Sterbelicht - One Sacrifice At A Time Against The Galaxy (40K)

They were furious by now. The planning of nearly a century spent on fulfilling this single contract, and all almost foiled by mewling things better spent for materials to their ascension into true immortality. Hampered by a child. Distracted by a fool. Injured by a pest simply lying on the ground. The pilgrim could not wait until they were off this damned island, free to journey to their next destination and cut loose from all this hidden daggers and cloaks grox-shit into a furious storm of arcane mastery unto the fools who thought themselves masters of their fate. They growled with impatience as the mask applied once more pulled at their face and the echoes of its screams were more annoyance than balm for their mind. A part of them wanted to cut loose, here and now, instead of continuing with the mission to go back and murder the spawn and idiots...but the mission went first.

"Why?"

Eyes widened, a hand grasped for a knife that wasn't there, and arcane sigils began to swirl around the other in their baleful hatred of the thing that once again tried to block their path. Except... "You are not the child," the pilgrim snarled, looking at the human whelp that sat on one of the branches of the trees giving their shadows over the path, legs dangling and swinging back and forth as its head swayed with the tune it hummed. Snarling, the pilgrim loo-"GAH!"

"Oops, should have dimmed that," the thing said as it hopped down from the branch, humming the song as it skipped over to Ssli'sazarl kneeling on the path, blood trickling from their nine eyes and mouths, pain bending them over with their head pressed against the floor as if to ward off further harm. "But then again, you did try to peek, didn't you?"

Ssli'sazarl looked up, their whole disguise shattered and melted, eyes riven with popped blood vessels glared with malice beyond hatred, and spat from their mouths blood and words. "What are you, warp-spawn? One of the others? One sent by my enemies? The Forge Lord? My contract is not yet up, and the conditions for failure have not yet been met. You have no right to interfere!"

Stopping before them, the thing in the guise of a child bent over, hands behind its back, as the face-that-wasn't-one expressed mirth and curiosity. "Oh, but I have. After all, Ssli'sazarl," it said, and they felt their eyes rip themselves open as the guise of the child morphed within the Warp itself to a form that couldn't be. [YOU TRIED TO DEFILE THE GRAVE OF A MAN WHO SPENT HIS LIFE IN MY SERVICE.]

"No...NO! YO-You aren't real! What IS THIS TRICKERY?!" Ssli'sazarl shouted, runes and glyphs snapping into reality as they were brought against the form standing before them...to no effect. "YOU HAVEN'T BEEN CREATED; YOU CANNOT BE! THIS CANNOT BE!" Ssli'sazarl screeched, fear and terror melting into one soup of utter mind-scrambling horror. "THE THORIANS ARE FALSE; THEIR PROPHECIES THE HOPES OF FOOLS DELUDED!"

None of the attacks against the child did anything. There was no effect, no sign of damage, or even any sign that the Warp acknowledged the powers brought to bear against it. [CEASE.] And Ssli'sazarl stopped. No power flowed through their veins; no might answered their calls. They stopped...and fell to their knees, tears streaming down their eyes despite being unable to produce such. [YOU KNOW AS WELL AS I DO THAT TIME IS BUT A SUGGESTION TO BEINGS SUCH AS I IF WE DESIRE IT TO BE SO. EVEN IF THE COST IS STEEP, ALLOWING THE ONE WHO CAME FROM BEYOND THE SKEIN TO REST WITH HIS WIFE IN PEACE AFTER HIS SERVICE TO MYSELF IS DONE IS A TRIVIAL THING.]

Ssli'sazarl could do nothing but look into the Warp and let his eyes burn as he muttered, over and over, 'This cannot be.'

[YOU KNOW, DESPITE WHAT MY FATHER SAYS, YOUR KIND IS THE ONE I LIKE TO DENY THE MOST. THE KHORNATES ARE THE EASIEST TO FIGHT, BUT YOU? YOU FALL FOR EITHER SELFISH GREED OR SELFLESS HOPE.]

Ssli'sazarl blinked at that, and a laugh rasped from their mouths, eyes blinded by the brilliance of Divinity. "Ar-are you?" They laughed once more, the laugh of one stressed and with a broken mind. "Do you think I will switch sides? That I desire your 'redemption'?" They spat the last word like a curse.

[NO. YOU CHOSE YOUR PATH ONCE TO SAVE ANOTHER...BUT THAT WAS A MILLENIA AGO. NOW? NOW YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A SHELL OF WHO YOU WERE, WHAT YOU TRIED TO BECOME. THERE WILL BE NO REDEMPTION FOR ONE WHO SLAUGHTERED BILLIONS AND GLEEFULLY KILLED MILLIONS THEMSELVES.] Ssli'sazarl felt a hand fall upon their shoulders, and, for the first time in one-thousand-eight-hundred-forty-four-years...their mind was theirs. Wholly theirs. Only. Theirs. [BUT I AM NOT MY FATHER WHO MURDERED THOUSANDS OF SPECIES FOR IMAGINED CRIMES. THOUGH YOU ARE A MONSTER BY CHOICE AND CORRUPTION IN EQUAL MEASURE, MERCY REQUIRES NO EXPLANATION BEYOND THE WILL TO OFFER IT.]

"Mercy is for the weak," Ssli'sazarl spat, feeling the hand upon their shoulder grow firm and hard. No longer a light of gentle warmth.

[AND THUS ONLY THE STRONG CAN GIVE IT. MAKE NO MISTAKE; I OFFER NO SALVATION. ONE OF MY DOMAINS ISN'T RUTHLESSNESS FOR NOTHING. I OFFER OBLIVION. FREEDOM FROM THE CHAINS UPON YOUR BACK, FOR IF I AM UNWILLING TO CAST EVEN ONE SHACKLE OF THE FOUR DOWN, I AM UNWORTHY OF THE FAITH PLACED IN ME BY THE TRILLIONS TO COME.]

Ssli'sazarl stared. Their mind thought...and they hung their head.

[MAY YOUR SLEEP BE ETERNAL.]

Thus, Ssli'sazarl was no more as dawn broke upon the Isle of Avalon. Its premises were soon swarming with thousands of soldiers after a woman alerted the Avalon Wardens about what she had seen in a restroom. The corpse of a heavily mutated xenos was shortly found and swiftly purified before being fired into a nearby star amidst a swirl of controversy and screaming priests and laypeople demanding a hardening of security and more counter-measures against infiltration.

But nothing else came of it.

---

Imperial Syncreticism. These two words hide the depths of danger they represent to the souls of the people of the Glimmering Federation.

It is not merely an honest attempt to bridge the gap between the Droman Creed and the Dogma of the Cult Imperialis but an insidious perversion of all that the Droman Creed tries to create.

The Syncretists cast down the tenets and doctrines of Solitudo Genetica and Cognati Stellarum as the two most prominent examples, arguing against it with the small-minded sights of those who see only with hatred. They desire for all Mutants to be killed, for our Kin to be slaughtered, and for the planets of our Protectorate to be cleansed and settled...even if they do not speak in such terms. Their priests and sermons are insidious, worming deeper and deeper with every decade left unattended, and the Order of Cerberus has slowly shifted over from fighting against the grasp of Chaos to fighting against the rot of the Syncretists in many systems, many formerly of Neon, but not all.

Many of their desired social reforms and programs are insidiously coached in honeyed words that hide what they truly want or would bring about. They are willing to enact the wills of those who preach their hatred with violence: open, hidden, social, or physical; it does not matter. Cults grow within their ranks: those mundane and those Corrupted, seeking to take advantage of those seeking pious lives and belonging, meaning for lives and legacies twisted into servitude for base greed or darker masters.

It cannot be overstated that, should no action be taken, their ranks would swell enough that acting against them would not merely end in unrest across many systems, especially those formerly Neon, but may end up with revolutions trying to futilely fight against the Federation. Millions would die before our rightful and pious light would shine upon those worlds again, but they would die nonetheless.



Action Must Be Taken.
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