The twin swords were like moons, cold and sharp as the wind.
As his form whirled and swept, two silver-white streaks flashed, carrying the thunderous force of a million bolts, and Zelo slashed toward Grandfather Syllax with blinding speed!
In an instant, heaven and earth shifted.
Within the Immaterium, winds surged and storms erupted.
The psychic energy that had accumulated on Stoll Star for centuries poured out toward the very center of the storm.
Billions of souls wept and murmured in low, urgent groans.
Were they welcoming the end of their suffering?
Or were they rejoicing in the awakening of a new god?
To Syllax, the slaver, Stoll Star, this planet steeped in pain and blood, had only one purpose for existing: to serve as the cradle of a new god, nourishing and resurrecting the God of Pain.
Sacrifice, to gather power for the god.
Grandfather sensed the Immaterium’s call.
The Immaterium delivered its decree, whispering to it.
Grandfather Syllax knew what it had to do.
It would sacrifice the suffering it had amassed over ten million years.
It would sacrifice its own soul to the god that had already arrived above Stoll Star, guiding that god so It could completely claim the vessel Syllax had chosen for It.
Zelo was only a vessel: a flawless body, a container that had appeared at just the right moment.
The God of Pain had already planted the seed of Its resurrection within him.
With only a little guidance, a little hint, It would fully seize this body and be reborn into the world.
All of this, all of it, was for Its birth!
For It to walk among you and me, to deliver Its gospel!
To lead everyone to the slumbering land without sorrow or pain!
Grandfather had already seen the future with its thousand eyes.
It had seen the god it had striven for centuries to awaken!
Power, glory, prosperity, Grandfather Syllax cared for none of it.
As long as it could awaken its god, it could forsake everything!
So, facing Zelo, who had come to slay it, Grandfather laughed instead.
With fervent, expectant joy, it spread its arms wide to Zelo, preparing to sacrifice its soul and everything it possessed to its Master in exchange for the god’s awakening.
In a split second, Grandfather lunged at Zelo, who was leaping into the air.
Raising its forebody, all the people clinging to it spread their arms, reaching out to touch the unborn god.
Midair, Zelo’s eyes snapped wide.
He did not understand what this xenos was doing, but his strike was already committed.
He simply mustered all his strength, gathered all his psychic might, and slashed at the monstrous xenos!
Violent psychic energy erupted at the point where the man and the xenos met!
!!!
“This isn’t right!” Above Stoll Star, within the fleet, the middle-aged man who had been standing in the command room suddenly let out a sharp roar.
The next instant, the man in the simple white robe transformed into the golden-armored Emperor.
Brilliant golden light burst from the Emperor’s eyes.
He stared fixedly in the direction of Stoll Star.
No.
How could this be?
The Veil between the Warp and the material world was not yet thin enough to allow Daemons to pass freely.
Then why was such a dense concentration of Warp energy coalescing on that planet?
And just now, for one instant, the Emperor had sensed a sinister presence flickering through the Warp, an existence unborn, yet striving to be born.
Beside him, Malcador also realized things were not as simple as they had imagined.
The old man approached the observation window, frowning as he stared intently at Stoll Star.
“A powerful Daemon is trying to break through the Veil and manifest in the material realm.” Malcador said.
This planet was heavily corrupted.
“Far more than just a Daemon.” The Emperor’s expression was stern, yet His voice remained unhurried as psychic light flickered around Him.
“It seems we can’t wait for the fleet to land.
I need to go down there.” The next moment, golden radiance blazed forth.
—– Zelo, however, was unaware that his creator, his Father, the Emperor of the Imperium, had already arrived in the star system.
Had he known, he would have abandoned this assault, bowed directly before the Emperor, and used the Imperium’s might, rather than Stollian blood, to slay Grandfather Syllax.
But he did not know.
In all his life before this moment, he had never prayed, as others did, for the appearance of a greater being.
For Zelo, no higher power existed to end suffering and confusion.
He never indulged in unrealistic fantasies.
And so he charged forward, wielding his twin swords, his psychic power cleaving the wind before him, yet Grandfather Syllax showed no fear.
Zelo tore through its flesh with his dual blades, its plump, bloody-sweet flesh splitting like an overfilled pastry, and he landed in the midst of Grandfather Syllax, now opened by a great vertical gash.
But the next moment, Grandfather Syllax’s wound suddenly healed.
Countless hands thrust out from within the gash, far faster than Zelo could react, and they gleefully dragged him inside, pulling him into Grandfather Syllax’s body.
?!
Zelo made a snap decision.
He intended to detonate his soul to shatter Grandfather Syllax, but at that very moment, his vaunted psychic power failed him.
“Your power came from It in the first place!” Grandfather Syllax mocked him, dragging Zelo deeper into its flesh.
It began burning its own soul to pray for its god’s descent.
“My Lord!
Lord who ends all suffering!
Your most sincere follower calls upon You!” Grandfather Syllax’s entire body churned.
The humanoid forms writhed like squirming maggots, and within that darkness and blood, Zelo suddenly felt a suffocating agony.
The pain was like every shred of flesh and every bone in his body being ground into fine dust.
Zelo had long since ceased to feel any physical pain, but now agony clung to his flesh like worms gnawing through him, countless and unrelenting.
Whispers from the Warp murmured in his ear.
In a daze, Zelo saw a monster, a pure entity of the Warp, staring at him and reaching out a hand toward him.
It was an invitation that brooked no refusal, carrying an immense allure, bearing gifts that no selfish soul in this world could refuse.
For a moment, Zelo even felt himself waver.
But in an instant, he woke, and then came a greater pain, born from within, from the depths of his soul.
*I made them a promise,* Zelo thought, in agony.
*I said I would end their suffering.* The suffering people, their painful moans, the agony of witnessing it all, Zelo began to struggle.
In the swamp-like mass of flesh, he forcibly raised his swords.
He realized that physical attacks could not end a life born from the Warp.
“Then what about my soul?” Zelo growled through gritted teeth.
He knew that his psychic ability had awakened later in life; he had originally possessed no innate talent.
But even those completely devoid of psychic talent still possessed their own souls.
In their daily resistance, Zelo and his armies discovered that at the moment of death, a person’s soul would erupt in a burst.
For those without psychic power, for those utterly devoid of talent, this eruption was the only Warp storm they could ever stir, and the Warp’s final blessing upon ordinary mortals.
“Even if I have no psychic talent, I still possess my own soul!!!” Without a moment’s hesitation, Zelo raised his sword and cut himself down.
He hoped that, just as his body was extraordinary beyond measure, his soul too would prove strong enough, and that the explosion at the moment of death would end Grandfather Syllax’s life and with it, the tragedy upon Stoll Star.
He did not consider this act noble.
He was merely doing what every Stollian had to do, what every Gale-Breaker, every warrior, would choose to do.
Zelo only wished for it all to end.
The blade was cold.
He felt a pang of regret, not for dying, but for being unable to devise a more thorough plan, though this attack had already been simulated a thousand times.
Faced with the greatest slaver, the Stollians were helpless, and when desperation drove them mad, they chose the most insane tactic: Zelo would detonate himself alongside Grandfather Syllax.
The blade pressed inward, swift and light, like a chill breeze.
Though he could not channel psychic power, Zelo could channel his own soul.
In that instant, he seemed to feel it.
It was a quiet, desolate void.
Then, amid Grandfather Syllax’s shrieks and screams, Zelo’s vision went dark.
In that final moment, he saw the soul explosion he had triggered, a great wave surging through the Warp.
“NO!!!
THIS IS WRONG!!!” Grandfather Syllax screamed, but Zelo could no longer hear it.
He fell, together with his soul, into that agonizing darkness, tumbling into the currents of the Warp.
There was no longer the sound of wind in Zelo’s ears.
No sound of breathing.
No sound of Grandfather Syllax’s words.
His consciousness pierced through the Veil from the physical world, plunging into the bottomless Immaterium.
In a lonely expanse of black, he saw a monster, a naked, fleshy abomination.
It crawled toward Zelo.
Zelo tried to rise, but could not move.
Was this what the slavers called a god?
In mere moments, the monster had reached his side.
Zelo tried to roar, tried to raise his sword, but no matter how hard he strained, he could not move.
He could only watch as the monster smiled at him, revealing perfect teeth.
It reached its hand toward his forehead.
Ethereal psychic power dripped from its fingertips down to his hairline.
Zelo began to scream.
He saw.
He saw the future.
He saw the past.
He saw the ancient War in Heaven among the primeval xenos, where planets were no more than ammunition in that grand conflict.
He saw the birth of Slaanesh, the Lord of Excess born from the Aeldari’s endless desires.
He saw the rebellion of the Men of Iron, igniting flames across the Galaxy.
He saw a great fall, sons killing fathers and fathers killing sons.
He saw the Chaos Gods reaching their hands toward innocent souls.
The Galaxy screamed in agony as it staggered toward endless despair.
He saw the most tormented being seated upon a Throne, eternal, silent screams echoing without end throughout the Galaxy.
Countless, hundreds of millions of pure suffering and anguish echoed within the Warp, nourishing an unborn god.
It desired to be born, yet Its domain was treated as scraps from the Chaos Gods’ feast, divided and devoured by the gods.
Pain, too much pain.
That god then poured all the bitterness and despair of the cosmos into Zelo’s soul, and It also begged Zelo, pleading: It wanted to be born.
It wanted to end all this suffering.
Please, let me be born.
It needed to be born.
No!!!
Zelo resisted instinctively, but tears streamed from his eyes.
He saw countless, billions of tormented people.
How could he bear to witness those agonies?
He could not stand idly by in the face of such pain.
If he became It, became the god who ruled over Pain, would he then be able to end all this suffering?
Zelo wept.
His soul wept.
It was the weeping of a helpless soul before a vast, tragic calamity.
Yet he had never hoped for a savior.
He only knew that the one he could rely on was himself.
His reason told him that the Chaos Gods in the Warp needed an adversary, one who would make Them respect the suffering of living beings rather than treating it as an appetizer for Their amusement.
“If I become you, will you end this suffering?” Zelo asked, and then he reached out his hand toward that pain-wracked god.
The god smiled.
It bared Its white teeth and opened Its mouth, as if to swear some unbreakable oath with Zelo.
But the next instant, golden flame blazed up, kindling into a towering inferno of rage in a flash.
The naked, flesh-and-blood god fell silent and slunk back into the darkness beyond the fire’s reach.
The other watching gazes in the Warp also turned away in unison, no longer watching, no longer speaking.
+*I command you to withdraw!*+ The master of the golden flame roared, His voice majestic and brimming with fury.
The golden flame surged more fiercely with His roar, as if ten thousand suns were rising here all at once.
At the same time, Zelo felt a powerful, irresistible force seize his arms, dragging him back from hell to the mortal world.
At the boundary between the mortal world and hell, Zelo also heard the final curse of Grandfather Syllax before its death.
“I curse you to betray your closest kin and slay your own brothers!
I curse you to be scorned by your brothers, to be beheaded by one of your own blood!” That xenos, believing its ritual to summon a god had failed, shouted its curse.
Immediately afterward, it was shattered by the shockwave of Zelo’s soul explosion.
But now, none of that mattered.
Zelo stared blankly, realizing he was still alive.
In that moment, a man pulled him up from the bloody remains of Grandfather Syllax and the people.
Before Zelo’s vision could focus, he could only sense that the one pulling him up was frowning, scrutinizing Zelo with a careful gaze.
Zelo had no strength left and was nearly unconscious.
If the man were not holding him up, he would have collapsed to the ground and lost consciousness.
“Thank you…
put me down.” Zelo forced out a feeble whisper.
He had learned too much in the Warp just now; his reason and soul had yet to catch up with the events themselves.
He was clinging to consciousness through sheer will and instinct.
Zelo realized Grandfather Syllax was dead.
That heavy weight in his heart had fallen away.
All he wanted now was a brief rest.
“No.” The man holding him said this, then asked, “What are you doing?” By then, Zelo’s awareness began to return.
His unfocused pupils sharpened, allowing him to see the face of the man before him.
Zelo remembered.
This face had appeared before, in the wisdom granted to him by the God of the Warp just moments ago.
He was the most tormented one, bound upon a Throne, his agony filling an entire ocean.
The shock finally hit him.
The moment Zelo saw that face, he wanted to weep.
He wished he could immediately end the suffering this man might one day face.
So Zelo said, “I will become a God.” To end people’s suffering.
The Emperor frowned.
He looked upon His Eleventh Primarch.
This Primarch was severely tainted.
He was evaluating whether he could be deployed into the Great Crusade.
But things turned out worse than the Emperor had imagined.
“Gods do not exist.” The Emperor countered.
“Then what are the Four Gods?” Zelo asked, bewildered.
If gods did not exist, then what were those Warp entities he had just seen?
“…” The Emperor said nothing.
Just as Zelo had asked, He simply released His grip on the Primarch.
Thud!
The Primarch crashed straight to the ground and immediately fell unconscious.
“How is he?” Behind the Emperor, Malcador appeared, holding his scepter.
“Worse than I imagined.” The Emperor murmured.
The Emperor and Malcador looked up, seeing the corpses of Daemons and heretics strewn everywhere.
“This place warrants Exterminatus.”