The shriek that tore through the void was not the cacophony of conventional Warp travel, nor the death throes of a dying star. It was the sound of realities protesting—of ambition unbound and forcibly inserted into a realm not its own. Shao Kahn, once the Emperor of Outworld, now cast adrift in a storm of impossible energies, was hurled across the boundaries of universes. He did not land gently.
He landed in the raw, unfiltered maelstrom that was the Immaterium—a realm where thoughts bore teeth, where emotion was weaponized, and the soul laid bare under endless assault. For a lesser being, such an entry meant immediate dissolution, madness, or eternal slavery. But Shao Kahn was no lesser being. His will was an iron citadel built upon millennia of conquest and cruelty. He did not beg. He endured. And in enduring, he did something far more dangerous: he took.
He did not pray to Nurgle for resilience, but his broken body began to knit with grotesque vitality. Rotting energies clung to him, not as punishment, but as fortification. He did not call upon Khorne for strength, but his limbs surged with martial fury, and the Warp echoed his battle-lust. He did not submit to the Chaos Gods. He wielded their essence as a weapon, bending strands of Nurgle's decay and Khorne's rage into his own brutal design. Where others were chosen, Shao Kahn conquered his blessings.
When he finally emerged, roaring and smoldering, it was not on a battlefield or a throne world—but on a desolate, rust-hued planet that reeked of fungus and fire. Orks. Thousands. Primitive and painted, their ramshackle camps belching smoke into the brown sky.
Shao Kahn watched them. And he saw not rabble, but tools. A vast, mindless Waaagh! waiting to be focused—waiting for a warlord with enough strength to command rather than merely brawl. He knew nothing of this galaxy's Imperium or its Great Crusade. But he knew conquest. And he knew opportunity when it stood in front of him, drooling and screaming for a fight.
The biggest Ork in the region was a Warboss named Grakka Da Scrap King. His mobs numbered in the tens of thousands. His fortress was a mountain of welded scrap, and his reputation was built on endless, meaningless violence.
Shao Kahn approached alone.
"I am Shao Kahn," he declared, voice booming with Warp-forged authority. "Emperor. I have come to conquer."
Grakka laughed—a deep, phlegm-choked howl. "Konker? You? You ain't green! I'z da king 'ere, and I sez—"
He didn't finish. Shao Kahn was upon him in a blur, dodging the power klaw, his warhammer shattering Grakka's ribcage with a single blow. The next moment, Grakka's skull was crushed beneath Shao Kahn's heel.
The Orks froze. They looked at Grakka's broken corpse. Then at the hammer-wielding monster standing victorious. And then, they cheered.
"Who follows strength?" Shao Kahn roared.
Thousands of voices bellowed in answer.
He repeated this ritual across dozens of Ork-infested planets. Some Warbosses were cunning, some brutal, some gifted by Mork or Gork—but none could match the sheer unrelenting power Shao Kahn now possessed. His hammer sundered their bones, his presence cowed even the loudest Nobs. The Orks called him Da Skull-Krusher Kahn. Others called him Da Warp-Boss. It didn't matter. He had taken the Waaagh!, and he was shaping it into a storm.
Unlike any Ork warlord before him, Shao Kahn brought order to their chaos. He didn't just destroy—he organized. He directed mobs with purpose. He taught them to wait, to prepare, to strike.
In a desecrated ruin of a half-consumed Craftworld, he discovered the Webway—not the stable, ancient paths once walked by the Aeldari, but shattered and corrupted routes warped by Chaos influence. There, in cracked domes and haunted libraries, he studied their secrets. And with the Warp gods' echoing whispers clawing through his skull, he understood.
He would not lead his Waaagh! through the void. He would strike from beneath reality itself.
With crude sorcery and forced comprehension, he conjured unstable portals. He showed them to his Warbosses, now towering monstrosities under his influence.
"Humie space," he growled, pointing into the roiling dimensional wound. "Lotsa fightin'. Fast."
And that was all they needed.
The Waaagh! surged into the Webway.
They emerged not above a battlefield, but inside the defenses of a Hive World—an imperial bastion of billions. A planet proud, arrogant in its security, unaware of what lurked beyond reality's edge.
The invasion was instant. Ork vessels, cobbled from stolen hulks and debris, burst from the sky. Webway portals ripped open in transit hubs, in parks, in manufactorum halls. Green bodies poured out in a tsunami of flesh and metal.
The world died screaming.
No preparation. No warning. Just blood. Metal. Fire.
Shao Kahn walked among the slaughter. He didn't need to command every skirmish. His mere presence drove the Waaagh! to frenzy. He crushed bastions and broke battalions, his warhammer leaving molten craters in the streets. Bolter fire ricocheted off his armor. Psykers who dared to reach into the Warp near him screamed as their minds were swallowed whole by his corrupted aura.
When the last hive tower fell, he stood atop its smoldering ruin. With his hammer, he carved his sigil into the rock—a skull, split down the center.
Let them wonder. Let them fear.
They wouldn't know his name. Not yet.
"Let the galaxy drown in green rage," he whispered to the smoldering remains. "Before they even realize who their enemy is."
And thus, the Conquest of Shao Kahn began—not as a god's herald or a demon's puppet—but as a conqueror who took the warp's chaos and bent it to his own indomitable will.
A new darkness had entered the galaxy.
And it would wear a war mask and wield a hammer soaked in imperial blood.