The Black Manor collapsed with a resounding crash, millions of obsidian fragments turning to ash and dissipating. The Plague God let out a wail that echoed throughout the entire Immaterium. In the mortal realm, one-third of all unborn fetuses were miscarried, one-third of all diseases vanished, and the number of the deceased was slashed by a third. A hideous, terrifying burn spread across Nurgle's body like a venomous dragon, slicing through His domain and tearing at His primal concepts. Ultimately, one-third of the territory Nurgle once held dissolved, collapsed, and plummeted into the depths of the Warp, falling toward the Great Black Sun.
In the Warp, will is everything; will is reality. A massive portion of the Grandfather's power came from the collective desire of countless beings for new life—the longing to be born, to gain vitality, to grow, and to survive.
But at this moment, the hatred flowing through the Grandfather's blood and flesh was directed squarely at that very desire. It denied the longing for rebirth. This intense contradiction surged within the Grandfather's body, devouring His power. Nurgle emitted a scream of agonizing sorrow, struggling and twitching in a state of epileptic seizure upon the scorched earth of His garden.
The brown-haired girl watched this scene with indifference, gazing upon the struggling Nurgle. Life itself denying the meaning of life was a devastating blow beyond the Grandfather's imagination. Yet, it was not enough to kill Him. The living might deny life's meaning, but they also possess an primal obsession to survive no matter what. Nurgle, to an extent, represents that raw obsession. Much like the Blood God's spark of "crimson joy," it is one of the few powers capable of resisting the boundless might of the Dark King. He would eventually neutralize the hatred within Him, but until then, the Plague God was powerless to resist. Even if Nurgle eventually purged the hate, the scars would remain forever, branded upon the Grandfather's very essence.
However, the girl was equally unable to utterly kill the Grandfather now. Greivously wounding a god is simple enough, but killing one—even temporarily—is monumental. The girl's ability to wound Nurgle relied on the collective hatred of the living toward life itself; it was hatred directed at the domains Nurgle controlled. When the Plague God was strong, that hatred was naturally strong. By leaning on that hatred, the girl was able to trigger the power within the Dark King's husk to strike Him down. But now that the Grandfather was withered, His domain collapsed, and the triple cycle of Life, Decay, and Death broken, Death began to expand—and the specific hatred directed at the Grandfather weakened accordingly.
The girl simply could not hate Death itself, for She was a death more absolute than the Grandfather's.
But this was enough. She had never intended to kill the Grandfather; Her prey was something else entirely. She stepped into the wreckage of the Black Manor, entering its deep, terrifying corridors.
Darkness, silence, and the scent of rot—it felt like walking through a piece of decaying wood on the verge of crumbling. This place was once the most dangerous location in the galaxy, the terror of countless mortal dreams. Many would dream of being trapped in an infinitely extending, dim hallway where no matter how far they walked, they found no end, perpetually pacing in circles. That was the projection of the Black Manor.
But now, this place held almost no threat to the girl. Nurgle was too weakened to even maintain the existence of Great Daemons in His domain; only low-level entities barely clung to survival within the manor.
Five or six Nurglings huddling together shrieked in terror, yet they did not retreat. Instead, they bared their teeth and lunged at her. The girl raised her hand slightly and effortlessly crushed one; before the Nurgleling could even struggle, it turned into pathetic ash. The others didn't last much longer before collapsing and dissipating.
Just then, a rusted triangular blade shot toward the girl's back. She didn't even move; the blade incinerated into ash before it could touch her.
Dozens of Nurglings swarmed from all directions. Some were equipped with rotted blades, others wore crude armor, and some rode upon Nurgle Beasts that had not yet faded away, surrounding the girl.
Among the Nurglings were two distinct figures: two mutants with horns, hideous to behold.
The girl saw fear in their eyes. The Nurglings were also afraid. They were weak existences. While the girl was no longer as powerful as she had been moments ago, these feeble creatures could not delay her for long. Yet, she understood why they stood there. A living being can only have three attitudes toward life: hating life and cursing one's birth; desiring life and wanting to live regardless of the cost; or, finally, waiting for a moment worth dying for.
The girl granted them their end. In a few brief moments, both the Nurglings and the two mutants vanished like ash in the wind. To the girl, this was not a sacrifice worth remembering; it was meaningless...
She raised her head slightly. The God of Life, the God of Decay, the God of Death. She turned to look at Nurgle lying outside the Black Manor. Death. The aspect of Death within Nurgle was swelling. The girl instantly understood why those Nurglings and mutants had deliberately died before her. Nurgle's power had retracted to its limit; aside from the entity deep within the Black Manor, those Nurglings and mutants were the last symbols of Life in the entire domain. Now, only Death remained in Nurgle's realm. The aspect of Death had overwhelmed Decay and Life, expanding within Nurgle. This wasn't enough to heal Him, but it allowed Him to regain a tiny, negligible bit of mobility.
The Plague God raised His eyes—a pair of eyes as black as a dead sun—and stared fixedly at the girl. Some of His power bled into the Warp, as if calling out to someone.
Who?
Alexander?
No, Alexander had not yet disentangled himself from the web of Chaos faith. The other three gods? No, those three vermin would rather watch Nurgle fall, and they feared the girl might still possess the power to wound them as well. Other Primarchs? The Warp storms had swept away Sanguinius, Lion, and Corax... there weren't many Primarchs left who could stop her.
Therefore, it could only be...
Crack-crackle! A burst of psychic static echoed through the Black Manor, breaking the silence of the deep corridor. Bright teleportation light sparked behind the girl. Two Grey Knight Nemesis Force Swords, shimmering with psychic energy, extended from behind her, crossing to lock against her neck.
"My Lord." "King of Kings."
"According to the 'Terminus Decree' you issued to the Grey Knights ten thousand years ago: The Master of Mankind is strictly forbidden from leaving the Golden Throne—be it through resurrection, rebirth in another's body, or ascension into a Warp entity... Should you do so, the Grey Knights must stand against you."
"Your servants beseech you to return to the Golden Throne... if even a shred of you is still our Lord."
+Kaldor Draigo.+ +Janus.+
The girl knew exactly who stood behind her. Kaldor Draigo, the current Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights, a being feared by countless daemons in the Warp. He had been cursed by the Daemon Prince M'kar the Reborn, exiled into the Warp, and forever unable to leave. This is what those proficient in Warp sorcery often do: if you meet an undefeatable enemy, throw them into the Warp; let the Immaterium kill them for you. But Draigo was not killed. He toppled the fortresses of Lords of Change, tore apart Bloodthirsters, slew the six handpicked Daemonettes of Slaanesh, and even set fire to parts of Nurgle's garden... yet these were only secondary achievements. Draigo's greatest feat was when he carved the name of his predecessor into Mortarion's heart after slicing open the Primarch's chest.
It was by relying on the psychic residue Draigo had left within Nurgle's domain and Mortarion's body that the Grandfather was able to call him.
And with Draigo was Janus, the first Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights—a Thousand Son, but no ordinary one. He was Arvida, the loyalist Thousand Son brought back to Terra by the White Scars, merged with a shard of Magnus the Red's soul. Among all who inherited Magnus's genetic lineage, he was the only psyker capable of rivaling Ahriman. He was the first to know the Terminus Decree. After the War of the Beast, he used psychic power to slow his own time, sleeping between the Warp and reality, until he was recently awakened by Draigo, who sensed the Emperor might leave the Throne. Together, they waited for the chance to execute the Decree.
Even in this situation, a temporary countermeasure was found. The girl had to admit, Nurgle truly was a being who had struggled against Tzeentch for eons.
+I am still your Emperor, your Master.+
The girl's will rang out in the minds of Draigo and Janus simultaneously. +I leave the Throne only because I have chosen a more righteous path.+
+In your wanderings through the Warp, have you never listened to the hatred of all the living throughout the ages?+
+How much humiliation has humanity suffered at the hands of the Warp? How much torture from the Gods? How much lash from Chaos?+
+I only wish to avenge what we have endured and bring our suffering to an end.+
"Lies!"
At that very moment, a cold, raspy roar like toxic gas echoed from the dark corridor. A gaunt, pale figure in a tattered cloak, holding a massive scythe, walked slowly forward. Mortarion stared fixedly at the girl with eyes full of loathing. When the Grandfather was heavily wounded, Mortarion's Daemon Primarch body, sustained by Nurgle's power, had naturally collapsed back into the tides of the Warp. But by relying on his own will, his endurance, and his hatred, Mortarion had pieced his "self" back together from the Warp tides, remolding a shell by sheer willpower and crawling back into the Garden.
"The Emperor is a cruel tyrant, but he is the strongest, most resilient, most powerful, and most unyielding of all tyrants."
"You... you aren't even a tyrant. You are the Dark King. You are a destroyer, a cowering craven."
"How dare you claim his name?"
The girl's gaze lowered slightly. Kaldor Draigo, Janus, and Mortarion. A Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights powerful enough to surpass most Greater Daemons and even defeat Daemon Primarchs under specific conditions; a Thousand Son fused with a soul shard of Magnus, with the power of the Crimson King flowing in his soul; and Mortarion—who could barely be called a Daemon Primarch anymore, having molded a weak, fragile shell for himself by will alone, yet still a Primarch nonetheless.
Almost the instant Mortarion finished speaking, Draigo swung the Titan Sword, and Janus followed suit. But before they could strike, the girl slammed her hands against their chests. At the point of contact, scorching black-and-red flames erupted. While the vision of the two Grey Knight masters was obscured, the girl stepped forward lightly. She passed through the two blades like a ghost, rushing into the depths of the corridor without hesitation. The power she had gathered was no longer abundant; dealing with the three of them would be a struggle. She did have one final trump card, but if she used it, Alexander would essentially know all her secrets...
The girl frowned slightly. She couldn't help but suspect: was this situation deliberately engineered by Alexander just to force her to reveal all her hidden cards?
No, surely not. The risk would be too great. Even if he forced her to reveal her last card, the majority of the girl's plan had already been realized. The method for the Dark King's early awakening was about to be exposed, and the "Apocrypha" Alexander was nurturing... was still a long way from becoming true reality...
According to the plan Alexander had previously told the Emperor, the key to his goal was the "What-If Phone Booth." His plan had two steps. There are two versions of the booth in the Future Department Store. The first version can create a parallel world out of thin air that perfectly matches the user's needs, but the price is four "Emperors"—an impossible sum.
The second version can only scan and retrieve existing parallel worlds, but it is cheaper: only 0.2 "Emperors."
Alexander's goal was to cultivate the Apocrypha where Guilliman becomes the Dark King into a genuine parallel world. Then, using the cheaper phone booth, he would forcibly overwrite reality with it. Guilliman becoming the Dark King would indeed destroy most of humanity, but a small portion would be preserved and survive. Naturally, the Guilliman version of the Dark King would be slightly weaker, unable to destroy the entire world single-handedly, but the advantage was that he would lose control much slower and could still communicate with Alexander. Alexander would then cooperate with him to shatter and scatter the four Gods. Afterward, Alexander would sell the two domains he possessed to trade for a "Creation Kit" and create a new world from scratch. That world would be more beautiful and flourishing, and the surviving humans would move there to build a new 22nd Century.
Meanwhile, Guilliman, as the Dark King, would carry out his authority to utterly destroy the old world and the Gods, ensuring the new 22nd Century would never be contaminated by the old Warp...
Thinking about it carefully now... had Alexander been lying from the very beginning?
The girl's expression twisted slightly. What am I thinking!
He absolutely lied! He definitely lied!