The image on the screen remained focused on Mortarion, who had ascended to daemonhood, his back sprouting wings, and his face rotting.
But this time, the heavy, oppressive, suffocating atmosphere of tragedy suddenly changed.
Although the narrator's voice was still serious, attentive viewers seemed to detect a hint of... barely suppressed laughter in the tone.
[Mortarion ascended. He became Nurgle's Daemon Prince.]
[But he still firmly maintained that he was a staunch materialist.]
As soon as this sentence was uttered, it was like a stone thrown into a calm lake, causing a violent shock to the logic of all the Viewing Worlds.
[Yes, you heard that right.]
[Even though his body is currently flowing with pus from the Warp, even though his wings are composed of pure Evil Energy, and even though every breath he takes spews forth plagues that defy the laws of physics.]
[Yet, he still fundamentally loathes "Psyker powers" and "Sorcery."]
[In his understanding, he has not become a Sorcerer.]
[He has merely mastered a more advanced form of... science that mortals cannot comprehend.]
[To make this logic self-consistent, and to avoid becoming the very thing he hated most, the Lord of Death, relying on his astonishing perseverance (or perhaps stubbornness), successfully created the most abstract, outrageous, yet inexplicably effective discipline in this Universe.]
Several distorted, glowing green characters appeared on the screen:
[Numerology]
The scene shifted to the Plague Planet deep within the Eye of Terror.
Mortarion was sitting in a room piled high with Strange instruments, moldy books, and bubbling flasks.
The place looked like an Alchemist's laboratory, or perhaps a madman's garbage heap.
Mortarion held a pen (or perhaps some kind of bone) and was frantically calculating something on a piece of Human Skin Parchment.
He was also muttering to himself.
"Seven... it must be seven... three times seven is twenty-one... no, the phase difference here is forty-nine..."
[This is Numerology.]
[Simply put, Mortarion believes that although the Warp is chaotic, it still follows certain mathematical laws.]
[Psyker power is not magic, but a high-dimensional physical phenomenon that has yet to be analyzed.]
[For example, Nurgle's sacred number is 7.]
[Thus, in Mortarion's "scientific system," if you want to unleash a World-destroying plague, you don't need to pray to a god, you just need to calculate.]
[If a virus has an incubation period of 7 hours, a transmission radius of 7 kilometers, and the number of infected is a multiple of 7, then according to the "Principle of Numerical Resonance" (which he invented), the plague will receive the blessing of the "Nurgle Field," multiplying its power.]
In the scene, Mortarion was commanding a battle.
Other Chaos Lords were shouting: "For the Gods! Blood for the Blood God!"
Meanwhile, Mortarion, holding a Protractor and a Slide Rule, yelled at his subordinates:
"Infantry formation move seven hundred meters to the left! Maintain groups of seven! You with the Bolter, your rate of fire is wrong! You must pull the trigger to a rhythm of three-sevenths beat! Otherwise, you won't cause Warp Resonance!"
"This isn't sorcery! This is mathematics! This is science!"
Watching the Daemon Primarch on the screen, who was simultaneously swinging a massive Scythe to reap lives and correcting numerical details on the battlefield like someone with advanced OCD, all the viewers fell into profound silence.
This... doesn't this look exactly like some kind of Shamanic Ritual?
It's just replacing "By the Decree of the Supreme Law" with "three times seven is twenty-one"!
[Is this ridiculous?]
[Yes, it's ridiculous.]
[In this place full of spirits, ghosts, and flying demons, someone actually wants to use scientific methods to explain the Chaos Gods.]
[It's like someone falling into a cesspit, and instead of climbing out quickly, they start measuring the viscosity and sinking speed of the feces with a ruler, attempting to establish a fluid dynamics model to prove they aren't dirty.]
[This is because he secretly considered whether Psyker powers might not be so terrible after all? Perhaps he could try to view them with a dialectical attitude?]
In the scene, Mortarion secretly picked up a book on Psyker theory, glanced at it, and immediately threw it far away as if he had been burned.
[He cannot accept emotional, uncontrollable Psyker power.]
[But he must confront the objectively existing power of the Warp.]
[Thus, in extreme conflict, this Primarch blazed a new trail, embarking on a "Scientific Cultivation" path that was unprecedented and will likely never be repeated.]
[Numerology is the ultimate product of this awkward psychology.]
[He firmly believes that as long as his calculations are precise enough, and his rituals (experiments) are meticulous enough, he can leverage the power of the Warp without using "sorcery."]
The most outrageous thing is—it actually worked.
[On the eve of the Horus Heresy, no Primarch knew what the Emperor was doing hidden in the Imperial Palace's Underground Room.]
[Horus thought Father was enjoying life, Guilliman thought Father was conducting administrative reforms, and Magnus thought Father was researching deeper truths.]
[Only Mortarion.]
[Calculated what the Emperor was trying to build on Terra.]
[The Emperor was trying to open a human-only Webway that did not rely on Warp travel.]
[This was the highest secret of the Imperium.]
[Not even Horus the Warmaster, whom he trusted most at the time, knew about it.]
[But Mortarion, publicly known as a "Country Bumpkin," "Psyker hater," and "inflexible," managed to calculate the Emperor's ultimate secret purely through this "Numerology" system that sounded like a madman's ravings.]
[In that moment, Mortarion felt he had won.]
"See! I told you it was science!"
Mortarion let out a triumphant, maniacal laugh in the empty room.
"What good are Psykers or Prophets? None of them are as effective as my mathematics! The Emperor, that old fool, really is up to something big!"
---
Marvel Universe
Tony Stark's expression was currently like watching a monkey tap out a quantum computer using a banana peel.
"Jarvis... tell me, is my logic module broken?"
Tony slumped in his chair, his gaze blank. "How... how did he do that?"
"Sir, according to visual analysis, his calculation process does not conform to any known mathematical logic."
Jarvis's voice also carried a hint of hesitation.
"He is substituting theological symbols into calculus, and then using probability theory to explain daemon summoning... Logically, this is unfeasible."
"But he calculated correctly!"
Tony jumped up abruptly, clutching his hair.
"He calculated that Webway Project! That's something even God-tier Civilizations treat as classified information!"
"And he solved it using an algorithm based on a Shamanic Ritual?"
"This is like... this is like someone counting the grains of rice they ate for dinner and calculating the winning numbers for the next lottery jackpot!"
"This is not science! Not only is this unscientific, it is an insult to science!"
Dr. Banner gave a wry smile from the side, took off his glasses, and wiped the lenses.
"Perhaps... this is the 'science' of that crazy Universe?"
Banner said softly.
"In a Universe where the laws of physics can be twisted by emotion, perhaps this mystical 'Numerology' is closer to the truth than the rigorous mathematics we demand."
"But he's still deceiving himself." Doctor Strange couldn't help but interject. As a Doctor of both magic and science, he was the most qualified to speak.
"That's a classic case of cognitive dissonance."
"He is using magic, he is casting spells, but he insists on giving those incantations names from physics."
Strange offered a very vivid analogy:
"It's like I draw a portal and then insist on explaining to you that it's 'Space Folding Technology,' and spend ages drawing coordinate axes... While technically not wrong, his attitude is just too awkward."
"However," Strange glanced at Mortarion
"To treat magic like a math problem and get the right answer... this guy is a genius. If he came to Kamar-Taj, he'd probably drive the Librarian Wong crazy."
DC Universe
"Hahahahahaha!"
Constantine laughed so hard he dropped his cigarette, clutching his stomach and rolling on the floor.
"Oh, I can't take it... this guy... this guy is absolutely hilarious!"
"Numerology?"
"Hahahaha! That's a trick we used hundreds of years ago to swindle old ladies in the countryside, alright?
"Adding up your birthday and dividing by 7 to find out if your husband is cheating... and he used that to calculate the Emperor's secret project?"
"The best part is he actually got it right!"
Constantine wiped tears from the corner of his eye and said to Batman:
"Bruce, did you see that? That's called 'a fool's luck'... oh wait, no, that's 'a madman's intuition.'"
"He hates magic to death, yet he concocted his own set of 'Materialist Magic.'"
"Nurgle, that old fat guy, is probably dying of laughter, having taken such a hilarious character as a subordinate."
Batman did not laugh.
His brow was tightly furrowed as he seriously analyzed Mortarion's behavior pattern.
"To be able to gain insight into the Emperor's top-secret plan this way... suggests that on some level, he truly touched upon the underlying logic of the Warp's operation—namely 'Symbolism' and 'Concept.'"
Batman paused, a Strange glint flashing in his eyes.
"At this level, even a 'Shamanic Ritual,' as long as it conforms to a certain conceptual rule (like Nurgle's 7), can indeed produce actual results."
Wonder Woman Diana wore an expression that defied description.
"So... he's a tsundere?"
Diana concluded.
"He's clearly using magic, but insists he's doing math problems. He clearly cares what the Emperor is doing, but insists on acting like he's looking for trouble. This Primarch... why is he like an overgrown child?"
Superman nodded, looking at the screen with some sympathy: "He lives a very tiring life. He spends his entire existence fighting himself."
Warhammer World
The atmosphere inside the Throne Room had become extremely bizarre at this moment.
The original sense of oppression and anger was somewhat... unbearable due to Mortarion's sudden "Numerology."
Even the most serious Dorn couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth.
"I want to confirm something."
Dorn turned his head and looked at Malcador beside him.
"Father's Webway Project... was it really calculated by him using this... this method?"
Malcador's hand, gripping his staff, was trembling slightly. His aged face was plastered with an expression that screamed, "I've lived this long and seen everything, but I truly have never seen this."
"Technically speaking..." Malcador began with difficulty, "...yes."
"At the time, we screened all Psyker fluctuations, monitored all Warp communications, and even a fly entering the Imperial Palace was scanned."
"But we certainly did not guard against... someone thousands of light-years away using an Abacus to Tell Fortunes."
"And it was Mortarion, of all people!"
Magnus, the true Master of Psyker Power, felt profoundly insulted at this moment.
He pointed at the screen, his single eye wide with rage:
"What is this? Huh? What is this!"
"I studied the Principia Enclydia for centuries, I established vast Schools of Geometry to analyze the Warp, and I have to cautiously peer into the future."
"This... this hick! This illiterate fool (said in anger)! He just sits there muttering 'seven, seven, seven,' and he found out about the Webway?"
"This is blasphemy against scholarship! This is pseudoscience! This is folk science!"
Magnus's roar echoed in the hall, but it sounded like the emotional breakdown of a top student whose slacker classmate scored a perfect grade using unconventional methods.
"I think it's pretty impressive."
Khan stroked his beard, a playful smile on his face.
"It doesn't matter if it's a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches mice. Old Fourteen might seem crazy, but his trick really works."
"This isn't the power of thinking!"
Mortarion suddenly stood up.
"This is... this is logical!"
Mortarion looked at the eyes of his brothers, who were staring at him like an idiot, and urgently defended himself:
"Warp fluctuations have frequencies! Nurgle's energy waves cycle with a period of 7!"
"As long as you capture this cycle, you can deduce the anomalous gravitational points in the real dimension!"
"That was calculation! Not a Shamanic Ritual!"
"Alright, alright, sit down, great mathematician."
Russ laughed heartily and clapped Mortarion's shoulder hard, nearly knocking the tall, slender Lord of Death apart.
"If you had told us earlier that you could Tell Fortunes, I would definitely have asked you for a reading before going to war. Hahahaha!"
"But seriously."
Vulkan looked at the Daemon Prince busy in the laboratory on the screen, a trace of sadness in his eyes.
"Even though he has become that appearance, even though he has been corrupted to the marrow, he is still trying to maintain a bit of... 'self.'"
"He still refuses to admit he is a Sorcerer. He still wants to use the word 'science' to maintain his last shred of dignity."
"This... is truly pathetic."
On the Golden Throne, the Emperor's will fluctuated slightly.
It was an extremely complex feeling, containing helplessness, amusement, and a slight sense of relief that said... "If that's the case, then it makes sense."
[Numerology.]
The Emperor silently repeated the word in his mind.
[Even in the deepest darkness, my son is still trying to use reason (albeit twisted reason) to analyze Chaos.]
[Mortarion... how wonderful it would have been if your obsession with truth had been used for good.]