This is not good.
Malcador walked on Cadia, towards the small black shadow.
In the struggle between Chaos and the Underworld, this space had long been shattered. Malcador's senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste were leaving him, floating out of his body and dispersing into the huge colorful vortex.
He was actually experiencing the warp, experiencing madness itself.
Only then did Malcador realize the full extent of the Warp. He stared into it, and it stared back at him. Humans were too narrow-minded to comprehend this—this—all—eternity—
Malcador screamed.
He fell into the center of a caterpillar that whirred and twisted like a train, gravity changing like a beginner's Rubik's Cube, cream dripping down his nose, trillions of blinded people shouting and clapping at him, they shouted—
Al! Al! Al!
That was part of his former name, but before Malcador could pull himself up from the cliff, he was falling again towards the sky, which ended in an endless sea of brilliant colors, his shadow growing larger and larger in the dark eyes of the birds.
He tried to grab something in a panic, and saw a crazy underworld in his upside-down vision. Life grew layer by layer like brightly colored mushrooms, and greedy beasts were chewing on them.
The birds reached out to catch Malcador as he flew, and he would sink into the madness—
Malcador's eyes reflected the shadow in the mushroom field, the real darkness, which was well hidden, the last trash can in the endless city, and he remembered what he came here to do.
He is here to save people.
But he was already prepared and he was full of strength.
Malcador woke up with a start. The first thing he remembered was his own voice. He shouted a spell. The power and pain from the four gods rescued him from the disordered sea of the Warp. No matter how crazy the power was, it was more regular than the real disorder. He fell again, falling towards the earth.
Bang!
Malcador fell straight to the ground, almost falling apart, staring weakly at the sky above him. He thought he would see those crazy birds and the ocean, and then be dragged into a new round of madness, but in fact -
Mona Lisa was staring at him and smiling.
He thought back to the day when he had taken the Emperor on a tour of his residence.
There are always some good things hidden in the home of the Sigillite. It is Malcador's personal hobby, a bad habit, but there is nothing wrong with it. Compared with the extermination order he signed in three seconds, it is always harmless to hang a "Mona Lisa" on the wall of his house.
It's just that this "Mona Lisa" was obtained after he killed an immortal.
This lady with a mysterious smile was hung right opposite the dining table. Every time he "cooked" the next immortal on the table, the lady would look at him with a smile.
There was nothing wrong with that, at the time he was obsessed with power and trying to take Terra by storm, so it was only natural for him to invite some of his enemies to dinner and kill them along the way.
But one day, it was not like that. The immortal was sitting at the other end of the dining table, sipping red wine and staring at Mona Lisa thoughtfully.
That was the Emperor, no, he was not yet the Emperor, and Malcador was not yet the Imperial Regent.
"I'll give you one of my other self-portraits."
Neos swirled his glass of red wine. Malcador raised his eyebrows and stared at the "Mona Lisa" on the wall, then turned his gaze back to Neos.
"Is this you?" "It's me."
Malcador coughed violently, but that made sense, there were few figures in human history who could be so memorable - but the Emperor was definitely one of them.
And so is the Mona Lisa.
So the probability that they are the same person is not zero.
Machado pursed his lips, still keeping his expressionless face. "It is said that Mona Lisa stopped smiling after her son died. It took the painter Leonardo da Vinci a long time to make her smile again and record this moment in the painting - this is why Mona Lisa is so magical."
"Is this -" Malcador returned his gaze to the Emperor's smile, "fake?"
"No," Neos said. "I smile because I see a topless woman throwing ketchup at this painting five hundred years from now."
Malcador paused. "Ridiculous," he whispered.
"What's even more ridiculous is you," Neos turned his gaze to Malcador. Behind Malcador hung another treasure of the Imperial Regent - Van Gogh's "Sunflowers".
"Reunite all of human civilization," Neos said, "and establish a human empire."
This is what Malcador said to Neos when he saw him.
Malcador looked at Neos grimly. He lowered his voice, "You can do this... The first time I saw you... I knew this was yours - this crown can only be yours."
Before this, Malcador also had unrealistic dreams, maybe the person who stood up was him, but after seeing the emperor, he knew everything after that - it could only be him.
Machado turned his head and looked at the "Sunflowers". In fact, he liked the "Mona Lisa" more.
“You have done that, haven’t you?” Malcador said quietly. “… including foreseeing me. I suppose you have foreseen this?”
Neos nodded without saying anything.
'Do you foresee my death?' said Malcador, looking towards the Emperor with interest. He had also prophesied himself - it seemed that he would be killed by a flame so mixed with metal that it turned golden yellow.
Neos said something vaguely,
"There is still uncertainty in this world,"
Malcador smiled. "The Warp runs through time. We exist in the past, present, and future simultaneously. Once we are born, our death is also determined."
"No," Neos shook his head, "You haven't met those beings yet... You will understand... Or you will be lucky or unlucky to never meet those beings."
Malcador had not understood what Neos was referring to - but it was not until he saw the being - the bastard who rushed forward and shouted "Old Ma! Old Ma!" that the Imperial Regent realized it was him.
Machado is deeply aware that changing destiny may not be a good thing.
At least he was content with his fate of being burned at the stake - as a psyker, a wizard, being burned at the stake was a return to nature.
Malcador shook his head silently. He had no idea what Neos was talking about, but Neos was always like this. He had long been accustomed to it.
"You should get ready, Neos."
Malcador said, "The time when the Warp is at peace is short. You need to recapture Terra, form an alliance with Mars, and then launch an expedition."
Neos looked away from the Sunflower and looked at Malcador.
“What will humans think of us?”
Neos asked, and Malcador replied impatiently,
"The true savior of mankind, the Lord of Mankind, the King of the Empire—" Malcador laughed, "the tyrant, the instigator of the war—"
Neos said slowly, "Mad man."
The Lord of Mankind continued to stare at "Sunflowers" leisurely. "Do you have "The Potato Eaters"? It's time to change it."
"No," said Malcador. "A painting of a plant is far more likely to survive than one of sympathy for the poor."
“Well,” Nios said regretfully, “in the eyes of people at the time—Vincent Van Gogh was a madman… and he was indeed quite mad.”
Malcador frowned at the information in Neos's words. "Have you ever come into contact with Van Gogh?"
"Did you know that Van Gogh once patronized a destitute prostitute? Actually, I am—"
Malcador interrupted Neos coldly, and Neos regretfully resumed his wine tasting.
"I know what you want to say - geniuses in the past were confined by the times and were therefore regarded as crazy by people. But you and I both know that we no longer care about the eyes of others."
Machado said, and he urged again, "We need to act quickly, time is running out."
“No,” Neos said. He stared at the painting of Sunflowers. Many different shades of yellow were mixed together, twisted into several sunflowers in a vase. The petals were twisted and gorgeous, not like ordinary sunflowers at all. “Malcador, have you seen The Starry Night?”
"I have seen a fake," Malcador replied impatiently. "I do not wish to discuss this with you, Neos. I mean - we have more important things to do right now."
"You should be patient, Malcador," Neos stared at Malcador.
"Vincent Willem van Gogh was the first person in human history to observe the subspace and record it in the form of a painting."
Malcador froze. "What?"
So Neos repeated his words, "Vincent Willem van Gogh was the first person in human history to observe the nature of the subspace and record it in the form of a painting."
“He’s painting the Warp,” Neos said. “Those twisted strokes, the tentacle-like trees, the sickly humans. He’s painting the Warp, Malcador.”
Neos stood up and walked to the painting of "Sunflowers".
“So he went crazy.”
Neos said, "Just looking into the warp brought him to the brink of collapse."
"You have to understand what we are about to face," Neos said. "Vincent Willem van Gogh was the most conscientious and determined human I have ever met, but he went mad simply by looking into the warp."
Neos stretched out his hand, and his hand stopped in front of "Sunflowers", as if he was stroking the petals of the flowers.
"The Warp is far more dangerous than you and I imagined, and we will inevitably become enemies with it. We don't just look at them, we need to raise our swords towards them."
"They will haunt you for eternity - they will curse your father, your ancestors, and every branch of your bloodline. Your descendants will be watched by them, and your best friends will be persuaded to leave by them -"
"Eventually, you will fall into true madness and become one of them, or fall into the mire and become a slave under their feet."
Neos held his glass, "Those with conscience will choose to commit suicide before they truly fall, but there will always be people who fall."
Neos stared at Malcador, his golden pupils burning, and golden tears of pity dripping from the corners of his eyes...
Malcador's cheeks turned cold, and he subconsciously reached out and touched the golden tears on his face.
"You and I will eventually fall."
The words echoed in his ears for the last time as Mona Lisa left and Malcador stood up coughing. He subconsciously wanted to find a cane to lean on, but then he realized that there was no such thing here.
"I told you I volunteered," Malcador murmured, and he continued to move towards the imprisoned Pluto. He had already passed the most chaotic area.
But he had actually been caught.
Not by the Four, but by the Warp itself. Just as the Lord of Mankind truly feared that - he feared that the power of the Warp would make him the Dark Lord - this was not done by the Four, it was the law of the Warp.
The Dark Lord is not Neos, and both Malcador and Neos know this very well.
The area they just passed through strengthened Malcador's subspace projection again. He was like a helpless jellyfish filled with fresh water, which was squeezed and exploded by the concentration difference in the high-salt environment and more psychic energy was roughly stuffed into it.
Malcador and the Emperor were still essentially human, unlike the Primarchs who were created specifically for that purpose.
Malcador's warp resistance is still too low.
When you have accumulated enough Warp power - this is bound to happen, it's just a matter of whether it happens sooner or later.
Malcador felt the call of some power, the Warp opening up to him, calling him to become something else, something higher, something no longer himself.
He moved in small steps towards Hades, but the black domain still hadn't returned.
Malcador had no strength left to fight this process, and he needed strength—he needed to save Hades.
He needed to fulfill the agreement he had made with Neos - they would save humanity - and for this he accepted any consequences.
Malcador felt himself breaking, being torn apart, his future being reorganized, his existence being reshaped, his soul turning into particles, rebuilding another existence.
He felt himself screaming uncontrollably, and he fell to the ground, writhing in pain, but in reality, Malcador's last great will was still keeping him going, although Malcador himself might not be able to realize this.
In his consciousness, he was screaming, turning into mountain dust in the flames.
Every bit of his corpse dust floated in the warp, being beaten by the psychic tides to reassemble and mold into a shape that is more suitable for that location -
He finally arrived there, and this time Hades saved him. Even though the fool threw away his physical body for food, he at least knew to leave a black domain protection circle for himself.
Malcador almost collapsed in the black area. The concentration here was just right, but he had to keep moving forward. He couldn't let this power dissipate. He needed it.
At the same time, Malcador, who had stepped into the last black zone, also alarmed the black zone on the Spirit of Vengeance, and the black zone there began to slowly recede...
In front of Malcador, a huge black-armored giant was half-kneeling with his head lowered. There was no expression on his broken face, like a god waiting to be awakened.
A huge, spear-like Chaos spike pierced through his back and chest, nailing him to the ground.
Malcador took a deep breath, walked over, and pulled out the Emperor's finger bone from Hades' neck. The finger bone had already become dull and lifeless.
Without hesitation, Malcador channeled all of the Emperor's power into that one finger bone.
Malcador then casually tossed the necklace back into Hades' armor, and he took one last, complicated look at Hades' face.
Well, still sleeping peacefully.
The white-haired boy walked around behind Hades. He looked at the long arrow, the blue feathers, the bloody bones, the rotten teeth... Chaos had spent a huge amount of money to seal this devil.
Irregular black blood cracks spread out from the place where the long arrow pierced, spreading on Pluto's armor like the shackles of a sealing spell.
Even in the black domain, the long arrow still exudes an extremely strong aura of chaos. This power suppresses Hades, making it difficult for him to wake up.
This was his goal. Malcador carefully climbed onto Hades' back. He reached out and grasped the bloody bone covered with spurs.
"Hades... Hades..."
The boy sighed, wrinkles crawled up his face, his straight body hunched again, and he roared,
“Wake up!!!”
The moment he grasped the long thorn, the chaotic power inside the Chaos Arrow surged towards Malcador!
There are indeed rumors about the two painters as described in the article.
And the Mona Lisa incident that Neos mentioned happened in Europe, where environmental groups threw paint, food and other things at the Mona Lisa as a political protest.
No more, yay!
(End of this chapter)