The Aeldari.
Within the inner sanctum of the cult known as the Sanctum of Art, a number of Aeldari seers awoke in terror from their trance-visions.
The seers were among the most powerful psykers of their race. Even the weakest of them far surpassed the strongest champions of most other species.
Gifted with innate psychic talent, blessed with the finest resources, and guided by the greatest of mentors, their rise to such heights was all but inevitable.
And what made them truly seers was their most renowned ability: prophecy.
Through psychic insight, they could glimpse fragments of futures yet to come, and then, in the present, guide decisions to alter or avoid critical moments, shielding the Aeldari from ruin and ensuring their civilization's continued ascent.
But now, within the Sanctum of Art, the most powerful of the seers had all sensed the same thing: a vast, unfathomable malice fixed upon their people.
It was like the gaze of a predator upon meat laid out on a cutting board.
Cold, greedy, suffocating — a presence that chilled them to their very souls. It was like walking alone through a primordial jungle, knowing some unseen beast was watching, waiting to pounce, yet never being able to find it.
It was disgusting. It made their scalps prickle. A deep, gnawing dread wrapped itself around their hearts.
They all knew, without doubt: their race was fated to face calamity in the not-so-distant future.
Not long after, within a vast and opulent temple where endless streams of light flowed like silken ribbons around its domed ceiling, the High Priest of the Sanctum of Art knelt before a towering statue.
With absolute devotion, he prayed aloud:
"Omniscient and almighty Lord! A nameless disaster approaches. Please, guide us onto the correct path!"
Why could an Art God be called omniscient and almighty?
On Earth, such a declaration would make other deities—and their followers—laugh themselves to death. But the values of the Aeldari differed utterly from those of humankind.
To them, Art was a divine authority equal to Life, Death, or War.
Moreover, the God of Art was indeed mighty. The classic example was the War God Khaine, who had once stood in opposition—only to be shattered beneath His power.
Thus, while other gods and their followers might seethe with unspoken defiance, the Aeldari clergy unabashedly described their god as omniscient and almighty. They even codified it in doctrine and spread it across their empire.
What did it matter if others scoffed? To worshippers, there was no shame in exalting their deity with the loftiest words.
Over tens of thousands of years, the scriptures of the God of Art had grown into baroque masterpieces of rhetoric, dazzling in both literary and theological craft. Entire generations of priests had poured their lives into polishing every phrase until, by comparison, the scriptures of Earth's ancient faiths would appear crude. Even Orsaga Himself sometimes found their praises embarrassingly excessive.
Against such florid praise, omniscient and almighty was almost plain.
And in truth, even from a practical standpoint, it was not entirely inaccurate.
At least within this Multiverse, He truly was so. Past, present, and future all lay open before His gaze. If He willed it, He could perceive the thoughts and knowledge of every mortal mind. Even the acts of creation or destruction rested on whether He chose to move His hand.
He could not do everything—but compared to ordinary life, to call Him omniscient and almighty was hardly exaggeration.
As the High Priest finished his prayer, he had no time to react before a divine message struck directly into his mind. The response came far faster than he expected.
Through the revelation, his vision pierced time and space, witnessing the long arc of Aeldari history.
He saw their rise, driven by ambition and brilliance, and their decline, mired in indulgence, greed, and corruption once dominion was secured.
He saw translucent strands extending from every Aeldari soul, even from their gods, trailing into the depths of the Warp — feeding, or perhaps birthing, some terrible being.
Though the glimpse was fleeting, he felt an evil unlike any before. To gaze any longer would mean his soul itself would be devoured.
In its shadow, he heard endless screams.
In that moment, he understood: even if the entire Aeldari race stood united, they could never resist what was coming.
As his sight returned to normal, a calm voice echoed in his mind:
"All who do not believe in Me shall perish.
You need not fear. You need not interfere.
Simply wait."
"When the Fifth Chaos God — Slaanesh — awakens in full, the decadent Aeldari Empire will be destroyed. But you, My faithful, shall enter My realm and devote yourselves entirely to Me."
Those few words were enough to seal the fate of the Aeldari.
To outsiders, such a prophecy would cause a storm of panic. But to the High Priest — the only one to hear it, and a fanatic beyond doubt — it brought only joy.
His god had not abandoned His faithful.
Tears streamed down his face as he cried out in exultation:
"As You command!"
For the madly devoted, nation and race were of secondary importance. Only the god mattered.
Content that his deity had reassured him, the High Priest no longer cared about the empire's fate. Its downfall would even benefit the God of Art, for the Aeldari pantheon's dominance had always stifled His growth.
Schemes already bloomed in his mind — ways to draw in more converts, so that when the empire finally collapsed, he could lead them all into the God of Art's eternal domain.
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T/N:
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