Chapter 327: Nurgle: Hehehe! The Broth Is Here!

Zhou Yun did not know how to describe what he saw before him,

it was flesh, it was flourishing life, it was life that constantly grew and decayed, decayed yet never died,

fat, pus, maggots, and rotting plants piled together formed its body; it was never a single entity, it was all life and all decay, the very path of entropy all things must traverse toward their fated end, the repository of all corrupted matter,

It was so ugly and festering, yet divinity was born from it; Nurglings joyfully crawled out from every pustule and fold, their bloated bellies dangling filthy stomachs that oozed thick fluids, maggots in the pus swelled into flies the size of boulders, swirling above the divine figure's brow like a dark cloud,

then all of this—all that had been born from its body—rapidly decayed, becoming part of its rotting form, and from it new life was reborn,

Zhou Yun saw it, he saw with absolute clarity the Father's divinity, understood the Father's divinity,

life is born from decay, and dies through plague; decay is not death, decay is endless reincarnation, unceasing renewal,

all beings must decay, and in decay they must die; death ultimately leads to meaninglessness, this is their fated end,

but Nurgle refuses—he found reincarnation in decay, he granted all beings the gift of decay without death, extracting meaning from corruption,

yes, the process of birth and creation inherently contains decay and destruction; today's palace is tomorrow's ruin, the maiden at dawn is the crone at night, a moment's hope is an eternal regret,

yet ruins are rebuilt into palaces, when the sun rises the crone's child becomes a new maiden, within eternal regret there is always a flicker of hope—meaning lies therein,

this is his divinity, his existence, his gentleness and kindness, his mercy,

Zhou Yun widened his eyes, accepting the boundless meaning radiating from the Father's vast form; the accumulated meaning and existence from endless cycles was so immense that any mortal here would have their body burst from a single glance, and even an Astartes could not gaze directly upon this sacred body,

as for understanding Nurgle, no being in the material realm could ever fully comprehend him.

but Zhou Yun's consciousness persistently sought to understand the Father's existence; he had never felt his mind so clear, and in comprehending the Father's being, he faintly perceived certain truths, gaining deeper insight into the Warp and his own true nature,

faintly, Zhou Yun heard voices praying to him—four prayers circled his ears,

Slimekox scrambled off his snail in terror, staring in horror at Zhou Yun standing atop the snail Mors,

Zhou Yun's body seemed to have grown immense; in an instant, Slimekox saw a giant blue lynx standing between heaven and earth within the Nurgle Garden,

the lynx's entire form was composed of blue flame, blazing fiercely yet hazy and indistinct, its gaze carrying a faint, growing clarity as it fixed upon the Father,

a deathly, destructive, icy, soulless death radiated from the lynx, yet after it surged forth a pure, joyful, happy, brand-new rebirth,

the lynx and the Father stood facing each other,

one blue, one green—rebirth from death, life from decay—two similar yet seemingly opposite concepts clashed,

the Nurglings in the Nurgle Garden screamed in terror, huddling together behind the Giant-Mouth Trees, but even the Giant-Mouth Trees were terrified, pulling up their roots to hide behind the Nurglings,

Rainfather Rogath shrieked in panic, dug a deep hole in the ground, and buried his head inside it,

Kugath paused his work, staring in stunned silence at this scene within the Warp,

Tiphon, who had been doing butterfly strokes in the cesspool, spasmed violently and sank helplessly into the sea of excrement and filth,

in the Tower of the Plague Star, Mortarion, having torn off his moth wings, sat at his desk scribbling furiously, calculating the intersections and meanings of sacred numbers—he sought the secrets and meaning behind the resurrection of Guilliman and Sanguinius,

numbers danced across the paper before him, his simple handwriting gradually revealing the meaning of fate,

"The Legion's sequence is the order of our birth; these numbers inherently contain fate and guidance, as my Legion is the Fourteenth, the double sacred number of the Father, destined to return to his embrace."

"Guilliman's thirteen, Sanguinius's nine,"

the numbers revealed to Mortarion a profound meaning: thirteen and nine merged on the page, forming a sacred number never before seen,

"Twenty-two! The being who resurrected Guilliman and Sanguinius uses twenty-two as the sacred number!"

Mortarion was pleased with the result of his calculations,

when fate's trajectory shifted, Angron remained oblivious, Fulgrim only sneered in arrogance, Magnus drowned in superstition and mysticism,

only he sought truth in matter and numbers, finding truth in objective things beyond the mind—he had glimpsed a sliver of truth through numerology,

truth gained through reason and analysis! Not through superstition and mysticism!

more truth unfolded before Mortarion as the numbers revealed themselves: he saw the deeper core of the sacred number twenty-two, witnessed the descent of five new Greater Daemons, heard the four distinct prayers, perceived the triple divinity, the service of two Daemon Primarchs,

numbers interconnected, Mortarion suddenly looked up,

"The sacred number twenty-two intersects with the sacred number seven? The being who resurrected Guilliman and Sanguinius is visiting the Father's domain?"

Mortarion looked up in astonishment, then gazed toward the distant Nurgle Garden,

he too saw the two towering figures—one blue, one green—standing deep within the Nurgle Garden.

Zhou Yun took a deep breath, covering his head as he listened to the prayers around him,

the first was the prayer of humans, chanting to him in various dialects of High Gothic,

the second was a melodious, clear prayer like a song, spoken in an ancient tongue—he recognized it as Eldar prophecy,

the third was a whisper like the dead, cold, dry, as if generated by mechanical vibration,

the fourth was chaotic and disordered, like insect buzzes and animal cries, entirely devoid of language,

his will settled, the vision before him ceased to tremble, the overwhelming information about the Father's divinity no longer flooded his mind and consciousness,

this was not because Zhou Yun fully understood Nurgle's existence, but because the Adaptation Lamp deemed further information about Nurgle's divinity harmful and adapted it away.

the form of Nurgle before Zhou Yun ceased changing, settling into a pulsating, rotting, unclean mound of flesh—looking exactly like the Nurgling puls. ro. ax. lter16g+1tb version,

"You've begun to understand yourself a little! That's wonderful!" Nurgle's voice exclaimed happily.

by observing the Father, Zhou Yun gained a faint glimpse of his own fate,

he sensed that in the future, many humans and non-humans would worship him, primarily from four groups,

humans, Eldar, and two others yet unnamed—Zhou Yun's expression grew strange, for he had begun to recognize the origins of those two prayers,

but those two groups theoretically should not generate any devotional resonance toward any Warp deity.

"Gigglegah, perhaps I can share a bit of wisdom from an elder."

Nurgle noticed Zhou Yun thinking, and chuckled:

"Sometimes, do not strive too hard. Our existence is like a tree within a seed—let nature take its course, and roots will sprout."

Zhou Yun's lips twitched,

he wanted to refute Nurgle's words—not because he disagreed with the seed metaphor, but because

"I am not a god. I am not like you." Zhou Yun said seriously to Nurgle.

after glimpsing a sliver of Nurgle's divinity, Zhou Yun sweated even more,

no! I absolutely refuse to become something like this!

let the Emperor be the god!

"I understand! I understand!" Nurgle chuckled. "Your kind is always like this."

"But your nature is good—you're willing to listen to my rambling. The other four won't even hear me out."

the Father patted his belly, his face beaming with joy, genuinely delighted that Zhou Yun was willing to speak with him,

like an old man who had lived alone for years, suddenly seeing a friend arrive,

"I thought you'd be like the other four—unwilling to visit me."

saying this, Nurgle turned and led Zhou Yun toward the front of the Black Demon Manor:

"They all have so many worries, and I know exactly how to solve them!"

"Though people say Tzeentch is the wisest, I may not be as clever as he, but I have existed the longest—and only the tiniest bacteria, fungi, and viruses see everything."

as they walked, Nurgle chattered on to Zhou Yun:

"For instance, that little Vash'tor who shares your domain—he seeks the ancient Saint weapon? I know roughly where it is."

"And your human master—he wants to build the Webway, right? I still remember where the Webway Shield-Borer was placed back then."

"And that little Ahriman who wants to heal his brothers? I could do it easily."

"I just don't know why no one wants to visit me..."

"Hmm?" Zhou Yun was intently listening as Nurgle recounted ancient matters, when suddenly he felt a gaze,

the gaze felt familiar—but not from himself, rather from the Eldar Pantheon?

Zhou Yun lifted his head slightly, gazing toward a room high in the Black Demon Manor—he felt a gentle gaze emanating from there.

"Come quickly!! Come quickly!! Hehehe! The broth is here!"

before Zhou Yun could fix his gaze on the room for long, Nurgle's eager voice called out,

"This is broth I just boiled up—rushed, a bit thin, only two thousand two hundred kinds of bacteria."

"I hope you won't mind!"

(End of Chapter)