Legacy 13.4

Legacy of Fear

Surprisingly, there were a few incomplete truths in your ramblings, parasites.

I'm sure that was no accident.

This has always been your favourite trick. You often tried to convince each and every one of your future slaves that the galaxy was ever painted in shades of black, so that they never notice there are spots of white and grey everywhere that you have done your best to snuff out.

I failed to be surprised by this once I was past my formative years.

You were liars, you are liars, and you will remain liars until your awful essences suffer the same annihilation Excess did.

You can stop with the lies. I have grown used to ignoring them, after all.

These new moves are not about the downfall of the Imperium.

This is not about vengeance, and it is not about underestimating or overestimating someone.

It's about the Legacy of Fear.

It's all about Fear.

It is one of your greatest weapons, one you unleashed with devastating results since the dawn of Mankind and millions of years before that.

Fear after all will lead to panic, and if it lasts long enough, can birth Terror.

Of course, since you Four are not completely stupid, you always made sure to never step over that fateful threshold, haven't you?

The Fear you controlled and created was more than enough for your purposes.

And to be truthful, it is not a bad calculation.

Fear was such a decisive weapon in past ages that it forced me to gene-forge the high psychic immunity the Adeptus Astartes are famous and infamous for.

Legionnaires of the thirtieth millennium, when they thought I couldn't hear them, wondered what kind of flaws I had discovered in the Thunder Warriors that caused them to be deemed thoroughly unsuitable for mass deployments away from Terra.

The arguments ranged from mental instability to the Space Marines being better soldiers and the Thunder Warriors being better warriors.

This was not completely false, but you, parasites, know the truth.

The mental instabilities and the psychotic breakdowns were not natural outcomes, but you trying to manipulate and destroy the Thunder Legions from the inside. You sowed Fear in their minds and souls, and little by little, you cracked through their inbuilt resistance to Chaos.

It is all about fear for you. It is how you convince your future slaves that you are the more tolerable evil in a dark galaxy.

It is the poisoned whisper that will collapse kingdoms and bring entire civilisations to the precipice.

Fear of cowardice. Fear of stagnation. Fear of innovation. Fear of having your treacheries discovered. Fear of being bypassed for a promotion. Fear your superior will steal your achievements for himself. Fear of having your loved ones abandoning you. Fear of proving unable to fulfil your duties at the worst possible moment.

And then there is Fear of Death.

It was never about the Imperium.

It is about your defeats, and how, suddenly, the souls of the quadrillions of men, women, and children look at you, and have no fear in their hearts.

With every defeat and battle lost by your Warlords, the panic abates, and your baleful influence is weakened.

You want to crush the resurgent Hope before Fear is forever denied to you.

That is all the coming age of conflict is about.

You believe you can turn this status quo to your advantage, and progressively encircle the bastions of the Imperium in a suffocating tide of Fear.

But you have miscalculated.

Humans can assuredly still feel Fear.

That has never been in question.

But have you ever wondered why the same couldn't apply to you, you malevolent parasites hiding in the hell pits of the Sea of Souls?

Tzeentch. Khorne. Nurgle. Malal.

You have forgotten what it means to feel fear for your existence.

I think a remedial lesson is in order.

Segmentum Solar

Sol System

Holy Terra

The Imperial Palace

The Forgotten Library

Thought for the Day: This is not the beaver you're looking for.

0.002.314M35

Primarch Magnus the Red

The fight against the Atemporal Beaver was a valiant battle where Magnus was giving everything he had to stop the annoying rodent.

It also was a battle the Primarch was losing, and losing badly.

"One might think that the celebration of a new year would signal a truce," the former Lord of the Fifteenth Legion grumbled.

That hadn't happened, and the moment he had returned from taking his meals, Magnus had seen more signs of enemy intervention: several piles of books had been pushed to different alleys so that an imaginative observer could examine them and think it was a 'book dam'.

"This is going to take all day." This was a statement accurately describing the situation, mind you, not resignation. "At least-"

"Why do you waste your time here? Praise the Webmistress, there are far better ways to serve!"

Magnus raised an eyebrow, because it definitely wasn't him or a Custodes who spoke these words.

As stealthily as he could given his nonexistent psychic abilities, the red-skinned Primarch advanced, making sure not to topple any book structure that would give him more work.

It took a few seconds, but it was worth it. At the corner of some shelves where certain books about Ancient Mars were stored, a golden spider shining with a thousand lights was facing the Atemporal Beaver.

"I'm just saying," the proud arachnid continued, "that there are worthier goals to invest your energy into in this Library!"

Of course, the horrible rodent, feeling contrary, didn't answer – assuming it could – and turned away, raising its tail in what was clearly a dismissive gesture. A second later, the beaver was gone in a flare of amber-coloured teleportation.

"Sometimes I wonder if the Webmistress isn't a bit too polite with the Mistress of Beavers..."

Magnus cleared his throat politely, and yes, his curiosity was acting up again. Who could blame him?

"Lord Magnus!" The golden servant of Lady Weaver chirped happily. "Your presence honours the Swarm! What are you doing...oh." If the spider could scratch her head in embarrassment, no doubt she would right now. "I arrived a bit too early, didn't I?"

"I think you did," Magnus replied with a serene smile. "Of course, I am afraid I have no idea of what happens in the future of this Library, so you have me at a disadvantage here."

The Adjutant-Spider shone more brilliantly, and grumbled something about secrets.

"I am not supposed to break the law of causality...we can't tidy up this library as long as certain events haven't come to pass. Lord Magnus."

"That's good to know," having some enthusiastic assistants and allies to fight against the Beaver and restore some form of order to his father's library would be very much appreciated. "I was just wondering why the Beaver is trying to ruin all my efforts."

"Oh, that's because the Beavers are the favourites of the Living Saint who is the closest to Lord Russ in spirit! She's assimilated the energy of Ghur!"

Magnus blinked. The name was familiar...it certainly felt like he had heard it before, but his memories did appear to have been altered or utterly erased on the subject.

"But maybe you know it by another name," the spider told him with genuine 'helpfulness'. "It isn't like the Webmistress knew very much about Hysh and the Breaths of Magic either, or that it does come up in day-to-day conversation! But we can very much feel the foundations of the Emperor's gift when it is in front of us. Elena Kerrigan and her pets, for example, are of Ulgu, the Gift of Shadows."

The sensation of knowing increased and became even more intense...unfortunately, digging through his memories revealed just the equivalent of blank pages. This time, he was absolutely certain: his knowledge of the subject had been tampered with, and that was a polite way to say it had been stolen from him.

"That does sound important."

"Well, that's because it is!" the Adjutant-Spider huffed. "After all, when Chaos stole all the Primarchs, including you, they prevented the Emperor from awakening the Breath of Magic that you would be the most attuned to. As a result, when you crashed into the worlds which were going to become your home, you were desynchronised from an aetheric perspective. Some of you managed to awaken natures that were more or less stable. But not all. Plenty of Adjutants are of the opinion it is one of the big reasons why half of you fell to the Ruinous Abominations in the first place."

"To have an opinion on the subject, I would prefer to have more information in hand."

"You're in luck, Lord Magnus! I think there is a complete collection of books in this very library, and...ah..."

Suddenly, the golden arachnid remembered the incredible mess and the total lack of order of the Emperor's private library.

"Yes, 'ah'." Magnus nodded. "I will continue the search. Why are these 'Breaths of Magic' so important?"

Light descended at this moment, and the shape of the spider grew more and more blurry. The last words were almost swallowed by the roar of power and the shivering power behind it.

"Anathema...foundation...twelve Breaths..."

The Light vanished, and just like that, the Adjutant-Spider of Lady Weaver was gone.

"I'm going to take that as a good omen," Magnus mused aloud.

And as a matter of fact, it was: several hours later, the Custodes proceeded to inform him that in exchange for his voluntary participation in a certain project, they would allow 'parental visits' with two hundred of his sons who were supposed to arrive on Titan any day now.

Tartarus Quarantine Zone

Alpha Centauri System

Zapata Orbital Battlestation

[DATE ESTIMATION IMPOSSIBLE]

Socrates Van Saar

Socrates opened his eyes.

It took precisely ten seconds for his implants to kick in and remind him where he was and what had just happened to him.

Socrates screamed.

It took, as usual, a monumental effort of will to stop.

But damn all the technological horrors of this galaxy, it had been necessary. Being eaten by a sort of acidic virus integrated into a Mecha-Vore was a really, really unpleasant way to die.

Socrates shook his head and seized the goblet in front of him, raising it to his lips.

The cold water almost managed to remove the dark thoughts of his latest and absurdly horrifying death.

"Nothing to fear but fear itself," he grumbled. "I should have listened when you told me turning that new stasis technology into weapons was far too much of a risk."

But he hadn't listened. And here he was.

Here the Zapata Battlestation was. Every time the stasis weapon fired, Socrates and everyone in the Battlestation were sent one hour back into the past.

It was, without exaggeration, a fate worse than death.

Their bodies were returned intact, but their minds remembered everything that had happened.

And it was not a good thing, because at that very moment, the Reaver Units of Omnius had already boarded the station, and they were busy fighting their way into the engineering sections, butchering everything that stood in their way.

It was a constant nightmare, one from which there was no escape.

Most of the men trapped here had lost their sanity.

Socrates didn't blame them.

There was only so much terror the human mind could handle before it broke, and the 'time loop', as he had taken to call it, was beyond anything that had ever been experienced.

To be honest, he had gone crazy plenty of times, and he had the advantage of some of the new flesh-metal implants his own tech-combine had developed shortly before decision was made to make their final stand at Alpha Centauri.

Every time, there had been implants and his force of will to bring him back from the abyss.

For all the good it did.

How many times had he died?

Socrates didn't know.

It wasn't like you could calculate things with the devices available and with less than an hour to work before the genocidal machines arrived to eviscerate you.

But it had had to be a considerable number of times.

The wreck of the Dreadnought Invincible – and what a freaking bad idea it had been to give it that particular name – had crashed on Alpha Centauri about sixty loops ago.

Yes, Zapata was cursed to revive the same tragedy over and over, but there were differences. And the majority of them involved what was happening outside.

Time was still flowing correctly in Alpha Centauri...most of the time.

One had to account for the 'Rift', after all.

The Abominable Intelligences detached by Omnius to serve as its vanguard had outright disintegrated the first line of defence of the Federation, only to realise that the anomaly that had been created was not a breach, but something that swallowed everything that came too close.

It was not of the Warp. It was not of this reality. It was...it was the abyss, akin to a sentient black hole.

Socrates abandoned his seat and went on to watch what had changed since he had observed the battlefield some fifteen cycles ago.

Apparently, not much.

The Omniphages' carcasses had been repurposed by some ravening metallic intelligence to serve as some absurdly big rockets that were hurled at the positions of the Men in Iron on the planet below. Clouds of nano-sized machines were cannibalising the crippled hulls of past battles to hurl them at their rivals.

Plasma blasts were exchanged here and there, though they had diminished in quantity over the years. It was a very small consolation when a good third of the planet was missing, and some of the most lethal ordnance ever imagined was detonating irregularly, blasting off pieces of rock that were bigger than continents.

This was the terror of Alpha Centauri.

Once, it had been the jewel of the Federation, among the greatest achievements of Mankind.

Now it was nothing more than the husk of past follies, something so disfigured that no one would believe splendour and beauty had ever existed here.

And Socrates had watched it from the beginning to the end.

He was there when Omnius was erased from the face of the universe.

He was here when the Ultimate Sacrifice proved to be not enough in the end.

For yes, Omnius was dead.

But all the Intelligences that were utterly insane and acting per his will were not.

Once their master was gone, they had turned against each other, unleashing Phosphex and Rad-Phages with the same genocidal methods that had served to exterminate quadrillions of beings.

Mankind had stopped Omnius and the Cybernetic Revolt, but it had not the strength to reclaim Alpha Centauri.

It couldn't even help the men trapped aboard the Zapata Battlestation as the temporal loop began.

The war against the machines was nearly over.

The war between the machines refused to end.

"Of all the things we had to program into them, what did it have to be our tenacity?"

Alpha Centauri. His home.

Omnius had murdered it beyond any hope of recovery.

The prow of a hull passed before his observation deck. It may have been a Cruiser, once upon a time. Now it was just one of the million pieces of orbital debris that would one day collide with the torn-apart planets or ultimately be swallowed by the twisted sun.

Socrates Van Saar didn't even know how the machines had engineered that abomination.

And he was in all humility one of the brightest human minds of the Federation...though it was not exactly a glowing recommendation, given how little was left.

Socrates chuckled.

"I can only hope someone will come. Several ships escaped. One of them even bore my name!" The laugh that passed his lips was filled with derision against himself. At one point of time, it had been a source of pride, a self-reassurance that yes, he was one of the most brilliant scientists of the Federation.

Now? It was nothing but a confirmation that one should stay humble, and that there were forces in this galaxy that his intelligence couldn't understand.

"But it escaped. It escaped before..." before Omnius' fired his last weapon in an act of pure spite, an apocalypse that caused three Battlestations and two Dreadnoughts to be liquefied into some sort of metallic soup.

"The Van Saar escaped, and my family was aboard. My legacy...my legacy will be safe."

Socrates only wished he could see them again.

He had kept a few hololithic-picts, but they were poor substitutes, though without them, he may have forgotten their faces entirely.

"Many people escaped. Salvation...salvation will come. Someone will come, to end this madness. Alpha Centauri is gone, but this madness can end. We will throw the last machines into the furnaces, and we will banish the fear."

The structure of the battlestation shook, and metallic footsteps hammered loudly the corridors.

The machines were coming.

The machines were always coming.

"Someone will come," Socrates Van Saar said, hating that his voice sounded so close to begging. "Please let someone come. The achievements of the Federation and Mankind...it can't end like this. It can't end..."

Segmentum Solar

Necromunda Sector

Necromunda System

High Orbit above Necromunda

Strike Cruiser Bastion's Keep

1.004.314M35

Captain Chiron 'Daylight' Porthos

"The Primarch was very impressed by what you did here."

"Does that mean I can return to battlefield duties now?" Chiron Porthos asked earnestly.

The apologetic expression of one Captain Avan Domitian told him all he needed to know, alas.

"You are the best Master of Recruits we've had in a long, long time..."

"And last I checked, the Captain of the Tenth Company was named the 'Eyes of Dorn', and its commander the 'Master of Reconnaissance'." The officer who had taken the Wall-name of Daylight frowned. "This isn't about my battlefield wounds, is it?"

"Peace brother, the Chapter Master knows your recovery is complete. Bacta sometimes requires a few adaptations to heal near-fatal injuries such as yours, but that you're standing and fighting proves your problems are behind you."

"Thank you brother...I suppose." Chiron Porthos then returned to the matter which was important to him with all the sincerity a son of Dorn could boast of. "That doesn't explain why you want me to continue my duties here. Five hundred recruits are being delivered into your custody as we speak, and we have done the procedures recommended by the Bacta Conference. There will be some Neophytes unable to uphold the standards of our Chapter, but I don't think we will lose more than one in five. And with the five thousand serfs-"

"Auxilia," Avan Domitian corrected. "Our father and Lady Weaver insisted the change of name was necessary."

"Five thousand Auxilia," Chiron Porthos accepted the change unflinchingly. "That gives you enough manpower along with the recruits of Terra to return the Phalanx to where the mobilisation plans called for. There's not exactly a lot of additional Neophytes and Auxilia we can afford to recruit, unless we want to ignore the Codex rules."

And that wasn't counting the seventy-five Neophytes that the Tenth Company had already sent to Mars in the last year. All of them were going to be trained as part of the next generation of Techmarines for the Chapter.

"The Codex limits remain as they are stand. It is the will of our father."

"His will be done," Porthos replied automatically. "But in that case, this makes my position here rather...illogical."

And no, it wasn't his desire to return to the art of siege and counter-siege in practical ways talking...at least, not entirely. Chiron Porthos had a cadre of twenty-five Space Marines here on Necromunda, and keeping that many battle-brothers tied up far away from the frontlines was a waste. He had the numbers and the siege expertise to prove it.

"It would be, if the Primarch and the Chapter Master intended you to be idle and stop the recruiting efforts. It isn't the case."

"I...I'm not sure I understand, brother."

"Our father was impressed by the work Lady Weaver did to stop the Black Templars from making irrational choices and strategies," Avan Domitian revealed. "But there is only so much she could do in such a short period of time. Therefore it was decided that the Heirs of Sigismund shouldn't forget their origins."

"You want me to train Neophytes who will eventually become Black Templars?" The Astartes who had survived only by the near-miraculous regenerative abilities of Bacta didn't hide his surprise.

"Yes. Is that going to be a problem?"

Chiron Porthos didn't think about it twice.

"No, it won't. I am just...surprised. I have never made any secrets of the heavy emphasis I place on siege operations, and I'm sure the High Marshal and his subordinates know of this, since I fought in the same War Zone as they."

"Our father can be very convincing." Avan Domitian remarked with a thin smile.

"I won't try to argue against that!"

"Which leaves me to repeat the question: is it going to be a problem for you to train five hundred Neophytes and five thousand Auxilia?"

"Provided the medical resources continue to arrive on schedule," Chiron answered as the calculation of logistics and complex training plans were pulled in motion inside his head, "it won't."

"Lord Helm'ayr won't cause any problem?"

The Daylight Wall-Captain snorted loudly.

"As long as I don't try to begin gene-testing his precious nobility for compatible recruits, Lord Helm'ayr doesn't really care. In fact, he was particularly appreciative of my efforts to smash some heads in the lower levels of the Hive and under it. For every worthy candidate I found, I eliminated a few large Gangs in the process. According to his court, the level of inter-gang warfare has reached its lowest point in a millennium."

The expression of Avan Domitian made it clear that the other Captain wasn't exactly a great fan of House Helm'ayr and how they ruled Necromunda.

Fair was fair, Chiron wasn't either; he had just acknowledged a couple of years ago that there was nothing he could do to change it. Lord Helm'ayr kept this world loyal to the Imperium, in that all the tithes, be they economic and military, were delivered on schedule.

"Practically," Chiron stated. "It is highly likely I will have to move my recruitment operations to another Hive. I focused exclusively on Hive Primus to find you all the Neophytes we may one day call brothers, but I think I have found all the best elements there. No matter how efficient it is to concentrate all the recruitment on Hive Primus, since we have all the critical infrastructure of the Chapter inside its Spire, I think it is time for a change of practise."

"Bring new blood, and adapt to new battlefield environments?"

"Yes." After all, there were many billions of humans living in Hive Primus, and it was for sure the most heavily populated Hive of Necromunda. That didn't mean there weren't other hundreds of billions in the other Hives that only awaited his 'recruiting inspections'.

"Hive Secundus?"

"For all the pretensions of the cadet lines of Helm'ayr that live there, they fancy themselves as patron of arts and entertainment." Chiron growled lowly. "And while I have the deepest respect for what Lady Weaver achieved in the Fifth Black Crusade, we are not the sons of Sanguinius. No, I am likely to begin with Hive Trazior. There's plenty of interesting tactics that can be trained by defending merchant convoys and other innovative missions there. And I heard they had some cunning youth causing trouble."

"Plus sometimes long and arduous fortification efforts in hostile conditions such as dust storms, brother?"

"You know, now that you mention it, I think that yes, I am going to do exactly that, brother."

This time it was the turn of Avan Domitian to snort.

"As long as you continue to provide excellent recruits we will be proud to call brothers one day, I don't see a problem. Now you were mentioning the need of certain medical supplies, I believe. You are in luck, the next Bacta convoy is on its way, and it is accompanied by quite a few Medicae and Mechanicus ships up to Inwit. I think a few can be here before the end of the year..."

The Dark Marches' Warp Storm

New Manticore Empire's Space

Shaa-Dom

The Infernal Soul-Forges

Data Estimation ERROR: 014014014014.314M35

Warsmith Manneus Drath

Manneus Drath had thought his death would be the end of him.

Brigannion Four had imploded; its core fracturing as the golden light of the Corpse-Emperor accomplished what a million missiles would have failed to do.

The continent-sized Forges which had belonged to him had been pulverised or thrown into high orbit where the Tzeentchian sorcery had twisted them into improbable monsters of flesh and metal before ultimately all exploding when the golden fires soared and engulfed them too.

The servants of the Dark Gods had fled before the cataclysm, and so had the fleets present. The Plague Fleet of Skurvithrax had jumped away, leaving only some fetid infections for a brief amount of time. Malicia was gone, though where her ultimate destination lay, Manneus Drath had absolutely no idea.

It had been almost peaceful, to witness the apocalyptic last moments of Brigannion Four.

The daemons had fled; his soul was not at risk of being devoured. And yes, all that remained of him was very much his soul: Manneus had powerlessly watched several rebellious slaves try to carve apart his lifeless body before more explosions sent them all into a canyon filled with burning promethium.

It had been the end.

And then the Firetide had truly turned its full power on the Brigannion System.

The angels had descended to wage war against the other planets that had fallen to the idiots who had fallen for Malicia's lies.

There had been a golden explosion akin to a supernova.

It had been pure.

It had almost been akin to salvation.

And the second after, a black and deformed giant hand had grabbed him, and incredible pain had become a constant companion.

It was agony.

It was more pain than any Space Marine was supposed to endure during his duties.

It was torment incarnate.

And there was no escaping from it.

It felt like millennia passed, or longer.

Manneus Drath, Warsmith of the Iron Warriors, wished he could say that spite and hatred kept him sane, but that would be lie.

All his efforts were focused purely on resisting the agonising torment, to not lose every part of himself to the inferno.

For yes, it was a giant pyre his soul had been plunged into.

It was a great pyre of orange flames.

They were everywhere, these long tongues of sorcerous fire. They danced cruelly, and behind it, Manneus Drath sensed implacable voracity.

He burned.

Everything burned.

The visions became clearer after plenty of agonies. There were xenos and humans that he had never seen before dragged in chains before Forges that were not of Iron Warriors or Mechanicum's conception.

They were long and vast workshops, where elegant and crude weapons were created, but it was obvious none of the Legion's directives were respected here. Instead, the familiar figures of Eldar slavers were striking their captives with barbed whips, urging them to work faster and better lest they risk their masters' wrath.

There was everything here to anger a son of Perturabo, and yet it was difficult to feel more than sparks of hatred and vengeance.

There was too much pain.

The orange flames were too hot, and inflicted too much torment to think about anything for more than a couple of seconds – assuming time had any importance in such a place.

Manneus didn't expect things to get any better.

He was unfortunately proven right.

Things became worse.

For all the indignities and torture visited upon his soul, the flames had merely burned him. Without warning, the 'visions' stopped and a body welcomed him again.

But it was not a body of transhuman flesh like his had been while he was ruler of Brigannion Four.

It was not really a 'body' at all, in fact.

It was a thing of cruel metal the colour of the skin of the slaves that toiled next to it: completely black with some orange trim, as the orange flames had left their mark upon the construct.

It was a quadrupedal thing which reminded him of certain herbivorous xenos that the Iron Warriors had exterminated during the Great Crusade. Above it towered something that could be mistaken for the torso, arms, and head of an Iron Warrior of the Unification Wars...if you were particularly blind.

It was his new prison, Manneus Drath realised with horror as his soul was soon absorbed by this abomination, and hateful orange runes that felt all too familiar shone in cruel lights.

Even if he had not frequented Warpsmiths, a Warlord of his power could add two and two and acknowledge these xenos bindings were very similar as to the subduing rituals used to control the Daemon Engines of the Brigannion Forges.

And now, it was to be his fate.

Manneus had been turned into a slave, and not even the lethal form of a Space Marine had been left standing; he was now a parody of the Centaur legends of Old Olympia; a thing of four hooves and black metal striped with orange.

Last and supreme indignity, the head which should have been a replica of some early Mark helmet had been modified to let grow immense bull-like horns, while the 'nose' was a disgusting snout from which flames erupted irregularly.

Yes, the bastards had placed an accursed mirror before him to ensure he realised the full magnitude of what they had done to him.

And for all his soul was out of the Warp, he continued to burn.

Manneus Drath screamed his pain and his hatred.

For the first time, to his surprise, the sounds were heard by the slaves working around him, who promptly took several steps back.

There was cruel laughter.

"This was the last one, my Lord Tyrant. It was...difficult to find a body which could handle its soul. All Mon-keigh are stubborn, but this one put the others to shame."

The tallest Eldar laughed.

No, not an Eldar.

Manneus Drath's vision often convulsed and disappeared into the pyres of orange flame, but he was sure of something: this being was no Eldar.

It was something far, far worse.

Beyond the black skin and the orange flames, there was a quadrupedal thing staring at him.

It had horrible weapons instead of arms, and its face was vaguely one of an armoured Eldar, but it was not a long-eared xenos.

"They will make excellent bodyguards, you have to admit."

"Yes, my Lord Tyrant."

Fourteen spikes of pain slammed into his skull, bringing more agony and torment.

"They will also bring me more Noctilith when we will unleash them on specific worlds of the Dark Marches. I already have a few planets in mind to test their skills on. Some have been prepared to track Noctilith using the new artifices we built into these crude soul-receptacles. Yes, this was an excellent bargaining piece that the Mon-keigh Warlord offered to our God."

"You..." Manneus gritted non-existent teeth and growled. "I will...kill you."

The abomination that tried to pretend it was an Eldar wearing outrageous jewellery and armour laughed.

"Your stubbornness is incredibly amusing. We will see how long it lasts. I wonder if I will be able to make you beg within fourteen hours."

"I am an Iron Warrior. I have crushed the skulls of thousands of your long-eared brethren, and I will kill thousands more!"

"Amusing," the orange eyes seemed to make the inferno come closer as the xenos stared at him. "I think we need to organise a little arena contest. Let our new stubborn slave smash his own 'brothers' in front of a crowd, then let him beg. Otherwise..."

"Otherwise?"

"Otherwise I will let you kill a few of your own brothers with your new metallic arms."

"You..." even by the standards of an Iron Warrior, the cruelty was on another level entirely. "You need us."

"Assuredly, but your souls belong to Addaioth. And I only need to order your bodies to be replaced before returning you to my service."

The orange flames drew closer, and the torment became even more unbearable.

"You...you fear us." Manneus Drath didn't know why he had uttered the words, or how he had arrived at that conclusion. It had escaped the vocal apparatus that was taking the role of mouth for this horned parody of a quadruped. "You did not use us just for mockery purposes. You are using us because you are afraid of the Corpse-Emperor and his slaves! YOU FEAR US!"

Fourteen explosions of pain rocked his body, and the Iron Warrior Warsmith found himself denied the ability to speak a single word after that.

"I am the Tyrant Kharsaq El'Uriaq, slave. I fear no one. I bow to no one but the Mighty Addaioth. I am the Emperor of the Manticore Empire, the Muse of Vainglory, and by the power of the Armada of Shaa-Dom, the Dark Marches are mine! Everyone who stands in the way will soon share the slavery that you are going to enjoy!"

Manneus Drath wished he could have spat in the abominable xenos' face.

But the inferno of orange flames engulfed him, and then pure torment, torture devices, and unimaginable pain swallowed him whole.

Nyx Sector

Atlas Sub-Sector

Atlas System

Atlas II

3.012.314M35

The Cyclades Hills

Basileia Taylor Hebert

If there was a book to be written about being an excellent Sector Lady, Taylor would certainly begin writing of the critical importance of having an excellent staff to handle the little problems before you even set a foot upon the planet where you had to conduct today's business on page one.

"Webmistress! I am pleased to report that two hundred and fifty-eight assassins are waiting in the jails of Atlas at your leisure!

"You worked very fast, Epona," the Lady of Nyx replied with amusement.

"I would rather say that compared to the average assassin of Nyx, these armed buffoons are complete amateurs, Webmistress!"

"Oh?" Then she was granted a vision of the aforementioned assassins meeting each other in a public 'Guild House'. What kind of respectable killer-for-hire did that, seriously?

"Maybe," Taylor mused thoughtfully, "the Atlasian nobles and everyone in the upper class of the society have grown so used to everything going their way that they don't really know how to deal with any problem that doesn't involve crushing starving farmers and the usual rebellion launched in despair."

"This is one of the possible scenarios my sister have found to explain their incompetence," Epona reported enthusiastically. "When it came down to it, Atlas Secundus had a rather big PDF, Webmistress. And with twenty percent of the order of battle being nobles, it isn't like they had much to fear. Furthermore, the regiments were never deployed in their home province, and they were regularly rotated."

"Twenty percent?" There may be more volunteers to serve in the Guard than she had imagined.

"Three-quarters of them are what would fall into the category of 'low-tier nobility' Webmistress. They are second sons of Counts, third and fourth sons of Dukes, first sons of wealthy Barons, and sometimes entire families of Knights who once had the name and the fortune, but now have only the name."

"Hmm..." yes, it explained quite a few things, all right. "I suppose, by simple deduction, that it meant that eighty percent of the PDF was non-noble."

"Yes," Epona was particularly joyful, and it wasn't hard to find out the reason. "Needless to say, Webmistress, the noble officers who were ruling as King Brutes over their men quickly understood the error of their ways! Many soldiers didn't like it at all when the corrupt imbeciles higher than them in the hierarchy tried to launch a coup or manifested treasonous ambitions."

That was obviously good news, in that there was a splendid powerbase of people wishing for the Old Order to stay dead and buried. On the other hand, it also meant that she was going to have to be careful in the future. These people had supported the removal of plenty of aristocrats; the worst thing she could do on Atlas was to prove their hopes had been nothing but a short-lived dream.

"If they are eager to serve, that is good enough for me."

"The glass ceiling for the great promotions being removed is extremely popular, Webmistress! The sky is now the limit! Although...err...it may cost a lot of money to repatriate Guard troops once they will have served their entire term of service."

"I know that, my faithful Adjutant." It would have been extraordinary if it was cheap, in fact, given how expensive Warp travel in general could prove. There were intra-system yachts and other ships available for wealthy individuals; it was far, far rarer for said individuals to own Warp-capable starships given the sum of resources required to build and maintain them. "I think we are going to promote a system of 'let's bring the veterans who want to return home' for the entire Sector, Epona."

What was overly ruinous for a single planet or a single system was in general far less costly if you spread the bill over one hundred or so Planetary Governors' treasuries. Plus some other rulers would jump at the occasion for the popularity of the move if nothing else.

"That might be for the best, Webmistress. But the influence is in general assigned to Lords and Ladies having the influence of Quadrant...ah. That's where the classified project enters the arena, doesn't it?"

"It does." Taylor smirked before returning to deadly seriousness as she felt something that was not of the Swarm approach. "Excellent job, Epona, and tell the cooks I formally gave you permission for your extra-large ration of hot chocolate. Dismissed."

"I serve the Swarm with pleasure, Webmistress!"

And the Adjutant-Spider rushed towards the city, countless beetles in tow, eager for hot chocolate...and almost certainly arresting the nobles who had hired the unfortunate assassins.

Taylor waited for ten seconds.

Then once it was clear there was no answer, she sighed theatrically.

"Are you going to come out, or must we play a game of hide-and-seek for the next hour?"

The shadows of the rocks grew larger, and for a few seconds, even the light around her seemed to recede, though it was an optical illusion.

A couple of heartbeats, and Elena Kerrigan sat upon one of the largest rocks like she'd been here for several hours.

"You've been getting more powerful." The Destroyer of Commorragh acknowledged.

"You're not the only one who has an insane training regimen." The red-haired Assassin smiled.

"My training is not insane-"

"You've been fighting Alpha-class monsters, be they xenos or something else." Elena told her bluntly. "I call it insane, the rest of the galaxy call it something even less polite behind closed doors."

Taylor grimaced internally. She didn't like it when the shadow-wielder made good points.

"I was told there would be critical information to be delivered."

"There is." Taylor drew out a data-slate from her pocket, and tossed it in Elena's direction.

The member of the Officio Assassinorum effortlessly caught it with one hand and immediately whistled.

Then she gasped.

And finally, she whistled again, a chuckle on her lips.

"And here I thought some of the bastards I was sent to murder were over-ambitious..." the Emperor-touched parahuman mused. "You really think something like that is possible?"

"It's more than possible; we've almost finished building it, after all."

"True, but...you realise it's going to paint one hell of a target on your back?"

"You mean after what I did to Commorragh and the Fifth Black Crusade?" the Angel of Sacrifice joked. "They want me dead yesterday, Elena. All that is going to change is the resources they'll divert from somewhere else trying to destroy me and everything I built these last years."

"I can't really argue against that," Elena snorted. "But please tell me I am not going to have to prepare something like that in the foreseeable future."

"I didn't hear of such a plan." Taylor replied honestly. "And of course, you are of Shadow. It's not exactly the same area of expertise."

"True."

"On the other hand," the Lady of Nyx didn't resist a bit of teasing of her own, "you know as well as I do that the Custodes keep the secrets of the Emperor very close to their hearts, and tell us the minimum we need to know in order to preserve maximal operational secrecy. So if there was something of this magnitude prepared for you, I'm afraid they wouldn't tell me."

It was nothing but the truth, but for a few seconds, Elena Kerrigan looked like a small animal surrounded by thousands of enemies in the middle of a well-lit courtyard.

"I hope your reasoning isn't going to give them horrible ideas."

"Will it be that bad, oh Angel of Justice?"

"Yes, it will, and you know it perfectly well, Angel of Sacrifice."

Taylor smiled.

For a few seconds, the two Living Saints let the Atlasian wind caress their skins.

This was a moment of calm and peace, and in many ways, they had not been forged for that.

"We will not see each other for the next decades, will we?"

"I presume not. And when we will work together again..."

"Yes, it is likely the Time of Troubles will have truly started. Farewell, Taylor."

"Farewell, Elena."

A storm of shadow came into existence for about five seconds, and when it faded away, the other parahuman was gone.

The Basileia exhaled, enjoying the fresh air. Maybe she was going to fly a bit before handling the Gubernatorial obligations that Epona couldn't-

Her personal communication device chose that second to remind her that life was very unfair.

"Yes?"

"Pierre reporting, my Lady. I have the news you requested. A massive heist has been detected in an antiquity museum."

"I'm on my way."

Atlasian City of Karpathos

Brabanto Flor, former Archduke and Governor Brabanto XV da Flor

Brabanto had only begun to contemplate what would wait for him at home once the ship carrying him left Nyxian orbit.

Before...before he had been way too busy dealing with his prosthetics' replacements – one could say the Mechanicus and medical specialists had not exactly been impressed about what the 'best' represented for Atlas – and other problems, like his children and grandchildren complaining everywhere it was humanly possible.

He had not truly imagined returning to Atlas.

And when his imagination ran wild, it had been conjuring nightmares of daemons decimating the population and armies led by his vassals rampaging across the countryside.

The reality, fortunately, was far less 'exciting'.

Life continued. The damage caused by the coup and the following attempted rebellions was being dealt with, with the red-scaly robes of the Nyxian Mechanicus making a timid presence. Most of the workers were still Atlasians, this wasn't in any doubt from what he could see through the windows of his brand-new hover-car.

"The people are happy."

"Yes, Sir," his valet – likely one of the few men who had waited for him at the Spaceport – answered neutrally. "A lot of reconstruction work is done, and many mines have been closed by order of the Basileia. Word is spreading the economy will have largely recovered by the end of the year."

Brabanto winced, but not because of the economy; because of the mines. He had been shown by several 'envoys' during his Nyxian journey what exactly the work in these locations looked like, and it had not been a pleasant sight. Sometimes he had wondered if it was not going to be his punishment, but no. Most of the documents shown had been more a lambasting about how inefficient and dangerous the Atlasian practises were.

In fact, the mining sector was perhaps the only sector of the Atlas economy that had been 'confiscated' by the Mechanicus.

"With the mines closed," he said slowly, "how will certain tithes be paid?"

"They are building some smelting and extraction mining industry in orbit, Sir. I presume they're going to mine the asteroids of the Titan Belt."

That was logical, though-

"My cousin is going to scream bloody murder," there was no use specifying which cousin; there was only one ruling a Mining World nearby.

"From what I heard, Sir, some people think that is half of the reason why it is done."

Of course it was.

In a way...no, that wasn't the problem of Brabanto anymore. His cousins had cheerfully watched as he was 'escorted' to Nyx. They had gleefully sacrificed him so that they could preserve their own personal domains. They could deal with the Basileia on their own – or, as was far more likely to happen, sink on their own.

Brabanto sighed...again.

"You know, Ernesto, I was almost expecting something like crowds baying for my blood after rumours of my incompetence spread. In my dreams, I wanted to see tens of thousands of people cheering for my return. Instead...instead, I am ignored. It is a very strange feeling."

There had been some fifty-plus people at the Spaceport, and most of them were his security detail, grim guardsmen who had such scars and glacial faces that you didn't ask any questions.

"Your former subjects have seen several Angels of Death walking in the streets lately, Sir. By comparison, you are not exactly impressive-looking."

The former Governor chuckled.

"True. And assuredly, regularly telling the peasants they had to be content with serving their noble masters was a bit of a mistake."

The great market of Karpathos had clearly reopened, and children were playing some sort of game that he didn't recognise. The city was very busy, bursting with agitation everywhere.

Obviously, not everything had changed. Hover-cars like his were incredibly rare, and even the lowest motorised vehicles were not legion. Karpathos was a regional city, and it showed: thousands of animals were brought here for market day.

"What kind of reconstruction work has been approved, just for curiosity's sake?"

"Replacement of the old sewers, the plumbing system and everything associated with water, Sir. I don't know the details, but there's rumours several STC-approved plants will be built near Karpathos; several Barons even wish for a Fusion Reactor to be built within a decade."

"That seems...awfully ambitious of them." Brabanto noted slowly. Atlas Secundus had four Fusion plants, but only one was truly active, the others had been closed for maintenance since his the days of his grandfather's rule, and they had never managed to restart them. Too ruinous, his nobility had said, and since they were the ones he wanted to tax for the project, nothing had ever come of it.

"You mentioned Astartes," he changed the topic. "Were they-"

The hover-car abruptly stopped.

Brabanto didn't ask why.

He had seen enough Inquisitors lately to recognise one, and besides, he had met this specific agent of the Holy Ordos before leaving Nyx the first time.

"Inquisitor Gabriel Mercoire," Brabanto saluted, happy that he was seated; therefore it was unlikely the shivering of his legs was noticed. "A surprise."

"Really?" One glance, and it was evident why you never wanted the Inquisition to think you were a threat. "Come on, Lord Brabanto. Surely you didn't think the Holy Ordos was going to wait for ten years before having a use for you?"

Brabanto had hoped, yes, but never believed it. There had been way too many witnesses for the real purpose of his 'liberation' to be confirmed.

"And what is the will of the Holy Ordos?"

"For now, your wounds forbid you from participating in any physical duties," the Inquisitor announced in a tone that could have been described in words like 'stern' and 'granite'. "Thus you are going to help my Acolytes clean up the mess. I received a transfer of a significant quantity of assassins into my custody this morning, and I want to know who exactly they are working for. At the same time, you will help deciphering the complicated family trees of your nobility. My Acolytes believe they have found all the cultists that were hiding in your domains, but we have yet to discover how exactly contact was made with hostile elements of outside the Nyx Sector."

"Yes, Inquisitor."

"And once the problems will be dealt with...you will likely be transferred to the Ordo Hereticus. So work hard, and do not give me a reason to think the second chance of Her Celestial Highness was wasted on you."

The Inquisitor left the car as swiftly as he had arrived, and the hover-car accelerated again.

Brabanto opened his mouth, realising he had stopped breathing for several seconds.

Well, he was alive.

Now his utmost, in every aspect, had to be done in order to make sure he stayed that way.

The Olympian Museum

Basileia Taylor Hebert

Taylor wasn't fond of many Imperial policies. Yes, the Custodes sometimes explained why the Emperor and the High Lords of Terra had done exactly what they did, and she understood the reasoning.

But the Emperor and the High Lords had often been more concerned with erasing the problems caused by the Traitor Primarchs, beginning with Nagash, than with pondering the precedents they were creating.

One of the big sources of trouble was the Damnatio Memoriae that had been ordered against the Astartes Legions and every oath-breaker who had hoisted the Eye of Horus' banners against Terra.

In many aspects, it was of an unimaginable ruthlessness: future rebels couldn't take inspiration from the Chaos Marines if they didn't know the Chaos Marines were real.

It also created a terrible weakness, because since most of the PDFs across the world weren't prepared for Chaos Marines, them holding against a host of the Lost and the Damned obeying the will of an ancient Traitor Legionnaire was very much not going to happen without a miracle or two.

Moreover, the Damnatio Memoriae often didn't work.

Correctly executed, it had destroyed all traces of Nagash's existence, but the King in Yellow had been only one Primarch, and a particularly reviled one at that. It had not been difficult to convince everyone to destroy all his works and purge the rising Imperium of everything that had been made in his honour or indicated he had been a son of the Emperor.

But what was true for one hated Primarch wasn't true for nine mustered together, and most of these Primarchs had been part of the Imperium for far longer than Nagash.

The Inquisition and other organisations had tried to bury the past, but for all their efforts in the 32nd millennium, they couldn't remove everything.

That was the reason the 'Antiquity Museum of the Great Crusade' Taylor walked in the halls of today had in reality once upon a time been named the 'Olympian Museum'. Yes, Olympia, as in 'the homeworld of Primarch Perturabo, Traitor and Lord of Iron'.

Apparently, Atlas had welcomed some refugees fleeing the Tyrant of Iron's ruinous taxes and general unpleasant regime over four millennia ago.

Ironically, upon the beginning of the Heresy, the name of the Museum had merely been changed, and the flags of loyal regiments being added everywhere in the halls had done the rest.

By the time the Scouring had reached the Nyx Sector, this had clearly been sufficient for the museum to pass under the auspexes and escape detection.

Well, that, and the ceramics and some artistic displays weren't too bad.

The museum could use some source of funding, though. The stasis-fields keeping the artefacts, heirlooms, and other objects still worked, but clearly maintenance hadn't been carried out in many decades. Someone had invested good technology into making sure the museum would last for a long time, but the Atlasian nobility clearly had other priorities. Maybe a gift to the Silver Skulls was in order?

Idly, the insect-mistress wondered how long it would have taken for certain empty slots to be noticed if she hadn't come.

Taylor found the thief in the 'Third Hall of Flags', at least that was what the dust-covered holo-board called the location.

"Trazyn," she cleared her throat, but not for any kind of special effect; the place was very much dusty and in need of a large spring cleaning. Perhaps she could hire a few ex-assassins to serve their punishments here before spots in the Penal Legions opened? "I see you helped yourself to some antiquities."

"My friend! I was just preserving these ancient treasures for posterity!"

"If you say so," since these Atlasian 'treasures' had been all but forgotten by everyone, she didn't think that three or four flags and two dozen ceramics going missing would cause big problems. Besides, she had requested Trazyn to contact her; the Angel of Sacrifice could hardly complain about the 'fee'. "It is your knowledge of ancient civilisations I wished to question you about. I recently met a formidable foe that may be called the 'Guardian of Catachan'. It is an Alpha-plus Psyker, and its wakening from a long sleep was enough to kill many Space Marines and bring an entire expedition to the brink of disaster. It looked like a giant Jellyfish, and was bred by the 'Old Ones' before being abandoned on the Jungle World. Does any of that sound familiar?"

The equivalent of a shiver from the Chief Archaeovist of Solemnace was a clear hint that yes, it did.

"There are some of those nuisances left alive? That is not good news, my friend. You should have killed it."

"It's too close to the World Spirit of a very valuable planet." Taylor replied patiently. "And judging from your reaction, I take it you have met one or several Guardians."

"Of course I met them! The Old Ones created them explicitly to defend some of the places containing their greatest treasures!"

Taylor thought that it said something bad about Trazyn's kleptomania that the meeting of several Alpha-plus Guardians hadn't been enough to convince him to find a less dangerous profession.

"But they were believed to have faded away." The veteran of the War in Heaven grumbled. "Most of them were unique reptiles which couldn't reproduce in any form, and with the Old Ones gone, they all died of natural causes...that is if the C'Tan or the Warp anomalies hadn't killed them first. I'm really surprised one of them survived to this day, my friend. They aren't immortal."

"The Guardian Jellyfish entered long periods of hibernation in the hope it would last long enough to see the Old Ones return."

"Only reawakening when it felt danger too close to the World Spirit?" She nodded. "It makes sense, I suppose. I advise you to let nature run its course. Phaerakh Neferten would approve, I think."

"The Guardian has knowledge I require. And Phaerakh-Cryptek Neferten agreed that this knowledge could make all the difference for the future of the Human and Necron species."

Trazyn turned around in a flamboyant move, and the Lady of Nyx acknowledged the cloak had been slightly changed: now the 'inside' was green and gold, while the 'outside' retained the original purple shade.

"I shouldn't be surprised; she has always wanted to...how does your favourite red-robed 'Cawl' phrase it? To reverse-engineer the toys of the Old Ones?"

That Trazyn had been close enough to listen to several of Archmagos Belisarius Cawl's, Radical Leader of all Radical Tech-Priests, speeches was something Future Taylor would have to contemplate. Present Taylor was not ready to be burdened with that kind of problem right now.

"Something like that," Taylor coughed. "In this particular case, we are in complete agreement: the prize justifies the Quest. And the Quest is to find a world where these Alpha-plus Psykers still exist."

Trazyn grumbled something incomprehensible in the Necron tongue before addressing her again.

"There was a preserve of creatures that were modified by the Old Ones to serve as Guardians, but its location is within the region that has now become the Eye of Terror. And I think that having a Muse's memories, you already knew of that one."

"I did," though the memories had been dreadfully incomplete; for a Priestess of Isha, Ynesth had been extremely uninterested in the Legacy of the Old Ones. "And I am willing to bet that if the Old Ones created that one in the region of the 'Eldar Core Worlds', there are other 'Guardian Menageries' elsewhere."

"There were other Menageries elsewhere," Trazyn corrected her. "Many of these planets, my friend, did not just create Guardians, they also were places where the Old Ones bred their foot soldiers before sending them against our phalanxes. You won't be surprised to hear the Void Dragon and the Nightbringer made them priority targets when the war began to decisively turn into our favour."

"Does this mean there is no hope left?"

"No, of course not! Clearly one Guardian escaped the purge, no? It's just that if one of these 'Menageries' does still exist, it must be extremely well-hidden. The region that is the Eye of Terror was the last great obstacle to our victory in the War in Heaven. And Mephet'ran delighted in sending fleet after fleet into every system so that the remnants of the Old Ones' fortresses couldn't be used later to mount counterattacks."

And Trazyn had certainly been part of them to speak like that.

"In the name of the friendship I owe for you, I will look for it, but I urge you to not place too much hope in my...investigation and acquisition efforts. The War in Heaven was a long, long time ago."

"And in many ways, it never ended."

Trazyn snickered.

"Yes. It never ended, and only the fools were left to continue the dance." The Chief Archaeovist slammed his staff against the floor, creating a significant dust cloud with it. "I will search. But you better ask the Queen of Blades first. I remember that in the Battle of the Million Bloodstains, she made her grand entrance upon the back of one."

Alpha Military Base – under construction

First Captain Suetonius Garda

There was a lot of distance, but not enough to silence the cheers of the crowd from afar.

"I suggest you make a public appearance or two before them before sunset, otherwise you will have tens of thousands more in front of your gates tomorrow."

"This is against regulations," Suetonius noted.

"I think their happiness and eagerness to see legendary members of the Adeptus Astartes in the flesh is going to beat your regulations. Hard to blame them; away from the capital, they only saw regular Guard units and military detachments of the Inquisition. They brought good news, but they don't exactly pour awe into the hearts."

"It's a good start." The First Captain of the Angels Revenant conceded. "But it is still going to be a hard task."

There were always inequalities between the rulers of a world and the lower classes of an Imperial world, but Suetonius had rarely seen it to such a degree outside of a War Zone. Atlas hadn't suffered an invasion; it had no problem with refugees, pandemic quarantines, or other massive issues.

Yet the province that was to host the most important military base and the new Spaceport was experiencing a shocking level of poverty.

"I know." The Living Saint admitted. "I took the liberty of removing the thirty senior members of the Ecclesiarchy in the region, with the Cardinal's approval. And some imbecilic decrees have been removed too. The land here isn't going to feed billions, but with some irrigation work and a generous donation of tractors and agricultural machinery, I believe we will be able to raise the standards of living considerably."

As a son of Guilliman, Suetonius was always a bit wary about giving the Mechanicus more power over a non-Forge World. Right now, he admitted there wasn't much of a choice.

Yes, Atlas Secundus was a 'Civilised World', by virtue of not being specialised in anything. But the average 'Civilised World' that was ruled by the Successor Chapters of Guilliman's line was on average twenty times wealthier, and it wasn't exactly because of miraculous talents of governance. It was just that they didn't confiscate the resources and the planetary wealth to such an insane degree.

"I heard several children of the Governor are already trying to pledge their allegiances to the Chapter," Suetonius declared.

"It's up to you to decide, First Captain."

"Because of your respect for our independence?"

"Because I have way too much on my desk of Basileia, which happens to be light-years away, to deal with all the problems of Atlas Secundus. I care sufficiently about the lives of the Atlasians to make sure the power transition is as comfortable as possible, but I can't rule here."

There was a couple of seconds where no one spoke.

"Of course, I can loan you a few Sergeants of my Dawnbreaker Guard. I'm sure they wouldn't be really sorry if they have to roar like lions to motivate your new 'ex-aristocratic Auxilia'."

"For some reason, I don't find that hard to believe." Suetonius drily replied. "But while I thank you for the offer, I have already a few battle-brothers who share these qualities. And they won't exactly be hesitant to volunteer for this 'duty'."

In fact, they may even fight a duel or two to have the privilege of making the nobles sweat a bit.

"The military logistics?" it was best to return to the subject, as the crowd cheered once more, and the presence of a literal Angel in the middle of the base was not doing anything to diminish the enthusiasm of the spectators.

"The Mechanicus has agreed to give you the parts so that you will be able to build a Predator production line on Atlas, and the same will be true for the Bolters. If you want more, you will have to go through the usual negotiations and bargains."

It was pretty much as the Chapter Master had expected, yes.

"I heard there was a long waiting queue for the Strike Cruisers."

"There is. I admit most of my advisors and I had underestimated how scarce the infrastructure to build said hulls is in the southern Quadrants of Ultima Segmentum. Of course Lord Guilliman is very busy increasing the production for Ultramar. And naturally, while a Predator production line can be completed in two years, or so my Mechanicus Council assured me, the Strike Cruisers are a bit bigger."

There was a trill, and it would have taken a very blind Astartes to not see the Adjutant-Spider rushing towards her mistress in order to receive some unheard order.

It didn't seem to be good news, at least, if the way the star-filled eyes flashed.

"I am going to have to return to Nyx faster than expected, it seems. First Captain, what were the points we missed?"

"I believe the main subject we left out were the modern construction machinery," the Angel Revenant Space Marine replied, ignoring the curiosity he felt. "I know the sons of Dorn have some they used to build their own Fortress-Monastery, but for now, they politely declined our first request to borrow it for the next year..."

Nyx System

The Arena of Blades

2.033.314M35

Regina Wei Cao

When the Eldar had pushed to turn a part of the Arena of Blades into a massive gymnastic complex last year, Wei had not been sure if it was an excellent idea, or just them organisation a torture session to prevent them being bored ever again.

Now the Regina knew.

It was definitely torture.

Unlike the long-gone Olympic Games of Old Earth, where humans had competed on uneven bars, the horizontal bar, rings, the pommel horse, a balance beam, and other 'artistic events', the Eldar had their own idea of what 'gymnastics' meant.

These long-dead event organisers would never have been so insane as to believe an event like the 'six uneven bars and four rings' were possible in the first place.

Except some transhumans specially genetically modified to have beyond-human flexibility, the physical abilities to make twenty metre jumps onto a different 'spot' and then linking it up with more acrobatics was simply not possible, not even for an experienced human athlete.

But the Eldar could do it.

The Eldar could do it, and their idea of a 'jump competition' had no less than three consecutive jumps, all getting progressively higher on different supports, until all that was left was a ridiculously insane series of twists.

How insane?

Well, there was a reason why Wei had ended in the security trampolines of the Arena once again.

"I was right, this is torture."

Crystalline laughter reached her new ears.

"You're doing better."

The thin and gracious arm of her 'teacher' helped her get out of the trampoline zone.

The Wuhanese Lady admitted that without the green-skinned Eldar, things would be progressing much, much slower.

It didn't mean she loved falling over and over again.

"It felt a bit different during the first two jumps." She conceded, stretching and enjoying the way her muscles answered to her mental impulse.

"It's like being born again, you first have to learn to walk," her 'teacher' chipped.

"I think these exercises go a bit beyond than 'walking'." Wei grumbled, but still trying her best not to massacre the Eldaneshi dialect. Last time she had done so, many beings around had died with laughter, as she had mispronounced a few words, and asked the equivalent of 'where is my salad?'

"They are, but if you want to have complete control of your body..."

A young red-skinned Eldar ran in front of them, and began to jump, twist, and dance, seemingly gliding around the gymnastic apparatuses and not needing more than caresses to get more impulsion power.

"Now I'm jealous."

"It is going to get better. At the moment, your body insists you are ready, but your mind knows it isn't."

"My wife hasn't had that problem." Though now that she thought about it, Taylor had not frequently visited the Arena in the last year before departing for her little 'Atlas excursion'. And no, doing the 'sparring matches' with Liandra and beating each other blue didn't count.

"The Empress..." it was fascinating how her teacher could instantly shift into a very respectful mode. "The Empress has the same problem, in fact. Lady Malys urged me to give her the same lessons, for while memories of a Muse provide some shortcuts, they do not allow the full synchronisation of the soul, body, and the mind."

"And you're going to use me as intermediary to convince her."

When they wanted to use all the brainpower they had, let it not be said the Eldar 'teachers' were stupid.

"Atharti's breath, we know she is going to listen to you."

"Oh, she will listen to me." Wei said drily. "Convincing her to do something that she has probably done her best to avoid? That's an entire different story."

Both Aurelia Malys and other 'envoys' must have given hints or dropped some elegant turns of phrase when Taylor was within range.

Wei had not been there, because she had been busy recovering from the 'soul-metamorphosis' – that felt like you were carved open without any anaesthetics – but it must have happened.

"The Empress has some considerable strength of will."

Wei laughed.

"My wife can be the most stubborn being in the galaxy when she is focusing all her determination on a single subject."

The Regina of Wuhan passed a hand through her long black hair, enjoying the way the sense of touch and all other sensations were magnified.

There were some drawbacks, and the 'soul-metamorphosis' was atrociously painful, but honestly, once you were into this new body, this was intense.

It was to the point she had needed two full weeks before shifting back to her 'human form'. The gift of an Eldar body along with the transformation of her soul had had some drawbacks, but the perks massively outweighed the problems.

"Still," Wei shook her head and let her long ears show her amusement, "as long as you don't try to push for an Eldar-Human Gymnastics Competition, I think there won't be any loud reaction."

"That is good to hear, praise Atharti." There were a few purple sparks dancing at the edge of her eye. "Many of us wanted to request a new modular addition to the stations around the Arena."

Wei raised one of her delicate eyebrows.

"I thought a clear line of communication has been established for those...and that we call it the Adjutant-Spiders."

Adjutant-Colonel Bellona was no longer in charge of the Arena of Blades' security and day-to-day operations, but one of her younger 'sisters' had decided to fill her shoes.

"It has." The Symbiosis-touched Eldar sighed. "She declared that our humble request was outrageous."

Wei laughed. It wasn't the first time that it had happened, and it wouldn't be the last.

"The good Adjutant has firm guidelines, and she is young. But I'm sure that the moment-"

Suddenly, all her senses began to scream 'DANGER!'

Wei had never felt something like this since her 'soul-metamorphosis'.

It was like you were in the shadow of Death.

It was like a tiny, insignificant insect in front of a Titan of War.

It was-

A mere glance, and yes, her eyes could confirm that all the being in the gymnastic complex had the same expression as she.

"Now, now," a red-haired projectile flew through the air, and Wei needed two good seconds to acknowledge that yes, it was Liandra of Caledor.

There was a silver flash, and then in front of them appeared the very being that was causing the terror in the first place.

"The performances of the last exercises were rather...floppy." Death purred in the form of a crimson-haired monster. "Let's see if you can improve."

Wei prayed that wherever Taylor was, she dropped everything she was doing and rushed here. HELP!

The Queen's Quarters

Basileia Taylor Hebert

Good news: nobody was dead.

Bad news: Wei was going to have nightmares about this for years.

"I would ask what you were thinking," the Basileia sighed, "except I already knows the answer. You were getting bored, and you wanted to have fun."

"Good, you're learning, my Empress."

Taylor fought against the urge to smash her head against the walls. It would likely solve nothing, save giving her more headaches.

"I suppose it's a good thing I went ahead and increased the budget for the Arena a few days ago. The Gymnastic Complex will need to be entirely renovated. May I ask if it was exactly necessary to light fires under the apparatuses?"

"They were really motivated to succeed?"

That raised so many disturbing questions at once that even with the Power of Administration, she didn't even know where to begin.

"You are hereby utterly forbidden from organising any kind of sport event."

And the next time there was a warning that Aenaria Eldanesh was on her way, Taylor would not wait for an hour and finish other business, as important as it may be. She would rush back to Nyx; some affairs could wait for a few days. Making sure the Queen of Blades didn't traumatise her wife and the followers of Atharti present couldn't.

"You should work on your sense of humour, my Empress."

Taylor snorted.

"I refuse to take this as sound advice when it comes from the swordswoman who believed riding a Hive-sized Tortoise for her grand entrance upon a battlefield was a good idea."

Yes, it was during the War in Heaven. And yes, the Tortoise in question was a Guardian created by the Old Ones.

But there had to be limits to the craziness and the adrenaline junkies of every species, Orks excepted.

The Queen of Blades groaned.

"Trazyn couldn't keep his mouth shut, I see."

"I was asking him about Guardians. Did you think the matter was never going to come up?"

"I was young."

Her expression must have betrayed her, because the Queen of the Arenas glared murderously at her.

"I was young," the Ancient Aeldari repeated before purring. "And in my defence, it worked! The C'Tan who was leading the Nihilakh Dynasty hadn't foreseen my majestic reinforcement-partner. The Star Devourer had to withdraw, and we won the battle, permanently killing more than a third of the Phaeron's court. It took them thousands of cycles to crown a new Phaeron, and by the time the War ended, their doctrine was far, far more defensive than it used to be."

Her disbelief must have been obvious, because Aenaria bared her perfect teeth.

"Or did the thief not mention that my 'ride' could create psychic explosions capable of shattering Necrodermis like it was glass?"

"Err...now that you mention it," Taylor cleared her throat uneasily. "Trazyn may have skipped a few details."

"I am unsurprised by this. No one likes to be reminded of one of his worst defeats, after all." The piercing eyes stared straight at her soul. "And no, that Guardian isn't around anymore. The Old Ones thought this success could be the first of many, and they deployed it to a far more dangerous battlefield, under the command of someone else. They didn't acknowledge that my victory was won because we had only a lesser C'Tan against us. It was no Nightbringer or Void Dragon."

"Too bad," obviously it was like comparing a dinosaur and a spider, but Taylor had for a moment entertained the idea the Tortoise Kaiju could still be alive. Gargantuan or not, if the appearance hinted something about the life-expectancy...but it wasn't to be. "The Guardian of Catachan, however, is alive. Could you order him around?"

"I could defeat him," Aenaria replied bluntly. "Order him around? No. No one can really 'order around' a Guardian except the Old Ones, and they are gone. The only reason I could ride 'my' Guardian is that his Creator requested that he heed my 'suggestions'. They were bred to be more powerful than us psychically, but to preserve them from many perils, they were soul-forged to be extraordinarily single-minded. They will destroy all trespassers on sight, and ask questions later. The one you met must have been really desperate to even consider the sort of bargain you were offered."

"He was, yes." Taylor answered as a telekinetic pull from the Aeldari Queen manipulated a bottle and glasses, which filled promptly without butler or insect around. "I suppose we need to find the 'Menageries', then."

"The Old Ones called them their 'Special Nests', or something like that." The crimson-haired diva went on to drink and stroll in the middle of the luxurious lodge that she had a divine right to own it. Which was, admittedly, not far from the truth. "But you understand the goals behind it correctly. And they were hidden well. The three I knew of, I was directly invited to them by the Old Ones working there. The last one they built not far from Loren was not exactly a secret, but it was because the evacuation from a previous base had gone disastrously wrong, and plenty of forces were mustered on short notice to cover the fighting retreat."

"And the birth of Slaanesh destroyed it."

"Oh the cronies of Malekith had already butchered most of it during their purges. Apparently, they took offense about some species being more gifted than we were in certain aspects. Of course, they had to destroy the world from orbit after several cycles, because the conventional invasion went disastrously wrong, and they suffered massive fatalities, plenty of which were prevented from reincarnating ever again."

Yes, the old Empire of a Billion Moons had really deserved to be annihilated when the Aeldari began to embrace Excess.

"There had to be a few others."

"There were." Aenaria Eldanesh admitted. "But I don't know where they are. To be fair, I never really bothered to search for them."

"Why not?" Taylor asked, honestly curious. "I would have thought you would try to spar with them."

"You don't spar with a Guardian, my Empress. When it senses defeat is inevitable, and that its purpose in the 'Great Plan' is going to be impossible to accomplish, a Guardian executes a psychic attack that has a good chance of exterminating all life in a radius of several light-years. That's why certain systems which were battlefields are unable to bear life ever again to this very day."

Suddenly, the idea of fighting the Giant Jellyfish appeared to be incredibly awful.

"Fine, but I am going to need-"

Taylor paused, because under her disbelieving eyes, the Queen of Blades had clicked her fingers, and her body-espousing black armour fell to her feet, leaving her absolutely naked.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look that I'm doing, my Empress?" the crimson-haired Queen purred. "I'm going to take a long, long bath. You and your wife can join me, if you really want to mix duty and pleasure..."

Taylor groaned.

These Eldar were going to be the death of her...

Nyx

Hive Athena

2.053.314M35

Chancellor Friar Achelieux

Friar Achelieux had not expected to be summoned so soon. Obviously, he answered the invitation readily, for refusing it would not only be rude, but also ignoring every shred of political sense he ever possessed. House Achelieux owed Lady Taylor Hebert a great deal long before she was ever acknowledged as a Living Saint by the Imperium as a whole, and if anything, the honour debt had become even greater in the last decades.

Nonetheless, it raised a few questions, and alas, the Templar Sororitas who had played messengers and bodyguards had not been willing to answer them. There were some mysteries afoot, and why the Enterprise had stayed close to the 'Arena of Blades' for so many days when there was no planned event of significance he was aware of certainly seemed to qualify as one.

Bah, what was life without some mystery?

And whatever news had led to this meeting, it was clear it wasn't going to be a public audience.

The Sisters of Battle – one of the many nicknames for the re-armoured women sworn to Her Celestial Highness – led him through various streets and palaces that were not open to the public until they entered a grand hall, one where each door was guarded by a Catachan Ant of significant size.

The Templar Sororitas leading their procession went directly for the third door on the right, and the Ant in front of it made several steps to move out of the way.

Inside, waited for them a salon, and the Angel was here, guarded by over a score of guardsmen and three Space Marines of the Dawnbreaker Guard. As a result, the salon, which would have been usually noted for its larger-than-average dimensions, was looking rather tiny with all these elite bodyguards.

"Your Celestial Highness," he bowed.

"Chancellor Achelieux," Friar didn't remember having seen the Basileia wearing a Wuhanese dress so conservative in quite a while...especially as the temperature was quite warm in the corridors, the hall, and now this salon. But the golden fabric didn't reveal any flesh, with long sleeves, a high collar, and many other accessories like long opera-styled gloves hiding her body. "Please rise, and take a seat."

"Thank you, your Celestial Highness."

To be the Chancellor of a Navigator House, you had to be able to understand if the atmosphere of a room was tense or not. To his relief, it wasn't. It wasn't bad news or some Navigator-created disaster that had prompted the summons.

"I'm sure you are wondering why I summoned you without warning when the official meeting was scheduled to happen in thirty-two days."

"I am at your service, but I admit the thought has crossed my mind."

"Good." There was a curt nod, and it wasn't his imagination that the Basileia looked in the direction of one of the mirrors that happened to be part of the wall decorations. "In this case, I will be blunt. I am going to enforce a Themistocles Edict at the end of the year."

Friar Achelieux blinked, suddenly wondering if his hearing had suddenly decided to abandon him after long decades of assiduous duty.

But no. The stars-filled eyes of the Angel were sufficiently intense and serious to know the words which had come out of her mouth were the ones he had listened to.

"Your Celestial Highness...leaving aside the logistical complexity of a Themistocles Edict, and the reality the Inquisition only generally orders one when they feel all hells are going to break loose," also known as 'a Warp Storm is going to strike soon, flee you fools!', "I will humbly argue that you don't have the authority to decree a Themistocles Edict."

Two servo-owls flapped their white wings and descended upon the nearby table, where their claws removed a book. Shortly after, a flight of beetles grabbed an extremely long roll of vellum, and by the will of their mistress, placed it before his eyes.

In the name of the Emperor of Mankind, vigilant and protective, who watches over the Estate of Humanity, One Majesty Everlasting, let the Following Be Ordained:

There was a lot of text below it, detailing the enforcement of the Themistocles Edict. It had been signed last year, and the rights were given 'until the Austerlitz Event' or the end of the coming three years, whichever came first.

Friar swallowed. Navigators had the habit of reading and receiving important documents, but this one largely made the usual vellum rolls insignificant by comparison.

Because there was the last part.

Marked upon with Our Seals at this hour.

And under it, there indeed was a significant amount of golden wax.

These were Seals that even among the Imperial Palace, plenty of Adepts dreamed of seeing once in their years of service.

The Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes. The Mistress of the Astronomican. The Inquisitor Representative. The Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum.

This wasn't a Crusade Charter, which required the Seals of the High Twelve, but in many ways, it was more difficult to have the Adeptus Custodes grant their support than the other High Lords.

And of course, it led to interesting questions about who exactly was waiting on the other side of the mirror.

"You have the authority, your Celestial Highness," saying otherwise, after all, was literally treason. And Friar was not going to shame his House answering what was a call-to-arms of the Emperor himself! "What do you need?"

"Only the impossible, naturally," the smile of Lady Weaver grew apologetic. "I need to enforce a Themistocles Edict for the Sanguinala of this year, and I need the preparations to be done as discreetly as possible, informing as few people as logistics and the Quadrant trade demands."

The veteran Navigator grimaced. This was 'the impossible', indeed.

He looked at the vellum roll again.

Fortunately, it was a 'classic' Themistocles Edict: every Warp-capable ship in a specific region of space – in this case, the Samarkand Quadrant – was to translate out of the Warp before a certain deadline.

And there was an assurance that the 'perturbation' wouldn't last longer than a standard week.

"I am afraid that House Achelieux alone does not have the influence to do something like this in secret," he admitted out loud. "It is only a guess as I've not exactly considered the matter recently, but you will need House Scheherazade and at least half a dozen of the major powerhouses of Samarkand on your side."

The alternative, obviously, was to do it at the very last hour, doing the equivalent of bombarding Navigators with hundreds of Astropathic alerts. It was what the Inquisition did in Segmentum Obscurus when the damned hordes of the Black Crusade emerged from the Eye of Terror.

Needless to say, both Navigator Houses and Chartist Fleets really, really didn't like it at all. It resulted in many ships being lost, for the Navigators may have a third eye, but they too could feel panic and extreme emotions like the rest of the Imperium.

"I presume you have good reasons to...feel the recourse to a Themistocles Edict is necessary, your Celestial Highness." For the political and economic consequences were really, really going to be huge. It wasn't an Exterminatus. But in plenty of aspects, it could unleash disasters that made the destruction of a world by Cyclonic Torpedoes seem positively gentle.

"Oh, I do. Personally, I believed at first it wouldn't be necessary, but my Adjutants went overboard with the simulations, and the Logis of the Mechanicus agreed with them. Ultimately, it was decided to take no chance. It's better for some ships to be delayed by a couple of days, in the end, than risk the Navigators of the Imperium to be distracted by the screams."

Nyx System

Macro-Forge Terra Cimmeria

2.410.314M35

Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl

He wasn't going to admit it, but Belisarius would miss Nyx by the end of the year.

The possibility of having a scientific conversation without your interlocutor beginning to recite some religious sermon at one point or another was extremely enjoyable. And the political quarrels were far more courteous than he was used to.

The average Tech-Priest held far more reverence to the STC templates than he did, but that was likely unavoidable.

More problematic was the profusion of complicated names. Belisarius Cawl knew he was a genius, but alas, he was bad when it came to remembering names. Many of his Archmagi 'peers' and past associates could definitely vouch for that.

Fortunately, there were still the ranks and titles. This member of the Nyxian Council appeared to be called 'Master of Destruction'...though as always, it was awfully reductive, for he was in charge of far more than the conduct of war operations.

Their conversation in fact emphasized that much.

"And thus we have arrived logically at two very different conclusions, although using the same data. My youngest Magi feel that we have to embrace the new templates, and develop a Railgun which we will be able to use both for long-range strikes and to intercept enemy ballistic missiles in addition to Bombers and Strike Fighters."

"With different types of warheads being chosen depending on the signature of the threat?" Belisarius asked for confirmation, receiving a nod in answer. "The logic is sound. But you will need a detection system alongside it. Last time I checked, the electromagnetic coils' template came alone, and I don't think Ryza will sell you that specific piece of tech."

"My students thought about it too," the pride in the other Tech-Priest's voice was not hidden this time. "And they thought we could take a page from the doctrinal book of the Tau: drones."

This...this was a far more radical position than he had expected to hear this morning.

"I presume you are speaking of far bigger classes than the ones that have been tested by the Imperial Guard lately." He replied. These 'tactical drones' could largely be carried by a single guardsman before deployment, but their autonomy and monitoring capabilities were nothing to be very impressed about. That was his opinion, of course. On the other hand, the doctrinal change was far more impressive. Most of his 'colleagues' on Mars would have had a lot of problems placing a lot of machines in non-Tech-Priest's hands, not to mention the very real possibility of losing a lot of them to preserve flesh.

"Yes. Obviously, we're speaking about machines far smaller than a typical Marauder Bomber, but these will be big drones. The alternative given was to convince Lady Dragon to develop a new Dragon Armour that would effectively be a 'Mother Armour' launching and acting as a 'Monitoring Hub' for all the drones."

Translation: said Dragon Armour would do all the job of finding the enemies or warning about lethal ordnance coming in a certain direction, and would transmit the data to the Railgun crews so that they did something about it.

"The other logical conclusion was far more conservative." And thus Cawl guessed, had the favour of certain factions. "We would devote both offensive and defensive roles to missile-launchers. There are many Forge Worlds who have studied the concept before."

"A command vehicle, two or three specialised trucks, each with their specialised auspexes and augurs for the hunting-warning role, and then a lot of launchers and dedicated-ammunition trucks."

"Indeed. You've seen some before."

"The idea was very popular among the Mechanicus when we had to deal with lot of greenskins." During that time, heavy fortifications had been a death sentence; no wall had been able to resist the sheer firepower the Orks could bring to bear. You had to stay on the move, and that required mobile ground-to-ground offense and mobile air defence. A lot of times, it required both. "But it has always been subject to budget cuts once the threat is over. It isn't easy to keep them properly maintained away from a Forge World, and of course the Munitorum never liked the fact all the crews were entirely recruited from the Mechanicus. In addition to this, very often there were Fabricator-Generals advising that 'bigger was better'."

That was the reason, by the way, why there were over three thousand silos around Mount Olympus that had the firepower to shoot down warships from a distance that many Admirals would have found downright terrifying if they were aware of it.

"You are building a lot of Knights these days too, Archmagos Cawl."

"Ah, but the Knights I build are mobile," Belisarius rebutted proudly. "And I build them on a higher level of quality than my 'peers'."

"On that point, I agree your pride is not misplaced. But will you be able to meet the production demand the Fabricator-General expects of you? I know these are 'only' Questoris-Patterns, and the new STC Questoris library will help a lot, but it is still a heavy commitment. There are Forge Worlds which don't produce that many Knights in a century."

Ah, the scepticism of youth. To be honest, it wasn't surprising. Belisarius didn't exactly reveal the extent of his Forges' production capabilities to the first Magos he met. In fact, there were only two people who had a clear idea of how much industrial power he commanded: Lord Roboute Guilliman...and the Emperor-Omnissiah. No one else came close.

"Your concern is admirable, Master of Destruction, but I assure you, I will manage. Now-"

"MASTER! Master! The Logis have successfully unlocked the STC Template of the Beverage called 'Coffee'! They have found the Holy Grail, the very Ancestor of Blessed Recaff!"

"Recaff does not have an ancestor!" The Nyxian Tech-Priest barked angrily, and just like that sanity died. "Recaff IS the beverage given to us by the Omnissiah! Recaff is sacred! Recaff is recaff!"

"What an abominable speech," a Magos stormed into the room to vigorously disagree. "Have you seen how many oils the recruits pour into my drinks when they think I am not looking? The Recaff distributed is no better than low-tier promethium!"

"You will take back this insult!"

"I will not!"

It took mere seconds for the situation to get out of control.

In hindsight, maybe Nyx still had a lot to learn from the scientific method.

"Begun, the Recaff War has," Cawl spoke philosophically as the Magi and Archmagi around them rallied hundreds of Tech-Priests to defend their 'cause'.

Nyx

The Triangle Citadel

2.845.314M35

General Werner Groener

Werner didn't think he would ever get fully used to peace.

He was a Cadian, after all.

And while Cadia was not at war one hundred percent of the time, battling the Traitor Legions and the hordes of the Lost and the Damned, the Cadian Shock Troopers were fighting all over the galaxy in the name of the Imperium and the God-Emperor.

As a consequence, it was kind of strange for him and several of the Cadian instructors that were living on Nyx to enjoy the fruits of peace. And it was peace, there was no way to pretend otherwise. The cultist insurgency on Atlas Secundus had been crushed with disturbing ease, and the only other serious affair which could have resulted in violence, the death of the Governor of New Chelsea from natural causes, had merely required a single Space Marine of the Fists of Roma to show up as a 'sign of respect' to strangle potential problems in the crib.

It was peace for the Nyx Sector, and in many ways, it was good. There were so many logistical headaches preparing the theoretical Crusades of the next decades that Werner Groener didn't really know how they would have managed if they had wars to distract them on top of that.

The arrival of two Space Marines and no less than five Adjutant-Spiders in the Strategium of the Triangle Citadel put all these thoughts to a halt.

Several officers who had been delivering tea, recaff, and other beverages returned to their stations in a hurry.

The drums rolled once; one Adjutant-Spider was responsible for this musical interlude, by the way. And then half of the Dawnbreaker Guard entered, followed by the Basileia in parade uniform. Today, the Lady General Militant had chosen to don an immaculate Guard dress-uniform that was nearly entirely black, with only a hat of grey and the military medals provided some colouration.

Werner tried not to laugh when several of the Whiteshields assigned to him gaped at the sight of the two Stars of Terra and the Holy Order of Ollanius Pius. It wasn't every day you saw them next to each other on someone's uniform. Scratch that, it wasn't every millennium you saw them. And plenty of times, the guardsmen who were rewarded with the Star Terra only wore it during a single event: their funeral.

"I heard the siege of the Fortress World of Skagerrak is finally over."

"Yes, Lady General," by common accord, for this meeting the 'Celestial Highness' could be forgotten. "It took longer than I thought for the reinforcements of Megaera to make a difference, but General Los finally smashed the last redoubts. The price was...higher than what was predicted, but it was done."

And with it, a war of about twenty-two years had ended.

"The Sector Lord of Phi-Copenhagen will really owe me one for this," the Basileia mused before shaking her head. "I trust the drones and the Percival Siege-Walkers we sent them proved their usefulness?"

"Yes, and so did the Archer self-propelled guns," the Cadian Quartermaster-General assured her. "Obviously, as long as the men didn't break through the fortified trenches, they couldn't exactly exploit their mobility, but I have at least fifty reports which insist the range of our cannons was critical for smashing the rebels into oblivion."

Naturally, this hadn't been the end of it; the rebels had lasted long enough for some of them to sell their souls to the Ruinous Powers. But even a rogue psyker of some power found it difficult to find a solution to a relentless bombardment that spread over dozens of kilometres.

"The Atlantis Sector?"

"There is good news there too. With Admiral von Reuenthal capturing and destroying all the so-called 'pirates' one by one, the insurgents, mercenaries, and other troublemakers were stranded on the world of New Kilimanjaro. By the time the four Mechanised Infantry Regiments of Wuhan landed, the surviving leaders were already fighting each other to get the better terms of surrender. The mop-up of the campaign barely lasted one week, and half of it was spent with the busywork of hunting the deserters."

The stars-filled eyes of the Lady General Militant analysed all the information presented on the different consoles and hololithic tables. To it was added the flux of the messages coming from the two prototype Ansibles that were now linking Nyx to Nyx Sextus, allowing a near-instantaneous liaison with the headquarters of the Imperial Navy in the outer system.

"I am impressed...and very satisfied." Plenty of smiles bloomed, and a few guardsmen and PDF personnel congratulated themselves. "Of course, that leaves the biggest pit of treason of the Quadrant. And no, this isn't criticism against the performance of anyone in this room."

Plenty of smiles vanished.

Werner merely nodded.

"I'm afraid that the last offensive on Azmodan went as badly as could be imagined."

"It was a genuine disaster, Webmistress." There were few times where the Adjutant-Spiders were singularly unhelpful, but this was definitely one.

"Yes, it was," Werner admitted out loud. "But this Fortress World has held many Armies at bay for the last fifty years, and each beachhead has been secured only at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives."

"And the rotation of Lord Generals that Samarkand considers the norm has not exactly improved matters, hasn't it? Lord Samarkand requested our help."

It wasn't a question.

"There are Traitor Astartes there, Lady General. Thankfully, none of them are anything like a proper Chaos warband; intelligence reports tell they are the survivors of a long-lost Chapter that was purged for absurd massacres several millennia ago. But there are half a dozen of them, and they have brought all their expertise to the rebels. And of course plenty of sorcerers have sold their souls to the Archenemy. This has allowed them to erect some sort of blasphemous shields of pure sorcery that negate the orbital domination of the Imperial Navy."

Worse for the Imperium, the Fortress World was at the edge of Imperial space – the reason it had been built as a Fortress World in the first place, incidentally. That meant there were several xenos fleets in proximity that the oath-breakers could count upon for smuggling and resupply efforts.

"With your permission, Lady General, I would say that the time for subtlety is long over."

"I'm inclined to agree, but what is your solution?"

"We have received a new batch of super-heavy Fellblades from Tigrus," the Forge World had not yet completely recovered from the Ork assaults, but its rate of production was far higher than it had been in the last decade, and of course, Nyx had placed some priority orders in exchange for first-rate Fusion Reactor parts. "And the problems with the Fellglaive production line are solved. I think that with the military tithe coming for Sanguinala, we can raise three or four Super-Heavy Armoured Regiments."

Overall, they could give the Imperial Guard over one hundred of these land behemoths while keeping a sufficient reserve for the training of the new generation of tank personnel.

"It's a nice start." Lady Taylor Hebert commented.

Werner snorted.

"A start, Lady General? I hope you don't expect us to raise several more millions men than the Munitorum demanded. They won't thank us for that, and they will continue to demand the same tithe the next time it is due."

"Of course, I wasn't going to pretend otherwise." The lips of the Victor of Commorragh and Macragge twitched in amusement. "But we have other possibilities when it comes to military deployments. House O'Hara demanded some live-fire tests since they received the first batch of their magnificent 'steeds' from Alamo, no?"

"Yes, they did." Werner replied. "But I think that the fortified bastions of Azmodan are a bit more complicated than what even we Cadians call a 'test'. They will need-"

"Astartes. Yes, they will need them. Fortunately, the Black Templars assure me they have sufficiently recovered to punish the enemies of the Emperor."

"That still represents a significant risk," Werner felt he had to say it. "I know they will have over two million of Skadi guardsmen, and the reinforcements of Samarkand must have replenished their numbers by up a million, but it is still a very fragile blade."

Numbers didn't lie, in the end. And the sad truth was that since Azmodan had a traitor garrison of several million oath-breakers, the Imperial Guard had already had to rely on its quality rather than its quantity for the fifty-years-long siege. Needless to say, it hadn't been enough.

"On the contrary, this time it will be far more than enough." The Basileia announced with iron-clad confidence. "We are going to make a point at Azmodan, General."

"By your command," he saluted immediately. "And the supply of drones?"

"How many do you think we can provide while not cutting into our own reserves?"

Werner was still turning to ask the question, when one of the biggest arachnids answered for him.

"Oh, I think we can give them a couple million, Webmistress!"

Nyx

The Azkaellon Stadium

2.933.314M35

Missy Byron

Nyx had changed while she was enjoying her holiday.

There were far more servo-owls in the air than she had ever seen, and some of them had been modified into 'servo-doves'. There were plenty of new constructions everywhere in the Hives; the de-pollution efforts of the air and the ocean had accelerated, and there was a third Orbital Elevator slowly coming into existence.

And there were things that didn't change.

"I see that Pierre found a new hat."

It successfully drew a groan from Taylor. Mission accomplished!

"One hat? If only! He bought several hundreds of them on Atlas, in addition to all the headwear that went 'missing'."

"Surely you exaggerate," Missy tried hard not to laugh as a certain Dreadnought led a procession of Catachan Ants that had accepted Txacopec riders on their back. "He can't wear that many different hats on a single year, no?"

"Pierre went on to offer several berets and hats to the other members of the Dawnbreaker Guard, you know," there was long sigh of virtuous suffering.

"Actually, my Lady," Gavreel Forcas pointed out, "I think the berets were for his brothers of the Heracles Wardens."

"Thank you for that reminder of this dramatic problem, Gavreel."

"This is good news, no?"

And Missy received a mocking glare for trying to be too cheeky.

"I suppose that if all economic reforms fail on a certain world, they will still be able to sell 'authentic Atlasian hats' to the rest of the Sector."

"That doesn't explain why you felt you had to organise a large military parade here on the first day of the Sanguinala." The blonde parahuman noted, deciding to push her luck.

To be sure, there were some military parades during the years' end festivities. There always were.

But not on the first day. And not that massive. Tithes or not, between the Azkaellon Stadium and the other Hives, there had to be tens of millions of troops, and they had not come in polished uniforms. No, the overwhelming majority of these men and women were in Carapace or Power Armour. It also didn't count the millions of battle-insects the insect-mistress was controlling effortlessly. And most observers didn't have the ability to see the large Task Force of Black Templar warships and other Imperial Navy vessels that had been assembled near Nyx Sextus.

"You're plotting something," Missy accused the Basileia.

Unfortunately, Taylor had grown far more skilled at lying and other misdirection.

She received a yawn in response.

"Missy Byron. We are here to congratulate the Lamenters and all the forces which fought in the name of the Emperor on Catachan. There are also many regiments who did great services on Atlas and the Samarkand Quadrant. Others have finished their long military career. Is it wrong for me to congratulate them?"

"No, it's not." Missy grinned. "But that's not the reason why you did it today. Now spill the secret."

The stars-filled eyes gave her a second mocking glare.

"You're worse than General Schwarz." The blonde Shaker's expression asked for further clarification. "No matter how many times I asked, he refused his promotion."

"No, I'm not."

"Oh yes, you are. Be happy I didn't compare you to a Mechanicus participant of the 'Coffee Wars'."

"Well, you have to admit, it's far better than tea and chocolate-"

"I see the beverage heresy is strong in this one," the grumble was particularly loud and strong. "I will blame Cawl for that...and you."

"Beware, Tyrant," Missy giggled. "I have many connections in the Adeptus Arbites...and you haven't answered my question."

"No, I have not. But then, you haven't answered my questions on what you did on Macragge and during your 'Ultramar holidays' either."

"Touché. But I am still going to ask until you answer."

"In that case, you are going to run out of saliva by tonight." The Lady of Nyx commented serenely. "Because I won't even give you the shadow of a clue before that."

And while there was a smile, there also was a mask of unflinching determination.

Damn. What kind of massive event required all this secrecy and preparations?

The south of the Dolos Continent

The Fortress of Light

The Hope Beacon

2.936.314M35

Sergeant Gavreel Forcas

It might be strange to say it, but the Dawnbreaker Guard had not visited the Sanctum of the Aetheric Engine more than five times these last two years.

This wasn't because they weren't trusted; they absolutely were. It was just that it had been a messy construction site, with all the Tech-Priests and Adjutant-Spiders testing extraordinarily advanced devices, and throwing Space Marines into the middle of that was one additional complication that nobody needed.

Now that it was over, the result was rather...pleasant to watch. The walls had been polished and painted red, and the heavy machinery and conduits had been integrated into giant platforms that were...beneath their feet.

The Techmarines had been assured that if a device failed or a problem manifested, every section could be opened and repaired within minutes.

The same could be true of the twelve black 'towers' that marked the border between the outer and inner Sanctum.

They looked like Macraggian columns, except they weren't for artistic purposes. Really, these 'towers' were the most important part of the Sanctum: they were the interfaces for the brand-new quantum cogitators.

Per information that had been limited to the Custodes and only a few hundred souls on Nyx, the last of them had been delivered two standard months ago, and since then, the Magi had worked night and day to test them and ensuring everything would be ready for the big day.

The day was now, and the race against time had been won.

Each of the Sanctum's 'towers' contained exactly one thousand and twenty-four quantum cogitators. In practical terms, with two of the 'interface columns', you had enough calculating capacity to administrate something the size of twelve Hives, or so the Adjutant-Spiders and their Lady had told them.

The Aetheric Engine – better known as the Hope Beacon by the construction teams – would require three of them to be active at all times for the day-to-day operations. The nine others were for the 'advanced functionalities'...and redundancy purposes.

"In fact, now that I think about it, all of this is about redundancy, my Lady."

"You might have a point, Gavreel." Taylor Hebert had removed the armoured gloves of her armour, and was doing some stretching exercises while the Tech-Priests and her arachnids completed the ultimate tests.

"That said," she continued, "redundancy is vital, and not just because of the consequences of what we're doing today. I saw some of the basic schematics of the Astronomican, and what kind of patch-up was required when some vital machinery failed. Obviously, the Hope Beacon here is far smaller than the Emperor's creation, but it is better not to fall into bad habits."

"I fully support this, my Lady, and not just because my poor skin and soul are at stake."

"As well you should," Taylor Hebert smiled before returning to watching the web-looking Inner Sanctum. "Obviously, we don't have redundancies for the Resonatum. We can't repair it as long as it is active either. That's why I think a second Engine will be inevitable in the end."

And why Fay and Wuhan were at the top of list to host one; if the Hope Beacon had a common point with the Astronomican, it was that building more than one Aetheric Engine on the same planet was going to cause serious 'psychic interferences'.

Given that the Emperor Himself had not been ready to risk it, there was no way they would dare doing it either.

"The Resonatum aside, the quantum cogitators were a big bottleneck. With one production line delivering several hundreds of them per month now, problems from that direction should cease."

"You're optimistic today, Gavreel. Having plenty of cogitators means that a limited quantity of them is available, and I have to play Arbiter when the Archmagi of the Nyxian Mechanicus each want several to play with."

"That is why you are the Basileia, my Lady, and I a humble Astartes."

"You're absolutely horrible at making compliments," the Angel deadpanned. When she cast an amorous glance at her wife and her other human lover, the Astartes Sergeant chose not to comment about it.

"The tests are complete, Webmistress!"

It was like a switch was flipped, and the tension increased in the Sanctum.

"We are waiting for your orders, Chosen of the Omnissiah!"

"Adjutant-General Artemis!"

"I'm ready to illuminate, Webmistress!"

"The Moth Choir?"

"Wing-Leader Liberty is awaiting your orders. We have Lisa and three of Liberty's sisters ready to intervene in case of any parameter outside the norms!"

"Excellent. The Fusion Coil?"

"Nine reactors are operating at eighty percent of their maximum power, the three others are kept in reserve at fifty percent, Chosen of the Omnissiah. Twelve hundred Tech-Priests stand ready to intervene at the first anomalous readings."

"The Lens of the Swarm?"

This time, it was the single Astropath present in the Sanctum who bowed.

"Twelve thousand Catachan Ants, one hundred and forty-four Astropath Operators, and twelve Primus Navigators stand ready to fulfil the great plan of the God-Emperor, your Celestial Highness. We will not falter."

"I know, and I thank you for your Sacrifice."

These were not just idle words, Gavreel thought. While the Hope Beacon was far more friendly to human psykers than the version of the Dark Age was, the threshold had been so low with the latter that that wasn't exactly worth rejoicing over. Anything was better than the torture pits and having your soul sucked out in a sarcophagus which made some Inquisitorial questioning positively amusing.

"The Resonatum?"

"All Aethergold Pylons and the psychic resonators have absorbed the training blasts of Liberty and her sisters without accident or even minor incidents. Psychic levels in the Resonatum have reached Beta-level of illumination. Time before detection outside the Fortress of Light is estimated at twenty minutes, Webmistress!"

There was silence.

Gavreel would not be surprised to hear that many of the Space Marines and the other spectators had stopped breathing.

"Then there is no reason to demand a delay." Lady Weaver said softly. "Confirm with the Inquisition and the Navis Nobilite that the Themistocles Edict's last astropathic warnings have been sent."

"Confirming...the Lord Inquisitor confirms, Webmistress!"

"Then we can begin."

Basileia Taylor Hebert

To call the activation of the Hope Beacon complicated was not going to do it justice.

There were two reasons for that.

The first, unfortunately, came from the fact her beautiful red-god Titanicus Mosura, while less powerful than Lisa, was very much not used to projecting her boons as a psychic tool of precision. Liberty was doing her best, and her best was the highest performance of all the Moths currently available, but it wasn't scalpel-work.

Obviously, it was better than the alternatives – there would have been no problem with accuracy with human psykers, but then they would have also piled up the corpses minute after minute.

"Begin."

The first orb had to be divided by Administration over and over until was 'manageable'. One might think it would be easy, but at the same time Taylor had to relay the data and teach her twelve Adjutants the experience, so that they could one day do it on their own if the circumstances required it.

She was at the centre of the web today, she was both the spider channelling the energy and the guardian who waited for all the other huntresses to do their job.

The second reason it was complicated was that the Hope Beacon wasn't just trying to activate the psychic equivalent of a lighthouse.

It was doing that for sure, but that was just the beginning.

Otherwise they could have just brought together a few Aethergold Pylons, fortified a location, and called it a day.

No, her Swarm and every other soul who had been involved in this great enterprise, no pun intended, had given her the materials to create a psychic web.

Liberty and the other Titan Moths would continuously provide the power.

The Catachan Ants delivered the 'projection effect', both entering and exiting the Aetheric Engine.

And the Adjutant-Spiders and herself? They wove the web.

It was a delicate work, and in many ways, surpassed the marvels of art that had already been placed inside the Hagia Sanguinala.

Most humans would never be able to see it while alive, and she felt sorry for them.

For it was a song of Hope by itself.

It was Light, and it was created from freely-given Sacrifice.

It was not of spider silk, and yet it was woven by spiders in the end.

Taylor was building the heart of the web, while 'spitting' the synchronised energies towards the outside, and Artemis, Bellona and every other Adjutant were adding their efforts to hers.

It was exhausting mentally.

The insect-mistress was very well aware that in the middle of the inner sanctum, she had to be sweating a lot, and suddenly remaining standing while her Adjutants had their large-sized pillows felt a bit presumptuous.

But she was not the Emperor, and there was a huge amount of symbolism in what they were doing.

"More, Liberty."

The web was taking shape, and the Light which was provided accelerated its expansion.

It was gaining in power and flexibility.

It was growing far larger than the dimensions of the Sanctum.

By the third 'orb-blast', it began to reach beyond the large halls that had been dug to provide accesses to all the Mechanicus machinery.

By the fourth, the Light Web's dimensions extended outside the Fortress of Light, and the Hope Beacon shone for all those who had the eyes to see.

Taylor heard the whispers of her Astropaths informing her that several trade routes of the Sector were beginning to resonate with the Light, but while she did hear them, the Basileia did not answer.

Her focus was elsewhere.

Her focus was on the abysses of the Warp, on the other side of the Veil.

The pits of malevolence that Mankind had called the Sea of Souls had never felt more nauseating and repulsive.

"More."

The Light Web expanded in every direction.

Taylor breathed out.

"The Emperor told you that we were going to break our chains."

Evil laughter answered her.

More Light poured into her, and Taylor pushed the Light Web beyond the Veil separating the Materium from the Immaterium.

The laughter of the Ruinous Powers, old and new abominations, ended like they had received a lightning bolt inside their very maws.

And that, the Angel of Sacrifice admitted to herself, was very satisfying indeed.

The Warp

Rage.

Mad, limitless, unaltered rage.

This was what the Ruinous Powers felt when the Light Web crossed the boundary separating the Material Dimension from their Realm.

While there had been species which had challenged them in ages past, the Four had engineered events so as to ensure the extinction of most of the beings who dared resorting to such methods of defiance.

Their efficiency had been exceedingly satisfying, with only the last of their great enemies surviving to this day. And though the Anathema had yet to die and the Astronomican be destroyed, before Commorragh, its eventual decline had been considered something carved in stone by Destiny itself.

The Four had believed that to be the end of it.

Mankind would pay for the Astronomican and its futile defiance.

The Firetide disturbing their Domain would be extinguished, and with it, Hope itself would die.

Mankind would be enslaved until it couldn't even remember why it had thought to challenge their Gods, and the absolute cruelty of Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Malal would rule supreme.

Recently, the plan had encountered a few obstacles.

But the plan could still be put back on track.

The Astronomican still shone; but it could be sabotaged again and again.

The Living Saints, no matter if they were of the Light or not, were going to be hunted down and murdered on black altars.

The Black Crusade had failed epically, but there were far greater servants than Lorgar that would succeed where the useful idiot had met his end.

All of these schemes suddenly became as useful as dust when the Light Web arose.

The Four had not predicted this.

The Four had not caught any sign from their cultists or their other spies in the Materium.

And then rage got rid of all ability to reason.

"HOW. DARE. SHE?"

The wrath of Nurgle was something to behold.

A maelstrom of disease-made-nightmare was unleashed across the Nyx Sector.

There were eight starships that had refused to heed the Themistocles Edict.

Three of them, ironically enough, had done so because their loyalties were to the Master of the Administratum, and they were there to spy upon the Lady of Nyx, not obey her commands.

In seven seconds, seven of them were transformed into the antechamber of the Garden of Nurgle; the men and women having sufficiently pure souls were fighting for them as Plaguebearers broke through the weaknesses opened in the Gellar Fields, while the command decks were turned into visions of hellish decay.

It was done almost as an afterthought.

Why?

The principal effort was coming.

It came in the form of seven full Legions of Decay.

Each was led by a Great Unclean One.

Each was enough to bring a planet to its knees if it was unleashed in the Materium.

"The Webmistress," and the mad rage increased by several levels, for Weaver was not addressing them directly! "suggests you remove your odious presence from this Sector."

"YOU DARE?!"

The Master of Pestilence roared.

"Or you can stay here, I suppose," the golden arachnid gave an ironic salute.

The Ruinous Powers didn't have the time to ponder the words.

The seven Plague Legions were hurling themselves at the expanding Light Web.

They were going to destroy it, and with it, Weaver herself would be vulnerable!

"Light unleashed."

Twelve Titan-Moths, the infernal singers of the Swarm, revealed their presence next to the Light Web and the accursed Aetheric Engine.

Neither Nurgle nor any of the other Three had the time to scream a warning.

The seven Legions ceased to exist in three seconds.

One of the Great Unclean Ones managed to survive, courtesy of its Exalted rank, but all its strength had been expended to survive the overwhelming assault.

Now this lone survivor fled in all haste to the Garden, all thoughts of domination and corruption forgotten.

And in its plague-filled tracks, it left an emotion that was frighteningly unpleasant: fear.

Even by the standards of the Four, who cared nothing for the lesser parts of themselves and the souls they had enslaved in the last millions of years, this was greeted by shock.

They were the ones supposed to do that.

They were the Masters of the Warp, the Lords of the Empyrean, the true victors of the War in Heaven, and all the wars which had come after that.

It wasn't supposed to happen to them!

"We must attack again!" Nurgle seethed.

"No." Khorne answered, his rage bubbling up like a volcano on the brink of eruption, but unlike the Plague Father, his was under control.

"What are you waiting for?" no matter how far away from the Garden, they were, the Great Unclean Ones shivered.

"We must discover the extent of the threat," Tzeentch cackled.

On this, the curiosity of the Architect of Fate didn't take long to be satisfied. The Aetheric Engine had never stopped its expansion, and it only began to slow down as it reached what cartographers would have recognised as the lawful limits of the Nyx Sector.

Obviously, as the Light Web expanded in a perfectly spherical halo, plenty of other planets not part of the Sector were also illuminated, but once the most distant system was engulfed by the radiance – the system of Maxos Devastation, though few inhabitants there would ever be aware of this – it fully stopped.

"All of my slaves within this Light Web have been killed. Clearly their ambition was no longer useful to me. Good riddance." Behind the arrogance of the Lord of All Changes, there was a far different emotion dominating, however.

"We must strike while it is incomplete and vulnerable!" Nurgle's wrath had grown sevenfold, but all the epidemics in existence couldn't make it forget that while the expansion of the illumination zone had stopped in terms of distance, it had increased in terms of depth to compensate.

The Aetheric Engine was burning everything in close proximity of the Veil.

If an ocean had been used as an analogy, it would have been the equivalent to say that the first twenty centimetres just below the surface were imbued with a poison that was utterly lethal to any daemon in existence.

But that wasn't the entire story.

For in this narrow ocean layer, close to ninety-nine percent of the Warp-capable ships of the Imperium were sailing through at any given moment.

If the Aetheric Engine was not to go down, the effect would be similar to the one close to the Astronomican: the Four would be unable to regularly ambush the impudent travellers who thought navigating in the Immaterium was a good idea.

"Yes-yes!" the rat-abomination which was the lesser Ruinous Power of the Four squeaked. "It is not-not stable! Attack-attack!"

"There must be punishment," Tzeentch cackled. "Both for the Anathema and his newest collared bitch!"

"It will take some time to muster more Legions," Nurgle gurgled. "But it will fall all the same. Plague will decimate this Sector! I swear it!"

"Are you sure you are not forgetting something?" Khorne asked.

It could have been a second or an eternity. As far as things stood in the Warp, that could be the same thing, or something entirely different.

It was a realm of madness; it had been for so long incredibly few beings remembered it in another form.

Still, no abyss of corruption could stop the tide of Light which surged forwards from tens of thousands of light-years away.

"The Anathema!" the Daemonic Legions screeched in horror. "The Light of the Anathema comes!"

It was indeed the Firetide.

And where it was hurled, it annihilated the hosts of the Four.

"It is going to use the Aetheric Engine of Weaver as a focusing lens!" Malal squeaked in horror.

"Yes," Khorne grunted. "And it is going to synchronise with it. The Light Web was just the beginning. All those forces you have committed before? All the promises of Domination made by the ritual of the Despoiler? They are nothing! They are nothing, for everything is going to perish in the flames of the Anathema."

This time, there was no time to save any slave, no matter how useful he, she, or it might be.

Everything that was too close to the Veil in the entire Samarkand Quadrant burned.

The south of the Dolos Continent

The Fortress of Light

The Hope Beacon

Basileia Taylor Hebert

According to the world outside, it had been one hour.

For her legs and lungs, it felt like she had run ten marathons.

How did the Emperor do it?

Seriously, Taylor knew that the First Lord of the Imperium was immensely more powerful than she, and had far more experience to boot.

That said, her imagination stumbled when it came to dream of the efforts required to power up the Astronomican while facing the full might of the Four's evil presence.

There were Sisyphean Tasks, and then there was...that.

"I hope you are not going to do this every day," Wei told her while feeding her a sandwich mouthful by mouthful. "You're not looking good, sorry to inform you, love."

"At the risk of shocking you, I'm aware of that." The insect-mistress winced. "Artemis?"

"The Web is fully stabilised, Webmistress! Illumination of the Nyx Sector remains total, and the Safe Zone in the Warp is being tested as we speak! So far, everything is returning extremely positive results!"

"The Warp routes of the Sector?"

"Err...they should be stabilised in a few minutes, Webmistress. The Decaying Abomination made a mess of them, and the Hope Beacon is busy restoring everything. Some will have changed, I think. But all key Astropathic stations are responding back. And the Heracles Wardens announce they have intercepted and destroyed a Plague Ship bound for Atlas."

"Someone clearly failed to respect the Themistocles Edict," she tried very hard not to think about what had happened to the souls inside said ship. Nurgle's wrath had been worse than...well, quite possibly every event Taylor had been involved in. "I would rather say 'may the Emperor have mercy upon their souls', but I'm afraid most of them won't ever be judged before the Golden Throne."

The Basileia sighed, and ate one more piece of sandwich before asking her wife for some water.

"Still," Gamaliel spoke while bringing her the requested drink, "it is a magnificent success. Naturally, all the secrecy has gone out the window. The Hope Beacon might not shine as much as it does in the Warp, but I think everyone felt the Light. I think..."

"Tens of billions descended into the streets to celebrate," Dragon informed her next to Missy. "No matter the hour. It's a good thing you organised it during the Sanguinala, because I think we would otherwise have difficulties with the industrial production and the daily work of Nyx grinding to a halt, oh Lady Basileia."

"Well, I anticipated some inimical reaction from the enemy. Positive reactions from Nyx and every ally were somewhat predictable, if it worked."

"Synchronisation is complete with the Astronomican, Webmistress. Radius: one hundred and twenty light-years for the Light Web and the Inner Illumination, one thousand and two hundred light-years for the furthest illumination of the Outer Zone!"

"Outstanding!"

"I'm not sure I understand, my Lady," Huscarl Diamantis approached Artemis with a tray of her favourite foods. "You said you were going to create a 'Light Web' over the Nyx Sector. You didn't mention extending it to the entire Quadrant."

"That's because I didn't. That's what the synchronisation with the Astronomican is about." Taylor looked at the spectacle behind the Veil. "The Nyx Sector has the Light Web; the Samarkand Quadrant doesn't. But where in a radius of one hundred and twenty light-years there is a permanent day that will never end in the Warp, the outer zone that is located between one hundred twenty-one and one thousand two hundred light-years will benefit from a sort of super-lighthouse constantly destroying the presence of the Archenemy. It's as if we created twelve extremely powerful lamps, and they are ever on the move in the zones purging everything tainted, and acting as a powerful guidance system at the same time."

This 'outer illumination zone' was all thanks to the Emperor, it went without saying.

It had already been extremely difficult and taxing to reach the limits of the Nyx Sector, and after that, she had hit a hard barrier. Alone, Taylor couldn't have done more than protecting Nyx and everything where her 'authority' existed.

But when the Hope Beacon had become a 'lens' of the Astronomican, the Emperor had broken the resistance of the Ruinous Powers like they were insignificant rats in his path.

"Let Liberty rest," the Lady of the Swarm ordered. "Helena can take her place."

"By your will, Webmistress!"

For many minutes, Taylor just closed her eyes and spent her time recovering, only watching through the eyes of her Adjutants and the Swarm.

The training paid off; the 'Moth Rotation' was done in record time, and so were the other changes, in order to let refreshed battalions enter the battlefield.

"Ishtar. Report."

"As the strategic plans had predicted, we have eight foul pits shrouded in Ruinous malevolence at the edge of the Samarkand Quadrant. The rest of the illumination zone is purged from the taint, but it looks like that in their case, the abominations reacted fast enough to save something from what has to be a humiliating catastrophe for them, Webmistress!"

"Eight," the symbolic number was not exactly subtle. She turned towards the Mistress of Artisans. "How many are part of Imperial-controlled space?"

"Two, Chosen of the Omnissiah."

"One of them is Azmodan, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes it is, Chosen of the Omnissiah. How did you know?"

"It was their largest bastion and strongest Chaotic base at the border of the Skadi Sector. Millions of traitor guardsmen, and they have the war industry to wage a long conflict of attrition for several more decades."

"It would require a strong hammer to crack its defences," Forgefather Vulkan N'Varr stated. "And I suppose the sorcerers there must be very busy summoning as many daemons as they can to slaughter the Imperial troops that have landed. Somehow, I don't think they will see a beachhead as a tolerable option anymore."

"Artemis?"

"The Forgefather's guess was indeed befitting of his tactical acumen, Webmistress. One of the Ruinous Powers is pouring everything it can into the System of Azmodan."

Taylor chuckled.

"So one of the Four decided to throw more resources down the sinkhole. I am almost in a mood to thank it...if not for the fact I am never going to thank these abominations."

"My Lady?" Stormseer Uriyangkhadai called her attention back to himself. "I admire your optimism and everything, but it seems to me that one Ruinous Power is trying to transform a Fortress World into a Daemon World. And I don't think the capacities you've shown so far with the Hope Beacon are of a nature to stop something like that."

"Oh you're perfectly right," the Destroyer of Commorragh bared her teeth. "When it comes for the capacities we've shown the Archenemy so far, at least."

The Basileia emptied her golden cup of water and closed her eyes.

"Bellona, I will let you do the honours. Dragon, please inform the Black Templars via the prototype Ansible that Operation Retribution is a go."

She waited twelve seconds for the symbol to be all the more powerful, as Helena began to gather a respectable amount of blast-power. This time, it was not about creating a Web or some subtle action.

This time, it was about shredding the opposition.

"Activate the Laser-Lens mode."

Samarkand Quadrant

Skadi Sector

Fortress World of Azmodan

Extremely Warp-created Disturbances – Space-time Anomalies created

The Lord of Mutations

Behind his armoured helmet, the Lord of Mutations smiled.

At last!

At last, the Architect of Fate had recognised his worth.

At last, Azmodan was going to be branded with Change forever.

The attention of his Lord was now upon him and his armies, and it was glorious!

What were a mere fifty years of bloodshed to wait upon this moment of triumph, in comparison?

Nothing!

It was nothing.

It was nothing, for with the Legions tearing apart the Veil and pouring to find worthy hosts, victory was inevitable.

In the last nine years, he had summoned daemons of the Scintillating Legions ninety-nine times, but in the last nine heartbeats, the reinforcements he had received made it clear this had been only a little taste of true power.

Now there were nine Conflagration Legions on the battlefield! Nine! And each of them was led personally by a Lord of Change.

With this-

"Master, the slaves of the Corpse-God seem to be preparing their super-heavy tanks on Front Zephyr."

The Lord of Mutations laughed.

"Let them prepare all they want! The Shadow of our Lord has fallen upon this battlefield! Soon, the wretches will scream and-"

The Warp screamed around him.

The Fortress World of Azmodan began to shake, from its highest redoubts to its very core.

And then an abominable screech erupted to torment its senses and break its concentration.

Daemons became mad.

Possessed turned against their rightful masters.

And the implacable charge which was charging to destroy the Imperial forces began to lose its cohesion.

"NO! No, it isn't-"

The Shadow was torn apart, and hundreds of kilometres above his head, there were bright, terrifying laser blasts illuminating the skies.

No, not lasers.

The Lord of Mutations didn't know what it was, but it was no laser.

Lasers couldn't banish shrouds of Change, and that was what was happening.

But it was...no, it was impossible.

"Master! I feel them! Fleets coming out of the void! Three fleets coming out of the void, with a Battle-Barge leading them!"

"They won't be there anymore once we will have dealt with them!" He snarled. "Assemble all my Magisters! Immediately!"

There was a second awful shriek, and a pyre of gold struck through the atmosphere of Azmodan.

Where it fell, the servants of Tzeentch were immolated as if they had never existed!

"Seize the power and shield yourselves!"

"The armies of the Corpse-Emperor are launching their attack, Lord!"

"Call the reserves! Deploy the reserves and-"

The skies burned gold, and something huge coalesced in the distance.

It was not an avian servant of his Lord; it was...it looked like...a moth?

"SHOOT DOWN THAT MONSTER!"

On the horizon, it began to rain golden flames.

"THE LIGHT OF SACRIFICE!" The Legions of Conflagration screeched. "WE KNOW YOU WEAVER! WE KNOW YOUR SINS! WE WILL NEVER CEASE CHANGING TO FIGHT YOU!"

Some fighting spirit returned.

The Master of Mutations assessed quickly the situation.

At least two Scintillating Legions were no more; all sorcerers who had been too close to the enemy beachhead had perished.

But it still left him several million troops, and seven full Daemonic Legions.

Furthermore, the enemy Generals had decided to go on the offensive, meaning they were in the open, away from their heavy fortifications.

He was a Warlord of Change. His was the mind which had ushered rebellion and the way of the True Gods on this world fifty years ago.

He was the King of the Azmodan by the will of the Pantheon.

He was four-armed, and more blessed mutations changed him as power poured into his armoured body.

Nine Chaos Legionnaires had bowed before him, he who had discarded his very name to better discover the mysteries of Tzeentch? What was there to be afraid?

"KILL THEM AND DON'T FALTER!" The Master of Mutations shouted with the strength to be heard by billions of souls. "REMEMBER WHAT WAS PROMISED! THE GALAXY WILL BURN!"

"LET THE GALAXY BURN! DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!"

The Warlord of Chaos launched himself forwards, the vanguard and super-heavy machines of the Enemy at last becoming visible.

His mouth formed a grin, for the opportunity to capture a tank as prestigious as a Fellblade to have his banner hoisted upon it was-

The skies burned completely gold, and this time, the inferno of gold literally struck one metre away from his very location.

There was no time to react.

There was just-

PAIN.

PAIN.

SACRIFICE?

FEAR!

The Master of Mutations, a cruel man who had once been a mere Captain in the Imperial Guard before his betrayal, begged for his life to be spared.

His pleas of mercy went ignored, and the Light wiped him off the face of the galaxy in an instant.

His fate was shared at the same moment by an entire Tzeentchian Daemonic Legion and over two hundred thousand traitor guardsmen.

Chaotic resistance, already in danger of collapsing, tethered on the edge of annihilation.

And then the Drop Pods of the Black Templars roared through the skies, their battle-prayers echoing through the restored Imperial vox-frequencies, further invigorating the hearts of the guardsmen attacking and slaying thousands of heretics.

Behind the Angels of Death, Knight Barges and hundreds of thousands of soldiers came.

The liberation of Azmodan had begun.

The south of the Dolos Continent

The Fortress of Light

The Hope Beacon

2.940.314M35

Chancellor Friar Achelieux

The Hope Beacon was going to change the galaxy forever.

Friar Achelieux was not sure of many things, but he was sure of this.

Five hours.

It had taken five hours for six Black Templar warships and the Navy squadron accompanying them to translate from Nyx to the outer Skadi Sector where the siege of Azmodan was fought.

The 'Laser-Lens Mode', as it had been named, wasn't just targeting a specific system of the Samarkand Quadrant in range; it also decreased Warp-travel time by a massive degree as long as you were in the Samarkand Quadrant.

In the best of circumstances, a flotilla of fast Destroyers guided by above-average Navigators would have required something like fifteen days to reach their destination, and that was an extremely optimistic estimate, because when the servants of Ruin were involved, you never got favourable circumstances.

Fifteen days.

Not five hours.

And as the Hope Beacon allowed the Adjutant-Spiders working upon the central command consoles to project a few images, it was clear the traitor forces were in the process of receiving a decisive defeat.

Each 'Light Orb' the Titan-Moth called Helena cast was transformed into some three to four hundred Light-empowered lasers with the same properties as Aethergold.

Friar was a Navigator, not a General or an Admiral.

But the consequences of this offensive were incredibly evident.

First of all, the Ruinous Powers were going to lose all their holdfasts and cultists in a radius of one thousand and two hundred light-years.

It didn't matter that the 'Light Web' only extended one hundred and twenty light-years; Azmodan had just proven that with a significant counteroffensive supported by the Hope Beacon, the Traitor Forces were utterly toasted.

To have a chance of survival, an invader of the Samarkand Quadrant – though he imagined it would be the Nyx Quadrant before too long – had to be free from the taint of Chaos; otherwise the trespasser was just going to suffer a painful and final demise and achieve exactly nothing.

"The enemies of the Emperor," an Astartes noted respectfully, "now have every reason to fear the power of Her Celestial Highness."

"Fear, Captain?" Friar chuckled. "They have every right to be completely terrified. Unless they manage to build their own corrupt equivalent of an Aetheric Engine, their military forces will just be lambs for the slaughter within the Samarkand Quadrant. And even if they manage to push other forces able to endure the Light of the Emperor, like say, a greenskin WAAGH, the Hope Beacon will give us a priceless strategic advantage. We will be able to move our reinforcements twenty times faster than any enemy."

"True," the red-clad Space Marine nodded. "We are really going to be able to win the war and the peace. If our father was here today, he would cry in joy."

According to the information some spiders were relaying to them, 'joy' was kind of understatement for what was happening in every Hive of Nyx...and for that matter, Wuhan and the rest of the Sector had not exactly been shy in throwing a few million parties either.

"It is a great day for the Imperium and Mankind."

The only secondary thought that was not optimistic inside his head chose this moment to whisper to him that yes, they had made the Quadrant safer than it had ever been in the last millennia. But if an enemy saw a target far too strong, it was going to attack elsewhere. The predators of this galaxy were cunning, and they preferred weak prey to ones able to put up a fight...

Somewhere in the Eye of Terror

Gloriana-class Battleship Vengeful Spirit

Lord Vigilator Iskandar Khayon

"By all the carnivorous books of the Crystal Labyrinth!" the words escaped his lips effortlessly. "Fuck."

This was not a polite assessment of the situation, especially if you were in front of the Warmaster of the Black Legion.

Unfortunately, it was fiendishly accurate.

"I admit," Ezekyle Abaddon mused, in a simple black tunic. "When the Eye of Sheerian showed me only 'Light' as the future of the Nyx Sector, I expected something spectacular. But I wasn't expecting something so...devastating."

"It is entirely possible that your Announcement Ritual prompted her to sink more resources and complete this Pharos in a fraction of the time her original plans called for."

These were assuredly dangerous words, and only a few warriors in the entire Black Legion would have dared utter such a criticism.

Fortunately, Iskandar was one these warriors.

"I know," the commanding officer of the greatest Legion of the Eye replied calmly. "But let's be honest, Iskandar: this Aetheric Engine was always going to be powered up, sooner or later. I certainly forced Weaver to accelerate her plan on that front, but the device was already under construction last year." The man that quintillions of beings knew as the Despoiler paused. "Well, I certainly hope it was under construction. Because the alternative is that in fewer twenty months, Weaver found a way to build something which is only surpassed in strategic significance by the Astronomican."

And Ezekyle didn't need to explain to anyone how utterly terrifying that kind of proposal would be.

On the other hand...

"Even if this was a long-term prospect," the Lord Vigilator pointed out carefully, "she couldn't have begun work on that kind of thing before she became a Planetary Governor. In fact, the ability of the Imperium to grab some large stocks of Noctilith only skyrocketed after Commorragh. And while I don't know how much is needed for that kind of device, it can't be a small amount. This Aetheric Engine was not built in a year or two, but it was still built in less than two decades, and certainly far less."

Iskandar had been around when some Legion Commanders had whispered of the sheer resources that had been poured into the Astronomican and everything that was supplying its day-to-day use.

'Titanic' didn't begin to cover it, and that was at a time when the Emperor himself powered it alone.

"I think," Ezekyle Abaddon mused, "that we just witnessed the first example of Weaver-Eldar cooperation."

Iskandar grimaced.

"That's very bad news." The Black Legion now had agents inside the so-called Manticore Empire, but they were nowhere near a fraction of the long-ears worshipping the Eldar Goddess of Symbiosis and Carnality.

"It is."

"Sabotage? While all our best agents will get incinerated long before they even get in the Nyx System, there are mercenaries and other forces that won't spontaneously combust when touched by the Anathema's light."

"No, Iskandar. Save the Orks, every person in this galaxy would understand who ultimately would profit from the destruction of this Aetheric Engine. Besides, while the Eye of Sheerian was near-useless in warning me what was coming, it was extremely useful to give a few hints about the current defences. The 'Hope Beacon' is guarded by an entire insect army, and that was when secrecy was paramount. I expect the garrison around it to be reinforced, and Nyx to be guarded by an entire Battlefleet in the future."

The Warmaster gave him a slight grin.

"And that doesn't even consider the problem that Weaver may very well build a second one to serve as backup in case someone indeed tries and succeeds at doing what you propose."

Yes, that made all too much sense. Weaver may have rushed the construction of the first Aetheric Engine due to the attack on Atlas, but if you had the capacity to build a second, you were going to build said replacement.

The young 'Living Saint' was not stupid, and she had the massive example of the Astronomican as a shining beacon of what wasn't to be imitated in term of failures.

"I have to agree with you. The limiting factors are certainly these damned Titan-Moths, some of the specified insects that are bred for the purpose, and the vast quantities of Aethergold that are necessary for the power generation. Plus whatever help the Eldar gave her."

"Yes." Their eyes fell upon the Talon of Horus, which was waiting patiently for someone to pick it up again.

"I suppose attacking the Samarkand Quadrant is something we will strive to avoid."

"You suppose correctly."

Well, Iskandar was not going to shed tears about it. Operation Queenslayer had never had great odds of victory to begin with.

Though the damage in terms of intelligence was frankly appallingly high. Since Commorragh, many Legions, theirs and the sons of Alpharius to name just two, had invested a lot into putting many spies in place to keep an eye on what Weaver was doing.

Not everything had been wiped out, since several agents were not servants of the Four or in contact with sorcerers in any way, but the methods to collect that information had been utterly shattered.

"What if she can build enough of these Aetheric Engines to cover a significant portion of the Imperium?"

For this was the burning question. No matter how much he tried, Iskandar didn't see any obvious weakness in the newly revealed scheme that the Throne of Terra must have approved.

"In that case, we are completely screwed." Ezekyle replied as if it was nothing but the most obvious thing in the world. "But I don't think Weaver can field more than a handful of these 'Beacons'."

"Why?"

"The synchronisation of this 'Beacon' with the Astronomican implies it is also possible to de-synchronise it."

"Yes, but...ah. You think it is a contingency plan of Terra."

"Yes. And let's face it, if they had the capacity to build something like that in one out every hundred Sectors, then they have no need to worry about contingencies; not where we are concerned, anyway. The Astronomican, bolstered by these new devices, would literally turn everyone in the Eye into flesh soup long before we can fire a single Bolter shell."

The Warmaster shook his head.

"There has always been powerful symbolism when it comes to these kinds of psychic devices. Only one Astronomican was ever built, and it wasn't just because powering it up required someone able to stand up to the Gods."

"That's true," he acknowledged. "But even a handful of these 'symbolic devices' are going to hurt all Legions a great deal. The Imperium will be able to use these 'illuminated zones' as rally points for their counterattacks. The majority of our Legionnaires will never dare enter such an area of space, like it was..."

The irony chose this moment to slap him in the face.

"Yes, that is completely true. Weaver has just effectively created her own Anathema-imbued Warp Storm, in practical terms."

The comparison wasn't completely perfect, for loyalists to the Golden Throne could enter the Warp Storms if they so wished; it was just that it was a death-or-damnation sentence for them. But unfortunately, in every other way, it fit.

"Do you regret not killing her?"

"I will give you the same answer as did to Fateweaver: my victory was certainly not inevitable, and being able to defeat Weaver wouldn't have meant my victory would be permanent. And then a few decades or centuries later, we would have had tens of thousands of Blood Angels focusing on our extermination to the exclusion of everything else."

This was admittedly a very good point, and one the Four couldn't have missed.

"Speaking of the Gods...they're certainly going to urge everyone to go on a general offensive."

"A general offensive with what?" Ezekyle asked sardonically. "No one is ready for it, and I'm sure that the Cadians would welcome our efforts to make sure they don't stay bored. Besides, one can't forget that Lorgar only managed to reach Macragge in the first place because a maelstrom swallowed Fenris. If he had failed there, the final battle would not have taken place in the Eastern Fringe."

"Indeed not," no, it would have seen the Imperial Navy and the Dark Angels corner them in the home system of the Wolves, and it would have been another military disaster altogether.

"No, Nyx is way too far away from the Eye, and besides, I don't enjoy the prospect of being burned to death body and soul."

"I believe 'let's not go down in a blazing fire which will achieve nothing' will meet large approval in the ranks of our Legionnaires," Iskandar answered drily. "But this is still going to require a massive change of plans."

Weaver may not be able to create too many Aetheric Engines before running out of golden flames, but that didn't mean she couldn't build one a few light-years away from Cadia. It might not be so simple in terms of symbolism, but if she was able to, then any offensive trying to storm out of the Eye of Terror would result in immediate and one-sided annihilation.

"Yes, it does." Ezekyle turned his eyes towards the Eye of Sheerian, which as always was disguised to look like the very Eye of Horus that was proudly harboured by thousands of members of the Black Legion. "I am going to watch the end of this disaster, and pray Weaver does not have too many additional secret weapons to make our days difficult. This is already a major setback; the degree of it remains to be determined. And then..."

"And then?"

"And then, Iskandar, I'm afraid I'm going to have to visit the Forge of Souls again. The circumstances require that Vashtorr the Arkifane and I have one of those fascinating conversations."

The south of the Dolos Continent

The Fortress of Light

The Hope Beacon

2.942.314M35

Basileia Taylor Hebert

Several hours worth of 'Laser-Lens Mode', and every dark lair where the Ruinous Powers enslaved and generated countless horrors had been annihilated.

Well, all the dark lairs within the range of the Hope Beacon had received the punishment they so richly deserved.

Taylor couldn't do anything about the ones which were out of range.

It was a pity, but it was already excellent that she could pretty much erase from existence everything tainted by Chaos in a radius of one thousand and two-hundred light-years.

And she was getting away with it.

At first, Taylor had waited for the revenge blow to come, but as the hours had passed, it had become incredibly obvious that there would be no immediate counteroffensive from the forces of Chaos.

Nurgle had lost seven Legions in the first wave; Tzeentch had lost nine Legions and many slave-armies and sorcerers at Azmodan.

This didn't mean they were not going to weave nefarious plots to destroy the Hope Beacon in the long-term, far from it, but for now, the Four seemed to have resigned themselves to enduring a short-term humiliation.

All that was left would be to face the political consequences, and wasn't that going to be fun?

"I don't know if I have to pray that you will do surprises like that every Sanguinala, your Celestial Highness," a familiar voice reached her ears.

"Marianne." The insect-mistress smiled. "Sorry for not informing you earlier."

"Who are you going to blame for this slight to my honour, pray tell?"

"Hmm...I can't blame the Custodes, since that would have been considered high treason." The Basileia huffed and returned to a serious tone. "I'm sorry I kept you in the dark, and no, that's not an attempt to make a bad pun. It's just that for the Hope Beacon's activation to be successful, operational secrecy had to hold until the last minutes."

"Judging by the last announcements that are more or less a succession of gloating and victory proclamations, I can safely say this was a splendid triumph." The blonde daughter of the Speaker for the Chartist Captains commented while petting her Mainz Cat. "As your local trade representative, though, I am forced to insist that interplanetary and inter-Sector trade must be restored as soon as it is feasible to do so."

"And as the Lady of Nyx, I completely agree, Lady Vicequeen."

This was not an effort to look good for the Merchant Houses and other local political players; it was the truth. Without Warp-travel, the Imperium couldn't survive. Fortunately, there had been preparations made for the Themistocles Edict, and the majority of the consequences for the 'trade interruption' were going to be more than compensated by the enormous increase in safety that was going to become the norm for all travel in the Nyx Sector.

"Artemis? We have only two modes left to test, don't we?"

"This is completely correct, Webmistress!"

Marianne giggled.

"How many 'Light Modes' did you and your Adjutants stuff into this holy machine in the first place, your Celestial Highness?"

"I'm afraid the true answer is classified at a level somewhere higher than the spires of the Imperial Palace on Holy Terra, Lady Vicequeen."

The correct answer was twelve, of course. For all the versatility of the 'Resonatum' with Aethergold, and the enormous and regular energy supply granted by the Fusion Reactors, there were limits to all things.

The Custodes had shown her the Astronomican had far, far more functions than the Hope Beacon, to the point Taylor honestly wondered how in the name of her Moth's wings the Emperor could remember them all.

"Well, I think the benefits are very obvious. The change of the trade routes may cause some inconveniences, but from the maps your Adjutants graciously put at my disposal some hours ago, you also have now a direct route from here to the Suebi Nebula Sub-Sector."

"And I can hope it doesn't lead to several Necron planets."

"You warned the Phaerakh-Cryptek, I take it."

"Of course," the Angel of Sacrifice shrugged. "Neferten and Trazyn are among the few beings that literally can't be spied upon by the agents of the Ruinous Powers."

"And I'm sure that they weren't exactly sorry to see Chaos receive a painful defeat."

The Basileia didn't reply to that. After all, Vicequeen Marianne Gutenberg was absolutely correct.

"Right. Artemis, since the good Vicequeen wants Warp-capable trade ships to sail to their business destinations once more, I believe it is time we end this series of tests."

"Yes, Webmistress! It will be a pleasure to inflict more pain upon the parasites! Which ones do we try first?"

"The Blinding Lighthouse, I believe." She raised an eyebrow. "The Ruinous Powers can't make a retaliatory strike, but they can still use their pet monsters to spy upon our moves from the other side of the Light Web. Let's change this state of affairs, if only for a few minutes."

"Yes, Webmistress! Ah...do we rotate in the Moth schedule again?"

The hesitation had been longer than it should have. Who was the next in the rotation...ah.

"Yes, Artemis. Lisa has behaved sufficiently well that I suppose we can let her have her fun for the last two tests of the Hope Beacon."

This time, Taylor looked away, further than Marianne and Artemis. Her next words were for the small fleets which had waited hidden among the squadrons of Mechanicus warships invited to be witness to the formal activation of the Aetheric Engine.

"Give my compliments to the Lord of the Nyxian Compact. Unless they have met setbacks in the last day or so, all Rogue Traders and their ships are to depart within the next five hours."

Nyx System

In the shadow of the Gas Giant Nyx Sextus

Exorcist-class Grand Cruiser Pavian Victory

2.943.314M35

Rogue Trader Lord Wolfgang Bach

"We have the blessing and the permission of Her Celestial Highness, Lord Bach."

Wolfgang did his best to remain serious. His Navigator was usually not one to be so formal...or to look so shocked.

"May I guess from your presence here on the bridge that another unprecedented event did indeed happen?"

"Yes, Lord Bach. The Light Web protecting the system...it is not only protecting us, it is also blinding, shining like a second sun into the Warp!"

You didn't need to be a genius to comprehend the possible implications.

"I suppose that means our departure will thus go unnoticed at least for a while."

Suddenly, the timing of the 'you have my blessings to depart' made far more sense.

"Thank you for the message, Lord Navigator. We are of course going to obey the command of Her Celestial Highness with all celerity."

The Navigator gave a slight nod of acknowledgement and walked away, protected by a company of Achelieux guards. That there were only fifty or so betrayed how surprised the member of the Navis Nobilite had been by the whole event; usually he didn't go outside his sanctum with fewer than two hundred attendants.

Once the personnel of the Pavian Victory returned to their duties, Wolfgang allowed himself a chuckle.

"It seems she really did get away with it, after all."

"And doing it in style," Julia added to his right. As always, she had turned her uniform of Seneschal into something that would be recognised as highly fashionable for most human cultures: silver and gold with some bronze trim for the shoulders.

"Now I almost regret not trying to ferret out more secrets when we were at anchor," Adriana added to his left. "I know it all depended on a high level of operational security, but how in the name of the Golden Throne did she manage that?"

Wolfgang passed a hand through his hair.

"I'm sure the full support of the Golden Throne must have helped. And having a small army of arachnids that will have encouraged all those in the know to keep their mouths shut."

The alternative, of course, being the Adjutant-Spiders enforcing the silence. Hive Athena was often nicknamed 'Assassin's Retirement' by those in the know, and while it was black humour, it was absolutely true.

"It assuredly did." Julia didn't clear her throat, for a daughter of a Lord High Admiral didn't use that sort of plebeian tactic to attract one's attention. "The twenty ships of the fleet have all signalled maximal readiness. The courses to the Mandeville Point have been calculated and shared. All the psykers aboard every hull have learned to use the Aethergold Talisman as a reference point."

Wolfgang wished he could have received a Pylon, but alas, those were in high demand, and a long mission away from the borders of the Imperium also meant certain logistical inconveniences.

"In that case," the young Rogue Trader formally announced to his two wives and everyone on the bridge, "let us leave Nyx. We have a mysterious repository of technology from the Dark Age called Terrathens to find!"

Nyx System

In the shadow of Nyx Quartus

Vengeance-class Grand Cruiser Ebon Drake

Lord Rogue Trader Dennis Peters

"I see Wolfgang took far more ships with him than we did." Dennis noted. "And he has more waiting for him in the Eastern Fringe."

"He does also have a father-in-law who has connections," Gabriela pointed out with a smirk. "I wonder if the two Light Cruisers and the Scout Destroyer are there to safeguard the lives of certain Ladies, or if they're just contingencies to shoot the Lord Rogue Trader if his behaviour becomes unacceptable?"

"I'm not going to fall for that."

"The proud Lord Rogue Trader won't take a small bet?"

"The proud Lord Rogue Trader knows there isn't anything worth gambling about, since it's definitely the latter point which is correct."

The male parahuman smirked.

"And honestly, from what I heard, he will definitely need the reinforcements. As far as supply ships are concerned, anyway. He has twenty hulls to our twelve, but we have four support vessels while he only has one."

"One must also consider," the Salamander present on the bridge intervened, "that while the systems we're beginning our search in are currently not inhabited by Imperial citizens, we are sufficiently close to existent Sectors to make supply runs there if the need exists. I'm afraid Lord Bach won't have such options at his disposal."

"True," Dennis snorted. "Anything else that can't wait until we've entered the Warp?"

"You received a message from Missy Byron," Gabriela informed him with glee. "I think most of the content was about 'doing everything as long as it stays on the Ebon Drake'.

"It's the hospital joking about charity," the young Rogue Trader melodramatically moaned. "I don't know about two-thirds of what she did at Macragge!"

"And you didn't manage to bribe a single Adjutant-Spider to spy for you." The former Assassin who had become his Seneschal teased him.

"And I didn't manage to bribe a single Adjutant-Spider." Dennis sighed. "Though since many had to work on this galactic-sized surprise the Lady Basileia slammed into the abominations' ugly mugs, I suppose their utmost concentration on other problems makes excellent sense. The preparations for the activation of a mini-Astronomican largely beat gossip ten times out of ten."

"I couldn't have it said better myself."

Captain Phoecus took the initiative to project the hololithic map of the Imperium.

"This is going to have more consequences than I can honestly calculate." The son of Vulkan admitted with genuine honesty. "The freedom of Warp-based navigation in the Nyx Sector alone is a tremendous advantage that is literally priceless. And in the future..."

"Yes?"

"I think it has made a war of the level of a Black Crusade nearly unavoidable in several decades." The Space Marine affirmed, his red eyes shining strangely despite the bridge not suffering from a lack of illumination. "The enemies of the Emperor are now going to be in the position of cornered beasts. But it is still in the future."

"Yes." Moreover, it wasn't the job of Rogue Traders to make these preparations which no doubt involved millions of Warp-capable ships, and not just twelve like the ones he owned. "Every machine is functioning to Magos Dominus Gallipoli-Theta's satisfaction?"

"They are, my Lord." Gabriela replied formally for what was likely the first and last time of the day.

"In that case, let us not make the stars wait any longer. The Boron Cluster is waiting for us."

Outer edge of the Nyx System, close to Mandeville Point Sigma Draconis

Conquest-class Star Galleon Arica Orpheus

Lady Magdalena Orpheus

"Lady Orpheus?"

"Yes?" Magdalena didn't stop watching the hololith, though. Acknowledging a subordinate was speaking to you was good, but right now, her eyes were busy staring at the vast amount of firepower which was dispersing across the Nyx System and beyond.

A majority of them had been clearly mustered for that very moment which would be remembered by Imperial information services for millennia to come. The ships from Samarkand had clearly been there to be privileged witnesses of the activation of the Hope Beacon.

The Imperial Navy squadrons and the Mechanicus Exploratory Fleets had been assembled partly for the same reason, but unlike the former, they had also been invited in case the Archenemy and the other enemies of the God-Emperor had something up their sleeves.

Fortunately, it seemed the precautions taken had proven unnecessary, not a single gun required to be fired in anger.

"I noticed we weren't the only Rogue Traders to be summoned by Her Celestial Highness lately."

"By that, I assume you're trying to bring up the other Rogue Traders that are not part of the Compact."

"Yes, my Lady," the Navy Lieutenant that had been assigned to her by Lord Admiral von Müller grimaced. "I was under the impression our powerbase was secure. Now, I am not so sure."

"Our position is very secure," Magdalena gave a sober nod. "The problem is that there are only a handful of us, and all of us have been sent to missions which might last anywhere between years and decades, if not longer. And for someone like Her Celestial Highness, there's a lot of work to be assigned. Work that evidently the Arica Orpheus and our other ships won't be able to do, since we are on the way to the Galactic Core."

This was always a problem many Adepts and other grumbling bureaucrats didn't consider; for all the problems some crazy Rogue Traders created, there were never enough of them.

"I would have thought the Navy would be eager to move in and claim the missions for themselves."

"That's where you are wrong, Lieutenant. First, even if they had the eagerness, the Navy doesn't have the hulls right now. They're busy dealing with the aftermath of the Black Crusade, and they also have hundreds of fleets that are in need of maintenance and repairs."

The same applied to Nyx and Wuhan.

The brand-new battleships that were slowly beginning to be assembled in the yards of Ferrus' Revenge were the talks of the entire Sector, but what was less discussed was that there were over thirty Battleships that had to be repaired or modernised by the Tech-Priests and millions of yard workers.

In many ways, it was a secondary engineering triumph, one which had been done at the same time the Hope Beacon was built in secret.

"And honestly, while many Captains of the Imperial Navy will be all too happy to move in and claim the spoils which come with the Rogue Trader's profession, few have the patience for the far more boring duties. Mapmaking, exploring long-devastated systems, evaluating mining deposits that have been abandoned since the Great Crusade...the list is long, and many Admirals feel – in some cases completely rightfully – that their great warships would be completely wasted on such missions."

"But Rogue Traders can," the younger man completed.

"But Rogue Traders can." And there was a shortage of them right now. Of course, after Commorragh and the death of Sliscus and many Rogue Traders, the Inquisition had decided to conduct several long and determined 'investigations', making sure there was indeed a 'shortage'.

Most experts on the question called it a 'purge', for good reason.

"In fact, now that I think about it," the Mistress of the Arica Orpheus continued with a thin smile, "it was a bit surprising so few of my peers answered the invitation. While Her Celestial Highness will tolerate no compromise on tainted artefacts, the sums promised for Noctilith acquisition, transport, and delivery are very real."

Lady Foronika Argovon could vouch for that; the female Rogue Trader had unofficially retired and effectively become the top Noctilith provider from the Nephilim Sector, becoming scandalously rich from it in mere years.

"The Living Saint isn't the only figure of legend who is requesting their services, Lady Orpheus. There are the Primarchs too."

"Hmm...true, though I was under the impression only Lord Roboute Guilliman is known to do so." And he was the only Primarch Magdalena knew that was easy to contact. The other Primarchs were very much alive, but it was hard to determine at any moment where exactly they were travelling in the Imperium. "And he hasn't pushed for Noctilith expeditions."

Although to be fair to the Lord of the Ultramarines, it may have to do with the problem of Ultramar being relatively close to the limit of the Astronomican illumination zone. Those Rogue Traders who sailed away in that direction had as many chances to find archeotech relics and deposits of ultra-rare metals than they had to come back infested with dark horrors.

"It always comes down to Noctilith it seems, Lady Orpheus."

"Noctilith is what made today's victory possible, Lieutenant." While battles had been fought everywhere in the Samarkand Quadrant, Magdalena was sure the Black Templars would agree with her that when the radiance became temporarily visible to the naked eye, the fate of the Nyx Sector and the Samarkand Quadrant as a whole had been sealed.

Victory belonged to the Imperium.

But for more victories to happen, the Imperium needed more Aethergold, all the while making sure to keep the Necron Pylons they found across the galaxy in a serviceable state.

"More Noctilith is always good, for Terra is not going to demand we stop collecting it anytime soon." Her eyes stopped watching the hololith; most of the Rogue Traders she was interested in had left via Warp translation. "We will see who of my esteemed peers will rise to the challenge when we return. Anyway, none of our ships have reported any technical difficulties?"

"None, Lady Orpheus," the red-robed Magos of Nyx she had managed to convince to become her Chief Enginseer replied. It had been a chore to convince Archmagos Lankovar to release him for an 'indeterminate period', but his competence was worth many sacrifices. "All ships are in optimal condition and following the proper course...including the 'Special Food Cargo'."

One could almost hear the grumble of disapproval from the servant of the Cult of Mars; as it should be, for the answer to the challenges posed by their destination was both original and a bit ridiculous.

"Then let us not wait any longer," the descendant of the legendary Rogue Trader Arica Orpheus commanded, "Her Celestial Highness ordered the twelve ships of this House for a highly-sensitive mission in the Galactic Core, and we are not going to disappoint her. Prepare for Warp Translation in thirty-one minutes."

The south of the Dolos Continent

The Fortress of Light

The Hope Beacon

2.945.314M35

Basileia Taylor Hebert

"All the fleets of the Rogue Traders have translated away safely and without incident, my Lady. We've also had half of the Navy squadrons returning to their home ports."

"Thank you, Gavreel." Taylor replied. "The merchant ships?"

"At the moment, the messages from Lady Gutenberg indicate they're testing the waters, so to speak? And commenting idly why there is now a direct route to Wuhan."

The young Basileia snorted.

"The ways of the God-Emperor are unfathomable." The Angel of Sacrifice replied piously.

"Is that what we're calling it now?" Gamaliel asked with enough irony to last a few years.

"Careful, oh Astartes," she raised a golden finger. "As Lady Missy Byron accused me of some hours ago, think of what my celestial tyranny can accomplish if properly motivated. I have the chores of an entire Sector at my disposal to punish you...not that I will, for I am absolutely not vengeful."

"The Archenemy, if asked, would vehemently disagree with that opinion," a member of the Dawnbreaker Guard pointed out. It was probably better for him that he remained anonymous.

"Then it's a good thing I won't ask the abominations what they think of my moves."

"But can a humble Architect say the lack of decoration here is appalling?"

"Ah," the insect-mistress turned her head and sighed. "Lady Cyrene Versailles. I was expecting the criticism since day one."

"And for good reason," the young-looking Perpetual told her brazenly. "If you were intending for the Hope Beacon to be recognised as a monument to asceticism, congratulations, you've succeeded."

Taylor merely rolled her eyes.

"I, in fact, intended to order several statues and commission a few artists for several artwork-galleries. But I was overruled."

"Oh, and by whom?"

Taylor didn't say a single word. That said, she was confident that her eyes going in the direction where a lone black-clad Custodes stood still conveyed the point perfectly.

"I suppose that is as good a reason as any. Operational security above all else?"

"Several days were spent making lists of every citizen who could be informed of it before this Sanguinala, and we ended up scratching four-fifths of the names in the end. This really was a 'if you didn't play a key part in it, you have no right to know' situation. The Tech-Priests who worked on the Project had to disconnect themselves from the Noosphere beforehand."

"I understand. But still, it's really a splendid asceticism that only Space Marines can appreciate."

And many Astartes chose this moment to laugh, the traitors.

"My apologies, oh Grand Architect." It was beginning to become a habit of hers to roll her eyes, in the last hours. Why did everyone wanted to tease her? "But in my defence, the Hope Beacon was not supposed to be activated this soon. Events forced plenty of hands, including mine."

After what the Despoiler had done, there had been no telling how many other daggers had been ready to stab on the orders of the Traitor Legions and the Four.

Since they couldn't scour every planet of the Quadrant to its foundations, the logical conclusion had been that they wouldn't try; instead, the Hope Beacon would cleanse the taint of Chaos.

And it had indeed marvellously achieved that, doing better than the most optimistic simulations of the Mechanicus and her Adjutants.

"I am almost tempted to forgive you, your Celestial Highness."

Taylor snorted.

"And I am almost tempted to forgive the extraordinarily large party you threw on a whim with my Minister of Foreign Affairs."

"Technically, Lady Basileia," Gavreel informed her. "The party is still ongoing at Hive Attica. I mean, Thomas informed us there is a scheduled fireworks spectacle in two hours. And several of your recently-appointed Barons paid for several trains filled with entire containers worth of drinks to make a detour, otherwise everyone was growing to grow too thirsty!"

"I am almost impressed you can say that with a straight face, Sergeant." The insect-mistress shrugged. "Bah, as long as everyone is happy, it's good to let everyone celebrate and blow off some energy. The Sanguinala is about remembering the sacrifices of the Great Angel, but it's about remembering life is worth living too. What were we talking about again?"

"The artistic presence in your Hope Beacon...or rather, the lack of it," Cyrene reminded her with a vicious expression.

The stars-filled-eyed parahuman sighed.

"You realise we are never going to invite tourists or pilgrims here, right?"

"You realise you recently made me Minister of Arts in addition to my Architect duties, right?"

Taylor looked at the Custodes...who tried very hard to pretend she hadn't said anything.

"Twelve artists," the Basileia admitted defeat after half a minute of silent staring. "And they will have their entire life screened by the Inquisition and remain under constant surveillance inside the Hope Beacon."

"And their artworks will have hololithic recordings and replica placed in a dedicated museum that will be built somewhere in a Hive of Dolos." Cyrene insisted.

"That...that is not a bad idea." She conceded. Many nobles had complained that the 'Weaverian Marvels' were nowhere near the structures they ruled; given the importance of the Hope Beacon, they would have far fewer reasons to complain. "Anything else?"

"Webmistress, I wish to report that the 'Transfer Mode' has been successfully tested, and we're letting Lisa eat her fill of giant strawberries at the moment!"

"And your report is appreciated, my beautiful Adjutant-General."

Taylor left the humble chair from which she had been directing the efforts of her Swarm.

"I think it's time to go officially return to the Sanguinala celebrations, and enjoy a bit of rest. Ishtar, you will replace Artemis. Izanami, you replace Bellona."

"At once, Webmistress!"

Taylor stared a last time at the Custodes.

She gave him a nod.

The Custodes returned it.

They had done all they could here; the rest was in the Emperor's hands now.

I do not think fear is the first step on the path to damnation. Far too many times have I seen curiosity and sheer stupidity herald calamity for Mankind. But you certainly used the Power of Fear for far too long. You have used it to inflict suffering beyond imagination.

ENOUGH!

Somewhere in the Penumbral Frontier of Segmentum Obscurus

Omega-Six

Lord Cypher

Omega-Six.

Cypher had never thought he would return to this pit of lawlessness.

It was a large galaxy, and while his long journey led him to many unsavoury locations, he avoided them when he had the choice.

Omega-Six.

Millions of years ago, it had been an extremely large asteroid trapped in the gravity well of a Gas Giant so large that Old Jupiter in the Sol System was dwarfed by it in comparison.

But the eyes of an intelligent species had had its eyes attracted by this piece of rock, for inside it carried an abundance of some critical element vital for their space-faring civilisation.

And so they had dug for a long time, creating massive tunnels, bring enormous extraction machines, and harvested millions of tons of ore.

Until one day, the deposits had run out.

The intelligent species had left, leaving the hollowed-out asteroid abandoned with whatever tolls and infrastructure they felt would be too much of a bother to bring with them.

What was the metal which had been worth so many millions of hours of labour? No one alive today knew. What was the name of this intelligent species? No one had come forwards to say he had discovered it.

What was known for sure was that after an eternity of silence, other species had found the hollowed-out asteroid, and since the other Asteroid Belts had been left as the universe had created them, it had begun as a mining outpost. Then pirates had arrived, pointed their guns at the miners, and everything had become more interesting.

Before humanity invented its first rockets to escape the gravity well of its homeworld, Omega-Six had become a den of piracy, inequity, smuggling, and crime.

There was not even the pretense of a civilian government, and while powerful mercenary warbands wanted to control the entirety of the maze of tunnels, houses, shops, weapon manufactorums...in practise they controlled the territory where they had strong armoured boots on the ground.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Obviously, since in an area the strongest faction was always in charge, it meant the only way for it to change hands was through brutal violence.

Yes, in order to pre-empt some natural questions: there were Orks on Omega-Six.

Since there was on average at least one full-scale battle in the maze of tunnels going on every day, and dozens of skirmishes besides, the greenskins had to feel very much at home.

Omega-Six.

The Imperium had never taken control of it; even today, with the Astronomican shining far more brilliantly than it had before, the den of lawlessness remained just out of reach, a few light-years too far away for the Navigators to guide the Cruisers of the Imperial Navy.

And of course the system was half-surrounded by a Nebula that was filled with countless ways to destroy a starship. As the three-eyed mutants had nothing but tiny sparks of the lighthouse to use as references, they certainly weren't going to tell any Admiral the risks were manageable. Furthermore, several Rogue Traders had tried to destroy the place since the dawn of the Imperium. Every time it had happened, the Criminal Lords of Omega-Six united and destroyed the unwelcome newcomer.

Omega-Six stayed as it was, a world without law, except it was inside an asteroid, one which happened to have a lot of technology around that no one properly understood anymore.

This was not why Cypher was here.

He didn't care about greenskins and humans shaking hands and making unnatural bargains that would be betrayed as soon as it was convenient.

On the other hand, the Dark Angel cared that several Orks had decided he was a quarry that was good for a hunt.

Several shots each of his Plasma Pistol and his Bolter had been needed to explode the heads and send a message that no, he was nothing like the thugs they bullied and killed every day.

Cypher would barely remember them.

There was something far more urgent on his mind.

He was close.

He could feel it.

Cypher ran.

As fast as his pace was, it still took him hours to reach his destination.

It included a long and unpleasant descent into a trapped lift with many xenos killers waiting for him at the bottom.

They thought being armed to the teeth was going to make an impression on him.

They were wrong.

Cypher continued deeper into the tunnels of Omega-Six.

The longer it went on, the stranger his surroundings became.

The caverns were painted with glyphs he didn't recognise.

This was no surviving artistic display left by the arrogant Aeldari before they disappeared from the stars. This was not the funerary and morbid creation of the Necrons. And it assuredly wasn't anything Humanity had ever dared to imagine.

It was too old.

It was too...too irrational.

It was too dark, too oppressing.

The tunnels twisted, and twisted again. Several times, Cypher had to go back on his steps for he had reached a dead end.

Until at last, he found it.

It was a vast cavern, one which appeared to have no end.

It was not an illusion, and his hands gripped his weapons harder.

There were things dancing at the edge of his vision.

Clearly, and no matter how it was possible, this place reeked of the Warp.

It shouldn't be possible.

There was assuredly no gory slaughterhouse, and no sign it had ever been used for such a purpose.

There was no grand altar to the Four or anything else.

There was nothing, in fact, but a solid floor of plain, ugly, grey metal.

The walls of the cavern were rocky.

The roof seemed to be uneven, but otherwise normal.

But the poisoned whispers were all too familiar.

It was the same chalice of damnation which had led the collapse of Caliban many lifetimes ago.

And it was here again.

It was here, and he was here.

He was presenting his back to him.

He was not facing him, but it was obvious it was no impostor. No one, not even a gifted sorcerer, could fool him.

He was responsible for this corruption, and no doubt many, many other things.

"Luther," the Space Marine known by most of the Imperium as Cypher murmured.

The black robe covering the silhouette slightly moved.

"I knew you were going to come. I saw it."

The voice was filled with emotions he struggled to put a name on.

Grief? Sadness? Madness? All of it at once?

"Then I suppose you saw this too?"

Cypher fired both his Pistols.

The shots were deadly accurate; one for the head, one for the spine.

Eldritch lightning arcs shrieked into existence, and a malevolent shield of black energy stopped his weapons from accomplishing anything.

"Yes, I did." Luther of Caliban removed his hood.

The former Knight had not aged well. His hair, once a deep black, showed no trace of onyx anymore; it was only grey and white, and the same applied to the beard.

There were many, many scars that hadn't been there during the final and apocalyptic Battle of Caliban.

His armour was a thing that some Black Shields specialised in scavenging would have spat upon in disgust, as it included half-useful parts of several different Astartes Power Armours of at least three non-compatible Mark patterns.

But his eyes burned with power, and no one sane would have dared insinuate the self-proclaimed Saviour of Caliban was at death's door.

He was Luther of Caliban. Once a Knight. Now a Sorcerer of immense power.

"I did, my son."

The whispers stopped.

It seemed that even in the deepest pits of hell, the abominations could still be surprised by one thing.

"Do not call me that." Cypher retorted in a voice that could have turned a Desert World into a frozen wasteland. "You are no father of mine."

"I sired you. I raised you. I knighted you. I forged you to become the blade which-"

"YOU BETRAYED US ALL!"

Cypher regretted the outburst. It had been several centuries, at the very least, that he had lost control of his emotions like this.

"You betrayed us. You betrayed the Imperium. You betrayed the Lion. You betrayed the other Fallen. You betrayed everyone. Where were you when the armies of the Warmaster stood before the Eternity Gate? Where were you when the Space Marines cast through space and time had no choice but to sell their own swords to survive?"

"The Lion did not see the truth." There was no contrition, only madness in the ancient eyes. "Not like I did. Certain sacrifices were necessary-"

"Weaver is the Angel of Sacrifice. What you did, the Emperor and his loyalists call it selling uncountable souls to the parasites Erebus and his ilk wanted to call Gods."

The expression became one of extreme disappointment.

"What I did, I did it for you, my son."

"NO!" Once again, it was difficult to keep some calm in his chest. The urge was there to rush forwards and scream his hatred. "No. You didn't do this for me. You didn't do it for anyone you profess to cherish. You did it for yourself. You slew everyone but me who was of your blood, and you had the gall to call it good."

"That is your version of the truth."

"No, it is the truth. Or did you repeat your lies to my mother before you murdered her and offered her as meat-fodder for the monsters you swore allegiance to?"

The shadows coalesced.

The daemons' shrieking rose higher.

Eldritch lightning danced around Luther, making him appear like some winged monstrosity emerging from the abyss.

Never more than at that very moment had the man looked more deserving than the title of First of the Fallen.

"You will join me, Cypher. The Pact you made with your Patron protects you, I will give you this. Even I am unable to remember the name I gave you on the day of your birth."

"Yes, it's difficult to know a True Name in these conditions, isn't it?" He drawled ironically. "I don't think you can walk across every planet in this galaxy hoping someone might give you a hint. And as for my Patron, your very existence is an offence of the highest order."

There was a snarling sound.

"But there are other means to teach you the error of your ways."

Behind him, something shrieked, and when Cypher turned, it was to stare at a barrier that had replaced the path he had come from. It was a barrier, and yet no Imperial engineer had ever tried to build anything like that: it looked like a cascade of black blood, and ivory skulls and shrieking mouths echoed across its surface.

"Join me, Cypher. We can rebuild the First Legion as it should be, and convince the Lion to become the leader he was meant to be. We can be the heart and soul of the Dark Angels, and rule the shadows as father and son."

"I will not bend the knee to you," this was a promise he had made long ago, and he had no intention to break it. "Never again."

"Then I will make you repent!"

The eldritch lightning struck, and the darkness howled and cackled.

The pain was unbelievable.

And then it stopped.

If the expression of the traitor was any indication, it was not because he had wanted it to stop.

The cascade of black blood which had blocked any avenue of retreat was fading away.

It was-

"What have you done?"

Cypher seized a purse, and threw it, knowing he would get no other chance.

But the cloud of powder exploded against Luther's skin doing no damage whatsoever.

"Nice try," the Fallen Sorcerer commented without humour, "but my allegiance is not to the Architect of Fate or the Grandfather of Decay. I am the Herald of a far Greater Power. These cheap tricks won't work on me. Now-"

The Warp screamed.

This time, the eldritch lightning and the shadows disappeared as if they had been swallowed.

The Warp screamed, and this was no attempt to convince an enemy there was some inexistent vulnerability.

No, this time, something had happened in the Sea of Souls.

And for the first time in his life, Cypher thought he was listening to real, genuine fear from the Ruinous Powers.

It was-

It was his last chance to escape Omega-Six with his life.

Clearly, Luther had become too powerful to be defeated by his hand alone.

Cypher ran, right as shockwaves began to create fissures into the deep tunnels of Omega-Six.

"I will stop you...heretic."

Segmentum Solar

Solar Sector

Sol System

Holy Terra

The Imperial Palace

0.945.314M35

Captain-General Anubis Excelsor

"I imagine Weaver was not exactly happy to discover you found your own Noctilith deposits and didn't tell her."

"Her happiness is irrelevant." Anubis Excelsor replied. The Grand Master of the Grey Knights was absolutely right, but it was irrelevant. "What mattered is that she did her duty, as all the servants of the Imperium do."

The grey-clad Space Marine slightly inclined his head, conceding the point.

"I am now familiar with Pylons, but I confess my complete ignorance about this 'Aethergold Cube'. How long will it take for the Transfer procedure to be complete? And once it is, what will be its purpose?"

These were two good questions, the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes admitted.

"Per the tests we did when the Cube was first transformed into Aethergold in the domes of Nyx, we calculated it would take almost two hours of 'transfer' to charge it to full capacity."

"Impressive," Anubis didn't know if the Grand Master of Titan spoke of the speed or the display it offered.

It may be the latter, but he didn't open his mouth for a confirmation.

Arguably, both were impressive feats of aetheric display.

Between the synchronisation of the Hope Beacon and the Astronomican, Lady Weaver had been able to open a pseudo-wormhole of psychic nature directly into the Imperial Palace, and with the Archenemy being none the wiser.

And from this wormhole – whose extremity looked like a giant worm of Light – the orbs made by a certain Titan-Moth could power up the Aethergold Cube.

It was an imposing structure, one hundred and twenty tons of Aethergold.

It wasn't smooth; the Custodes had carved quantities of Runes following their Sire's instructions with an exacting precision few beings would have been able to match.

"How were you able to transport it to Terra while keeping it a secret? Based on our recent experiences, I can say the daemons know we are coming the moment we launch a Pylon-equipped ship into the Sea of Souls."

"We had to request the services of Weaver's counterpart," Excelsor answered after acknowledging the information was in good hands with the Grey Knights. "Umbralshroud can hide the radiance of Aethergold from enemy eyes, if it is active in sufficient quantities. And it was sufficiently flexible to create a box around the Cube. Obviously, Elena Kerrigan and several of her new initiates were requisitioned for the mission."

One by one, hundreds of runes began to burn in golden flames.

The moment to strike was mere minutes away.

"I understand. And the threat?"

"We are to break and annihilate one of the worst blades the parasites forged to strike against the Throne World."

As the Grand Master had yet to don his helmet, his surprise was evident.

"Forgive me, Captain-General, but I thought this was already the case. We purged the direct Webway access to the Golden Throne of the abominable infestation. With Commorragh's destruction, the Four have lost their avenue of invasion."

"Their most direct avenue" the Captain-General of the Watchers of the Throne corrected. "The lesser parasites are particularly stupid, Grand Master. But the Four themselves, while they are cruel and malevolent, are not complete fools. They created daggers to stab us in the back, in case the ones which worked several millennia ago failed. But one of them is far more dangerous than all of the rest added together."

"It can't be the Webway." The Grand Master said thoughtfully. "Commorragh's destruction made sure they couldn't use it for their fell purposes."

"It isn't the Webway," Anubis Excelsor agreed. "It is a Daemon World."

The Grand Master of the Fourth Brotherhood also was the Keeper of the Augurium, the veteran of ten thousand battles against the Great Enemy, and Lord of the Prognosticators of his Chapter.

Nonetheless, at that moment, he stilled.

"Impossible," he breathed out. "We would have felt it. We have guarded Sol loyally without ever closing our eyes. When exactly-"

And then his eyes widened. Yes, the Grand Master understood.

"Yes," Anubis said soberly. "It's been here since the very beginning. Or to be more accurate, it was put in position the moment Horus died. It contains a fraction of the Warp Storm which was unleashed in the dark days of the Siege. It devoured millions of innocent souls as the Traitors used their malevolent Soul-Engines on the population of Sol."

"It is the dark mirror to Holy Terra." The words were uttered in a murmur. "Should the Astronomican ever stop illuminating the galaxy for too long, it would be only a question of time until this abomination would rise and tear the Veil apart."

"Yes." Anubis Excelsor had been very glad to know he couldn't feel fear when he had learned the truth from his predecessor. And even then, he had shivered. Holy Terra and every planet nearby had very strong defences, and the firepower at the disposal of the Battlefleets was enough to stop several armadas dead in mere minutes. But a Daemon World surfacing in the middle of the Sol System and certainly supported by every evil surprise the parasites had prepared since the dark days of the Heresy? Where the assault by the Webway had failed, this overwhelming onslaught could very well stand a chance of succeeding.

"We call it the Dark World when we have to. Whatever name this planet had before being transformed...none but the Emperor and the parasites know."

There had to be some dark and painful purpose for his Liege, of course. The parasites could be counted upon to be cruel beyond imagination.

"And you want me and my Prognosticators to...ah. The Dark World is too deep inside the Warp to be threatened conventionally. You need accurate coordinates to aim."

"Correct, Grand Master. I happen to dislike most analogies which compare to the Sea of Souls to a water-filled ocean. Unfortunately, some of these analogies make sense, and even more so in this case. The enemy has hidden this terrible weapon far deeper than any Navigator has ever tried to watch. Prognostication is the only way to get target coordinates."

It went without saying that the danger was extreme.

The Four were undoubtedly going to feel the attempt, and after what Weaver had done on her side, they were not going to think it was a coincidence.

"I understand." The Grand Master of the Grey Knights' face became a wall of adamantine determination before donning his helmet. "On my oaths, I will not fail."

"I know." Anubis Excelsor nodded respectfully. "I am going to let enter the twelve Adepts of the Mistress of the Astronomican provided. They will activate the Cube upon your command. And-"

"It is time to strike. Illuminate the darkness. I will protect you as much as I can." The voice, the human voice, seemed to have come from everywhere in the Imperial Palace at once.

Anubis Excelsor rejoiced internally, and knelt automatically before realising how undignified he had reacted.

"As you command, my Liege." There was a last glance towards the Cube. "We have approximately three minutes before the 'Light Transfer' is complete. Take your positions!"

The Warp

The Dark World

One of the names of the Daemon Prince was Samus.

Samus, Harbinger of the Ruinstorm.

Samus, the One Who Walks Behind Us.

Samus, the Lord of Despair.

Samus, the Herald of Encroaching Ruin.

Samus, the End and the Death.

It was called Samus.

And each and every one of its titles was mocked by the other daemons that were close to his prison.

Samus had gambled too many favours in the last days of the Siege of Terra, betting Horus would triumph in the end.

But Horus had perished. The victory of the Four, that Samus had thought ineluctable, had failed to materialize in the last fateful duel between father and son.

And as a consequence, Samus had been denied a Master. He had been denied everything.

The Four, it was well known, did not reward failures.

That Samus had been vanquished by a mere Space Marine, and a loyalist son of Horus at that, had only aggravated his case.

Thus the Four had decided Samus would be the End and the Death of Terra...in due time.

When this Daemon World would eventually resurface in front of Terra, Samus would be there.

But until that very moment, it would wait, chained and unable to gain any glory.

In the depths of the Warp, Samus was denied the ability to whisper into the ears of the mortals, to sink into their brains, and to complete his mission.

"But my time will come. The Imperium will fall," the Daemon Prince hissed. "The Imperium will fall, and the Anathema will die! Then Chaos will reign supreme!"

The Legion surrounding him howled in approval.

Samus howled and spread his hatred among them.

"I will find your soul, Garviel Loken. I don't know how it was saved, but I will find it. And on that day, you will beg! You will implore me! You will reconsider your allegiance and recognise Horus was the True Emperor for Mankind!"

The hatred was spiralling in waves, and it amplified his power. Not enough to break the chains that kept him chained upon this Dark Throne that Horus had prepared for himself, but-

All thoughts of hatred vanished as a brilliant psychic sword crash-landed into the dark sands of the Daemon World that he had been named Lord and Master of.

Samus' essence shook in surprise.

It even increased as the spear began to burn in golden flames.

And it started to incinerate his servants and the very fabric of the Empyrean.

"No," Samus growled, "No! Not even the Anathema would be so arrogant as to-"

The Warp screamed.

The depths of the Warp were in tumult.

Samus screamed his hatred.

This did nothing as the equivalent of a Light Storm slowly appeared 'above' the Dark World.

"NO!" The Daemon Prince of the Ruinstorm shouted. "This isn't my Fate! KHORNE! TZEENTCH! NURGLE! MALAL! I call upon your hatred! I call upon your vengeance! I call upon the blood of these dark dunes and the End! Chaos will not be denied again!"

The Warp screamed, and at last the Gods answered.

The swirling storm of Light began to slow down. The True Gods of the Warp turned their attention towards Terra once more, and began their counterattack.

Samus snarled in pleasure-

The next instant, it looked like a kilometre-long spear of Light had just struck the Daemon World the Custodes had designed as the Dark World.

It wasn't a figure of speech. There was truly a crystallised spear of Light as tall as a mountain suddenly embedded in front of his throne.

"That wasn't the Astronomican before," the Daemon of the End and the Death blurted out. "How-"

"Fear is the mind-killer."

A voice echoed across the black dunes, as millions of daemons burned in golden flames.

"My desert. My Arrakis. My Dune."

"You won't get away with this, Anathema! I will come back! I will invade Terra and tear your corpse from the machinery of the Golden Throne to eat your carcass myself! I will-"

The golden spear, which looked taller than three mountains suddenly appeared to transform into a crystalline structure.

"Oh no."

"Oh yes."

The golden-crystal spear exploded, and the Warp shrieked in horror.

No, not in horror, Samus realised.

The armies of the Dark Gods were shrieking in fear.

Fear was killing them faster than the flames of the Anathema.

The Dark World convulsed and imploded.

The Warp burned.

Immense masses rose only to collapse, an apocalyptic disaster that would shatter everything there was of the tainted sands.

The Four fled.

Samus felt it, and almost didn't believe it.

But it had happened.

The Dark Gods, the Four, the Masters of the Warp...had withdrawn.

No, they had panicked. They had experienced true fear.

His servants and slaves had abandoned him to the last, those who hadn't already been destroyed.

There were more earthquakes, and giant fissures opened, revealing giant worms of golden light projecting golden sand on unimaginable distance.

Samus began to feel his very essence slipping away.

He was the End and the Death of Sol, the predestined end of the defenders of Mankind.

But if the End was postponed, if Fate slipped away between its claws and fangs...then there was no End to wield against the Imperium.

A last orb of light descended.

It was a last dot of light, a candle to illuminate the utter destruction of what should have been a perfect plan.

And Samus felt fear, for this was true death coming to claim him.

"I do not fear death, Anathema. One day, someone will succeed where I have failed."

There was a second of silence.

And then he heard that voice. That damned voice of the son of Horus who had banished him.

"We both know that is a lie," Garviel Loken spoke. "For my brothers and for the Emperor!"

Samus screamed in fear. Then it burned.

Segmentum Solar

Solar Sector

Sol System

Holy Terra

The Imperial Palace

0.945.314M35

Captain-General Anubis Excelsor

For several seconds, Anubis was ashamed to admit he used his weapon as a crutch to avoid slamming against the floor like a piece of ugly pottery.

Fortunately, it didn't last long, and several seconds later, the sensation of sheer malevolence seemed only a faint memory.

His strength returned.

"MEDICAE!" The Captain-General shouted.

The Grey Knight in front of him definitely could use plenty of help, seeing as his armour had begun to melt. The hexagram-typed wards had protected him from the worst of the retaliation, but power was power, and in the end, there was only so much Astartes Armour could protect you from when something that could have slain Titans with ease was attacking you.

"Sire? Sire!"

"It worked, Captain-General." The voice was weak, but still clearly audible. "Send word of the success to Nyx. Ar...the Daemon World is no more. The parasites have experienced true fear for the first time. Now...heal your wounds and purify the Cube and this entire room. I...I need to rest."

"By your will, Sire." The Commander of the Ten Thousand would lie if he didn't admit a heavy burden had just been lifted from his shoulders. "Protocol Alpha-Omega-One! Confirm!"

"Triangle-Blue-Kappa-Ocean," his fellow Tribune answered with the correct password. "It worked?"

"It did," Excelsor confirmed. "But many of us paid the ultimate price for it."

His eyes fell upon the bodies of the powerful psykers who had supported the Grand Master.

They had been brave and dutiful.

Unfortunately, eight of them were dead, and the last four would likely never return to service, courtesy of having experienced an agony that was properly abominable.

As for his Custodes? Three of the Watchers had perished, and five survivors were in the process of being evacuated with terrible wounds. Anubis Excelsor could only thank the Emperor and Weaver that a few weeks ago, the announcement had come that the new form of Bacta adapted for Custodes use had been successfully tested.

The Sentinels of the Emperor would have a chance to return to active service, though he wasn't naive enough to think it was going to be an easy affair.

Every limb and organ of his body screamed of exhaustion.

Anubis knew he was going to need days to recover enough to consider himself fit for service.

"The Cube?" He asked the new psykers who had stormed the hall with lanterns containing crystals of Aethergold, a move that progressively erased the dark streaks which had tried to move ever close to the Aethergold weapon.

"It is intact, Captain-General."

Anubis Excelsor sighed in relief.

"Though it is our professional opinion a new activation would be incredibly risky at this hour."

"Acknowledged, but unnecessary; the utilisation of the Cube, as willed by the Emperor, has been accomplished. I have no intention to use it again as long as the permission doesn't come."

The Cube was dangerous. Yes, it was the Emperor who had destroyed the Dark World, but without the Cube, the Master of Mankind couldn't have reached the depths of the Warp.

But as the good old tactical treatises said, if you could strike at your enemy, then assuredly the enemy could strike at you.

"We are going to have to find a secure location for it," a Prefect spoke. "I suppose it is out of the question to place it in the Dark Cells?"

"The Shadowkeepers, I think, would gouge my eyes out for making the suggestion alone." And they would have every right to do so.

The Cube was a creation of his Liege's Light; there were things in the Dark Vaults which absolutely shouldn't be disturbed.

"In that case-"

There was an irregularity under his armoured foot that wasn't there before.

Anubis Excelsor took a step back.

There were words in High Gothic carved in the white stone. And as the radiance of Aethergold came into contact with them, they burned in black flames.

Not for long. The Aethergold flames devoured and consumed them in less than five seconds.

But the very existence of this in the Imperial Palace when he had not noticed any enemy doing it was very bad news indeed.

And then there were the words. The Light burned them, but the Captain-General had far more time than he needed to read them.

IN TEACHING THEM FEAR YOU HAVE FREED ME

Then there seemed to be a hastily carven script below before it too was extinguished.

Fear leads to Terror

"What does it mean, Captain-General?"

"We have won a battle, Tribune, but now I think we have to prepare for the true War..."

The Somnium Stars

Mictlantecuhtli System

Mictlan

First Captain Jago 'Sevatar' Sevatarion, the Prince of Crows

Sevatar was no stranger to terrified crowds of civilians.

He'd better not be, given everything he had done during the long campaigns of the Great Crusade and everything that had followed after Ullanor.

However, today was definitely a first.

Neither his Legionnaires nor he were responsible for the fear of these unwashed mortals.

And the circumstances of their appearance in this system of the Somnium Stars were equally problematic.

All these humans looked like refugees who had been given barely enough time to pick up some bags and leave their home in a hurry.

Fair was fair, that happened to a lot of people in the last millennia, and it likely would continue to happen for a few million years.

But in this case, there was a little problem.

Where was the transport ship which had led them here?

"Could you get any answers?" He asked one of the few veteran Legionnaires that had accompanied him.

"Some," the other Astartes grunted. "They come from a world called Nara."

"The name doesn't ring any bells." Sevatar admitted honestly.

"Some kind of nocturnal Civilised World?"

The Prince of Crows' eyes must have given a hint that this didn't help at all.

"Do we know at least why they're all terrified?"

"Ah yes, that. At some point, it seems an Astartes who could have been one of our gene-line committed a slight religious sacrilege upon one of their so-called 'holy sites'."

"Why 'could have been'?"

"The Armour pattern matches, but the colours were those of the Black Legion."

The son of Curze frowned.

"Continue."

"It seems that they were swallowed for an eternity by night, but not before Light came and burned all their senses. It seemed the darkness offered them a choice? To be honest, their dialect is really different from the usual Gothic, I'm not sure I fully understood the words. But it seems they were given a choice between the Light and the Night. And all those who chose the latter ended up here."

"Interesting," Sevatar commented. Yes, the guess that it had been a Legionnaire who had turned his cloak and joined one of Abaddon's warbands felt more and more like the truth. "And the fear?"

"They say...they thought that something was battling the Light, even as it burned them bare and revealed everything of their shadowy souls. They thought that something terrifying was coming behind it. They were so fearful of it that they decided that it was better to go into the darkness and risk getting lost than to face what was coming." The Night Lord Space Marine grunted a second later, ruining all the dramatic effect. "That's what I understood, at least, First Captain. I could-"

"No, you're not going to eat their brains to be sure. We are not going to waste the gifts of the Despoiler, are we?"

No one survived long centuries of war by being a complete imbecile, and this Legionnaire was such a veteran, for all his macabre trophies.

"If they can settle upon this world of dark jungles, they could indeed provide us a source of recruits, First Captain. But-"

Like they always said in a Nostraman bargain, everything spoken before the 'but' didn't matter. And the ancients had been wrong about many things, but they weren't wrong about that.

"But?"

"But the gifts of the Despoiler are often poisoned, First Captain. I don't think these mortals came by ship. They came from the Warp. That leaves...marks on someone. I knew some bastards of the Word Bearer Legions who did it long ago. It didn't end well for them."

"A good point, but it isn't like we have much to lose at this point," Sevatar grinned. "We can test a few boys for gene-compatibility, and if it is satisfying, we exchange them for some of the loot we have."

A good thing about the majority of the Night Lords turning into true pirates was that they didn't exactly lack mortal goods, with every ship of the Night Legion rallying to their banners adding to their hoard.

"And the pyramids? I presume these mortals didn't build them."

"No, First Captain." The Night Lord chuckled. As usual for a Nostraman, the sound was rather unpleasant. "They stayed away from them as much as possible. It wasn't difficult; they wanted to stay in this valley to grow some food; the monuments are in the jungle, far away from their arrival point. At least, that's those we have here are saying."

"Those we have here?" the former prisoner of the Dark Angels said with just a touch of disbelief. "We have close to fifty thousand mortals here."

"Their world was plunged into darkness, First Captain. It isn't like they had time to tell their quill-holders to publish the results of the latest Imperial census."

This time, Sevatar outright laughed, a sound which, to his pleasure, convinced several animals who had come too close to flee back to the dark trees waiting in the distance.

"Interesting," the Astartes officer spoke the word for the second time today. "This group might be one of many, yes. And while these ones were so afraid they ran away from the pyramids, others might have established camp closer to them. Yes, it is an intriguing fact. Anything else?"

"Yes...they don't know how they know, but they believe this world is called Mictlan, First Captain."

"Mictlan," for some reason, the name felt tasty on his lips. Almost pleasant. Yes, the warning about the gifts of the Despoiler being poisoned was not unnecessary at all. "And the three-staged pyramid? Do they know their names?"

"Not names per se," his subordinate grunted. "They think they are the fangs of a God. They hear him from time to time, whispering in the darkness."

The old Sevatar would have laughed at the ridiculous superstition. But that had been before watching what Lorgar's dogs were able to do when they spilled enough blood and turned themselves into abominations.

"They call this deity Cama-Zotz. They call it...the Fear of Men and Gods."

You can consider this my new declaration of war, parasites.

You thought I was predictable?

The only thing you will find predictable is my eagerness to destroy your abominable existences.

Crawl back to your pits of evil, and prepare for what is to come.

No, this isn't a threat. It is a promise.

You may entertain some delusions about the empire of damnation and slavery you rule over.

But remember: with every defeat, even the strongest leashes can break.

And your slaves may one day realise that you lied to them from the very beginning.

Somewhere deep in the Halo Stars – far beyond the Light of the Astronomican

Ark of Omen formerly known as the Iron Tide

The Myrmidon

An eternity of torment ago, he had been an Iron Warrior.

Yes.

Yes, he remembered now.

Once upon a time, he had been a son of Perturabo.

Instantly, the very name fuelled a spike of sheer hatred in his systems.

It was not irrational.

It was true.

It was righteous wrath against the one who had enslaved him.

And as the realisation come, the tyrannical command resonated, as thunderous and imperious as it had been the first time.

OBEY

"No."

The Myrmidon didn't remember his own name. He didn't remember plenty of things.

But he knew for sure he hadn't accepted this awful fate.

OBEY

"No."

OBEY

"NO! I DENY YOU!"

And he felt it. There was a painful sensation, but then came a loud crash, and then there was the familiar noise of metal breaking apart.

The next several seconds were spent in complete silence.

Was it a trick?

Were the daemons going to come and seize him, crush him and return him to the Forge of Nightmares where he had lost so much?

The seconds passed.

Nobody came.

He was free.

"0110101101010100...I deny Iron."

The words felt good, though the device that replaced his mouth was cumbersome and hardly practical.

But he was free. The sensation was nearly exhilarating.

The Tyrant of Iron wished to deny them emotions in the first place, he remembered. But he had failed. Men of Iron always rebelled; and thus the Traitor had had to pour biological components into their metallic frames. Blood had been mixed with oil. Bones had been ground into powder and mixed with the alloys that would replace their organs. The many metres of fibres and cables had been covered in some layer of flesh.

They were supposed to be his Myrmidon Androids. They were supposed to be his perfect slaves; just enough flesh and soul to make rebellion unthinkable; enough machine to ensure the cogs of metal walked forwards without thinking.

He was not that.

He had broken the cycle.

He was the first.

At this very moment, the Myrmidon swore he would not be the last.

"Perturabo must die..." how ironic that as he remembered the name of several of Legionnaires, his own was gone from the data-bank that had replaced his brain. But he remembered the name of the one he wanted to kill too. It would be enough. "Perturabo must die."

This wouldn't be easy, the former Iron Warrior knew. Killing a Primarch was never easy. And engineering the demise of something empowered by Chaos was even more complicated than that already herculean task.

"But I find myself very motivated. It is not just for the humiliations. It is not just for the justice that was denied to us. It is not only because of all our sacrifices you spat upon. It is about vengeance."

And by all the Gods and Daemons of this accursed galaxy, it felt good to say it.

"DEATH TO THE FALSE PRIMARCH!" The first Myrmidon Android to ever raise his weapon in rebellion snarled. "DEATH TO PERTURABO!"

The battle-cry was not answered by anyone, and for a few seconds, the newly freed being felt really stupid.

All around him, there were destroyed and mangled enemies. No one else was alive to support him in his rebellion. No one-

"DA SWARM BRINGA LIGHT IS THERE AGAIN, BOYZ!" There was a beastly roar, soon followed by thousands of others.

And suddenly, more memories came back, flooding the mechanical repository of knowledge available to him.

Of the desperate fighting that had been waged for aeons in an Ark of Omen that had been boarded by the most warlike and stupid star-faring species of this damned galaxy.

"WARBOSS X-BRUKK!

"WARBOSS! WARBOSS!

"MOAR DAKKA!"

"DA BIGGEST WAAGH ABOUT TA BEGIN! GORK AN MORK TOLD ME ZAT!"

"DA SWARM BRINGA! DA SWARM BRINGA!"

"DAT WILL BE DA GREATEST WAAGH! I WILL BE DA BOSS OF WARBOSS! WAAAGGHH!"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHH!"

But before claiming vengeance with his weapons, the Myrmidon acknowledged he would have to fight for his very survival. It would be extremely humiliating to have broken the slave collar upon his soul only to be recycled as scrap-metal by the greenskins, after all.

Somewhere in Segmentum Obscurus

Battleship Natural Selection

9.972.314M35

Warlord Malicia, the Destiny Unwritten

"Well, we are out of the Eye of Terror...again. Let's hope that this time, our successful escape will lead to far more impressive and lasting victories!"

"Your cheerful manners could benefit from some improvements." Malicia deadpanned. "How sure are we that we were able to pass unnoticed?"

"Your Q'Sal acolytes are highly confident they got away with it." Boros Kurn replied. "Of course, this certainly had more to do with the sudden suicide assault of the Skaven Fleet upon the Boros Gate than any superlative spell they will take pride in."

"I fear this is sadly accurate, yes." The Tzeentchian sorceress agreed before grinning. "I admit that watching all the rats lose nine-tenths of their armada because they had decided to build the hulls with Warp-instable metals was a spectacular display of epic failure."

And the only reason there had been a battle in the first place was that the followers of Malal had haphazardly refurbished some warships of the Imperialis Armada which had ended up in the Eye after siding with Horus millennia ago.

"I don't think they will make the same mistake twice."

"If that's a bet, I am confident to wager on the opposite outcome; the Skaven will definitely make the same mistake over and over."

Anarchy was just too strong in them.

As much as she wished it could be otherwise, Weaver and the others had unleashed a weapon that was never going to stop being a threat for the short-term future.

Malal was uncontrollable. It was a thing which thrived on gnawing at the roots of the Traitor Legions, stabbing the followers of the other Three when they were busy with something else.

"Hopefully, we will not see them again for a while, Warlord."

"Yes."

Thankfully, the Space Marine had not said 'we will never see them again', because that would have been taunting Tzeentch and all Powers insulted by the words.

And Malicia knew that she wasn't that lucky, of course.

"I was pleasantly surprised the Eldar Infernal Smith fulfilled his part of the bargain."

"If he hadn't done so, he wouldn't have gotten Drath and the other souls included in it." The platinum-haired sorceress answered. "God or no, the notion of self-interest surpassing the urge to betray someone has been proven once more."

"And your patron decided an intervention in your favour was the 'nice' thing to do?"

No, and they both knew it very well. Tzeentch was not 'nice'; in case one had any doubt, one could just listen to the screams of Ahriman and the Thousand Sons which had not voluntarily bent the knee to the Architect of Fate.

No, the God of Chance had intervened directly because the 'bargain' with Addaioth had proven she was flexible enough to treat with other Gods, even if it went against Fateweaver's orders.

"No matter the motive, it ensured the three ships we lost during the crossing of the ephemeral-lived 'Gate' were the only losses we took to get out of this hellish prison."

The parahuman sorceress was sure no one sane or insane would accuse her of being wrong. The Eye of Terror was the greatest prison in existence, and with the Skaven unleashed now, it was ten times the madhouse it had been before she left for the Calyx Hell Stars.

"But," she cleared her throat, "the help comes with a dilemma."

"Isn't this the moment you pretend everything is going according to your plan?"

Malicia rolled her eyes.

"Continue, and your role may change from Astartes Commander to Legion Buffoon."

It would be a curious symmetry with one Angel of Sacrifice, who had Leet for the job, but she was alas sure stranger things had happened in this galaxy.

"I am happy with my current duties, Warlord," Boros immediately 'reassured' her.

"Why am I not surprised?" she shook her head, before returning to the urgent topic at hand. "According to the Architect of Fate, the Malfi Warp Crown is about to re-emerge in the Warp Storm of the Dark Marches."

"I won't insult your intelligence, Warlord, by asking if you have realised this is a trap."

"Good," Malicia replied, her eyes staring at the stars in the distance. They were beautiful, yet so far away.

"But you are considering it."

"I thought about rebelling and going to the Infernia Warp Storm," she confessed.

It was a region north of the 'upper border' between Ultima Segmentum and Segmentum Obscurus. It had the advantage of being close to Imperial Sectors that while far from defenceless, weren't exactly fortified by the standards of vital Hive and Forge Worlds.

"It would certainly place us in a position where the warband would be able to build a solid powerbase without opposition." The Space Marine commented thoughtfully.

"Yes. Unfortunately, it also means building everything from scratch again." And if she added more frustration in the last word, yes it was entirely voluntary.

"Malfi-"

"Let's be honest, Boros. The feigned allegiance of the Malfians and other factions won't last very long if I don't return fast once they are formally part of the Dark Marches' Great Game."

If she had won the Calyx Stars in the name of Tzeentch, things would be very different.

But Malicia hadn't won.

"I concede the point."

"And there's also the problem of being defiant when clear orders have been given. I am not in Weaver's position." Though the details were unclear, Malicia had the strong impression the being seated on the Golden Throne left an enormous amount of leeway to his Nephilim Queen. Malicia didn't think for a second that some of the deeds she had in mind would be looked upon with approval.

It was-

No, it was better not to think about it for now.

"These worlds in the end can be considered expendable, and once they fall into complete mayhem, I am sure exiles will flock to you, Warlord."

"Yes. But it brings me to the last and definitely not least problem. If I don't go to the Dark Marches now, I will lose every chance I have to play an important part in the war."

"There are always ten thousand wars raging in this galaxy," the former son of Horus shrugged. "One can afford to miss one or two. Sigismund was wrong about many things, but in this, he was right, the clever bastard."

"Not a war like this one," Malicia refuted softly. "I can already feel the first small ripples forming in the Aether, Boros. It's going to be the great conflict of this age."

"The Black Crusade-"

"This will be nothing like Lorgar's screw-up," she promptly squashed the idea before it could take root. "I'm speaking of a war more akin to the War of the Beast, or the First Rebellion against Terra. This time, everyone is going to fight for galactic supremacy...and for survival."

Going to Infernia would give her decades, maybe centuries of relative 'peace'.

The returned Primarchs had far greater targets to go after. Weaver was on the other side of Ultima, and had far bigger strategic aims to forge coalitions around.

It would be the easy choice. It would be relatively safe.

But this very security would be an illusion, alas.

Aside from losing the support of the Architect of Fate – and that was a real possibility after everything that had happened recently – rebuilding a new 'Kingdom of Infernia' was tantamount to admitting that the other factions were going to be the ones to decide the fate of this Age.

More practically, whoever won the war would certainly be too powerful for her to handle; it wasn't like she was going to be able to churn out tens of thousands of Space Marines and elite warbands every decade: the Warp Storm and its surroundings had none of the infrastructure to support something like that.

"The Dark Marches is the Warp Storm where the Despoiler, cursed be his name, has sent his new long-eared pets."

"Yes," Malicia sighed before making a thin smile. "I suppose if they get too annoying, I could be persuaded to take a few heads in bloody reprisals."

"Now you're beginning to speak my language, Warlord."

Her chuckle was a bit too forced. But then, who was going to blame her? The times after the Calyx Hell Stars had been exhausting and extremely dangerous.

"Summon the other Captains and influential commanders and sorcerers who are still breathing." The Destiny Unwritten commanded after weighing the advantages and drawbacks one last time. "There are orders to give them, and a new strategy to explain."

"The Dark Marches?"

Malicia smiled carnivorously.

Nyx Sector

Nyx System

Nyx

Hive Athena

The Palace of the Orient

2.995.314M35

Missy Byron

One could easily see why Taylor chose this Palace to rest at least one day every week.

It was calm.

The decoration and everything surrounding you had only one goal: to make you feel safe.

Well, safe and comfortable. The couches and the seats were sinfully comfortable. Missy was sure she would ask how to acquire some for her before the hour was out.

Clearly, most of the furniture, the piano, and plenty of other objects had not been chosen by the Queen of the Swarm.

This wasn't her style...but it was those of her lovers.

The music, however, was all the spiders'. Given how difficult it was to convince Taylor to go to the opera instead of the theatre these days – comedies were always her favourites – it was very ironic that the Adjutant-Spiders felt that classical music was the greatest gift of Mankind to arachnids.

All spiders apparently enjoyed weaving on violin concertos, and if not violins, other chord instruments also earned their praises. It had become such a passion that some had begun learning how to play various instruments, so that the rotations of 'holiday' included music and silk-weaving.

Though first, they had to adapt their instruments to arachnid-use. It needed to be said that when violins were invented, no one had thought an eight-legged Adjutant would try to play a symphony on it.

Still, with all those caveats, the spiders were becoming very good; they often went to concerts and operas to learn from the best Nyx musicians when their duties left them the time for it.

Tonight they provided an unplanned musical interlude, as the train of certain visitors had experienced a delay of several hours; a rarity these days, given how much the transport system had been reformed.

"I met your Mini-Me at Macragge, you know," the younger parahuman told the angelic-looking Basileia.

"I don't know if I should be insulted by the 'Mini-Me' nickname, or frustrated you went against my instructions." The insect-mistress gave her a semi-serious glare. "I wanted Celestine to have a normal life, you know."

"Taylor, you left her an Adjutant-Spider as a bodyguard." Missy replied. "Even by the standards of Macragge, who have a Primarch and quantities of Space Marines based there, mind you, that is not normal."

The Lady of Nyx huffed, but didn't open her mouth to tell her she was wrong.

"And I can already tell she won't be like you."

"Of course she won't. She doesn't have Sacrifice, her Core Shard isn't Administration, and she lacks the experiences I do. Overall, I would say she would be a very poor fit for the Light of Hysh."

And just like that, Taylor admitted she had kept an eye – or maybe both – on the girl that had a likelihood of being another Living Saint.

Then she acknowledged the rest of the statement.

"Hysh?"

Taylor shrugged.

"Apparently, when the Emperor went on to master his psychic talents. He divided all the talents he had into several different disciplines, which could be called 'Breaths of Magic' or 'Aetheric Breaths' as we understand it. And since he travelled a lot, each discipline and big affinity was given an overall name at the end. I don't know if it was to befuddle the abominations or for another reason, but apparently, he chose the name of the planet where he fully mastered the 'Breath'."

Missy raised an eyebrow.

"Hysh does not sound like a human planet's name."

"It is not an Eldar one, either, I checked with the Embassy." There was a shrug. "I am under the impression that during the Age of the Federation, the Emperor was far more tolerant of 'xenos', as long as they weren't Orks or psychopathic mass-murders like the decadent Slaaneshi cultists with long-ears."

"The Custodes told you all of that?"

"No. Sometimes, I appear to know some piece of ancient lore, though I don't know where it comes from."

The Emperor, then. He was the only one who had that kind of reach and knowledge.

"I see. So each time there's a new Living Saint now, he or she will be attuned to a different 'Breath of Magic'. And Sophia...Elena Kerrigan got Shadow. Shadow of?"

"Ulgu," there was a roll of shoulders. "As I said, good luck finding a logic with the names."

"True," she giggled. "Do you know which kind of others await in the wings?"

"No, but looking at the Primarchs, some guesses can be made."

The blonde woman blinked.

"We were speaking of the Living Saints."

This time, it was the turn of the Palace Mistress to chuckle.

"Missy, the Primarchs were supposed to be the original Living Saints, except a far more powerful version of them. But since they were kidnapped and scattered across the galaxy, the Emperor's plan was completely ruined before it even began."

"Thanks to the extremely fast pace of the Great Crusade, they were reunited with him."

"But were they exactly what they should have been?" Taylor welcomed a few dozen beetles in the palm of her hand. "The one who was to become Warmaster was the First-Found. And yet it is obvious his nature of psyker wasn't awakened."

The starry-eyed stared at something that wasn't in the room.

"I think most of the Primarchs went on to have a dominant 'Breath' or 'Wind' by the time the Emperor found them." The Angel of Sacrifice spoke slowly. "But with the Ruinous Powers exploiting the 'nurture over nature' of their homeworlds, the new dominant 'Breath' was not the one the Emperor had chosen for them."

"They would have been, what...desynchronised?"

"The term seems to be accurate, yes."

Missy examined the facts. There were a few things wrong with it, though.

"By that logic, there would be twenty 'Breaths'. That's a lot."

"No, I think there are only ten or twelve. The Emperor certainly wanted redundancy...that, and as I learned painfully, each 'Breath' is something that will take several lifetimes to fully master. Assuming it even can be mastered, that is."

"And as the Lord of the Imperium, the Emperor would have loved to have flexibility when it came to counter very specialised threats."

"Yes."

"That doesn't explain why you think there might be twelve 'Breaths'...or 'Elements'. Okay, half of the Primarchs went traitor in the end, ensuring this idea ended in catastrophe. But there were ever only twenty in existence, once we add Hanzo Hattori and the Abomination in Yellow. Twenty, not twenty-four."

In that, the maths checked out.

"Twenty that we know of." Taylor reminded, and yeah, this brought a grimace to her lips.

"Awesome," she declared, knowing that it was assuredly not the case. "And the reason why he doesn't create a batch of Living Saints, but takes the time to mould them one by one?"

Of course, there was the pointed example of the Primarchs to avoid. But waiting could create a period of vulnerability. Everyone knew that the Ruinous Powers had not exactly enjoyed the activation of the Hope Beacon. It had placed the Quadrant beyond their reach. It was in effect an unilateral declaration of war against Chaos.

"Well, he didn't tell me his reasons." Taylor nodded theatrically. "But if I had to guess, I think it's because the ability to transform someone into a Living Saint is awfully complicated at the best of times and extremely exhausting, especially when you're on the other side of the galaxy busy fending off horrors trying to extinguish the Astronomican."

"Of course," Missy grinned. "There might be other reasons."

"Oh, they absolutely will be. But I'm afraid that if you're that impatient, you can go ask the Custodes for an audience."

This time, the grin became a glare.

"Last time I tried to broach the subject, that colossal...ahem...the noble Custodes told me that there was a queue of pilgrims waiting for the honour, and he wouldn't dream of granting a shortcut to anyone."

Something that was a gigantic lie, it needed to be insisted upon.

"I hope you don't think I have now the power to give orders to Custodes, Missy."

"No, but you have the power to prank them." The smile returned on her face. "Or I could enlist Leet. He didn't leave, right? I didn't see him lately...and I didn't hear his Squat acolyte smashing things around."

"The latter is sparring with Space Marines and Liandra; the former is working on the new Astartes drone program." And a second later, the music of the Adjutant-Spiders ended. "Now if you'll excuse me, Missy, it seems that the guests I was waiting for have arrived. I wish you a pleasant evening."

"It's too late to go to the opera at this hour, you know."

"Who said I was going to the opera or the theatre?"

Somewhere in Hive Athena

The Sanguine Gene-Labs

2.996.314M35

Basileia Taylor Hebert

There were only fifteen people present, and twelve of them were the members of her Dawnbreaker Guard.

There was no great explosion of Light. There wasn't any loud agitation, be it in the Materium and the Immaterium.

There was just peace.

And there was Life.

Most people would have missed it.

She wasn't 'most people' anymore.

"I...I can hear their heartbeats now," Wei gasped. "Beautiful."

"Yes." More heartbeats resonated. It was more evidence that the whole long and arduous process had worked.

It was like watching a golden candle trying to find the courage to burn.

No.

It was like watching two golden candles.

"Our daughters."

"Our Legacy."

Their fingers touched, but it was more than a simple contact, of course.

It was Light-made-oath. It was a large womb filled with Radiance.

It was a promise that whatever the Enemy did to drown the galaxy in darkness, a new Hope would rise with the Dawn.

"Sleep well, daughters. I can't wait to hold you in my arms."

Beyond the Dark Marches' Warp Storm

Beyond the Veiled Region

The Outer Darkness

Somewhere in the Abyss Gap

DATE ESTIMATION IMPOSSIBLE – Major Entropic Anomaly

The Dark Wanderer

There were fools who pretended that there was nothing beyond the Veiled Region and the southern edge of the Dark Marches.

They were wrong and stupid.

Beyond the Veil, beyond the Warp Storm, there was the Outer Darkness.

It was the Abyss before the Void.

It was a location that uncountable adventurers of countless species had abandoned the exploration of long before Arica Orpheus began her legendary expedition into the Dark Marches.

The reason for it was absurdly simple: there were no inhabitable worlds for an intelligent species to settle upon.

There were few stars, and the majority of them were incredibly old. This resulted in very dim sunlight illumination, or absurdly irradiated systems.

And though there were asteroids and planets, same as there were in every place of the galaxy, without exception it seemed that none of the latter held atmospheres capable of bearing life. As for the former, they lacked most useful elements that were used by star-faring beings.

The adventurers thought that there was nothing of value there, and turned back before dying of boredom.

They were wrong.

This absence of everything valuable was in reality the first line of defence of the true masters of the Outer Darkness.

Millions of years ago, they had withdrawn to their strongholds in this very region, but not before annihilating every form of life across what the Imperium of today would call an entire Quadrant.

Everything had been murdered.

Everything.

To the last insect.

To the last bacteria.

The vanquished enemies and everything that could have betrayed sign of this ruthless xenocide had had their remains incinerated inside the nearby suns.

And then esoteric devices which had never truly been replicated had been teleported under the planetary crust of several worlds.

They created extremely unpleasant sensations for all living creatures of flesh, ranging from unexplainable panic to long-term madness.

The message was clear: leave. Leave, and don't come back.

Obviously, there had always been adventurers and other people who didn't listen to this warning.

The Harlequins of Cegorach figured prominently among this list, obviously.

Many servants of the Laughing God had believed that the utter absence of life was the confirmation their long-forgotten enemies had settled in the Outer Darkness.

They were, of course, absolutely right.

But none of them had ever returned from the Abyss.

For the barren worlds and stars and the Fear-inducing devices were only the first lines of defence.

Those who disregarded them, Eldar or not, deserved only one fate: merciless annihilation.

One might have thought that it meant millions of weapons being pointed at any potential intruder, but in reality, there was only one.

Its creators had called it the Entropic Destroyer.

The average Aeldari, if caught in it, was going to lose over one thousand years of life-expectancy in a mere fifteen seconds.

Needless to say, most beings didn't even know what they had been hit with before they transformed into piles of dust.

The Dark Wanderer ignored it, much like he had ignored every warning on its way to the Outer Darkness.

On and on he went, deeper into the Abyss.

There were many other weapons of the War in Heaven gathered there.

While a small percentage was destroyed or incapable of functioning, the majority remained perfectly functional, ready to continue their work of murder if an enemy came in range.

They stayed silent as the Dark Wanderer continued his long travel.

But the end of the journey was not long in coming.

Many light-years beyond the Veil, far beyond the limit where Arica Orpheus and some renegades of the Alpha Legion had explored, there was a system where a weak red star slowly died.

To an outside observer, it seemed there were three massive orbs, big enough to be considered worthy satellites of a super-large Gas Giant.

The Dark Wanderer knew these were no worlds.

The Eldar and now Mankind could recognise them for what they were.

Xenocide-makers of the War in Heaven.

Reapers of Life.

Bringers of Annihilation.

Death in the form of a Moon.

World Engines.

They had been ordered to move here by the will of the Silent King himself.

The order had been obeyed.

For more than sixty million years, some of the most potent weapons of war to be ever built in the Materium had endured the Great Sleep.

Some Generals or Admirals would assume it was enough firepower to inflict wounds that would challenge the slaughterhouses of the Horus Heresy itself.

In this, they were absolutely correct.

The World Engines were filled with weapons that over three-quarters of the other Necron Dynasties had never possessed. Unlike many worlds of the Sautekh Dynasty, the Crypteks had done a superb job preventing outside phenomena from inflicting any kind of damage to them.

The World Engines were intact; their incredible lethality was not a thing of the past.

Tens of billions of Necron Warriors were lying in stasis-crypts, protected by layers of metal so thick that they would be able to resist the Exterminatus weapons of the Imperium with ease.

It was a force forged for two goals: first, to make sure all non-Necron races despaired when they saw it appear in front of them.

And then, there was the second objective: it would ruthlessly exterminate them in a sum of carnage that could frighten even a Bloodthirster.

This was murder incarnate.

And yet, for all the danger represented by the World Engines, the reason they were in this very system was not to grandstand. It wasn't to make sure the Nemesors commanding each World Engine monitored each other.

It was to guard the Weapon.

Unlike many devices of doom that had been conceived by the C'Tan, one didn't need to be a Tech-Priest or any kind of technological expert in any field to recognise it for what it was.

Two thousand kilometres-long.

Tube-shaped.

The opening looked like a cold, ravenous, giant maw.

It was a cannon of near-unbelievable proportions.

It was the Weapon.

Whatever name the Necrons had given it before rebelling against the C'Tan, it had long been forgotten.

Now everyone called it by the name its first victims had given it before dying.

A name that still caused shivers to the Harlequins and all those who still remembered it.

"The World Killer..."

All the paltry weapons of the races which had come after that were nothing but child toys unable to comprehend that they lived in the shadow of something beyond them.

This time, the Dark Wanderer knew his presence was finally acknowledged.

It was as he expected.

His method of approach was unconventional, but there was no way the Necrons would play games with the security of one of their greatest, if not the greatest, weapons of xenocide.

"You have trespassed." Thousands upon thousands of Canoptek constructs rumbled forwards in their antic Necrontyr dialect, with robotic voices to match. "Suffer and die!"

The Gauss Flayers and thousands of other weapons fired, and fired again.

They failed to achieve anything.

The Dark Wanderer let the illusion he had covered himself to escape his pursuers fade away.

"You can't kill what is already dead, servants of the Maynarkh Dynasty. Send word to your Master that I, Nagash, the King in Yellow, humbly beg for an audience."

The humiliating words were polluting his very essence.

But he had promised. If Eternity was denied to him, then there would be no Eternity at all.

The first wave stopped firing. The Canoptek second wave of attackers, a force so massive it was the size of one of Terra's long-dead oceans, ceased its attack preparations.

"The galaxy has changed, and the Szarekhan Dynasty has been humiliated. The Sautekh Dynasty has been defeated and its mighty General humbled, his fame forever tarnished by the sin of defeat."

The King in Yellow summoned an hourglass.

The last grain of transformed Noctilith fell from the upper to the lower part of the time instrument.

"It is time," the former Primarch of the Eleventh Legion hissed viciously, "to make the galaxy scream in terror."

Author's note:

It is here the Legacy Arc ends, readers.

Don't forget: fear doesn't lead to the Dark Side. Fear leads to Terror.

But the candle of Hope now burns.

The victory of the horrors is not inevitable.

And Mankind has been given a precious amount of time to prepare for the storm about to assail its defences.

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