Horus's heart tightened.
Sanguinius had pressed in close and locked his body in place, severely limiting his movement. Even his hands could barely launch an attack.
That was extremely dangerous.
In a battle at the Primarch level, even a millisecond of error could lead to defeat. How much more so when he was being restrained to this degree?
The Dark Emperor struggled, crashing into the ruins together with Sanguinius. The figures of darkness and light tumbled through the wreckage of steel.
For a moment, he actually could not break free. The wretched state he was in filled him with humiliation.
"Get off me!"
Like an enraged bull, he slammed his hardened forehead into the Great Angel.
Bang!
The headbutt was ferocious. A dull, heart-stopping sound of bodily impact rang out. It was not the clang of metal, but the brutal collision of flesh and bone.
Sanguinius felt as if his skull had been struck by a heavy hammer. Even his cranium cracked in that instant.
And it was not merely a physical impact. Berserk Chaos daemonic energy poured wildly into his brain through the point of collision, trying to tear apart his mental defenses.
A suppressed groan of pain forced itself from Sanguinius's throat. A wound deep enough to expose bone split open across his forehead, and blood poured down without stopping.
The blood blurred his eyes, flowing down the bridge of his noble nose and along his jaw. His entire face looked battered and agonized.
"You were always so naive. You thought sacrificing yourself would save everything."
Horus's smile grew more savage.
"But even if you die, you will change nothing. All fates were ordained long ago, just as I was born to become Emperor of the galaxy!"
"No. The Emperor of the galaxy could be our father. It could be Guilliman. It could be the Savior. But it will never be you…"
Sanguinius's voice was hoarse. He forced his dazed head steady, then slammed a headbutt back at Horus just as the traitor had done to him.
"You were devoured by desire. You can only be spat upon forever!"
Sanguinius's headbutt interrupted the daemonic counterattack Horus had been gathering, and the Great Angel suffered even greater injuries for it. Yet he smiled.
"You are afraid.
"You are fighting alone. You have no brothers you can trust and no reinforcements coming. You know all your ambitions will turn to ash!"
Horus viciously tore away one of the Great Angel's arms and glared at him.
"The truly strong need no help. I alone can destroy all of you. Starting with you!"
Then his arm twisted at an unnatural angle, and his fist shot toward the Great Angel. The daemonic energy and colossal strength contained within it were enough to smash Sanguinius's head apart.
Enough to kill him completely.
Yet facing that fatal blow, Sanguinius still did not dodge. He only held Horus in place with all his strength.
He smiled.
This time, the Great Angel felt no despair. He believed his Primarch brothers would not fail him.
Buzz!
The next instant, sorcerous daemonic energy temporarily restrained Horus's fist in an unnatural form, and more daemonic power coiled around it.
It was a large-scale sorcerous formation presided over by Magnus and the other Chaos Primarchs. Several Thousand Sons pyramids activated at once, mobilizing a vast amount of daemonic energy to impose a complex sorcerous suppression.
By clinging to Horus with everything he had, the Great Angel had given them the chance to activate the formation.
Afterward, Lion and several other loyalist Primarchs also seized the opening, lunging in from different angles and using their own methods to restrain Horus's limbs.
Guilliman moved behind him and locked Horus in a chokehold, fixing his head firmly in place.
Through cooperation, the Primarchs finally managed to suppress the Dark Emperor by means both sorcerous and physical.
It was incredibly difficult.
Sanguinius, meanwhile, tore himself free from the claw's restraint and crashed down onto the iron wreckage.
"Quick! We can't hold him for long! Kill him!"
Every muscle in Guilliman's body was taut as he fought to lock down the struggling Horus. The only one still able to move was the Great Angel.
But Sanguinius was also gravely wounded. Even moving was extremely difficult.
With his one remaining hand, Sanguinius gripped the Moon Silver Blade and used the sword to brace himself, struggling to stand.
He swayed unsteadily.
He knew he absolutely could not miss this chance to judge the traitor.
As Horus struggled, he looked at Sanguinius standing opposite him. His gaze grew calm, and a trace of mockery entered his voice.
"Look at yourself, my brother. Your eyes contain nothing but slaughter. Do you think you are carrying out justice?
"No. You are merely defending the lie of that hypocritical deceiver.
"Listen to the whispers and wails of the warp. They fear the rotting god upon the Golden Throne. You should have sensed it too, have you not? The endless darkness upon that decaying throne.
"The false Emperor, who calls himself master of mankind and swore to protect humanity, is becoming the most abhorrent darkness of all. He is humanity's greatest threat.
"Only by using the ancient artifact can the false Emperor be sealed and prevented from becoming the Dark King. Only I can accomplish this.
"You are the sinners of mankind. Will you personally slay your brother and destroy humanity's future?"
Horus's words caused the expressions of Mortarion and the other Chaos Primarchs to change sharply. Even Lion and the others showed a trace of worry.
Just as Horus had said, the Emperor—their father—was indeed falling. Even from within the galaxy, they could sense that terrifying aura of darkness.
They could also feel their father's hunger for human souls.
He was about to become a warp entity more terrifying than the Chaos Gods, and then destroy the Imperium and countless human subjects.
A terrible disaster was right before them.
Schk—
Sanguinius did not hesitate in the slightest.
Light burst from his body. The Moon Silver Blade was covered in golden radiance as he thrust it forward with all his strength.
The golden blade broke through every obstruction and pierced Horus's breastplate. The mutated tissues were scorched by the flame of light and writhed violently.
Even Horus roared in extreme agony.
"The Emperor did not abandon us. It was your betrayal that drove Him into suffering. It was the Chaos Gods that forced Him onto that terrible throne."
The Great Angel's expression was resolute.
"I will not let you hurt anyone else.
"This is not the end, Horus. You died the moment you fell. What we are judging now is your sin—and this corrupted shell!"
As he spoke, he let out a thunderous shout. Unprecedented radiance erupted from his body, and his blade drove deep into the heart of Horus's black daemonic body.
The golden flame clinging to the blade instantly tore that dark heart apart and burned it to nothing.
That fatal blow made Horus unleash a shriek of agony. With his heart gone, his body weakened, and his strength began draining away without end.
What Sanguinius dealt Horus was not merely physical trauma, but a massive psychic wound as well.
In his pain, Horus hurled every Primarch away and broke free of their restraints. Yet that no longer changed anything. One wave of attacks after another came crashing down on him.
The Primarchs seized this chance and pounced again, launching even fiercer attacks and carving savage wounds into his towering daemonic body.
Sanguinius's attacks were especially ferocious, nearly shattering Horus's bones. His blade even tore open the traitor's face.
This cruel, abhorrent traitor was torn apart just as the Great Angel had been ten thousand years ago. He crashed heavily to the ground and no longer stirred.
"Praise the Angel!"
"My lord, you have finally washed away your suffering and executed the traitor!"
The Blood Angels saw this and erupted into cheers, tears streaming down their faces.
Their once-heavy souls became light. The memories of pain faded away, and the Black Rage that had tormented the Great Angel's sons for ten thousand years vanished like smoke.
Their gene-father had not only defeated Horus. He had swept away that old memory of pain, and naturally, his sons were completely restored.
The elite warriors of the Imperium cheered, while the Primarchs fell silent as they stared at Horus's corpse.
This hatred and entanglement between Primarchs, one that had lasted ten thousand years, had finally ended in this moment. With their own hands, they had slain the traitor who had begun and led all of it.
The Primarchs' feelings were complicated. These beings could still faintly remember the proud camaraderie between brothers during the Great Crusade. They still remembered the Imperium's vast glory.
Back then, they had believed the Imperium would dominate the galaxy and that humanity would become its true master.
But now, all of them had to face an uncertain dark future caused by the Emperor's loss of control.
"He… died just like that?"
Mortarion leaned on Silence, limping because of the severity of his wounds.
He stared at the motionless corpse atop the ruins, now like a heap of rotten meat, and sighed with feeling. The former Warmaster, the Dark Emperor, had died just like this.
A former Primarch brother had died before his eyes. And given that Mortarion himself had been a Chaos Primarch, he was inevitably moved.
The other Primarchs felt much the same. The Primarch brother they had hated for ten thousand years, the traitor, had died before them. It felt almost unreal.
"This bastard won't revive again, will he?" the Khan asked with a frown, worry stirring in his heart.
The Dark Emperor's death had been somewhat abrupt. There had been no twists.
It made him uneasy.
"No matter what, we cannot let our guard down. First, use melta to burn his corpse and prevent any accidents.
"It would be best to have the Chaplains pray over it as well, then have the Librarians completely shatter whatever remains of his soul."
Guilliman gave his suggestion.
He had also learned Brother Eden's procedure for dealing with enemies: burn the body, scatter the ashes, and deliver last rites all in one neat process.
Eliminate future trouble at the source.
As he spoke, the Lord of Ultramar tossed two high-yield melta grenades onto Horus's corpse. Searing rays burned the Dark Emperor's body.
In the galaxy, melta weapons were still highly reliable. They could destroy some physical matter at the molecular level, and even high-strength alloys struggled to endure them.
Yet as the melta rays erupted, the expressions of Guilliman, Sanguinius, and the other Primarchs changed. That extreme heat had not inflicted any further damage on Horus's corpse.
Even more alarming was the fact that the rotten flesh was writhing. A heartbeat could faintly be heard.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sound of the heartbeat grew louder and louder, spreading across the entire area.
Guilliman, Sanguinius, Lion, and the other Primarchs exchanged glances, their expressions immensely grave.
Horus, the Dark Emperor, was still alive. Not only that, his power and presence were now stronger than before, bringing an immeasurably heavy pressure down on all of them.
The Primarchs pounced again, trying to destroy the corpse remains on the ground. But a vast surge of daemonic power blasted them all away.
More and more domain power belonging to the Chaos Gods was gathering within the Dark Emperor.
"Heh. Did you think you could kill a god made manifest?"
Horus's voice rang out once more. It was ice-cold, almost devoid of emotion.
Like the Emperor once had, he had abandoned part of his humanity.
After that, the Dark Emperor fully accepted the domain powers of the Chaos Gods. The rotten flesh on the ruins gathered together and began rebuilding a new body.
That body was almost no longer human in shape. It was more like a physical entity formed from different Chaos domains.
Savage crimson horns. Deformed buboes leaking pus. Slick pink tentacles writhing. Countless eyeballs rapidly twitching as they stared at everyone.
This was the true power Horus possessed. He no longer resisted the gifts of the Chaos Gods, instead allowing Them to reshape him so he could obtain even more terrifying might.
The daemonic power radiating from him completely twisted the surrounding area, turning it into a domain of Chaos. More scenes of the warp faintly appeared.
"You forced me to accept Chaos, and you will bear the price!"
Horus's overlapping voice spoke as though four different personalities were talking at once.
This fractured state of consciousness was one of the early stages of becoming a god, just like the Emperor—the Anathema—before him.
Horus stepped forward. The alloy wreckage around him melted under the heat, and the ground cracked apart.
His body had already gathered the terrifying might of all four supreme Chaos Gods at once.
A furnace of flesh spread sulfurous steam of extreme heat. Iridescent projections made him appear on nine battlefields at once. Plague tumors caused his breath to spread a supercharged corruption virus. Whispers of pleasure seeped into every gap, drilling into every warrior's ears and causing even more beings to defect.
The heartbeat of that abhorrent daemonic body was like a ten-thousand-ton hammer striking down. The screams of souls stirred a tidal wave in the void, chilling the hearts of all who heard it.
Horus's venomous gaze stared at every Primarch simultaneously, and his voice spread beside their ears.
"You are stubborn and unrepentant. You refuse to share in the final truth. You refuse to honor me as king. Then you shall perish together with the old age!
"The galaxy shall utterly… burn!"
As he spoke, he launched an attack against every Primarch at once, defeating them in an instant.
Sanguinius fell and could not rise. Guilliman was pinned to the ground and hammered. Mortarion's remaining moth-wing was torn apart. Even Rogal Dorn's true adamantium shield shattered under the heavy blow.
They realized that they were not fighting Horus.
They were facing those abhorrent Chaos Gods.
When Their power appeared in the material galaxy through Horus, that perfect node, it was terrifying beyond measure.
And what worried Sanguinius, Guilliman, and the other Primarchs even more was that the Savior's Chaos Throne was also being corroded. It was surrounded by four boundless, abhorrent silhouettes, clearly under siege.
The Savior's soul had been gravely attacked and could barely break free.
That meant the Savior and the Hell King were also being surrounded and hunted by the Chaos Gods in the warp.
He was in mortal danger.
Worst of all, even the Golden Throne was shaking. The Emperor was releasing the deepest, darkest storm, and that storm spread from the warp into the material galaxy, tearing open even the void.
One warship after another, locked in battle, was devoured. Every fleet faced the impact of the storm.
These successive blows filled Sanguinius, Guilliman, and the other Primarchs with despair. In a single instant, the entire situation had collapsed.
And they were powerless to stop it.
"No. The Hell King is about to fall. We cannot stop Horus, and we cannot stop the birth of the Dark King…"
Mortarion's pupils constricted. His heart was completely seized by fear.
He could feel the Hell King being besieged by the gods, almost unable to fight back. The Emperor, his father, was also falling.
Everything was sliding into an endless abyss.
"I will never allow you to destroy Brother Eden's throne!"
Guilliman staggered to his feet, trying to block Horus's advance.
But in the next moment, he was swept away and crashed at the foot of the Chaos Throne.
The Lord of Ultramar struggled to rise again, only for a hand to press down on his shoulder. He turned and saw the Savior's gentle smile.
The moment he saw the Savior, his tense heart suddenly loosened.
His brother had awakened.
"Old Guilliman, you've already completed the objective and held the throne.
"Leave the rest to me."
Eden spoke calmly. His Primarch brothers had held out until his safe return and had kept his physical body from being destroyed.
That was the best possible result.
Then, one psychic blast after another erupted from him, blocking all of Horus's abhorrent Chaos attacks for the Primarchs.
"Sa-vior!"
When Horus saw this being who was contending with him for control of humanity, his eyes filled with venomous hatred.
It was the Savior who had blocked the Chaos coalition's offensive, reducing him to this state.
No matter what, he would never let Eden go.
Eden had already finished dealing with the problems in the warp. When he looked at the Dark Emperor now, there was no longer any wariness in his eyes.
Even if Horus's physical strength in the material galaxy was currently greater than his own.
"Little Horus, you're still too young. There's no future in knowing only how to fight and kill…"
Eden sighed and said this calmly.
(End of Chapter)
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