After Alex finally dealt with the Imperial Fists and Blood Angels, his taut nerves finally relaxed a little, and he heavily exhaled a long-held breath.
This brief respite did not bring much ease; it only allowed him to grasp a tiny, faint bit of confidence about the future within the suffocating abyss of despair that was the Imperium.
Indeed, according to GW's official storyline, after the tragic fall of the fortress world Cadia and the Imperium's crushing defeat, Belisarius Cawl—the Archmagos burdened with a ten-thousand-year mission—would embark on a perilous journey to Macragge, carrying the "Armor of Fate" he had secretly forged over ten millennia.
Ultimately, with the ethereal assistance of the Eldar Death Guard, he would successfully awaken the slumbering Gene-Seed Primarch Roboute Guilliman, bringing a glimmer of hope to the dying Imperium.
However, the inherent cruelty and difficulty of this highly anticipated path to salvation far exceeded anything cold text could describe.
Belisarius Cawl and his massive Forge Ark fleet retreated in haste from the remnants of Cadia, and the voyage to Macragge was far from smooth.
It was a death corridor through raging Warp Storms, a desperate flight under the ceaseless pursuit and interception of Chaos minions and traitor fleets.
The cost was horrifyingly tragic: magnificent Forge Arks were blown apart and torn asunder in successive fierce battles, turning into cold cosmic dust; the accompanying Imperial Army fleet—those loyal soldiers and fearless ships—were almost entirely massacred in desperate rearguard actions and brutal firefights.
Ultimately, only Cawl and a small group of his scarred survivors, like scattered fragments miraculously washed ashore after a tumultuous storm, managed to drag their broken bodies, bathed in the blood of their comrades, to the shores of Macragge.
And Guilliman's awakening was far from a prelude to a glorious return.
When he broke free from ten thousand years of slumber and opened his eyes, he was greeted not by the cheers of his people, but by the piercing alarms and soaring flames of his home world, Macragge, under fierce attack.
This newly revived Primarch, without even time to adapt to his body after ten millennia, had to immediately throw himself into battle, still weak and unhealed, to stabilize the crisis on his home world with thunderous swiftness.
But this was only the beginning; a greater shadow had already fallen: with the Great Rift torn open, the corruption and threat of Chaos, like a deadly plague, were frantically eroding the core territories of his five hundred worlds—Ultramar, with every star system burning and every defense line in distress.
What pained Guilliman even more was the cold reality and the Imperium's decay.
The Golden Age of ten thousand years ago had long turned to dust.
He could no longer, as in the glorious years of the Great Crusade, raise his arm and rally hundreds of thousands of Astartes Monks legions, forming an iron tide to march directly on Holy Terra.
Now, all he could muster was a pitifully small Expeditionary Force with severely limited resources.
Carrying this faint force, which symbolized the Imperium's last struggle, Guilliman resolutely embarked on the journey to Terra.
The path ahead was vast and unpredictable, every step on the edge of life and death, every Warp jump potentially plunging into an abyss of no return.
And Chaos hunters had long sharpened their claws in the darkness, hungrily awaiting this prey returning after ten millennia.
The Red Corsairs' venomous sting was precise and deadly; they successfully intercepted Guilliman's Expeditionary Force and defeated him in a brutal boarding action.
The King of the Red Corsairs, the traitor Huron, in his blasphemous laughter, actually personally defeated his own Gene-Seed Primarch!
Even more disheartening was that the flagship symbolizing the Thirteenth Legion's supreme glory—the Macragge's Honor—also fell into the traitors' hands in this crushing defeat, becoming Chaos's spoils of war.
At that moment, the hope for the Imperium's resurgence seemed utterly extinguished.
If not for the Fallen Angel—Cypher—who bore the name of betrayal and curse, appearing like a ghost and offering aid at the most desperate moment, Guilliman, the Imperium's last pillar, along with his faint spark of hope, would have been forever annihilated in the Red Corsairs' dark prison.
Yet even so, Guilliman was not truly out of grave danger.
Just like the legendary eighty-one trials on the journey to the scriptures, each tribulation was a near-death experience.
Although he successfully led the remnants of the Expeditionary Force to escape the clutches of the Red Corsairs and, with great peril, traversed the raging Maelstrom via the ancient Webway to reach the Moon, before he could even catch his breath, a fatal shadow descended—intercepting him was none other than his fallen brother, Magnus the Red.
This Primarch, once the Imperium's most powerful Psyker, even if often jokingly called a "one-eyed Ogryn," his terrifying strength as the Crimson King was beyond doubt.
Upon first engagement, Guilliman was at an absolute disadvantage.
Magnus's violent psychic power, capable of tearing reality, almost completely devoured Guilliman; cold death was within reach.
In the nick of time, had it not been for the Sisters of Silence's Warp-sealing silent field and the desperate support of other Imperial Army forces arriving in time to jointly suppress and ultimately drive away this terrifying King of Sorcery, Guilliman would surely have fallen on this desolate Moon, and the last glimmer of hope for the Imperium's resurgence would have been extinguished there.
Dragging his weary and wounded body, Guilliman finally reached Holy Terra—the core and symbol of the Imperium.
However, this was neither the end of his suffering nor the beginning of turning the tide.
The Terra awaiting him had long been corroded by internal decay and external terror.
Those High Lords of Terra members, like insects, cruelly abandoned all civilians outside the Imperial Palace district in the face of the disaster of the Great Rift tearing the galaxy apart.
This monstrous sin and cowardice directly brought about the most terrifying retribution—Khorne's demonic army actually descended upon the very soil of Holy Terra!
Eighty-eight Khorne demon armies, formed of blood and fury, led by eight hideously terrifying Greater Daemons, surged like a destructive flood, launching a hysterical general assault on the Imperium of Man's last stronghold—the Imperial Palace.
Their roars shook the Emperor's foundations, and their blasphemous sounds impacted Terra's ancient walls, their goal clear: they not only sought to destroy the Imperium of Man but also to utterly end the Emperor's great work here, plunging the galaxy forever into the corruption of Chaos.
If not for the Custodian Guard—those golden warriors who had not ventured out of the Imperial Palace on a large scale since the Great Crusade Era—finally marching out again after ten millennia, fighting bloody battles alongside mortal soldiers and Astartes Monks at the Lion Gate, repelling Khorne's Bloodthirster army at the cost of almost total annihilation, the Imperium of Man truly might have been annihilated and turned into historical dust.
As for the High Lords of Terra members who, like insects, still vied for power after the battle, even absurdly claiming that Gene-Seed Primarchs should only exist as symbolic figures and not interfere with humanity's (the High Lord') "sacred rule," and even slandering the resurrected Primarch as the Imperium's greatest internal threat—these ridiculous statements, in the face of a true world-ending crisis, seemed less important.
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