Mutual Disgust

Malcador took a sip of tea. Lowering his eyes, he stared at the reflection of a man in his twilight years in the teacup.

To be honest, he did not like this appearance.

But some people liked nostalgia.

He looked up at The Emperor, whose expression remained unchanged.

Only on the surface, however.

Perhaps ordinary people could not discern the emotions beneath Neos's mask, but Malcador could. He saw the undercurrents beneath the calm sea—

No being of the Warp could calmly face it. None.

Especially after it awakened once more. The vermin of old had long since grown into colossal creatures under the drive of their hunger. Perhaps before, they could still use the radiance they emitted to conceal that aversion...

But now...

Malcador fell silent. He felt the body under his control growing tense, the knuckles gripping the teacup turning white. He heard footsteps drawing nearer...

Darkness entered cheerfully and lightly.

Malcador recalled an afternoon tea 48,646 years ago. He had still been young then, invited to join an exchange gathering for a niche subculture among Perpetuals. He watched people scramble for rotten food imbued with occult significance, the restaurant surrounded by the corpses of their own kind. Psychic Power had amplified his senses—he had once believed that to be the most disgusting thing he would ever experience. Afterward, he could endure the half-dead fermented human bodies in trenches without suffering, face the strange liquid foods of niche cultures without changing expression, or even confront a handful of viscous fluid from the Pool of Decay—but in truth—

—none of it came close to the suffering Hades brought him.

He wanted to vomit.

He should not have drunk so much tea.

Malcador painfully realized that even descending into this body, the pain brought by the black tide was supersensory,