Lord Inquisitor Varrus regarded Rimuru with the unnerving patience of a mountain. He had made his offer, a request that was in truth a command, a test, and a temptation all in one. He did not press for an immediate answer. Instead, he acknowledged the question that hung in the air.
"You ask about Chaos," Varrus said, his voice a low murmur that seemed to absorb the light on the dark bridge. He gestured to the holo-lith, and the star map of the Segmentum dissolved, replaced by a swirling, chaotic vortex of angry, impossible colors. It was the Immaterium, the Warp, rendered in tactical display.
"To understand Chaos, you must first understand the nature of the soul. Every sentient being in this galaxy—human, Eldar, Ork—possesses a soul. That soul is a reflection in the Immaterium. A single drop in a great, cosmic ocean."
He gestured to the swirling vortex. "This is that ocean. The Warp is a parallel dimension, a reality of pure energy and raw consciousness, shaped by the thoughts, dreams, and, most potently, the emotions of every living thing. For millennia, it was a relatively calm sea. But humanity, in our multitudes, our passions, and our arrogance, turned it into a raging tempest."
Varrus's ancient eyes seemed to look back through time, to horrors Rimuru could not imagine. "The most powerful, primal emotions began to coalesce. They gained a terrible, sentient awareness. Rage, hatred, and the lust for battle formed a consciousness of pure, unending violence. We call him Khorne, the Blood God."
The holo-lith flickered, showing an icon of a fanged, brass skull.
"The desperate hope for a better future, the burning ambition for change, the desire for knowledge—these twisted into a being of pure, mad scheming. Tzeentch, the Architect of Fate." An icon of a warped, magical flame appeared.
"The fear of death, the terror of disease, the inevitable despair in the face of mortality… this gave birth to a god of decay and stagnation, a loving grandfather of pestilence. Nurgle, the Plague Lord." A sickly, three-lobed symbol pulsed with green light. It was the icon associated with the Helios Sector.
"And finally," Varrus said, his voice laced with a profound disgust, "the pursuit of pleasure, of sensation, of perfection… taken to its most extreme, depraved conclusion. This created a god of excess and pain, of beauty and corruption. Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure." A final, elegant but disturbing sigil joined the others.
"They are the Ruinous Powers," Varrus stated. "They are not gods that exist on some distant plane. They are the Warp. They are sentient cancers born from the very soul of the galaxy. They do not want to conquer us. They want to consume us, to drag our reality into their hellscape and feast on the agony of our souls for eternity."
Rimuru listened, his expression serene, but internally, Ciel was working furiously.
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"And a Daemon Prince?" Rimuru asked, his voice cutting through the heavy, theological lecture.
"A Daemon Prince," Kael interjected, his voice tight, "is the ultimate success and the ultimate failure. A mortal being, most often a Space Marine of the Traitor Legions, who has performed such great and terrible deeds in the name of his chosen god that he is rewarded with ascension. His soul is fused with the raw power of the Warp. He becomes a true daemon, a creature of both realities, a general in the Long War against mankind. Vorlag the Vile, the master of the Helios Sector, was once a Captain of the Death Guard Legion, before he betrayed the Emperor and gave his soul to the god of plagues."
Rimuru processed this. It was a complete, self-sustaining system of despair. Mortals suffered, feeding the gods, who in turn empowered mortals to create more suffering. It was perfectly, horribly efficient. He then asked the question that had been forming in his mind, a question no one in the Imperium would ever dare to ask.
"You say these gods are born of emotion," he began, his tone analytical. "That makes them a natural, if terrible, consequence of sentient life. Why do you treat Chaos as an external enemy to be fought, rather than an internal imbalance to be managed or purified?"
Captain Arken actually flinched at the sheer heresy of the question. Varrus, however, showed the faintest hint of a weary smile.
"Because we tried," the old Inquisitor said. "During the Golden Age of Technology, before the Emperor revealed himself, humanity believed in the power of pure reason. We believed we could manage our own souls. That age ended in a firestorm of psychic apocalypse, daemonic possession, and a rebellion of our own creations, the Men of Iron. We learned the hard way that there is no 'managing' this cancer. There is no 'purifying' this poison. You do not reason with a tidal wave. You build a wall. You do not debate a plague. You burn it out, root and stem, lest it consume you and all you hold dear. That is the philosophy upon which the Imperium was built, and it is the only reason we have survived."
Rimuru fell silent, his gaze returning to the violet stain on the star map. He now understood. The Imperium was not just a brutal, xenophobic regime. It was a fortress, built by a species that had looked into the abyss and found the abyss staring back, laughing. Their cruelty was the cruelty of a desperate surgeon trying to save a patient who was already riddled with cancer.
He thought of his own nation. Tempest was a place of joy, of feasting, of camaraderie. The emotions of his people were a source of strength and happiness. The idea of a cosmic force that would take those same emotions and twist them into fuel for eternal suffering was not just a strategic threat. It was a personal, philosophical offense.
He finally looked up, his decision made. His golden eyes, usually so warm and mild, now held the cold, hard light of a king passing judgment.
"This Vorlag," he said, his voice quiet but resonating with a new, firm authority. "This servant of the god of despair. It presides over a system of torment, a world where the natural cycle of life is replaced with eternal, joyful decay." He shook his head slowly. "Such a thing is an unforgivable evil. It is an enemy to all life, not just humanity. I find its continued existence… disagreeable."
He met Varrus's ancient gaze, king to king, power to power.
"I accept your proposal, Lord Inquisitor. I will go to the Helios Sector."
A wave of relief, so potent it was almost a physical force, washed over Kael and Arken. The gambit had worked.
"Not for your Emperor, nor for the glory of your Imperium," Rimuru continued, his voice leaving no room for misunderstanding. "I will do this because a king has a duty to protect the concept of a peaceful life from those who would poison it. I will do this on my own terms, for my own reasons."
Varrus's rare smile returned, this time genuine. He had not found a simple weapon. He had found an ally with a will of iron, a power with its own convictions. This was far, far better.
"Your terms are acceptable, King Rimuru," the Lord Inquisitor said. He turned to the ship's command console. "Captain of the Fleet. Set a course for the Cadian Gate, then onwards to the Helios Sector. Inform Segmentum Command that the Ordo Xenos, by my authority, is commencing Operation: Divine Tempest."
The great ship began to hum, its ancient engines preparing to once more plunge into the hell from which they had just come. But this time, they were not just passing through. This time, they were bringing a different kind of storm to the heart of Chaos.