Khorne Sends You a Battle Invitation

"Boom, boom..." The altar, deprived of its energy source, began to collapse within seconds, and the pale green space started to fade away.

Sandman made no move at this moment. His eyes were fixed on the depths of the Warp, alert for any deadly threat that might suddenly emerge from it. The black flames on his body rapidly shifted form, transforming from burning fire into a suit of pure black armor that covered him.

The power of the Star God began to assist the laws of the Material Universe in expelling the Warp's influence.

The Warp, Nurgle's Garden.

"Hmm, Limux is dead?" Nurgle, who stirred the boiling pus in his great cauldron day after day, suddenly stopped his ladle. A dense killing intent radiated from the shabby wooden hut, enveloping the entire garden.

The death of a single Daemon meant little to Nurgle. Even if all his greater daemons—Father of Rain, Kurgas, and the rest—died at once, he wouldn't bat an eye. They'd just respawn after being re-summoned.

In essence, a Daemon was nothing more than a trivial fragment of a Chaos God. As long as the Chaos God endured, they could never truly perish—unless another Chaos God intervened to permanently destroy a being of that level.

But Limux's death was absolute annihilation, an irreversible end. It meant a sliver of Nurgle's power had been permanently erased from its source by an unknown enemy. Though Nurgle could quickly replenish that loss, the dignity of a Chaos God could not be insulted!

Nurgle's gaze pierced through infinite time and space, landing on the place where Limux had vanished.

"Tzeentch!!!" Nurgle's sight only caught a blue figure standing before his gaze. No matter which angle he looked from, that damned blue form seemed to mock him mercilessly.

"Get out of my way!" From within the hut, Nurgle raised his hand and splashed the boiling pus from his cauldron toward the blue figure with his long-handled wooden ladle.

To Nurgle's surprise, Tzeentch's blue figure simply dissipated like foam, leaving behind only a meaningful smile—a smile that seemed to gaze back at Nurgle in his garden.

In that brief delay, by the time Nurgle's attention turned back to where Limux had vanished, the laws of the Material Universe had already pulled the part of the Hive World that had fallen into the Warp back into reality and begun reinforcing the local reality's rules around the planet.

"Necron!" Nurgle coldly observed the abnormal speed at which the Material Universe's laws were repairing themselves on Sverin, and the image of that god-slaying race surfaced in his mind.

"The target Limux chose was a Necron Tomb World? No, Tzeentch wouldn't shield the Necrons." Nurgle dismissed the possibility. That race, doomed to have no future, wasn't worth Tzeentch's personal involvement. There had to be something he didn't know.

Having pondered this, Nurgle straightened his massive body. He intended to personally visit his old rival for a proper chat. He felt that the death of his greater daemon this time would pose a serious threat to him.

"Roar..." Just as Nurgle prepared to move, a earth-shaking scream erupted from the northwest direction of the Warp.

That roar was filled with an endless lust for slaughter, reaching the ears of Nurgle and Tzeentch. The Lord of the Brass Throne watched eagerly as two Chaos Gods were about to clash.

Translated, Khorne's roar meant, "Let's have a good, bloody fight!"

Nurgle's movement immediately halted. He seemed to recall some extremely unpleasant images. Glancing at his simmering soup, he picked up his ladle again and resumed stirring.

The Crystal Labyrinth.

"Little one, you'd better grow up quickly. I'm looking forward to your confrontation with Nurgle, hahaha. Change, endless change." The Lord of Change let out a burst of utterly delighted laughter.

"Nurgle wants to spar with me? Perfect—I haven't stretched my legs in a while!" After laughing, the Lord of Change, floating above the Throne of Knowledge, felt Nurgle's intent to act and grew excited.

In the Material Universe, they couldn't interfere. The Warp had been too quiet for too long. Such days felt dull for Tzeentch, who thrived on change. Neither man nor god could just read books forever; life needed some variety.

But the next second, Khorne's battle-crazed roar slammed Tzeentch from his floating state straight into the wide seat of the Throne of Knowledge.

The image of a mage getting rushed by a berserker was seared into Tzeentch's memory...

"Hehehe..." After the murderous roar faded, the Warp fell into an eerie silence, broken only by a seductive, light laugh. The voice, neither male nor female, neither old nor young, rippled through the ears of the Chaos Gods.

In response to that laugh, attacks came from the other three directions in the Warp—a blood-red filled with slaughter, a shifting blue, and a green light steeped in endless decay—all slamming straight into the purple silver palace...

That seductive voice was abruptly cut off, like a crowing rooster suddenly choked. The Warp settled back into a peaceful calm.

Sverin

Sandman's state of alert only ended when the Material Universe's laws dragged the entire planet back into the galaxy and reinforced it. The black armor formed from psychic energy reverted to black flames and sank back into Sandman's body.

"Phew..." Confirming everything was fine, Sandman let out a long breath. Though he'd been prepared to expose himself to Nurgle, it seemed Nurgle had other matters to attend to and couldn't be bothered with a tiny insect like him.

Even if only an avatar had come, dealing with it wouldn't have been easy for Sandman. But now, nothing happening was the best outcome.

Yet things weren't as Sandman imagined. A new God War had nearly erupted in the Warp because of his actions. Fortunately, the impression Khorne had left on Nurgle and Tzeentch was too deep, quelling the brewing conflict.

"Good thing the enemy didn't show up." Korax relaxed as he watched Sandman drop his guard. Enemies of this caliber were far beyond his league.

"A Chaos God's descent isn't that simple. At most, it's a divine projection. But even that would be trouble for us. Until you have absolute power, the first thing to do when facing such enemies is run—run without hesitation." Sandman cautioned Korax.

"I understand." Korax readily accepted this advice. Only an idiot wouldn't flee from an enemy whose mere birth cry could tear such a terrifying rift in the Material Universe.

"The Landing Force has begun clearing the remaining enemies on the planet. According to reports, there seem to be no survivors." Korax said, looking at the battle reports from the Legion.

"If there were survivors, that would be abnormal." Sandman had already known the answer.

If the planet had just begun suffering Chaos corruption, there might have been a chance to save it. But by the time they arrived, part of the planet had already been dragged into the Warp. In the later, fanatical Imperium, an Exterminatus order would have been issued by now.

The Chapter-era Imperium didn't have the ability to kill a Chaos Daemon outright and pull a planet out of the Warp's cesspool.

Still, even though part of the planet had fallen into that cesspool, it could be cleaned and reused. And with all the cultists and population gone, most of the screening work was saved. They could just immigrate from other Hive Worlds.

Most of the planet's structures were intact. Once the population arrived, production could resume immediately.

Life in this galaxy was that harsh. Even if an entire planet's population vanished, within a year, it would be filled with countless people again, continuing the endless cycle of supplying the Emperor's Great Crusade with whatever was needed.

Even at the very end of life, one could choose to toss that coin into a starch factory, or on the battlefield, have a commander swing it like a bag of coins straight into an enemy's face.

A Stormbird carried the Legion's Primarch and Legionary Commander toward the fleet waiting in orbit. On the ground, the Raven Guard advanced steadily. The greatest threat on the planet had been eliminated. Sandman didn't think the remaining rabble could stand against fully armed Astartes.

With intelligence support and the presence of Blanks, clearing the surviving cultists was just a matter of time. As for Chaos Daemons? They'd been banished when the planet was pulled back into the Material Universe. Now, only Nurgle's followers were scurrying around.

Speaking of these cultists who worshipped the Chaos Gods, they had it pretty rough. Not only did they have to do all the dirty work in the Material Universe, but when things spiraled out of control, they were the first to be abandoned. Chaos Daemons didn't care—they'd just respawn in the Warp.

But cultists couldn't. Until they transformed into Chaos Daemons, they were still flesh and blood. One Bolter round would turn them into a pile of shredded meat.

Of course, many Chaos Daemons had walked that same path. Turning a Chaos worshipper into a Daemon was no simple feat.

For the common people, even throwing themselves into the embrace of Chaos mostly just makes them cannon fodder. The difficulty of clawing their way out of that is no less than becoming the Emperor's Angel of Death.

Styx, secret chamber.

"Alright, alright, stop yelling, there's none left!!!" Sandman shut himself in the secret chamber, speaking to his Warp projection with a splitting headache.

Ever since devouring that Nurgle Daemon, his Warp projection had been constantly sending him the urge to eat more demons, especially that big chunk of food.

The problem was, in this environment, where was he supposed to find demons for his Warp projection to eat?

"Just hold on a little longer. Eat those cultists' souls for now. Later, we'll break into the Warp and let you eat your fill!" Sandman dangled a carrot in front of his Warp projection like coaxing a child.

As if sensing that Sandman really had no other option, the Death God in the Warp reluctantly calmed down and went to pick up the pitifully few souls of Chaos believers on this planet.

"No wonder He was so excited. I'm the same. At first, I thought Ant Beef was delicious, but after tasting the flavor of a Star God Fragment, my interest in those mundane delicacies has dropped drastically." Sandman pondered why his Warp projection was so eager to hunt Chaos Demons and suddenly understood.

The essence of a Nurgle Daemon or any Chaos Demon is the divine power fragments of the Chaos Gods. Eating these demons that belong to a patron is essentially devouring the essence of the Chaos Gods themselves. Ordinary souls are nowhere near comparable to the fragments of a god—the gap is more than a hundred thousand miles.

"Well damn, this completely cuts off my path to turning to Chaos! Damn it, that Yellow Skin misled me!" Sandman realized the danger as it dawned on him.

In the Material Universe, he was fighting Necrons. In the Warp, he was fighting all the Chaos Gods. Neither the Four Great Evils, nor Gork and Mork, nor those Eldar Remnants hiding deep in the Webway seemed willing to tolerate his existence.

Who would want to watch something that could one day devour them grow up?

"No, Tzeentch has probably already sensed my existence. With such a huge variable, the Lord of Change's authority couldn't possibly miss it. It was Tzeentch who held back Nurgle!!!" Sandman's hair stood on end.

If there was one Chaos God he least wanted to face, it was undoubtedly Tzeentch. What kind of being could outthink the Lord of Change?

Even someone as strong as the Emperor had his moves predicted by Tzeentch from the start, who snatched Magnus and the Thousand Sons right into his grasp.

If not for that Psyker Nuke, which Tzeentch had epically empowered, the Emperor's Webway project wouldn't have failed. Even if the plan had been leaked, it wouldn't have caused such severe consequences.

The Custodes and Sisters of Silence were nearly wiped out in the Webway War. Most critically, Tzeentch also schemed against Malcador. For the Emperor to leave the Golden Throne, he needed a powerful enough Psyker to seal the Webway breach.

In the entire Imperium, besides the Emperor, only Magnus and Malcador had that ability. But Magnus was already in Tzeentch's hands.

It could be said that if Malcador hadn't died, even with the Custodes and Ordo Hereticus suffering heavy losses and the Emperor gravely wounded on the Golden Throne, the Imperium's situation wouldn't have deteriorated so quickly. The constitution and vision of an Immortal wouldn't be as shortsighted as the High Lords'.

Unfortunately, Tzeentch's schemes were too formidable. He laid out everything for the Emperor perfectly, destroyed the Webway project, successfully got Malcador killed, and with the two main pillars of the Imperium gone, the chessboard could only keep falling apart.

Realizing all this, Sandman immediately activated the Psyker Communication Array to contact the Emperor, who was off fighting somewhere unknown.