While the Drukhari Delegates and Caoimhe's Farseer Council gathered and, probably, threw insults at each other, Satoru confined himself within his manor. He had absolutely zero interest in the political or otherwise diplomatic bullshit that was happening among the differing Aeldari Ethnic Groups. Though, to be honest, it wasn't because he wasn't invested in the future of the Aeldari race; of course not. He'd already drank the Aeldari Cool Aid and was now all-aboard their little crusade train, wherever it might take him – hopefully somewhere fun and exciting. But, no. He chose to stay away precisely because he cared. Satoru didn't quite trust himself well enough not to say or do something stupid that might botch the whole thing.
The Aeldari and the Drukhari already hated each other enough without his interference and whatever was happening now, especially with the Harlequins apparently involved, had to be something big and important – important enough that he felt that he definitely shouldn't get involved unless matters were addressed to him, specifically, or if the Drukhari had their own weird prophecies that he somehow fulfilled or some other Britheim shit that was, frankly, becoming a little too nonsensical, even for his tastes. That said, Satoru himself wasn't too keen on meeting the kinky bdsm murder-fetishist elves; he'd rather avoid them if possible. Life was complicated enough without the guys who were literally responsible for bringing the Thirsty Bitch into the galaxy.
Despite the diplomatic talks, however, everyone on the Craftworld knew just how shifty the Drukhari actually were and so the civilians were kept hidden, protected by Nobara, the Cursed Spirit that used to be Shalaxi Helbane but was now his. Huh, and there it was, yet another prophesy that he somehow stumbled into and fulfilled.
That did beg the question, however, of: just how many Cursed Spirits could he turn to his side in that manner? Did he want to have his own army of Cursed Spirits? Could he sustain it if he did? Nobara, for instance, was bound to him, yes, but she was also bound entirely by the amount of Cursed Energy that was necessary to keep her anchored to the physical realm. Satoru circumvented that little weakness in the Binding Ritual by, quite literally, anchoring Nobara to himself, keeping her from dissipating back into the Cursed Realm, where the binds would be undone and – maybe – all the modifications he'd created and added would disappear. That also meant, however, that Satoru himself needed to maintain a very high amount of Cursed Energy Reserves, something he now only possessed thanks to the worship of the Aeldari on this particular Craftworld.
If he had to compare, then he probably already had triple the amount he used to have – quite a lot, all things considered, more than what Yuta had. And about a third of that was used to tether 'Nobara' to himself. So, the goal here was to increase his Cursed Energy Reserves. The more of it he possessed, the more cool shit he could do. And now, Satoru had a... something of an idea as to how he was supposed to achieve that little goal. Previously, the very prospect of opening a hole into the Cursed Realm was, frankly, impossible. It just wasn't something that he could do.
But, after seeing the incantations and runes of the Star Piercer, which siphoned Cursed Energy directly from the Cursed Realm, Satoru was now pretty sure he knew what was necessary to, at the very least, do something similar. The exact method used by the Star Piercer wasn't anything he could imitate directly – not even if he tried his best to do so. It'd just be impossible. Nah. It did, however, give him the model for how to do it and, all things considered, it was surprisingly simple.
Breathing in, Satoru closed his eyes and focused. In an instant, Satoru gathered a not-insubstantial amount of Cursed Energy in his palms and attached a small fragment of his soul to it. Another step into a familiar direction and he'd end up turning this lot into Cursed Matter, but that wasn't the goal here, no. Satoru then allowed the Cursed Energy to gradually dissipate. Most of it, he wagered, would disappear entirely, fluttering uselessly into the air. However, the parts of it that had his soul fragment attached didn't do that. It couldn't – not when the fragment kept it whole and alive. It couldn't return to him either, because Satoru wasn't letting it back in. So, where else could it go?
Because of the soul fragment, the dissipating blob of Cursed Energy would make its way into the Cursed Realm, somehow able to bridge the gap between the Physical and the Cursed Realm without requiring some odd or complicated technique to do the heavy lifting. Oddly, that also meant that, unfortunately, the Cursed Realm was the Afterlife, where souls naturally disappeared to after death. That was a load of bullshit, but whatever. Once the soul fragment entered the Cursed Realm, it became a very easy task of regaining full control over it and then pulling it back. That singular act would then trigger a flood of Cursed Energies from the Cursed Realm – not a lot, of course, since the flood itself was dependent on the size of the soul fragment and Satoru used a very small one for the experiment, but certainly enough to be alarming. A flood of Cursed Energies came rushing out, but Satoru was already there, waiting.
Of course, the raw stuff was useless to him in much the same way as crude oil was pretty much useless as it was. But then that was exactly what Six Eyes was for. With it, Satoru fine tuned the flood of Cursed Energy to match his own, allowing it to pass into the Physical Realm and enter his body, becoming one with his Cursed Energy Reserves in a perfect merge. It was rather beautiful, actually, a feat that would've otherwise been impossible without full and perfect control over Cursed Energy.
Seeing as his Cursed Energy Reserves were already rather full, however, the added amount of Cursed Energy from the Cursed Realm itself merely bolstered the maximum amount – not by a lot, of course, but definitely by far more than he spent to send that mass of Cursed Energy into the Cursed Realm.
Satoru's eyes snapped open and his grin widened. He'd done it. He figured it out. And, with enough practice, he'd be able to do this in the blink of an eye and on the fly. "Oh yeah."
Experiment success. The amount he added was equivalent to about a tenth of his total reserves beforehand – definitely not a small amount by any means. And that was just from a small soul fragment. Of course, the problem with using a larger fragment was that the flood would be stronger, meaning Satoru would have to fine tune far more Cursed Energies than he might otherwise be capable of, which meant a lot of the raw stuff would escape and, coming directly from the Cursed Realm, that meant they'd most definitely reform into frenzied Cursed Spirits, which wouldn't be a good time for anybody. So, there was a limit to how much Cursed Energy he could pull from the Cursed Realm at one time... unless...
"Hey, Tzeentch," Satoru said, idly casting a glance on the mark over his heart. The big blue bird was listening; it always was – all the time. Would Kairos be looking if he beat his meat right now? That'd be hella gay. And since Kairos was under Tzeentch's command, it made sense that the same channel to contact Kariso would also alert the big boss, Tzeentch himself. "I have a question."
Time and space shuddered around him, and Satoru felt a blood vessel pop in his nostrils. Yep, nothing unexpected. Tzeentch's presence was... almost overwhelming, but it wasn't nearly as crushing as it'd been before. The gap in power was shrinking, but Satoru had a long way to go before he was anywhere close to the same level of power as one of the Cursed Gods. But, then again, to the road to godhood wasn't supposed to be easy; if it was, then everyone and their grandmother would be gods. "Yeah?"
"If I started pulling Cursed Energy from your domain, in particular, could you tell your Cursed Spirits to not manifest – or, failing that, just tell them not to cause trouble?" Satoru asked. How Tzeentch and Kairos were able to keep their presences hidden from the Aeldari was a mystery. Because Satoru had felt the both of them and power of that magnitude was something that wasn't easily hidden. And yet, despite Tzeentch's freakishly powerful presence, Satoru was certain that none of the Aeldari would notice. "Pretty please, with cherry on top?"
"Sure. They already know not to attack you, but to get them to behave... well... that would require a favor – a service, in fact, in return for this boon." Tzeentch replied and Satoru could just imagine the formless fucker to be rubbing its metaphysical hands like some saturday morning cartoon villain on a spinning leather chair. Actually, that was probably true. Tzeentch, at the end of the day, was a Cursed Spirit – a godlike one, but ultimately a Cursed Spirit, which meant it fed on the stuff that made everyone miserable. If that wasn't villainy that Satoru had no idea what was.
Satoru sighed. Ah well, you never got far in life without a few risks here and there. Besides, his relations with the Tzeentchian side of the Chaos Cool Aid was already pretty good – may as well make it even better. "Alright, dude; waddaya want?"
"Very soon, you will be granted access to the Drukhari City of Commorragh," Tzeentch began. Tsk, of course this dude had seer abilities as well; why wouldn't it have seer abilities? "Once there, I want you to carve a rune of mine... anywhere... somewhere discreet... somewhere no one will ever find it. That's all."
Hmm... obviously this was not going to end well for the Drukhari, but then who actually gave a shit about those guys anyway? Satoru was pretty sure the regular Aeldari – or Asuryani as they sometimes called themselves – definitely did not give a single flying fuck about the Drukhari. So, eh, why the fuck the not? "You know what? Sure. But can I get them to do stuff for me too? That'd be pretty swell."
"Eh, why not?" Satoru hissed as a glowing blue mark appeared on his chest, burning and scarring his skin, followed by a flood of Cursed Energies that almost immediately began to mingle with his own. Now that was certainly interesting. "A Binding Vow has been established: any of my lesser daemons you summon shall fall under your command and, in exchange, you shall carve my rune in Commorragh. And congratulations in binding Shalaxi Helbane to your service; Slaanesh was and still is rather upset with what you've done, but you've also turned on my kinky little sister-brother. So, her eyes are now fixed almost entirely on you. Do be careful, my avatar."
"Yeah sure- wait, what?"
And, just like that, Tzeentch's presence disappeared, leaving behind a very confused Satoru. "What?"
Avatar? Satoru glanced at the Mark of Khaine on his right hand, eyes narrowing. What the heck was Tzeentch cooking up by referring to him as his Avatar? The word, oddly enough, could mean a lot of things, but most of them were not good. Having one god in his body was weird enough and, if the Britheim prophesy was to be believed, then he was gonna host a whole bunch of others. And not, it seemed like Tzeentch wanted a slice of the god pie. Or, maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe, Tzeentch was looking at him to become something of a physical representative? Then again, that shifty son of a bitch could've meant a hundred other things.
No idea.
After a moment, Satoru shrugged. He'll cross that bridge when he got to it.
And, with a flicker of his will and a wave of a hand, Satoru willed forth an opening into Tzeentch's domain.
AN: Chapter 45 is out on (Pat)reon!