Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Lin kept his Plasma Pistol trained on Miraboreas for a long moment, but inwardly he was already about seventy or eighty percent convinced.

That the World Soul had been meddling behind the scenes was a suspicion he'd held for a long time. He just hadn't expected it to show up now, in this particular form.

The Black Dragon — the legendary Elder Dragon, the apex of the Elder Dragon lineage — served as the ultimate hunt for the protagonist in many Monster Hunter titles. There were documented records of him having once moved to destroy human civilization, and there were wispy, unverifiable rumors that Miraboreas himself had taken human form and played some part in founding the Hunter's Guild. But what the truth actually was, no one had ever been able to say with any certainty.

If this were simply Monster Hunter, Lin would never have bought the claim based on the perpetually ambiguous legend of an Elder Dragon taking human shape alone. But this was Warhammer.

The entity had identified itself as the World Soul and had possessed a human body — a mode of operation indistinguishable from any other Warp-born being. In a universe where every concept from every real-world culture mapped onto the Warp and generated a corresponding existence, the Black Dragon of Monster Hunter becoming the World Soul of Warhammer wasn't actually that hard to accept.

Still, Lin felt he ought to get one thing straight. He kept the pistol leveled and asked: "What exactly is the World Soul?"

He knew perfectly well what the World Soul was, of course — and precisely because he knew, the question was a litmus test to see whether the entity in front of him could be trusted. What he didn't expect was for Miraboreas to simply shrug.

"Who knows. Whatever it is, it's certainly not a Machine Spirit the size of a planet."

Lin had said exactly those words when explaining the World Soul to Admir and the others, and now the World Soul itself was quoting them back at him. It was more than a little embarrassing.

Realizing that the entity knew their situation inside and out — and that there was clearly no point trying to hold a proper conversation at gunpoint — Lin lowered his Plasma Pistol. Miraboreas let out an audible breath of relief.

"Good to see that corpse-god's brine hasn't completely soaked into your brain yet," he said, with a bluntness that spared no feelings. "I was genuinely wondering what would happen if you just shot me."

Lin raised an eyebrow. "You're the World Soul — a semi-Warp existence composed of psionic energy. Are you really telling me you were worried about a Plasma Pistol?"

"Sounds like you still haven't fully grasped what makes you special. What kind of person can just press their hand against a plasma coil and shut down a World Soul's psionic interference?"

"Isn't that just what a Blank is supposed to be able to do?"

"Mm. Your Emperor had a full retinue of Blank Sisters with him when he was digging his tunnel networks under Terra — and none of them managed to stop that red-skinned Ork from blowing up the lavatory in his own home with a psyker trick."

Lin rubbed his chin, and found, somewhat to his surprise, that Miraboreas had a point.

The Sisters of Silence had vanished from the record after the Horus Heresy ended. In over a hundred years of traveling the galaxy, Lin had never encountered another documented case of a Blank suppressing a Warp manifestation on his own. His assumptions about what Blanks could do had been based entirely on himself — he had simply assumed it was a standard ability every Blank possessed.

It wasn't until the last incident, when he had purged the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon from the Hunter Dreadnought's machine spirit, that he had belatedly begun to wonder whether his own abilities exceeded those of an ordinary Blank. Miraboreas's words had now confirmed that suspicion beyond any doubt.

"You seem to know rather a lot," Lin said.

"In a long life, entertainment is hard to come by. I watched the whole thing from the Warp — front row seats." The Black Dragon paused. "Though you know quite a bit yourself, don't you? You seem to have a very clear idea of where we World Souls come from, and nothing I've said about the old secrets has surprised you in the slightest."

Lin, ever modest on that front, replied: "I just did a little grave-robbing. Nothing more than what the Aeldari left behind."

"Oh, those hangers-on trailing behind the Old Ones."

Miraboreas's disdain for the Aeldari was obvious and unhidden — which ran contrary to everything Lin had assumed about a World Soul's disposition.

Noticing Lin's mild confusion, Miraboreas offered a brief explanation: "If you've dug through Aeldari graves and learned about the Old Ones and that unprecedented War in Heaven, then you should already know that the Aeldari were nothing more than a vassal race — created by the Old Ones to handle logistics during the War in Heaven."

"They were fortunate enough to fill the power vacuum that war left behind and become the dominant force in the galaxy — and then they squandered it all in decadence and excess, summoned their own destruction, and in doing so caused the birth of a new Chaos God. A pitiful race. What exactly do you expect me to respect?"

"I had assumed World Souls would generally be on good terms with the Aeldari. After all, they're the only ones who still possess the means to birth new World Souls. I understand that when the Aeldari were fleeing the Fall, those who escaped to maiden worlds were sheltered by World Souls and kept from being devoured by the newborn Chaos God."

The Black Dragon let out a contemptuous snort. "And then what? Watch them stuff stones filled with their ancestors' souls into the infinite circuits they built themselves, and use that to quietly annex an entire planet for their own?"

"What do you mean?"

"Take it literally. A World Soul is the self-awareness of a planet — born from the accumulated souls of its native species coalescing into a singular will. So what happens if the souls being fed into it aren't native to that world? Can what emerges still be called the planet's own consciousness?"

Lin understood at once.

An Infinity Circuit created a self-contained loop of souls within its bounds, shielding those souls from being consumed by the Warp, and eventually giving rise to a collective consciousness formed from the souls within. Whether on a craftworld or a maiden world, the circuits were sustained by Aeldari spirit stones — so naturally, the collective consciousness they produced was inclined toward the Aeldari. It had left everyone with the impression that World Souls were universally friendly to the Aeldari.

But if a World Soul refused to accept the Aeldari from the very beginning — if it had, since its birth, accepted only the souls of its native species — then...

He looked at Miraboreas. The Black Dragon met his gaze and nodded, with unmistakable pride.

"Allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Miraboreas, the Black Dragon — current World Soul of the Azure Star, ally to the Old Ones during the War in Heaven, and the final destination of every draconic lineage on this world. I have descended here today to extend an offer of cooperation — to guide a path forward for all of us!"

...Well. For anyone who'd played Monster Hunter, this was a sudden jump in the power scale — straight past the Emperor and up to the Old Ones.

And isn't a proper invitation supposed to come after you kill three Tempered Elder Dragons first?

Lin kept those thoughts carefully to himself and turned the question over in his mind: why would a World Soul that had existed since the War in Heaven be extending an invitation to him specifically?

What value did he have as a partner to a World Soul?

Miraboreas didn't know about the knowledge sitting inside Lin's head — so that left only one answer: the strange constitution that even Lin himself didn't fully understand, the one that had been enough to suppress a World Soul's psionic ability...

Lin shook his head. "I don't see what I'd have to gain from working with you. From the Tigrex to the Silver Rathalos — I haven't seen a shred of good faith on your part."

"I'll admit that I disliked you at first, and that I hadn't yet recognized what made you different."

Miraboreas narrowed his eyes. Something dangerous and feral flickered in his gaze. "But you don't actually think a little thing like that gives you the right to refuse me, do you?"

"Oh, come off it. If you could actually do something to me, you wouldn't be sitting here having a perfectly civil conversation."

"Then by all means, spend the rest of your life stranded on this planet. Or walk straight into the Warp storm I've stirred up outside and pray that Emperor of yours decides to pull you out again."

The Black Dragon's tone was aggressive, but Lin refused to take the bait. "Which means you're not actually sure whether the Emperor would pull me out again. So where exactly does your confidence to threaten me come from?"

"I'm not only threatening. I can also discuss the question of ownership over those Astartes."

The Black Dragon gestured with a tilt of his head toward the dissected Gene-Seed still sitting on the examination table. Only then did Lin remember that this Black Dragon had descended precisely at the moment he had been cutting open Gene-Seeds.

Miraboreas stepped forward and studied the first genetic sequence on the display — the one that had been chaotic and endlessly mutable.

"I remember it well. When they first arrived on my world, I caught the scent of the Architect of Fate on them the moment they landed. These Astartes had escaped the Changer of Ways' clutches — but they could not escape the curse the Lord of Darkness had left written into their bloodline."

"My first intention was to eliminate them gradually. But then, in their genetic code, I saw a kind of... potential for change."

Following his indication, Lin's eyes shifted to the second sequence on the screen — the more stable one, taken from a recently harvested Gene-Seed.

"I arranged opponents for them with careful deliberation, used their Gene Absorption ability to reshape them through incremental and imperceptible change, and in doing so worked to erase the brand the Architect of Fate had burned into their Gene-Seeds..." He paused. "It worked rather well, wouldn't you say?"

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