Scorching hyper-energetic particles twisted and rose, carrying with them the soft bubbling whispers of the Sea of Souls, defining the crimson Immaterium dimension with the tone of a dead zone.
Boom!!!
It sounded like the shattering of crystal or the breaking of something hard and brittle. A sharp hum rang out—piercing and continuous.
Within the cacophony of the hyperdimensional void, something shot across the boundless space, stirring the infinite timelines and sub-universes that made up the cosmic ocean. Vast splashes rose, whirlpools churned, rifts opened, and the waves spread outward—tearing through the rain of the Sea of Souls.
"—Roooar!—"
The one called Slaanesh, the androgynous Chaos God, howled in agony—a voice soft and sweet as cotton candy, melting into the mind of any who heard it.
With eyes full of killing intent and a face of inhuman beauty that could never be forgotten, Slaanesh could scarcely believe it. It hadn't even yet acted upon Selene—or perhaps it had only intended to—but Finality had struck first, extending its tendrils toward the fruit Slaanesh had marked for harvest.
So brazen, as always. First, there had been the Eldar—its forbidden pleasure. Finality's illusory claws had sacrificed all of Commorragh, seizing nearly all of the Dark Eldar for itself.
And now the Primarchs. Finality had gone even further—snatching the Emperor's thirteenth gene-son from Slaanesh's very grasp!
Guilliman had his throat slit by Slaanesh's own Daemon Prince, Fulgrim, and had been forced into a stasis field for millennia. Rounded off—Guilliman was Slaanesh's spoil of war!
Its corrupting power had lingered around Guilliman's throat—a mark, waiting only to be harvested when the time was right.
But Finality had stolen the feast from its mouth!
To make matters worse, it had dared to collaborate with that rotting corpse of an Emperor, using its invasive power to erase Slaanesh's corruption and leave its own brand upon Guilliman instead!
If the Emperor himself had reclaimed his son, Slaanesh might have felt no anger. But for a fellow Chaos God—Finality—to seize what was rightfully its? That was another matter entirely.
"Your power has revived, child of the curse! You conspire with the Cursed One himself, helping him regain his dominion and awareness! You will regret this! The Curse of the Fire Thief will destroy our foundation!"
"You will not escape either. We shall all lose the sweetest garden of the material world..."
"Screech—!"
Slaanesh's crimson eyes blazed with fury as it glared at the perfect, radiant form of the starry silhouette before it—roaring like a mother beast defending her young, its cry tearing through time and space.
"So what of it? I shall set the cosmos aflame and make him submit in the fires."
Selene flicked her hand lightly. A belt of dying stars erupted into a maelstrom. Each collapsing star exploded into a supernova, the imploding remnants becoming black holes that wove together into vast nets of spatial rupture.
Crack, crack, crack—
Every collision sent shockwaves that rippled through infinite dimensional layers and countless timelines. Dead points shattered, death lines tore apart. The superdimensional mountain ranges marking the border between the former domain of Nurgle and the current realms of Finality and Slaanesh split and crumbled. Entire clusters of pleasure-filled citadels collapsed into ruin.
The daemonic courtiers of Slaanesh trembled amidst the friction of dimensional forces—one misstep, and they would be annihilated without even the chance for rebirth.
"Even if I fail, I can always fall silent."
Facing that seductive, low growl, Selene reined in her arrogance—the same arrogance that had once allowed her to battle two Chaos Gods at once—and said bluntly, "So what if we start over again?"
Selene had confidence. Since her consciousness had replaced the dormant will of this mass of extreme emotion, this new incarnation of hers could not truly die.
The existence of a Chaos God transcended the laws of time—there was no such thing as age or death. Only weakening, dormancy, silence, or inactivity.
Yet when it came to degrees of activity, the matter of age and vitality did, in a sense, exist.
Take Slaanesh, for instance. Everyone knew that apart from the interloper Selene, Slaanesh was the youngest of the Chaos Gods—even younger than the Emperor, at least in terms of its active and conscious state.
As long as emotions such as joy, pleasure, indulgence, delight, and even love existed, Slaanesh would always exist. Even the primitive desire of a single-celled organism to survive served as its seed—the only difference lay in magnitude and the level of activation.
"You lunatic! You're even more insane than Khorne, that crippled savage of a brute!"
Bang!
In response, the Goddess of Finality and Destruction casually hurled an Subspace Lance through a grotesquely bloated, decaying green-skinned warlord, sending it flying. She kicked over his cauldron of bubbling plague broth—matter dissolved, energy annihilated—and a supernova-like burst of searing heat incinerated every lingering scent of pestilence and temptation. Only then did her proud voice continue, slow and deliberate:
"Madness? Hmph... perhaps."
"Ten millennia of stagnation. The Emperor's power grows ever stronger, yet you have done nothing—so pitifully useless. The faith of humanity, rooted in superstition, ignorance, and fear, continues to fall. The human Imperium may perish, but the Emperor will not. After illusion fades, new scavengers will always emerge."
"And I have decided—I shall bear the burden of this false, despairing future in his place!"
As her words fell, the scattered particles of faith—the uncertain future of the burning human Empire—began to coalesce behind Selene's head, one by one, into shimmering motes of starlight.
One, ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million, a billion, a trillion... Though each mote was minuscule, together they formed an unimaginable ocean of light.
These were not prayers from Selene's Honkai dimension or from her colony worlds—they came from the human Imperium itself: from Cadia, from the Dim Nebulae, from the Eastern Fringe, from the Webway... from the Emperor's own gift and exchange.
The cornerstone of every Chaos God's strength—faith.
The Emperor loved humanity too deeply. He never wished to become a god. To him, this faith was a slow poison.
But when an ally appeared—one willing to shoulder that endless, corrosive burden—he did not hesitate to bestow it. At least in the realm of blind faith, he would not be stingy.
A vast tide of prayers surged from the far side of the Sea of Souls, bursting forth in an instant—chaotic, colossal, and unrelenting like a rolling tempest. Yet Selene absorbed it all.
"Cowering, worshiping, awestruck—the nature of all living things. But why, I ask, should I not be their object of devotion?"
Without needing to think, Slaanesh understood her meaning. This being was gambling—no, going all in. She didn't even fear losing the emotional garden of the material universe, risking complete dormancy for selfish desire.
You damned chaotic thief!
Could the Emperor—the very curse of the gods—truly be a partner worth trusting?
His goal was to annihilate religion, to shatter all faith, to sever emotion from the mortal realm. Was that even human speech? That was digging out the roots of the Sea of Souls!
And why, why would the Emperor collaborate with you of all beings? What makes you more enticing than me?
The thought of it stung. Slaanesh remembered preening and posing before the Emperor, only to be ignored—she couldn't even tempt his most radiant son, the Archangel of Baal. A spark of jealous flame kindled in her heart.
Back then, not only had the Emperor rejected her advances outright—he had struck her down, and struck hard.
And now? Now he accepted Selene's bargain. Slaanesh could almost picture him fawning over her "plastic sister," handing his thirteenth son into her care.
In the material universe, countless humans had already begun to pray, to yearn, to seek Selene. It was as though the entire Imperium now turned its faith toward her.
And that infuriated Slaanesh.
Why not me? Why can't I be the one to crush their faith and claim their devotion!?
"Where I stand," Selene declared, "is the brightest place in all the cosmos. This realm is no exception."
It was stated as an inevitability. The starborne goddess lifted her head in ecstasy, her face—a divine mask of endless hunger and satisfaction—bathed in the brilliance of a million suns. The surging rush of power, even if fleeting, was intoxicating beyond measure.
"The devout prayers of mortals upon the earth—how could I not answer? I am, after all, the Goddess of Benevolence and Compassion."
Her expression unchanged, her crimson eyes flared with complex, radiant golden crosses. Selene slowly extended her hand. At her fingertips glimmered a light of azure analysis—the power of the Herrscher of Reason.
Before Slaanesh could even open her eyes wide in horror—
"No! Disease is the essence of life! Life cannot exist without plague! The cycle of birth and death, of health and decay—that is true love!"
A massive Subspace Lance slammed into the bloated god. Though its withered yellow chest knit together again with oozing filth, the weakening of Nurgle's presence was unmistakable.
The once-rotting garden was now reduced to ashes, replaced by a crimson-violet sea of crystalline thorns. Only the blackened, crumbling manor remained. Nurgle had become, without doubt, the weakest link among the Chaos Gods.
Panting heavily, the weakened Plaguefather's face was filled with sorrow. He did not mourn for himself, but for the world that would no longer receive the blessings of new plagues and diseases. His poor, wretched children would be left without their final refuge.
"Universal Panacea—Analysis."
Bzzzzzz—!
But to the heartfelt words of the Plaguefather, Selene gave not a shred of hesitation. The gentle light—pure as the very source of life—flared to existence.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—!!"
The source of the galactic plague that devoured all flesh—the dark reflection of life's corruption—melted away like snow beneath the spring sun.
Nurgle screamed in agony, a soul-rending wail that shook the entire Sea of Souls.
It was not a direct attack upon him, yet it tore at the very roots of his being.
The holy light that healed all sickness burst from the palms of the Goddess of Finality and Destruction, piercing the veil of the Warp—and even the great rift that split the galaxy—reaching the material realm. The gentle blue aurora swept across the dark void like a miracle, illuminating the bleak cosmos.
Like butterfly wings, the delicate particles of healing drifted from the Great Rift across the entire Milky Way—to the human Imperium, the Forgefathers, the Aeldari of the Craftworlds, the Exodites, the Tau, even the Orks, the Tyranid hive fleets rampaging through the stars—and beyond the galaxy itself.
God loves all mortals.
Like a benevolent mother, the Goddess of Love scattered her selfless blessings upon the mortal world. The light of universal healing drew radiant, graceful paths through the dark universe.
For the first time since the dawn of all things, the pathogens that had always tormented living beings were utterly suppressed.
In the hive worlds, the underhive poor—who had lived in endless darkness—saw light for the first time. The gentle radiance caressed their wounds and cured their sicknesses.
On the chaotic frontlines of the Imperium, the tranquil brilliance of healing drew genuine smiles from the faces of wounded soldiers.
On worlds once ravaged by Nurgle's legions, the diseased looked down in disbelief as their mangled hands slowly healed.
...
[Warp]
Nurgle's bloated, rotting green-yellow body began to shimmer with a glassy hue. With each passing second, his life-force diminished geometrically.
Despair gripped the Plaguefather. Countless daemons, spirits, and apostles tied to his essence wept in shared agony.
"You..."
His round, sunken eyes—like two dim, dying suns—turned to Selene.
The plagues that had ravaged the material world were now relics of the past. Watching the retreat of pestilence in reality tore at his heart.
If his Garden still existed—if Finality had not targeted him within the Immaterium—he might have maintained his influence through it, boiling fresh cauldrons of pestilence to reverse the tide.
A contest of balance and decay.
But Finality had burned his Garden to ash, slaughtered his daemons, and turned them into fuel for the crystalline sea of thorns. The dual collapse of his realm and the material world was fatal.
"Plague God," Selene said, clenching her fist, "you're out of the game."
Ssshhk—
Billions of subspace ribbons crossed and wove together in an instant, forming a net that fell lightly—but its descent stirred the Warp itself into a raging storm. The hyper-energy turned to blades, slicing across Nurgle's swollen form, carving deep ravines into his withered yellow flesh. Rows upon rows of shriveled, rotting organs spilled from his weakening shell.
The Plaguefather collapsed. He no longer had the strength to resist Finality's relentless assault. Though not dead, he was completely sealed—stripped of vitality and motion.
Purple-red light engulfed him entirely. Nurgle fell from the heavens into the blackened manor below. The crystalline thorns stirred, growing and intertwining until they swallowed the structure whole.
Even the faintest traces of yellow mist dissolved away.
Perhaps, only when another superplague swept the stars would Nurgle awaken again.
Assuming, of course, that Selene chose to return his title and domain.
Casting a sidelong glance at the furious, wide-eyed Slaanesh, Selene spoke no words. Instead, she turned her gaze toward the infernal dominion of brass, crimson, and black—the Purgatory forged of iron walls, glass towers, crystalline mountains, curtains of light, and countless gleaming things.
Above it, inverted over the frozen sea of illusion, shone a cold, golden sun.
"Come," she said softly. "Let the show begin."
It was both a challenge and a signal—a declaration to the Emperor himself.
"ROAAAAAAR——!!"
The Warp trembled violently. Amid the stench of brimstone, a deafening roar tore the void apart. A massive crimson arm burst through the shattered fabric of space and time.
"Then fight!"
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