Warhammer 40k: I Refuse to Be a Slaanesh Marine Chapter 1 1: The Warband of Excess

In the grim darkness of the purgatorial galaxy, there is only war.

Humanity once brushed against the peak of divinity, only to be cast down by a sudden, catastrophic storm. The Master of Mankind launched the Great Crusade from Terra, a grand design to restore human glory. Yet, the Ruinous Powers of the Warp needed only a single, choreographed rebellion to shatter that dream. Now, He sits entombed upon the Golden Throne, a silent sentinel over a rotting Empire and a populace drowning in ignorance.

The modern Imperium is a landscape of choking smoke and endless pyres. Xenos races feast upon the fringes, while traitors, bloated by the dark "blessings" of the gods, revel in the carnage.

For one fleeting mont, Varex—once an obscure Captain of the Emperor's Children, now the master of a Slaaneshi warband—succumbed to a vision of pure ecstasy.

He saw it.

Billions of incomparable lights exploded before his eyes, cascading down like silken veils. lodies of impossible beauty blood along his spinal column. On a floor that felt warm, smooth, and radiated a pearlescent sheen, shy and exquisite dancers perford a ceaseless ballet. Innurable souls swirled within the dance, intertwining and singing, their very essence a tapestry of joy, art, and dreams. He could see every light-footed step, sll every wisp of fragrant breath.

It was... perfection.

Varex opened his eyes, trembling. He relaxed his grip, allowing the slave in his arms to slump at an artistically pleasing angle. The mortal let out a final, shuddering breath.

He felt a twinge of genuine envy.

He had chased that peak of sensation countless tis, yet it always remained just out of reach. How could these re cattle attain such a treasure so easily in death?

Varex stared listlessly at the diamond-encrusted ceiling, recalling the "revelation" granted by the hallucination.

He had heard it.

After soaring through the six circles of the Palace of Pleasure, he had beco a speck of dust, prostrate beneath the silken sheets of his Master's bed.

"The tides of the Immaterium have been stirred," the supre voice had whispered. It carried the weight of six thousand, six hundred, and sixty-six distinct sensations. Varex felt himself lting, yet he turned his head upward in a rapturous frenzy, desperate to glimpse that divine countenance. "But I cannot see it! I cannot see it!"

The voice rose to a shriek—anger, frustration, lust, and joy erupting simultaneously, shaking the foundations of the palace.

"He is not of the Aethyr! Find Him! Find the unexpected variable! Bring Him to our Master!"

A daemon, caught between a sob and a laugh, had leaned close. Needle-thin claws sank into Varex's cheek before the creature kicked him back into reality.

Varex flicked a long, forked tongue across the wound on his face. The concoctions Fabius Bile provided were becoming disturbingly potent. Even a veteran like him couldn't distinguish if the chemicals had induced a re trip or if he had truly been assigned a "mission."

Regardless, it mattered little. He would continue as he always had: bringing "joy" to the citizens of the Imperium.

He stalked out of his private sanctum, intending to check if his subordinates were plotting his assassination again. It wasn't until he reached the Banquet Hall that he rembered his actual business.

Because their gene-seed was so hopelessly corrupted, his warband's Apothecaries could no longer produce viable initiates. They spent their days locked in laboratories brewing new narcotics instead. If he wanted fresh blood, he had to go to Fabius Bile.

The "Spider" had extorted a king's ransom from him in exchange for a batch of "New Blood"—unprocessed, unspecialized initiates.

Varex flexed his fingers, savoring the slight irritation bubbling in his heart, and turned toward the Apothecarion.

Gurgle...

Glub...

After what felt like a tiless descent, consciousness finally flickered to life, stung into awareness by the harsh glare of external lights.

Inside a nutrient vat, an initiate's finger twitched.

Didn't I just delete Space Marine 2? I was about to start Baldur's Gate 3... Why did everything go black? Did a spider bite or... no... that's not right...

The monitoring system let out a shrill alarm. Flashing strobes illuminated the contorted, pained face of the man floating in the vat.

A storm of mory fragnts tore through his mind. In one mont, he was a mundane office worker, his life asured in overti and video gas. In another, he was a child learning to survive amidst mountains of bureaucratic parchnt. Then, he was a giant clad in ceramite, dancing through a hail of bolter fire with twin blades in hand.

High Gothic... Low Gothic... Swordsmanship...

He felt like a fragile bubble falling from a great height, passing through an infinite well to float upon a psychedelic sea. Sotis the water blood with fragrant flowers; sotis it grew jagged crystals that refracted violent light. Beautiful figures rose from the foam, their smiles tugging at his very soul. But then, the horizon erupted in black fire. He dodged instinctively, only to fall further into the depths.

"Subject Four showing abnormal spike in brainwave activity. Monitoring recomnded."

The initiate's eyes snapped open. He stared out in a panic.

Beyond the foul, pinkish amniotic fluid, he saw dozens of identical vats. Each held a muscular, unconscious male. As his vision cleared, he noticed the familiar tal sockets embedded in their flesh—hollowed out, waiting for connections.

The storm in his mind settled. The fragnts aligned. He stared at the sockets for a long ti before the term surfaced: neural interfaces.

The initiate—the transmigrator—held his breath. If his initial confusion was re disorientation, his current fear was a cold, paralyzing weight born of a deep understanding of this hopeless universe.

Everyone jokes about being loyal to the Throne until they actually end up here. Right now, he wanted to wail like a Grot with a stubbed toe.

The airtight door hissed open with a wet, sighing sound. Accompanied by heavy, rhythmic thuds, a giant entered the room.

The newcor wore ornate power armor. The noble gold and purple of his heritage had long since surrendered to a nauseating palette of hot pink and oil-slick black. The surface was covered in reliefs so intricate they bordered on the divine—yet the imagery depicted only scenes of hellish excess.

The giant strolled past the rows of vats with the casual air of a gourt inspecting subpar cuts of at. At the tip of his crozius, the skull of an unknown creature exhaled wisps of pale lavender smoke.

Sensing the transmigrator's gaze, the giant spun around. A gauntlet mutated into a wicked claw pressed against the glass, right in front of the initiate's shocked, expressionless face.

The giant smiled. From the corners of his mouth to his ears, muscle and bone parted smoothly, revealing serpentine fangs and a long, flickering, forked tongue.

"Well hello, my dear brother," the giant hissed. "Welco to the fold."