Eden rushed toward the designated location with the war spoils in tow, not daring to stop for even a second.

At the moment, he was practically carrying a supernuke on his back.

If there were any leakage, or if the Nurgle cauldron spilled, the resulting plague and toxins could devastate entire regions.

In truth, a minor leak had already begun.

Even with the support of a large stasis field and the blackstone scale layers inside the mutated Trygon's stomach, the corrosive plague mist was slowly seeping out.

He could sense the Trygon mutating under the taint; its burrowing speed was slowing down.

Thankfully, the creature lacked a soul. Otherwise, the Godplague's effect would've been even worse—it might have keeled over before they got far.

"Hang in there, little guy. We're almost there!"

Watching the Trygon gradually turn green, Eden began to worry it might collapse halfway, which meant he'd have to carry the cauldron himself.

He tossed a vial of purifying agent into the beast's gullet to help counteract the plague's erosion.

But the Godplague didn't only harm the Trygon—it had also begun affecting Eden himself.

His flaming daemon-flesh body was being corroded both physically and spiritually, making him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

"This stuff is terrifying…"

He wiped the black blood from his nose and chugged his own vial of purifying agent. "No wonder it's Papa Nurgle's ace-in-the-hole. This is just the prototype, and it's already insane. What would the completed Godplague be like?"

The full version's lethality was unimaginable.

Now that this monstrous bioweapon had fallen into his hands, it was his enemies who should fear.

Eden's timing in attacking the Plague Factory had been perfect—he'd struck during the final distillation phase of the Godplague, then froze the substance in a stasis field locked in both time and space.

After that, he had the mutated Trygon swallow the entire thing and masked its presence with blackstone technology to avoid pursuit.

The next step was to find a suitable place to store the artifact cauldron of Nurgle and complete the Godplague.

But this wasn't going to be easy.

The Nurgle cauldron required a chaotic environment to operate, along with large quantities of corrupted warp energy to continue brewing. And then, of course, it needed Primarch blood.

The Primarch blood wasn't a problem.

After seizing Fabius Bile's lab, Eden now had plenty—of all varieties.

The real challenge was creating a Chaos-saturated environment.

To create the necessary conditions, that damn fluttering moth (Mortarion) had built a massive corruption network to harvest and channel warp energy.

Countless lives had likely been sacrificed in the process.

To build a similar network himself would cost Eden just as much. The issue of harvesting human souls alone was already problematic.

No normal person would willingly sacrifice so many lives and souls.

Eden brooded over this.

Thankfully, he already had a plan—he just needed to test whether it worked.

…

Before long.

The mutated Trygon tunneled through layers of rock and entered a teleportation array, finally arriving in a hidden dimension filled with dark warp energy and blazing flame.

Curiously, despite being a Chaos realm within Vest, there was little sign of warp corruption.

That was because this place didn't belong to Nurgle. It was a newly developed, open-source Chaos network created by Black Abyss itself—offering greater freedom and compatibility.

Eden gazed at the warp realm nestled between the material universe and the Warp veil with a mix of pride and awe.

His research and control over the Warp had advanced yet another step.

And it was all thanks to that fluttering moth's corruption engines and network architecture, which had granted him access to advanced dark construction techniques.

To unravel and replicate those structures, he had invested nearly all his high-tier scientific personnel:

Kaul

The Machine-Goddess

Zaraphiston

The Shapeshifting Healer

Maou of the Daemon Research Institute

The Black Mechromancer Queen

Plus tens of thousands of black-oil tech-priests.

With the support of blackstone technology, Webway tech, and dark lore from Tzeentch's secret library, they had finally achieved a breakthrough.

Together, they constructed their own Chaos machine network.

Crucially, this network was not fueled by any Chaos God but was controlled by Diablo—the dark side of the Little Sun.

That ensured a degree of safety.

Of course, their network was still minuscule compared to the sprawling corruption web fueled by Papa Nurgle—this one only covered a few dozen square kilometers.

But that was enough.

Eden didn't need to pull in a vast region like Ultramar into the Warp.

"Savior, you've finally arrived!"

Zaraphiston and the Shapeshifting Healer rushed to greet him, eager to begin studying and perfecting the ultimate Chaos plague-virus.

Hrrrk—

The mutated Trygon convulsed and regurgitated a massive blackstone-encased machine that shook the surrounding space slightly.

That was the blackstone's reaction to the Warp.

And within that blackstone casing was none other than the artifact cauldron of Nurgle, sealed in a stasis field.

The tech-priests dared not approach, instead using a daemon engine to move the artifact to a blazing furnace platform.

Then, they opened the blackstone shell.

Gurgle… The cauldron finally emerged, spewing toxic fumes into the air.

The daemon engine immediately sparked with green lightning as its circuits and runes were corrupted, melting under twisted flame.

"By Diablo! What kind of wretched poison is this?!"

The Shapeshifting Healer was stunned—yet visibly thrilled. He loved researching plagues and cures.

But he quickly realized: once completed, this plague would have no known antidote.

The plague mist kept spreading—but was soon halted by the surrounding blackstone containment field.

The group finally exhaled in relief.

The field wouldn't last long, but at least it bought them time for research.

Eden turned to the Healer with anticipation.

"I leave this treasure in your hands. Don't let me down…"

The Healer bowed slightly, full of confidence. "As you wish. We already have a plan."

"Make it fast—finish the Godplague before the Battle of Vest ends."

Eden nodded, setting a clear deadline.

He needed to finish this doomsday weapon fast—to hold back Nurgle's daemons, and because he feared Papa Nurgle might try to reclaim the artifact.

After all, besides the Godplague, the cauldron itself was a priceless treasure.

It could withstand extreme temperatures without any damage and could contain volumes larger than an entire planet.

That's right—hyperdimensional storage. A logistician's dream.

It was a shame the cauldron had been polluted for so long by Nurgle—cleansing it wouldn't be easy.

Otherwise, it'd be great for soup or bathing.

Maybe once the Goddess of Life was retrieved, she could purify it enough for a divine hot tub?

Either way, Eden was determined to keep and repurpose this treasure.

Though Nurgle had limited reach in realspace, this was one of His most beloved artifacts.

Who knew what tricks He had up His sleeve to try and retrieve it?

Worried, Eden ordered the tech-priests to set up more blackstone isolation modules and even deployed several large-scale holy ash bombs.

Just in case.

Soon, the Healer and his team donned multiple layers of special protective suits and began their analysis with advanced scanning equipment.

Unlike Nurgle's daemons, who relied on mysticism…

The followers of the Savior and Diablo preferred science—with just a dash of ritualism.

In their view, things like sacred numerology and mystical numbers boiled down to timing, location, energy concentrations, dosages, and environmental conditions.

All things that could be measured.

There was no need to wait for the third or seventh great plague to descend. They just needed to calculate the required warp energy total.

They didn't need to stew the plague concoction for three years, three months, three days, thirty-three minutes, and thirty-three seconds either.

That was because Nurgle's daemon-flames were too weak.

Here on Black Abyss, they had Diablo's dark-plasma ultrahigh-temperature reactors—capable of precise thermal control.

That let them distill the formula far faster.

Way better than some soggy, rotting daemon firewood.

The Shapeshifting Healer brimmed with confidence. Over the years, he had studied every plague he could find.

All sourced from the plague-hoarding daemon Balur, a conniving greater daemon of Nurgle.

That included nearly all Nurgle daemon plague formulas.

Even some direct data from Papa Nurgle's personal recipe book.

All of it had been compiled and analyzed by the Machine-Goddess into an organized scientific path.

Thus was born the forbidden field of Plagueology.

And the Healer? He was its founder and grandmaster—armed with every plague knowledge known across the galaxy and the Warp.

"My plague-crafting skills are second to none among the servants of Nurgle."

So thought the Shapeshifting Healer.

The only things he lacked were time and raw materials. He didn't have the luxury of centuries to scour the galaxy for rare toxins and viral strains.

To merge and refine them at his own pace.

Fortunately, he could stand on the shoulders of giants and reap the rewards.

The Healer stared into the cauldron, using a blackstone tong to extract impurities from the Godplague concentrate—rotting sandals, cracked skulls, and miscellaneous, indescribable viscera.

He sighed inwardly.

That Greater Daemon named Ku'gath had completely skipped the extraction process and dumped in all manner of irrelevant garbage.

Totally unprofessional!

While Ku'gath did indeed possess immense plague-crafting talent, his methods were purely intuitive—driven by gut feeling and blind experimentation.

He had only succeeded thanks to the bottomless stockpiles of materials and corrupted warp energy stockpiled over millennia by Nurgle's followers.

If it were Eden's team doing it from scratch, they wouldn't have needed even half as much.

Of course, the Healer didn't have an artifact cauldron or centuries of uninterrupted research.

That was a millennia-scale undertaking.

Thankfully, most of the work had already been done. He just needed to fine-tune the mix and enhance the potency.

Eden gazed at the Healer standing before the cauldron and felt a subtle, unnerving shift.

He sighed deeply. "That kid's a real Chaos talent…"

Unknowingly, the Healer had already begun to walk the path of "Corruption and Decay."

The Warp wasn't as lawless as many believed. The Four Chaos Gods didn't just pop into existence—they arose from clear evolutionary paths.

This was among the most critical knowledge Eden had unearthed from the Secret Library. It gave him a much deeper understanding of the Immaterium.

"Corruption and Decay" was one of eight godhood paths within the Aether domain of the Warp. Nurgle currently stood at the summit of that path, claiming the only divine seat.

But that didn't mean others couldn't walk it. They just couldn't reach the top.

Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh held dominion over:

Mindless Slaughter

Hellstorm

Ecstatic Perception

Corruption and Decay

That left four godpaths unclaimed:

Destructive Erosion

Greedy Dissolution

Malicious Craft

Formless Distortion

Vashtorr had once advanced far along the path of Malicious Craft and had real potential for ascension.

But he was now dead.

That path could soon fall to the Machine-Goddess or another dark-tech priest pushing the frontier.

The Emperor—the prophesied Dark King—might one day claim Destructive Erosion.

That path symbolized the purest form of Chaos, terrifying and beyond reason.

It craved annihilation—transforming all matter to dust, erasing memory and meaning, driving relentlessly toward the end of all things.

Or so the theory went.

Because at the center of those eight paths was a final, unknown domain: Primordial Destruction.

None of the higher Chaos entities knew what it was.

Eden's mind raced through these revelations until the Healer's metallic voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Savior."

The Healer approached with a report. "Just as you predicted, the plague concentrate is in its final phase."

"Unfortunately, we don't have time to purify all the impurities. We'll have to concentrate it using higher temperatures."

"Next, we simply need to restart the artifact cauldron and add Primarch blood as a catalyst."

"Then we'll get the Godplague you wanted."

Eden frowned. "Restarting the cauldron takes massive amounts of corrupted warp energy. How are we going to source that much?"

He added sternly, "And remember—no harming human beings with Chaos tech. No soul corruption either."

"Of course," the Healer said solemnly. "I never forget the Academy's teachings. We must always love and protect humanity."

After all, he was a top graduate of the Faithful Sons Academy. Even while dabbling in Chaos tech, his moral foundation remained intact.

Besides, he hadn't pledged allegiance to any Chaos God. He served the Savior and Diablo—his mind wasn't warped.

Even if there was some corruption, it was from the Savior and Diablo, not enough to push him into human-hating madness.

In fact, it was fair to say that Eden's followers—light-side or dark-side—had a higher moral standard than most of the Imperium. At least they weren't slaughtering or exterminating en masse.

Eden even suspected that some nutcases in the Imperium had been influenced by the "Destructive Erosion" concept from the Emperor himself.

The Fifth Chaos God. E-Daemon. Not baseless rumors after all.

Humanity was teetering on the edge, but fortunately, it had thick enough skin to endure a little madness.

Then Eden learned how the Healer and Zaraphiston planned to gather the necessary corrupted energy: by tapping into Nurgle's corruption network—siphoning off existing warp energy using webway extractors.

Basically, they were illegally jacking warp juice from Vest's corruption core.

Of course, this might alert Nurgle's forces. They could trace the energy flow and come to retrieve the artifact cauldron.

Thankfully, Eden's forces still held the upper hand in firepower. It wasn't too risky.

He approved the plan. The black-oil tech-priests immediately got to work diverting warp energy from the network.

BOOM—

The dark plasma super-furnace roared to life. Unnatural warp energy wrapped around the cauldron, and the plague brew resumed boiling.

That much corruption meant the blackstone shielding couldn't fully mask the cauldron's presence.

Meanwhile—

The Terror Legion, Orks, and Tyranids had all converged at key defense nodes, bracing for a counterattack from Nurgle's forces.

Several tech-priests carefully hauled a container to the furnace. Inside were samples of blood from twelve different Primarchs—and trace gene-essence from the Emperor's own blood fingerprint.

These would serve as catalysts.

As for Eden's own blood, being a "bootleg Primarch," he didn't include it—he feared side effects or unexpected mutations.

He was quite eager.

Very soon, he'd have a Godplague more potent than any holy ash bomb.

Something that could kill Primarchs and daemons alike. Maybe even wound a Chaos God.

At the very least, it would give them diarrhea—like slipping a Chaos God a hyper-concentrated laxative!

Holy ash bombs only worked on daemons, but the Godplague? It could hurt anything with a soul.

Even the Necrons.

This gave Eden a contingency weapon to counter corrupted Primarchs or alien horrors.

Even if it was one-time-use.

It was a Warp-age nuke—the Chaos version of an ultimate weapon.

Now it was just a question of how many doses they could distill.

Eden pondered whether Papa Nurgle would cough up blood when He realized what had happened.

After all, He'd just lost His prized cauldron and plague ingredients gathered over ten millennia—a colossal L.

One way or another, the cauldron and the plague were staying with him!

Eden's burning daemon-flesh hovered midair, alert for any surprises.

He'd sunk a huge investment into this project. If something went wrong now, he'd lose sleep for decades.

"These final hours are always the hardest…"

He wasn't worried about Greater Daemons—holy ash bombs could block them.

What worried him was Nurgle's creeping corruption… and Mortarion.

With the corrupted warp network empowering him, Mortarion was at his strongest on Vest.

Even in a neutral setting, he'd once beaten Guilliman wielding the Emperor's sword in a straight-up duel.

If Mortarion followed the energy trail to reclaim the cauldron and Godplague… it would be a nightmare.

Eden might not be able to stop him.

So he waited tensely, eyes fixed on the unknown void.

"Now it all depends on Big G. Let's hope he can keep the Death Lord busy…"

He'd given Guilliman some help, so hopefully the Primarch could hold out.

As long as he didn't perform too consistently, everything would fall into place.

The Advantage Is Mine…

...

A Few Dozen Minutes Earlier, Hidden Within the Corruption Network—

Two Primarchs faced off.

As was tradition, they exchanged pre-battle trash talk.

Regent Guilliman ignited the Emperor's sword, holy flame reflecting off his resolute face.

He stared at his fallen brother. "Mortarion, you rely too much on foul sorcery. You were never a real swordsman…"

Mortarion sneered. "Your boasting is still as lame as ever. Hasn't anyone told you I've changed?"

"My essence surpasses yours. I wield powers beyond your comprehension. And you? You're still the same fool, rejecting the Warp…"

"You've become what you once hated, Chaos slave."

"Ignorant fool! You'll fall beneath my feet, consumed by Chaos's tide!"

Mortarion roared. The duel between blood-bonded brothers was about to erupt.

Their eyes locked—two warriors who once fought side by side ten thousand years ago, now united only by the desire to destroy each other.

"Traitor!"

Guilliman raised his sword and blocked the incoming warp-blade, lunging at his corrupted kin.

Then, just as expected…

The Primarch who was always slow to sense warp traps stepped right into another one.

Again.

(End of Chapter)

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