Tzeentch's Schemes

With a word from the Master of Change, the heavens and earth within the Warp inverted. Tzeentch unleashed his divine power, dragging the Golden Sun deep into the heart of the Warp.

As the world settled from its distortion, the surrounding landscape had transformed entirely; several powerful wills had arrived at the intersection of the four gods' domains.

The four Chaos Gods and that near-divine entity descended upon the borderlands of the four realms—a place once desolate, now utterly changed.

Khorne had constructed a fortress of war here, with lava cascading down the towering walls of the Brass Fortress.

Various war machines churned through the smoke, and Khorne's Greater Daemons drilled their legions, ready at any moment to prove the might of the God of War through slaughter.

Opposite the war fortress stood another dreamlike structure: a fully transparent labyrinth that twisted the sense of space, making it impossible for any intruder to discern distance or direction.

The Ten-Thousand-Year Demon Lord chanted ancient incantations, his mysterious whispers echoing through the maze.

Incredible magics flowed within; the labyrinth appeared fragile to the touch, yet it was a fortress built of invisible walls.

Slaanesh's territory was suffused with a pink haze, and sounds of decadent indulgence rose and fell in waves.

Thorn Towers stood in rows, where torture and pleasure coexisted on every spire. In the magnificently twisted palace, Slaanesh's dancers moved with light steps, offering an eternal, ceaseless performance to the Dark Prince.

In Nurgle's Garden, laughter and joy created an atmosphere of peace; twisted trunks pulsed with life, and rotting grass sang.

Maggots and germs lay dormant in the swamps, while Nurglings chased each other in carefree, joyous play.

The bloated Great Unclean One sat with a distended belly, his festering, ruptured abdomen shaking off death-flies with every peal of laughter.

The armies of the four gods stood in formation, wary of one another. The air was thick with the scent of gunpowder; a single reason was all that was needed to ignite a chaotic war between the gods.

The land was unrecognizable; time was warped here, and space was distorted by the invisible clash of the four gods' powers.

Blood rain, symbol of Khorne, fell from the sky; the air was thick with Tzeentch's winds of magic; the power of Slaanesh drifted as a cloying mist; and the ground was a muddy, wretched swamp of Nurgle.

Amidst the evil powers of the four gods stood a tower cast of brass, eight hundred and eighty-eight meters high.

The tower's surface was covered in countless limbs, both joyful and agonized, and it was entwined from top to bottom with sickly green branches brimming with vitality.

At the pinnacle sat the Chaos Star, cast in brass and burning with blue psychic fire, within which a red soul drifted.

It was a tower forged by the four gods together, used to contain that mysterious soul.

As the ages passed, the red soul absorbed the power of the Warp, its essence growing until it far surpassed the Greater Daemons of the four gods, reaching the level of a "Lesser God."

As the wills of the four gods descended, the hosts of demons bowed their heads, thousands upon thousands kneeling as they shouted in unison: "Our God is here!"

The Chaos Gods did not respond to the demons' praise.

Fury erupted from Khorne's chest; for the first time in countless eons, his true form rose from the Brass Throne.

Grasping his blade, he questioned Tzeentch across the expanse of the divine realm: "What are you doing? This human's transaction did not include this."

Tzeentch merely smiled deviously, saying nothing, and used a gesture to send a secret message to the gods through his magical power.

"In the ages past, we tried countless methods to unlock its secrets, yet all were in vain, and time was squandered.

From this 'human's' transaction, my wisdom has peered into the future and glimpsed a possibility."

"What possibility?" Nurgle whispered, hating the uncertainty of change.

"When the soul leaves the Warp and is imbued with 'thought' once more by this human, its perfect purity may develop weaknesses due to so-called 'humanity.'

A human with immense power? Or perhaps a demigod walking in the material universe? They are but fodder for us."

The Master of Change spoke with a sinister tone, slowly detailing his plan in the ears of the gods.

To them, this was but a small part of a larger scheme.

That "human" who radiated golden light and dared to provoke the majesty of the gods would also be held in the grip of the Chaos Gods in the future.

Humans could not defy their fate; their gods possessed humanity and were destined to be embraced and assimilated by the Warp.

After the conspiracy, the gods nodded in satisfaction; though Tzeentch was incredibly treacherous, his schemes were indeed seasoned.

"I agree." After contemplation, Khorne finally consented to the plan Tzeentch had laid out; he would use the wisdom of the God of War to hold the future in his grasp.

Perhaps by taking the pure soul into his own ranks, once it possessed an independent will, its fate would no longer be its own to decide.

The gods would surely use all their power and every means at their disposal to claim it for themselves. And he, the God of War, would seize victory in the new struggle to come.

Khorne never feared schemes or plots; he possessed the war strategies of all sentient life and feared no challenge.

"Agreed." Nurgle pondered for a moment, rarely agreeing with Tzeentch's plan.

Though he hated change, when all things in the world returned to nothingness and all fates reached their end, change was an indisputable process.

Regardless, the Grandfather would toll the knell for the universe when the last atom came to a standstill, waiting for fate to return to one point.

Tzeentch's so-called "infinite change" was merely a necessary interlude in the ending of all things.

Nurgle only needed to act at the critical node, sitting at the end of all paths after fate had traversed its countless twists, waiting quietly for the end.

"I agree as well." Slaanesh consented; she had always known that as the "youngest" of the Chaos Gods, her influence was truly too low.

She would participate in the Great Game and enjoy the pleasure it brought.

Slaanesh was confident; she possessed the power to corrupt all things, and corrupting a demigod would require only the slightest effort.

The gods, each harboring their own ulterior motives, added a new covenant to the transaction and presented it before the "Master of Mankind."

The gods had already discerned the essence of the newcomer; he was the "protagonist" of the next cycle, the new pusher in the Great Game.

The four gods agreed to the transaction. An ancient parchment scroll took form within the Warp, and after the four gods branded it with their own marks, they pushed it toward the Master of Mankind.

The voices of the gods harmonized in that instant: "Human, sign it with your soul. Do not harbor thoughts of betrayal."

They never worried about the other party reneging on the deal.

Should a vow be broken, the gods would only intensify their retribution upon the human, reclaiming their interest a thousandfold.

They were even less concerned that the Master of Mankind would refuse the renegotiated terms.

Since He had decided to enter the Warp and approach the gods of His own volition, He was destined not to refuse the trivial demands they added.

The Golden Sun remained silent, though He felt a flicker of surprise when looking at the soul atop the high tower; how could a Lesser God's soul cause the four gods to join forces?

How many things were hidden here that He did not know?

He did not probe further, for He had no time to haggle with the gods; humanity awaited His salvation amidst their suffering.

"I agree."

He sighed softly, pressed His soul against the parchment scroll, and left behind a portion of His essence.

"Hahahahahaha..." With the deal concluded, the four gods departed the borderlands in a frenzy of laughter, their wanton cackles echoing throughout the Warp.

The Golden Sun waited in place, knowing the four gods would deliver the items specified in the contract to Him.

Turbulent waves surged through the Warp as the four gods utilized their supreme power, joining forces to exert their authority.

Wherever their will passed, the sea of souls erupted; they were hunting for the "Lesser God" hiding within the Warp.

Lesser God. Every Lesser God was a unique existence in the Warp, much like the four gods themselves, representing an extreme manifestation of the Warp.

They existed independently of the four-god system, wielding secondary powers beneath them. They possessed divine authority and power, yet remained subservient to the omniscient and omnipotent four gods.

Usually, they hid in the depths of the Warp to avoid being purged by the four gods, who sought to ensure their own rule remained unshaken.

The power of the four gods crisscrossed the Warp, much like a mortal snake-catcher beating the tall grass to startle the prey hiding within.

The Warp churned as the power of the four gods acted like a bucket of cold water poured into a boiling cauldron.

The Lesser Gods hiding within were forced to reveal themselves, turning to flee into the deeper reaches of the Warp—a move that played right into the hands of the four gods.

Though they were gods, the Lesser Gods were far too weak when faced with the four; they could not withstand the might of the four gods, and the moment they revealed themselves, their doom was sealed.

Khorne, clad in brass armor, gazed into the void from His throne.

The Dog-headed War God struck down with a blade, shattering the essence of a Lesser God and casually wiping away its consciousness to leave behind a pure soul.

The soul of a Lesser God was a flickering flame containing the god's authority—what mortals understood as a "divinity."

A wind of magic blew as Tzeentch hovered in the void. Moving both hands in tandem, magic surged from His withered fingertips.

His fingers brushed through the void, whipping up ghostly blue magical flames that ignited the entire Warp, refining the will of the Lesser God.

Slaanesh twisted her waist, rising slowly and enchantingly from her fragrant bed before stepping out of her luxurious palace with supreme elegance.

Her flawless body swayed gently as she pierced the Warp with a single strike of her serpentine rapier; with an elegant flick, a Lesser God's divinity slid from the tip of her blade and into her hand.

Nurgle squatted deep within his garden, his small eyes narrowing as he searched for a target. He took a large spoon from his cauldron and scooped gently into the depths of the Warp.

The Lesser God shrieked in terror within his spoon before being shoved into the great pot; by the time it was scooped out again, it had become a pure divinity.

The might of the four gods swept through the Warp, causing a great number of Lesser Gods to fall, while many more fled into the deep reaches of the Warp to escape the fate of being slaughtered.

"Enough. The deal requires twenty; any more will affect the stability of the sea of souls."

Tzeentch, with five divinities floating in his palm, spoke up to stop Khorne, who was just about to unleash a massacre.

The existence of Lesser Gods was an equally indispensable part of the Warp.

If the Warp were compared to an ocean, the four gods were the unquestionable, unshakable continents that held absolute dominion over it.

The Lesser Gods, however, were the extensions of the Warp, constantly probing new boundaries like the tide.

Inherent and newborn—the two existed in vastly different ways.

The four gods guarded their own territories as eternal entities, while the Lesser Gods represented the new, which was also prone to premature death.

The disappearance of too many Lesser Gods would leave the extreme emotions they governed without a vessel, disrupting the chaotic order of the Warp.

The Warp was inherently the most chaotic of places, yet the four gods, as its strongest entities, had inadvertently created order by guiding the Warp toward the extremes of their own authority—a contradictory order that was both extreme and chaotic, unique to the Warp.

"Hmph. I have not yet had my fill." Khorne let out a cold snort, returned to the Skull Throne, and tossed out five divinities.

Five flew in from the distance, followed by another five from a different direction.

A full twenty pure divinities floated before Tzeentch; the four gods had each completed their required share, and He would handle the remainder of the transaction on their behalf.