Chapter 240: Enlightenment
The Death Guard fleet that had entered the Rust star system naturally adjusts the rhythm on board to match the time of Rust's primary planet.
So right now, abroad the Endurance, it was still in the early morning.
The empty cafeteria was dimly lit, a hollow sense of isolation filling the rows of neatly aligned steel tables. Far off in the distance, the white light from the corridor spilled faintly across a corner of the floor.
Hades rested his chin in his hand, waiting for his midnight snack.
How… did things end up like this?
Originally, he had just been commanding the battle—whether it was the Mekanic, the suddenly-appearing Nurgle cultists, the Rangda, or the Dark Angels chasing after the Rangda—Hades felt he'd handled all of it fairly well.
His teammates were pulling their weight too, and the momentum was good.
But why… why did it have to end up like this?
He had done his best, so why was he being slandered as a god?
His porridge arrived.
Only this small bowl of white porridge, still faintly warm, could soothe the heart that had been so wounded by Korklan and Margo.
They had actually insulted him by saying he wasn't human.
The worst thing is, he couldn't out-argue them.
He was even starting to get tangled up in their logic.
To use an imperfect analogy, he now felt the same frustration as when you lose a lane in a duel—but the price of losing here was the loss of his human status.
No. He was human.
First things first—set those two fanatics aside for a moment, and let him sort out his own logic.
No matter how he thought about it, he was human. It wasn't like he hadn't seen the Apothecary's medical report—he had all the parts a human was supposed to have.
Alright—physiologically, he was human.
His attitude was easy enough to explain too. He wasn't born and raised in this cesspit, so having an egalitarian mindset was easy enough to account for… even if he couldn't actually say that.
Alright—mentally, he was also human.
The only thing that was hard to explain was… his Black Domain.
Just what was that thing, anyway?
He was a pragmatist. His approach to the Black Domain was mostly about using it in practice—very much an empiricist's way of thinking.
After all, much of human development had worked the same way—people discovered how to use something long before they understood the theory behind it. The first humans who knew how to use fire certainly didn't know what an oxidation reaction was.
In the beginning, Hades had simply categorized himself as a rather odd sort of Blank—after all, back on Barbarus, he really had been weak, and the Black Domain wasn't anything special back then.
But later… Hades recalled that his Black Domain was, in truth, a bit overpowered. And if he tried to explain it using Trazyn's theories…
Hades tried to imagine a black hole.
From his past experience with the Warp, he imagined it as an ocean of shifting, multicolored currents.
According to the intel he'd gathered, Hades himself was like a hole—or a rift—within that ocean, drawing those waters out of this universe.
Hmm… Since he was a transmigrator, his "projection" in this universe being a rift of sorts did make a certain kind of sense.
But why did it only work on the Warp?
Hades recalled Trazyn's earlier words—the Lord of Figurines had made a point of emphasizing that he was a person from the physical universe.
In other words, he was more like a piece of filter paper—filtering out the Warp, leaving behind the physical world?
Hades could vaguely sense that his affinity with physical laws was stronger—and after consuming a fragment of the void dragon, this feeling had only grown stronger.
In his mind, Hades added another detail to his black hole: a membrane that the material universe could not pass through.
By all rights, based on how his Black Domain felt to him, if there were no restraints, it should be slowly and irreversibly expanding—
A rift squeezed by the pressure of flowing water would only grow wider.
But now, it seemed the Emperor had infused it with psychic power and… other tweaks, allowing him to feel that he was being restricted.
Thinking about it that way, Hades could finally understand what he actually was.
But… what was with prayers being answered?
If he was already a black hole, Hades didn't see himself as anything like one of those so-called "Warp Gods" with concepts and authority, able to respond to followers or gain strength from their prayers.
Besides, those machine-oil guys had been praying for so long, and he hadn't felt a thing. Judging by the kind of sensory sharpness he'd had back in the interrogation room, he should have picked up on something ages ago if it were real.
…Hades fell silent.
Wait. He suddenly realized—he'd never actually asked anyone what his Warp-form looked like in their eyes.
In theory, any Astropath or psyker should be able to see the Warp, right?
He remembered the last time he'd visited the Endurance's Astropaths—the way they had been so frightened of him.
Decision made—he was going to run an experiment!
Hades stood up. He needed to get his personal affairs in order quickly, or he'd never get through the mountain of pending paperwork.
On his command board, approval requests from the Death Guard were pinging beep-beep-tap-tap nonstop.
Any psyker should know one thing—don't become a psyker in the Death Guard. It only leads to misfortune.
. . . . . . . . . .
The Endurance's dungeon was as monotonous as the ship itself. Maybe other Legions kept racks of torture devices and the like, but the Death Guard's cells had… nothing.
Literally nothing.
It was just an empty room, with the brightest lights kept on at all times. In the corner, two people sat on the floor, muttering quietly to each other.
Margo, in army-green uniform, had her knees hugged to her chest, curled against the wall. The crimson-robed Magos sat cross-legged beside her.
"He isn't happy seeing us like this," Margo murmured. "But what does He want us to do?"
Magos Korklan made a strange series of mechanical calculation noises.
"Based on my behavioral template analysis of the Lord, I believe He wishes for everyone to possess an upper-middle level of happiness by Hive City standards, while also having a self-driven motivation to work."
"But as things stand, the Lord is wary of certain matters. The Lord of the Underworld and the Death God are both clearly on guard for the future."
Margo blinked nervously. She recalled a term she'd once seen in an ancient text, though she didn't fully understand what it meant.
"The Great Flood?"
"Perhaps not."
Korklan remembered his own nightmares—those rotting, squirming lumps of flesh, those creatures that violated every law of reality. He was certain Hades was guarding against something.
But he couldn't say. At least, not when Hades himself had decreed that such knowledge and memories were part of the final line of defense.
Sadly, as a mortal, Margo would never be able to reach higher realms of understanding.
"I cannot explain it to you. Knowledge is poisonous."
"Knowledge… poisonous?"
Margo struggled to chew over the Magos's words.
Korklan nodded solemnly.
"Knowledge is poisonous. Ignorance is a kind of happiness… and a form of defense."
"I don't understand."
Korklan made a simulated lip-smacking sound from his vox-emitter.
"Margo, I am a Magos. I have seen far too many of my colleagues—and even my superiors—lose their minds."
"They knew too much. Contradictions and living, sentient knowledge gnawed at them, bit by bit, until they went utterly mad."
Margo blinked in confusion, and Korklan could see the flicker of starlight in her eyes—the shimmer of human thought in motion.
"But… Korklan, you seem perfectly fine. You know so much, you clearly know those poisonous ideas—yet you—?"
Korklan raised a hand for silence, leaned close, and pressed his vox-emitter to Margo's ear.
The blackstone ornament on his crimson robe swung down, brushing her neck, and Margo shivered imperceptibly.
In the lowest possible voice, the Magos said:
"I am a madman. I have already died once."
The sound carried a faint vibration that made her ear itch.
But it was the meaning of the words that truly left her breathless.
"The first time I went mad was when I learned that the Omnissiah's divine miracles on Mars were nothing but a rain of lies."
"Can you imagine it—the vast, overwhelming curtain of rain? The people kneeling in the downpour, crying out in worship?"
"My second madness came when I learned that the ideological foundation of the Imperium was nothing but a worthless scrap of paper."
"Can you imagine monsters that defy gravity itself, flying in the sky? Beings beyond the limits of human imagination?"
"My third madness…"
"It was the thunder of Barbarus that awakened me, pulling my remains out from the thought-engine of my disciple."
Korklan grew more and more impassioned as he spoke, and through those inorganic augmetic eyes, Margo almost saw green lightning split the darkness.
"I should have been dead long ago. I was dead. A miracle awoke me, and God pointed me toward my path. Do you understand?"
"I appear normal now only because the Lord wishes me to be so. Only in this way can I remain here."
"But now you're locked in the same cell with me—you shouldn't be so hasty to expose yourself."
Margo's voice was calm. There were too many terms in the Magos's speech she couldn't understand, but she could read one truth from it: this man had been shattered and reassembled countless times—
Korklan had experienced too much. He had gone beyond this age, enduring in a short span all the suffering humanity would have to face and understand again and again in the long future to come.
And the one who set it all in motion remained unaware.
"He is too vast—so vast that He is ignorant. He needs to learn our rules, and I am the one who rings the alarm for Him."
"I can feel it—knowledge that would drive a person to the brink of collapse is, to Him, is nothing more than some already-known commonplace fact. Like leaves withering. Like seeds sprouting."
Korklan had once asked around about the Lord's story.
In the early years of the Lord of the Underworld's life, rejected by crowds, He would often sit in a daze on the wastelands, staring at the murky rivers of Barbarus for an entire day.
The truths of the universe, to Him, were no more surprising than the way water inevitably flows away.
"—And He takes it for granted."
"He takes it for granted!"
Margo pondered. She knew far too little, but she tried to follow the Magos's train of thought.
"Just like the way that Lord treats us?"
Korklan nodded gravely.
"He has never noticed anything unusual. Perhaps the Death Guard at His side—or the Death God—might occasionally catch a glimpse of the truth—"
"—But they are too numb! They are fooled by the Lord's outward appearance! Those Barbarus-born, or those dull Terrans—"
"They've never studied. They've never thought. They cannot truly grasp anything beyond mud or killing."
"They…" The Magos paused for a moment, the faint crackle of static audible.
"They are war machines. They will never understand."
"At least not yet."
Margo swallowed.
"Then… have we understood the Lord's thoughts?"
Korklan silently shook his head.
"We cannot bear so much. We can only warn Him from our own perspective—assist Him."
"Is there anyone who truly understands His thoughts?"
Again, Korklan shook his head in silence.
"Perhaps the Death God. Perhaps not. The Lord is destined to be rejected by the crowds, to reject life. He is… alone."
"…That's why He needs us."
Margo murmured the words, her golden eyes shimmering as she looked at Korklan.
"Yes. He needs believers."
"We will let Him know—His path is not a lonely one."
Korklan extended his primary limb, fingers brushing the hem of his crimson robe before plucking off a single, perfectly-formed blackstone pendant.
He offered it to Margo, who received it with care. The stone seemed to hold the deepest black, carrying within it the coldest, most merciless laws of the universe.
The two of them huddled together in the corner, quietly admiring the tiny gem.
Margo pinched the blackstone lightly between her fingers, and a faint, familiar sensation bloomed at her fingertips.
"This is…?"
"A fragment that fell from the main spire on Barbarus when the Lord performed a miracle."
"It carries His presence."
"It is Him."
To Korklan, the blackstone was like a photograph—it could preserve the feeling of that moment.
But it was too faint. Far too faint. The merest touch of psychic force could snuff it out.
"You're giving this to me, Korklan?"
Margo's eyes widened in surprise, blinking carefully at him. But her hands didn't stop moving; she lifted one side of her hair and hung the blackstone from her ear.
Korklan's voice was low and heavy, as if facing a truth he did not wish to accept.
"You are necessary. That Lord values mortals more than the lifeforms of the Mechanicum."
"And the Mechanicum's attempts have all failed. You are the first mortal to find the Underworld's place in the Warp."
"He has chosen you."
Margo stayed silent, feeling the weight at her earlobe. She remembered that day, aboard the xenos ship—when Hades gaze had fallen upon her.
A crimson light pierced the endless darkness, pointing directly at her.
"But He does not permit it."
"He does not permit it—yet."
"We can wait. Wait for the day He is truly known to the world."
"…Will that day truly come?"
"The flood will come, inevitably."
Korklan whispered, using his secondary limb to draw on the floor. Soon, the symbol of a three-headed hound emerged.
The hound of the Underworld was fierce, its jagged fangs interlocking, glaring at them with eyes that seemed to growl in a low, rumbling threat.
The Magos pointed to the three heads. "The left represents the Astartes, the center the mortals, the right the Mechanicum."
"You're the most humble Magos of the Mechanicum I've ever met."
Margo stared at the hellhound, deep in thought.
"This is His will—not mine."
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