obliterating everything within kilometers.
The two forces clashed in a savage melee.
The daemonic legions were truly endless, manifesting from past, future, and every timeline that did or did not exist. No matter humanity's efforts, no matter how advanced their technology became, the complete annihilation of the warp's servants was impossible.
The war against Chaos was eternal.
"Foolish Eighteenth Son."
A massive figure waded through the carnage toward Vulkan. The Great Unclean One's voice was thick and wet, like drowning in fetid water.
Its bloated form moved with obscene slowness, swollen belly surrounded by layers of rotting adipose tissue. Pustules and boils protruded beneath its skin, ripe and weeping. Rolls of wrinkled, decaying flesh nearly swallowed its cloven hooves and stubby legs.
The daemon's head was squat and thick, multiple chins framing a rictus grin of blackened teeth. One cloudy eye blinked rheumatically while the other was sealed shut by crusted pus. A drooping, putrid tongue lolled down to its chest.
In one hand, it clutched a rusted greatsword, the blade weeping with corruption.
"How can you refuse the blessings of Father Nurgle?"
[End of Chapter]