When the Ruinous Powers of the Empyrean intend to intervene in the material universe, there is always a cruel constant: the mass sacrifice of life. At this moment, Barbarus is staging such a tragedy.
As the concentration and toxicity of the poison gas in the planet's atmosphere intensified, even the xenos overlords entrenched in their mountain-top fortresses found it difficult to resist. Most perished within just a few hours of gas poisoning and organ suppuration.
Ironically, the place with the fewest casualties now was the largest gathering place of humanity—the Liberators' camp.
With Nix's help, various devices were set up around the camp to disperse the toxic mist. However, this was merely a temporary measure; if the poison could not be eradicated, it was only a matter of time before the camp fell and mass casualties began.
Life on Barbarus now lasted seven days—from poisoning to complete decomposition. During those seven days, flies and insects bred with wild abandon, and plague spread everywhere alongside the corrupted corpses, causing another sharp decline in the population of the already withered planet.
In the mountain-top fortress, Necare sat alone on his throne of bone. There was no one like him around him—all the xenos except him were dead. To be precise, they had all died from this sudden plague. He himself was safe, but he knew the reason for his survival.
He simply watched silently from his throne, observing as the corpses of his kin gradually decomposed and dissolved. Until the seventh day, all the lives that had perished from the poisonous gas and plague began to "resurrect."
The buzzing of flies reached its peak on the seventh hour of the seventh day. All the poison gas on Barbarus began to converge high in the sky, the thick green mist spiraling upwards, eventually consuming and replacing the celestial realm where the stars once resided.
"He comes."
From their different locations, Mortarion and Necare whispered simultaneously.
They looked at the sun, now stained green, and saw something indescribable pouring forth from it—it was the filthiest, most foul soup in the universe, but wherever it spilled, it instantly became an absolute exclusion zone for life.
After decay comes new life—
All the dead human or xenos corpses began to show signs of activity again, but now they were greatly decomposed compared to before, with plague-green skin, horns, and extra limbs growing all over their bodies. They had bid farewell to their original lives, and after resurrection through the power of Nurgle, these beings received a new name: Nurgle's Plaguebearers.
They were swollen and festering, more so than when they were alive, with dark yellow bones and writhing maggots in many places. In their cloudy eyes, there was no wisdom, only a dull, unnatural flicker. Nurgle's Plaguebearers moved slowly but stubbornly, as if pulled by an invisible thread, and began to move in the same direction—towards the "green sun," the place where the foul soup poured most densely, staggering and converging.
The air was filled not only with the stench of corpses but also with a sickeningly sweet smell of decay, the scent of Nurgle's Garden, but at this moment, even the material universe could sense it. The roar of flies and the staggering steps of the Plaguebearers intertwined into a shrill movement heralding the arrival of the Great Unclean One.
Mortarion's fingers nearly dented the telescope in his hand. He already understood that the obstacle to the Liberators' liberation of this planet would no longer be just those xenos entrenched in the mountains.
The true enemy was the rancid fate he was destined to meet in his blood.
"They are converging in one direction... Towards that corrupted source of light!"
Mortarion's voice was unusually heavy.
"I know."
Nix's reply was almost cold, as if he had foreseen this scene.
"Do you want to stop them?"
"It would be meaningless."
Nix's gaze seemed to pierce through the camp's barriers, looking at the green, writhing tide in the distance. "These Plaguebearers of Nurgle are nothing more than walking carrion. Attacking now would only increase our losses and turn even more of our warriors into one of them."
He paused, and a slight indifference sounded in his inhuman tone.
"Only when Nurgle's power fully tears the curtain and casts His true main force into the material universe... will our blade have a target to strike."
As his words fell, the slow but unstoppable green tide in the distance, formed by countless Plaguebearers, seemed inspired by the final ritual. At that same moment, they tensed, raised their pus-filled heads, and opened their empty mouths towards the filthy green "sun"—
There was no sound, but the will was so immense that it made souls tremble, rolling across all of Barbarus like a tangible wave.
The next moment, the "green sun" occupying the sky pulsed violently, like a vast, rotten heart. The pouring foul soup suddenly became viscous, like pulp, no longer spilling but being ejected.
At the center of the Plaguebearers' worship, where the thick soup converged, the ground began to melt, boil, and bulge, forming a sarcoma-like mound composed of decaying matter. The surface of the sarcoma was densely covered with pustules, constantly bursting, spraying yellow-green ichor, then healing under some force and multiplying.
Thump... Thump... Thump...
The heartbeat was as heavy as a war drum, yet as sticky as flesh and blood peeling from the depths of the massive sarcoma.
The top of the sarcoma suddenly cracked into a bottomless fissure, like a hungry giant maw. At the end of the convergence in the sky, the thickest stream of filth poured straight into it, like a Milky Way.
"He comes."
Nix whispered, and for the first time, a firm wariness sounded in his voice.
The sarcoma began to swell violently, forms shifting—countless swollen limbs, contorted appendages, dangling slime, protruding from the carrion and merging again. An indescribable being was constructing its shell in the material universe in a blasphemous manner.
The sweet and greasy, rancid stench and illusory floral fragrance instantly became a thousand times more intense, almost suffocating. Green fluorescence spread through the air like a plague. The decay of the land accelerated; even stones oozed pus and sprouted disgusting fungi.
Finally, in a loud sound that seemed like thousands of living beings wailing and celebrating simultaneously, the sarcoma's shell completely peeled away and melted.
It stood.
It was a swollen, mountain-like giant shadow, with the filth and death of life flowing everywhere. On its corrupted, obese body, countless faces wept or smiled, and countless hands waved or prayed.
Maggots surged over its body, its skin was covered with abscesses, and hovering plague clouds rose with its breath. A massive Plague Altar, emitting the stench of decay, was held in its grasp. The father's head turned towards the Liberators' camp.
It made no sound, but a will, mixed with extreme love and absolute destruction, roared directly into the minds of all living beings, as if proclaiming:
"My children... I am here... Bring the gift of the loving father... and eternal 'life'."
The Great Unclean One, Ku'gath, had arrived.