The Warp.
Endless tides surge through the void; time has lost its linear meaning here, and fragments of past, present, and future mingle like foam—bursting, reforming, and reborn elsewhere.
This is no water as mortals know it, but a maelstrom condensed from pure emotion, desire, and will.
They howl as they crash against invisible dimensional walls, sometimes turning into ribbons of enthralling light that wrap around the edges of nothingness, sometimes into roaring beasts that tear at the borders of Chaos—each surge holding apocalyptic power to unmake reality, yet within that ultimate disorder lies a strange, intrinsic "order" of Chaos itself.
Deep within this kaleidoscopic realm sits a dominion of terror renowned even in realspace.
It defies description: concentric circles of Greed, Gluttony, Lust for the Stars, Thirst for Power, Vanity, and Sloth—the ultimate symbols of every extreme emotion.
Slaaneshs Sixth Ring.
At its heart stands the private palace of the lord of pleasure alone.
At this moment, in the innermost sanctum, the being of elegant, androgynous beauty that could steal any soul finally stirred.
The Chaos power who commands ecstasy and excess slowly opened six eyes.
Each eye was utterly unique: some burned like violet flame, revealing every hidden desire; others were spiraling vortexes that magnified the emotions of anything they beheld; still others resembled colored glass, shimmering with indescribable allure.
The instant all six opened, the Sixth Ring seemed to freeze—even the ambient euphoria hung motionless, awaiting its master's will.
An inexplicable tremor pierced the veils of mist and slid into Slaanesh's perception.
A sense of… loss?
As though one of His treasures had been ground into nothingness.
Sensing this, He finally looked away from the game that had enthralled Him.
In another wing of the palace, His foremost greater daemon, Shalaxi Helbane, and the daemon-Primarch Fulgrim were performing a pageant of ultimate temptation and indulgence—spectacle enough to enthrall Him forever.
Yet that sharp sense of loss overrode everything; Slaanesh could indulge no longer.
At last the details reached Him.
One of His darlings, a daemon Prince meant to exist forever, had been utterly annihilated.
The realization detonated like thunder in the Warp.
A scream sharp enough to shred reality erupted from the palace within the Ring.
It carried six hundred and sixty-six layers of meaning and emotion, surging as an invisible shockwave that swept the entire domain.
At the same instant, six hundred and sixty-six openings split across His body; each orifice was a tiny mouth or another peering eye, vomiting raging Chaos energy—an unmistakable sign of His fury.
He instantly seized the fading link to His lost favorite, tracing back along the thread before it could snap.
Through a rift not yet closed, His gaze fell upon the region where His champion had just perished.
But a sudden distortion severed the vision.
A blaze of golden fire flared, hiding within it an abyssal darkness that blotted out all sight; even the lord of pleasure had to avert His gaze.
When the light faded, the veil between Warp and reality had sealed without a seam—nothing on the other side could be seen.
"The Cursed One…"
Slaanesh shrieked with mad laughter inside the palace, rage roiling beneath it.
With that laughter, six hundred and sixty-six hosts of demonettes surged from the Rings, while on sixty-six Imperial worlds hidden cultists of Slaanesh felt their master's gift, burst from the shadows in rapture, and launched rebellions to burn entire planets.
In time Slaanesh calmed.
He still did not understand how the "Unborn King" upon the Throne had managed it, nor how His champion had fallen—but He set the churning feelings aside.
The loss was minor; the slain favorite had been little more than a promoted traitor from the Imperial Battle Sisters.
When the Great Rift truly yawns and the tiresome, ten-thousand-year-old stage curtain is torn away for a new act, He will have time to learn what truly occurred… Realspace.
Terra, Armageddon, Macragge, Cadia, Baal… "Dong—dong—dong—dong—dong—dong…"
On world after world, cathedral bells of the Ecclesiarchy tolled.
Priests and layfolk alike, regardless of rank or distinction, fell to their knees in rapturous awe of the miracle.
All who heard the bells felt joy surge from within, as though the Emperor upon His Throne Himself rejoiced.
Yet no one knew why such a vast miracle had suddenly come to pass.
"Saint Celestine, do you know what gladdens our God-Emperor so?"
On one of the Imperium's shrine-worlds,
white feathers drifted from the sky as the Living Saint soared, golden sword flashing, leading the Battle Sisters in a charge against Khorne's daemonkin.
As the bell of a ruined abbey rang, every Sister was wreathed in faint gold, and the axes of the demons scarcely scratched them.
Inspired by the miracle, the faithful annihilated the remnants of the host in moments.
When the slaughter ended, a Canoness summoned every scrap of courage and asked the saint the question above.
Celestine answered with a radiant smile,
"It is hope—hope for humanity's future, now beginning to grow."