Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Lin was no fool. He might not have been especially clever, but his Blank constitution — the one that kept his thinking clear and rational — already put him leagues ahead of those 'brilliant' minds who drew Tzeentch's gaze like moths to a flame.

Drawing on everything he knew about Warhammer, he had pieced together, from Miraboreas's words alone, nearly the full truth of the Second Legion.

The Emperor had struck a bargain with the Warp — and in exchange, he had obtained both the knowledge needed to craft twenty-one Primarchs and the Warp-essence that gave each of them being.

As Legions founded on the Gene-Seeds of those Primarchs, ordinary Space Marines didn't carry the same Warp-essence as their gene-fathers — but their roots, their very conceptual nature, had bound them to the Warp all the same.

Among these, the Warp-essence of the Second Legion's Primarch was inevitably entangled with Tzeentch in ways too numerous to name. And when that entanglement filtered down to ordinary Space Marines, it manifested as Gene-Seeds that carried no detectable Warp-signature whatsoever — yet remained so mutable, so protean, that they could still resonate with Tzeentch regardless.

Why had the Emperor created this Legion in the first place? Perhaps he believed he could strip out every trace of Warp-taint from the Gene-Seeds. Perhaps he thought he could sidestep the Warp's influence entirely. Or perhaps, knowing full well the instability involved, he had simply chosen to exploit the Legion to the fullest during the Great Crusade before the Warp's turbulence could catch up with him.

Whatever the truth, it had all ceased to matter the moment the Second Legion's Primarch turned to Tzeentch without so much as a fight.

But in the moment of the Second Legion's erasure from history, a splinter force — those who had refused to follow their Primarch — had made their way to the Azure Star. And their mutable Gene-Seeds had been reshaped by the World Soul dwelling there. And those Gene-Seeds, which had from the very beginning shared certain resemblances with the Swarm...

"Speaking of which — do you recognize the Zerg specimens aboard this ship?"

Lin asked the question abruptly, and received only a shake of the head in reply.

"I don't. I have nothing but contempt for biological weapons engineered purely for combat — their existence is an affront to nature." Miraboreas made no effort to conceal his disgust. "Though given that this space hulk is the handiwork of that bird-headed creature, nothing aboard it would surprise me. Why do you ask?"

So — nearly the whole truth of the Gene-Seeds, but not quite all of it.

Lin set aside his line of reasoning with a trace of regret. He had no intention of revealing that he'd spotted the connection between the Second Legion's Gene-Seeds and the Zerg through knowledge drawn from another world entirely. He simply shook his head and steered the conversation back on course.

"Let's follow the thread you were pulling on. You said you scrubbed Tzeentch's mark from their Gene-Seeds — but why? Are they really worth that much effort to you?"

"I simply recognized in them an evolutionary potential that could allow them to integrate into this world's ecosystem. Do you know what evolution needs most?"

"Energy... and competition between species?"

The Black Dragon nodded in approval. "Precisely. Natural balance lives in those two things. Long ago, during the War in Heaven, the Azure Star was chosen for the singular nature of its life-forms. With the aid of the Old Ones, the souls of the draconic lineages on this world gathered and coalesced, awakening a primordial World Soul — the Ancestor Dragon."

Lin noted that Miraboreas had described this Ancestor Dragon as a separate entity from himself — which likely connected to his earlier mention of being the 'current' World Soul of the Azure Star.

That meant the original World Soul of the Azure Star had not been Miraboreas. The Black Dragon continued his account.

"The greatest strength of the Azure Star's lifeforms has always been their capacity to adapt rapidly and achieve evolutionary leaps. That age of constant strife became a catalyst for the draconic lineages, and in time there arose a generation of Elder Dragons — not only physically supreme, but possessed of command over the natural psionic forces of the world..."

Huh. So they can fit into Warhammer like that.

Lin turned it over for a while and couldn't find a single hole in it. He suddenly realized that Monster Hunter's worldview — which always took on a somewhat mystical quality once it reached the Elder Dragon tier — actually made perfect sense against the backdrop of Warhammer. And Miraboreas was still talking.

"The Elder Dragons represented the Azure Star's participation in the War in Heaven. Even as Elder Dragon after Elder Dragon fell in battle against the Necrons, their deaths became nourishment — feeding back into the world, driving the birth of still more strange and powerful Elder Dragons from the Azure Star. That was the Azure Star's most glorious age."

"But when the War in Heaven ended, the absence of strife left the Azure Star's species a shadow of their former selves. The regression of its lifeforms eventually caused the Ancestor Dragon to fall into slumber."

"I was born from the death of Elder Dragons — I took up my place as the Ancestor Dragon's successor and wandered the Warp, striving across tens of millions of years to preserve the world's biodiversity. But in the end, all of that came undone. In the moment the youngest god was born."

Lin guessed what had happened. "The Fall of the Aeldari fed the Chaos Gods' power, and that power ultimately brought Slaanesh into being — which cut off your wandering through the Warp?"

"And cost the Azure Star its last Elder Dragon."

The Black Dragon's voice was calm as he said it, but Lin could read something in his eyes — a deep and undisguised hatred, directed equally at the Aeldari and at Slaanesh.

That brought to mind Miraboreas's self-introduction at the very beginning, outside the shrine of the Ancestor Dragon's proxy: the Avenger of the Elder Dragons.

Slaanesh's birth had dispersed the Warp storms, allowing the battered remnants of humanity — broken by the Age of Strife — to return to the stars. That might have been a boon for a material universe otherwise drowning in widespread regression, but for those Warp-entities who stood in opposition to the Chaos Gods, the growth of the dark powers was anything but welcome.

The Warp storms would return — and when they did, they would be far more terrible than the four thousand years of darkness that had sealed off the galaxy before the Great Crusade. Small wonder the Emperor had been so desperate to launch it when he did.

"After that, I devoted myself to making Elder Dragons live again upon the Azure Star — but the severely degraded ecosystem of the planet alone was not enough to achieve it."

"I even guided the emergence of the Felynes as an intelligent species, hoping they might introduce some new variable into the equation — but though they developed their minds admirably, their bodies were simply too frail to bear the weight of driving competition and conflict. I was at a complete impasse... and then they arrived."

Miraboreas paused, clearly casting his mind back to the moment he had first laid eyes on that company of Space Marines. "After the youngest god was born, I raised a localized Warp storm to cut the Azure Star off from the outside world and protect myself — but these warriors were flung here regardless."

"That 'coincidence,' combined with the unmistakable scent of the Architect of Fate clinging to them, nearly made me destroy them on the spot. But I'll admit it — that fire-thief knew what he was doing. Somehow he had managed to create a group of humanoid biological weapons with an evolutionarily mutable nature, while stripping out the Warp component entirely. Their traits showed me the possibility: use them to intensify the contest of species on this world, and from that pressure, birth Elder Dragons once more."

The catfish effect — introducing an invasive species to drive the evolution of native ones. Lin was well acquainted with the concept.

Especially after nearly being killed by one of those 'reborn Elder Dragons.' Lin would have wagered there wasn't a soul on this planet who understood the principle more viscerally than himself.

"Because their nature was achieved through technological means rather than a true Warp connection, their traits might attract the Architect of Fate's attention — but they were never truly his kin."

"I spent some time wringing every last drop of evolutionary potential from their Gene-Seeds, then applied certain psionic techniques to lock their genetic template in place, and finally purged the influence of the Master of Fate entirely."

"Now their Gene Absorption responds only to species native to the Azure Star. With that settled, I could comfortably designate them as the kindling for the rebirth of Elder Dragons..." Miraboreas paused. "Until you appeared, Lin. Until you."

"You keep emphasizing how special I am."

Lin was not gentle about it. "But from the moment I landed on this planet, I didn't exactly see you holding back against me!"

"That's because, at first, I genuinely intended to have you eliminated."

The Black Dragon admitted it without a trace of shame. "Evolution is written in fang and claw. Ranged weapons are soft — they strangle the possibility of evolution before it can breathe. I had spent considerable effort shaping those warriors into suitable kindling, and then you arrived and handed them firearms. How was I supposed to continue my plans with you alive?"

"So when did you change your mind, exactly? When that Silver Rathalos — the one that nearly evolved into a full Elder Dragon — almost killed us?"

"I had little involvement in that Silver Rathalos. His evolution was already complete before you arrived. Outside of applying a little external pressure on all of you, I actually helped somewhat — I kept the body I'm currently using from drawing the Blood God's gaze."

Miraboreas shook his head. "I changed my mind the night you touched my idol. I cannot directly observe Blanks like you from within the Warp — I can only interact with your world through intermediaries or by descending into a physical vessel in realspace. It wasn't until you made contact with my idol that I finally perceived just how singular you truly are."

He walked over to Lin's side and looked him up and down with slow, deliberate attention.

"That prisoner on his Throne — he will stop at nothing to force his way through my Warp storm and shower his blessings upon my Felynes..." A faint note of something unreadable entered Miraboreas's voice. "A plan like that? How could I possibly not want a hand in it?"

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