Warhammer: In the Name of Nirvana

"Be careful."

"The Dark Prince is very angry now."

"He just suffered a defeat: because of that mortal named Rana."

"Failure? Unbelievable!"

The insect joints behind the Great Keeper gently combed the long hair that bent to both sides. Under the large curved horns like rams hung a jingling gem forehead guard. Its face was pointed and thin, like an inverted purple cone.

The Keeper of Secrets has a graceful figure, unlike the majestic and bloated ones under Khorne, but still has the spirit of a warrior. Its half-female, half-male body and goat-like hooves indicate that it is a creation that completely suits the Prince of Pleasure's preferences.

From the perspective of mortal aesthetics, they might be able to sense a hint of charm that is in line with the real universe from the chest that is round on one side and flat on the other, or from the abyss of Fulong that is faintly visible under the black gauze: but this is not the purpose that the Great Keeper of Secrets was born to do.

It is Xarathi - the Scourge, the Dark Prince's greatest warrior and champion, the undisputed champion of gladiators among the Chaos Gods and Demons. Its spear and round shield are its charm: it disdains to swing its blade at mortal creatures, and its purpose of birth is to hunt for the leading figures from other powerful forces for the God of Pleasure.

In the long years that passed, the Keeper of Secrets diligently fulfilled its mission. The skulls of the great demons it chopped off were piled up at the main entrance of the Silver Palace, until the Dark Prince's order came from the deepest part of the Six Rings of Desire, pointing to somewhere in the real universe.

An endless army of desires comes in response to the call of God, and the Demonic Disaster is the absolute leader of these billions of fanatics: they are in the real universe and the subspace, inside that thin screen, patiently waiting for their master to give the next order.

"But we'll have to wait for a while."

Zarakanel, also known as the [Messenger of Torture], is another leader of the army and one of the few beings among the Six Desires who can be compared with the Demonic Disaster: Enkali does not count, because the only reason that that good-for-nothing waste is favored by the gods is his ancient experience.

"Wait longer?"

The tip of the demon's spear impatiently tore new wounds in the air, its snake-like tail swung back and forth, its thick and short lips kept chewing, and inside was the ecstatic death scream of a Slaanesh demon.

"She hasn't come yet."

Zarakanel's bald body was as white as a dead person, and its six round balls moved up and down with its movements. Its long hair made of tentacles kept inserting into its buttocks. It also seemed very impatient, but there was a hint of fear in its irritability.

"You know, the Dark Prince's only goal is the mate he chooses. Everything else is irrelevant: whether her legion is corrupted or not is meaningless. From the beginning, the Dark Prince didn't care about them. He hoped to give birth to a brand new one with her."

"I know, I know!"

The Great Secret Keeper impatiently spat the chewed bones in his mouth all over the ground.

"That is why we must act: the good days of the Accursed One are coming to an end, and he is making a final attempt on Terra, but it is all ridiculous: time means nothing to us, and there is no way he can be ready before the gods come in."

"From the very beginning, the cursed one had not figured out one thing. He actually wanted to compete with the great gods for the favor of time, but he never thought that in the vast ocean, time and space were meaningless. How could he win a game that didn't exist at all?"

"Or is it that he is so arrogant that he actually has staunch allies in the warp?"

"The damned are irrelevant: what matters is the attitude of the other gods."

"That's right."

"This is also the reason why the Dark Prince asked us to be there in person: He needs to prepare for the final performance in a perfect manner. He cannot be like the master of the brass throne, who failed at the last minute and even had difficulty finding other targets."

"But then again, the Great Hound's original hunting list was not limited to the Void King. He also favored the Perfect One, the Iron General, the Angel, the Uncrowned King, and the Double-Edged Sword. The Invincible Fortress and the Hungry King were also his targets. The Lord of Many Hearts and the Regicide could also be considered."

"Just as the Accursed never intended to hand these demigods over to us from the beginning, the Chaos Gods never considered the possibility of a fair share of the spoils with him: similarly, they would not make any pact with each other."

"For other brothers, out of consideration for being gods, they may tolerate others occupying one Primarch, but for me, the more the better: even occupying ten Primarchs is a matter of course."

"When the Brass Throne was eager to embrace more Primarchs, hadn't the Dark Prince already built eighteen identical seats in the deepest part of the Silver Palace? Enough to accommodate everyone except the Kingslayer."

"Including the Lord of Many Hearts: the new Warmaster pushed forward by the Cursed?"

“It used to be.”

"But now it is no longer possible: we all know that the fate of the Lord of Many Hearts has been determined. The gods chose him as the Anointed One to start the great war that was destined to devour everything. Just because the Cursed One placed the Warmaster's Golden Crown, which represents disaster and betrayal, on his head, his fate was sealed at that moment."

“Nothing is absolute.”

The Great Secret Keeper chuckled, broke off a strip from his tongue, put it between his teeth and savored it carefully.

"Don't forget, it's not just the four gods that choose the Warmaster. The Dark Lord is also waiting for his chosen one. The current one doesn't satisfy him very much: not only has he built his own kingdom in reality, he has also refused to fulfill his destiny."

"That is why we call him the Cursed One: He deserves it."

"He, or the Emperor, has obviously forgotten where his power comes from: it was the Dark Lord's favor that gave him the first chance to completely transcend the real universe. Although this opportunity was interrupted by external forces, there is no doubt that he betrayed and forgot the Dark Lord in the following time."

"At this point, the fifth king has lost his last bit of patience. Fate is pushing him to choose a new God's Chosen One: just like the Cursed One killed every competitor who could threaten him tens of thousands of years ago, now he has to face a ruthless zero-sum game."

The Demonic Disaster narrowed his eyes and licked his shield leisurely, blue-purple blood flowing from his rough lips.

"I have a feeling that the fate of the King Slayer is destined to belong to the great Sixfold Path."

"Although she is also one of the candidates being watched by the five thrones, it is far from the time for her throne to awaken. Only when the creator of the Soul Forge ascends will it be the turn of the King Slayer."

"It will be a long, long time. Hundreds of thousands of years will be nothing in front of it."

"But this does not affect the Dark Prince's decision to marry his lover back to the Sixfold Path."

"Of course, not now, but when the Anointed One lights the signal fire."

"This time, we only need to plant the first seeds of enlightenment for her legion in the ruins of these followers' civilization: these followers of the Dark Prince, their civilization and history exist for this moment."

"Now, they are willing to embrace ecstasy for the great vision of the Silver Palace."

"Half of my life has already done that."

Zarakaniel nodded: As one of Slaanesh's most perfect creations, its responsibilities are naturally much heavier than those of the Great Keeper of Secrets who focuses on killing. Before the Scourge led his army to the Shadow of Larran, the Messenger of Torment had already arrived first.

The burden on its shoulders is extremely heavy: it has to show the gods' wishes to the people through prophecies, dreams and collective imagination, and tell them the ultimate mission of their race: this is a tiring but not difficult task.

Even if we look at the entire galaxy, there are very few Slaanesh believers as fanatical as the Seraphs. They are like the world of Nuceria that trapped Angron. They are props prepared by the gods specifically for a certain purpose.

Such [props] are not precious to the Prince of Pleasure: the power and essence of the gods far exceed the poor imagination of the real universe. For Slaanesh, he can naturally project his own fragments into billions of planes. The arrival of each fragment is enough to cause a prosperous interstellar civilization to fall into depravity in an instant.

In the darkness of the Age of Strife, there were civilizations of Slaanesh fanatics like the Rascals, if not hundreds of thousands in the Milky Way, then as many as the stars in the night sky. Even after the endless extermination and killing during the Great Crusade, there are still quite a few Slaanesh followers today.

For them, a single glance from the gods is enough to make the entire civilization willingly overthrown.

So, when the messenger Zarakhanel brought the message of Slaanesh, the doom of the Slaanesh people followed: all the old, weak, women and children who were unable to fight voluntarily offered their flesh and blood and lives on the altar dedicated to the Prince of Pleasure, while the young warriors sharpened their weapons, waiting for the battle of destruction that would doom their race to fail.

With the Scourge and more and more Slaanesh armies joining their ranks, the power of the Slayers has grown unprecedentedly: many of them are demons from the Warp transformed into four-armed aliens, and fighting with them will lead to unimaginable consequences.

“But these are just appetizers.”

"If you want to corrupt those mortals, you can do so at any time."

"The focus is on the descendants of the regicide."

"It's hard to corrupt them."

"That's right."

Zarakanel nodded.

"Like I said: not even the Dark Prince himself fully succeeded."

“Incredible…”

The Secret Keeper whispered again.

"Is he so determined?"

"It's more blissful ignorance than determination."

The beloved of Slaanesh smiled.

"He plunged headfirst into the hunting ground specially prepared for him by the Dark Prince, where he was faced with six tests: from the real universe to the illusion of the warp. The mortal named Lana was completely unaware of this."

“But he still stood firm.”

"He should have been corrupted by the sight of those broken statues of men."

"He should have been affected when he touched the corpse of a human who died in battle."

"The idea of ​​bliss should have pierced him the moment he grasped the hilt of the sword."

“But they all failed.”

"He should have gone mad and fallen to his knees when he realized the existence of the Prince of Darkness."

"He should have been influenced and bewitched in the first round of battle with the Flawless Blade."

"He should have had his heart broken when he cut off his battle brother's head with his own hands."

“But they also failed.”

"The Prince of Darkness personally set up an ingenious and silent deception for him, in order to make him fall into it silently, in order to make him discover the secrets hidden behind the scenes and actively think and explore: but who could have thought that his stupid brain would be completely incomprehensible!"

"As the descendant of the Kingslayer, his psychic sensitivity is as low as a hair's breadth!"

"He didn't read the air, he didn't understand the hints, he didn't think about it, he rushed forward like a wild boar, not realizing the deep secrets lurking behind the scenes: he didn't even want to think about it."

"He doesn't have a fragile heart, his nerves are shockingly rough."

"He has no sensitive mind, his brain is dry and dull."

“He has no dreams or goals: God knows what his deepest desires are!”

"He just... walked over like a demented idiot."

"He is simply unwilling to think about his own interests and the truth of the universe."

"In other words: blind loyalty?"

"madness!"

Zarakanel chewed his lip.

"So, the Dark Prince gave up the idea of ​​seducing him after trying."

“Because He already knows: it is impossible to elevate this mortal named Rana.”

"Is it totally impossible?"

"It's not impossible, but it's as difficult as corrupting those guards of the Custodians."

"Besides: that's too conspicuous."

"The Dark Prince considered the possibility of taking action himself, but the Kingslayer has invested too much in this heir. The protections arranged around Lana are too complicated to bypass, not to mention those small accessories: they are far more troublesome than imagined."

"Even the Dark Prince couldn't break through their defenses immediately: that fellow named Lana was as hard to break through as a brown bear rubbing its fat against a pine tree. Hunting him down is a time-consuming and laborious project. It is impossible to complete it without anyone noticing."

"But they can't stop the Prince of Darkness."

"But if anything goes wrong, the Kingslayer will definitely find out in advance."

"So, the Dark Prince gave up the possibility of starting directly from Lana."

“What a pity…”

"Nothing to regret."

Zarakanel shook his head.

"Rana just can't be corrupted."

"But that doesn't mean he can't be a worthy entry point for us to exploit."

"He is so unspiritual that he has no idea of ​​the greatness of the vast ocean."

"But on the other hand, he was completely unaware of the Dark Prince's methods."

"He has taken the sword: a sword forged by the Prince of Darkness himself."

"So what: the Kingslayer and the guy next to her will realize it immediately."

"Just make sure they don't see it."

"And this... is your mission."

"Xalaxi - Demonic Disaster."

The Herald of Slaanesh spread his arms.

"Shedding your skin, you must travel to the land of Larran in a piercing form and confront the Lord Steward of the Guards: you must complete your mission before the Kingslayer recovers from the Dark Prince's attack."

"You need to let go of that sword."

"The sword of Rahl."

"Integrate into the Dawnbreaker Legion."

"But remember: don't let her find out."

"Otherwise: you will surely die."

"Even the Prince of Darkness can't save you."

“Remember that.”

"The Soul Drinker is just asleep."

“But He will not disappear: never.”