Chapter 341: Hades Loathes Religion
"O devout one! Your gravest sin was choosing a merchant as your lord.
Your daily sermons, your holy-water piety—worthless in His eyes.
And your greatest fortune was choosing a merchant as your lord, for the worldly know the needs of the flesh: with a bit of loyalty, He grants you clean water, shelter, and a job that earns you bread."
—From a manuscript of Jin-306
"Damnable creatures! How do you dung-eaters dare call yourselves devout?!
Do not bring your greed before Him! What do you take Him for, a vending machine?!
God is innocent and merciful, close to mankind and mirroring it—but that is not an excuse for you to deceive Him for coins!
Do not seek His audience until you have cast aside your accursed avarice!
If I detect even a trace of greed in your cognition engine, you will face far worse than ten lashes!"
—A recording fragment from the Köklen datablock
"Uh… don't panic, what do you want?"
—Hades
. . .
There were times when Hades simply refused to think too deeply.
Reflecting seriously on the morality, ethics, and humanities of this cesspit of a universe only pushed him into corners he didn't want to explore. Abandoning thought was the better choice—though this didn't mean Hades was about to reject humanity and join the Orks.
…Well, maybe the Orks weren't such a bad option.
Hades took a long, steady breath. The rustling of cogwheels in his ears filled him with a faint irritation. After devouring the fifth table of desserts, the now-full Primarch had, for once, felt drowsy again. So Angron returned to rest—completely unaware, thanks to Hades' concealment, of what the situation outside had become.
Outside this room, the sea of binary signal was so loud it bordered on explosive.
Adeptus Mechanicus vessels sat in a silent ring around the World Eaters' Red Tear. Out of respect for Salem's assistance in the war, the World Eaters had permitted the Magos to inch closer.
The Tech-Priest had been waiting for him.
After the first drop of blood fell in devotion, the topic Hades had long refused to face—long fled from—finally stood before him.
He had to answer the existence of a faith that should never have existed.
Hades' current position was not that of a general who rewards bravery, honors the fallen, and compensates soldiers with material comforts. This was nothing like serving with the Death Guard.
He was now regarded as a god.
Though the behavior of worshipers and soldiers could look similar—both would die for their chosen figure—the essence was entirely different.
Some secular believers pray only for their small wishes to be fulfilled. Hades understood such people; he even preferred them. They only required a clear, manageable system of rewards and consequences.
But the vast majority of believers—certainly the Magos waiting outside—were not such people.
This was true faith.
The kind who "upon hearing the Way in the morning, can die content by dusk."
Through the bloated theology of the Mechanicus, they had become zealots ready to give their lives for the Machine God they imagined in their hearts.
Hades swallowed quietly. In a way, it was terrifying—strangers willing to die for a mythical apparition. That level of fanaticism made him tremble.
The Emperor had been doing something terrifying all along:
He planted the seed of religion on Mars, letting it grow into a monstrous colossus over centuries.
It wasn't indulgence—it was strategy.
The Emperor's goal had been to preserve the spark of technology, one that could survive through turbulent ages without His direct care.
And then, when He needed that fire, He descended upon Mars—and under the title of "Omnissiah," demanded support and resources.
To be fair, the Emperor did repay Mars materially.
But without the name Omnissiah, His cooperation with the Magos would have been far more difficult.
In other words, for the sake of humanity's grand endeavor, the Emperor had personally cultivated a caste of zealots—Tech-Priest willing to sacrifice themselves for faith. He exchanged the name of religion for their weapons and resources, and he did so with practiced ease.
It was a necessary sacrifice.
Hades could already imagine asking the Emperor about this, and what the Emperor's answer would be.
And Hades himself would be the next one the Emperor pushed onto the pyre.
But… in truth, it was the fallen believers who had already pushed Hades onto that pyre.
Hades respected every drop of blood shed. No blood should spill in vain. As long as he had the power, he would grant the dying their final whispers. But if their last wish was to behold the illusory, impossible god they carried in their hearts…
Hades signaled the servitor to open the door, expressionless, and strode out.
Then he would grant them a dream, even if the price was a lie he must forever bear.
. . .
A long, narrow corridor—darkness flowed like a tide, swallowing everything.
Searing green arcs of electricity flickered.
Crisp, cold, heavy footsteps sounded—metal striking metal.
At the far end of the passageway, the halberds of the prohibited-entry guard—held jointly by the Sister of Silence and the Custodes—slowly lowered.
But the Magos, who had moments ago been pushing and screeching at each other, no longer took that eagerly awaited step forward. They slowly retracted the auxiliary limbs they had been using to strike one another and shuffled backward, forming an orderly arrangement on their own.
In the scuffle, a World Eater who had been squeezed to the very back let out a few frustrated, guttural roars. No one acknowledged him. All he could see was the back of the Magos's heads as they nervously straightened their robes.
Not that there was much to straighten—most of their so-called "red robes" were little more than tattered strips of cloth.
Khârn, beside the World Eater, punched him in the arm, signaling him to shut up.
Footsteps drew nearer.
The lead Magos let out a cry of praise to the Omnissiah.
His distorted voice cut sharply through the air, and the ocean of praises began to stir.
Amidst the chanting, engines revved with harsh friction; metal struck flooring again and again. People knelt, lowering their heads, displaying their loyalty to their god.
Even though they had already proven that loyalty with their own splattered blood, they still forced themselves to bow as deeply as they could. They still trembled.
Before the true deity, no one was flawless.
The footsteps stopped.
A long silence followed.
In that silence, the crowd felt an illusion—as if they had heard the Omnissiah sigh.
A hem of cloth trembled uneasily.
"Do not kneel."
The voice sounded calm, unquestioning.
"Stand. Only then can you better approach the truth."
It was strange. These were worshipers who would gladly give their lives at the faintest flash of lightning in the god's hand—yet when the god commanded them to rise, they hesitated.
Perhaps because standing felt like disobedience.
"You have proven yourselves. You need not kneel."
At last came the shifting of metal and chains, a rising tide of ragged cloth.
The believers waited in silence for the god's decree—praise or reproach, joy or wrath.
Power lay in His hands, not theirs.
Hades wanted to sigh inwardly, but he forced himself not to.
How had the Emperor handled moments like this? Did he ever fail these eyes—eyes filled not with wisdom, but with earnest, even foolish faith?
What should he say to them?
What should he grant them?
As sacrifices, as the brave and fearless, Hades ought to grant the Magos all the knowledge and riches he reasonably could. If they so desired, he would impart wisdom, point them toward the future.
But that was not all they sought.
They were both greedier and more ascetic.
Hades could not judge these Magos—raised within suffocating religious doctrine—by secular standards.
Specifically, what they needed from him was spiritual and religious affirmation.
In the darkness, Hades parted his lips.
He recalled the prayers he had once memorized in a daze in the Martian chapels.
He spoke lightly and quickly, as though the language might corrode his tongue:
"People of Salem, the unceasing gears bear witness to your courage, the never-drying blood bears witness to your loyalty, and the fire of knowledge deep within your souls gladdens me."
"So—what reward do you seek? As long as it lies within my power to grant, I will not hesitate."
Even if they asked for nothing, Hades would still amass supplies for this forge world. The moment the war ended, he had already decided what to bestow upon these Magos—vast stores of material, essential technologies, enough to let them reign securely over this region of space bordering the Maelstrom.
What he asked now was merely an additional token of gratitude.
At present, his only formal title was that of the Head of the Silent Sisterhood—but later he could negotiate… by beating up Malcador (and being beaten up by Malcador) to obtain more resources.
In truth, the Magos of this forge world were the saviors of Hades and the World Eaters.
Yet now, their positions had reversed.
The shift made Hades uncomfortable, though it was precisely what the Magos wished to see.
Hades could only hear the engines of the front-row Magos rumbling—nearly overheating, by the sound of it.
The Magos before him remained silent.
They were silent for a long time—long enough that the World Eaters in the back shifted uneasily.
What… what did they want?
Archmagos Hysen remained silent. He had not originally been their leader; their true Archmagos had, after shouting a final "For the Omnissiah!", led his Titan into death. On the rank list, everyone above Hysen now lay buried beneath the snowfields.
And so, he had naturally ascended to the position others had schemed and bled for, the position he had once dreamed of.
Although three others of equal rank had also survived (and the shoving earlier had been over this very matter), Hysen—having been the one who stood closest to the center of the battlefield—ultimately prevailed.
What did they desire?
Hysen realized they had never truly thought about it.
They had shoved and scrambled merely to see the Omnissiah.
When the war ended, when that rain of silver-white miracles slid into their metal shells, the most overwhelming feeling within them had been awe—the awareness that they had witnessed a divine war.
They had stood on ruins, savoring victory, recalling the magnificent spectacle before them—likely the grandest sight most of them would ever behold in their lives.
And even the dead were joyful.
They had died in a holy war, fallen on the ground closest to truth itself.
There was no death more worthy than offering one's life to the Machine God—and more than that, in their final moments, they had truly received the Omnissiah's tears and blessings.
If not for the scar on his left shoulder—still wrapped in a silver-white tear—Hysen might have envied the dead.
So what, truly, did they want?
A creeping dread washed over Hysen as he realized he had been silent for far too long.
But he genuinely had no answer—not he, not Salem.
Fighting alongside the Omnissiah had already pushed the limits of their Imagination.
Ask a devout believer his greatest lifelong dream, and he would answer: to see his god with his own eyes.
Then… what comes after?
Hysen slowly fed power into his vox-caster.
With as much grace as he could muster, he lifted his ragged robe and bowed.
"…We desire nothing, my lord."
His earnest voice reached Hades' ears.
The Lord of the Underworld gazed down at the bowing Magos for a long time without speaking.
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