The Emperor hoped Zeke could find that cloning technology for Him. Zeke heard the request, but didn't take it to heart.
This trip was primarily for his own purposes. As for the Emperor's request, he would fulfill it if it was convenient, but it certainly wasn't his primary goal.
"Don't forget you still owe me two requests," Zeke reminded the Emperor. "I want to cash one in first."
The Emperor listened intently.
Zeke's first request was for the Emperor to find a way to dismantle that chunk of Bedrock in the End and turn it into dropped items he could use.
"Actually, that little bit of Bedrock in the End isn't nearly enough." Right after stating his request, Zeke felt a pang of regret. The Bedrock making up the End Exit Portal totaled no more than thirty blocks—not enough to build anything significant.
"Alright, I won't beat around the bush. I want an inexhaustible supply of Bedrock. Can you manage that?"
The Emperor showed a rare look of difficulty; even this Master of Mankind found the request daunting.
Zeke knew he had made the right choice. It should be difficult; if it were easy, wouldn't he have wasted his request?
After telling Him the location of the End Portal, Zeke turned to face the Dark Eldar captives the Emperor had taken.
"If you have no use for them, how about giving them to me? Oh, and this doesn't count towards my requests."
With the Emperor's permission, Zeke used the Harlequin's Kiss to kill all four Kabalite Warriors.
The Dark Eldar had no shortage of sins on their hands. They took pleasure in torturing other races, conducted incredibly cruel live experiments daily, and ran the largest slave market in the entire universe.
Killing them was making a small contribution to a brighter tomorrow for the Warhammer universe. Zeke showed absolutely no mercy.
His luck was rather poor; only a single head dropped, belonging to an ordinary Kabalite Warrior. Zeke had much preferred the head of that noble.
"Wait for me a moment, the final payment from the Necrons arrived a while ago. I need to go sign for it." Zeke ran out in a massive hurry.
One of the C'tan Shards promised by the Silent King had arrived.
Nyadra'zatha, the Burning One. It was imprisoned in a Tesseract Labyrinth—a device specifically used by the Necrons to contain C'tan Shards—waiting for Zeke to receive it.
Even through the heavy shielding, Zeke could still feel the scorching heat.
The C'tan were gods of the material universe, possessing the ability to alter the physical laws of reality.
For instance, the Burning One could generate, absorb, and manipulate fire out of thin air.
During the War in Heaven, it was the Burning One who taught the Necrons how to breach the Webway via the Dolmen Gates, thereby striking directly at the Old Ones' strongholds.
From this perspective, the Burning One's fire was more of a conceptual ability; after all, it could even burn through something as ethereal as the Webway.
During the handover, the Necrons had repeatedly issued stern warnings, strictly forbidding him from releasing this captive C'tan Shard from the Labyrinth.
Zeke agreed on the surface, but the moment they left, he tossed their warnings to the back of his mind and threw out a Poké Ball.
Before Nyadra'zatha the Burning One could even rejoice at escaping the Tesseract Labyrinth, it was instantly dragged into a new prison: the Poké Ball.
"Come on out, 'zatha." Zeke threw out his newly captured "Pokémon."
Constrained by the Poké Ball, the newly freed C'tan Shard did not display any immediate hostility.
However, its long-suppressed nature from being trapped in a cage drove it to make its first move.
"I am the Burning One, who incinerates all things. Let the flames purify everything."
Its body, composed of raging flames, expanded. Nyadra'zatha raised an arm made of golden fire—an extreme heat capable of burning a planet to ash.
The flames were compressed to a suffocating density, resembling some kind of continuously flowing liquid. The floor sublimated into a gaseous state before it was even touched.
Unfortunately, of all the targets Nyadra'zatha could have chosen, it just had to lock onto the Nether Portal in Zeke's camp.
When these normally unstoppable flames crashed into Zeke's Nether Portal, they swept across the surface of the Obsidian without leaving so much as a single scorch mark.
This left Nyadra'zatha the Burning One somewhat dumbfounded. According to the scant memories remaining in its mind, it remembered being able to roughly burn entire planets to ashes.
This humiliation ignited the Burning One's temper, and it began frantically blasting the Nether Portal with fire.
Because it was merely a shard, the Burning One in front of him wasn't too bright. It was a bit simple-minded, acting much like a three-year-old child.
"Stop!" The Poké Ball's command took effect.
The Burning One looked at Zeke indignantly, completely unable to understand why it had to listen to the orders of this little speck.
The Poké Ball could forcibly compel a creature to obey commands, but it couldn't completely alter a creature's fundamental thoughts.
"What are you looking at? Try it again and see what happens." Zeke felt it was necessary to let the Burning One know who was boss. He took a sip of a Fire Resistance Potion and gave the Burning One a solid slap across the face.
Zeke had absolutely no idea how much psychological damage a massive slap to the face could inflict on a C'tan Shard with the memory capacity of a three-year-old.
The Burning One was even more bewildered. Could its flames no longer even burn a weak carbon-based lifeform?
Seeing that the Burning One was still defiant, Zeke continued to slap him, forcing Nyadra'zatha to retreat.
During its retreat, Nyadra'zatha inadvertently backed toward the Nether Portal, which seemed to hold a fatal attraction for it.
While Zeke was momentarily distracted, the Burning One stepped directly into the Nether. This action startled Zeke into a cold sweat.
There were still some Eldar neighbors and the mortal Dante in the Nether. He hurriedly followed it inside.
–
Inside the Nether,
The Burning One, who had just been retreating, was now suspended above the lava sea. Its body erupted with an unprecedented wave of flames.
It looked extremely excited.
Zeke watched as the Burning One dug out a chunk of Netherrack and crunched it down into its core, as if eating some peerless delicacy.
As the Netherrack was stuffed inside, the C'tan Shard's originally somewhat shriveled form began to change.
Its fiery body burned more vigorously and brightly. The entire shell expanded outward due to the accumulation of high-density energy, looking like a star on the verge of going supernova.
Zeke knew that C'tan could grow stronger by feeding. Typically, a C'tan could only complete this process by devouring the energy of a planet, but no one ever said Netherrack could be used as a substitute!
Fire on Netherrack burns eternally; could it be because of this characteristic?
With every piece of Netherrack it ate, the Burning One's size grew a fraction larger. What was just a scrawny figure quickly turned into a fatty.
Watching the Burning One frantically munching away, Zeke had an idea. He ordered the Burning One out of the Nether, and then, using Netherrack as bait, he finally and thoroughly conquered this Burning One, making it submit to Zeke in both body and mind.
After giving the Burning One an order not to harm any living creature in the Nether, Zeke allowed it to stay there and accumulate power, wanting to see just what level the Burning One could ultimately reach.
Perhaps it wouldn't even need to gather other C'tan Shards to grow into a complete C'tan.
Zeke did not see that after he left, the Burning One ate a block of Soul Sand. The flames on its body instantly flared into a spectral green.
The Soul Sand also endured the tempering of the flames within its body, transforming into a transparent, glass-like object.
--
Next Goal = 900 Powerstones.