**Chapter 12: The Echo of Scars(0.3)**
The Warden's proposition did not echo; it permeated. It seeped into the cockpit of the *Argent Oath*, a proposal so immense it felt like a shift in the local gravity. To kill a sleeping god. It was a concept so far beyond the scope of human ambition that it bordered on the meaningless, like an ant contemplating the assassination of a star.
Likas felt the reactions of his two companions. Kaelen's shattered soul shriveled in on itself, a flicker of pure, primal terror at the thought of confronting a power that made the daemons he feared seem like petty squabbles. But Cassia… Cassia's spectral form burned with a sudden, fierce, and unexpected light.
*…a god who consumes reality…* her thoughts lanced into Likas's mind, sharp and clear. *…it is the ultimate heresy. The final enemy. Not of man, but of existence itself. There can be no greater foe, no more righteous crusade.*
Her ten thousand years of rage had found a new, ultimate focus. The petty wars of the Imperium and Chaos were transient things. The battle against non-existence was eternal. She had found a war worthy of her immense, distilled spirit.
Likas, the fulcrum, felt their two opposing reactions and found the balance. He looked at the hard-light avatar of the Warden, his mind a whirlwind of ANITO-driven calculations and gut feelings from a lifetime of blue-collar pragmatism. This wasn't a negotiation between equals. This was a drowning man being offered a life raft by a leviathan, with the quiet understanding that the leviathan would one day ask for a favor.
"You offer us an arsenal to fight our war," Likas said, his voice amplified by the Knight's vox, steady and even. "And in return, we become your long-term contingency plan. Your weapon, to be aimed at your prisoner when the time is right."
**
"What kind of tools are we talking about?" Likas asked, pressing for specifics. The soul of Reyes, the man who had haggled for better materials on a construction site, knew you never accepted the first offer without seeing the merchandise.
In response, the Warden simply gestured with a graceful, luminous hand. The crystalline walls of the vast chamber dissolved, becoming transparent. Likas's view expanded into an infinite, silent panorama. He was looking at the *inside* of the dodecahedron, and it was not a prison of empty space. It was a shipyard.
Suspended in the timeless, lightless void were ships. Hundreds of them. They were not the brutal, Gothic cathedrals of the Imperium or the spiky, malevolent warships of Chaos. They were things of elegant, lethal beauty, shaped like blades, thorns, and crescent moons. Their hulls were forged from the same dark, light-absorbing crystal as the station itself, and they radiated a quiet, dormant power. Drones, from tiny, insect-like scouts to moon-sized maintenance craft, moved between them in silent, perfect formations.
**
Likas felt a tremor from Kaelen. It was not fear. It was the awe of a born warrior looking upon the ultimate sword.
"And the weapons?" Likas pressed.
The view shifted again. He was shown armories vast enough to swallow planets. Racks of personal weapons that fired contained singularities. Suits of personal armor that could phase through solid matter. Devices that could fold space for instantaneous travel without touching the Maelstrom. It was the entire lost arsenal of a civilization so advanced that the Dark Age of Technology looked like the Stone Age.
This was not just a key to winning his war. This was the power to remake the galaxy in his own image. It was a temptation on a scale that would have made an Arch-heretic like Horus blush.
But Likas saw the hook within the bait. "All of this… tied to you. To this place. The moment we turn against your purpose, you could switch it all off."
**
He had a choice. He could refuse, take his chances in the galaxy with just the *Argent Oath* and his own burgeoning power, and hope for the best. He would be free, but he would likely be overwhelmed eventually. Or he could accept, and gain the power to save humanity, at the cost of binding its fate to this ancient, alien pact. He would become the most powerful being in the galaxy, but he would also become a slave to a purpose beyond his understanding.
He thought of Elara, waiting on a shattered mountain, holding a vial of his blood. He thought of the child that might be born, a child who would inherit his war. What kind of galaxy did he want to leave for them? A galaxy slowly being devoured by the endless, meaningless slaughter of Chaos and the dogmatic decay of the Imperium? Or a galaxy that had been scoured clean, given a chance at a true new beginning, even if that cleansing was paid for with a terrible, cosmic price?
The choice was clear. It was the same choice he had made his entire first life: sacrifice himself for the future of others. But this time, the scale was infinitely larger.
"There are conditions," Likas said, his voice hard as iron.
The Warden's avatar tilted its head. *****
"One," Likas began. "My crew—Cassia and Kaelen—are my partners, not my subjects. Their consent is required. They are bound to this pact only by their own free will."
He paused, opening the channel to his companions. *Cassia?*
*…to silence the ultimate chaos? It is a holy cause. I consent.*
*Kaelen?*
The response was a wave of pure, unadulterated loyalty, tinged with the terror of what was being asked, but overshadowed by his devotion to Likas, the one who had freed him from his daemonic torment. He consented.
"Two," Likas continued, facing the Warden. "I will not be your pawn. I will command this fleet. I will choose my battles. I will prosecute my war against the Maelstrom as I see fit. You can advise. You can provide data. But command authority rests with me. My war comes first. Your war against the sleeper comes second."
**
"Three," Likas said, his voice dropping, the final condition the most important of all. "You will not interfere with humanity. You will not 'guide' us. You will not 'correct' us. Your power, your technology, will be used only for the war against the Archenemy. When that war is won, humanity will be left to find its own path, free from the influence of Chaos, and free from you. Your pact is with me, and me alone. Not my species."
This was the soul of Reyes speaking. The man who valued free will, even the freedom to make terrible mistakes, above all else. He would not trade one set of celestial tyrants for another.
The Warden's avatar was still for a long, profound moment. The silent hum of the great station seemed to deepen, as if it were engaged in a calculation of immense complexity. Likas felt the full weight of its ancient, alien intellect focused on him, analyzing his motives, his resolve, his very soul.
**
"It's non-negotiable," Likas said, his will an unbreachable wall.
Another long silence. Then, a slow, almost reluctant psychic nod.
**
Likas felt a wave of relief so profound it almost buckled his knees. He had won. He had secured the power to save them, and the freedom to let them walk their own path afterwards.
**
The view inside the dodecahedron shifted once more. A single vessel, a blade-like scout frigate about the size of an Imperial Cobra-class destroyer, detached from its mooring and glided silently towards the *Argent Oath*. It was a thing of perfect, lethal elegance.
**
Likas looked at the ship. It was more than a weapon; it was a symbol of the pact he had just made. A promise of unimaginable power, and the burden of a cosmic responsibility.
His first act as commander was not to inspect his new weapon, but to look back the way he had come. He focused his senses, reaching out with his new, enhanced power, across the nebula, across the void, back towards the distant star of Aethelgard-Prime. He could feel it, a tiny, fragile pinprick of defiant life in the vast darkness. He could feel Elara. He could feel the promise in the vial she held.
His war was for her. For their child. For the trillions of souls huddled in the dying light of the Imperium.
"Take us to Vagrant's Hope, Warden," Likas commanded, his voice now holding the quiet, absolute authority of a man who commanded a fleet of ghost ships. "My recruitment drive is about to begin. And I want to make an impression."
The triangular portal of the dodecahedron opened once more. The *Argent Oath* and its new, silent escort, *The Quietude*, moved to exit the ancient prison. But as they passed the threshold, the Warden gave him one final, chilling piece of information.
**** it pulsed into his mind. **
A sliver of ice slid down Likas's spine. The sleeping god, the devourer of reality, was not just a mindless beast. It was aware. It was intelligent. And it had been calling to him, recognizing a kindred spirit, perhaps. Or a potential key to its own cage.
The pact he had made to defeat the horrors of the galaxy had just been revealed to be a deal with the jailer of an even greater horror. A horror that already knew his name.
Likas looked out at the swirling chaos of the Maelstrom, his new ship beside him, his new, terrible purpose settled in his soul. His expression was grim, resolute. The galaxy had its monsters. But now, it had him.