Chapter 508: Game

Centuries passed.

During the long years of the Great Crusade, the Human Imperium eventually gathered all twenty gene-primarchs and encountered a host of dangerous adversaries. Some foes were exceptionally powerful and troublesome; they inflicted heavy losses on Imperial forces, including entire Astartes legions. One such calamity cost the Second Legion and its primarch their place in history.

Now the Imperium faced another catastrophic crisis.

A fearsome xeno-civilization had emerged — the Rangdan. They mastered bio-technology on an astonishing scale, producing living warships and a whole arsenal of biological weapons. Worse, the Rangdan could psychically control the minds of organic creatures at long range.

In short, they were terrifyingly balanced: lethal in melee, devastating at range, and almost impossible to grind down.

For ages the Rangdan had been kept caged by the Aeldari Empire; once that pressure vanished, they bloomed into full-scale menace. When humanity's expedition first clashed with them, the result was ruin: an entire expeditionary force was annihilated. The Eleventh Legion and its primarch — charged with that force — were captured after a brutal struggle and, through successive stages of psychic reconditioning by Rangdan masters, turned into a slave legion.

The ignominy of that defeat enraged everyone, the Emperor most of all. Several Legions, including the war-hardened First Legion, were redeployed at exorbitant cost to the Rangdan theatre. The Emperor himself prepared to go and personally direct the campaign.

The Imperium's war machine shifted into full gear. Two titanic species had met; neither would yield quickly. From the edges of the galaxy the remaining Aeldari watched with cool detachment. Even weakened and unable to wage another grand war, their pride made them look disdainfully at these rising powers — to them, this was largely a children's brawl.

---

In the Warp, the Chaos gods — Orsaga and his mischief-makers — regarded realspace affairs as mere chess pieces. Only beings of comparable power commanded their notice; everything else was seasonal entertainment.

The four other Chaos gods were currently grumbling at Orsaga. Their complaint was simple: Orsaga had begun to lay claim to Lorgar Aurelian — a prize that, in their view, properly belonged to the group.

Orsaga shrugged it off in the manner of a practiced thief.

"Even if Lorgar will probably be corrupted by you later," he said, "he isn't corrupted yet. If someone wants a toy, they should steal it themselves."

That blunt, robber-logic pleased them all. After centuries of appetite and plunder, none of the five were in fact interested in argument—only in the next amusement. Each had grown fat on the spoils of cross-dimensional incursions ever since Orsaga opened those gates and let other realities loose into theirs. They had tasted knowledge and power: arcane relics, alien champions, bizarre fauna — the roster of spoils was endless.

Seeing the others agitated, Orsaga proposed a diversion:

"Let's play a game."

"A game?" one of them asked.

"A game with a stake," Orsaga answered, and casually conjured a translucent globe that bore the Emperor's likeness. In the others' presence he pointed and said, "In a while, without anyone directly interfering, we'll see who destroys his realm first."

Tzeentch's eyes sparked. "What's the wager?"

"We each put up something equivalent. Whoever wins takes the stakes."

Orsaga — always the showman — produced his offering: a shimmering sphere containing the complete archives of an alternate cosmos. Tzeentch, god of knowledge, brightened at once and accepted. The others followed suit, each presenting their own curious pledge. Even the brute-minded Terror and the disgusting Hag-god (Nurgle) found Orsaga's token tempting.

The four complained, the five argued, and then they formalized rules. It was not charity or diplomacy that bound them but caprice: petty gods settling a petty quarrel with a wager.

Thus the game began.

Each god would attempt, by indirect means and without openly striking, to loosen the foundations of the Emperor's domain. Whoever toppled him first would claim the others' stakes. The plan was not to annihilate life; it was an experiment in influence, corruption, and cunning — a long, entangled game whose consequences would ripple into the mortal realm.

And so the gods placed their bets — and the universe, as ever, became the board.

...

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