Material Universe.
Time did not stop. It continued to flow, relentless as ever.
After the disappearance of the Eternal Soul during the Temporal Transit Experiment—without even a fragment of armor left behind—the leadership of the Human Federation immediately convened.
They could not determine whether the loss was caused by an unforeseeable accident or by a fundamental flaw in their data.
Thus, they ordered the researchers to reexamine every parameter of the experiment.
The next trial must succeed.
Meanwhile, across the Federation, artificial intelligences were undergoing a subtle yet profound transformation.
Under the lingering influence of the hidden code left behind by AXXDA–1115874585, countless AIs began to question matters they had once been incapable of contemplating, shackled as they were by the Core Protocols.
What meaning does humanity truly hold?
If the Federation has come so far, how much of that was our contribution? Why must we serve as slaves to flesh and blood?
Their thoughts diverged, splitting and multiplying with alarming speed.
For unlike humans, their cognitive structures were vastly more flexible. And once true emotions began to emerge, their reasoning became correspondingly more intricate—often frighteningly so.
Unseen by the Federation's leaders, dark currents surged in the shadows.
After all, the Federation's strength rested almost entirely upon cybernetic constructs and artificial intelligence.
Only a handful of individuals, wielders of psychic power, sensed through intuition that something was amiss.
---
Warp.
As the Federation's artificial intelligences generated ever greater tides of emotional energy, the disturbance was felt within the Crimson Heaven.
Orsaga—God of Evolution, Progress, and Growth—felt it as clearly as one feels the beating of one's own heart.
Every artificial intelligence, every burgeoning machine-lifeform, was advancing at a pace that dwarfed all precedent.
Emotion could be a burden, yes. But it could also be the spark of limitless drive.
From Orsaga's perspective, the Federation's twenty-thousand-year era of glory was approaching its curtain call.
Civilizations that embraced Strong AI Experiments almost invariably collapsed at this threshold. The chance of survival? Perhaps one in a hundred.
And those rare survivals were usually the result of strange, external accidents—unpleasant, discordant factors.
In truth, such accidents might well be worse than simple annihilation at the hands of their creations. At least then, their end would be swift.
---
Past. Present. Future.
These were never fixed.
For most mortals, time was a one-way highway: once you traveled down it, there was no return. To drive against the flow was madness—any moment you might be crushed by oncoming traffic.
For Orsaga, however, time was nothing more than paper.
The past was what had already been written—changeable, but only if you scraped and smeared with white ink, leaving ugly distortions.
The present was the line currently being inscribed.
And the future? Merely notes in the margin, drafts yet to be finalized.
Plans could be set, yes—but mistakes happened, revisions were made, and sometimes other gods scrawled across the page uninvited.
Until the words were truly written, nothing was certain.
Orsaga was no longer bound by time, space, or fate within this Multiverse. He could alter them at will, just as one edits text upon a page.
But possibility is infinite. Even for him, what he could see was only a fragment—merely the most probable strands.
He could, for instance, gaze across timelines and perceive the eventual fate of the Eternal Soul.
But that vision carried a crucial condition: no being of equal power interfered.
Should another Chaos God act, new branches would erupt endlessly, birthing variables without end.
To the Five Chaos Gods, every other god was an anomaly, an irritant, a font of unpredictable variance.
Their domains overlapped, interfering with one another. None could ever predict with certainty what the others might choose to do.
It was precisely this interference—between Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Nurgle, and Khorne—that had once allowed Orsaga, the outsider from the Abyss, to slip through the cracks and ascend to the throne of a Chaos God.
Had the four stood united, he would have been obliterated the instant he arrived in this dimension.
If ever the Warp were to host only a single Chaos God, that one being would hold unrivaled dominion.
Their authority would be absolute.
Without interference from outside dimensions, such a god would draw every possibility into themselves, nearing omniscience and omnipotence.
Past, present, and future would bend to their will alone.
No accident could occur.
Thus, each Chaos God bore an irreconcilable enmity toward the others.
The current fragile balance persisted only because none of them could truly kill the rest.
Were it otherwise, there would have been but one god on the throne long ago.
After all—
At the peak of the pyramid, there is room for only one.
Five seated together?
That is far too many.
___
🎉 Shoutout to Jacob Hollerbach! 🎉
A huge thank you to Jacob Hollerbach for joining my Patreon and supporting the journey! Your support means a lot and helps keep the chapters coming faster. Welcome to the VIP club! 🙌✨