"Omegon?" Lucius asked.
The Emperor nodded, His voice steady. "Is this offering sufficient for our trade?"
Lucius narrowed his eyes, a flicker of suspicion crossing his features. "But word in the Warp is that Omegon is dead. And the one who still draws breath, the other half, severed his ties to your failing Empire long ago."
A shadow of melancholy passed over the Emperor at the mention of His lost sons. He let out a long, weary sigh. "Omegon is indeed dead, but that was merely the shedding of his physical coil. His Warp-essence, his true sub-soul, has returned to Me."
With a slow gesture, the Emperor opened His palm. A swirling mass of potent, cyan-hued Warp-matter manifested above His hand. Though Lucius had never seen such a thing before, he felt its undeniable pedigree. It was the fundamental essence of Omegon.
Moreover, the resonance it emitted felt disturbingly similar to the essence of Vashtorr, which Lucius had recently devoured.
"Oh~ don't you see it yet, my darling? You don't realize what this man has done with the faith of humanity~" Slaanesh interjected with a playful, knowing smile, pointing a slender finger at the Emperor. "Think on it, dearest. Humanity has been ascendant in the galaxy for twenty millennia. Why is it that a race once capable of rivaling the Ancient Aeldari has produced only one god, the Dark King? Where did the Warp-echoes of human faith go before Him?"
Lucius was no fool. Having recently ascended to a level of Warp-knowledge second only to the Ruinous Powers themselves, the realization struck him instantly. "The Primarchs... they are the nascent gods humanity was meant to manifest? Just like the Aeldari Pantheon?"
"Hehehe~~" Slaanesh offered only a cryptic, melodic laugh, as if savoring a particularly delicious secret.
The Emperor remained silent, His head bowed. Lucius recalled the legends surrounding the origins of the Primarchs, rumors that the Emperor had struck a bargain with the Four at Molech, snatching the Warp-essences of humanity's potential gods from the tides of the Immaterium and binding them into bodies forged from His own genetic template. The Primarchs were the result of that divine alchemy.
And because it was a bargain with Chaos, the Four had laid their snares even as they "helped" capture these gestating human deities, ensuring that half of the Primarchs would eventually fall to the corruption of their own design.
The Emperor regained His mask of stern composure. He looked up, His youthful visage devoid of joy or sorrow. "Mankind needs no gods," He declared. "Humanity must be severed from the Warp if it is to escape its predestined tragedy!"
As He spoke, His eyes flickered toward Slaanesh, a silent reminder of the Fall of the Aeldari. In response, the Prince of Pleasure offered only a radiant, mocking smile.
"So," the Emperor asked, "will you trade?"
Lucius stared at the cyan essence in the Emperor's hand. After a moment of silence, he spoke. "This is but half a Primarch. A steep price for what I am giving up."
The Emperor chuckled, a dry, mirthless sound. "It is the only Primarch-essence available to you, perhaps even to Me. Alpharius and Omegon were unique; they represented the human duality of secrets and betrayal, faith and fear. I understood them well. Though they never truly intended to kneel to the Great Enemy, their machinations were, in many ways, more intolerable to Me than those of the open traitors."
With a flick of His wrist, the Emperor tossed the essence of Omegon toward Lucius. Lucius caught it, and the moment his fingers brushed the energy, he was flooded with the final memories of the twin-soul.
He saw the truth: Omegon and his brother Alpharius had never truly fallen to Chaos. They had betrayed the Imperium only after receiving a prophecy from an alien Cabal, a vision claiming that if Horus won, his eventual guilt would consume humanity and, in doing so, starve the Chaos Gods into oblivion.
To destroy Chaos, Omegon chose to side with Horus. Meanwhile, Alpharius believed the Imperium needed a constant whetstone, a threat to keep it vigilant and strong; thus, he played the role of the traitor to temper the Empire in fire.
The twin serpents had chosen the path of the traitor, yet one remained loyal in heart while the other was loyal in purpose, or perhaps both were neither.
"Heh," the Emperor said, His confidence returning. "You could try to hunt down Alpharius, or attempt to find the essences of the others. I assure you, it will not be easy."
Indeed, Perturabo's essence had long been offered to the Warp as a Daemon Prince. The fallen loyalists, like Ferrus Manus, were bound to the Emperor's side as the Legion of the Damned. The souls of Sanguinius and Horus had been utterly extinguished, blasted from existence.
In this age, where the totality of human faith was directed solely toward the God-Emperor, there was no chance for the Great Angel or the Arch-traitor to ever manifest again.
As for Lucius attempting to corrupt the remaining lost Primarchs... he shuddered at the thought. Khorne had spent centuries trying to break Rogal Dorn, only to hear "I am Rogal Dorn" on an endless loop. Lucius feared that if he tried to corrupt a loyalist son, he might end up blurting out "I am Rogal Dorn" himself before he even made progress. As for Konrad Curze... there was no doubt the Night Haunter's essence was firmly in the Emperor's grip, and He certainly wouldn't hand that over willingly.
Was five hundred worlds of Ultramar worth half a Primarch?
Lucius pondered this as the Emperor watched with knowing eyes and Slaanesh looked on with amusement. Finally, he spoke: "Betrayal... that is the very essence of the Skaven."
With that, he swallowed Omegon's essence whole.
"The Great Horned Rat only cares for victory, Emperor," Lucius growled. He rose and vanished, his form dissolving into a tide of countless rats that scurried away into the shadows of the Forge of Souls.
"Oh~ look at you," Slaanesh giggled, covering His mouth. "You may have just made a decision that changes everything. What if you live to regret it?~"
"Perhaps," the Emperor replied, His gaze fixed on the Prince of Chaos. "But I believe it is the right decision." Then, He too transformed into a pillar of golden light, departing the Forge alongside His Living Saint, Celestine.
Slaanesh prepared to leave as well, but paused to look at the Skaven-daemons remaining in the Forge. Their twisted, lithe forms reminded Him of His own Daemonettes. It seemed the Great Horned Rat was truly a kindred spirit.
"If I could domesticate a god... could there be anything more thrilling in all the realms?" Slaanesh mused. He could feel the raw, unbridled ambition and greed of the Great Horned Rat, and He yearned to wrap those desires around His finger.
"Dearest~ I'm going to make you scream," Slaanesh whispered with a terrifying, silver-bell laugh, before slowly fading from the Forge.
…
Within the Realm of Ruin…
This private sub-realm of the Great Horned Rat was expanding every second, fueled by the exploding population and bottomless greed of the Skaven. To Lucius's own eyes, the territory had grown tenfold!
This was a direct reflection of his burgeoning power.
While he was not yet a match for the Four or the Emperor, he could confidently claim to be the most powerful entity in the Warp outside of them, though the Great Devourer remained a dark, silent shadow whose true intent no god could fathom.
Lucius opened his maw and regurgitated the essence of Omegon. Deprived of a physical vessel forged from the Emperor's gene-science, this Warp-essence was merely an unconscious, secondary deity. Where could he find a suitable body?
A plan formed in his mind. He turned to Sneek. " Sneek, I have a task for you."
Sneek, showing no sign of fatigue despite his recent duel with the Living Saint, dropped to one knee and bowed his head in total submission.
"Send your most gifted disciple. Take Throt with you. Go seek out the human known as Fabius Bile."
Sneek did not understand the purpose, but an assassin lives only to obey. He nodded respectfully and retreated into the dark.