Though Isha harbored a profound loathing for the Garden of Nurgle, the prospect of leaving it filled her with an even sharper dread. Since the birth of Slaanesh over ten thousand years ago, when the Dark Prince swept through the Aeldari Pantheon and briefly held her captive, Isha had been haunted by that fleeting, traumatic shadow.
Thus, while she technically possessed the freedom to move, she preferred to remain within the Garden, sipping Nurgle's pox-brews rather than venturing into the void.
"Then come to my realm... Rest assured, what I wish to discuss concerns your children," Lucius said to the Mother Goddess of the Aeldari.
"Your realm?" Isha looked at him with profound hesitation, unable to fathom the intent of the being before her. Did he seek to consume her, or merely claim her as a different kind of prize?
But at the mention of her children, her heart stirred. From within the Garden, she had witnessed the half-dead, dwindling state of her race, a sight that caused her immeasurable agony. Yet there was no recourse; so long as Slaanesh endured, the Aeldari could never truly escape their doom.
Isha turned back to look at Slimux, the Grand Cultivator, who was currently mounted upon a Daemonic Snail, using gardening shears to prune the rancid flora of the Garden. He paid her no mind.
"Very well, I shall go with you," Isha agreed with a nod. "But the moment I step beyond these borders, Slaanesh will perceive me and strike to reclaim me. Can you... can you contend with that?"
Lucius offered a thin smile. "Against the many, I might falter. But one-on-one, the Great Horned Rat fears no god."
Seeing no other choice, Isha followed. Given that Nurgle had not intervened, she was no match for the Horned Rat's will.
"Extend my gratitude to Nurgle for his hospitality. I shall safeguard this Goddess of Life," Lucius said to Slimux.
The Cultivator of Nurgle nodded, grunting in a low, wet tone that he would convey the message.
"How strange... You truly will not stop them?" A voice that sounded like a thousand discordant whispers converging into one echoed in Nurgle's ear. Nurgle smacked his lips and turned his gaze away in disgust; it was his eternal rival, Tzeentch.
"You seem pleased enough yourself. Had I moved to stop them, you would have intervened, would you not?" Nurgle spoke in a rhythmic, booming rumble, never ceasing his work on a cauldron of viral soup.
"Hahaha... Such a magnificent Change! How could I look away? And besides, is it not a curiosity shared by all? If the five Croneswords are gathered, can they truly slay Slaanesh? Oh... if that were so, the Dark Prince would be a most bitter disappointment to us all."
Tzeentch's voice fluctuated between curiosity, anger, frustration, excitement, and anticipation, a cacophony of emotions that made it impossible to discern truth from fabrication.
Tapping the cauldron with a massive ladle, Nurgle stood up shakily. "I, too, wish to see it. Hehehe... this newcomer's ambition is vast indeed."
…
Within the formless tides of the Warp, Lucius escorted Isha toward his own Realm of Ruin.
Isha, who had been huddled beneath a strange rag designed to shroud her presence from the Empyrean, suddenly began to tremble. A decadent, cloying scent of rot and perfume washed over them.
"Hmph. They arrived quickly. Truly, the bane of the Aeldari," Lucius remarked.
"Hi~~ dearies. What are we doing? Ooh, can I join in? After all, I've been waiting in line for ten thousand years~"
A voice, neither male nor female, rang out. Simultaneously, a pink-hued legion of infinite proportions manifested in the Warp ahead. Leading the host were two of the most infamous Keepers of Secrets: Shalaxi Helbane, wielding spear and shield, and N'Kari, brandishing a shield and a magnificent, ornate blade.
Drawing upon the collective consciousness of his godhood and reports from his forces engaged with the Slaaneshi hosts, Lucius recognized them instantly.
Above the daemon army, a figure manifested. Their white hair drifted like vapor and sea-foam; their features and form transcended mortal imagination, a being both mighty and statuesque, possessing both breasts and phallus, staring at Isha with predatory, aggressive eyes.
"Don't be selfish, darling~ let me in on it. I can ensure you both experience the pinnacle of excess," Slaanesh giggled, though the Dark Prince's eyes remained locked fiercely on Isha.
At the sight of Slaanesh, Isha turned deathly pale, the blood draining from her face. She looked ready to flee back to the Garden of Nurgle on the spot.
However, Lucius gripped her arm firmly and looked toward Slaanesh. "Save the pleasure for later. I've borrowed her from Nurgle; let me have my use of her first."
Slaanesh's expression shifted instantly to the irritable impatience of an addict. "Desire never waits, and temperance is a foreign tongue. I think not~"
With a giggle, Slaanesh pointed a slender finger forward. "Seize Isha. I grant you leave to play with her for three centuries~"
"Oh-ho-ho-ho!!" The daemons of Slaanesh erupted in excitement. Shalaxi Helbane and N'Kari both licked their lips, feeling a surge of predatory thrill they hadn't tasted in an age.
Isha was nearly choked by terror, unable to resist. Lucius raised an eyebrow, preparing to sweep the infinite daemons aside, but Slaanesh bared silver, flawless teeth. With a wave of a hand, the Dark Prince whipped up a cataclysmic Warp storm, hurling it toward Lucius!
An attack from a Chaos God was no trivial thing; even a single droplet from that tide was enough to annihilate tens of thousands of Legions.
Lucius was forced to shift his focus to Slaanesh. Instantly, his black-robed form began to swell to Titanic proportions! Thirteen whip-like tails erupted from behind him, and his head transformed into a skeletal rat-skull crowned with thirteen pairs of twisted, jagged horns.
This was the true avatar of the Great Horned Rat!
The Horned Rat spread his claws and tore at the roiling Warp as if ripping wallpaper, forcing the Sea of Souls to avalanche to either side, neutralizing Slaanesh's psychic tsunami.
As he struck, Lucius felt his hands tremble, not with fear, but with the long-dormant exhilaration of battle. Before his apotheosis, he had rarely fought at full strength; after becoming a god, even less so.
This was his first time facing one of the True Four. It was to be a clash of equals. Within the Warp, countless entities watched, wondering if the heights of Rapturous Sensation would prevail over the depths of Formless Distortion.
Be'lakor, lurking in the distant shadows, watched with a mixture of envy and bitter hatred. The sheer scale of the movements of these two True Gods was something beyond his wildest dreams.
"Again! Do it again!" the Horned Rat shrieked, a chorus of a million rats chattering from within his skeletal maw. He leaped forward, closing the distance to Slaanesh, his fist glowing with the power of infinite corruption as he struck.
Slaanesh, by nature, found such crude brawling distasteful.
"Barbaric," Slaanesh hissed, dodging the blow with serpentine grace. In the same motion, the Dark Prince flicked a finger, lashing out with a whip of pure Bliss-energy.
The lash struck the Horned Rat. It brought no pain, but rather an indescribable mixture of agony and rapturous pleasure that nearly caused Lucius's knees to buckle.
Yet, in an instant, the Horned Rat used the power of Formless Distortion to warp the sensation. The maddening obsession was twisted into a surge of battle-frenzy!
Slaanesh's brow furrowed. The Dark Prince gestured to the subordinates to seize Isha and retreat; the Prince had no desire for a prolonged slugging match with the Horned Rat.
With the Horned Rat occupied, the Slaaneshi daemons lunged forward like Goblins spotting a Saint.
Shalaxi Helbane was the first to reach out, laughing as he sought to grab the nearly unconscious Isha. But suddenly, a globule of thick, caustic toxin shot through the void like a cannonball, forcing the Keeper of Secrets back!
"Who?!" the Slaaneshi champion roared in fury, turning his sleek neck. There stood a towering Verminlord, his grey-white fur matted, thirteen horns sprouting from his brow, his maw still dripping with venom.
"YES-YES! For the Horned Rat, for the Great One! I will not waste-squander this chance, no-no!" The Verminlord wiped the sludge from his mouth, his crescent-shaped blades, the Glaives of Ruin, shimmering.
"Those who hinder the Master—DIE."
"The Horned Rat walks among us! Slay-kill them, vermin! KILL-KILL!"
The newcomers were none other than Skreech Verminking, the Nightlord and Death-Blight Lord Sneek, and Kritislik, Seer Lord of the Grey Seers and Fanatic-Plague Lord.
Behind the three Greater Daemons stood a Verminherder legion that seemed to fill the horizon, led by an uncountable host of Verminlords.
"You're seeking your end, foul rodents!" N'Kari spat, his frustration palpable at being interrupted.
But the Nightlord, Sneek, had already marked him. "He is mine-mine."
Skreech Verminking looked toward Shalaxi Helbane with a sneering chitter. "I know of you, yes-yes. The Slayer of Greater Daemons? Come-come then, try to slay-kill the King of Vermin!"
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