Imperium Ascendant

Part IV Lunar Whisper

Location: The Forgotten Laboratories of Luna.

Date: Seven months after the Emperor left Terra.

Sagitari 17 was a Slave, his fate was not his own to decide. It had been decided for him decades before his birth. Existence was servitude under the most dangerous tyrant humanity had ever faced. Despots, totalitarians, and conquerors were common throughout human history but the one that had enslaved Sagitari 17's people and world was unique in that his tyranny was eternal.

The Immortal Emperor of Mankind was truly that and if his ambition was not stopped humanity would suffer under that abominations yoke for eternity. Sagitari had been raised hearing the tales of the Emperor's conquest of his home. How the noble Helix-Beasts and Cyber-Knights had been crushed by the rampaging Thunder Legions.

The Gene-Cults of Luna had exchanged one tyrant for another. The insane era of Cardinal Tang may have ended but the Selenar had their faith taken from them, their secrets looted and their skills press-ganged into creating instruments of galactic domination.

Some more liberal Selenar Matriarchs had eventually led their sects into the Emperor's enslavement, viewing him as the perfect embodiment of humanities genetic potential and the monsters he sought to grow the truest incarnates of humanities genetic archetypes. They were fools.

One had only to watch the Flesh-Harvests of the Astartes to know what a monster the Emperor was. Sagitari 17 was a particularly talented Gene-wright and forced to work on the Astartes Legions. He had witnessed thousands of young boys freshly stolen from their homes after testing positive for Astartes compatibility.

They were herded into the Gene-Seed processing centers like human livestock. The range of attitudes, origin, and attributes was remarkable. Scions of noble houses raised their head-height, proud of their selection. Juvenile monsters plucked from the worst hives strained against restraints and watched the shock-pole armed guards for any weakness.

Of all of them, Sagitari 17 pitied the Chthonians, plucked from their homeworld the gang-brats knew nothing of the fate awaiting them and feared the worse. Like cornered animals, the children of tunnel gangs and ruin-tribes gathered together and plotted escape futility.

Sagitari had always known he was a slave, his sect had sought to stand against The Emperor even after the First Pacification. Despite their beliefs and radical tendencies, they had played the loyal pet to the tyrant. The Matriarchs were divided on when and how to strike but all agreed now they must serve to survive. So despite knowing the truth his sibling-sects willing blinded themselves to Sagitari 17 had been a loyal and protective servant of the Imperium until the dreams started.

At first, they were faint things, barely remembered whispers when he awoke from a hibernation cycle soaked in cold sweat. Yet steadily once the news of the Emperors departure reached Luna they increased. By the end of the first month, he could fully remember the nightmarish hellscapes shown to him.

A Corpse Kingdom where thousands were fed to the Immortal Tyrant to sustain him. Where the sons he had grown within Luna itself rampaged across the stars, eternally seeking war and conquest. Just as their biological programming demanded. This dream, no vision of events that could be showed the eternity of the cruelest, bloodiest regime in human history that he was helping build.

By the end of the second month, the dreams were replaced with new visions. Of ancient patrons returning to guide humanity once again. Four Gods for the Moons Four Phases. They whispered secrets and hidden truths to him day and night. Knowledge forbidden by the Tyrant and lost to time filled his mind. Following the whispers, deep into ancient chambers in Lunar bedrock, he met others like him.

They were chosen, sacred, selected from the greatest Genetic-Lineages that kept to the old ways. Those who recognized the Imperial Truth as a lie and compliance as slavery. Together they combined occult practices half-remembered by their elders and things pulled from their dreams. Hidden far from the Eyes of the Emperor and as close to the whispers source as possible the rituals started.

Communing with the Four Patrons they reached the Dark-Side of the Reality and were told impossible truths. How the aspects of humanity worshiped by the Cults were just shards of the four-faced whole. Warrior, Farmer, Performer, Learner: The four faces of humanity. The Emperor's tyranny threatened even them. The Warlord planned to devour the aspects and remake humanity in his horrid image.

To achieve this insidious goal Twenty Aspects of Humanity were stolen from the Four and imprisoned in Flesh crafted using the finest of both Terran and Lunar lore. The Primarchs were not the Emperor's children, they were stolen from the four. Sagitaris 17 had wept tears of blood when he saw/felt/smelled/touched/remembered the Tyrants kidnaping of the twenty on the World Named Sacrifice.

The Four wanted to do what they had always done, guide humanity to greater heights in hopes they would reach the pantheon and truly embody the aspects. In order to do this, they needed to save their children stolen by the Emperor. This most blessed task was meant for Sagitari 17 and his fellow Chosen kin.

By the end of the third-month plans were being hatched. Family, sect members, and other open minds had the truth shown to them. The small coven grew with each convert and those unwilling to see the light where dealt with. Soon the hidden chambers that once held a dozen blessed Selenarians now was packed with hundreds of zealots eager to serve the Four Aspects of Humanity.

Unifying the wills of the worshipers and the power of unwilling sacrifices the Realm of Aspects were touched and knowledge poured forth. Knowledge of how to save the Stolen Children and their children born of mutated youths. The Primarchs may be beyond their reach but the Astartes were not.

The first step in this plan was to reach the place where it had all began. The Place of the Primarchs creation. In that deep forgotten and abandoned laboratory, a crack in time could be opened up. It would take months of preparation and manipulation to reach the sacred source of the whispers.

Across Luna, the whispers had spoken to other Elect like Sagitari 17 and formed cults much like his own. Together they found each other and formed the Creed of the Four Phases. By the end of the sixth month, hundreds of thousands across Luna were illuminated and ready to save humanity from eternal slavery. Entire Sects and Lab-Habs were indoctrinated. With each new addition, the power of the Creed grew and the secret buried below became just that closer.

Security was swapped with loyal members, technicians whispered prayers to the four as they installed backdoors both physical and electronic into the Forbidden Labs near Luna's north pole. They had been abandoned abruptly a decade or two ago, with all equipment dismantled and installed within the growing Palace.

As such little remained worth defending and it was easy enough to convince the Adepts in charge of Luna that security was better needed elsewhere to deal with the threats posed by numerous cult activities and escaped specimen. The specimen had been released for this purpose and the cults were rival organizations that existed in the shadows while not following the four. ṚἈƝổ𐌱Ęꞩ

By the seventh month Sagitari, his fellow Elect and a squad of specially grown Gene-Warriors had snuck deep into the Lunar Fortress. The plan was working perfectly. Sagitari 17 prayed silent thankful prayers to the Four the entire journey. Sneaking through maintenance shafts, and side passages they crept deeper and deeper into the hidden laboratory where twenty stolen children were given flesh.

Sagitari 17 had not been born with a particularly powerful connection to the Immaterium but his contact with the Aspects had strengthened the connection. Even so, he on some level though even a psychic blunt would be able to feel what was below him. The whispers were growing in intensity but they were not the only thing echoing through the realm of aspects.

It was a choir, a faint haunting choir of voices singing in unison. With each descended kilometer the choir increased in volume and clarity. Until finally as they reached the inner labs the horrible truth could be discerned. The choir was composed of thousands of screams.

After multiple days of crawling through the lab's bowls, they had made it to the holy of holies. Where the Four had attempted and failed to rescue their children. The screaming and whispers continued to increase with every step as the devout journeyed into the central chamber.

At the end of a dark ghostly hallway stood a great gate. Something in a language Sagitari could not read was carved into it. The inscription was circled by twenty haloed numerals and the psychic signals had reached migraine inducing heights. They had arrived.

Stolen Melta Charges were attached as Security Backdoors were activated. Confident that no alarms would be triggered the Gates' joints were burned away. Slowly, groaning like an injured giant the gate came crashing down. Immediately the psychic pressure intensified, wards and incantations placed both before and after the Primarchs removal were broken.

The group could just as much feel as see what lay at the chambers far end. Past twenty empty plinths where gestation capsules once stood and empty grooves where esoteric machinery had sat was a tear. A Tear in time and space taller than any man and a dozen centimeters wide at its maximum.

Constant never ending truths and secrets poured from the rip in a psychic stream that engulfed the group. Sagitari 17 could see the crack straining to open up wider and he felt a subconscious shiver run up his spine when he saw what prevented the Four-Aspects Gate from opening. Chains/Thread/Spells woven of fire and a sacrificed choir lashed the portal shut.

Like a twisted parody of a suture, the Emperor's power had kept the gate close, but the power of the Four was greater than the tyrants. The chains were stretched taut and the full power of the Pantheon pushed them to their absolute limits. All it would take was one last push to break the seal on salvation open.

The rituals and technological secrets possessed by the Creed of the Four Phases had been poured into the creation of two artifacts crucial in their plans. The first, which Sagitari carefully removed from his pack and unwrapped from its Lowa-Silk dressing was a knife.

Its blade was formed from volcanic glass that seemed to drink light in instead of reflecting like it should. The handle was golden and decorated with precious gems. Great expense had gone into buying this artifact from a wealthy Hy Brasil Antiquities dealer. The blade was one of the few items on Terra traceable to an impossible ancient civilization.

Three things were known about this near-mythical civilization. Human sacrifice was a central focus of its religion, blades like the one in Sagitari's grip were used in those rituals. The civilization collapsed when another empire crushed it through Guns, Germs, Steel, and Cruelty.

The psychic resonance of this blade that had claimed hundreds of thousands of sacrificial victims millennia ago was reborn with new sacrifices in the Creeds name. Enemies and dissenters were fed to the knife in order to grant it the myth-symbolism it needed to break the seal.

Whispered prayers were chanted as Sagitari approached the gate. He could feel the weight of destiny on him and if had been not genetically altered not too he would have been soaked in nervous sweat. Holding the Sacred Blade in hands made steady by years of surgical practice he raised it up and prepared to cut the Emperor's shackles. The truth had been shown to him countless times, a final push upon the binds and he would finally be free!

Just as he was a meter away from the gate the distinct hiss of a Stasis-Chamber depressurizing filled the dark room. The Creeds Elect froze in shock. For all their planning and influence both supernatural and otherwise one contingency had escaped them. The one left by the Emperor and his right hand.

Culuxus Eta's eyes snapped open as his stasis chamber opened. The proto-Assassin knew he would only awaken if his tomb was disturbed. The Grand Master had left him hidden away in this secret chamber to protect it, now the time had come to fulfill his duty.

Soul-Crushing dread filled the Elects souls, none of them had ever encountered anything remotely like what had just sprung from a stasis chamber hidden in the room's wall. All they knew was it felt utterly horribly wrong and it was killing them.

Sagitari 17 could only watch in mute horror as the black-clad thing ripped his bodyguards apart. Centuries of Lunar Gene-Lore did nothing to help the Warriors as their very souls were ripped from their bodies by the Skull-headed abomination.

Calypsis-2, a fellow elect who showed talent in the aspect of the Warp-Weaver summoned Lighting to strike the monster down. It fizzled to nothing as the thing tore her heart out while feasting on her soul. Calypsis-2's last gurgled words were "Complete the Ritu-"

Pulling himself out his stupor Sagitari turned to the gate, he felt like his movements were in slow motion as the unleashed monster charged him. The remaining elect could only throw themselves into its path to buy him time.

Sagitari did not see the thing snap the last bodyguard's neck, nor it feast on a curse or its caster. He could only stare into the abyss as the Obsidian Blade fulfilled its destiny and cut the seal. The Chamber was painfully silent for a moment as both psychic whispers and screams stopped. Then the Tyrants seal exploded in a shower of molten ectoplasm.

Eta pushed his gene-strengthened body to its limits as he fought to reach the rip. For the rest of his short existence, he would curse his failure. The Seal was broken and while he did not know it Eta for once had reason to be thankful for his pariah nature. For his mind did not echo with the Laughter of Thirsting Gods that poured from the Rip.

For a split second, Sagitari wondered if he had made a terrible mistake as the insane raucous laughter echoed through the chamber. The split second doubt was cast aside as he started into the widening Crack in reality. What he saw was beautiful and terrible beyond words. The full glory/horror of the warp was laid out before him.

Enchantments and genetic failsafes protected him from the madness that would have claimed any unprotected mortal. Yet his mind almost collapsed when he saw the face looking back at him through the now-portal. A twisted black Daemonic visage grinned at him. It was a face a thousand cultures had given to their Archfiends. The Crown Prince of Damnation let a cruel chuckle escape between his fangs before he reached out into the Materium.

The last thing First Generation Culuxus Operative Eta saw was a gigantic clawed hand reach out of the Crack. His nature let him see the true form of the Monster. The armor and flesh of countless hosts were soldered together into a classical supernatural shape that oozed black Warp-Vapor.

It moved at literally inhuman speeds and grabbed the Assassins head. Even with the oversized helm it barely filled the things, palm. Eta screamed in pain as it slowly crushed him, desperately the Pariah absorbed entire Lesser Neverborn worth of energy off the monster with no effect. In his last painfilled moments Eta realized his power to siphon warp-power was simply not enough. He was just a mortal and could never hope to stand against the Firstborn of the Warp.

The Fear and dread inspired by the Skull-headed thing disappeared when its head was reduced to a thin paste in the new monster's claws. The sheer panic the thing inspired more than replaced it. The Monster almost lazily pulled itself fully out of the portal. It crouched down to fit in the six-meter tall chamber. Great black wings stretched and retracted as its horned head swung around the chamber observing the three surviving Elect.

In a voice both physical and psychic that rattled Sagitaris bones, it spoke calmly: "I am Bel'akor: The Dark Master. Kneel before me mortals and be rewarded for your efforts"

Shakily the three knelt before the monster and awaited their fate. Sagitari looked away from the creature, it was painful to look at. Its very presence seemed to taint reality. When-ever he dared to sneak a glance he felt nauseated. When it moved it was like the universe needed a moment to processes the action, and could not fully translate what it did. The laws of physics were weakened by its very presence.

The Psychic effect was similarly horrible. It was like a like a Dark-Star burning with malice and cruel intellect was drawing his soul into its gravitational pull and searing patterns of evil and insanity into his very being.

"The second item? Do you have it?" the monster growled.

Nervously Sagitari 17's only equal on the mission Pelia 7 removed the item from her pack. While his had been purchased and consecrated hers had been crafted and imbued with power. It appeared a simple Goblet carved from Granite and inlaid with rubies. In truth, it was one of the most complicated items ever crafted on Luna.

Using warpborn knowledge and the Genetic Mastery of the Selenar this artifact could be used to create virtually infinite amounts of biological matter, even that touched by the warp. Pelia 7 lifted the chalice up towards Bel'akor. The First Prince pricked his palm with a claw and allowed a few drops of jet black blood fall into the goblet.

With cruel expectant eyes, he watched them and spoke: "Now the final part of the ritual."

The Grail could duplicate anything, even the Aspect Incarnate before thems blood, for a price. It needed a similar enough substance to overwrite. Sagitari grabbed the third survivor and held her neck above the grail. Praying softly he slit the panicking women's throat and it poured into the goblet. When it touched Bel'akors blood it instantly turned as black as his.

Soon the goblet was filled and the women's body slumped to the ground. Smiling the Aspect Incarnate moved back towards the portal and spoke. "Continue the destiny the Four have picked for you, poison the Legions with my blood and prepare for the promised day. My power has filled this chamber and the Anathema will not be able to tell what has occurred here unless he gets too close."

Like a great Draconic Serpent, The Dark Prince of Chaos slithered back through the portal with a final warning "Do not disappoint us, there is much at stake and the war has not even begun."

With that, the monster that would haunt the two survivors minds for the rest of their existence faded back into the Immaterium. The Crack shrunk and they stood in silence. Sagitari knew the atrocities he had committed were just the start of many, but he also knew any price was worth freeing his people from the Emperor's shackles. Much had to be done to prepare for the promised day and he would show the Four his devotion and that humanity was worthy of them.

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