The Emperor had betrayed the oath sealed with blood and sworn upon the soul.
The reckoning long planned by the Four Chaos Gods descended; a rainbow-hued storm engulfed the laboratory.
Each gestation pod was wrenched into the Warp, hurled toward its predestined planet.
Nareth abruptly opened his eyes and thought to himself:
'The first step to change my fate, now we'll see if my golden finger is powerful enough.'
The Immaterium - also known as Aether, the Sea of Souls, the Empyrean, the Non-Material Universe, or the Realm of Chaos - bore different names across different cultures.
The Sea of Souls is made of pure energy, a mirror of the material universe, shaped by the emotions and souls of all intelligent beings.
As Nareth opened his eyes, an unshakable conviction exploded within him:
[My fate belongs to me alone. Neither the Four Pestilences nor the Golden Man shall decide it.
I will go to the Segmentum Obscurus - to Vostroya, the primary world of the Vostroya System!]
Black mist surged around him, his firm will driving it to spin rapidly. The rainbow vortex shifted course, gradually veering off its preset trajectory.
Tzeentch, the Weaver of Fates, was first to notice the threads of destiny shifting. The Eleventh Primarch's pod had broken from the current, veering away from its ordained destination.
"Change... all proceeds according to plan..."
The other three gods soon noticed the anomaly in the incubation pod as well. Intrigued, they watched the scene unfold until the black mist vanished.
Nareth waited tensely. Though chosen by the "Kingdom of Disorder," he understood the source essence's authority would only grow as he ascended through the sequences.
In the material world, the "Kingdom of Disorder" could offer little assistance.
But here in the Warp, emotion and belief were the greatest powers.
Nareth wielded his faith and conviction as a lever to steer the "Kingdom of Disorder's.
Though the source essence's rank might be slightly inferior to the Four Gods, it approached their level.
The union of the two might just alter the planet he falls upon, this was his first decisive step toward changing fate!
While other Primarchs' pods continued drifting through the Sea of Souls, the Eleventh's pod shot forth like an arrow, streaking out of the Warp at terrifying speed.
The pod plummeted rapidly. Through the blinding smoke caused by friction with industrial smog, Nareth glimpsed a hive city piercing the toxic sky, a sight that eased his nerves slightly.
Then - impact.
The gestation pod crashed into a viscous, sludge-filled riverbed. The silver-gray metal shell shuddered violently as the glass partition shattered.
Nareth stood firmly inside the pod. He reached out and precisely grabbed a silver-gray shard, the length of a human palm and the width of two fingers.
The violent spinning and sliding through mud didn't impair his perception in the slightest. He noted the complete absence of flora or fauna in or along the riverbank, his nose detecting the pervasive acidic toxicity in the air.
His head became dazed briefly, but he quickly recovered.
As the pod's rotation slowed, Nareth's enhanced brain completed rapid calculations. The instant before it would rebound off the bank in a new direction, he leaped out.
He bent his knees slightly and landed smoothly and perfectly.
Rising, Nareth gazed through swirling industrial dust toward the distant hive city, then began walking in its direction.
The slums surrounding the hive city were sprawled with mutants, their bodies bearing various deformities from long exposure to unprotected environments.
Many underhive dwellers came here to survive. The foul sewage allowed for relatively fertile farming and rich fungal harvests.
A man with a rock-like tumor growing from his neck was the first to notice the outsider.
This was someone who clearly didn't belong in the slums.
The boy's skin glowed with unnatural health, glowing gold like a statue crafted by a master sculptor. His long jet-black hair streamed in the wind, his eyes were black as ink, like deep pools, and he had a sharp nose.
Though appearing no more than four or five years old, his features were strikingly defined, and his natural majesty made others instinctively avert their gaze.
The mutant looked away, both ashamed and frightened, but then greed flashed in his eyes.
Such a boy would fetch a fortune. The upper hive's elites paid handsomely for tender, unblemished playthings.
Once the thought took root, it became irresistible.
He dropped the fungi he'd collected and lunged at the boy. Several other mutants had the same idea and followed suit.
The boy didn't flee.
He sidestepped the swinging club, and the silver-gray fragment in his hand sliced cleanly through the mutant's thigh.
As screams echoed, all the slum mutants turned toward the scene, greed in their eyes.
Nareth danced through their midst, untouched. Not a single blow found its mark.
The mutants initially assumed his small stature was the problem. They crouched low—an instinctual posture from mushroom farming, garbage picking, and ambushing wanderers, postures they used when fighting over spoils.
Still, they missed their attacks met only the air. The boy seemed to foresee every move, dodging thrusts, evading pipes hurled at his head - all missed.
He didn't even look back, as if he had eyes on the back of his head.
An hour later, the slums were littered with groaning mutants, each with severed legs, unable to move.
Nareth scanned them, then pulled off the cleanest, most intact clothes he could find, quickly trimming them to fit.
He walked to the tumor-necked mutant, kicked him, opened his mouth, then pointed to a rusted metal rod on the ground while miming speech.
The mutant, terrified, took a few seconds to realize he was being asked for the word. He quickly answered.
Nareth's superhuman mind rapidly picked up their local Low Gothic dialect, a localized form of Old Terraslavic.
Five hours later, he had mastered basic communication.
His dark eyes swept over the surviving mutants as he spoke in flawless local Low Gothic:
"This world, is it Vostroya?"
All mutants frantically nodded their head, terrified to meet the fate of their fallen kin.
He pointed to the distant hive. "That city is Tizca?"
They nodded again without hesitation.
Nareth stepped forward and efficiently ended their suffering. Witnesses who'd seen his arrival from the ashen wastes could only bring trouble.
He knew Vostroya's history - its allegiance to Mars during the Age of Strife had brought waves of technology and knowledge, rapidly transforming it into a heavily industrialized world.
Its locally manufactured weapons were exceptional, particularly the famed lasguns. Future Vostroyan Firstborn regiments would rank among the Astra Militarum's top ten most effective forces.
Currently, Vostroya suffers under dual rule, the nobility and the Mechanicum. Either could pose significant threats to a growing Primarch.
Finding a relatively clean black backpack (though by underhive standards it was still filthy beyond belief), Nareth filled it with fungi and a spare set of ragged clothing.
Then he set out toward the hive. His earlier check had confirmed all ingredients for the "Lawyer" potion glowed on the Blasphemy Slate. They could all be found in the hive city.