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Chapter 289: We Are Separated by a Thick Barrier
🕑 Added 2025-11-08 11:16:05 +0000 UTCChapter 289: We Are Separated by a Thick Barrier
Archmagos Vosch stood tall.
If someone had asked him before today what the Omnissiah was, he might have first analyzed their sect, usually prioritizing the avoidance of conflict, and then said that every sect had a different definition of the Omnissiah, and no one could give a perfect answer. The Omnissiah was more like a bottom line engraved in his heart, keeping him from being blinded by the waves of Chaos, from succumbing to those evil beings who sought to use knowledge to make him their pawn.
But after today, he would firmly tell everyone that he had seen the Omnissiah!
If someone had told him that they could create matter from nothing, could imbue a creation with a spirit, then Vosch would have put a phase-disruptor round through their head. After all, their head was useless anyway.
But now...
His gaze swept his surroundings. The golden-masked sorcerer was creating matter, the light of atomic reconstruction dancing between his pale fingers, imbuing the creation with a spirit, making the newborn mechanical constructs let out their first cries. The Lord of Dominion was deconstructing information, the data stream materializing in his eyes as a brilliant river of stars, driving the creations to operate, every command as precise as the meshing of a clock's gears. The silent Knight was stabilizing reality, the twisted shadows at his feet becoming orderly, shaping an environment where the creations should correctly operate, the space around him presenting a perfect state of reality.
Three 'Primarchs'.
Magos Vosch swallowed. He could feel an extraordinary desire for inquiry from them, an extraordinary desire for control, and a resolve that was like 'let the winds blow from all directions, I will stand firm.' This was the composition of the world of truth.
They were separated by a thick barrier. It was a chasm between mortals and gods that could never be crossed. These were three gods!
"Omnissiah?" he asked respectfully, his vision switching back and forth between the three beings.
"Too shallow," Ramesses said, waving his hand arrogantly in response to the question. The expression under his mask was one of pure, unadulterated joy at having successfully played the role of a god. He straightened his back, faced the tech-priest before him, and declared in a loud voice, "Please address me as the Keeper of Knowledge."
Tzeentch couldn't hear him anyway. It didn't stop him from talking big.
Trazyn, who was sorting through his gains on the side, couldn't help but stumble, almost bumping into a data-console piled high with artifacts. He glanced at Ramesses, shook his head, and continued to wait for Cawl to finish logging the data. Although he now had an official tomb-raiding permit, the gains still had to be uploaded. The Dawnbreakers weren't after the unique copies in his hands, but the technology and other things had to be handed over. And he didn't care about the technical value. His collection was more about historical value.
Just like that fool on Vigilus, who had a penchant for collecting weapons of mass destruction. Before he had chosen to fight the Primarchs, his collection was worthless in Trazyn's eyes. But when he had chosen to fight the Primarchs and had tried to activate these weapons, his collection had gained value.
And then there was the chance to experience the senses of a soul. Feeling the ripples of thought rising from the waves of emotion, Trazyn, while sorting through the artifacts, continued to wonder if the 'he' who had obtained a soul was still 'he'.
Actually, the four lords had been quick to agree to his request for a blank soul. But then Ramesses's three questions had completely stumped him.
"Now, as the individual Trazyn, do you still understand a series of excellent qualities that the Necrontyr recognize? Do you recognize yourself as a Necrontyr?"
"Your metal body, your endless life, and even your anxiety about whether you are still 'yourself,' are they all irrelevant matters?"
"If you think that your current self is not 'yourself,' then is the 'you' who has obtained a soul 'you'?"
After a long struggle, Trazyn still had not decided to let his consciousness fuse with a soul. Instead, he had paid to rent a soul to experience it from time to time, and in the process, to wonder if he really needed a soul, and if his current self was still himself. In short, he had been somewhat fried by the philosophical question, to the point where he even had to rent a soul to think about it.
What, you ask what Ramesses himself thinks? He doesn't think much of it. He was just saying it for fun.
Not just for fun. Trazyn's dynasty still had a lot of Necron technology, and his own tomb-raiding skills were top-notch. He could also "accidentally" leak the dynastic coordinates of his "competitors," or act as a Necron diplomat to negotiate with those tomb worlds to move, to ensure the safety of the Dawnlight Sector.
In this business model, a long-term lease brought in much more revenue than a direct buyout. It was like buying a luxury car. The dealer wouldn't be happy if you paid in full. They'd have to make you take out a loan. And a soul... it was a unique resource. Ramesses couldn't just make him pay for gas like buying a car, could he? So for now, the Dawnbreakers were using a soul to dangle in front of Trazyn and make him work for free.
But this kind of commercial tactic, which was so reviled in the 21st century, was like a sound from heaven in Trazyn's eyes. There's a choice! There's actually a choice! Trazyn had immediately renewed for three hundred years. It was basically a contract of indenture.
Thinking of this, Ramesses tore open another rift and glanced at the Aeldari who were working hard in the park and praising him. He felt that this bunch had probably had it pretty rough in the past. Ramesses felt that he and Megatron might have a lot in common.
"Are you done posing?" Romulus's question came. Ramesses was over there, providing the psychic lighting, letting him strike a pose, and the tech-priest was kowtowing here. It was very awkward. Especially with the other's 'I'm looking at something not human' expression.
"Done, done. I told you to call me for this kind of thing," Ramesses casually withdrew his psychic influence. Arthur didn't need to be bothered. Let him continue to play the cool, aloof one. He then asked, "See? Isn't it very effective?"
He had discovered the importance of faith in this magical regime of an Imperium, ever since he had found that various operations had become much smoother after they had been recognized as Primarchs. Many methods were inconvenient, but as soon as they used religious means, they were very fast. And in these years, the matter of using faith to create a warp-entity to act as his vest had also been successful. Ramesses could also, through the ability they all had to strip away the emotional influence, drive this power without any side effects. Of course, the risk-testing had also been going on all this time. In fact, most of the time had been spent on risk-verification.
Romulus did not answer immediately, but instead asked, "Do you still remember when we first planned to compete with the Emperor for faith?"
"I do."
"Have you considered, like you did with the Omnissiah, creating some heretical vests to take in the riff-raff of the Imperial middle class?"
Looking at Vosch's reaction, Romulus recalled the "Investigation of the Factors Related to the Influence of Chaos Corruption on the Various Strata of the Imperium" that he and the Invictarus Suzerain had compiled at the beginning of the crusade. The lower classes were actually the simplest. Improve their living conditions, give them a future to strive for, and everyone is busy contributing to the construction of the "New Human Imperium." Naturally, they have no time to believe in those ethereal dark gods.
The upper echelons, such as the High Lords of Terra, the Astartes Chapter Masters, and even extremists like Rogal Dorn, were either extremely difficult to corrupt, or were simply iron walls. If there was a real conflict, a physical salvation would be enough. There was no need to worry about the problem of faith.
And the middle class... the problem was more complex. They couldn't go up, and they couldn't go down. You can't say they're completely rotten, they still have some aspirations. You say they're very powerful? Not really. They have the ability, but due to various factors such as birth, opportunity, etc., they are stuck in an awkward position and are always unsuccessful.
These people are always the easiest to be corrupted. Their lives may just be short of a push, to take them a step further, or to fall into the abyss. And the Warhammer universe... the deep darkness is the main theme. Basically, they all fall into the pit. They either stubbornly insist they're not eating the nine-turn large intestine, or they just lie flat and rot.
"Since they're going to fall into a pit anyway, why don't we dig it first?" Ramesses smiled confidently, indicating he had thought of this long ago. "I have some ideas on this, but after discussing it with Master Arthur, it's not good to move without authority."
What authority? The authority to truly create a private domain in the warp. To grant power to those believers, or to establish a connection with them, all required authority. Just as Nurgle could not establish a connection with a pioneering, freedom-loving scientist. Since a connection could not be established, how could there be corruption?
So to corrupt—no, to save more people, you needed a relatively broad concept. But these broad concepts had all been monopolized by these gods.
On the Mechanicus side, the Dawnbreakers were, strictly speaking, cheating by using psycho-materialization. After all, psycho-materialization itself was so heretical that if you didn't explain it with the Motive Force, you couldn't explain it at all. So they could use the ability they already had to play the role of the machine-god. And now that they had the confidence to fight the tech-priests, even if the other side wanted to cause trouble, they were not afraid. Not to mention that the current situation was visibly going to lead to a big fight with the various tech-priests. It was fine to play this card.
As a sorcerer who could recite the various versions of the Imperial Lectitio Divinitatus backwards, Ramesses had even thought of the doctrine.
[The four Primarchs are the holy spirits sent by the Omnissiah, who walk the world. By the grace of the machine-god, the holy spirit is the only one who can create something from nothing and give a spirit to a machine; this giving was accomplished by the Omnissiah's sacrifice of his life and blood on the Golden Throne.]
Perfect. Invite them to a feast, execute them, and take them in as dogs.
"You have a good idea," Romulus nodded after listening to his companion's explanation. To put it bluntly, the four of them, even if they abandoned their bottom line, could still look down on the warp in terms of morality and credibility. What could those stinking dogs in the warp use to compete with them for待遇? It was just that the key authorities were now all owned. They had to find a way to get rid of a few of the original owners first.
For now, they had to pick on the weak ones. Just as they were not in a hurry to have a showdown with the Transcendent C'tan, to go head-to-head with the Four Gods right off the bat was a bit of a death-wish.
Romulus glanced at Arthur, and then thought of Karna, who was still making the rounds. He was full of confidence. "Write me a detailed report later," he added.
Ramesses's face immediately fell, and he looked at Arthur with a pleading expression. Master Arthur is the one who knows the warp best besides me.
Arthur, for once, showed a look of disgust, and then helplessly shook his head.
Ramesses chuckled.
The brief conversation between the few was over, but the ignorant Magos Vosch was still silent. He was thinking. A thousand thoughts were churning in his mind. He began to weigh the value of this gift, to calculate how to use it to push his research breakthrough. He carefully observed the characteristics of the Primarchs, repeatedly searching the documents in his memory, and at the same time, calculated the price he would have to pay, pondering the best way to please the Motive Force.
And—to be ashamed to say, in his flying thoughts, Vosch had even had an extremely blasphemous idea. He hoped that the Omnissiah would accept his service alone. If he could not have it, then he would completely destroy it. Even if no one could ever get the Omnissiah's favor again, he could not let his enemies get a single bit of it.
The Dawnbreakers knew all this. But it didn't matter. This was the performance of the future. It was this new idea, this subversive plan, this complete abandonment of the old way of thinking, when he began to measure the profound impact a new existence might bring, and to include all the gains and losses in his calculations... the future had already been born.
The three looked at each other for a moment and nodded in tacit understanding. Next, it would be up to them, as the leaders, to operate.
