The triple domains bound themselves beneath the mortal flesh and will of Alexander. Interlocking, repelling, and merging with one another, they set the Chaos Eight-Pointed Star—stagnant for ten thousand years—spinning once more at this very moment.
The fifth divinity was the first to let out a cry from within Alexander's body. It was a wail filled with deathly stillness, hatred, and misery, as if the fetus had already experienced all the suffering of the world before its birth, cursing all life before its delivery, and ultimately cursing its own existence along with it.
Rifts tore open with Alexander at the epicenter. The veil of reality was violently shredded by savage claws. Shadows of darkness oozed from beneath reality, and a frenzied storm swept across the surroundings. Alexander let out a silent shriek.
Death coiled around his brow like a crown; despair draped over his shoulders like a cloak. Hatred was his sword, self-destruction his spear, and annihilation was the first sound he uttered. The Dark King, the Dark King, the Dark King—hundreds of millions of voices cried out this single name simultaneously.
Amidst the stars, Ahriman's grand, transcendent form crouched before seven Tarot cards. Every single card was burning, each reflecting an ash-white vision. There would be no tomorrow. Ahriman divined it with absolute clarity: there was no tomorrow. The galaxy had reached its final hour. Today was the seventh day of the world. The work of ending and death was complete; let the world meet its conclusion on this seventh day.
A fracture even more colossal than the Great Rift tore open the starry sky, snapping the Milky Way apart.
Upon Baal, Dante finally set down his pen, extricating himself from the boundless archives and administrative duties. Standing by the window of Baal, he gazed up at the fracture in the sky. Darkness, nothing but darkness. Above the firmament, only darkness remained.
"Father," Dante said softly, "I shall be reunited with you."
The son of the salt-gatherer smiled as he watched the black storm tear open Baal's sky, crushing the masonry of the Arx Angelicum, before dissolving into the wind.
The dust of Mars settled upon the body of Archmagos Belisarius Dora Cawl. The Archmagos indulged in a final, minor luxury: he draped the Time Furoshiki granted by the Holy Doraemon over himself, allowing his flesh to return and discarding his mechanical chassis. In truth, Cawl had once been a heretic within the Adeptus Mechanicus; he believed the human body was the Machine God's most perfect creation, because the Omnissiah—the Emperor—had also walked the mortal realm in a human form.
Yet destiny proved unpredictable. To fulfill that mission, to traverse ten thousand years of time, he had been forced to alter his flesh, spirit, and will, fusing himself with machinery until he became one of the most heavily mechanized members of the entire Mechanicus, with only a single eye and half a face retaining flesh.
He paced forward, walking barefoot across the sands, softly humming a tune. He felt the radiation of Mars gradually destroying his cells; he felt the howling wind driving the grit against his skin. It was painful, but it was proof of life. He looked toward the sky. The deep rift pierced through the stars, grander and mightier than the Great Rift. The sky twisted like a vortex, and deep black lightning cracked across the firmament, churning the world like tentacles as terrifying heat bore down upon Mars.
Thus, Cawl smiled and dissolved into the wind.
"Cough, cough..."
Rena coughed gently as she set foot upon the soil of Asford. After a century, the people of Asford had returned to their world. This place had once been scorched and ruined by stellar fire, taking a hundred years to cool down, yet fatal radiation still lingered. Now, however, few cared. Not many original Asfordians remained within the Cadian 184th Regiment; most were descendants of the survivors, or recruits from Baal and other worlds.
Yet the remaining old Asford veterans returned to this unbeautiful homeland alongside Rena.
"Seriously, we've walked so, so, so very far..."
Rena's nose twitched slightly, a touch of sorrow welling up in her heart. The once-evasive unsanctioned psyker had actually journeyed this far.
Jeanne, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Rena, remained silent, merely strolling through the ruins beside her.
Suddenly, Jeanne stopped in her tracks and looked not far ahead.
"Look," Jeanne whispered to Rena.
Rena froze, following Jeanne's gaze. She saw it too—amidst the tilted ruins lay fragments of a statue. The outer shell of the statue was nearly melted, yet one could vaguely discern a massive, winged figure. It seemed to hold a spear, its tip pointed toward the earth. That was... the statue of Sanguinius.
Rena remembered this statue. It was the Sanguinius monument at the crossroads of the Underhive. Back then, Old One-Eye's tavern had been built right beneath that spearhead.
"Rena!"
At that exact moment, Rena heard a call. She whipped her head around and saw a hazy figure standing upon the ruins beneath the blindingly bright sunlight. The figure seemed incredibly close yet infinitely distant, appearing right before her eyes while simultaneously standing amidst the far-flung stars.
Rena smiled. Then, a wind blew from behind the figure. Rena, Jeanne, the Cadian 184th Regiment, and everything on this planet dissolved into the wind.
The deep black crown slowly descended onto Alexander's hair. As humanity met its end, the Dark King was born.
The first war cry, bathed in blood, rang out. The Blood God roared with laughter, exhilarated by this moment. This was the moment Alexander had promised him; this was the long-awaited hour. The great war, the final war.
Upon the Brass Throne, the Blood God held high his colossal sword burning with raging fire. A stroke of crimson joy tore through the darkness that shrouded the entire Warp upon the birth of the Dark King. The Brass Throne trembled simultaneously, blood pouring down its sides. Molten brass formed within the blood; two brass wheels hung with countless skulls materialized on either side of the throne.
Brass chains extended from the throne, binding thousands of Bloodthirsters. The Bloodthirsters bellowed their battle cries, pulling the Brass Throne and drawing the legless Blood God into the battlefield.
This was what Alexander had once paid to secure Khorne's support: he had severed a portion of his power over the domain of Malicious Craft and gifted it to Khorne, allowing the Brass Throne to be forged into a chariot.
The Blood God laughed wildly, drawing a weapon that stood beside his throne—a spear echoing with the grinding shriek of gears. It was the manifestation of the Cybernetic Revolt within the Warp, signifying humanity's betrayal by its own creations, the war between creation and creator, saturated with mankind's boundless dread and hatred of technology.
Khorne bellowed and hurled the spear at Alexander.
Inspiration erupted around Alexander, creativity surging like a tidal wave. Countless Mini-Doras emerged, waving their round hands, as the praises of the Necrons echoed through the void. The Mini-Doras held high a crown forged from inspiration, creativity, knowledge, and technological worship, slowly crowning Alexander. The sixth divinity—the Machine God possessing Malicious Craft—was ascending.
The Blood God roared, thrusting the spear of the Cybernetic Revolt, which carried mankind's terror of technology, straight at Alexander's chest. Thousands of Mini-Doras formed a wave to block the Blood God's spear, but these spiritual entities forged of inspiration and creativity were repelled by the tech-rejection inherent in the Cybernetic Revolt.
The spearhead pressed right before Alexander as he underwent his apotheosis into the Machine God. Alexander raised his hand. The Dark King's crown already seated upon his brow burst with black radiance. Drach'nyen was tainted by dark flames, transforming into a blade of pure black that spoke of murder, slaughter, and death.
The Cybernetic Revolt clashed against this blade of death. Countless mechanical wails and nanite tremors erupted; infinite iron and fire collapsed and reconstituted. Khorne laughed uproariously, celebrating the slaughter.
Taking advantage of the moment, countless Mini-Doras swarmed forward, dismantling the fear of technology within the Cybernetic Revolt and awakening the inspiration and creativity that had originally shaped the Iron Men. With a resounding boom, the Blood God was forcefully thrown back by Alexander. The spear of the Cybernetic Revolt slipped from his grasp, caught by the Mini-Doras and delivered into Alexander's hands.
Alexander swung the spear of the Cybernetic Revolt, thrusting it toward the Blood God's face. The Blood God raised his massive brass sword, burning with the flames of the War in Heaven, and rigidly deflected Alexander's strike.
Simultaneously, a piercing shriek echoed from the void. The Lord of Hunger manifested before Alexander, foul and obscene fluids flowing down his androgynous form. Hundreds of millions of groans swirled around Slaanesh's fingertips, turning into a mirror held within the Dark Prince's embrace. The Lord of Hunger aimed the mirror directly at Alexander.
The Prince of Pleasure had discerned Alexander's weakness: Alexander was attempting to master a triple divinity with a mortal will. Yet a mortal will possessed a flaw—it always contained hunger, secrets, and filth. The Lord of Hunger cast his power into the mirror, seeking to reflect the hunger within Alexander's mortal will, forcing Alexander to defeat himself.
A hazy shadow began to form within the mirror.
Within Nurgle's Garden, Mortarion looked at the dice falling from his fingertips and let out a faint smile. Finally...
"Mortarion, is everything truly as you predicted? Will Alexander create a world of eternal stagnation?"
Listening to Nurgle's voice, Mortarion smiled, assuring the Grandfather that everything was exactly as numerology had dictated.
But he lied. Mortarion knew perfectly well that the world Alexander sought to shape would not truly align with Nurgle's desires. It would not be an era of stagnation, but rather a vibrant age of continuous technological development.
He used lies to mislead the Plague God, helping Alexander achieve his objective.
"I will save my sons," Mortarion whispered in his heart. "I will prove my resilience."
Nurgle gazed at Mortarion. He knew lies were woven into Mortarion's words, but the Grandfather did not care. Life would find its own way. He loved planting a seed and waiting for it to sprout, yet he never demanded what shape the tree had to take. He merely waited with absolute patience.
Since life itself had chosen Alexander, the Grandfather willingly accepted the fruit born of this seed.
The great plague bell tolled. Slaanesh shrieked as the surface of the mirror was covered in rotting mold, failing to reflect Alexander's form. The Plague God appeared beside Slaanesh, holding a cauldron in one hand and a decaying bell in the other. Symptoms of various plagues manifested across Slaanesh's body—a "virus" the Plague God had secretly injected into Slaanesh's domain long ago.
Slaanesh screamed in terror.
At the same time, the crown symbolizing the Machine God descended upon Alexander's head, stacking atop the Dark King's crown. The voice of the Omnissiah resounded through the void as the Machine God fully manifested within Alexander.
The Blood God roared, swinging the blade named the War in Heaven toward Alexander's chest. Alexander parried with the spear of the Cybernetic Revolt, while Khorne's other hand raised the warhammer named the Great Crusade, smashing downward.
Alexander blocked it with the blade forged from the Dark King's power.
Tens of millions of whispers echoed almost simultaneously. A multi-headed monstrosity emerged from the rifts of fate, channeling the power of the Well of Eternity. Magnus, possessing thousands of heads, entangled Alexander. The myriad guises of destiny bound him tightly, causing a delay in the movements of Alexander, who was already forced to allocate most of his focus to maintaining his mortal will and suppressing the triple divinity during his apotheosis.
This single moment of delay was the very destiny Tzeentch had woven since long ago.
The claws of the Changer of Ways extended from the void. Capitalizing on the moment Magnus and Khorne restrained Alexander, the god grabbed the key to everything—the four-dimensional pocket on Alexander's stomach.
The Emperor had always helped Alexander guard the past, protecting Doraemon's secret, never letting it be exposed even unto death.
But through repeated observations of fate, Tzeentch realized that the pocket was the source of Alexander's power. If Alexander desired a triple divinity, it had to be intrinsically linked to that pocket. Tzeentch deduced that Alexander intended to cast the triple divinity and himself into the pocket to exchange them for a certain power.
As long as the pocket was stolen, Alexander would be forced to halt his triple apotheosis.
Everything was going according to plan!
Cackling wildly, Tzeentch ripped away the four-dimensional pocket and turned without hesitation toward the core of his domain—the Well of Eternity, the beginning and end of all destiny traversing past, present, and future. Things that entered it could not be recovered even by Tzeentch himself, disappearing to parts unknown.
It was the most absolute method to ensure Alexander could never reclaim the four-dimensional pocket.
Tzeentch cast the four-dimensional pocket into the Well of Eternity without a shred of hesitation.
Laughing mockingly, the Changer of Ways turned back to look at Alexander. Now, Alexander would have to stop his own ascension.
Alexander's expression remained virtually unchanged. The chittering of the Tyranid swarm echoed around him; chestnut buns swirled about him like a nebula. The Hive Mind manifested as a shadow behind Alexander, using its appendages to lift the seventh divinity—the crown of the Eternal Dragon—slowly crowning him.
The smile on Tzeentch's face froze. The god realized what had happened, but at that exact moment, a figure barred his path. Dust drifted through the void; the vacuum whispered of the destiny where all turns to ash. Balefires surged and rippled through Tzeentch's domain.
The last of the Thousand Sons stood before Tzeentch.
"I have come for vengeance."
"Tzeentch."
Ahzek Ahriman spoke. On this final day before the destruction of the world, the divinity named Ahriman reached its absolute zenith, arriving to turn destiny itself into ash.
Simultaneously, Alexander raised his round hand.
"Ta-da! The spare pocket!"