In the darkness, Nareth tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt heavy, as if glued shut.
His blurred senses told him his curled-up body was slowly rotating in murky amniotic fluid, and he drifted back into a groggy slumber.
It was unclear how much time had passed before his senses suddenly sharpened. Outside the fluid was a glass partition, which was part of a silver-gray, unpainted mechanical apparatus.
The sleek surface of the device was covered in mechanical slots and connector ports. On its front, a silver Gothic numeral was engraved—XI. Beneath that, a smaller and more intricately written inscription was carved into a metal plate.
This was the first time Nareth had ever "seen" such writing. It was unlike any language he knew, appearing to be an elaborate, lengthy prayer, seemingly used to beseech blessings and support from some external power.
As he tried to interpret it, a surprised voice echoed in his ears.
"My Lord, the Eleventh Primarch's senses are remarkably acute, much like the Fifteenth."
A thunderous and commanding voice responded
"No, Malcador."
"I endowed the Fifteenth Primarch with formidable psychic gifts, but to the Eleventh, I granted keen perception, formidable awareness, and an indomitable will."
"He shall possess unparalleled insight, the ability to pinpoint an enemy's weakness, and deliver precise, lethal strikes. He will be the Reaper of the battlefield, a god of death."
'The Eleventh Primarch?'
'Malcador?'
Nareth felt as though struck by lightning, his muddled consciousness snapped into clarity.
An elderly man, leaning on a staff and appearing frail, radiated a piercing and blinding light. But compared to the blazing presence beside him, he seemed more like a fire next to the sun.
The moment Nareth's awareness brushed against that solar brilliance, a searing pain flared in his mind.
"Sleep! You are still too fragile. It is not yet time for you to serve me!"
The sun's voice carried an irresistible command. Instantly, Nareth lost all perception of the outside world, as though the incubation pod was now his entire universe.
His body slowly turned away, his back now facing the two speakers, as his sluggish mind struggled to form a thought:
'I… have transmigrated… That was… the Emperor… and Malcador… I've become… the Eleventh… Primarch…'
Nareth felt his thoughts slipping into a strange state. By the time this sentence fully formed in his mind, an unknowable span of time had already passed.
Then, just as abruptly, his senses were freed—or more accurately, the restraints vanished.
He became aware of the platform beneath him, the vibrating metal pillars of the engine, and the other incubation pods nearby.
He also sensed another conscious presence, Magnus?
Nareth perceived that the Emperor and Malcador had departed. He could now feel the other pods, each nurturing a formidable lifeform, as well as the scientists working below the platform.
Their protective suits bore the numeral "I" on the backs.
Their gloves were stained with blood as they dissected pale organs with silver scalpels.
By now, Nareth was certain: he had transmigrated into the Warhammer universe, as one of the genetically engineered Primarchs created by the Emperor for the Great Crusade to conquer the galaxy.
'Why the hell did I have to transmigrate into this cesspool of a setting, and as the Eleventh Primarch, one destined to get erased?'
'Even if I tread carefully, can I truly escape that doomed fate?'
As this thought crossed his mind, he suddenly felt his "body" lift, enveloped in a shroud of black mist.
'Why is there mist inside the gestation pod? Are the Four Chaos Gods making their move already?'
Then, Nareth realized his consciousness had entered a world of endless black fog, a boundless expanse where only a hundred-meter radius around him remained clear.
'The Four Chaos Gods are supposed to scatter all the Primarchs across the galaxy. Why would they only pull my consciousness?'
In Warhammer lore, during the creation of the Primarchs, the Emperor had struck a bargain with the Chaos Gods, agreeing that half would belong to the Warp. But the Emperor tried to reneged on the pact. In retaliation, the Ruinous Powers orchestrated a Warpstorm within the lab, hurling the twenty Primarchs to distant worlds across the galaxy.
While Nareth pondered this, a massive stream of information suddenly flooded into his mind.
Had this been his old self, his brain would have ruptured. But now, with his superhuman mind, he processed it rapidly with ease.
'I am now within the "Kingdom of Disorder." This source essence chose me for its own evolution, bringing me to the Warhammer universe.'
Suddenly, he recalled: before transmigrating, he had joined a crowdfunding campaign for the "Blasphemy Slate" as a fan of Lord of the Mysteries.
Excited, he opened the package and discovered a mysterious bonus prize. Immediately, black mist surrounded him, and he lost consciousness.
Meanwhile, Magnus' consciousness stirred, extending curiously toward the Eleventh Primarch's pod. Sensing that he was merely asleep, Magnus withdrew.
Nareth's gaze fell upon a massive slate ahead. With instinctive precision, he knew it measured twenty-two meters wide and ten meters tall.
A mere thought carried him before the gray slate.
The "Kingdom of Disorder" had already imprinted vast esoteric knowledge into his mind. He knew this slate recorded the potion formulas for the twenty-two advanced Pathways.
A Pathway was a stable sequence chain, a ladder of ascension from mortal to godhood.
To gain supernatural power, mortals had to ingest Sequence 9 potions, becoming Transcendents.
The lower the sequence number, the higher the potion's grade, with Sequence 0 marking godhood.
As the chosen bearer of the "Kingdom of Disorder," his path was set: the "Black Emperor" Pathway. Thus, the Blasphemy Slate currently displays only the Sequence 9 "Lawyer" potion formula. Higher sequences and other Pathways would unlock gradually.
Sequence 9 "Lawyer" Potion Formula:
Primary Ingredients:
1100mm of Wirevine
1 Chemical Hound's Tongue
Supplementary Ingredients:
1100ml of Black Vostvoth
1 Spine Crystal
1 Hive Rat
Abilities: […]
From the knowledge he absorbed, Nareth realized these potion ingredients were different from those in Lord of the Mysteries—they were materials native to the Warhammer universe but shared the same supernatural properties.
Fortunately, each ingredient came with an image, so he wouldn't misidentify them.
He also noticed that the Hive Rat and Spike Crystal emitted a faint glow, while the other three remained dull.
Black Vostvoth?
He recognized the dark, vodka-like liquid, it was a local specialty of the industrial world of Vostroya.
The Chemhound, unrelated to Savra's Chemhounds, was a canine species brought by Vostroya's first settlers.
'Right now, I'm in a lab on Terra. Hive Rats and Spike Crystals exist here, hence their glow on the Slate. The other three ingredients aren't present, so they remain dim. Convenient, this way, I'll know whether a world holds the materials I need.'
'To become a "Lawyer," I'll have to visit Vostroya sooner or later.'
Worried the Emperor might return to the lab at any moment, Nareth chose to return to his body.
His form grew heavy, the black mist dissipated, and he returned to the incubation pod.
A wave of exhaustion hit him, and he fell into a deep sleep.
Magnus, sensing the anomaly, extended his consciousness once more but found nothing amiss and withdrew again, puzzled.
Over the following days, Nareth drifted between sleep and wakefulness, formulating plans to alter his fate with his newfound advantage.
'Primarchs are the Emperor's tools. The erasure of the Second and Eleventh Legion's Primarchs must mean they committed unforgivable sins—whether falling to Chaos or consorting with xenos.'
'Given my sharp senses, maybe I was thrown into a culturally corrupted world and became tainted beyond recovery.'
'To change my doomed fate, I must act now, starting from this very pod!'
On the eleventh day since his transmigration, Nareth jolted awake.
The Gellar Field shielding the lab had failed. The barrier between reality and the Warp had been torn asunder.
....
Authors Note:
The scattering of the Primarchs follows the official novel "The First Heretic," where Argel Tal witnesses the event. Descriptions of the pods and their aftermath also draw from this source. The term "gestation pod" adopts the novel's translation, follows the wording in official Chinese editions.
The author disagrees with depictions from the Siege of Terra series, where Eldrad is said to disrupt the Emperor's lab defenses, believing she lacked the power to cast Primarchs into the Warp.