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Chapter 1: Footsteps in the Warp
(Word count: 5,172)
The moment Ian Wells crossed the threshold into the material cosmos, the Warp screamed.
Not in sound, but in reaction. The immaterium—chaotic, formless, ever-shifting—sensed the arrival of something alien. Something that did not belong. Not daemon, not soul, not god, not psyker. Something worse.
Something unbound.
Colors bled into each other. Stars flared and dimmed. The tides of the Warp recoiled, tried to swallow him… and failed.
Ian stood untouched.
His form shimmered between states—real and unreal, concept and being. His vessel, forged in the Void, absorbed the Warp's madness like a sponge drinks the ocean. Its effects—hallucinations, corruption, mutation—washed over him and shattered against his presence.
He didn't belong here.
And yet, he fit perfectly.
Ian hovered in the darkness of the Empyrean, examining the infinite kaleidoscope of thought, emotion, and nightmare.
"It's beautiful," he mused. "Ugly. Alive."
Billions of minds screamed their fears and desires into the Warp. He tasted their echoes. Anger, lust, despair, ambition—all unfiltered.
He tilted his head slightly.
"A living reflection of mortal thought… fascinating. And useful."
A daemon formed nearby, sensing the disturbance. A swirling mass of teeth, wings, and flame, it lunged at him with a screech of hatred.
Ian raised his hand lazily.
A single thought.
The daemon froze mid-charge. Its form fractured into strings of energy, suspended in mid-air like marionette wires. He plucked one. It wailed as the thread unraveled.
"You are not real," he said softly. "You are the idea of fear, made manifest by desperate minds."
The daemon burst like a soap bubble.
Ian's gaze turned outward—beyond the Warp, toward the galaxy.
Toward the Imperium.
"I will need a point of entry," he murmured.
He scanned worlds. Countless planets, each orbiting suns in mechanical harmony or chaotic decay. There were hives of rot and filth, forge worlds blazing with industry, death worlds soaked in blood, shrine worlds echoing with fervent faith.
So many choices.
But one caught his attention.
A backwater planet. Isolated. Forgotten. Little more than dust and stone.
But near it... he sensed a rift. A crack in reality. A tear between the Warp and realspace, faint but growing. No chaos fleet yet, no Inquisitorial eyes. A perfect place for a subtle beginning.
He smiled.
"Here will do."
The world was called Cytheron-VI.
To its people, it was nothing special. Arid, dusty, forgotten by the Imperium. The Astra Militarum visited once every few generations to conscript a few thousand and never returned.
But now… it would be the birthplace of a new legend.
Ian descended like a falling thought, slipping through the veil between realms. The Warp howled and twisted to resist him—but his presence tore through it like light through smoke.
He emerged on a plateau at dusk.
The air was dry and bitter. Rust-colored mountains loomed in the distance. A skeletal city of stone and metal huddled beneath the stars.
Ian Wells stood at the edge of it all.
His form, once cosmic and fluid, was now anchored in physicality. Flesh-like, tall, lean, and composed of materials no human could name. Void-gold veins glowed faintly beneath obsidian skin. His eyes—twin wells of gravity—reflected no light, only depth.
He wore no armor, no symbols. Only a dark robe fashioned from thought, shifting patterns moving across its surface like ink in water.
He took his first breath in reality.
And the world noticed.
A patrol of militia spotted him within minutes.
Three men in patchwork flak armor, armed with stubbers and autoguns. They approached on wheeled bikes, kicking up dust trails as they closed the distance.
Ian didn't move.
"Halt!" barked the leader, a scarred man with one augmetic eye. "Who the hell are you? This zone's restricted!"
Ian studied them.
Mortals.
Flesh-bound, fear-hardened, purpose-driven. They stank of anxiety, sweat, and something close to reverence.
He tilted his head. "I am… a traveler."
"You're not in the registry," another muttered. "He came from nowhere, Darek. Look at him."
"I see him." The leader raised his rifle. "Final warning. Drop to your knees and identify, or we open fire."
Ian looked at the rifle.
Then at the man.
And smiled.
"No."
They fired.
Three bursts of gunfire cracked the night.
Bullets reached him.
Stopped.
Mid-air.
Time did not slow. It did not halt. Ian simply chose not to be hit.
He plucked one round from the air and examined it between two fingers.
"Primitive. Efficient. Pointless."
The bullets crumbled into dust.
The patrolmen froze, sweat pouring down their brows.
"W-warp trickery—"
"No," Ian said. "Not Warp. Something older."
He stepped forward.
They stumbled back.
He placed a hand on the leader's shoulder, and with a gentle pulse, sent a wave of information through his mind—memories, images, truths.
Darek screamed and dropped his rifle, clutching his head.
Ian turned and walked toward the city.
He didn't need followers.
But he would gain them.
He didn't need power.
But the galaxy would give it to him.
And above it all, he felt the watching eyes of distant beings.
In the far Warp, a massive eye blinked.
A Chaos God stirred.
On Holy Terra, a flicker crossed the mind of the Emperor.
A whisper brushed the mind of a farseer on Ulthwé.
Something had arrived.
Something… new.
To be continued in Chapter 2: "The First Contact."