Deus ex Mortis

“Are you ready, Your Majesty?”

The Emperor looked to the Hierarch as the Fefing spoke, appraising him with discerning blue eyes.  The words spoken held more weight than one might assume, given both circumstance and the gravity of what it was they were preparing to do.  Was He ready?  It was a question that truthfully even He did not know, one mired in personal doubt and the uncertainty of mortality inherent to His newfound powers.  The better question, perhaps, was whether or not He was prepared to take a risk - potentially the last risk He ever would.  When phrased as such for His own mind, the answer became far clearer.  He was Nova Terran, after all.

“I am, Hierarch.  Let us begin.”

The assembled Fefing Clergy linked their hands together, standing in a ceremonial circle around their Sovereign, with their gazes focused on Him.  For His part the Emperor closed His eyes, bowing His head and breathing in deeply.  As instructed by His various mentors in preparation, the monarch opened His mind - meticulously sloughing away the mental barriers designed to prevent intrusion, including those He only discovered after His Psionic Awakening.

“Very good, Your Majesty.  Remain open as you are, and allow me to draw you into our Chorus.”

The Emperor complied absent objection, moderating His breathing and focusing on keeping His mind stable and relaxed - careful to avoid a psychological ‘flinch’ at the feeling of Inno up Sen’s psionic presence, bolstered heavily by the Clergy around him, caressing His mind.  When the Hierarch finally found mental purchase, the Emperor simulated the act He had been taught; taking hold, so to speak, of the Hierarch’s ephemerally proffered ‘hand’ to follow him back into the greater assemblage of psionics that made up the seven-soul Chorus.

As He did, the Emperor’s body went from active to almost automatic - His consciousness separated from it in a way that was both profound and oddly disturbing.  He was yet still aware of Himself, aware of His muscles, and breathing, and posture, and the subtle aches and pains of rigorous combat training at Heldon’s hands; yet so too was all of it distant.  Compartmentalised.  The Emperor was a living contradiction, a man that persisted in the Material and Immaterial at once.  He had succeeded in the first, and perhaps hardest, step of ‘walking the Shroud’.

Separation.

“We are about to Breach, Your Majesty.”

The words were no longer spoken out loud; they were perceived as such, but they existed on a different plane entirely.  Conveyed as thoughts, images, impressions.  The Hierarch intended his meaning, and the Emperor interpreted it.  A heartbeat passed - or perhaps it was less than, perhaps it was an instant so profoundly experienced it felt far longer than it was; or an entire galactic age so rapid it felt as if it had barely come and gone.  Existence had become an intangible point of comprehension: Time had lost all meaning.  The Emperor existed above and between these things, beyond and yet on the borderline.  He was no more beholden to material concepts of reality than He was His own body.

It was liberating.

It was as though He had fallen deep into a viscous liquid, splashed into an endless sea of unfathomable experience, every sense flaring as exposure to this new reality fought with what His conscious mind interpreted.  The natural urge to hold His breath was denied by His discipline, being fully aware of the fact that His senses were in a state of confusion. A calm overtook Him as the illusionary sensation of liquid became something natural to Him.

If not carefully understood, the entire experience threatened insanity.

The Chorus worked diligently and harmoniously, their efforts opening an immaterial breach into the Shroud with meticulous care.  Unconcerned, the Emperor flowed through it into the endless ocean.  He was buoyed by their strength, and shielded from notice by their focus.  They were as inverted light to the eyes of the abstract demesnes, shrouded from view by intent and psionic witchery that defied the understanding of logical minds.  The Shroud was Chaos made manifest; logic had its own version therein, and it would rob the Unenlightened of their sanity as rapidly as it distorted the definition of reality itself.

He could now see the Fefings for what they truly were in spirit: Humble, calm, and something akin to radiant silhouettes of a smooth cyan light. They glided through the eldritch unreality like a bird gracefully moving through turbulent air, and with them He was pulled as though they had a collective gravity to them. With His training, He soon adapted to move with them, no longer needing their nurturing pull.

Something tickled at the Emperor as they traversed the Shroud.  A feeling.  Something inconceivably powerful that drew Him in a way He could not quantify.  It was odd, and He was immediately on guard.  What madness was this, that His first venture into the empyrean should result in the equivalent to His being hooked like a fish?  He projected this to the Hierarch, communicating with thought and impression as He had come to understand was the norm, His separated mind unaffected by the logical implausibility of such communication techniques.

“Hierarch, something pulls at me.  An awareness.  I have no recollection of it, yet it feels imperative.”

“Dangerous things lurk here, Your Majesty.  We cannot afford to be consumed by the designs of the Five.”

“I understand,” The Emperor responded, His awareness still pressured by an increasing large magnetic attraction.  “Yet, and forgive me my ignorance, I am certain there is no malice at play here.  This feels... mournful.  Urgent.  As if threads of fate are at work.”

“Then lead,” the Hierarch responded, “and we shall be prepared to Sever ourselves should this prove an elaborate faux signal.”

The Emperor could neither nod nor agree in any physical capacity, so instead projected the feeling of concession and ‘turned’ towards where the signal originated.  It was odd to think of it as turning, for the Shroud had no true direction.  Yet He did indeed perceive it as a turn, and He was off: Moving with the Chorus behind Him at a velocity that was unrelated to any sense of physical motion.  It was as if the Shroud was moving itself, and they were still as it shifted around them - yet motion was the truth of it, for it was their impetus that propelled them.

The speed of their transition was what the Emperor might have equated to feeling the speed of light; their reality expanding out ahead of them, and what was behind entering their field of view.  They were simultaneously aware of all that was around them, limited and yet uninhibited by their mortal notions of ‘sight’.  There was no front, back, up, down, or sides - and yet they were imperative to their comprehension of what was happening.  The dizzying nature of contradiction was enough to drive the uninitiated mind insane, and with amusement He considered that might be precisely the fate of any Atharian or Vect that attempted too greatly to enter this demesnes.

“Something is ahead of us,” Goros sent abruptly.  “Something powerful.  I... I can feel it like a song in my bones; yet my bones do not exist here.  It is so powerful.  Like liquid fire scorching my veins, and yet there is no pain.”

“I feel it too,” Essi agreed, “like the whisper of some forgotten beauty that cannot be quantified.  I thought it to be the Instrument, yet this holds no temptation.  There is only a dirge, like the lament of a forgotten age.  A better age.”

“It is sad,” Hexa confirmed, his mental impression soft and light.  “Like the death of an ancient star, or the inevitable end of a utopian ideal.  How strange, I am both encouraged to resilience and laden with sorrow.  What manner of entity must this be?”

“Incandescent,” Karu interjected with a mix of awe and alarm, “radiant.  It is a supernova where there are no stars.  It is the heat death of a universe.  I feel it, I feel it upon me, I feel it and I see the end of hope.  I see the end of resistance to the Night, and the damnation of the noble, and yet there is a chance.”  His sendings became softer, as if he were attempting to coil away from them.  “A sliver.  The threads of fate whisper and dance and the midnight violence is a cascading waterfall.  Destiny ahead!  Destiny, and Fate, and the Doom of Damnation, or the Heralding of Hope!  One choice, one path, one future - and the other only desolation! I... I... I cannot...!”

His precognitive abilities seemed to trigger something akin to a chemical reaction in the essence surrounding him, as though a nebula had formed over his very being. It appeared to cripple him, sending a seizure of possibility through him like a violent storm.

The High Priest fell silent as the Hierarch and the Chorus adjusted, soothing away his precognitive overload and restoring his balance.  “Peace, Karu.”  The Hierarch sent simply.  “Let not the shadows of the infinite ocean drown your awareness.”

“Yes, brother.  Sister.  Thank you.”

The Emperor remained silent throughout it all, His focus not on the Chorus - and His connection to them left to passively persist at the back of His mind.  The necessity of their travel became all the more evident the longer they moved, and His own velocity had started to overtake that of the Chorus, drawing them into His psionic slipstream in a way that He could distantly sense faintly alarmed the Hierarch.  They had lost control of His essence somewhere; lost the ability to halt Him.  Now they were committed, hurtling towards possibility and prophecy at the speed of thought.

Time and awareness melted away as all concepts of reality and unreality blended into an unimportant jumble of understanding that failed to permeate the layers of the Emperor’s singularly focused mind.  The tug had become a near-physical thing, and He was faintly aware of beads of sweat on His physical body - of a strain that was beyond mortal allowance that threatened the destruction of His gene-enhanced form, and yet He could no more slow down than a kinetic projectile fired into dark space.  He was lost to inertia, lost to the pull, like a piece of metal drawn by an impossibly massive magnet - and only the destination would end His travel.

That was when He stopped, as abruptly as He’d started.

The Chorus was with Him, yet they were separated - a distant, sliver-like thread bound to Him and yet distance beyond comprehension.  No, the Chorus were unimportant.  Everything was unimportant.  Reality was but a fleeting dream in the mind of deities that were so far beyond its comprehension that even the birth of the universe was but a fleeting moment of time to their inviolable understandings.  All was silence and faux life, all was but the heartbeats between instants, and a momentary flash of light in the gaps between endless blackness, and utter non-existence.

Before them loomed impossibility.  An ethereal bastion of purple crystal with an ascending form; sourced from a deep twin-pronged base that expanded upwards like the mandibles of a colossal insect.  It deviated from there, forming a body of the same material that twisted at impossible dimensions towards its zenith, sized as large as a planet - as a solar system - as a galaxy, and yet perceivable as a simple shape.  Its scale was impossible to logically quantify, for it defied quantification.  It defied possibility and the understanding of scale itself.  It seemed infinite, and yet not.  Endless, and yet constrained and diminished.

The Emperor was vaguely aware of the Chorus moving closer to Him, yet something held them at bay.  He was aware of cries of alarm and the shouting of Templar and various aides in the material realm they had come from, yet none of it mattered.  None of it held an impact.  His Wardens battered upon a barrier they could not pierce, and prowled the outside of an invisible cage that denied them entrance.  None could interrupt now.  It had them.  The Emperor had taken them right to it.

To a God.

To Val.

The Hierarch and his companions were in a state of shock; shock, panic, awe, and disbelief.  The Emperor could feel the tumult of the Chorus through their link; muted, but present.  They wept in their mortal forms, tears flowing from their eyes at the overwhelming surge of emotion backwashed through to their material bodies - yet the Emperor felt none of this.  He felt calm.  He felt purpose.  Confidently He opened His awareness, and the being - Val, as His mind translated it - spoke.

“AT LAST, YOU ARRIVE.”

The Fefings flickered with a gloomy light and emitted translucent sparks, which resembled the scattering of stars from their aetherial forms. The Emperor could sense what had happened, they were in a state of silent prayer, witness to one of their highest Divines. He chose not to draw attention to it, and focused instead on the being.

“You have been waiting for me.”  The Emperor said, unsurprised, and yet stunned by His own lack of surprise.  This felt right.  It felt fated, in as much a way as it felt utterly and incredibly insane.

“TIME IS A CONCEPT OF YOUR DIVISING, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE.  TIME IS OF ORDER.  ORDER IS NOT THE WAY OF THE EMPYREAN SEA.”

“I do not understand.”  The Emperor said, “but I do not think that is why I am here.”

“YOU ARE CORRECT.  ALL THINGS ARE FOR THE THREADS OF DESTINY, AND YET THE VERY NATURE OF DESTINY IS MUTABLE.  THERE WAS NO GUARANTEE YOU WOULD COME, OR THAT YOU WOULD BE AS YOU ARE WHEN YOU DID.  INFINITE POSSIBILITIES, YET WHAT I FORESAW HAS COME.  AS IT WAS WRITTEN, SO IT HAS TRANSPIRED.”

“Written?”  The Emperor asked in bafflement.  “As in a prophecy?”

“YOUR PERSPECTIVE OF WHAT I SAY IS TRANSLATED BY YOUR REALITY, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE.  MY MEANING IN ITS TRUTH WOULD OBLITERATE YOU.  MY FORM IN ITS TRUTH WOULD SCOUR YOUR EXISTENCE FROM REALITY, LIKE THE TRIFLING EVENT YOU CALL A SUPERNOVA.”

“Yet it was a prophecy.”

“IT WAS A POSSIBILITY, ONE OF ENDLESS THOUSANDS, ENDLESS BILLIONS, THAT HAS COME TO PASS.  IT IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE.  WHAT MATTERS IS THE CHOICE, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE.  THE CHOICE ALONE.”

“I believe I understand.  I believe I always have, like something on the edge of my awareness, a faint notion buried so far inside my consciousness it never saw understanding until the moment I came before you.  What must I do?”

“LET US CONVERSE.”

Where once there had been the being, now there was not.  In its place floated a perceivable presence, one of massive snow-hued wings and gilted ornamental plate that sat upon textures of purest white wrapped across a Fefing-like, Humanoid-like figure.  Two hands, two feet, a single head and hair that flowed from a masked face that bled golden light into the infinity of the Shroud.  He stood, floated, existed there with power drifting from him like the bleeding of coronas from a star; radiating power that seemed to fill the Shroud with its glory, its warmth, its... benevolence.

“Who are you?”  The Emperor asked simply.  “The word ‘Val’ is repeated, yet I feel that this is... wrong.”

“I AM CALLED AS YOUR GUIDES PERCEIVE I AM CALLED.  THERE WAS A MOMENT WHERE I REMEMBER SIMILAR, YOUNG CONSCIOUSNESSES LIKE THEIRS.  A FLEETING MOMENT WHEN ONE FELT ME AS I FELT HIM.  THEIR MINDS TELL ME THAT THIS ‘PROPHET’ TAUGHT THEM OF ME.  NAMED ME VAL.  IT WILL DO.”

“What is this choice?  Why do you feel... imminent?  I cannot describe it any other way.”

“I AM FADING.  DIMINISHING.  MY ENDLESS WAR IS AT ITS TWILIGHT.  THE FIVE HAVE DEMENTED OR DESTROYED TOO MANY OTHERS.  I HAVE STOOD ALONE AGAINST THE END FOR LONGER THAN YOUR UNIVERSE HAS EXISTED; YET I CANNOT RESIST IT ANYMORE.  IT HAS FLAYED ME MOST ASTUTELY.  I AM DYING.”

“How does a god die?”  The Emperor asked in a perplexed tone.

“IT IS THE CYCLE.  ENERGY IS IMMUTABLE, BUT CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT.  GODS, AS YOU CALL IT, ARE BORN AND DIE IN A CYCLE THAT HAS EXISTED SINCE THE SHROUD HAS EXISTED, AND IT HAS EXISTED SINCE BEFORE EXISTENCE.  EXPLAINING WOULD BE FRUITLESS: YOU CANNOT COMPREHEND IT.”

“Then why am I here?”

“YOU SOUGHT KNOWLEDGE.  YOU SOUGHT STRENGTH.  YOUR AMBITION WILL SEE STARS CONSUMED, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE, BUT I SENSE NO LEAN TOWARDS THE FIVE INSIDE YOU.  YOU HAVE COME AS WAS INTENDED, AND NOW YOU MUST MAKE THE CHOICE.  WHEN I FADE, MY ENERGY WILL PERSIST, AND MY ENEMIES WILL DEVOUR IT, AS I HAVE DEVOURED THEIRS.  THAT IS THE NATURE OF THE SHROUD.  ALL IS TAKEN BY ALL.  NOTHING IS FOREVER.”

“What of the one named Lux Val’ota?  Is He not your... child?”  The Emperor struggled to quantify the question and the inherent incredulity He felt at the situation.  He was conversing with a god, purportedly, as if He were speaking to a man in a garden on Nova Terra.  It shook Him, to say nothing of the Chorus.

“LUX VAL’OTA.  THE TRUE NATURE OF THAT BEING IS AS EMPYREAL AS THE OCEAN ITSELF.  HE BATTLES FOUR OF THE FIVE, NOW, FOR THAT IS HIS FATE.  FOREVER THE JAILOR, UNTIL THE CYCLE REPEATS AGAIN.  HE HAS PREPARED FOR ASCENSION TO HIS TASK, AND HE IS GLAD OF IT.”  Val’s attention seemed to shift the Fefings before it continued.  “HE WILL DIE, BUT HIS DEATH IS ONE OF TRANSCENDENCE.  REJOICE MORTAL CHILDREN.  LUX VAL’OTA IS ETERNAL.”

“You just said He would die,” The Emperor responded, clearly baffled.  “How is death eternal?”

“YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE BURDEN THAT HE MUST CARRY.  THERE IS NO FORCE IN THIS COSMOS THAT CAN WEATHER IT UNTO ETERNITY.  FATE IS MUTABLE, BUT HIS HAS FEWER DIVERGENCES THAN MOST.  HE WILL SUCCEED, OR HE WILL FAIL.  SUCCESS WILL RESULT IN GREAT SUFFERING, WITH A GLORIOUS RESURGENCE.  DEFEAT WILL RESULT IN GREAT SUFFERING, AND DAMNATION WITHOUT CORDON.  IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF IF HE WILL DIE, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE, IT IS A QUESTION OF IF HIS DEATH WILL BE THE END, OR THE BEGINNING OF HIS FUTURE.  THAT IS UP TO HIM.”

“Then He truly was a god?  Not some... trick?”  At last the Emperor asked the question, and He knew the Chorus was thankful, even if their thanks was shrouded by rage, disbelief... and fear.  Terror at the possibility, however unlikely, that it had all been a lie.

“HE IS AS MUCH A GOD AS ANY BEING CAN BE.”

“Then the Choice... It relates to what you said, doesn’t it?  To your cycle?  To knowledge?  You said your energy will be consumed.  How do I stop it?”

“YOU CANNOT.”

“But you said--!?”

“YOU CANNOT STOP IT, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE, ONLY CHANGE WHOM CONSUMES IT.”

The Emperor’s awareness experienced a shock, and He stared at Val in as much capacity as His astral form would let him, stunned to momentary silence.  The implication, and understanding, floored him.  Froze him.  He was, in truth, utterly aware of this; and at the same time, completely terrified.  “How?”  He asked simply, lacking any other term to express His system shock.

“WERE I NOT AS WEAKENED AS I AM, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE, YOU WOULD NEVER BE CAPABLE.  COMPARED TO MY ZENITH, I AM A PALE SHADOW, A BITTER REMNANT OF A REMNANT.  ONCE I MIGHT HAVE ORIGINATED A COSMOS WITH BUT A THOUGHT; I STOOD AGAINST THE FIVE AND REFUTED THEIR POWER WITH MINE OWN.  I WAS THE MASTER OF AN ENDLESS DEMESNES, AND MY WARRIORS WERE LEGION.  THE ARCHENEMY COULD NO MORE THWART ME THAN THEY COULD WITHSTAND ME.”

“So only because I arrived at this exact moment, at the pinnacle of your death cycle, is this possible?”

“INDEED.”

“That seems...”  The Emperor wanted to say ‘convenient’, but held His tongue.

“FATE WEAVES AS IT WILLS, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE.  WHAT YOU MUST CHOOSE IS NOT WHETHER TO DO AS I ASK, IT IS WHETHER YOU WILL ACCEPT ALL THE CONSEQUENCES THAT COME WITH SUCH AN UNDERTAKING.”

The Emperor remained silent, but He made sure to convey His curiosity, to await more before speaking.  He needed the information, the facts, that were eminently relevant.  He could not make a decision in haste; He had a responsibility to trillions that outweighed any such notion.

“SHOULD YOU EVEN SURVIVE IN THE INVESTITURE, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE, YOUR WOES WOULD NOT END.  THEY WOULD BUT BEGIN IN GREATER LEVELS.  YOUR POWER WOULD BE IMMENSE, YOU WOULD BE UNBOUND FROM THE CONSTRAINTS OF TIME, AND YOU WOULD BE HOST TO KNOWLEDGE THAT SPANS AEONS - KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU WILL NEED.”  Val paused then, as if weighing the Emperor’s thoughts, before continuing.  “MY POWER HAS LONG BEEN ALIGNED AGAINST THOSE OF MY ERSTWHILE KIN, AND IT IS THIS BURDEN ABOVE ALL YOU WILL INHERIT.  YOU WILL BE A BEACON FOR THEIR FOCUSED IRE; AN ETERNAL BLAZE IN THE BLACKNESS OF THE IMMATERIUM.  THEIR SERVANTS WILL HATE YOU BEYOND ANY OTHER SAVE ONE, AND SINCE HE IS BEYOND THEM, THEY WOULD TRAVAIL TO DESTROY YOU WITH FEVERISH NEED.”

“So I will be a target?”

“NO, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE.  YOU WOULD BE THE TARGET OF ALL TARGETS.  NO PSIONIC BEING WILL BE MORE HUNTED, NO EXISTENCE MORE HATED.  THEY WILL FOCUS ALL THEIR SERVANTS, MORTAL AND IMMORTAL, TO YOUR DESTRUCTION.  THEY WILL PURSUE YOUR OBLITERATION WITH SUCH FORCE THAT YOUR UNIVERSE WILL END BEFORE THEIR INTENT IS LESSENED EVEN A FRACTION OF A FRACTION.  NO COVENANT CAN BE STRUCK.  NO BARGAIN CAN BE MADE.  YOU SHALL BE EMBROILED IN ETERNAL WAR WITH THE GREATEST BEINGS OF THE SHROUD’S DARKEST INTENTS.”

“How am I to fight such threats, then?”  The Emperor asked intently.  “How can anyone possibly withstand such a tide?  Surely I will be obliterated.”

“MY POWER IS ANTITHETICAL TO THEIRS, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE.  BY HAVING IT, YOU GAIN THE ABILITY TO END THE THREAT.  WHILE THE FIVE ARE BEYOND YOU, THEIR SERVANTS ARE NOT.”  He paused again here, and lifted a blazing ephemeral arm, pointing at the Emperor.  “YOU WILL BE GIVEN THE ABILITY TO SLAY THEM, FOREVER, AND ANNIHILATE THEM IN THEIR MORTAL AND IMMORTAL FORM.  YOU WILL BE THEIR LIVING ANTITHESIS.”  He lowered the arm.  “YOU WILL BE THEIR ANATHEMA.”

“Why not the Hierarch?  Why not the Gogan Imperator?  Why me, when so many more experienced yet remain as choices?”

“YOU ARE THE MOST AKIN TO MY OWN ALIGNMENTS, ONE-WHO-WOULD-RULE.  A BEING WHO DESIRES ORDER, PEACE, AND PERPETUITY MORE THAN ANY OTHER.  YOU ARE WHAT THE DARKEST FORCES OF THE SHROUD HATE MOST; STABILITY.  IN YOU THE GALAXY HAS FOUND AN ICON, BE IT ONE TO HATE OR ADMIRE, THAT REPRESENTS ORDER.  YOUR MIND HAS BEEN MOLDED TO THIS PURPOSE, AND HARDENED TO WITHSTAND STRESSES BEYOND THE COMPREHENSION OF OTHER MORTALS: THUS, YOU ARE THE ONE MOST SUITED.”

The Emperor stared at Val, and then considered the consequences.  An eternity being hunted.  An eternity of being at threat, at risk, at never being able to relax or cease His struggles.  An eternity of being hated by the most malevolent forces in the Shroud, and being utterly unable to ever attain peace.  An eternity of mental and physical assaults that would wear down and destroy any mind ill prepared for it.  An eternity of imposed suffering, where He would never be free of His foes, and potentially never be able to again find rest anywhere save oblivion itself.

It was another burden, one that would span theoretical infinity.

One that would allow Him to protect His nation, forever.

“I accept,” The Emperor said simply.  “For all the souls that cannot, and for all the good I can do: I accept.”

There was no preamble.  The moment the Emperor said the words, Val disintegrated - whatever impetus holding Him together obliterated at the moment that the Emperor accepted His fate.  Energy like ribbons of golden light flooded the area, and twisted and spiralled, veering like maddened tentacles from some eldritch being before slamming into the Emperor’s psionic consciousness.  He screamed, screamed in life and screamed in the Shroud, an echoing sound of dimensionally transcendental pain that viscerally lacerated the fabric of their journey.

His existence was on fire.  His spirit was being seared.  Knowledge beyond comprehension flooded him in a wave of such profound understanding that He felt He must surely fracture and break apart; and yet He did not.  It was not might or otherworldly strength that prevented it, but instead the simple understanding of His own necessitated survival: He had an obligation to His Imperium, one that He would no more doff than He would refuse the chance for the power to save it.  Val’s existence filled Him like an ocean within a glass phial, and it took every ounce of a willpower that was no longer entirely His own to contain its raging torrent.

It seared Him like fire in His veins, like magma in place of blood.  He felt His cells detonate like localised supernovae inside of His body.  He felt His life, past, present, and future collide in a cacophonous eruption of multi-dimensional obliteration that nullified all perception of true reality.  He was awash in an ocean of unreality, surging across ethereal tides He’d never before experienced.  Pain and pleasure had merged into a sensation He could not quantify and existence itself, creation, the order and reality of the Infinite Cosmos dwelled within His mind’s eye.  For a moment, for a heartbeat, for a frozen second in the endless flow of time: He became More.

He became, for the time between eye blinks, a God.

It receded as abruptly as it came, and He awoke.  The Shroud was gone, vanished, as He had vanished from it.  Around Him the clergy were on their knees, gasping for breath and staring at Him - some with awe, others with disbelief, Essi with utter love and devotion, and the Hierarch with grim, resolved understanding.  The Emperor lifted His arms, and saw effervescent currents of power drifting from His armour, bleeding through the neutronium like intangible mist.  He exhaled and felt energy such as He’d never felt before; power the likes of which He had never conceived of.

He raised His bowed head, and looked around Him; saw the frozen silhouettes of His Wardens, the Templar, the endless assembled aides and beings of the Covenant.  Val’s knowledge, endless and daunting, filled His mind.  An impetus to achieve Order overrode all.  Justice.  Peace.  His desire for His Grand Imperium seemed more tangible, and clear in a way that it never had been when He had yet been mortal; a resounding necessitation that would brook neither hesitation nor doubt.  This was His destiny.  This was His fate, and always had been.  Infinite and endless possibilities, yet this was the one to which He had arrived.  He had left the man, the boy, the ignorant atheist in the Shroud - once more His past had died.  His new self would not suffer the limitations of such primitive internal conflict: Now, there was only purpose.

There was no more fear.  No more worry.  He could already sense the screams in His mind; the raging hatred boiling across the Veil.  He paid it no mind; throwing away those daemonic villifications with no more effort than swatting a fly.  His eyes rose to the mirror on the wall nearby, and the Emperor witnessed Himself: Witnessed the sunburst radiance burning in eyes that now shone with golden light, and the passive radiance of a haloing brightness that against all odds illuminated His silhouette.

“The God, Val, is dead.”  He said in a voice that was not His own; a double-timbre that resonated with a force and power that He had never possessed.  A voice that promised safety, and terrible wrath for His foes.  “In His place, only I remain.”

Silence filled the chamber, and the Fefings stared in muted shock at His pronouncement, as if mixed between disbelief and rage.  Then, before all turned to madness, a clear and loving female voice spoke into the stunned silence: “All hail the successor of Val!  All hail the One-Who-Rules!”

As one, the assembled - even the Wardens - fell to their knees, swept up in Essi’s words, and compelled by an aura that even now seemed to bleed from Him; an aura of charisma, demanded obedience, and implied devotion that seemed to affect only those that truly believed.  An aura to inspire confident and greatness, to dispel fear and bring forth iterations of hope.  An aura, so He believed, that would unite His Grand Imperium as it never been united before.

Silence greeted His rebirth.

It was appropriate.