Chapter 360: Rise, Yellow Weasel (Finale) |
The Palu Orks' portal expanded to ten meters. Greenskins carrying single-soldier Extermination Weapons charged onto the battlefield.
The portal expanded to fifty meters. War machines mounted with vehicular Extermination Weapons plowed into the enemy ranks.
The portal expanded to five hundred meters. The colossal barrels of Macrocannons, loaded with extermination shells, thrust their way through the rift.
The portal expanded to five thousand meters. Warships, each bristling with eight Macrocannons fully loaded with Extermination Weapons, sailed through.
The portal expanded to ten thousand meters. Palu Shadow ships made their grand entrance, flooding the demonic palace with an eerie green shadow.
The portal expanded to one hundred thousand meters. At this scale, the rift itself became a cataclysmic threat.
It expanded without end, eventually cleaving the Garden of Nurgle in two and forming a dimensional tear over fifty million kilometers long.
Nurgle prepared to flee his domain. Before leaving, he needed to salvage his most precious collection.
Amidst the chaos, he noticed a sack of seeds. They pulsed with Warp matter potent enough to tempt even a chaos god.
It was a pocket of spacetime hidden within the mists of history. The era was exactly two thousand years after the War in Heaven, located at the absolute southern edge of the galactic plane.
Here, Nurgle had constructed a hidden refuge, hoarding all the materials necessary to rebuild the Garden of Nurgle.
"Damned greenskins!" Nurgle roared within his serene garden. A violent sickness seized him. Paralyzed, he soon lost consciousness.
An unknown amount of time passed before he slowly awoke. The abhorrent voices of greenskins echoed in his ears.
"Boss, this rubbish thing is awake. Hehehe! Its genetic and soul templates have been fully cloned. We can mass-produce clones of it whenever we want."
Nurgle couldn't force his eyes open.
Another Ork spoke up.
"Access its soul template. Detonate all its avatars and Warp domains across every timeline, and spread Nurgle's plagues everywhere."
"No, you can't do this!" Nurgle bellowed, eyes still shut tight. He frantically marshaled his psionic energy, only to realize in horror that it was completely useless.
"Detonations complete, Boss. A total of 36,700,087 avatars were blown to bits, and 7,776 Warp domains went up with them."
The Ork paused, clacked on a keyboard a few times, and continued.
"Turns out, the sub-universe was Nurgle's doing all along. The age of rebellion sub-universe and the age of apostasy sub-universe have both vanished. Good thing we moved our home turf to the end times early. According to the dimensional monitor's projections, Nurgle's plagues will infect every living creature in the main timeline of the end times within seventy-seven Terra days."
"Excellent. Seal away Nurgle's body."
"You got it, Boss."
With a hiss, freezing gas flooded the chamber and a Stasis Field powered up. Under their combined effects, Nurgle plunged into eternal darkness and silence.
Nurgle's plagues raged across the galaxy. Ordinary mortals and other types of demons were forcibly mutated into Nurgle demons by the contagion.
Meanwhile, the Palu Empire deployed Mutagenic Spores to disrupt the Nurgle demons.
Thirty Terra days later, a third of the galaxy had become a home for the Paru Boyz.
The overwhelming threat of the Palu Empire forced the Imperium of Man, the Eldar, and the demons to band together.
Brokered by the Lizardmen, Alpharius—acting in his dual capacity as both human and demon—proposed an alliance to the God-Emperor and the Eldar pantheon. The three factions would unite to exterminate the Palu Empire.
The God-Emperor agreed, on one condition: from this day forward, the worship of the chaos gods could never be practiced openly within the Imperium.
The Eldar gods also agreed. Their condition was that the chaos gods must never lay a finger upon Eldar souls, nor interfere with any soul-related psionic energy, artifacts, or machinery.
Initially, the chaos gods sneered at the demands of the God-Emperor and the Eldar deities.
But after the Palu Orks slaughtered Khorne, chaos undivided, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch were ultimately forced to swallow their pride and accept the terms set by the God-Emperor and the Eldar gods.
Humanity, the Eldar, and the chaos gods forged an inviolable, sacred pact.
When the Palu Orks heard that humanity and the Eldar had colluded, they launched a merciless offensive.
The Eldar were annihilated. The Eldar gods were sealed within Monocrystal statues and nailed to pillars of shame.
Slaanesh's avatars and domains were detonated. Their true body was sealed away, joining Nurgle and Khorne as a prisoner.
The Tau were casually wiped out by the Palu Empire in passing, without so much as a ripple.
Palu Empire spies confirmed that the Necrons' Celestial Orrery required an extraordinarily long charging period before it could be fired.
Before the Necrons could activate the device, the Palu Empire exterminated every single Necron dynasty, claiming the ancient empire's legacy as their own.
Thanks to their research into Necron technology, the Pharos Device was upgraded. It was now capable of remotely deploying Mutagenic Spores across vast distances.
The Greenskin Tide protocol rapidly accelerated.
Ten Terra days later, the entire galaxy—save for the small solar system housing Terra—had fallen under the control of the Palu Empire.
Inside the Terran system, the God-Emperor amassed the full might of the Imperium of Man. Relying on a Warp barrier that engulfed the entire system and a psionic energy shield rooted in realspace, humanity held the line against the Palu Empire.
Embracing his own divinity, the God-Emperor drew an inexhaustible stream of power from the dying prayers of countless warriors.
For every Space Marine that fell, a Damned Legionnaire rose in their place, fighting tirelessly for all eternity.
The more Space Marines perished, the stronger the Imperium's forces became.
Supported by the Adeptus Mechanicus' artificial breeding technology, the sheer number of Imperium troops somehow grew despite the Palu Empire's endless sieges.
To deliver the final, decisive blow in this war for the galaxy's fate, Lino personally led a special operation.
Year one of the 42nd Millennium.
Within the Webway beneath the Imperial Palace of Terra, an unprecedented Palu fleet arrived.
Five hundred and fifty thousand warships massed in the ruins of Calasta.
With the release of anti-psionic mediums, the psionic energy barrier guarding the Golden Gate was momentarily neutralized.
Wave after wave of Palu Orks surged forward, waging a brutal war of attrition against the Adeptus Custodes defending the artificial Webway tunnels. At long last, they fought their way to the foot of the Golden Throne, gazing up at the emaciated figure seated upon it.
Lino walked at the forefront of the ranks, locking eyes with the God-Emperor.
The God-Emperor spoke.
"When I stand, a Warp rift rivaling the Great Rift will tear open and swallow the Terran system whole. But this rift will be far more terrifying than the Great Rift. Being impossible to close or shrink is merely its first trait. Every time a living soul dies in this galaxy, the rift will forcibly absorb it and expand outward. Even if you win this battle today, you will inevitably watch that rift consume your Ork empire. Think this through carefully, Lino. I can tolerate the existence of the Palu Orks. I can even surrender Terra to you."
"I've told you before, yellow weasel. You and the Imperium of Man don't matter to me. What matters to me is a world without you."
Lino raised his arm. Behind him, every Palu Ork did the same.
Over thirty billion Palu Orks swarming around the Imperial Palace of Terra triggered an unprecedented resonance in the Psionic Field.
"Rise, yellow weasel."
The God-Emperor was hauled to his feet by an irresistible force, and a cataclysmic Warp rift tore open in his wake.
