For Lucius, this moment marked his true transition into a Chaos God. Previously, his status was akin to the Emperor during the Great Crusade, with the crucial difference being that the Emperor chose the Golden Throne, trapping himself between mortality and godhood.
Lucius, however, had embraced the godhood of the Great Horned Rat. He could now directly elevate his followers into Greater Daemons.
His choice of Sneek and Kritislik was purely pragmatic. Beyond their utility, Lucius knew that if he didn't elevate the Seer Lord, the second-in-command of the Grey Seers was the infamous Thanquol—the "Bane of Skaven-kind."
That wretch had spent his entire life-budget of luck on running away. As the Skaven song went: Thanquol, like a broken bell, rings for no one and flees from all; he should have died long ago!
If Thanquol were to ascend to daemonhood, there was no telling if his Ciaphas Cain-level luck would vanish or become a literal curse.
At that moment, following Clan Mors as the Chief Grey Seer, Thanquol let out a massive sneeze from the back of his four-armed Bonebreaker Rat Ogre. He irritably wiped his whiskers. "Some-some rat-spawn is talking behind my back, plotting against me! No chance!"
Suddenly, a powerful force of rejection from the material universe enveloped Lucius. It wasn't so much an expulsion as it was a banishment due to a lack of Warp-anchoring.
"Well, I have no lingering affection for this galactic cesspit anyway. Better to join the Great Game."
Lucius mused that staying in the material realm meant being stuck like the Emperor. But Skaven do not care for consequences. Lucius wanted the ability to return at will, and he had a plan: an Eye of Terror.
While he wasn't powerful enough to tear a hole in reality as Slaanesh had done, the combined Warp-resonance of the Great Bell could create a rift leading directly to his own divine realm.
As he was about to be pulled back into the Immaterium, he hurled the Warp-projection of the Great Bell of Doom directly at the Skavenblight of Zavka.
GONG————!
The terrifying psychic force struck at the exact moment reality was rejecting Lucius. A horrific tolling echoed through the dimensions!
Zavka was rocked by a cataclysmic earthquake. The black gothic bell tower Lucius had built was obliterated by psychic energy. The ancient stone ruins began to swirl in a phantom vortex, achieving, by pure accident, the same effect as Magnus the Red's fateful psychic "phone call."
A miniature Eye of Terror opened over Zavka. A swirling vortex of Warpstone-green energy, like a black hole of entropy, sat atop the ruins of the bell tower.
"Haaa… much better!"
Lucius spread his arms, drinking in the surging energy of the Warp. His form finally stabilized.
The cost, however, was a flood of Chaos energy that saturated Zavka and the entire star system. To the Skaven, who were already half-creatures of Chaos, this was negligible, save for the occasional dreg being eaten by a new mutation. The powerful lords didn't care for the fate of the "under-vermin."
Even so, Lucius felt that unless the Warp completely consumed reality, his power within this small rift would be significantly throttled. Moreover, an unclaimed divine realm in the Warp was a prize sought by countless predators.
"Sneek, Kritislik. You two shall jointly occupy the Thirteenth Seat. Supervise the vermin in my stead. Dispense my punishment and my boons."
"By your will, My Lord!" Sneek, now a Rat Greater Daemon of Death-Blight, nodded deeply. Clan Eshin was one of the few Lucius truly trusted. Because they had mastered the arts of the assassin, their loyalty to their "employer" was absolute, akin to the strange loyalty an Incubi feels toward the Drukhari.
Rat Greater Daemons differed from other Greater Daemons in that they interfered heavily in the affairs of their own race, sometimes even slaying incompetent leaders to lead the swarm themselves. The Great Horned Rat, unlike the other gods who played for amusement, had a definitive goal.
Lucius stepped through the Warp-rift. The passage was the path carved by the Great Bell of Doom, a highway straight to the Horned Rat's domain.
As he crossed over, his titanic Warp-projection merged with his consciousness. The sensation of being a god-sized entity crashed down upon him.
"Ugh… holy hell!"
He gasped, but there was no pain, only a sense of total liberation. If his previous state felt like being an old man confined to a wheelchair, he now felt restored to his absolute prime.
He could sense his scale now. Though he had no direct point of comparison, he felt as if one of his fingers was the size of an Imperial Cruiser. The mechanics of the Warp became intuitive. He understood how to create Warp-spawn and how to bless mortals. It was like switching to Creative Mode, but only within his own domain.
"This is my realm? Looks a bit bleak." Lucius surveyed his domain: a trackless, infinite wasteland of ruined marshes, deserts, and crumbling cityscapes. The only intact structure was the black spire, though its bell was now the rift-anchor in the material world.
Lucius frowned. He spread his fingers, manifesting a massive surge of black psychic energy.
"A place this large needs inhabitants. A god shouldn't have to do everything himself." He threw the energy outward, visualizing the "perfect" denizens in his mind.
Though he was now the Great Horned Rat, his human consciousness remained. Naturally, when imagining his vassals, his mind drifted toward human aesthetics he admired. Icons like Angewomon, Kurumi Tokisaki, and Hinata Hyuga flashed through his mind.
He unleashed the energy.
The black essence splattered like mud, then began to writhe and gestate. Limbs grew. The first "lesser daemons", equivalent to Bloodletters or Plaguebearers, emerged.
"Squeak-squeak… Praise the Great Horned Rat!"
Thousands of these lesser daemons appeared. They possessed human-like, slender frames, resembling female fitness champions. Their skin was pale or ashen, with firm, perfectly shaped torsos and powerful, rounded hips that caught the light like human skin.
Long, whip-like rat tails lashed behind them. Their lower limbs were digitigrade rat-legs, making them as tall as Aeldari. Their long hair, matching their skin tone, appeared well-groomed. From the neck down, they were like supermodels.
The only issue: these "beauties" of Lucius's imagination all had the heads of Skaven.
While some "furry" enthusiasts might have enjoyed the sight, Lucius was not one of them.
"Lord... what have I done?" Lucius muttered, watching tensely as tens of thousands of "rat-maidens" bowed before him. Had his aesthetics truly been corrupted by his new form?
He realized quickly that this was inevitable. His Warp-essence and the faith that fueled him came from the Skaven; any manifestation would unavoidably reflect that nature. That they looked this "human" at all was a testament to his own divine will.
"Fine... fine. Better this than being surrounded by actual rats in a sewer." Lucius sighed and sat down.
The "Rat-Daemons," acting on instinct, began to fawn over their god, chirping praises in a melodic, yet chattering, song.
Looking at these creatures, who were roughly human-sized and thus like ants to him, Lucius scratched his head. "I suppose I must name your kind. You shall be known as the Vermin Herder."
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