The Emperor had betrayed the oath he swore with blood and sealed with his soul.
The long-planned reckoning of the Chaos Gods descended, a kaleidoscopic storm engulfing the laboratory.
Every single gestation pod was wrenched into the Empyrean by swirling vortices, hurtling toward their fated worlds.
Nimrod's eyes snapped open, his heart silently proclaiming.
[The first step to changing my fate hinges now on whether my cheat is potent enough.]
The Warp, also known as the Sea of Souls, the Empyrean, the Immaterium, or the Realm of Chaos, is called by different names according to the cultural habits of those who speak of it.
The Sea of Souls is composed of pure energy, a mirror of the material universe, formed by the emotions and souls of all sentient beings within the physical cosmos.
As Nimrod opened his eyes, a fervent conviction erupted within his heart.
[My fate is mine to command. Neither the Four nor the Old Yellow Man can dictate my destiny.
I will journey to the Obscurus Segmentum, to the Vostonia System's primary world, Vostonia!]
Black mist arose, enveloping him, his resolute belief driving the mist to whirl faster, influencing the kaleidoscopic vortex and gradually diverting it from its predetermined path.
Tzeentch, the "Changer of Ways," was the first to notice the shift in the threads of fate, observing that the Eleventh Primarch had broken free from the vortex, no longer plummeting toward his ordained destination.
"Change… all proceeds according to plan…"
The other three gods soon noticed the anomaly with the gestation pod, watching the spectacle with keen interest until the black mist dissipated.
Nimrod waited tensely. Though chosen by the "Nation of Disorder," he knew the Sefirah's authority grew incrementally with his Sequence advancement.
In the material world, the "Nation of Disorder" would offer him little aid.
But here, in the Warp, emotions and convictions were the mightiest forces.
Nimrod wielded his conviction as power, leveraging the "Nation of Disorder."
The Sefirah's stature, though lower than the Four Gods, was near their tier.
Together, their combined force might alter his destined world, marking the first step in reshaping his fate!
While the other Primarchs' gestation pods still glided through the Sea of Souls, the Eleventh Primarch's pod shot forth like an arrow, piercing the Empyrean with blinding speed.
The pod plummeted at breakneck velocity. Through the searing, eye-piercing haze ignited by friction with industrial exhaust, Nimrod glimpsed a hive city piercing a toxic atmosphere, easing his heart slightly.
Then, the pod crashed into a viscous, sludge-like river channel.
The silver-gray iron shell shuddered violently, its glass partition shattering.
Nimrod stood steadfast within the pod, his right hand darting out with precision to seize a silver-gray fragment the length of an average adult's palm and two fingers wide.
The rapid spinning and sliding, kicking up sludge, did not impair his perception. He noted the absence of flora or fauna in the river and along its banks, detecting the pervasive toxic, acidic stench.
A fleeting dizziness gripped Nimrod's mind, but he swiftly recovered.
As the pod's rotation slowed, Nimrod's superhuman brain rapidly calculated. Just before it struck the bank and ricocheted in another direction, he launched himself out.
With knees slightly bent, he steadied his body.
Rising, Nimrod peered through swirling industrial dust toward the hive city, then strode purposefully in that direction.
The shantytown encircling the hive's outskirts housed denizens who, living long in unprotected environments, bore varying degrees of physical mutations.
Many underhive dwellers also ventured to the shantytown for survival, where fetid sewage fostered relatively fertile agricultural conditions and abundant fungal harvests.
A man with stone-like tumors sprouting from his neck was the first to notice the outsider.
This was an outsider impossible for the shantytown: his skin was a healthy, natural yellow, gleaming with luster, resembling a statue crafted by a master artist.
His long black hair billowed in the wind, his eyes deep and inky like fathomless pools, his nose high and prominent.
Though he appeared as a boy of merely four or five years, the Primarch's sharply defined features and handsome visage exuded an inherent majesty, rendering him unapproachable to the gaze.
The mutant, humbled and timid, lowered his head, but a glint of greed flashed in his eyes.
Such a boy could fetch a fortune. Many upper hive elites delighted in toying with such pristine, tender children.
Once this thought took root, it became irrepressible.
He discarded his gathered fungi and lunged at the boy, joined by several other mutants driven by the same impulse.
The boy did not flee. He dodged a swinging club, his silver-gray fragment slicing through the mutant's thigh.
Amid screams, the shantytown's mutants were drawn to the scene, greedily charging at the boy.
Nimrod wove through the mutant throng, evading every attack aimed at him.
At first, the mutants thought his small stature was the cause, so they crouched low, accustomed to this stance from planting fungi, scavenging refuse, or ambushing wanderers. They often fought for spoils in this posture.
Their attacks still missed. The boy seemed to anticipate their every move—side thrusts, iron bars hurled at his head—all their intentions thwarted.
The boy never looked back, as if eyes grew on his nape.
An hour later, the shantytown lay strewn with bodies, each mutant's legs severed, rendering them immobile.
Nimrod's gaze swept over the crowd, then he stripped off the cleanest, most intact garment, tailoring it with a quick cut before donning it.
He approached the tumor-necked mutant, kicked him lightly, pointed to an iron bar on the ground, and opened his mouth.
The mutant, terrified by the monster before him, took seconds to realize the boy was asking the word for the object. He stammered a response.
Nimrod's superhuman brain absorbed the local Low Gothic at astonishing speed, a language derived from ancient Terran Slavic dialects localized to Vostonia.
Five hours later, he had mastered basic communication from these mutants.
Nimrod fixed his gaze on the surviving mutants, speaking fluently in the local Low Gothic.
"Is this world Vostonia?"
All the mutants nodded simultaneously, fearing a slower response would earn them the fate of the nearby corpses.
He pointed to the distant hive city. "Is that hive city Tevarok?"
The mutants nodded again, swiftly and in unison.
Nimrod stepped forward, swiftly ending the mutants' suffering. These witnesses to his arrival from the ashen wastelands to the hive city could pose future trouble if left alive.
He knew that since the Age of Strife, Vostonia's allegiance to Mars had brought an influx of technology and knowledge, rapidly transforming it into a highly industrialized world.
Its locally manufactured weapons were exquisite, particularly its renowned lasguns. In the future, Vostonia's firstborn regiment would rank among the top ten in the Astra Militarum.
Vostonia was governed by a dual rule of nobility and the Mechanicus. The tech-priests' weaponry could still threaten him in his growth phase.
Nimrod found a relatively clean black backpack, though by underhive standards, it remained filthy.
He filled it with fungi and tucked in a tattered spare garment for later use.
Then he set off toward the hive city. He had previously checked the Blasphemy Slate, confirming that all "Lawyer" potion ingredients glowed, indicating their availability in the hive.