This is the bonus chapter for reaching 1400 Powerstones.
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A low voice, a blend of tens of millions of pitches, echoed directly within Sacken's mind.
It was Aetaos.
The voice of the Tzeentch Greater Daemon carried undisguised delight, "Sacken, your daughter... is still alive."
Sacken's body stiffened violently.
"Look at how adorable she is... Are you truly willing... to just die like this? Right when she has just found you? Before she even has a chance to call you 'Daddy'?" Aetaos's voice coiled around his thoughts like a venomous snake.
Sacken's pupils began to contract violently.
Pale blue blood seeped from the corners of his eyes.
"Do you need the Changer of Ways to impart more knowledge upon you? To make you even stronger, to fulfill your desires?"
"No..."
Aetaos's voice coaxed him like a venomous snake. "Look at how pathetic you are right now... embedded in a crater like a failure right in front of your daughter... Don't you want to show her your true power as her father?"
Sacken roared in his mind.
Get out! Get out of my head! I don't need it! I don't want it! I just want... I just want her to be... safe...
"Tsk, tsk, tsk..." Aetaos laughed, laughing with boundless delight. "Sacken, you're still so naive... Did you really think your soul still had room for choice?"
Sacken froze.
"From the moment you accepted the first gift, your soul had already plunged into the embrace of the Changer of Ways... The right to choose has long been out of your hands... But look at how merciful I am... I even let you see your daughter one last time... Now, it's time to pay the toll." Aetaos's voice gradually grew icy.
Sacken violently raised his head, looking at Helovia, and roared with the last of his strength, "Run... away..."
But it was already too late. In the ruins behind him, the over five hundred fallen psykers who had been on the verge of death suddenly opened their eyes in unison.
They no longer had pupils in their eyes; only pure blue-purple light remained.
They slowly sat up in an eerie, synchronized rhythm.
In groups of nine, the fifty-six groups of psykers formed a massive, nine-pointed ring.
They began to chant.
The language of their chant was not Gothic, nor was it any known psychic litany. It was the whispering of the Warp, the profane knowledge of the Changer of Ways, a blasphemous sound that reality simply could not bear.
"With nine as the foundation... with fifty-six as the ring... With five hundred and four souls... as sacrifices... We welcome the descent... of the Lord of Change..."
BOOM!!!
Deep within the City of the Holy Anthem, the Tzeentch rift—which had already expanded to two hundred meters in diameter—abruptly erupted with blinding blue-purple light.
The light surged out like a torrent, pouring into Sacken's body through the psychic links.
"Arrrggghhh!!!" Sacken let out a harrowing, inhuman scream.
His body began to expand once again.
Three meters, five meters, ten meters, twenty meters...
The purple tentacles on his left cheek spread frantically, crawling all over his body to form a complete, profane star map on the surface of his skin.
The psychic wings on his back regenerated. But this time, they were no longer in an energy state; he had sprouted genuine demonic wings covered in blue-purple feathers.
His eyes completely transformed into two swirling black holes, reflecting millions of possible futures within them.
His aura climbed like madness!
Finally, it breached a certain critical threshold.
HUM!!
Reality let out an overwhelmed groan.
Sacken... no, it should now be said that Aetaos slowly broke free from the constraints of reality.
The twenty-meter-tall body hovered mid-air.
With a gentle flap of the demonic wings on his back, the resulting gale blew away all the ruined debris within a hundred-meter radius.
He lowered his head and looked at Helovia below.
On that face that belonged to Sacken, there now hung an eerie, delighted smile entirely out of character for him.
"An unfamiliar aura... an unfamiliar energy... Is the entity behind you the source of all these variables? Interesting... truly interesting... Hahahaha!!!"
The phantoms of the Lord of Change's three pairs of eyes surfaced behind Sacken, all six eyes simultaneously staring at the [Magical Girl Transformation Device] wand in Helovia's hands.
Aetaos threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing through the ruins of the upper hive.
"Everything is going exactly according to plan! As long as you have shown your hand. You won't be able to hide anymore after this." He cast his gaze past Helovia, looking at Paul and Sanguinius in the rear.
--
Deep within the Warp, at the fringes of the Astronomican's light on Terra.
In a minuscule, covert Domain enveloped by a shell of countless positive and negative emotional energies.
Lucian lay on a luxurious, massive bed.
The design of the bed was modeled after the top-tier flagship model of a certain 21st-century luxury brand. The stuffing consisted of emotions of joy, and the headboard was inlaid with twelve crystals of happiness purified from emotional energy. A single one was equivalent to the total joy generated by five thousand gamers playing video games straight for ten days.
Was it extravagant? Extremely.
But in the Warp of the Warhammer universe, if an Evil God didn't decorate their home to be a bit comfortable, what were they supposed to do? Learn from Nurgle next door and live in a pool of pus? Or learn from Khorne and sit on a throne of skulls?
"That's just way too unsanitary."
Lucian rolled over and made a grasping motion in the empty air.
A fist-sized, blank sphere of light materialized, hovering thirty centimeters above his palm.
Inside the sphere, a streak of yellowish-green energy was frantically darting about. The shape of the thing constantly shifted, sometimes resembling a maggot, sometimes a pustule, and sometimes revealing a painfully twisted, fat face.
It was the Warp essence of the Nurgle Great Unclean One that Paul had purified in the Aru Industrial Zone.
"That's right, that's right, just like that! That Blue Bird's minions are meant to make confident deductions just like this! Everything must be part of the plan." Lucian looked at the energy inside the sphere, the corners of his mouth curling into a delighted grin.
He was currently observing the scene playing out in the City of the Holy Anthem hive through his players.
The twenty-meter-tall Aetaos was controlling Sacken's vessel. The phantoms of the Tzeentch Greater Daemon's three pairs of eyes rotated slowly behind him, his laughter of a million pitches echoing through the ruins.
"Is the entity behind you the source of all these variables? Interesting... truly interesting... Hahahaha!!!"
Lucian watched this scene and shook his head.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, classic Blue Bird minion dialogue. Discover a problem, think you've seen through it all, start laughing maniacally, and then completely faceplant. I've seen this exact routine in at least twenty different clip compilations."
Lucian mimicked Aetaos's tone and repeated it to himself.
"Hide? Why would I hide? I'm absolutely dying for you to focus all your attention on the Magical Girl and the authority of transformation." He tossed the sphere of light up and caught it, the yellowish-green Nurgle essence thudding against the inside.
He extended his other hand and lightly tapped the empty air with his fingertip.
Another screen appeared, displaying a completely different scene.
It was located approximately one thousand Warp units away from Lucian's Domain. In the physical universe, this distance might equate to light years.
There lay another Domain, one that Lucian had accidentally discovered back when he was wandering the Warp looking for a place to build his nest.
That Domain was much larger than Lucian's. The exterior was shrouded in various colors of flames, lightning, and all sorts of elements, while violent energy faintly surged within.
However, the entire Domain was in a state of stasis.
"Still sleeping, huh, buddy... Don't know if you're a guy or a girl, old or young, a native Warhammer god or a transmigrator like me. But it doesn't matter." Lucian tilted his head.
His gaze fell back to the streak of yellowish-green Nurgle essence in the first sphere of light.
"You're going to love this gift."
That exterior shell flowing with flames, lightning, and various elements was definitely not simple psychic energy—or at least, not the traditional psychic energy of Warhammer.
Is it magic? Or elements? Or something else... Lucian didn't know either. But it didn't matter. It was better that he didn't know. Because Tzeentch probably didn't know either.
"That Blue Bird loves researching the unknown more than anything. A slumbering Domain possessing an unknown power system... suddenly paid a visit by Tzeentch and Nurgle... Coupled with the [Magical Girl Transformation Device] in Helovia's hands... Hehe." Lucian muttered to himself as he manipulated the screens.
He smiled rather insidiously, a stark contrast to the warm, sunny aura he exuded.
"Doesn't the chain of clues link up perfectly? Sorry about this, buddy, or sister. For now... I'm just going to borrow your shell for a bit. From the very first time those Tzeentch cultists appeared in the Aru Industrial Zone and held a ritual to summon the Master of Trickery and Secrets, I realized something was slightly off."
Although he was just an armchair lore-master, he still remembered the 30K timeline very clearly.
This timing was simply far too early.
During this era, the corruption of the four Chaos Gods was supposed to be hidden and gradual, and their primary targets should have been the Astartes.
For instance, Lorgar, the Primarch of the Seventeenth Legion, the Word Bearers, had already completed his Pilgrimage to Sicarus. Guided by the ascended daemon Ingethel, Lorgar had entered the Eye of Terror, witnessed the truth of Chaos, thoroughly converted to Chaos Undivided, and was currently secretly shifting his entire Legion toward Chaos worship.
But that was Lorgar's own business. Erebus and his clique should currently be busy fully corrupting the Word Bearers from the inside while maintaining the illusion of loyalty to the outside world.
Why would a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch make such an overt move on a backwater mining planet at this point in time?
Unless...
Unless that Blue Bird has its eyes on me. Lucian's hairs had stood on end at the time, instantly making that deduction.
As a newly born Evil God in the Warp, barely capable of self-preservation, his greatest fear was being noticed by any of the big four.
Especially that Blue Bird. That thing loved to scheme, pry, and lay traps; its absolute favorite hobby was sweeping all variables onto its own chessboard.
Therefore, upon realizing he might be in danger, Lucian began a counter-operation.
When Paul became a Champion, he specifically had the System Store refresh and offer the [Magical Girl Transformation Device].
That thing wasn't a product of the Warhammer universe at all; it was a genuine, cross-dimensional magic-side creation.
Later on, he refreshed the Store in the Kent Hive to offer the [Kyber Crystal] capable of repairing it.
"Magical Girl... the authority of transformation..." Lucian stared through the observation window at the pink crystal wand in Helovia's hands.
The nebula-like energy at the tip of the wand rotated slowly, emitting a light, airy fluctuation completely distinct from Warp psychic energy.
"Coupled with that sleeping unlucky bastard next door... Once Sanguinius, Paul, and Helovia team up to kill this descending vessel of Aetaos... I'll throw this processed Nurgle essence into the Domain next door. When the time comes, Tzeentch will follow the trail and find that god! And Nurgle will follow his Warp essence and find that god too, leading to an ultimate three-way war! Perfect."
Lucian revealed a smile. "Although I don't know if you're a guy or a girl... please don't blame me. Who told you to still be sleeping?"
As he laughed, Lucian's eyes turned cold. "In this place, it really is a fight to the bitter end, you bastards."
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