Isha, the Eldar Goddess of Life, was among the few truly benevolent deities in the grim darkness of the universe.
Deep within the corrupted heart of Nurgle's Garden, she regarded Mortarion with an expression of measured calm, her voice carrying the warmth of vitality itself.
"Death, decay, and rebirth—these are Nurgle's domains. I cannot oppose His authority, nor can I purge the poison of rot. I can only suppress it... for a time."
A soft glow surrounded her as she extended her hand, a shimmering sphere of light forming at her fingertips. She cast it toward Mortarion, the luminous orb settling gently into his palm.
"Take this. It will aid you, if only temporarily. But remember—you have but one chance."
The moment the sphere touched his hand, the Lord of Death exhaled sharply, his gaunt face betraying a rare flicker of elation.
"You have my thanks, even though you have no proof of my sincerity," he said, his rasping voice filled with barely restrained triumph.
Isha's radiant eyes studied him with an almost sorrowful detachment.
"This is not trust, Son of Nurgle. I can feel your ambition—it burns with life. I do not know its purpose, nor do I need to. But if it opposes stagnation, then it serves my interests as well. After all, my situation cannot worsen."
A single tear traced a path down her luminous cheek.
She was the Eldar's Goddess of Life—once venerated, now desolate, a captive in a decaying paradise.
She had borne witness to the Fall, to the birth-throes of She Who Thirsts. She had screamed as her people perished, unable to defy the newborn horror that consumed them. She had prayed, desperate for salvation, but the answer to her prayers was not the one she had hoped for.
The one who answered was no savior.
Nurgle, the benevolent grandfather, had heard her cries. In His own grotesque way, He had loved her.
He had fought for her, wresting her from the grasp of Slaanesh. To this day, He doted upon her, delighting in her presence as He force-fed her His latest concoctions, thick with pestilence. Yet, as the Goddess of Life and Healing, she endured. No matter how vile the brew, her nature would not allow her to succumb. Quietly, she spread antidotes through the cosmos, undoing His work in the only way she could.
Despite His affections, Nurgle did not chain her. Many times, she had attempted to leave His Garden, but at its very edge, she always saw the leering gaze of Slaanesh, waiting to reclaim what had once been taken. And so, she remained, forever trapped between one tormentor and another.
Mortarion clenched his fist around the light.
"One chance is enough," he murmured, determination hardening his expression. "This will be crucial to my plan."
With that, he turned and left, his thoughts swirling like the toxic fumes of his own Legion.
The Lord of Change moved in the shadows, working to unravel the very cycle of life and death itself. War brewed in the Garden, a conflict brewing between the gods. Khorne and Tzeentch, unlikely allies, had set their sights upon Nurgle's domain, seeking to claim the Scourge Stars for themselves.
His son, Typhus, had withdrawn. But Mortarion had not.
Defying Nurgle's will, he had chosen to remain in the Materium, dragging the Plaguefather's favored daemon, Ku'gath, into reality with him.
For the first time in millennia, he would fight not for his father, but for himself.
"I must carve out my own freedom—if only once."
Aboard the Heartfire
Within Dukel's private office, silence reigned.
The only sound was the rhythmic scratching of quill upon parchment. The chamber's vast emptiness was undisturbed, the Sisters who normally managed his correspondence absent for the moment.
Dukel himself sat hunched over a desk, deep in calculation. Across from him, Magnus the Red lounged with a contemplative expression, his single eye gleaming with a mix of curiosity and resignation.
At last, Dukel broke the quiet.
"Magnus, do you believe the Emperor can ever rise from the Throne?"
The Crimson King's gaze met his. His answer was firm.
"No."
A pause. Then, more softly:
"I understand now why He created me. If I had taken His place upon the Golden Throne ten thousand years ago... perhaps I could have spared the Imperium its descent into ruin."
The words lingered in the air, heavy with regret and possibility.
"But now, everything is irreversible, Dukel." Magnus laughed strangely, "That man is dead. Now he is just a mummified husk on the Golden Throne. The moment he is removed, a terrifying existence will be born instantly!"
"To be honest, brother, even though you have been winning battle after battle, I do not believe your victories hold any true meaning. You could win ten thousand times, a million times, but no matter how many victories you achieve, you can never truly reclaim hope."
"Because the hope of the Imperium was severed—not in the future, but ten thousand years ago—by the very hands of your beloved Emperor. It is the greatest, most tragic joke in the galaxy! Hahahaha."
Magnus laughed wildly, his shoulders shaking. He did not even look at Dukel—though he knew that if he did, he might be struck for his insolence. Yet, he could not help but laugh.
Surprisingly, Dukel did not punish him. Instead, he spoke with uncharacteristic seriousness,
"What if we could heal the Emperor's body?"
Magnus' laughter stopped abruptly. "Brother, are you jesting?"
"Do I strike you as someone who enjoys making jokes?" Dukel asked in return.
"No, but this is impossible. It is absurd." Magnus shook his head. "He is already dead, brother. Even you cannot bring the dead back to life."
"That is beyond mortal capability," Magnus added with finality.
"You're right. Resurrecting the dead is not something mortals can achieve. Even I cannot do it," Dukel admitted with a sigh.
Magnus smirked. "Then stop deluding yourself, brother, and accept that there is nothing you can do."
"What if a god were to intervene?" Dukel's next words caused Magnus to freeze.
"Isha, the goddess of healing among the Eldar," Dukel clarified, as if afraid Magnus would not understand.
"This is foolishness, brother." Magnus spoke after a moment of silence. "That goddess is trapped within Nurgle's Garden. Even gods dare not attempt to take her."
"But there is always hope, is there not?" Dukel smiled.
Boom!
A tremor ran through the entire fleet.
After the brief shockwave, Dukel turned to Magnus. "Do you know our destination?"
Magnus' red face showed an expression of realization. "Could it be…?"
"Yes, it is exactly what you think." Dukel nodded. "The Garden of Nurgle."
Magnus recoiled in horror. "I knew it! Dukel, I knew from the beginning that you were completely mad! How can you even think of stepping into the domain of the Ruinous Powers?"
"Under normal circumstances, I would never attempt such a thing," Dukel admitted. "But this time is different. Nurgle has overstepped. He seeks to extend his reach into the material universe through the Scourge Stars. He crossed the line, and everyone wants to cut off his hand. Even your master is among them."
"I do not intend to charge blindly into the Garden," Dukel assured him. "Not yet. First, I will survey the outer edges."
He stood, his massive frame casting deep shadows across the chamber. Reaching down, he lifted Magnus' severed head, hanging it at his waist. "Let us observe the Garden. No one will expect us to strike now."
The realms of the Chaos Gods are vast beyond mortal comprehension, their scale and power beyond description.
Nurgle's domain is a grotesque parody of life—a garden of disease, decay, and festering corruption. The air is thick with methane, the ground is a rotting mire. Countless worlds have been swallowed into this garden, their despair nourishing its endless growth.
Shielded by a psychic force field, the expedition fleet approached the outer edges of this blighted realm. They neared the forsaken worlds trapped within its embrace.
A voice crackled over the fleet's command channel.
"We are approaching the daemon world, Your Highness. We will be within deployment range in twenty-two minutes. Fire control is charged and ready for long-range bombardment."
"Excellent, Captain," Dukel replied.
On the deck of the lead warship, Dukel stood alongside the Doom Slayers. Clad in obsidian-black armor, they looked like towering specters of death.
The Angel of Destruction, tall and imposing, stood at the head of over two hundred warriors—each a giant, a demigod beyond mortal men. They surrounded their Primarch, their Gene-Father, Dukel.
Each one held a chainsword slick with daemon blood.
"We have only one goal in this war." Dukel's voice carried across the assembled warriors. "To bring annihilation. There are no innocents here—only the unclean, who must be purged."
As his words resounded, forces across the fleet readied themselves. Soldiers prepared for battle, standing at the brink of the abyss.
Aboard the Blood Angels' flagship, a young Sanguinius watched from a distance. His hands clenched at his sides, eager to join the coming battle. Yet his body remained weak from the wounds of his rebirth, and frustration burned within him.
"Holy Father, I do not think this is a wise course of action."
Dante knelt on one knee before the young Sanguinius, his voice edged with hesitation.
"Wise?" The angel's golden eyes narrowed. "My brother fights for the Imperium, and you question whether it is wise?"
"The Primarch is the Emperor's representative. He should not place himself in danger." Dante's tone was measured, but firm. "Nothing is more important than your survival. If you enter this war, your guard will be weakened, and the Imperium cannot afford that risk."
"Dante, enough." The child-angel cut him off with a gravity far beyond his apparent years. "This is a battle for the Imperium, a war against the Great Enemy. Now is not the time for hesitation or measured strategy."
His young voice rang clear through the chamber, filled with conviction beyond mortal understanding.
"Go. Win this war in my name. That is my order."
Dante bowed his head, unable to meet the Primarch's gaze. "Yes, Father."
Under the command of Primarch Dukel, an unstoppable tide of warriors surged into the forsaken worlds consumed by Nurgle's blight. The Emperor's forces—Space Marines, Astra Militarum, and zealous Crusaders of the Ecclesiarchy—descended upon the diseased hellscape of the Plague God's domain.
The Sisters of Battle, led by Canoness Ephilar, stood at the vanguard alongside the Ministorum's most devout priests, forming a living bulwark of faith. For thousands of years, history had proven that the greatest weapon against Chaos was not bolter nor blade—but unwavering devotion.
At the tip of the spear stood Dukel and his Doom Slayers, their ceramite armor blackened as if steeped in the blood of their foes. Their purpose was twofold: to annihilate the Daemonic legions of Nurgle and to harvest the Warp-tainted essence of their enemies, refining it into sub-golden energy—a resource for the greater war to come.
"For the Emperor! For the Imperium! In the name of Sanguinius!"
Dante's war cry resounded as the Blood Angels surged forward, their fury unleashed upon the festering horror before them.
The battlefield itself was a grotesque nightmare. Every world trapped within Nurgle's grasp had been transformed into a blighted landscape of rot and disease. Fungal forests oozed with pus, and thick swamps of filth sucked in anything unfortunate enough to stumble into their depths. The air was heavy with choking miasma, thick with the droning of bloated flies that blackened the lightless sky.
The cultists—once men—shambled through the muck, their bodies swollen and putrid, yet their eyes alight with unnatural joy. They welcomed their suffering, reveling in the Plague God's "gifts," their cracked lips whispering praises to Grandfather Nurgle. They yearned for true ascension—to be remade in the festering image of their patron.
The Plague Garden pulsed with obscene life. Veins of diseased flesh twisted through the ground, while flowers of suppurating wounds spewed toxic mist with every grotesque bloom. Bone fountains gushed rivers of virulent green plague, the fetid liquid teeming with parasitic worms that swam in their own filth. Colossal, pulsating growths dotted the horizon, each a grotesque tumor bloated with corruption.
And through it all, a discordant melody echoed—the endless, wretched hymn of the Daemons of Nurgle. A song of eternal decay and boundless "love," praising the boundless generosity of the Plague Father.
Even shielded by psychic barriers and the sealed systems of their power armor, the warriors of the Imperium could feel the oppressive weight of this place. Mortals were not meant to tread upon such cursed ground. To merely exist here was a defiance against nature itself.
Even the autosenses of the Astartes began to struggle. Helmet filters clogged, alarm systems blared incessantly. The air itself was a living weapon—an ever-present tide of plague and corruption. A single breath of unfiltered air would spell doom, body and soul.
Then, a shift. A tremor of awareness among the corrupted.
The Daemons had noticed them.
The Plaguebearers, their jaundiced eyes rolling in their skulls, turned from their grim festivities to face the invaders. Their slack jaws hung open in disbelief—surely this was some new hallucination, a cruel trick of Grandfather's latest illness.
Then the war cries of the Imperium split the air, and the illusion shattered.
This was no trick. Mortals had dared to trespass upon the Garden of Nurgle.
And battle was joined.