Chapter 111: The Chosen of the Defilement God

Feng Fan ran desperately, hoping to reach his combat bike as quickly as possible so he could use his bolter to deal with this "local creature" of Bartko II.

"Feng Fan, stop running! Ava won't hurt you!"

Suddenly, Hu Jin's voice rang out ahead. Feng Fan looked up and saw, to his surprise, Hu Jin sitting and drinking with Kasatos.

Hearing Hu Jin's words, Feng Fan tossed Anton toward him. Once Hu Jin caught Anton, Feng Fan turned to face the Fenrisian Wolf. Just as Hu Jin had said, the wolf did not attack him; it merely sniffed him.

Staring at the Fenrisian wolf's massive head, Feng Fan swallowed hard, then forced himself to walk toward Hu Jin as if nothing had happened.

"Hu Jin, what is going on here?"

Feng Fan sat down beside Hu Jin, who was drinking from a barrel of Fenrisian ale. He grabbed a barrel for himself and took a long, hard gulp, needing a moment to steady his nerves before asking.

"This is Kasatos. He’s a transmigrator who joined our legion recently. He actually arrived eighty years before us."

Hu Jin, hearing the question, pulled the drinking Kasatos over and introduced him to Feng Fan.

Seeing the "Wolf’s Tooth" chapter insignia on Kasatos’s power armor, Feng Fan understood everything instantly. He reached out and shook hands with Kasatos.

With the misunderstanding resolved, the three sat on the lush, green grass, drinking ale and enjoying a rare moment of leisure.

Meanwhile, in the Chaos realms of the Warp, at that same mahjong table, four transmigrator champions were playing a game.

"You guys have to help me out here. You’ve all had contact with that guy."

The Champion of Nurgle discarded a tile and spoke to the other three at the table.

"My advice is to just let Wang Ming kill you when the time comes. Go straight back to the Chaos realm and don't get involved in anything else," Wang Qing, the Champion of Khorne, replied as he discarded a tile.

The Champions of Slaanesh and Tzeentch nodded in agreement with Wang Qing's suggestion.

"Fine. I’ll just let him kill me and then come back, right? But wait! Does he have anything that can harm Warp entities? Like Guilliman’s Emperor’s Sword?" the Champion of Nurgle asked after thinking it over.

None of the three answered him at first. They sat in silence for three minutes, as if unwilling to touch the subject, until Xin Jian drew a tile and finally spoke.

"He might. The second time Wang Qing met him, he fought an army led by Angron and two Greater Daemons of Khorne. After Wang Qing was banished back to the Warp, only one Greater Daemon returned. The other was nowhere to be found."

As he finished speaking, Xin Jian spread his tiles out on the table.

"I win," he said calmly.

The other three stared at his hand in silence.

"Sigh." The Champion of Nurgle let out a long breath, opened a portal, and returned to the Garden of Nurgle.

"Sigh." Wang Qing and the others followed suit, opening their own portals to return to their respective masters, leaving Xin Jian alone at the table. He sat in silence, staring at the mahjong set.

"Actually, this isn't bad. Rather than having one's soul held by a dark god, it would be better to just..."

After a long while, Xin Jian picked up a Seven of Characters tile and muttered to himself. He squeezed his hand, and the tile was slowly crushed into fine powder by his immense strength.

He opened his palm, and the dust drifted away in a breeze from nowhere. Shaking his head, Xin Jian opened a portal and returned to the ever-shifting domain of Tzeentch.

In the Garden of Nurgle, the Champion of Nurgle sat by the cage where Isha was held, watching the Eldar Goddess of Life, who sat with her eyes closed, whispering in an unknown tongue.

He did not disturb her; he simply watched her as if she were a piece of fine art. Isha continued to murmur, as if lost in a dream. She was incredibly beautiful—beyond being the Goddess of Life, she was the Maiden Goddess of the Eldar. Only Isha could bring him any sense of inner joy. Looking at her face helped him remember he was once a human, not a twisted daemon of Nurgle.

"You’re here. I’m sorry, I was just sleeping for a moment."

Isha opened her eyes and saw him staring. As one of the few beings in the Garden with a sane mind, she had a close relationship with him.

"Were you dreaming? Do gods dream?" he asked, admiring her sapphire-like eyes.

"Yes, gods dream too."

Isha leaned against the bars and reached out to gently stroke his head. Her divine power surged, healing the corruption on his body. However, because he was a Champion of Nurgle, the infections returned instantly. His flesh rotted, only for a layer of fresh, pale, human-like skin to grow back over it—a special gift he had begged Father Nurgle for, so he could maintain a shred of his humanity.

"Still no use... hah..." He let out a bitter, disappointed laugh as the divine power faded.

Isha reached out and held his head, trying to comfort him.

"Isha, what were you dreaming about? Can you tell me?"

"I dreamed of a long time ago. When Asuryan the Phoenix King was still here, when the Eldar Pantheon still stood, when I could be with my children. It was a beautiful dream."

"That sounds like a wonderful dream," he sighed.

"And you, Li Yongkang, what are your dreams like?" Isha asked softly.

We now learn the Champion’s name: Li Yongkang—a name that symbolised eternal health, yet he had become a bed for endless disease. How ironic.

"I dream of my past. I dream of my mother waking me up, my father sending me to college. But when I wake up, everything is gone! I open my eyes and all I see is Nurgle's disgusting garden and his foul daemons!"

As Li Yongkang spoke, his emotions flared. He began to cry, thick, viscous green tears spilling from his eyes. Where the tears touched his skin, they corroded it into green pus. Isha gently wiped his face, her own fingers corroding before her divine power instantly restored them.

Li Yongkang watched her fingers, a flicker of imperceptible envy in his eyes, though Isha did not notice.

"I’m leaving, and I might never come back," he said suddenly, his tone carrying a sense of relief. Isha remained silent, continuing to wipe his tears. She understood, and though it saddened her to lose her only sane companion, she could not change his mind.

"Isha, will you sing for me? I might not be able to hear your voice again."

Isha nodded and began to sing an ancient, unknown Eldar melody. Her voice was clear and beautiful, echoing through the Garden. Li Yongkang drifted into a peaceful sleep. Isha did not stop, singing on like a mother lulling a child to sleep.

A group of Nurglings appeared and covered Li Yongkang with a blanket made of fungal carpet, then sat in a neat row to listen to the song.

The great, bloated entity of Nurgle noticed them. He watched the child he had "saved" from the Emperor’s grasp and felt a profound sadness. He could not understand why the boy was always so depressed, and he resolved to brew a new virus that would finally bring him joy.

Back in reality, on Bartko II, the factories were complete. The "Star Transmigrators" prepared to depart for the Feral World of Gobey to establish the next industrial hub.

The *Imperial Truth* and its four escort ships departed the starport, igniting their sub-light engines to head for the Mandeville point.

Inside the *Imperial Truth*, in Wang Ming’s office, he was reading a report from Roboute Guilliman via the Astropaths. It detailed the progress of the Indomitus Crusade and the feedback on the equipment produced at Moers. The first batch of weapons had been deployed to the crusade fleets, and Guilliman reported that the Imperial Guard forces found them highly effective, significantly boosting combat capability and reducing casualties.

Wang Ming smiled. Their vision was proving to be a success.

Guilliman also mentioned Fulgrim, who, after being "blessed" by the Emperor, had joined the Indomitus Crusade. With Belisarius Cawl’s help, Fulgrim now had three hundred Primaris Emperor's Children space marines. Guilliman remained baffled as to how Cawl had managed to create them so quickly, especially since he had strictly forbidden the use of traitor legion gene-seed.

Guilliman suspected Cawl was keeping secrets. Wang Ming shook his head—Cawl had secrets in abundance. The Tech-Priest’s private projects were so numerous that the line of people in the Adeptus Mechanicus who wanted him dead could stretch all the way to the Eye of Terror.

Wang Ming watched the ship’s viewports slowly seal as the fleet prepared to enter the Warp.