The Tuqiaocha Engine stood upon the plagueheart, silently observing the flow of fate through time and space.
Time and space were like a delicate membrane; reality rested upon it, while the Warp was reflected beneath. Fate was the brief ripples generated on this membrane, and these ripples converged to form surging tides.
But in the current galaxy, the tides outlined by these ripples were so complex and ever-changing that even the Tuqiaocha Engine, refined from the essence of the Old Ones' technology, could not see much clearly.
It saw a viper extending two heads: one depraved and evil, the other noble and proud. The depraved one tried to drag the noble one into debauchery and pleasure, while the noble one resisted desperately, attempting to transform from a viper back into a soaring phoenix. The prouder he was, the less he wanted to fall, yet pride itself was the catalyst for his downfall.
It saw a killing machine in a rage, his warhammer stolen by a shameless thief who had vanished into the galaxy.
It saw a The Deceiver piecing together fragments of another The Deceiver, intending to trick the ignorant, cold king. The king fell for it, just as he had countless millennia ago.
It saw the contact between the Warp and reality severed by roaring Black Stone, a domain of lifeless death, without thought or life, without soul or emotion.
It also saw the puppet of the gods wailing, steel piercing his body. He cursed the traitors, but was ultimately locked away in a blood-soaked coffin.
These ripples had not yet coalesced into waves, and it paid them little heed.
The fate it truly focused on concerned the Domain of All Machines.
The throne of the Domain of All Machines had actually been forged long ago and left in a void where only it could go.
It was the key created by the Old Ones to open the treasury of the throne; it was the gatekeeper of the Domain of All Machines.
It was waiting for the one who would hold the key and open the door. This was its mission.
But there were many candidates who could open the door.
The Bloodletter of the Stars, the Divine Lord of the material universe, was sealed. He also had no right to be crowned with the diadem of the Warp.
The Destroyer of the Galaxy, the Divine Lord of the human race, was seated. He had already been crowned with the diadem of erosion and destruction.
The new existence of the deep blue, the Divine Lord of unknown origin, was still hesitating. He was unwilling to be crowned with the diadem of All Machines.
And these three, either unable or unwilling, had never attempted to come before the Tuqiaocha Engine.
Only one was currently pursuing the Tuqiaocha Engine's trail and was about to appear before it.
The Tuqiaocha Engine stood upon the plagueheart, raising its head slightly to look into the Warp.
The torrents of the Warp surged and roared, and the rumbling steam and electric sounds of countless daemon Engines echoed incessantly.
Endless cables coiled, pipes intersected, and logic engines roared. It was a domain shaped by the imagination of all sentient beings across the entire galaxy.
When any race, with their intelligence, polished a branch into a sharp weapon or chipped a river stone into a blade, they connected with that domain. Every act of creation, every construction, constantly twisted, influenced, and reshaped this domain.
The Soul Forge, a domain within the Warp that belonged to no single Chaos God. This was the factory producing all malevolent creations, the iron hell enslaving daemon artificers, the convergence point of all twisted creativity.
And the master of this domain, resembling a swirling twilight, with sparks of inspiration and flashes of creativity constantly emanating from him, like the constantly flickering neural signals in the brain of a sentient being.
He was constantly contemplating, constantly observing. He gazed at countless points in time; in the real universe, these points had a sequence, but in his eyes, they coexisted. His thoughts, will, and concepts relentlessly hammered at different points in time, sparking inspiration.
Now, the Lord of the Soul Forge turned his gaze towards the Tuqiaocha Engine and the plagueheart.
So he began to engage the gears of the Warp with the gears of reality, adjusting his own frequency into a fixed form, and then injecting his consciousness into that body, entering the material universe.
The vision of the Warp dissipated and shattered before the Tuqiaocha Engine, leaving only a single figure.
That figure spread his blade-like metal wings, his body purple and gray, like a mutation caused by arduous work in a radioactive factory. One hand was a claw, the other gripped a warhammer, and his pair of hideous crimson eyes looked towards the Tuqiaocha Engine.
Vashtorr descended into the material universe, looking at the Tuqiaocha Engine and the plagueheart beneath him.
In the blink of an eye, the machine and the daemon completed thousands of mental collisions.
"Come with me," Vashtorr's mechanical voice rang out, inviting the Tuqiaocha Engine.
The Tuqiaocha Engine nodded slightly, agreeing to Vashtorr without hesitation.
But in their intertwined thoughts, both realized the same problem.
It was too smooth, as if fate had naturally flowed to this scene.
They both suspected that the azure hand of the Lord of Change was manipulating fate, and that the Tuqiaocha Engine and Vashtorr seemed to have become pawns on the chessboard of the Great Game.
But this was already within Vashtorr's expectations, for pawns would eventually yearn to become players.
He took the Tuqiaocha Engine and the plagueheart, disappearing into the void to search for his pawns.
The Vengeful Spirit was reflected in Vashtorr's eyes.
The gaunt sorcerer knelt on the ground, sharp streams of light constantly flickering before him.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine years of collection were finally over. The great will of the Lord of Change projected itself from the present into the past, tearing his body apart, then reassembling him after mixing in His will.
He was a tiny extension of the Lord of Change in the material universe, merely tasked with completing a mission in the shadows.
The Lord of Change needed new allies, a powerful and wise entity in the material universe to serve Him.
Pure energies, untouched by the Warp, were constantly bursting forth. Fragments from the same entity were converging, and the laws of the material world changed thousands of times as a result.
The sorcerer spent nine hundred and ninety-nine years gathering those nine fragments.
Those fragments were too shattered, so much so that they lost the intellect they once prided themselves on, becoming ignorant beasts.
These nine fragments were but an insignificant speck among the myriad fragments of that entity. Even reunited, they could not display a fraction of the material universe deity's former power, but they were enough to restore His consciousness and memory from ignorance.
And what the Lord of Change valued was that entity's wisdom and cunning.
A cunning laugh emerged in the material universe, as if reality itself was cackling.
The fragments coalesced into a humanoid form, swirling with a dark golden energy storm, like a figure draped in a golden robe, covering a lithe body made of living metal.
His face was grotesque, like a cackling clown, like an ugly actor, looking mockingly at the sorcerer standing before him.
"God of the Void, God of Falsehood, God of Reflection," the cackling figure whispered, looking at the sorcerer.
"Great C'tan The Deceiver, welcome back from your ignorance."
The sorcerer bowed slightly, conveying the will of his divine lord behind him to the entity before him:
"The equally great Lord of Change greets you. He uses me as His mouthpiece to propose a trade to you."