The journey away from the dead, clean world of Helios Prime was a somber affair. The bridge of the Obelisk was silent as the Imperial fleet, its duty done, began to disperse back to their lonely patrols and thankless wars. The Deathwatch veterans, their grim task completed, had been taken aboard a strike cruiser to be debriefed and re-assigned, their minds and souls now burdened with a secret of impossible weight. Captain Arken, however, remained, his new, unspoken duty clear: he was now the permanent guardian of the Lord Inquisitor's most valuable and volatile asset.
In the Inquisitor Lord's private strategium, the air was thick with the new, complex reality of their situation. The holo-lith displayed not a battle map, but a swirling, chaotic web of astropathic intercepts.
"Your victory was too absolute, King Rimuru," Varrus said, his ancient eyes tracing the lines of psychic chatter that were spreading like a virus through the Segmentum's communication network. "The Imperium is a body starved of hope. It lives on a thin gruel of faith and duty. You have just served it a feast."
He magnified one of the intercepts, a frantic, ecstatic message from an Astropath on a listening post hundreds of light-years away.
[…DIVINE LIGHT… A PRAYER ANSWERED… THE PLAGUE STAR IS EXTINGUISHED… A HOLY WARRIOR WALKS AMONG US… THE EMPEROR WEEPS TEARS OF GOLDEN LIGHT…]
"I don't understand," Rimuru said, genuinely perplexed as he read the fragmented, emotional text. "We fought a battle. We won. Why is this a problem?"
It was Interrogator Kael who answered, his voice grim. He brought up an image on the holo-lith: a woman in ornate, white and black power armor, her face set in an expression of beatific fury, a flaming brazier adorned with skulls fixed to her backpack. She held a large, two-handed chainsword, its teeth gleaming.
"Because in the Imperium, there is no separation between war and faith," Kael explained. "And these are the arbiters of that faith. The Adepta Sororitas. The Sisters of Battle."
He described them to Rimuru: a militant order of warrior-nuns, orphans of the Imperium raised from birth in the Schola Progenium to know nothing but prayer, discipline, and the art of war. Their faith was not a philosophy; it was a weapon. It was so pure, so absolute, that it could manifest as literal miracles, shielding them from harm and setting their blades alight with holy fire. They were the sworn swords of the Ecclesiarchy, the vast, galaxy-spanning church that preached the divinity of the God-Emperor.
"They will not see you as a king from another world," Kael continued, his eyes dark with warning. "They have heard tales of a divine being, an angel in human form who purifies the unclean with a touch. They will see you as a Saint, a living extension of the Emperor's will."
"That sounds… flattering, I suppose?" Rimuru ventured.
"It is a death sentence," Varrus cut in, his voice like stone. "They will seek to venerate you, to build shrines in your name, to follow you into battle as a living idol. They will demand you preach the Imperial Creed. And when they discover you are not a servant of their God-Emperor, when you speak of your own nation of monsters and your philosophy of cooperation… their adoration will curdle into absolute, righteous hatred. To them, a false saint is the most insidious form of heresy. They will not rest until they have burned your body and scoured your very memory from the galaxy, all with a prayer on their lips."
Rimuru fell silent, finally grasping the terrifying, paradoxical nature of his new predicament. He had faced down armies and daemons, but the idea of fighting an army that loved him was a strategic problem he had never considered.
<
"So, we need to avoid these warrior-nuns," Rimuru concluded aloud. "Where can we go? You said we would visit a library."
"The Librarius Xenologis is now compromised," Varrus said, waving a hand and dismissing the star-chart. "It is a known Inquisitorial holding. The Ecclesiarchy will petition to visit it, and to deny them would be to admit we are hiding something. They would lay siege to the entire system if they had to. We cannot travel through the Warp. They will be watching the currents, listening for my ship's psychic signature."
A new, desperate plan had formed in the Inquisitor's ancient mind. "We must walk a different path. A secret path." He looked at Rimuru. "I will uphold my promise to contact the Eldar. But it is no longer just for their knowledge. It is now for passage. We must ask them for entry into the Webway."
Kael and Arken both stiffened. The Webway was the labyrinthine, extra-dimensional network of the Eldar, a pathway between worlds that was utterly forbidden to mankind. To even ask for entry was to invite trickery and doom.
"It is a desperate gamble," Varrus admitted. "But our options are limited. I have a contact within the Ulthwé craftworld, an old Farseer who owes me a debt of lives. I will send a message. A plea for a rendezvous in the silent, empty spaces between the stars."
He turned to his private Astropathic choir, his mind already composing the impossibly complex, coded message.
Far across the galaxy, aboard the Ecclesiarchy Battle Barge, Divine Right, a different kind of meeting was taking place. Canoness Celestine, commander of the Order of the Argent Shroud, stood before a vast, stained-glass window depicting the Emperor vanquishing a great beast. Her silver armor was polished to a mirror sheen, her face a mask of serene, focused piety.
A Sister Dialogus approached, her steps silent on the marble floor. "Canoness," she reported, her voice filled with religious fervor. "The reports are confirmed. The astropathic choirs are all singing the same hymn. The Helios Sector is… silent. The taint of the plague-god is gone."
The Canoness turned, her grey eyes burning with a cold, righteous fire. "It is as the vision foretold. A cleansing light in the darkness."
"The Cardinals are calling it a miracle," the Sister continued. "They are declaring a new Age of Faith. And they are mobilizing the fleets."
"Good," the Canoness said, her hand resting on the pommel of her blessed power sword. "Our long vigil is over. A new saint has been sent to guide and protect us in these dark times. He will be a beacon of hope for all of mankind."
She looked out at the stars, her expression one of absolute, unshakeable resolve.
"Prepare the fleet. Set a course for the last known position of the Inquisitorial vessel Obelisk. We go on a holy pilgrimage." A dangerous, predatory smile touched her lips. "Let us see if this new saint is everything the whispers say he is. And if he is not… the Emperor will judge him through the fire of our blades."