As the divine war at the edge of the Great Rift shook the stars and Khorne faced a desperate choice in the material universe, a vastly different yet equally fate-deciding upheaval was unfolding deep within the Warp, inside Nurgle's domain—the Garden of Nurgle.
This place had once been filled with the sweet stench of rot and diseased vitality. Pustule-like ponds burbled, twisted trees dripped slime, and cheerful Nurglings staggered and ran across fungal mats.
But now, an unsettling silence had descended over the garden's heart.
Grandfather Nurgle himself stood before his enormous Plague Cauldron, utterly absorbed.
Inside the cauldron, thick dark-green liquid churned violently, and an ominous figure bobbed within it—the Black Goat Vashtorr whom he had captured earlier.
Nurgle had added his most precious plague essences and most bizarre viral strains, seeking to fuse the Black Goat's essence with his "Grandfatherly Love" and brew a Godblight that would grant him an ultimate transformation, allowing him to transcend his current station.
Multicolored vapors rose from the cauldron. The ritual had reached its most critical moment.
Yet at that crucial juncture, strange disturbances arose at the garden's edge.
They were neither the clamor of war nor cries to repel invaders, but... heavy, sticky hoofbeats that instinctively stirred unease, mixed with low roars brimming with primal hunger.
Nurgle raised his enormous head, covered in boils and usually wreathed in a loving smile, and looked toward the source of the commotion in confusion.
Then, his almost eternal expression of joy froze.
At the garden's boundary, the daemons of Nurgle that should have fought any invader to the death had neither fallen in battle nor joined the fight.
They merely... stood rigidly in place, like puppets stripped of will. Their pus-like eyes were hollow and vacant as they stared blankly at the intruders, allowing