Chapter 224: Hello, Xenos, Your Scourge Has Arrived (Part 4)
They were about to die, to be conquered, to be devoured. Generations of wisdom and effort were about to go up in smoke, as the profane xenos prepared to lay their hands upon the cities of the Omnissiah.
They had given everything—every drop of blood spilled upon the cracked wastelands of Rust, every person who picked up a weapon to face the invading xenos. Broken production lines pushed to their limits, bullets streamed out from steel conveyors only to be rammed into gun chambers a moment later. Everything—everything—had been poured out.
But it was useless.
The best chance had already been missed. The Archmagos, who had been hanged by furious lesser Magos, had underestimated the strength of the enemy. His arrogant approach had led Rust, step by step, into the abyss. Even now, the Archmagos's corpse still hangs at the highest point of Rust's planetary forge, a grand crimson banner draping over the rotting traitor, spat upon by tens of thousands.
No matter how they punished the dead, it could not make up for the sins he had committed. Everyone would die—die beneath the blades and swords of the xenos, paying the price for the Archmagos's pride.
O God, save them. Rust, a forge world, a brilliant mechanical jewel—the Machine God would not tolerate seeing His wisdom fall into the hands of such abominations.
They were still praying, still resisting, still struggling. But the xenos fleet blotted out the entire sky. They were cut off from the outside world; their only hope was themselves.
In the final moment before the main world was fully blockaded, they had received no word of any external rescue.
They were inevitably sliding toward the abyss. At most, one more day—and everything on Rust would be tainted by the xenos' filth.
When people realized that the ultimate end was still destruction, they no longer bothered with planning logistics or strategies. Instead, they charged out, screaming the name of the Omnissiah in despair, hopeless and tragic. The blades of the beasts tore their bodies apart mercilessly, wires entangling chunks of flesh, tangling them into piles, fat and blood making them greasy, rust leaping upon them like joyful moss.
Perhaps the destruction of a single forge world was meaningless to the bloated behemoth of the Imperium, barely worth a mention in the cold, self-serving network of Mars's forges. But for those who had lived on this forge world for countless generations, this was the apocalypse of their entire world, the inversion and shattering of the life they had always relied upon.
God had abandoned them.
But even if God had abandoned them, they would not abandon God.
Some units voluntarily withdrew from the collapsing front lines, returning to the factories where they had once lived, and began to methodically sabotage and burn those sacred machines.
Sacred oil was poured over papers recording precious knowledge, then set alight. Sculpted holy blades were dismantled and jammed into engine cores. The Magos began destroying miracles that had taken centuries to forge. Some, after blowing up an entire factory, even trembled as they set their own data-chips aflame to end their lives.
The xenos had not yet set foot in the main city, but roaring flames were already consuming it. A discordant melody rang above the city—the lament of machines dying utterly.
At the very center, the very heart of the main city, La, who had taken the Archmagos's seat, stood in despair before the World Forge. This place, occupying the very core of the planet, was an industrial miracle that could never be replicated, a furnace that beat like a living heart.
But now, he had to personally stop that powerful heartbeat. It could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands.
La trembled. He did not want to be a sinner—an artisan smashing his own treasures, a sage willingly burning his books. Immense sorrow and despair enveloped him.
"Why? Why must Rust face all of this?"
"O Lord, if you truly exist, why do you remain indifferent to the tarnishing of knowledge? Could everything we believed in still be a lie?"
"Answer me! Answer me, my Lord!"
The Magos shouted hoarsely. High above the blazing, brilliant crucible of the forge, the broken, rust-stained corpse of the Archmagos still swung unsteadily, as if mocking La's blind faith.
La looked upon it all in despair, his mind pushed to the brink of collapse by hopelessness, so much so that he did not notice the slightest change—the corpse's finger twitched ever so slightly.
A presence in the Empyrean gazed down upon them. Gears and cogs began to resonate with a clicking rhythm, metallic wires writhed as though alive, flames struck against the steel bastion, steam and electric arcs formed a beautiful song, disordered logic ticked and danced chaotically. Its awareness gazed downward from beneath the throne of the forge.
Ignorant outsiders had disrupted predetermined fate. The god turned away in disgust, yet the laws of reality chained Its power from fully extending into the material world. But since the gamblers had changed the rules of the game, so too could It introduce a new variable.
Whispers rose from the chaos. In the wars among gods, there were unspoken pacts, silent understandings, never uttered aloud. The Changer of Ways most loved clamorous reversals and upheavals. In the darkness behind the curtains, It watched the newly arrived visitor, whispering words that would stir chaos across the entire galaxy.
He was the chosen [Variable].
No—this was a [Bargain], with one side of the scale weighed down by the steps of ascension, and the other side holding the seed of a shattered Imperium.
The four greatest thrones within the warp were far too dangerous; It would not have agreed to this bargain under normal circumstances, especially not to the Changer of Ways, whose grin made Its sincerity all too clear.
Perhaps It should never have stepped into this web of fate so early, but the price offered was too tempting. For Vashtorr, it was like the first steam engine of a new age—after it, all that came before would pass away, and a new epoch would slowly unfold.
The sweet scent of temptation lured It in, and It signed away a portion of Its own soul upon the parchment of this pact, while the Four Gods also paid their own price in return.
And so It was here—guided by the counsel of the Master of Stagnation. There was division even among the gods at the other end of the bargain, and Vashtorr keenly sensed the simmering anger beneath this particular god's mild, watery surface.
[Words possess their own unique allure, and the names that give things meaning are even more mysterious.]
[Rust—RUST. Its name is Rust.]
[When the Death Guard Legion arrives, the harmony of meaning will at last reach its perfect crescendo.]
[The concept has accumulated to its limit. What I seek may come to rest within it.]
"I'm sorry."
The Plague Envoy, with slow, polite speech, interrupted him. The Death Guard's bone-white armor was now shimmering with a strange, dreamlike iridescence, like a hallucination after consuming poisonous mushrooms.
"Could you please speak plainly?"
[...]
[I seek the "Plagueheart" here. It may be hidden in this place.]
The Plagueheart. The Ouroboros. The Tuchulcha.
This was the treasure promised to It by the Four Gods—a blade sharp enough to bring down the galaxy itself.
"And what can I do for you, in His name?"
[Death. Rust. Spread your rust as far as you can. Let rust corrode the hearts of men. When enough Tech-Priests fall into madness, my power will surge forth from between the forges.]
"Thank you. I like this plan."
Laton calmly straightened his vial rack, checking over the tip of his gene-seed harvesting tool. Though it was already thickly encrusted with rust, it was still usable.
Besides spreading plague, he would also gather some Death Guard gene-seed.
He needed to help steer the Death Guard back toward their fated path. Even if he couldn't do much for now, at the very least he could rescue the seeds that hadn't yet been planted.
As a former Apothecary, he knew that on battlefields this chaotic, gene-seed recovery was never perfect. The chaos and brutality of war meant some bodies—and their precious seeds—would inevitably be lost from view.
In return for the seeds, Laton sent Mortarion a small craft thick with flourishing fungal growths. He hoped the Death Guard would receive this gift and regard it with a lively curiosity.
Laton had gone to great lengths—he had collected fungi from fourteen different star systems, forty-nine different soils. One little red fungus even bore a charming little smiley face. When it burst from human bodies, it looked especially lovely.
Laton hoped Mortarion would enjoy this gift.
Oh, of course, of course—he would help spread the Rust Plague. It was just that a wanderer far from home always felt a little more homesick, that's all.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(Author's note: The three great artifacts—Ouroboros (Caliban's secret), Tuchulcha (the engine, the Little Boy machine-servitor; in the lore it was with the Lion, Calas tried to steal it and failed, departing in regret), and the Plagueheart (very little info; known only to appear on a world corrupted by the Death Guard in M41, and Nurgle is also searching for it). The fusion of the three forms the Dissonance Engine
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