In the enveloping darkness, Nimrod struggled to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt heavy, as though sealed shut with adhesive.
Dimly, he sensed his curled-up body slowly rotating within the murky amniotic fluid, lulled into a drowsy slumber.
After an indeterminate span of time, his perception sharpened abruptly. Beyond the amniotic fluid lay a glass partition, part of a larger, unpainted silver-gray iron apparatus.
The apparatus's sleek surface bore numerous mechanical slots and connection ports. Its front was clearly etched with silver Gothic numerals—XI. Beneath this, a metal plate carried another line of smaller, more intricately scripted text.
For the first time, Nimrod "saw" this script, distinct from any writing system he knew, resembling a lengthy and ornate prayer, crafted to beseech blessings and support from external forces.
As he attempted to decipher it, a voice tinged with astonishment reached his ears.
"My Lord, the Eleventh Primarch's senses are remarkably acute, akin to those of the Fifteenth Primarch."
A voice, majestic as rolling thunder, responded.
"No, Malcador."
"I endowed the Fifteenth Primarch with formidable psychic talents, but for the Eleventh Primarch, I granted acute perception and a potent consciousness."
"He shall possess unparalleled insight, capable of keenly detecting an enemy's weaknesses, delivering precise and lethal strikes. He will be a reaper of lives, a battlefield god of death."
[Eleventh Primarch?]
[Malcador?]
Ninglu's mind reeled as though struck by lightning, his hazy consciousness snapping into clarity.
An elderly figure wielding a staff, frail as if on the brink of death, radiated a piercing light, yet beside the sun-like presence nearby, he seemed merely a star.
The moment Ninglu's consciousness brushed against that sun, a searing pain, like a burn, overwhelmed him.
"Sleep! You are still too fragile. It is not yet time for you to serve me!"
The sun's voice carried an enchanting power, and Ninglu instantly lost awareness of the outside world, as if the universe had contracted to the confines of his gestation pod.
His body slowly turned, facing away from the speakers, his mind sluggishly processing.
[I… have transmigrated… They are… the Emperor… and Malcador… I've become… the Eleventh… Primarch…]
Nimrod felt his thoughts slip into a peculiar state. By the time this realization fully formed, an unknown duration had elapsed.
Suddenly, his perception was unshackled, or rather, the restraints upon it vanished.
He sensed the platform's presence, the quivering metal pillar engines, and other gestation pods.
He detected another awakened consciousness—Magnus, perhaps?
Nimrod realized the Emperor and Malcador had departed, yet he could sense the surrounding pods and the potent lifeforms within them.
Below the platform, he perceived scientists at their stations, their protective suits emblazoned with the numeral "I" on the back.
Their gloves were stained with blood, wielding silver scalpels to dissect pale organs.
By now, Nimrod had confirmed he had transmigrated into the Warhammer universe, one of the Emperor's gene-forged Primarchs created for the Great Crusade to conquer the galaxy.
[Why did I transmigrate into the cesspool of Warhammer, and as the Eleventh Primarch, fated to be erased?
Even if I tread cautiously, can I truly avoid that destined fate?]
As these thoughts surfaced, he suddenly felt his "body" floating, enveloped by black mist.
[Mist in a gestation pod? Are the Four already making their move?]
Instantly, Ninglu found his consciousness transported to a realm of black mist, boundless and without edge, its limits imperceptible.
Only a hundred-meter radius around him was clear of the mist, allowing visibility.
[The Four aren't supposed to whisk all Primarchs away to scatter them across the galaxy. It shouldn't be just my consciousness pulled here.]
During the Emperor's creation of the Primarchs, he struck a bargain with the Chaos Gods, agreeing that half the Primarchs would belong to the Warp deities.
His heart was devoted solely to humanity, unbound by morality, so he naturally sought to break this pact. However, the Chaos Gods, unwilling to be betrayed, unleashed a Warp storm in the laboratory, scattering the twenty Primarchs across disparate worlds in the galaxy.
Amid Nimrod's confusion, a torrent of information flooded his mind.
In his former life, his brain would have shattered under such an onslaught, but his superhuman mind now processed it rapidly.
[I am within the "Nation of Disorder." The Sefirah, seeking evolution, chose me, bringing me to the Warhammer universe.]
Nimrod suddenly recalled that, before transmigrating, as a fan of Lord of Mysteries, he had participated in a crowdfunding campaign for the Blasphemy Slate.
Elated, he opened the delivery and discovered a mysterious bonus item, only to be engulfed by black mist and lose consciousness.
At that moment, Magnus's consciousness stirred, probing curiously toward the Eleventh Primarch's pod. Finding nothing amiss, it lingered briefly, sensing Ninglu as if asleep, then withdrew.
Nimrod gazed ahead, where a massive stone slab stood. He precisely sensed its dimensions: twenty-two meters wide, ten meters tall.
With a thought, he appeared before the gray stone slab.
The "Nation of Disorder" had just imbued him with vast knowledge of the supernatural domain, revealing that the slab recorded the potion formulas for 22 Pathways.
A Pathway was a structured sequence of ascending ranks, a stable chain of progression.
For mortals to gain supernatural power, they must consume a Sequence 9 potion, becoming a Beyonder.
The lower the Sequence number, the higher the potion's potency. From Sequence 9 to Sequence 0 was a path to godhood.
As the bearer of the "Nation of Disorder" and its destiny, Ninglu was destined to follow the "Black Emperor" Pathway. Thus, the Blasphemy Slate currently displayed only the Sequence 9 "Lawyer" potion formula, with subsequent Sequences and other Pathways' formulas to be unlocked gradually.
Sequence 9 "Lawyer" Potion Formula:
Main Ingredients: 1100 millimeters of Wire Grass, 1 Chemical Dog Tongue.
Supplementary Ingredients: 1100 milliliters of Black Rasvod, 1 Thorn Crystal, 1 Hive Rat.
Supernatural Abilities: …
From his supernatural knowledge, Ninglu understood that the potion ingredients listed on the Blasphemy Slate differed from those in his memory, adapted to Warhammer's world with equivalent supernatural properties.
Fortunately, each ingredient was accompanied by an image, ensuring he wouldn't misidentify them.
He noticed that among the potion ingredients, the Hive Rat and Thorn Crystal glowed faintly, while the other three remained dim.
Black Rasvod?
Seeing the liquid reminiscent of black vodka, he immediately recognized it as a local specialty of the industrial world Vostonia.
The Chemical Dog, unrelated to Safrala Chemical Dogs, was a canine species brought by Vostonia's first settlers.
[I am currently in Terra's laboratory. Hive Rats and Thorn Crystals are present in hive cities, so they glow on the Blasphemy Slate.
The other three potion ingredients are absent, hence their dimness. This is convenient, at least informing me which ingredients exist in this world.
To become a "Lawyer," I must journey to Vostonia.]
Mindful that the Emperor might return to the laboratory at any moment, Ninglu decided to return to his body.
His "body" grew heavy, the black mist dissipated, and he was back in the gestation pod.
A wave of exhaustion washed over him, and he fell into a deep slumber.
When Magnus sensed an anomaly and extended his consciousness again, he found nothing unusual and withdrew, puzzled.
Over the following days, Ninglu drifted between sleep and wakefulness, plotting how to leverage his cheat to alter his fate.
[As a Primarch, I am a tool to the Emperor. His order to erase the Second and Eleventh Legions' Primarchs must stem from unforgivable sins—either falling to Chaos or colluding with xenos.
With my acute senses, I might be scattered to a unique world, corrupted by its culture during my growth, an influence I couldn't purge.
To change my doomed fate, I must start from the gestation pod!]
On the eleventh day of his transmigration, he awoke abruptly from slumber, sensing the Gellar Field protecting the laboratory fail. The barrier between reality and the Warp was torn asunder.
---
Author's Notes:
The source of Warhammer's supernatural properties—why these ingredients, when combined, create potions granting supernatural abilities—will remain a mystery until Nimrod ascends to higher Sequences, as it involves the universe's fundamental rules. Some details will be revealed in Chapter 47.
The scattering of the Primarchs aligns with the official novel The First Heretic, where the Chaos Gods' plan begins with this act. The gestation pods and post-emergence scenes are drawn from Argel Tal's witnessed events in that text. The translation of "gestation pod" naturally follows the book's terminology.
This conflicts with Erda's account in the Siege of Terra series, but I believe she lacked the ability to breach the Emperor's laboratory defenses and cast the Primarchs into the Warp.
Legion member details will be continuously updated in the work's supplementary materials. Readers who forget can refer to those.