The transition back into the Immaterium was no less jarring, but this time, Rimuru's perspective had changed. He no longer viewed the Warp as a mere obstacle or a source of disgust. He viewed it as the native territory of his new enemy. With Ciel's analytical prowess, he began to study it, to map the currents of rage and despair, to sense the ebb and flow of the Great Game played by the Ruinous Powers. He was a king preparing for a foreign war, learning the terrain of his battlefield.
Lord Inquisitor Varrus did not remain idle. The bridge of the Obelisk became the command center for a burgeoning war effort. Astropaths, their minds shielded by the ancient power of the ship and the will of the Inquisitor, sent out encrypted communiques across the stars. Fleets were rerouted. Regiments of the Astra Militarum were put on high alert. A summons was sent to the Astartes of the Death Spectres Chapter, grim guardians of the nearby regions. Varrus was not merely trusting Rimuru; he was preparing the anvil upon which Rimuru would act as the hammer.
In the ship's primary strategium, Varrus personally briefed Rimuru on the nature of their foe. The holo-lith displayed the blighted Helios Sector in sickening detail.
"The central world, Helios Prime, is no longer a planet of rock and water," Varrus explained, his ancient eyes cold. "It is a Daemon World, a place where the barrier between the Warp and reality has been torn asunder. It is now part of Nurgle's 'Garden'."
Images flickered on the display: rivers of pus, forests of weeping fungal trees, and shambling hordes of Plaguebearers and the bloated, walking dead known as Plague Zombies.
"The population of Helios Prime, fifty billion souls, did not die," Varrus continued, his voice a low growl of hatred. "They were captured by disease. Their souls are trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, their bodies serving as incubators for Nurgle's foulest creations. They are the primary ground force."
He pointed to a fleet of grotesque, corroded warships orbiting the planet. "The defense fleet is commanded by the Death Guard of the traitor legion. Astartes who turned from the Emperor's light ten thousand years ago, they are walking plague vectors, immune to pain, and nearly impossible to kill by conventional means."
"And at the heart of it all," Varrus said, zooming in on a colossal, fortress-like citadel that seemed to grow out of the planet's surface like a boil, "is the citadel of Vorlag the Vile. He is the mind of the plague, the heart of the corruption. To kill him is to break the fever. As long as he lives, the entire sector will remain a font of daemonic pestilence."
Rimuru listened to it all, his expression placid, but a cold, hard anger was building within him. This was not war. It was a perversion of life itself, a system of suffering for suffering's sake.
"I see," he said simply. "A king who rules through sickness and despair. An unworthy ruler."
Later, Rimuru made a request of the Inquisitor. "I require access to your ship's fabrication bay. I need to prepare a suitable tool for this 'weeding'."
Intrigued, Varrus granted the request. He, Kael, and Captain Arken observed from a shielded gallery as Rimuru was led into the Obelisk's grand artificer's bay, a place usually reserved for consecrating the weapons of the Inquisition. The bay was filled with arcane machinery and attended by Tech-Priests sworn to Varrus's service.
Rimuru surveyed the advanced forges and molecular assemblers. "These are impressive, but I won't be needing them." He turned to a Tech-Priest. "I require one standard-issue adamantium ingot, and the purest focusing crystal you have in your stores."
Confused but obedient, the Tech-Priest presented the items: a dull grey bar of one of the galaxy's strongest metals, and a fist-sized, perfectly cut crystal used in the targeting arrays of lance batteries.
Rimuru took the items. Then, in the stunned silence of the bay, he held them out in his open palms. He closed his eyes.
He wasn't using a forge. He was using his Ultimate Skill, Creator.
The adamantium ingot began to glow, not with heat, but with a soft, internal light. It lifted into the air and lost its solid form, melting into a liquid, metallic ribbon that coiled and twisted in the space before him. At the same time, the focusing crystal dissolved into a stream of pure, crystalline light. Ciel, in his mind, was running trillions of calculations, designing a weapon on a conceptual level. A blade not just to cut flesh, but to cut at the very essence of corruption.
The liquid metal and the stream of light began to weave together, folding in on themselves in a display of creation so perfect and so swift it defied all known laws of metallurgy and physics. The Tech-Priests let out a chorus of static-laced gasps. This was the true art of the Omnissiah, creation by will alone.
In less than a minute, the process was complete. A weapon hung in the air before Rimuru. It was a katana, its form elegant and impossibly sleek. The blade was a silvery-white, seeming to absorb the light of the bay, and down its center ran a fuller of the pure, crystalline energy. The hilt was a simple, practical black, and the guard was a minimalist ring. It radiated an aura not of aggression, but of profound, unshakeable order and purity.
Rimuru took the sword, its weight feeling perfect in his hand.
<
He gave the blade a single, experimental swing. It cut through the air with no sound at all, leaving a faint, shimmering trail that dissipated a moment later. Kael, watching from the gallery, felt a chill run down his spine. He had a sense that the blade hadn't just cut the air; it had momentarily severed reality itself.
Just as Rimuru finished his inspection, a klaxon sounded through the ship—a sharp, single chime, not an alarm.
"Lord Inquisitor," the ship master's voice announced over the vox. "We are translating back into realspace. We have arrived at the edge of the Helios Sector."
Varrus's voice was grim. "On screen."
On the bridge, the view shifted from the swirling chaos of the Warp to the sickening reality of their destination. The star, Helios, was a bloated, dying orb that cast a sickly, greenish-yellow light. The planets in the system were shrouded in thick, swirling clouds of brown and green smog. And orbiting the central world, Helios Prime, was a fleet of plague-ridden ships, their hulls weeping rust and corruption, surrounded by a faint, shimmering energy field of pure disease.
The vox crackled with the first report from a long-range augur probe. "…Massive fleet concentrations confirmed… Bio-signatures in the trillions on the primary world… Warp contamination is absolute… Emperor protect us, you can smell the decay even through the void…"
Varrus strode onto the bridge, Kael and Arken flanking him. Rimuru appeared a moment later, his new blade held calmly at his side. They all stood before the main viewport, staring at the vista of corruption.
"Behold, King Rimuru," Varrus said, his voice a low rumble. "The Garden of Nurgle. The domain of the Daemon Prince Vorlag. Your first great test in our war against damnation."
Rimuru stared at the plague-ridden system, his golden eyes reflecting the sickly green light. The sheer, overwhelming wrongness of it all, the stench of despair that he could feel even across millions of kilometers, settled in his soul.
He rested his hand on the hilt of his newly forged sword, the clean, orderly power within it a stark contrast to the filth on the screen.
"This is not a garden," he said, his voice quiet, yet carrying a cold, absolute finality that made even the Lord Inquisitor pause. "It is a wound. And it is time to cauterize it."