After the meeting, the war order went out from Macragge across the star-trail network to every star system.
In a very short time, the entire Imperium of Man was mobilised.
It was the Imperium's largest mobilisation since the end of the Horus Heresy.
It was neither for defence nor to crush a rebellion, but to put an end to the nightmare that had plagued the galaxy and humanity since the War in Heaven.
The Imperium of Man was about to attack the Warp itself, to end at last the ancient cancer that had ruled humanity's fate since the days when humans still hid in caves.
The Eldar had allied with humanity, giving up their own technology in exchange for trust and living space.
Wraithbone technology, the webway's secrets of dimensional folding, blueprints for war machines from the height of the Eldar empire, and all manner of unique Warp lore.
All of it had passed into the hands of the Mechanicus, where the forge-sages were absorbing and adapting it piece by piece with almost fanatical efficiency.
Cegorach, the Laughing God, had his Harlequins guide the Mechanicus's elder sages to the Black Library, the ancient repository that held all history and knowledge from the galaxy's birth to its end.
Deep within it, the forge-sages discovered forbidden technology that the Old Ones and the Eldar had used in the War in Heaven against the C'tan and the Necrons.
With the Eldar's help, humanity mastered the art of building and repairing the webway.
The knowledge was put to use at once, repairing webway channels damaged by the Fall.
Ancient portals, torn apart by the psychic scream of Slaanesh's birth and abandoned for countless years after the Eldar empire collapsed, were reconnected one by one by the Mechanicus's gigantic construction fleets working alongside Eldar bonesingers.
The restored passages linked seamlessly with the orbital network Pam ran, forming an unprecedented communications web across the entire galaxy.
When the war order was issued, the star-trails and the network allowed the Imperial forces to assemble far faster than anyone had expected.
Every Chapter, battlefleet, Titan Legion and Mechanicus force scattered across the galaxy gathered at astonishing speed.
The Necrons and the Eldar both sent elite units to support the Imperium of Man in this war.
With the Void Dragon's help, many weapons forged in the age of the War in Heaven were reactivated.
The punitive force assembled at the mouth of a webway tunnel that stretched deep into the Warp.
Cegorach appeared before them in the form of a jester in colourful motley and ordered his Harlequins to dance the way to Nurgle's Garden.
Then the blessed warships were led into the webway one by one and crossed the rolling, boundless skies beyond.
Deep in the Warp, the garden domain flourished on disease and decay.
Unimaginable plagues and sickness ran rampant in this filthy kingdom ruled by the Plague King.
From the earliest Black Death to phages that rotted living metal from within; from psychic plagues that mutated Space Marine gene-seed until it destroyed itself, to the ultimate entropy-virus against which even daemons had no immunity.
The whole region reeked of rot. It was not a smell carried by gas molecules; it was as if the very concept of "decay" had been projected into the Warp.
Every breath a human took in that garden was like pouring a spoonful of pus, fermented for thousands of years, into the lungs.
Black flies filled the sky, buzzing and shaking countless invisible plague-spores from their wings.
Twisted, half-rotted trees and slimy, plague-ridden vines tangled across the ground.
Virus-laden fungi grew everywhere, endlessly scattering suffocating clouds of spores.
The stalks of half-daemonic plants swayed of their own accord, untouched by the still, acrid air.
Thick yellow plague-fog wrapped the rotting plants, so dense that not even a daemon's gaze could pierce it.
Polluted rivers and marshes bubbled and gurgled deep in the fog, giving off a constant foul miasma.
Every marsh was steeped in the fragments and souls of countless worlds, lamenting quietly in the mud.
The moment the Imperial warships bearing the Aquila reached the edge of the garden, they opened fire in unison.
The first Imperial battleships to enter Nurgle's domain deployed into combat formation as soon as their Navigators had confirmed their position.
Every macro-cannon along their broadsides locked onto its target at the same moment.
Shells whose casings had been anointed again and again with sacred oil by the Ecclesiarchy's battle-priests roared from the muzzles in dazzling flame.
The bombardment poured down like rain, striking the rotting garden with terrible explosions.
Countless clods of mud and rotten plants were blown into the air, and marshes bubbling with poison were churned over.
Nurgle's daemons crawled out of the ruined marshes, and plague-maggots rolled up from the depths of the mud.
Nurgle's greater daemons, dripping thick pus, opened their mouths wide and bellowed at the Imperial fleet overhead.
The daemons began their counterattack.
One after another, rotten, filthy warships emerged from the toxic fog.
Some had once been ships of the Imperial Navy; corrupted by filth, their hulls were now covered in diseased tissue that still writhed.
Some were half-rotted old wooden ships, every plank swollen like a waterlogged corpse.
Some were xenos warships sheathed in flesh, with writhing scraps of bloody meat crawling over their hulls.
The two fleets traded broadsides. Rotten ammunition spewed from the filthy ships' launch-ports, constantly dripping a sticky, pus-like fluid.
Nurgle's blessed shells burst the instant they struck the Imperial ships' void-shields, and the power of plague spread across the shields.
Once a blessed shield was torn, the hull behind it visibly rusted and crumbled.
Dark, plague-bearing beams crossed the grey void, each powerful enough to rot an entire battleship.
Holed ships began to rust and corrode rapidly from the point of impact.
Within seconds, ceramite plating crumbled from the edges into thick brown powder.
The Imperial forces were just as merciless. Blessed ammunition rained down on the enemy like a storm.
Every warhead carried a miniature core of life-energy supplied by Pudge himself.
On impact, it released life-energy that countered Nurgle's plagues.
While the two fleets clashed, the ground assault began.
Pudge, the plump angel of life, fought in concert with the first landing force of Grey Knights, Sisters of Silence, C'tan and Cegorach.
The transports crash-landed through the writhing, spore-filled air of the unclean domain.
Their hatches were blown off by explosive bolts the instant they touched down.
Pudge leapt out first.
The moment the plump boy set foot on the rotten soil of Nurgle's Garden, the mud at his feet shed its dark, decayed green and revealed a faint, vivid emerald.
A terrible wave of life-energy spread outwards from his swollen form.
Twisted, half-rotted trees were transformed the instant it touched them.
The plague-ridden vines withered and fell from the treetops, and healthy bark and soft green buds grew in their place.
The daemons it touched were forcibly reversed as well.
Wrapped in that gentle yet irresistible energy, the filthy spirits let out ear-splitting screams.
Then their ugly, rotten bodies collapsed on the spot and were reborn as entirely new forms of life.
Pudge, a higher life-form, had become the greatest threat to Nurgle.
If he seized the garden, Nurgle would lose all dominion over it.
The fate of a Chaos God stripped of domain and authority was obvious.
He would no longer be a god, but a lump of plague-residue that could be destroyed at any moment.
While the Imperial forces and Nurgle's army clashed, the armies of Tzeentch, Khorne and Slaanesh appeared on the battlefield, just as predicted.
The four Chaos Gods had waged battles of life and death against one another for thousands of years.
Yet to meet the threat of the Imperium of Man, they had to set aside their mutual hatred for now and fight it together.
Skarbrand roared as he confronted his former comrades.
Having devoured countless historical treasures, the blood-hungry daemon's power had reached an absurd level.
The wounds he had suffered when he was cast out of Khorne's domain had all healed, and the fleshy wings on his back had grown even thicker and broader.
Each swing of his gigantic axe reaped lives across a vast swathe, like a harvest. His thirst for blood was unquenchable.
"I am the true god of war, you fools!"
The shapeshifter led his own troops against Tzeentch's army, and his opponent was none other than Kairos, the Fateweaver.
"Kairos, surrender. The Nameless Ones are fated to rule the entire Warp. The gods have no chance of winning."
The shapeshifting spirit's voice issued from his ever-changing flesh, its timbre and rhythm shifting constantly.
"The C'tan, the Eldar and the greenskins have all been conquered by the Nameless One. The gods' defeat is inevitable."
At these words, both of Kairos's bird-heads twisted into ugly scowls.
Damn it — everything you have should have been mine.
The shapeshifter had been captured by the Nameless Ones before Kairos.
But when the Nameless One subdued him, the shapeshifter had been far weaker than Kairos.
If the Nameless Ones were choosing a successor to the Lord of Change, logic said they should have chosen the more powerful Kairos.
But Kairos had escaped, so the Nameless One chose the shapeshifter as successor instead, and he became the spirit of transformation.
By steadily absorbing the essence of history, the spirit of transformation had quietly grown more powerful than Kairos himself.
Damn it, why did I run?!
Kairos was tormented by regret.
If he had not fled during the battle of the Blackstone Fortress, everything the spirit of transformation now owned would be his.
"The Nameless One is doomed to fail," Kairos said it, though he did not believe it himself.
But now that it had come to this, even knowing he would lose, he had to say something to save face. Anything else would be too shameful.
The masked dancer led an elite unit to intercept Slaanesh's army as it tried to reinforce Nurgle's domain.
Her face and form were still the flawless sculpture Slaanesh had personally made for her.
Her skill at killing was as perfect as it had been when she fought for Slaanesh.
Slaanesh, watching the battle, noticed the masked dancer at once.
The one who had once fawned at his feet and spoken nothing but flattery was now leading the Nameless Ones' host against his daemon army.
Slaanesh roared in rage. "You accursed traitor! How dare you side with the Nameless Ones against me! You will never be forgiven!"
The masked dancer paid her former master's raging no heed at all.
Invading Slaanesh's domain and becoming a new goddess of art and beauty would be far easier than winning that bastard's forgiveness.
The entire Garden of Nurgle became a chaotic battlefield, every patch of ground torn between warring forces.
As planned, the Emperor sent the Legion of the Damned to launch a surprise attack on Tzeentch's territory.
The lord of humanity himself could not leave the Golden Throne, so Valdor commanded the Legion of the Damned in his stead: the souls of the most loyal fallen Astartes, gathered by the Emperor's will, who walked as living flame between reality and the Warp.
Apollonian Spear in hand, Valdor led the assault himself, advancing to the outermost layer of the Crystal Labyrinth and cutting down every daemon of Tzeentch in sight.
Yvraine, with the Ynnari and elite Imperial units, launched a surprise attack on Slaanesh's territory.
Khorne was Rogal Dorn's responsibility.
The Imperium's stubborn rock was preparing to lead the Imperial Fists and the Necrons in building a necropolis deep in the Warp.
The purpose of these raids was not to take the three gods' domains, but simply to make them hesitate to act.
Let the gods know that the Imperium of Man could turn its main force on them at any moment.
The tactic worked extremely well. The gods were forced to keep defences in place against the worst.
A sizeable part of the forces they had meant to commit in full was held back in reserve and could not be moved freely.
While the garden descended into chaos, Cegorach slipped into Nurgle's rotting mansion.
The Laughing God used his finest illusion-magic to beguile Nurgle's daemons and moved through the mansion as if it were his own domain.
He crossed the rotting courtyard, forever shrouded in thick plague-fog, made his way along corridors where pus oozed from cracks in the walls, and found the goddess of life, Isha, in a slime-filled room.
Isha's feet were chained; she could move only within the room.
She still wore an old green dress, now covered in dirt and black mould.
"Isha."
"Unbelievable!" Cegorach shouted in excitement.
At the sound, Isha raised her face, glanced at Cegorach standing in the doorway, then lowered her gaze again.
This is the heart of Nurgle's territory. How could Cegorach be here? It's an illusion. All of it is an illusion.
It must be Nurgle's new plague making me see things.
"Isha, it's me. It really is me."
Cegorach walked over and reached out to support her.
Feeling a real touch, Isha looked up again and stared at him. Light slowly returned to her vacant eyes, and a flush of excitement rose in her face.
"Cegorach, it really is you. It really is you."
"Tell me this isn't a dream. Tell me this isn't a dream."
"This is no dream, Isha. The nightmare is over. I've come to take you home," Cegorach said. "The children are waiting for you."
"Take me home? The children are waiting?" Isha looked stunned. "Yes. I want to go home. I want to see the children."
Cegorach drew a long sword and brought it down hard on the chain binding Isha's feet.
Sparks flew, the chain snapped, and Isha was free.
Cegorach grabbed her hand without hesitation and ran full tilt out of the mansion.
Nurgle, who had been watching the battlefield, sensed at once that something was wrong and let out a roar that shook the entire mansion.
...