Hello, Slaanesh

Ever since escaping into the Black Library that day, Slaanesh had been maintaining this state, guarding against the great enemy of the Ling Clan, Slaanesh, for an unknown, incredibly long time.

But fortunately, such days would soon end, and the era belonging to the Ling Clan would surely descend again!

Time flowed by second by second, everything was as calm as usual. After a long period of full alert, the Laughing God finally relaxed a little.

This was a fixed habit he had developed over the years. Neither mortal nor deity could keep their nerves perpetually taut, especially when the process was incredibly long. Appropriate rest allowed him to work in a better state.

The Laughing God withdrew half of his attention from the monotonous guarding formation of the Black Library and, in a rare display of extravagance, brewed himself a cup of coffee produced in the Ling Clan Pantheon.

This item had become a unique artifact after the great fall of the Ling Clan. The stock the Laughing God had wouldn't last much longer.

Slaanesh gently caressed the rim of the bone china coffee cup, his gaze falling on the dark brown liquid within. The swirling steam blurred the expression in his eyes. "What a pity."

A soft sigh escaped his lips, his tone filled with an indescribable complexity—both regret that he might never taste such a rich flavor again, and nostalgia for the Ling Clan Divine Court era that had once dominated the galaxy for over sixty million years, now reduced to ruins.

"Hmm?" The Laughing God, who had been sipping his coffee, suddenly paused. The cup was still at his lips, and the smile on his face vanished instantly. His pointed ears, capable of sensing the slightest fluctuations in the Warp, twitched slightly, clearly capturing an abnormal tremor from the warning formation he had set up around the Black Library.

It was not the erosion of Chaos energy, nor the probing of Slaanesh, but a pressure with an absolute sense of order, rapidly enveloping him through the endless void.

At that very moment, a majestic voice, as if spanning billions of years of time and space, exploded directly in Slaanesh's mind.

"Hello, Slaanesh," the voice of the Master of Mankind, the Emperor, reached Slaanesh's ears through the endless void.

Within a millisecond, the pupils of the Laughing God contracted sharply. Without hesitation, he activated the teleportation formation he had painstakingly set up.

Runes flowed rapidly across the dome of the Black Library, the entire space beginning to warp subtly—the power of this formation lay in its ability to instantly teleport the Black Library to any corner of the Warp, a destination even the caster could not predict.

Only by not knowing the next destination oneself could one maximize the avoidance of Slaanesh's pervasive tracking; this was a strict rule the Laughing God had followed for many years.

However, despite all his calculations, he never expected that Slaanesh, whom he had exhausted himself defending against, would not come, but instead, the Master of Mankind would arrive first.

Yet, in the next second, the Psionic Energy around the Laughing God suddenly faltered, and the panic on his face was instantly replaced by solemnity—he clearly felt that the teleportation formation, which had taken thousands of years of effort to set up, had deviated from his control.

The rune energy, which should have been as controllable as his own limbs, was now as if tripped by an invisible force, pausing for a brief moment. Looking along the formation nodes, his pupils contracted sharply.

Countless strands of extremely fine black energy, like a persistent ulcer, were entwining themselves around the Black Library's energy nexus, silently interfering with the operation of his divine power, like a hidden knife severing some of his connections to the formation.

"Dark King!!!" an unwilling roar erupted from the Laughing God's throat, his voice filled with fury and bone-chilling cold.

The moment he saw the black energy, all his doubts were answered—memories from the future surged like a tide. He finally understood the cause and effect of everything. When his future self reached an agreement with the Dark King, the latter had already left a contingency. It was he who had leaked the information about the Black Library to the Emperor of this timeline.

Before the Laughing God's roar had even faded, a brilliant golden fist shadow tore through the void, smashing towards the outer defense system like a falling star.

With a series of deafening roars, the countless layers of warning formations and protective barriers set up by the Laughing God shattered like fragile glass. Wherever the golden light passed, all of the Laughing God's arrangements were forcefully flattened.

It was at this critical juncture that the teleportation formation finally broke free from the interference of the black energy, erupting with dazzling pale purple light.

The entire Black Library began to tremble violently, space warping like ripples on water. In the next second, it vanished from its original location deep within the Webway, teleported to an unknown corner of the Webway—but all of this was already too late.

The Emperor's golden figure and a black figure, which the Laughing God had never seen before, simultaneously broke through the remaining defenses, charging into the core area of the Black Library like two bolts of lightning.

Golden energy and black energy instantly spread out, weaving into an invisible net throughout the entire space, firmly sealing the Black Library.

Both the Ling Clan's psionic fluctuations and the Warp's energy flow were rigidly restrained by these two forces, leaving no room for escape.

"Act!" The Emperor wasted no words. Before his voice even fell, his massive fist, covered in golden energy, smashed down with the power to shatter the void towards Slaanesh, who was about to turn and flee.

The frail body of the Laughing God, in the face of this absolute power, was like a puppet with a broken string. He was hit squarely in the chest by a punch.

"Pfft—" A muffled sound, and divine blood gushed out of his nose and mouth like a scarlet fountain. His body was like a launched meteor, smashing heavily against the stone wall of the Black Library. The wall instantly covered in a spiderweb of cracks. He collapsed to the ground, his chest visibly caved in, his aura suddenly weakening.

On the other side, Sandman remained silent from beginning to end. A dense aura of death emanated from him. The unseen connection, as fellow reapers, acted like an invisible thread, locking onto the location of the Ling Clan's death god, Ynnead, the moment he stepped into the Black Library.

Without any hesitation, Sandman transformed into a black lightning bolt, charging directly towards the area emitting a faint soul glow. The Death Scythe in his hand trembled slightly, as if eager to clash with its counterpart.

"No!!!" The Laughing God struggled to lift his head. Seeing Sandman's charge, his pupils contracted to the size of pinpricks. A piercing scream erupted from his blood-stained throat.

He instantly understood the Emperor's and Sandman's scheme—Ynnead was the Ling Clan's only hope against Slaanesh and for the continuation of their civilization. Once extinguished, the Ling Clan would truly have no chance of recovery.

He tried to struggle to his feet to stop them, but the power of the Emperor's punch had already shattered the foundation of his divine body. His limbs spasmed in agony, and he could only watch helplessly as the black reaper figure drew closer and closer to the Ling Clan's last salvation.

A surging divine flame suddenly erupted from within Slaanesh. The pale purple flames, carrying his remaining divine power, stirred up scorching heat waves in the space of the Black Library.

He ignored the excruciating pain in his chest, and the impending collapse of his divine body from burning his divine power—for the Ling Clan's last hope, he had to gamble everything.

"You must stop him!" Slaanesh roared, his burning body transforming into a purple meteor, dragging a long fiery tail, and charging madly towards Sandman at a speed that surprised even the Emperor.

Divine blood dripped from his fingertips, condensing into fleeting blood beads in the void. Every breath brought tearing pain, but his eyes were exceptionally firm.

In the core area of the endless circuit, two black figures had already intertwined into a terrifying storm of death, churning within, shredding the souls of the Ling Clan's ancestors into pieces.

The death god projection formed by Sandman was enveloped in black death energy. The silhouette holding the scythe flickered in and out of existence within the energy. Every swing carried the might of "devouring all things."

In contrast, there was Ynnead's mask avatar—it was a Ling Clan death god mask emitting a pale glow, surrounded by countless fine points of Ling Clan soul light, desperately fighting against Sandman's projection.

However, the strength of both sides was not equal this time. Sandman's death god projection was only one step away from complete manifestation and was currently like a hungry great beast, devouring at an astonishing speed.

The soul light points around Ynnead decreased at a visible rate. On the other hand, Ynnead, unable to even condense a complete body, could only rely on his own authority and the souls remaining in the endless circuit to resist. Half of his condensed torso twisted and dissipated under Sandman's pressure.

"Senior, save me!" Ynnead's voice, trembling as if on the verge of collapse, reached Slaanesh's ears through the energy storm.

Most of the soul light points around him had already dissipated, and the faint glow on his mask grew dimmer. If he continued to be devoured by Sandman like this, he would be completely annihilated in a few moments—Slaanesh's approach was his only lifeline at this moment.

"Heh, save you?" Sandman's laughter was filled with cruel mockery. He didn't even look back at the speeding Slaanesh, merely glancing at Ynnead from the corner of his eye with his death god projection. "Your senior is struggling to save himself, so you'd better pray for your own salvation."

He had absolute confidence in the Emperor's strength. Since the Emperor had chosen to act, he would never give Slaanesh an opportunity to interfere with them. Sandman had never doubted this.

As expected, as soon as Sandman's words fell, Slaanesh in mid-air let out a heart-wrenching scream.

The tragic sound was not like the pain of physical injury, but more like the extreme agony of the soul, divine body, and mental will being simultaneously burned.

Ynnead's expectant gaze froze instantly—he saw a dazzling, blinding golden light, like a meteor cutting through darkness, directly pierce through Slaanesh's burning divine flame body.