Prologue

Vashtorr the Arkifane looked over the pieces he'd assembled upon his anvil. A glittering amalgam of crystallized souls mortal and Neverborn both with the sickening glow of the Anathema in their centre. He'd managed to get a small handful of the tiny little pieces of him swaddled in the souls of his Custodes. Using their souls as an insulator so that he could even handle the piece of golden horrid radiance. Though it left him unable to peer within them to plunder their knowledge and this one was particularly ancient.

A claw tapping on his chin as he thought on how to use it. His mechanical eyes turning to the small window he had opened to connect to one of the Necrons marvellous machines. A literal window into parallel dimensions inaccessible to the warp he lived within. He'd decided on a world dear to the Imperium if woefully less advanced.
It's locals called it Earth Bet for some reason but it was the creature hovering above it that had caused him something akin to concern. The way it propagated itself would or could have consequences that didn't align to his or even the four's plans in truth.

He had informed the gods of it when he found it and realized its implications. Tzeentch had grown furious at such a massive wrench into its ever shifting plans and Khorne had raged (as he always did) at the cowardly nature of the thing. Though he would agree.

The Arkifane let out a dry rasp of a chuckle as he looked down at the ingredients for a disposable agent that the gods had eagerly given him along with other small pieces as payment for his service he'd keep for later. He still found it a novel idea of a morbid sort. Especially since it was rare the gods ever agreed to anything.

A Neverborn with mortal morality. He could chuckle to himself, it was the only feasible way one would actually do what was needed to preserve the changer of ways's plan even if they might give birth to something strange and perhaps even antagonistic towards the warp in the future. Then again dimensions were, as some mortals called it, bullshit.

His eyes moved back to the ingredients before him, his hand clenching the haft of his hammer in anticipation. The mortal souls aligned around the Anathema's shard followed a pattern he supposed. Slaanesh had supplied a pair of souls to the effort, A scourge of the Drukari who had been an ancient haemonculi and (according to she who thirsts at least) among the first of the winged Aeldari to grace the spires of their hidden city. The other a Warlock and Bonesinger of renown from before the Aeldari's fall snatched at her birth. She rarely did disappoint when she put effort into her payment he drily thought. A gift of two souls morbidly symbiotic in a poisonously perfect way. So like Slaanesh.

Tzeentch had given him a prize if he was to be honest with himself. The "soul" of a Necron Cryptek who's mind he'd already looked through for their technological magic. A race he was fond of given how their act of Biotransference had in part empowered him in his youth.
The shard of Necrodermis containing a mind of their kind versed in Technomancy and Ethermancy, he'd decided to keep the other shards containing knowledge of their arts in reserve for this experiment.

On the other hand both Khorne and Nurgle had granted pieces rather interesting but also clearly of no value or cost to themselves, if not odd. From them came the Neverborn aspect of his creation and prizes they were.
Snatched from a minor god more akin to himself and had proven the impetus for his desire to join the gods (Or surpass them). The horned rat had perhaps been an arch-daemon in the old world of the realms from the worship of his Skaven mortal race twisted in his image at their birth.

The Horned rat had been a greater daemon of Chaos unaligned but its involvement in something called the old world and then the realms to which chaos was connected to now and served as an amusing distraction to the gods at times had proven it.
Slaanesh still got derision from her brothers for how her aspect in the realms had gotten captured.

Her being locked away allowing the Horned rat to rise to godhood. Minor though it was in the greater warp. He shook his head of the thoughts and looked first to Nurgle's piece, as out of character for him as it was.

A Verminlord, a captured greater demon of the Horned rat who Vashtorr suspected old Grandfather felt a bit of kinship to. He had suspected he'd be getting a Corruptor so it was a surprise to see that he'd been granted a Warpseer instead. He partly suspected he'd done so to make sure the shards he was working with were seven in total and to spite Khorne a bit. Little did he know.
Khorne had done much the same and the Arkifane had noted the smirk of amused derision when the blood god handed over the crystal that contained an exalted Warbringer of the same Verminlord type of daemon yet he'd also provided the stolen soul of a Saurus temple guard whose dedication to his duty had impressed him from the old world before it's destruction.

He raised his hammer when he piled the seven shards together with a plate of Wraithbone and some Necrodermis he'd gotten his hands on. Then the hammer came down and down, and down. The shells melted together into one and created a glowing amalgam of some strange necro-wraithbone egg and he reeled back from the blast of force the creation of this new being caused.

Quickly he gripped it in metallic claws and whispered its task, to kill the entities floating above Terra and then shoving it through the window to that alternate reality. The tips of his claws glowing and smoking as the apotheosis of its genesis still continued as he hurled it into the window.
He wouldn't dare enter it himself, for the warp in that reality was far, far too placid for his liking. Barely a Neverborn within its entirety as life had yet to develop sufficiently to lead to any real population to be of worth or power within the warp in that galaxy or to sufficiently effect it.

That didn't mean he couldn't watch as the explosion of the unbirth into its emergence in that reality made the entity above the world flinch. If the Arkifane had been capable of it he'd have grinned in derisive amusement at the doom he'd made specifically to end them. A doom he saw it wouldn't see coming as the flinch had been more akin to what a human would call a chill shiver of the spine when they felt something was wrong yet couldn't put a finger on what.

He then took a seat upon the anvil after whipping away the fragments left in the creation's wake and settled in to watch the show about to ensue. While he was hampered in being unable to interact or even communicate through the window, he could still observe and collect data. Data he would require in the future.

All he had to do was get comfortable, sit back and watch what became of this creation of his.

"I WoNdEr…" He muttered aloud in his unsettling voice of many and none at all. "HoW wiLL tHe MorTALs ReAct tO an… ArCH DaEmon in thEir MidSt." He chuckled.

His aim had been a crafted Arch-Deamon or even something akin to a warp Primarch that would be as much at home in a forge or lab as the battlefield underneath his control. A back up plan should he require to flee if the gods decided to be unreasonable to his plans of ascension. It wasn't the only one but he could indulge in watching for a while.

Or every now and then when the mood struck him.