Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 512: Earlier in the intermission, Malcador was busy
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At a point earlier than the end of M41
Craftworld Bjetan
In front of the burning obsidian door

The maidens of Slaanesh leaped in ecstasy, dashing on paw and hooves into the hunting grounds behind the main webway door on the Ark, which seemed to have been torn open and unable to fully close.

They waved their scorpion-like limbs, opened their mouths wide, and stretched out their slender, barbed tongues to taste whether there was fear or other emotions in the Sword Wind troops who were waiting in the distance - but then they began to scream in fear and incomprehension, and turned into the primordial "soup" of nothingness under the psychic light emitted by the old man holding the eagle-head staff.

The old man in a long robe raised the staff in his hand high, and the blazing flame behind the eagle's back changed from orange to platinum, as if thousands of sharp swords pierced through the bones, and from the side that greeted the light, all these evil creatures and the followers of Slaanesh were transformed into streams of pus, rouge, and white bones and skulls. On the ground, only silk gauze and broken ornaments soaked in soup and emitting purple and pink smoke were left.

To describe this strange and rare sight in this way would inevitably make people feel that it lacks some elegance and grand details, but even the clowns of the Midnight Mourning Troupe could hardly find more appropriate words from their poetic language to describe this strange scene.

This unique power that is highly targeted at the dark clans made Eldrad Uslan and his prophets increasingly wary, but it was completely impossible for them to refuse: if it was just burning the demons to ashes or just driving the pioneers of the dark princes back behind the veil, such mediocre skills would not allow the arrogant Ark Eldar to be so polite to a "monkey" magician, but now they even summoned a team of dimensional spiders and howling banshees as guards for this old alien.

This "resurrected" "Malcador" must not fail!

Yes, perhaps in the human empire, the number of people who know the appearance of the "Magic Mark", "Seal Bearer", "Imperial Regent" or "Imperial Prime Minister" ten thousand years ago can be said to be no more than one hand. But considering the long life of the Ark Eldar prophets, they seemed to have seen this outstanding "monkey" only a few years ago, and naturally interpreted his death from the changes in the divination runes and the spring water.

But they could not interpret his resurrection, just as they could not fish their own shadow out of the spring.

Therefore, when Malcador the Sceptre suddenly appeared in Bjetan in the aftermath of the invasion of the Vanguard Dancers of Slaanesh, and "saved" them several times in time, including defeating the cunning Vanguard Dancers of Slaanesh who had sneaked into the iron room where the incarnation of Cain was sleeping, the Eldar were not only ashamed and angry at being saved by a "monkey", but also thought that this was the beginning of a complex conspiracy from one, two, or three gods...

Of course, they soon found out that they were wrong. Not only that, after showing this group of Ark Eldar and Ivrenee who arrived later what he could do and what he could do for their souls, the old man, who had never had such a rich bargaining chip in his hands, looked at the Eldar's ashamed and angry expressions when they realized that he could not refuse, and showed an impeccable diplomatic and polite smile.

Then things turned out like this.

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Standing next to Eldrad Uslan, Bjetan's Ark's own Great Prophet Lathriel also looked with a complicated look at the situation where Bjetan's Swordwind troops were cautiously but excitedly moving forward after the Slaanesh Vanguards were turned into a thick liquid full of ammonia, sulfur and other smells.

These members of the Path of the Warriors are no longer holding their deadly weapons. Instead, each of them is holding a specially made container. Through their armor and gloves, they are carefully using the sensitive souls and fingertips unique to the Eldar to feel as faint as possible resonances from the remnants left by these demons.

"Found another one!" A howling banshee shouted with joy, then immediately covered her mouth and made an elegant gesture of apology to the people around her - everyone nodded - she was still too young and had just joined this path, so she needed more training and self-discipline.

But her joy could indeed be forgiven, because in her slender hands she was protecting a trembling ball of transparent colloid, like a piece of jelly made from a dark green gem. She held it in both hands, put it in a container, and crossed the battlefield with a light and steady posture. She came in front of Malcador, put down the container in her hands, and then took off her helmet, revealing her flaming hair and a fair face with childish eyes and eyebrows.

As expected, she was a young girl who had barely crossed the threshold of adulthood. Lathriel thought with regret that if she had not lost so many people in the previous sinister invasion of the Dark Prince's vanguard, she would not have agreed to do this... But now, the Bjetan Ark was severely damaged, and the ancestral souls in the infinite circuit were in danger. On one side was eternal annihilation, and on the other side was the greedy mouth of the hungry lady...

The old man nodded, tapped his toes, and his anti-gravity hover disc flew in front of the girl - this was another creation that many Bjetan Eldar criticized. Many people believed that it was not driven by the "technology and mechanical magic" that Malcador claimed, but by a disguised screaming flying shark stuffed into the core. Perhaps this was the driving force behind the Lord of Change's intervention in this matter. But of course, at a time when they urgently needed Malcador's ability, many Eldar Eldar were not incapable of learning to accept it with a pinch of their noses and pretend not to see it.

Malcador stretched out his skinny fingers and slowly drew magic runes in the air. The runes were bright, powerful, and lingering in the air, reflecting in the eyes of Ivrenee, her guard Visage, and the bloody brides.

The Daughter of Shadows is now full of doubts. Although the power of the God of Death Inad loves to call her "daughter", she was resurrected from the fatal wound in the arena and successfully escaped from Commorragh through the Webway. She also obtained powerful weapons to fight against the demons of Slaanesh here, and was able to understand that the five swords hidden by the goddess Mori Heg may open the seventh path for the future of the Eldar.

The arrival of Eldrad Ulthvi also confirmed how real and strong the ripples caused by her revelation in the sea of ​​​​revolution and reality were.

But when the Great Prophet arrived here, he was somewhat panicked, and when Ivrenee sought his help to expel the sudden intruder Malcador and not to seize the opportunity to show her power, the Great Prophet's attitude was very ambiguous.

Finally, the Great Prophet told the Daughter of Shadows not to worry, for he had discovered from the crystals how the various extensions, weavings, and nodes of the threads of future destiny worked.

The thread of fate was still entwined around her, and Malcador was just a needle that looked particularly large - if other people were sewing needles to the thread of fate, then Malcador was almost a loom. It was not a big problem, and there was no need to worry, because "her" existence itself was the intersection of the thread of fate.

Even so, Ivrenee still felt extremely uneasy. She sensed the displeasure of a certain god and the spying of some other gods.

It feels like someone is...taking over my responsibility.

She stared at Malcador's back and began to think.

On the other side, Malcador's rune had reached its end. Just like countless times before, it gathered into a handful of bright liquid like molten steel, dripping down into the gelatinous jelly-like object placed in the container.

As new energy liquid was injected, it made a hissing sound and emitted puffs of smoke, which was a sign that the chaotic impurities and demonic pollution that remained and mixed in it were being burned and evaporated.

Finally, when the contents of the container finally cooled down, it became a beautiful green crystal, but there seemed to be a faint platinum light spot in the core.

"It seems very promising..." The Eldar girl picked up the container with joy.

Macador nodded.

The prophets of Bjetan stepped forward, carefully and quickly took the crystal, and moved it to the Ark's less damaged crystal dome that had already begun to be repaired. There, more new crystals were stored separately on an island in the middle of the lake surrounded by grass and springs.

"I still don't understand..."

The old man's followers slowly emerged from the shadows around him and began to talk to him, but Malcador's Eldar guards ignored them, as if they were frozen in a second that had become thousands or even tens of thousands of years. The breath they inhaled and exhaled took the process of a star from dust to birth.

"What don't you understand?"

"Why would you go to such lengths to help these untrustworthy pointy-eared xenos? The consequences of their treachery and unpredictability have been documented countless times in the many histories and archives I have read. You could have used that much time to help humanity, though... but you are Malcador, founder of the Inquisition and former regent of the Empire. You still have considerable power if you operate from the depths of the Imperium."

"Because we might be sued for patent infringement by the Hegemony Tower Corn Agricultural Products Association and the Titan Psychic Canned Food Supply and Marketing Cooperative." Malcador answered immediately with ease and joy.

"..."

The wrinkles on the old man's face wrinkled deeply. "Because...what if I say that this is to save more human beings?"

"…You are not the type who likes to save all of humanity, my lord."

"I am not." The former imperial regent nodded. "I admit that I did have some inappropriate bias in defining what kind of people are considered 'human'."

"That's not biased. It's that only those you consider human can be classified as human beings who can be saved, while others - slaves, slave laborers, servants are not considered human beings, but just ants and living tools. - How arrogant and unreasonable."

"I do not deny."

"That's rare, you arrogant old bastard."

"Why do you have to do this?" The old man nodded. He swiped his thumb downward, "wiping" out a different image in space, just like someone using his finger to wipe away the mist on a piece of foggy glass in a winter car. "Look."

His followers looked intently and saw another future in which Malcador did not intervene or stepped aside, and Ivrenee was in full control. Inad, the god of the dead, did not truly awaken, but his incarnation, the spirit of vengeance, Inkarn, was awakened and opened a passage to the warp for Ivrenee's followers, who were now renamed the Army of Death.

While this incarnation blessed the Death Army to swim freely in the safe passage, the huge ripples of its rejection by the Warp spread to all parts of the galaxy, causing countless Imperial ships full of travelers to capsize and get lost; countless relatively remote planets or worlds that could not be self-sufficient in food were caught in the sudden Warp storm and lost contact with their life routes...

Every time Khârn led his army of death forward, countless humans died. The attitude of the Eldar was: as long as there was a one in ten thousand chance of success that would allow them to fight Slaanesh and avoid falling into the stomach of the Lady of Thirst, then even if the price was a million times higher, they would accept it.

The attendant was silent for a moment, and Malcador looked over, only to see his lips trembling with anger.

"This price was not paid with their lives, how can you say this with such confidence?!"

"This is the Eldar." The old man smiled, "Otherwise, how could the first cry of the Dark Prince be born in the past with the enjoyment of the whole country? Just like you said, I made the same mistake as them in the past, so I was too smart in the end. Your understanding of this is the first step to self-reflection."

Malcador waved his sleeves again, and the space returned to its original image. The fragment of possibility exhausted its energy and disappeared in the flow of time.

"But don't worry. We are here now, and we have stopped a part of Iverene's mighty forces. Next, I will convince Eldrad Uslan. As long as he begins to lean towards my words, I will be able to guide them to complete the weaving of their destiny, while minimizing the loss to humanity in the process... and I will supervise the process of finally awakening Robert Guilliman."

His follower nodded coldly, then slowly melted into the shadows, as if preparing to leave.

"how?"

"…I have to go around and calm down now, otherwise I will want to kill people here."

"Ah." Malcador nodded in understanding. "It's a good opportunity to check the progress of each place. We need to control the pace just right next time."

The followers completely disappeared, and time around them returned to its normal flow. Malcador saw Eldrad's brows tightly furrowed, and the expressions of the others seemed to be aware of something but unable to perceive the specific direction.

He smiled. The next step was to gather the Ark Eldar for Ivrenee and increase the number of participating Arks... Oh, and he saw countless demons from different realms... Well... he had to make sure that Ivrenee, who didn't have as many guards as before, could reach the important points on her journey smoothly.

Oh... by the way... I don't know what happened to that child...

Malcador's knuckles slid lightly across the handle of the staff.

If I follow the fate of the Death Army... then at some point in the future, if it is as described in the tapestry of fate, there should be... a brief encounter, right?

(End of this chapter)