This is the current Windsor and nsa.
They bear the forr titles of ’God of Hope’ and ’God of Tyranny’, but in reality, they are nothing more than a grotesque patchwork.
They cling to life, escaping the pursuit of formidable enemies, while leading two factions of the Spirit Race to survive in different ways.
"We are not complete spirits... nor free wills... Every fall of the Spirit Race, my children... every faint tremor of the soul stone in the network... tears at our false shell..."
Countless fine, faintly glowing "spiritual threads" appeared in Gu Hang’s expanded ntal vision, extending out from the God of Thousand Faces’ shattered core, oozing divine pus and blood.
Each one is as thin as a spider’s silk, fragile enough to be broken with a breath, yet they penetrate the veil of space, casting faint, despairing projections into the physical universe.
Gu Hang followed one of the "threads," and his mind was imdiately drawn into a distant starry battlefield engulfed in flas. A massive Ark World, its lines elegant like a work of art yet covered with sore wounds, was under frantic assault by bloated and filthy green warships oozing pus.
Nagor’s plague missiles struck against the Ark’s pale energy shields, exploding into pockets of decaying Spiritual Energy clouds. On the deck’s edge, beside a fractured spirit bone spire, a warrior from the Howling Banshee charged fiercely, her battle cry piercing through the void, her Star Dart Gun aid at plague warriors many tis her number.
But Gu Hang saw sothing deeper.
At the peak of her charging intent, the pure, resolute Spiritual Energy radiating from her chest was not just the energy needed to activate the Star Dart Gun. Among it, a thin stream of light like a blood thread was being invisibly drawn away, rapidly flowing back along the spiritual thread in Gu Hang’s vision, connecting to the God of Thousand Faces!
That tiny stream of light injected into the core of the God of Thousand Faces would briefly light up that area, only to be quickly swallowed by deeper darkness, like a famished dying person desperate for a drop of rainwater.
Simultaneously, thousands upon thousands of similar spiritual threads rose from every corner of the battlefield, from souls in the Ark World untouched by the fires of war, and even from uncharted Spirit Race colonies at the galaxy’s edge, with billions of tiny streams converging toward that nearly crumbling Divine Core.
In the midst of endless illusions, Gu Hang knitted his brows, the rapid influx of so much information putting so strain on him.
But he still realized what it all ant: every extraordinary individual of the Spirit Race, every ti they extracted their potential to unleash power, was instinctively using the purest flash of their soul to temporarily "ignite" this nearly extinguished divine ember, thereby exchanging for the amplified "divine blessing" of power, yet unconsciously tearing at themselves, transforming into fuel to sustain this "divine body" gasping for survival.
This seems to be a perfect cycle.
The God of Thousand Faces provides the Spirit Race with strength and protection, preventing their dead souls from sinking into Subspace to be captured by Slaanesh, but instead returning to the refuge provided by the God of Thousand Faces.
For the Ark Eldar, that is the ’soul stone’, located in the spiritual realm of the Ark World; for the Dark Spirit Race, it is the soul casket, a chance to be resurrected in a new body crafted again by the Blood People.
However, at the sa ti, with each death, they feedback all their life experiences and soul power to the God of Thousand Faces, allowing it to continue to sustain itself.
Yet, if this whole chanism were so perfect, they wouldn’t have been decreasing in strength over hundreds of thousands of years.
The greatest flaw in this chanism lies with Slaanesh.
This external adversary, a true terror looming over the entire race, renders all cycles unsustainable.
"Deeper corruption... is reversing along this vein..." Gu Hang heard a hoarse voice, seemingly layered with thousands of voices.
He saw that within the thin stream of extracted light, was mingled more insidious, viscous filth.
On the battlefield, the Spiritual Energy attacks of the Howling Banshee warrior did indeed seem more intense, but the unnatural blush on her body surface, the soft, inappropriate sweet whispers mingling with her battle cry that should have been sharp, were now evident...
Whenever the Spirit Race utilized trendous power, even with nurous protective asures, it was inevitable to forge a connection with Subspace. Therein lies the source of all extraordinary power, the sa for any race.
And what makes the Spirit Race unique is that every ti they forge a connection with Subspace, it inevitably attracts the attention of Slaanesh.
Even if they only absorb a tiny amount, it may not affect their overall life journey.
But, when they die, as they return, whether to the soul stone or the soul casket, these receive the purest of souls. Then where did those minuscule pollutants go?
"The Dark Prince... Slaanesh’s gaze... like a cancer... is eroding every soul channel connecting the Spirit Race to ..."
"Every painful struggle and wail at the soul level accelerates Its pervasive infiltration... Our ’Divine Core’ has long been filled with Its ’delight’... Each anguished convulsion pleases It, each burst of power nourishes Its infiltrating tendrils... Unless severed... unless eradicated... the end is already certain... Our divine zombie will completely beco a colossal pustule projected by It into the physical universe! And all Spirit Race souls connected here will..."
"Sever... this self-destructive cycle..." A relatively clear, sharply decisive voice briefly overpowered the countless lants of the God of Thousand Faces.
Gu Hang’s gaze was intensely drawn by the source of that voice—a large fragnt deep within the Divine Core, its sharp, deathly pale appearance radiating a chilling refusal of everything.
That was nsa’s part, maintaining the God of Thousand Faces from entirely dissolving and rotting under Slaanesh’s joyful plague, and it was he guiding the Dark Spirit Race to survive in Comoros, teaching them to use pain to resist Slaanesh’s soul extraction.
Yet at this mont, Gu Hang keenly observed that along the edge of nsa’s fragnt, sothing nauseating, full of malevolent iridescence was slowly crawling—Slaanesh’s venom greedily licking at this last fortress.
Simultaneously, within Gu Hang’s ntal vision, he also saw so of what the God of Thousand Faces saw: the gold will network representing the Human Empire, sprawling across the galaxy like a giant net, countless nodes either dimming or flickering under Chaos’s erosion. Atop the golden network, a blue network had grown, entangling a third of the human world along with the golden network.
...
"Sever... this self-destructive cycle..." A relatively clear, sharply decisive voice briefly overpowered the countless lants of the God of Thousand Faces.
Gu Hang’s gaze was intensely drawn by the source of that voice—a large fragnt deep within the Divine Core, its sharp, deathly pale appearance radiating a chilling refusal of everything.
That was nsa’s part, maintaining the God of Thousand Faces from entirely dissolving and rotting under Slaanesh’s joyful plague, and it was he guiding the Dark Spirit Race to survive in Comoros, teaching them to use pain to resist Slaanesh’s soul extraction.
Yet at this mont, Gu Hang keenly observed that along the edge of nsa’s fragnt, sothing nauseating, full of malevolent iridescence was slowly crawling—Slaanesh’s venom greedily licking at this last fortress.
Simultaneously, within Gu Hang’s ntal vision, he also saw so of what the God of Thousand Faces saw: the gold will network representing the Human Empire, sprawling across the galaxy like a giant net, countless nodes either dimming or flickering under Chaos’s erosion. Atop the golden network, a blue network had grown, entangling a third of the human world along with the golden network.
User Comments
0 comments from readers