According to the ancient door-in-the-face technique, if one wanted to make a request, the best approach was to first make a larger, more difficult request.
To open a window, one could sometimes first propose tearing off the roof, thereby raising the other party's expectations and laying the groundwork for the real objective.
Mortarion, that proud primarch, was currently caught in precisely such a trap.
Bow her head to xenos? The thought itself was like poison, enough to make the Pale King fight to the death.
But compared to being corrupted by the Chaos Gods and becoming their puppet, Mortarion suddenly found cooperating with the Aeldari not quite so unacceptable.
"You must swear upon your true name and Warp essence. Otherwise, if you turn on us the moment you escape, would my people not lose everything?"
"You!" Mortarion was burning with impatience, but she had no time to continue haggling. She immediately made a promise to Ulthran upon her true name and essence.
Feeling the oath's binding force, heavy as the stars themselves, Ulthran's taut nerves finally relaxed.
"You will never regret today's decision, Mortarion." Ulthran's voice slowly faded away.
This trial, watched by countless humans, was still ongoing. Mortarion's body twisted amid interwoven golden and pitch-black flames, while the Dark King's corruption steadily eroded her soul.
The Living Saint could barely contain her delight. She seemed already to see Mortarion completely falling and changing sides.
Yet what the Living Saint failed to notice was that, within Terra's labyrinthine underground pipeline network, a permanently sealed pipe suddenly opened a crack.
It was a pitifully small Webway fissure. Even an Aeldari's slender body had to struggle to squeeze through it.
Like a capillary of the Webway, it existed in tremendous numbers but could not be effectively used most of the time.
But