This is a new story that I may continue or not... but it's darker than anything I've written so far.

Disclaimer: Warhammer 40K and any associated materials belongs to Games Workshop, except for my original characters.

PPS: 'Path to Godhood' remain WH40K + normal world, with the 'chance' for Arthur to cross over later

Path to Godhood

Chapter 1

Milky Way Galaxy

Ultima Segmentum

Verevian Subsector

Iridus System

"AAAAARGH!"

A deafening roar was heard as the Chaos Lord's Power Sword skewered the last of the defenders in the chest before the huge Chaos Astartes flung the corpse of the ship's captain to the wall, where the impact splattered the corpse into many smaller pieces mixed with blood that now ran cold.

"How did it come to this? Everything was going right! That damned daemon shall pay for this treachery! Argh!"

Further enraged, the Chaos Lord rushed toward a cowering Cultist and split the poor creature in two with his corrupted Power Sword that glowed in crackling crimson. Yet, not satisfied with the slaughter, he turned to the remaining Chaos Space Marines of his warband. The Chaos Sorcerer and eight Chaos Marines were neither brave enough to powerful enough to challenge the hulking form of their Chaos Lord, whose power still overwhelmed them despite the near absolute destruction of his warband.

"My precious warband has been destroyed, and you did not have the wits to see it beforehand!"

At the outrageous demand of the Chaos Lord, the Sorcerer Varhir spoke up.

"My lord Kha'lath, the Warp is a fickle thing, and even though we are blessed by Tzeentch's graces, he is a very fickle god. None could have foreseen that the Bloodthirster would be defeated so easily, and with that in mind, none could have foreseen that the Keeper of Secrets would turn on us instead of attacking the Loyalists."

At the words of his most trusted Sorcerer, the Chaos Lord Kha'lath calmed down. He was a mighty Chaos Lord of a powerful Chaos warband 'Sons of Horror'. Merely six hours ago, he was striding confidently upon the scorched fields of the planet Iridus, a once verdant Cardinal World of the hated Imperium that now saw a bloody action between a dozen Chaos warbands invading and the Loyalists defending the planet.

Lord Kha'lath arrived upon Iridus on his mighty Slaughter-Class Cruiser 'Rage of Hatred' with over eighty Chaos Marines including a dozen Noise Marines, a half dozen Khorne Berserkers, two Predators and a Rhino, nearly a thousand Bloodletters bound by powerful sorcery and over seven thousand well-armed Cultists. Such was his might that the Chaos forces that had been assailing the system for the past year had accepted him gladly.

Seeing his fellow Chaos Lords struggling against a measly force composed of a single company of Loyalist Astartes, as many Sisters of Battle and three well-entrenched Imperial Guard Regiments, Lord Kha'lath ordered immediate bombardment of the enemy positions using his ship's deadly weapons before the surviving Imperial Fleet chased his ship to the other side of the solar system.

Yet, broken by the suddenly orbital bombardment, one of the Imperial Guard Regiments lost its morale, and crumbled before the Chaos assault. When a dam gains a small crack, that is enough to bring down the whole dam, and thus the fall of one Regiment had become a precursor to the fall of others. So great was the carnage, that one of the other Warbands somehow managed to summon forth a mighty Bloodthirster of Khorne. Aided by such awe-inspiring agent of the Chaos Gods, the Chaos warbands pressed their attacks against the enemy positions, capturing a dozen walled towns and a major city.

The Loyalist Astartes was reduced to half-strength, the Sisters of Battle were also greatly depleted, and the last Regiment of the Imperial Guards fell back to the Imperial Bastion built around the shrine that the Chaos forces wanted to ransack and loot before destroying it. None of the Chaos warbands thought they would lose. Another warband, of Slaanesh, had summoned another Greater Daemon, and with the aid both the Bloodthirster and the Keeper of Secrets, the Chaos forces made a final and fatal attack on the bastion.

It was a complete surprise when a fleet of Imperial ships arrived right above the battle and rained down death. A Tyrant-Class Cruiser, four Cobra-Class Destroyers and a single Astartes Strike Cruiser of the Dark Angels arrived above and they fired their devastating attacks against the forces of Chaos. It was too late to realise that the Chaos fleet had been destroyed. Before the forces of Chaos could regroup, the Strike Cruiser rained down Drop Pods while the Imperial Fleet sent down many Marauder Bombers and Valkyries full of Storm Troopers. Even so, the Chaos forces had two Greater Daemons on their side.

The Bloodthirster swung its mighty axe back and forth, destroying many of the Imperial Guard's vehicles and commanders, including the lone Dreadnought of the Hospitaller's Chapter. The Keeper of Secrets used its deadly blades to cut down the Dark Angels that assailed it while sending forth strange whip to entangle and crash the Valkyries that flew over its head. Then from the Imperial Bastion, a Living Saint rose up and drove its burning spear into the heart of the Bloodthirster, ending the Blood God's daemon in a single stroke. While the horrified and stunned forces of Chaos warbands began to falter, the warband that summoned the Keeper of Secrets had turned their guns against the fellow Chaos forces.

Kha'lath knew that the battle just became a nightmare. Evading the balls of plasma fired by the Dark Angels and dodging the bolter rounds from the treasonous Chaos warband of Slaanesh, he ran from battle. He and his remaining forces immediately headed to the Valkyries that had landed to regurgitate the Imperial Guards. Enraged by the events of the day, Kha'lath and his last remaining warriors tore through the Storm Troopers and Guardsmen, and then boarded the Valkyries. Of the six Valkyries that his forces had stolen, only one other had made it to the nearest Imperial vessel, a Cobra-Class Destroyer.

So focused were the Imperials to the battle at hand against the Greater Daemons, they had not noticed the theft of one of their ships. Kha'lath and his Sorcerers quickly took control of the ship, and fled the scene. Even as they had moved the ship, the crew of the vessel rose up against the forces of Chaos. Taken by surprise, the captain and the crew had temporarily retreated to armouries aboard the vessel, only to return with bolters and lasguns. Dispatching them had been easy, and Kha'lath enjoyed killing the crew before finishing off the captain of the vessel.

"Let us return to the Eye of Terror... I shall rebuild, and I shall have my vengeance."

Yet, such was a difficult task. He now only had nine Chaos Marines left, including the Sorcerer. He also had twenty four Cultists, but now that he had killed one, it was down to twenty three.

"There may be a way, my lord... to empower you so greatly that all manner of dark and terrible creatures shall flock to your banner."

Varhir, the Sorcerers, spoke up. Long ago, he had found an ancient spell that supposedly summoned forth the power of a mighty god-like warrior. He had been itching to try it out, but recent events have disappointed Varhir. The Sorcerer had hoped that the loot of slaves would give him enough sacrifices to cast this spell upon himself. Now, some things in his plan had to change.

In any case, Kha'lath was intrigued, or more accurately, his deranged mind had not caught the scent of danger that hung around Varhir.

"Of what do you speak?"

"An ancient ritual, of great power, that summons forth the power of a god-like warrior and cast it upon another. From the literature upon the scroll, it appears whoever this 'god-like warrior' is, the power is significant. One who could bend the very fabric of reality with mere thoughts... and once given such power, you could unite the forces of Chaos in a Black Crusade of your own."

The snake-like tongue of the Sorcerer was like honey in the ears of the enraged and rattled Chaos Lord. Normally, he would have considered the treacherous nature of the Sorcerer's words, but having lost most of his warband had unhinged him.

"What would this ritual require? I do not have thousands of slaves to sacrifice."

"I am certain that the slaughtered souls of the crew of this ship, should suffice."

The Chaos Lord pondered for a second, then nodded.

"Prepare the ritual."

"First, we should find a safe place to anchor the spell. A planet, or an asteroid... Where we would not be interrupted... Certainly not somewhere inside the Eye of Terror."

The Chaos Lord agreed. In his moments of insanity, he thought that if the like of Abaddon should take this spell and gain such power, then it would be unbearable.

"I think I know a place. A Dead World, where nobody would look for us."

"A Dead World?"

"Yes, a world where an Exterminatus has been carried out over two thousand years ago. It's called Vera III, located near the Maelstrom. It is a formerly prosperous Industrial World, but when the Night Lords assailed it large numbers, the population panicked, and many turned to the worship of Chaos. In return, the Alpha Legion entered the fray, and the whole planet was torn in three factions. The Night Lords, the Alpha Legion and the Imperial Guards."

"If it had been destroyed so long ago, there would be many squatters..."

Kha'lath chuckled darkly.

"There are many worlds that are forgotten, even by the Chaos. Last I heard of it, it was still swallowed by a particularly virulent Warp Storm that kept the planet constantly bombarded by terrible lightning that can obliterate even the daemons."

"Then how are we going to use that world?"

"The lightnings can be blocked by... Void Shield of certain magnitude. Perhaps this vessel's shields can aid us."

The Sorcerer now understood the plans.

"We shall land the ship, and we shall be safe and undisturbed."

"Indeed, and I shall have this power that you offer, Sorcerer."

Varhir quickly made gestures of humble servant.

"As you command, Lord Kha'lath. Once this is done, a billion innocents shall scream your name when your mighty armies shall tear their souls out."

"Yes... yes... That sounds fine."

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Milky Way Galaxy

Sol System

Earth

USA – LA

Tap tap tap tap tap... Click click... Taptaptaptaptap...

The typing of keyboard and clicking of mouse was never-ending. Stuck in front of his computer, Arthur Martin sighed as he reached for another sip of coca cola with three cubes of ice. Then he reached out to grab an Oreo only to find the packet empty. He looked down at the packet and the four empty ones beside it.

"Shit!"

That was his third spoken words since the morning. His parents were 'away', and they were 'away' quite often and they were not 'away' together. Arthur knew that his father was probably at 'conference', which probably meant that he was in Hawaii or Miami or some island in Caribbean with his hot blond twenty-year old secretaries. Yes, 'secretaries' with plural.

On the other hand, his mother, a relatively well-known fashion designer slash photographer who married his father for the money, was 'shooting' her latest 'clothing line'. Arthur was smart enough to understand that 'shooting' was having sex with another man, and when she said 'clothing line' it actually meant that she was probably going to sleep three several of her male models.

Arthur thought that if his mother actually focused on designing clothes as much as she enjoyed having sex with models, she could actually be somewhat of a good fashion designer. Not that Arthur particularly wanted her to succeed. That would be quite unbearable. He had no real love for two utter strangers with the tags attached to them as his 'father' and 'mother'. Since he was born, he was mostly alone or with uncaring foreigner nannies, whose subtle abuses had already done all the damage that they could have done.

No one really cared or even noticed that little Arthur exhibited some psychopathic tendencies. The backyard was large enough for Arthur to bury the small animals that he bought with his generous pocket money. Neither his parents nor his nannies even noticed that the boy's pets were being replaced at an alarming rate. Of course, he stopped killing cats after he read the story 'The Cats of Ulthar' by H.P Lovecraft. Instead, his fetish into Lovecraft started, only to end somewhat suddenly when one of his father's British associates bought him a marvellous Christmas gift one winter.

The box of 'Assault on Black Reach', 'Warhammer 40K: 5th Edition Hardcover' and three different Battleforce box sets were delivered to the boy in a large box wrapped with Christmas wrappings. The grim and dark settings of the Warhammer 40K universe had so attracted young Arthur. He particularly enjoyed the Chaos Daemons and Chaos Space Marines. His pocket money were soon diverted to purchasing a lot of Warhammer 40K stuffs.

He was a very smart kid, and had his parents got him tested then he would have scored very high in IQ, perhaps to a genius level. Yet, his obsessions had driven him thus far, and he was very good at things he liked. He purchased everything he needed for painting of his 40K figures, and then found that he was very good at painting them. He soon found himself in one of the spare rooms in the house stacked with his collected armies. An Ultramarine Second Company in all its splendour had resided in one corner while the Orks and Tyranids were on the lower shelves where they took up extra space. The Daemons, the Chaos Space Marines and the Dark Eldar were cared for with extra attention.

What he didn't like, however, were the Chaos Gods and the mutations. He preferred the Night Lords, whose abjuration of direct Chaos worship had kept them pure, and he liked the idea of terrorising others. He often imagined what he would do as a Night Lords Chaos Lord. Oh, how he so desired to wreak terrible havoc upon countless worlds, and driving men insane with fear. His psychopathy had evolved so that he actually felt something at other people's psychological suffering. Indeed, Arthur Martin was one twisted kid.

This did not mean that he was not talented in things. He continued to get high scores throughout his schooling, and he was particularly good at computer programming. It was only last year that he had graduated high school and got into MIT, though his obsessions with WH40K, Lovecraft and other occult things had hindered his academic progress. It was not really that Arthur needed money. His family was still very rich since his father was quite good at business and kept the family money growing.

Arthur's most recent obsessions had been the Dawn of War series, both 1 and 2. He was delighted to find a decent computer game with WH40K setting. Then came Dawn of War 2, a much more graphical game. Arthur immediately purchased extremely powerful computer and played the game, only to be disappointed in the scale, or the lack thereof. So, he began to tamper with things. He was very good with programming after all.

However, Arthur used only one type of cheat during his playing. A generic cheating available online had become Arthur's favourite. Shift + F1 was levelling of the selected unit. Shift + F2 was healing the unit. Shift + F3 made the unit invulnerable. Shift +4 was his favourite, as it killed any unit. There were Ctrl + F1, Ctrl + F2, Ctrl + F3 and others, but they were still not enough to satisfy Arthur's desire to have everything just as he wanted. So he wrote a little program that would allow him to change many things in the game, and with the World Builder, things got easier.

He changed the balances and made new items, and named each item with successively terrible and evil names. He made up his own Chaos Warband, and built them into the game so that he may play his own Warband inside the game. He made it so that units could level up much more than they were originally allowed to do. Of course, each levelling up had only gradually upgraded the unit, but instead of maximum level of 4, the units now could achieve level 50, while the heroes could reach up to level 100. Not only that, he could equip each squad with whatever he wanted equip them with.

Yet, he had no idea that sometimes freaky things happen.

End of Chapter 1