As the Master of Change spoke, heaven and earth in the Warp turned upside down. Tzeentch wielded his divine power and brought the Golden Sun into the depths of the Warp.
When the world settled back into place from its distortion, the surrounding scene had changed completely. Several powerful wills had arrived at the junction of the Four Chaos Gods' domains.
The four evil gods and that near-divine being descended upon the borderlands of their territories. This had once been the bleakest place, but it had now been utterly transformed.
Khorne had built a fortress of war here. Lava streamed down the towering walls of the Brass Fortress.
All manner of war machines moved through smoke and gunpowder haze. Khorne's greater daemons drilled their armies, ready at any moment to prove the might of the God of War through battle.
Opposite the fortress of war stood another dreamlike structure. The fully transparent labyrinth warped one's sense of space, making all who entered unable to distinguish distance or direction.
The Ten-Thousand-Year Demon Lord chanted ancient incantations, and mysterious whispers echoed softly through the maze.
Inconceivable magic flowed within it. The labyrinth appeared fragile enough to shatter at a touch, yet it was in truth a fortress built from invisible walls.
Slaanesh's territory was shrouded in a pink haze, while decadent music rose and fell without end.
Thorn Towers stood in clusters, torment and pleasure coexisting atop their spires. Within magnificent yet twisted palaces, Slaanesh's dancers moved with light steps, offering the Dark Prince an endless dance.
Nurgle's Garden brimmed with laughter and peace. Twisted tree trunks danced, while rotten grass sang.
Maggots and germs lay dormant in the swamps. Nurglings chased and played, carefree amid peals of laughter.
The bloated Great Unclean One had a huge belly, its abdominal fissures festering with rot. With every booming laugh, he shook loose flies of death.
The armies of the Four Chaos Gods stood in formation, wary of one another. The air was thick with the scent of gunpowder; all it would take was one excuse for the gods to erupt into a melee.
This place had become unrecognizable. Time was distorted here, and space twisted amid the invisible clash of the Four Chaos Gods' divine powers.
A blood rain representing Khorne fell from the sky. Tzeentch's winds of magic filled the air, Slaanesh's power drifted as sticky mist, and the ground had become Nurgle's muddy swampland.
Amid the evil powers of the Four Chaos Gods stood a tower cast from brass, eight hundred and eighty-eight meters tall.
Countless limbs, either blissful or agonized, emerged from the tower's surface. Its entire body was entwined with sickly green branches brimming with vitality.
At the tower's peak was a Chaos Star forged of brass. Blue psychic fire burned within it, and a red soul rose and fell amid the flames.
A tower forged jointly by the Four Chaos Gods, meant to contain that mysterious soul.
As the years flowed by, the red soul absorbed the power of the Warp. Its essence grew stronger, far surpassing the greater daemons of the Four Chaos Gods and reaching the level of a Lesser God.
As the wills of the Four Chaos Gods descended, the daemons bowed their heads. Myriad demons knelt upon the ground, reining in their demonic might as they cried in unison, "Our gods are here!"
The evil gods did not respond to the demons' praise.
Flames of rage erupted from Khorne's chest. After countless ages, his true body rose from the Brass Throne.
Gripping his sword, he questioned Tzeentch across an entire divine domain. "What are you trying to do? This was not part of the deal with that human."
Tzeentch's sinister smile remained unchanged. Without saying a word, he used a gesture to send the gods a secret message through magic.
"Over the years, we have tried countless methods to uncover its secret, yet all were futile, wasting age after age.
"From this 'human's' transaction, my wisdom has glimpsed the future and seen one possibility."
"What possibility?" Nurgle asked in a low voice. He hated unknowable change.
"When the soul leaves the Warp and is granted 'thought' anew by this human, its perfect purity may develop a weakness because of so-called 'humanity.'
"A human possessing immense power? Or rather, a demigod walking the material universe? They are no more than food for us."
The Master of Change spoke in a sinister voice, slowly explaining his plan beside the gods' ears.
To them, this was merely a small part of the plan.
That "human" radiating golden light, who dared provoke the majesty of gods, would also be held in the hands of the Chaos Gods in the future.
Humans could not defy their fate. Their god possessed humanity and was destined to be embraced and assimilated by the Warp.
After their conspiracy, the gods nodded in satisfaction. Though Tzeentch was incomparably cunning, his scheme was indeed seasoned and shrewd.
"I agree." After considering it, Khorne ultimately accepted Tzeentch's plan. He would use the wisdom of the God of War to seize everything in the future within his grasp.
Perhaps by taking the pure soul under their command first, once it developed an independent will, none of its fate would be its own to decide.
The gods would surely use every means at their disposal to claim it for themselves. And he, the God of War, would claim victory in the coming war of contention.
Khorne had never feared schemes or stratagems. He possessed all the tactics of war conceived by intelligent life and feared no challenge.
"I agree." After pondering for a while, Nurgle unexpectedly approved of Tzeentch's plan.
Though he hated change, when all things returned to silence and every fate reached its end, change was an indisputable process.
No matter what, Grandfather would toll the universe's death knell when the final atom came to a halt, awaiting the convergence of all fates.
Tzeentch's so-called "infinite change" was merely a necessary interlude before the end of all things.
Nurgle only needed to act at key moments. After fate had wound through countless twists and turns, he would sit at the end of every road and quietly await the end.
"I agree as well." Slaanesh agreed. She knew her place; as the youngest evil god, she had far too little say.
She had joined the Great Game to enjoy the pleasure it brought.
Slaanesh was confident that she possessed the power to corrupt everything. Corrupting a demigod would take no more than a slight effort.
Each god harbored ulterior motives as they added a new clause to the transaction and presented it before the Master of Mankind.
The gods had already seen through the visitor's essence. He was the "protagonist" of the next cycle, a new mover in the Great Game.
The Four Chaos Gods agreed to the trade. An ancient parchment scroll formed within the Warp, and the four gods branded it with their own marks before pushing it toward the Master of Mankind.
At that moment, the gods spoke in a unified, harmonious tone. "Human, sign it with your soul. Do not dream of betraying it."
They had never worried that their trading partner would break the contract.
Should anyone betray their oath, the gods would exact repayment from that human a hundredfold, a thousandfold, with interest.
Nor did they worry that the Master of Mankind would refuse the revised transaction.
He had chosen to come to the Warp and stand before the gods of his own accord. He was destined not to refuse their small additional demand.
The Golden Sun said nothing. He merely looked at the soul atop the tower in slight surprise. How could a Lesser God's soul make the Four Chaos Gods join forces?
How much was there here that he did not know?
He did not investigate further, for he had no time to bargain with the gods. Humanity was waiting amid suffering for his salvation.
"I agree."
He sighed softly and pressed his soul's mark onto the parchment scroll, leaving behind a portion of his essence.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha..." The transaction complete, the Four Chaos Gods departed the borderlands with wild laughter, their unrestrained voices echoing through the Warp.
The Golden Sun waited where he stood. The Four Chaos Gods would deliver the items specified in the transaction to him.
Turbulent waves surged through the Warp as the Four Chaos Gods employed supreme power and jointly exercised their authority within it.
Wherever their wills passed, the Sea of Souls exploded violently. They were searching for the "Lesser Gods" hiding within the Warp.
Lesser Gods. Every Lesser God was a unique existence in the Warp. Like the Four Chaos Gods, they were manifestations of some extreme aspect of the Warp.
They existed outside the system of the Four Chaos Gods, wielding lesser authorities beneath theirs. They possessed divine authority and power, yet remained below the omniscient and omnipotent Four Chaos Gods.
They normally hid in the depths of the Warp, avoiding annihilation by the Four Chaos Gods, who would act to ensure their rule remained unshaken.
The power of the Four Chaos Gods swept across the Warp like a mortal snake catcher beating the grass, startling out the prey hidden within.
The Warp's waves churned as the Four Chaos Gods' power was like cold water poured into a boiling pot of oil.
The lesser gods hidden within had no choice but to reveal themselves and flee deeper into the Warp. This was precisely what the Four Chaos Gods wanted.
Though lesser gods were still gods, they were far too weak before the Four Chaos Gods. They could not face the Four Chaos Gods' might; the moment they appeared was the moment their deaths approached.
Clad in brass armor, Khorne gazed into the void from his throne.
The Dog-headed War God cleaved down with a single strike, shattering the essence of a Lesser God. With a casual gesture, he erased the consciousness within and left behind a pure soul.
The soul of a Lesser God was a flickering flame containing that god's authority—the "divinity" as ordinary people understood it.
A gust of magical wind blew in as Tzeentch hovered in the void. Both hands moved at once, magic gleaming from his withered fingertips.
His fingers swept through the void, raising ghostly blue magical flames that ignited the entire expanse of the Warp and refined the wills of the Lesser Gods.
Slaanesh swayed her waist as she rose languidly from her fragrant bed with enchanting steps, then walked out of her luxurious palace with supreme elegance.
Her peerless body swayed lightly. With a casual thrust of her serpent-shaped rapier, she pierced the Warp. She elegantly lifted her blade, and a Lesser God's divinity slid from its tip into her hand.
Nurgle squatted deep in his garden, narrowing his small eyes as he searched for a suitable target. He took a large ladle from his cauldron and gently scooped into the depths of the Warp.
A Lesser God screamed in terror within his ladle and was stuffed into the great pot. When it was scooped out again, it had become a pure divinity.
The Four Chaos Gods' power swept across the Warp. Great numbers of lesser gods fell, while more fled into its depths to escape the fate of being slain by the Four Chaos Gods.
"Enough. The transaction requires twenty. Any more will affect the stability of the Sea of Souls."
Five divinities floated in Tzeentch's palm as he stopped Khorne, who was about to continue slaughtering in all directions.
The existence of Lesser Gods was likewise an indispensable part of the Warp.
If the Warp were compared to an ocean, the Four Chaos Gods would be unquestionable, unshakable continents, holding absolute authority over the Warp.
Lesser Gods, meanwhile, were extensions of the Warp, constantly testing new boundaries like waves.
The established and the newborn were vastly different in nature.
The Four Chaos Gods guarded their own territories and were eternal existences. Lesser Gods represented new life, and were also easily snuffed out.
If too many Lesser Gods vanished from the Warp, extreme emotions with masters would lose their foundation, disrupting the Warp's chaotic order.
The Warp had always been the most chaotic of places. The Four Chaos Gods were its strongest beings, and in pursuing the extremes of their own authorities, they guided the Warp and instead created order—an extreme, chaotic, and contradictory order unique to the Warp.
"Hmph. I have not had my fill." Khorne snorted coldly, returning to the Skull Throne and casually tossing out five divinities.
Five flew in from afar, followed by another five from a different direction.
A full twenty pure divinities floated before Tzeentch. The Four Chaos Gods had each completed their required share, leaving him to handle the rest of the transaction.
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