The End of the Old Era

"He finally went. I thought he could hold out for another two days." Liu Zhipeng rose and stretched. "Come on, Little Claw. It's time we met that legendary 'Old Ancestor.'"

"We're going too?" Little Claw sounded nervous. "That's sacred ground. Without the priest's permission..."

"Starting today, I make the rules." Liu Zhipeng's tone was calm, yet the authority within it made Little Claw straighten his back instinctively.

"Bring Bishop Katz, along with the leaders of the four 'divine halls.'" Liu Zhipeng added, "Tell them... we're going to witness a miracle. The end of an old era, and the birth of a new one."

The Patriarch's nest lay at the very bottom of an abandoned geothermal well beneath Viridia's Third Mining District.

The air here was scorching and thick with the stench of sulfur. Huge organic pipes, like living blood vessels, spread across the rock walls, pulsing faintly as they channeled energy drawn from deep within the planet's core toward the center of the nest.

At the heart of the nest stood a throne formed from half-congealed biomass, and seated upon it was a massive figure.

That was the Patriarch.

He was taller and more savage than any of his hybrid descendants. He possessed four powerful arms: a pair of blade-like primary arms, and a smaller but equally lethal pair of secondary arms. His body was covered in hard, dark-purple carapace, studded with bony protrusions that spoke of ancient strength. His enormous head, filled with alien intelligence, hung slightly lowered, as though lost in eternal contemplation. He was the genetic source of every cult believer on this planet, the core of the Broodmind, and the first—and most deadly—seed the Tyranids had planted in this world.

Vaughn knelt before the Patriarch's throne, trembling all over. He opened his consciousness to the Patriarch without reservation, reporting everything that had happened within the cult: the heretic named "Peng," and the four false gods that had blasphemed against the divine.

"Great Progenitor! Your descendants are being misled by heresy, and your flock is heading toward the abyss of division! Please deliver divine punishment, purify our thoughts, and guide us back onto the righteous path!" Vaughn prayed through sobs.

The Patriarch slowly raised his head.

His pupil-less eyes, like black gemstones, fixed upon Vaughn. A vast psychic power, as deep as a sea of stars, instantly enveloped him.

Vaughn felt his consciousness being read and analyzed by the Patriarch. Then he felt the Patriarch's will begin extending through him as a medium, reaching toward the entire Broodmind network.

Yes... that's it... Purge them! Wild joy surged within Vaughn.

But in the next instant, his joy turned to horror.

The "purification" he had expected did not come. When the Patriarch's will encountered that chaotic ocean formed by belief in the "Four Gods," it did not suppress or destroy it as he had hoped. Instead... it displayed an unprecedented... curiosity?

Like an apex predator, the Patriarch's consciousness cautiously extended a single tendril and touched the power of faith representing Khorne, filled with rage and glory.

Within the instincts of a Genestealer, "combat" and "slaughter" were things engraved into its genes. This power felt familiar and intimate to it.

Then it touched Nurgle's resilience and cycle. The Tyranids themselves were among the most tenacious lifeforms in the universe. They devoured, evolved, and adapted to everything. This concept of seeking rebirth amid decay perfectly aligned with their biological instincts.

Next came Tzeentch's change and wisdom. The Tyranid hive mind was itself one of the universe's greatest strategists, weaving vast schemes that spanned galaxies and luring civilization after civilization toward extinction. This manipulation of fate made the Patriarch feel a kindred appreciation.

Lastly came Slaanesh's sensation and extremity. The Tyranids devoured all biomass, and their ultimate purpose was to experience and absorb every piece of genetic information and evolutionary potential possessed by a species. In a sense, this too was a pursuit of the "ultimate experience."

The Patriarch discovered that these four powers were not heresy at all. Instead, they were... an alternative yet extraordinarily profound interpretation of four different facets of the Great Devourer's divinity!

This discovery caused the alien that had lived for centuries to fall into a brief shutdown resembling "philosophical contemplation."

Meanwhile, Vaughn felt the Patriarch's will waver. To his horror, he realized that instead of becoming a conduit for "divine punishment," he had become a "router" allowing the Progenitor to "learn new ideas." Worse still, that chaotic ocean of faith began flowing backward through him, its node, toward the Patriarch.

Vaughn's consciousness was being torn apart.

He felt like a small boat sailing through four different storm-tossed seas at once. On one side lay an ocean of fury burning with blood and fire, its towering waves roaring with endless slaughter; on another was a stagnant green swamp filled with disease, where every breath drew in spores of despair and resilience; above him stretched a bizarre, ever-changing sky, where lightning of fate twisted into incomprehensible runes; beneath his feet churned a vortex of sensation that dragged him under, where ultimate agony and ecstasy intertwined into a deadly symphony.

And at the center of those four storms was a gigantic, cold, merciless eye filled with hunger and curiosity—the Patriarch's will.

Rather than "purifying" these heretical beliefs as Vaughn had wished, the Progenitor sampled them like a gourmet tasting exotic dishes. His will delved into that chaos, savoring every trait contained within each thread of power. Rage, resilience, wisdom, ecstasy... through Vaughn's spirit as a bridge, these concepts flowed endlessly into the unfathomable depths of the Patriarch's consciousness.

"No... this isn't how it was supposed to be..." Vaughn's soul wailed.

Even more terrifyingly, he felt a reverse current. After "tasting" them, the Patriarch began to "reinterpret" them. With the pure instincts of a Tyranid predator, he reshaped these four powers.

"Rage" became more efficient "harvesting"; "resilience" became more perfect "adaptation"; "wisdom" became deadlier "hunting strategies"; and "ecstasy" became the ultimate "joy of evolution" after devouring genes.

These four forms of Chaos divinity, now "Tyranidized," became like four red-hot branding irons, searing themselves back through Vaughn's spirit into the Broodmind network.

"AAAAAH—!"

Vaughn let out a soundless scream. He felt his faith—the pure faith in the salvation of the Four-Armed Emperor—being utterly overwritten, corrupted, and torn apart by these blasphemous yet powerful new concepts. He had become an "amplifier" for heretical ideas.

Just as his sanity was about to collapse completely, a heavy metallic scraping sound rang out from the entrance to the nest.