The Ruinous Powers pursue but one ultimate end: amusement. Whether it is Nurgle brewing a new pox, Slaanesh luring the pure into depravity, Khorne drowning worlds in sensory-shattering rage, or Tzeentch weaving labyrinths of change… they act because it pleases them.
When the Four decide to intervene, none can bar their path.
Thus, the Chaos Gods unceremoniously deployed their pawns. They watched with predatory curiosity as the Great Horned Rat deviated from his usual habit of sending disposable vermin to sow chaos; instead, he was manifesting his direct will through the bodies of his thralls. To the Four, this was a novel diversion.
More importantly, they sensed the Anathema. The Emperor Himself was reaching out to guide Titus's hand in battle. It was as if a roommate who never touched spirits had suddenly reached for the bottle, and the rest of the household couldn't help but crowd around with boisterous, mocking encouragement.
Deep within the warrens of Clan Moulder, in a hellscape choked with xenos abominations and heaving with reshaped flesh, Chief Grey Seer Skathrippa Sevenhorns surveyed the sacrificial site. His heart, or what passed for one, ached at the cost.
He had paid a ruinous price to convince Throt the Unclean to surrender a vast cache of salvaged gene-seed for this ritual. The terms were harrowing: upon his ascension to daemonhood, Skathrippa was to submit his immortal form to Moulder's scalpel for "study."
Those mad masters of flesh-craft had long coveted the secrets of daemonic anatomy, but the corpses of Neverborn were fleeting things, dissolving into empyric residue upon death. They needed a living specimen. To become the second Verminlord of the Grey Seer Clan, Skathrippa was prepared to sacrifice everything.
"Fast-quick! This is for the Great Horned Rat! Break-spoil it, and I'll use your rat-head to plug the gap!" Skathrippa shrieked, his voice twitching with the tremors of Black Hunger and nervous ecstasy as he lashed the passing slave-rats.
Meanwhile, Titus and his Ultramarines recuperated within a recaptured Imperial armory, rearming and interrogating captured Skaven for intelligence.
The Skaven, possessing no concept of fortitude, spilled their secrets like bile. Yet, the sheer entropic chaos of Skaven hierarchy, where leaders were assassinated or replaced hourly, rendered much of Titus's data useless. They spent days launching fruitless raids on splinter-warrens and Clan Moulder outposts. To Titus, these were merely more xenos to be purged.
The intensity paled in comparison to his memories of the Tyranid swarms or the sorceries of the Thousand Sons. That strange, Warp-tainted presence had not returned.
"Faith is my shield," Titus murmured, a silent prayer to the Emperor.
But neither the ambitious Skathrippa nor the veteran Titus realized that within the Warp, their masters had convened once more. They met amidst the churning molten iron of the Forge of Souls.
For the sake of the "game," and alongside Lucius, the Four had assumed human guises. The Emperor sat among them, though Tzeentch was conspicuously absent.
"This place is wretched," muttered a rotly, jovial-looking man, shaking his head in disappointment. Instead of the scorched iron, he preferred the vibrant greens of decay.
Nurgle held a certain paternal fondness for the Skaven; their filth was a sanctuary for his beloved pathogens, and the Skaven's "Great Plague" was a masterpiece of viral lethality. For the sake of the plague alone, Nurgle felt a kinship with the Great Horned Rat.
Khorne, however, loathed the Forge. There was no hot blood here, no frantic slaughter, only the cold, rhythmic clanging of the hammer. Slaanesh looked upon the mechanical rigidity of the place with open disdain.
"Hahaha! What did I tell you? The newcomer always brings surprises," Nurgle chuckled, pointing a bloated finger at a golden youth. "He even got this boring fellow to join the fray."
As Lucius's understanding of the Warp deepened, he realized the Emperor's form, that of a golden boy, was a reflection of His fragmented power, His true essence still shackled to the Golden Throne in the Materium. The golden youth sat motionless, his gaze fixed on nothingness, with Malcador standing like a silent shadow behind him.
"Speak," the Emperor said, his voice a calm, chilling tide. "What game do you propose?"
Khorne grinned, a jagged, bloody expression. "Just as you did with the Vile One. You value this human highly. Fine, I shall give him the chance to see if he can survive my chosen."
Slaanesh's serpentine form slithered toward Lucius. A tongue like a glistening tentacle flicked from cherry-red lips. "Hehe… perhaps you aren't so dull after all. Perhaps we should... exchange ideas more often."
Slaanesh gestured toward the Vermin Herders working the daemonic machinery; their physiques were as lithe and sculpted as any Daemonette. Clearly, the Dark Prince saw potential in this "new god."
Lucius remained stoic. He enjoyed his "aesthetics," but he had no desire for Slaanesh's brand of "evolution." He stood and addressed the Emperor. "The last wager was between us. A true game involves everyone. Let Titus be the stake."
The Emperor's gaze did not shift. "State your terms."
"Each of us shall send a servant to hunt Titus," Lucius proposed with a sharp grin. "If he carves his way through them all, you win. If he falls to any one of them, the victor claims the prize."
The Emperor considered this. "Hardly equitable. I can lose but once; you have three chances to see him fail."
Nurgle, Khorne, and Slaanesh offered smiles of predatory innocence. But Lucius countered, "If Titus triumphs over a god's pawn, that god loses to you individually. We settle the tallies separately."
"I have waged wars across the galaxy, staking tens of billions of lives and entire sectors on a single campaign," Khorne roared with laughter. "To bet on a single mortal... how quaint. The Blood God accepts!"
Khorne waved a hand, and a shimmering projection of an Astartes appeared. Lucius recognized the silhouette immediately: Khârn the Betrayer.
Slaanesh nodded, summoning a twisted, scarred swordsman whose face was a mask of ecstatic agony. Lucius the Eternal.
Nurgle, still seething over the Emperor's fire cleansing his garden due to Mortarion's failure, chose a champion to spite his own wayward son. With a flick of his wrist, he summoned Typhus.
Then, the Three turned as one. They looked at Lucius with the pity one reserves for a child who has no toys to play with. The Emperor merely closed his eyes, his silence radiating a cold, golden fury.
Lucius felt a surge of indignation. In his own realm, he had a warband of Night Lords suffering for their impudence toward the Great Horned Rat, but they were not yet fully broken, let alone corrupted enough to stand against the legends the Three had summoned. These were the monsters of myth.
"Do not fail me, Queek!" Lucius growled, thrusting his hand forward.