Translucent scarabs crawled through the Flame Lord, while Beastmen and mortal servants shivered in the shadows, as if these tiny insects were the true masters of the vessel.
Ahriman's expression was dark and uncertain; he felt a familiar aura and gaze from those scarabs.
It was him.
The emotions in Ahriman's eyes were incredibly complex, encompassing sadness, pain, disgust, and guilt.
He gritted his teeth and strode towards the Flame Lord's command bridge.
Outside the command bridge, the Rogues' sorcerers knelt trembling, bowing before it. Traces of battle were faintly visible on the ground, and the air was filled with crystallized ashes, from which the wails of the dead could be vaguely heard.
Ahriman scanned the area, confirming that those kneeling were all veterans of the Thousand Sons Legion.
The Rogues under Ahriman's command were not entirely from the Thousand Sons Legion; many were Librarians from other warbands, traitor Legions, or renegade Legions.
Many of them were young and restless, and some had previously attempted to gain knowledge and power from Ahriman, challenging his position.
Evidently, the most foolish among these ambitious individuals had tried to challenge the authority of the entity invading the Flame Lord and ultimately became victims of its sorcery.
They did not understand who it was; this wasn't to say they didn't know the name of that entity, but rather that they were far from comprehending its existence.
But Ahriman knew, and the veterans of the Thousand Sons Legion also knew, exactly how terrifying an existence the Crimson King was.
Ten thousand years ago, in the realm of the Empyrean, even among his twenty-one brothers, only a select few could rival him.
And ten thousand years later, the former master of Prospero was probably even more powerful than before, having accumulated even more knowledge in his mind.
Most of the Rogues' sorcerers were as weak as children before him, their knowledge no different from that of fools.
"My Lord…" the trembling Thousand Sons sorcerers saw Ahriman.
Ahriman did not condemn their cowardice, merely nodded slightly at them, walked past them, and approached the command bridge door.
The exiled one took a deep breath, as if having prepared himself fully before slowly pushing open the Duat Gate.
A majestic and vast Psyker power surged towards Ahriman's body, like a tempest from another dimension, like the thunderous roar of a primordial deity, like the scorching wind that dried the world, exhaled by the Egyptian god of wind and air.
Ahriman felt as if he was moving through viscous slurry. He managed to take one step, entering the command bridge.
The Flame Lord's command bridge was distorted beyond recognition; all concepts of space—up, down, left, right, front, back—were twisted and erased. Everything rotated and flowed like a kaleidoscope, with countless crystals, lightning, and mirrors raging within.
The mortal servants and Beastmen who had not managed to leave the command bridge in time were trapped within the constantly reflecting, dazzling mirrors, like residual images in a looking glass.
For a moment, Ahriman even felt that he was not standing in the command bridge of a vessel in the Webway, but had entered the deepest part of Tzeentch's Crystal Labyrinth in the Empyrean.
All matter in the entire space seemed to have been twisted by a powerful will, transforming into a pure Psyker Pocket Dimension.
Ahriman said nothing, simply stepped into this void, where the torrent of the Empyrean drifted.
Matter formed beneath his feet, the world solidified around him, and reality established itself with him as its center.
His will carved a path through this storm of madness, and the illusory scenes gradually receded around him like a tide.
Ahriman saw the towering crimson figure he had not seen for many years.
Broken, still fragmented.
During his long years of exploration in the Warp, Ahriman had grown accustomed to using his will to seek truth, rather than his senses to perceive appearances.
Especially since Ahriman clearly knew that the Crimson King before him, like his father, had an appearance that was merely a byproduct of Psyker power, not his true form.
He immediately saw that the entity standing before him was as broken and incomplete in soul as it had been ten thousand years ago.
And far more indifferent than ten thousand years ago, as if the Crimson King's humanity had leaked out through the cracks in its soul, turning him into some cold, unfeeling entity, indifferent to everything in the world, leaving only a thirst for knowledge and subservience to the Four Gods' great game.
Ahriman felt his own soul being torn apart; once, this wise king had loved his children so deeply and possessed such humanity.
Now, broken, indifferent, and manipulated. Ahriman saw it: the constantly changing, twisting, twitching blue shadow clinging to the Crimson King's shattered soul.
The blue shadow let out a sharp, mocking sound at Ahriman, circling the Crimson King with laughter, as if taking pleasure in Ahriman's anger.
"Lord of Change!" A furious growl erupted from Ahriman's throat.
The Four Gods each had their chosen.
Khorne had Khârn, the former second-in-command of the World Eaters Legion; Nurgle had Typhus, the First Captain of the Death Guard; Slaanesh had Lucius, an obscure rogue from the Great Crusade era.
And Tzeentch's chosen was Ahriman himself.
But Ahriman was not loyal to his master like the other three chosen.
Ahriman disdained, loathed, and even hated Tzeentch.
"Ahriman, the one I exiled." A flat, indifferent voice spoke.
Everything before Ahriman gradually took shape.
Violet and deep blue interwoven wings trembled slightly, stirring up arcane runes that Ahriman could not fully comprehend, enveloping the robust body like a mythical crimson giant.
Beneath monstrous, demonic horns, a single eye, flashing with the malevolent light of the Empyrean, gazed at the scene before him.
Within the crimson tide, ninety-nine crystallized psyker' skeletons floated, forming a bizarre divining device.
Ahriman saw members of his Rogues among those skeletons, including even former members of the Thousand Sons Legion.
"I need your venue, and I need the materials you have accumulated," the Crimson King said in an indifferent tone.
"Where is the you who once defied Leman Russ for his children? Where is the you who, faced with the Emperor's promise of a new Legion, ultimately chose us? Where is the you who sacrificed an eye for his children?"
Ahriman's body trembled as he questioned with a cold and grim tone:
"Magnus! Magnus!!!"
The Primarch of the Thousand Sons Legion, Magnus, responded to Ahriman only with a cold glance.
"I summoned you, Ahriman. I granted you absolution, inviting you to join me in attacking Fenris to exact revenge on the Space Wolves."
Magnus' voice was deep, like a wise man's whisper, and every word he uttered transformed into translucent scarabs that fluttered:
"Yet you ignored my invitation, playing cat and mouse with Eldar rats in the Webway."
"I found an opportunity to rectify my mistakes," Ahriman replied, clutching his staff.
"I am here to give you that opportunity."
Magnus let out a cold laugh and said:
"Everything you do is part of the Lord of Change's plan."
The vast Psyker power surrounding the Crimson King surged like a tide into the divining device made from ninety-nine psyker' corpses.
At the same time, Ahriman felt a tightness in his chest, and his Psyker power also uncontrollably poured into the divining device.
"Your persistence, hunting, searching, and longing will all become my compass in finding that new existence in the Warp."
"The Warp is like that; as long as the will and persistence are strong enough, even the forms of the Four Gods can be glimpsed."
Under the powerful Psyker forces of the Crimson King and Ahriman, and driven by Ahriman's ten-thousand-year obsession, the Empyrean' torrent began to swirl around the ninety-nine crystal skeletons.
A dazzling, ever-changing light flashed, reflecting a series of figures, seemingly a superposition of past and present reflections.
Ahriman saw a pack of Space Wolves sitting around a campfire in the snow-covered mountains of Macragge, roasting wild boar meat from the forest until the outside was blackened and the inside oozed blood.
And beside this pack of Space Wolves sat a blurry figure.
Sometimes like a mortal, sometimes like a blue doraemon, constantly changing, difficult to see clearly.
Ahriman only saw the figure pick up a flask of Fenrisian mead, apparently sprinkled something into it, and then drank it all.
Suddenly, a cheer erupted from the wolf pack, seemingly praising the figure's hearty drinking.
"Besides your obsession with that entity, your hatred for the Space Wolves also affected the divination," Magnus said flatly.
"This is a past scene, not what I wanted, but it has reference value."
Saying this, Magnus' gaze remained fixed on the image before him.
Ahriman, having had some of his Psyker power forcibly extracted, clutched his chest and watched the scene before him with a heavy heart.
"Doraemon, my brother! Your joke is worth telling in Leman Russ' hall!"
"In return, let me tell you about our Fenrisian myths!"
The wolf pack laughed heartily, seemingly having bonded with the blurry figure:
"Ten thousand years ago, in the dawn age when the world was still young, the despicable dark god Horus ravaged the entire world."
"Horus coupled with the hungry dragon goddess Slaanesh, giving birth to Gork and Mork."
"Gork and Mork teamed up to ambush and take down Angron, raping him to give birth to countless Green-skinned Orks."
The wolf pack burst into laughter again.
The blurry figure in the image, Magnus, and Ahriman were all in a deathly silence.
"Wild! Too wild!" The blurry figure couldn't help but clap, praising: "I will suggest to Sanguinius and Guilliman that the Fenrisian version of the Great Heresy myth replace the Adeptus Ministorum's version of nine daemons and nine Primarchs."
"But I have a question, what does your local Fenrisian myth say about Magnus?"
"Oh, Magnus!"
The wolf pack, drunk, giggled and said:
"Every Fenrisian pup has heard stories of Magnus from the bards."
"His spine wasn't very good, and Leman Russ always used to step on his back."