'Recovering knowledge?'
Blazkowicz's thought process was far from complex, quickly narrowing down the answer—
Prospero's rampant abuse of psychic power undoubtedly had Magnus pushing the effort behind the scenes.
Once he understood this point, and considered the kind of knowledge that could make Magnus halt his march, the answer stood out clearly on the page.
'Psychic knowledge, forbidden doctrines!'
Magnus had conquered the xenos race long ago, yet he remained behind out of lust for their knowledge, even delaying the meeting with his brother.
Blazkowicz stared at Ahriman for several seconds, the shadow of suspicion deep in his eyes growing even darker.
Magnus's name was placed squarely on his danger list.
The abuse of psychic power would ultimately lead only to a dead end!
"Gather the Thousand Sons garrison on Prospero in the Legion parade ground."
As the Primarch's voice fell, Ahriman heard a thread of suppressed frost beneath the calm tone, making his breathing turn hurried.
He did not know the Primarch's exact intention, nor did he dare defy a Gene-Primarch, leaving him no choice but to bite the bullet and reply: "Yes."
Blazkowicz waved his hand to dismiss the broad projection, turning his head to look at the planet looming closer outside the viewport, the cold glint in his eyes turning ever sharper.
After a long silence, he issued an order to the fleet: "Fleet enter high alert status. Prepare to initiate orbital bombardment."
"If the Thousand Sons Legion is tainted by Chaos..."
Blazkowicz's face darkened, a heavy pall looming in his eyes as his voice carried absolute, unyielding resolve: "The Legion will strike at a moment's notice!"
"Understood!"
"Understood!"
The fleet received the command. While showing no outward abnormality on the surface, the automated systems inside the warships quietly activated, and the shipboard weaponry executed powering-up sequences.
With a single order, destruction would rain down upon the homeworld of the Thousand Sons like thunder!
---
The battlecruisers slowly approached Prospero. Before the men even set foot below, they triggered a wave of psychic failures across the surface.
Blazkowicz and the Doom Marines under his command were like walking psychic Argent D'Nurl voids, casting a heavy shadow across the whole of Prospero.
The psykers on the planet instantly felt their power wane; the clamor inside their minds fell silent, and a vast, barren void tore open within their perception.
Psyker masters discovered that warp-energy was rapidly ebbing away, the material universe growing ever more solid and immovable, while the realm beyond the veil grew dim and hazy.
In restaurants, diners concentrated until their faces turned red, yet could not even select a meal from the enchanted menus.
In libraries, flying magic books lost their wings, dropping to the floor with heavy thuds like broken-winged birds.
The Legionaries did not understand why their Tutelaries—the spirit familiars manifested as ghosts—grew anxious and restless, staring in terror toward the docking warships.
They recited incantations continuously to soothe them, wondering why the Tutelaries had severed the mental links, leaving behind a barren wasteland in their minds.
Yet they had no time to ponder further. Escorting their spirit companions, they obeyed the Primarch's command and headed to the Legion parade ground to assemble.
At the same time, drop-ships bearing the Mark of Blazkowicz descended from the heavens, carrying boundless darkness and oppressive force!
'Whoosh—'
The psykers felt a tightness in their chests, their breathing turning labored. Sensitive psychic awareness retreated from their minds, and active imaginations settled into silence.
They watched in terror as a mind-devouring black void fell from high orbit, landing directly upon the Legion encampment.
With a soft hiss, hydraulic struts compressed gently as the landing craft touched down softly, leaving the Legion parade ground in dead silence.
The Thousand Sons warriors shuddered, cold sweat triggering alarms in their power armor servos, while their very souls felt burdened by a thousand tons of weight. Their thoughts almost ground to a halt; every attempt to think required every ounce of their strength.
Not only that, but the Tutelaries held in the warriors' arms, resting on their shoulders, or floating at their sides cowered under the immense pressure. Their hollow eyes lost their usual vivid alertness, filled instead with the deepest terror.
The Tutelaries wanted to flee!
They knew with absolute clarity that the master of the Mark of Blazkowicz had arrived!
When that pressure washed over them, they realized there was nowhere left to run. With his arrival, the walls of the material universe were solidifying, the empyric realm was being cast out, and the power of the Warp was rapidly receding.
Stripped of their reliance, the weak power lingering in their forms could not tear through reality to return to the Warp. They could only wait for death, unable to even initiate self-destruction.
---
The assault ramp lowered slowly. A towering figure strode forth, each heavy footfall striking like a drumbeat upon the hearts of the Legionaries.
"Hail the Primarch!"
Ahriman shouted, leading his Legion brothers onto one knee to offer supreme respect to the Primarch.
"Hail the Primarch!"
The Legionaries fell to one knee in unison, the scraping of crimson armor clanging with force as their respectful roars echoed deafeningly.
Blazkowicz heard the respectful shouts, but he also saw the warp entities.
They appeared as golden scarabs, black crows, or robed figures of translucent mist.
His gaze turned stern, his eyes reflecting the true nature of those creatures.
Beside the Legionaries stood no miraculous entities—they were nothing but Warp daemons adept at disguise!
The daemons possessed blue skin covered in mottled, brilliant feathers, weak twisted horns growing from their heads, a pair of golden slitted pupils embedded in their eye sockets, and a cruel bird's beak set into their monstrous faces.
Yet at this moment, the daemons dared not make a single move, mostly crouching on the ground with their bodies trembling uncontrollably.
'Daemons of Tzeentch!'
At a single glance, Blazkowicz recognized the origin of these entities—they were servants of the Architect of Fate.
He also saw that a unique mental link existed between the Thousand Sons warriors and these daemons, functioning as a two-way conduit.
Blazkowicz's indifferent gaze swept across the ground. Whether warrior or daemon, all felt as if consumed by raging flames, cowering on the earth in ceaseless trembling.
Within their minds, the Thousand Sons felt a strange ripple coming from their Tutelaries: they were afraid.
---
"Rise."
The Gene-Primarch's voice was not loud, yet it resonated steadily across the entire parade ground. Over three thousand Legionaries rose slowly, unable to hide the stiffness and excitement of seeing the Primarch.
They stood up, but they could not command their Tutelaries to rise with them.
Blazkowicz's eyes rested calmly upon Ahriman, as though looking at a dead object: "Do you harbor these things as well?"
The hair on Ahriman's neck stood on end. He knew what the Primarch was asking.
"I do," he replied through action, chanting an incantation to summon the Tutelary bound to his soul.
With the ancient spell of command, a unique spirit form obeyed the summons, manifesting as a translucent crow that perched upon Ahriman's pauldron.
Yet in the very next second, the crow's body stiffened abruptly, falling straight onto the ground.
Before Ahriman could search for the cause, he saw the Gene-Primarch smile.
A chilling, terrifyingly cold smile curved at the corners of the great King of Warriors' mouth as he asked once more: "Do you all have them?"
The calm voice carried a ruthless, biting chill, blowing like a frigid wind directly into the hearts of the Legionaries, sending anxious shivers through them.
The Tutelaries fared even worse, all cowering on the ground, their bodies twitching, not daring to make the slightest move.
Ahriman felt a sense of suffocation welling up, his throat dry as he desperately suppressed the answer at the tip of his tongue.
He did not dare answer recklessly.
Though his psychic power was suppressed, his powerful gift of prophecy told him that the answer to come would decide the fate of the Legion.
For behind the Gene-Primarch, he saw the Doom Marine brothers looking at the Legion with knife-sharp, unfriendly gazes, their aura already locked firmly onto the Thousand Sons.
He had never doubted the strength of the Doom Marines, nor had he ever doubted the Gene-Primarch's killing intent.
The cold wind blew across the parade ground, waiting for an answer.
The men trembled, the daemons trembled, and the wind trembled too.
"Most of the Legion warriors have them..."
Ahriman answered the Primarch's interrogation truthfully. Most of the Legion's warriors possessed Tutelaries—that was an undeniable fact.
He spoke at extreme speed, urgently trying to add an explanation: "But—"
Yet someone was faster than him!
Having received his answer, Blazkowicz raised his hand and pointed straight at the Thousand Sons formation. His deep voice, cold and merciless, broke off Ahriman's explanation with a low growl:
"Disarm them!"
As the frigid command landed, terror shattered within the hearts of everyone like cheap glass. Ahriman's face twisted in horror, his eyes filled with pure disbelief.
He watched as the black-armored warriors brought their weapons to readiness, sweeping across the edge of his vision like dark phantoms.
'Why?'
In that split second, before his body could even offer resistance, Ahriman's thoughts turned a hundred times over, endless doubts rushing forth.
'Why did the Gene-Primarch ask about the Tutelaries? Why would he strike out so ruthlessly?'
Time seemed to freeze—from the high-orbit holographic transmission to the shocking turn of brothers turning on brothers, every single detail unfolded with crystalline clarity inside his mind.
By the time he grasped a thread of logic, his body reacted. The grinding rasp of plasteel being severed echoed from behind him.
In a hundredth of a second, Ahriman looked up. The Gene-Primarch was already standing directly before him, blocking out the sunlight and casting down a cold, suffocating shadow. The Primarch's features were veiled in darkness, almost obscure, yet his eyes burned with a bone-chilling brilliance!
His heart hammering wildly, Ahriman turned despite the uncontrollable trembling that wracked his frame, bellowing at the top of his lungs to the Legion: "Do not resist!"
This was the single thing he could do—prevent the Legion from fighting back.
The Doom Marines had already swept into the ranks of the Thousand Sons. Their weapons flashed, severing power packs in the brief instant the battle-brothers froze in shock.
By the time the Legionaries reacted, fully aware they were under attack, their power armor had already turned into dead iron wrapping their bodies, stripped of all active power.
"Do not resist."
Hearing the desperate roar of warning from their Chief Librarian, they dared not fight back, treating their unpowered power armor as a self-imposed prison.
Ahriman had deduced the situation, ordering his Legion brothers to surrender their weapons.
He knew all too well that if the Primarch had shown no mercy, not a single soul on this parade ground would remain breathing in mere seconds.
To the King of Warriors and the Doom Marines, three thousand Space Marines were a matter of a few breaths' time. Surrendering resistance and awaiting the Primarch's judgment was the only correct choice.
Having witnessed the King of Warriors' noble stature before, Ahriman never believed that generous king would turn hostile without cause.
The Legion simply needed to wait; the Primarch would grant them an explanation.
Yet he seemed to have forgotten that on this parade ground, besides the two Space Marine Legions, there were also the Tutelaries mingled among them.
The Thousand Sons warriors were bewildered, shocked by the Primarch's order to disarm, allowing cracks to form in their mental defenses.
And the daemons of Tzeentch were utterly decisive, seizing this fleeting opportunity!
Sensing the fractures in their minds, the immaterial forms collapsed into twisted shadows, their malice solidifying into physical weight.
Breaking apart into disorienting blue smoke, the daemons launched a desperate, all-or-nothing bid, plunging into the bodies of the Space Marines to resist a fate of complete annihilation.
---
Taken completely off guard, the Thousand Sons warriors could not stave off the daemons' mental intrusion in time. They could never have imagined that the Tutelaries—entities they held as trusted battle companions—would suddenly use their mental links to attempt body-stealing when their minds were shaken.
In the fraction of a second before bodies were lost to possession—a fleeting blink to a Space Marine—blood erupted into the air, and heads flew free.
Decapitated heads were thrown high, the twisted struggle against possession frozen forever alongside the shock of being executed.
Before the daemons could seize control of the vessels, the Doom Marines acted without a shred of hesitation, cutting down those Thousand Sons warriors to prevent a far greater catastrophe.
"Do not resist!!!"
Ahriman's voice tore out in a hoarse, desperate screech as he suppressed his battle-brothers, a tone of pleading leaking into his tone.
He grieved for the deaths of his brothers, yet he saw that the Doom Marines were not engaging in a slaughter, but executing specific warriors with absolute precision. Right before his blood kin died, sharp bursts of warp energy had erupted from their forms.
The commotion on the parade ground was suppressed once more. Ahriman possessed immense prestige within the Thousand Sons, and the warriors were willing to trust him.
Furthermore, the Legionaries were not fools; from the Doom Marines' swift actions, they began to discern something deeply unnatural about the situation.
In those chaotic five seconds, three hundred Doom Marines stood amidst the formation, while three thousand Thousand Sons warriors had their power packs felled to the ground.
"Abomination!"
Alex let out a low growl, smashing the pommel of his weapon down. It drove through the spine of a Scarab Tutelary, pinning it violently to the earth.
'Pfft—!'
A warrior nearby spat out a spray of crimson blood, his face turning pale as paper as his spiritual force plummeted into deep exhaustion. Paying no heed to his injuries, he stared at the Tutelary he had trusted with his whole heart, his pupils trembling as a shudder of post-disaster horror welled up in his eyes.
If the Doom Marine had been a fraction of a second slower, he would have been reduced to a puppet driven by raw malice.
Cold reality screamed the truth at him: the Tutelary bound to his mind was far from innocent!
Similar scenes played out across the field. With lightning swiftness, the Doom Marines disarmed the Thousand Sons and subdued every form of Tutelary.
Silence descended upon the parade ground. A mild spring breeze wafted through the heavy scent of blood; a hundred Thousand Sons warriors had lost their lives.
A thousand Tutelaries lay broken, pinned by weapon shafts or crushed under the heavy boots of the Doom Marines.
---
"By the Primarch above..."
Once the scene settled into a brief calm, Ahriman muttered softly, looking up tremulously at the giant towering above him in the shadow.
Before a Gene-Primarch, all the strength and fortitude Space Marines took pride in collapsed into dust.
His voice trembled as he voiced the question in his heart: "Please, show us... what has happened here?"
Withdrawing his gaze from the parade ground, Blazkowicz looked down at the warrior enshrouded in shadow, his lips parting slightly: "Ahzek Ahriman. First Captain of the Thousand Sons Legion."
"You hold many titles: Chief Librarian, Master of the Corvidae, Commander of the Scarab Occult."
With every title uttered, Ahriman's confusion deepened. Countless conjectures flashed through his mind, pondering the deeper meaning behind the Gene-Primarch's words.
"These titles and duties undoubtedly prove your excellence."
"So, based on your excellence and a foundation of basic trust, I ask you now," Blazkowicz lowered his finger, pointing directly at the translucent crow crouching on the ground, "What is that?"
Ahriman turned his head to look at the crow, his expression turning grave beyond measure.
Ten seconds ago, he could have declared with pride and absolute certainty that the crow was his Tutelary—a trusted psyker companion.
Yet after the violent shock of being disarmed, doubts began to take root in his heart.
The King of Warriors' fury was clearly sparked because the Thousand Sons had touched upon forbidden ground, something directly intertwined with these Tutelaries.
"Ten seconds ago, the Tutelaries were covenant partners to the warriors of this Legion—unique entities worthy of our trust."
"Were they useful?" The question descended from above, steady yet laced with biting frost.
"Speaking strictly from past results, the Tutelaries proved exceptionally effective," Ahriman answered with careful deliberation, choosing every single word with utmost caution: "They helped us channel warp energy, soothe mental turbulence, and shorten incantation times."
"Yet... the reality does not seem as simple as the surface suggests."
Feeling the weight of that frigid gaze upon him, he dared not conceal his true thoughts; before a Primarch, lies had nowhere to hide. "Now, I must use new understanding to overturn my past perceptions."
"They are not worthy of trust. The Legion has never truly understood these warp entities."
Having spoken, his breath nearly ground to a halt as he awaited the Gene-Primarch's judgment.
"My brother and you should consider yourselves fortunate."
Hearing the response, Ahriman exhaled a long breath inwardly, knowing that the existential crisis facing his Legion had been temporarily stayed.
"Before an irreversible error was committed."
Blazkowicz lowered his body slowly, his massive frame looming like a mountain as an insurmountable, crushing pressure settled over the area.
He reached down and grabbed the translucent crow, a tempest of profound revulsion lurking deep within his normally calm eyes.
"Foul beast!"
A frigid growl laced with immense aura swept across the parade ground, pressing down upon the shaken Legionaries and drawing every pair of eyes to him.
'Sizzle—!'
The Thousand Sons warriors heard a searing sound, like a red-hot iron pressed against flesh, burning through skin and tissue so violently it set teeth on edge.
The warriors watched as the King of Warriors lifted the crow Tutelary like a helpless piece of poultry.
Pinched tightly at the neck, the translucent bird flapped its wings frantically, its legs clawing the air in wild, violent struggles.
As its chest was squeezed by the Gene-Primarch, its transparent skin melted like hot iron, dripping slow drops of murky blue blood.
The Primarch's grip tightened progressively. The covenant connecting the Tutelary to its master made it difficult for Ahriman to breathe as well, his refined, handsome face turning dark red from suffocation.
'Caw~ Caw~'
Sensing its impending Blazkowicz, the translucent crow strained its thin neck, uttering a few desolate, piteous shrieks.
Blazkowicz's hand closed relentlessly, the icy glare in his eyes burning brighter: "Filthy entity. You cannot hide from my eyes. Shed your guise and show your hideous form!"
The psychic illusion shattered violently. All purity and ethereal grace vanished as the true, horrific nature of the Tutelary was dragged out into the light of day!
'Crack—'
The psychic illusion shattered, the crisp sound echoing with uncanny clarity across the silent parade ground.
Stripped of its ethereal guise, the translucent crow revealed its true nature—a creature possessing wings, a thin bird-like body, a long, slender neck, and feathers shimmering in iridescent blue.
A Lord of Change!
Yet at this moment, pure, desperate terror consumed its avian head. Its golden bird eyes quivered as its thin arms shoved vainly against Blazkowicz's iron grip.
It had obeyed the summons to enter the material universe, only to lay eyes upon the Doom Marine, realizing instantly that it was Blazkowiczed.
With the veil of reality standing impossibly firm, the Lord of Change had no path of escape. Before death had even truly arrived, the primal fear of total obliteration—the complete destruction of both form and soul—had shattered its mental composure in under a minute.
Falling into the hands of the God-Slayer was the most terrifying nightmare for any entity of the Immaterium.
And its power here was frail, its form held in a vice grip by the demigod's hand, entirely unable to break free from this horror.
---
'Boom!'
The sight of the bird-like entity struggling violently dropped like a massive boulder into the minds of the Thousand Sons, whipping the calm waters of their hearts into towering waves of shock.
Their gazes turned immensely complex—carrying disgust for the hideous monster, revulsion mingled with doubt and hatred, as well as a faint, barely perceptible thread of curiosity.
The Thousand Sons hated the Tutelaries for their betrayal and deception, yet their inherent nature to pursue knowledge birthed a lingering desire to comprehend the entity's underlying essence.
The moment the Tutelary shed its illusion and revealed another form, it sparked the deep-seated curiosity encoded within their gene-seed.
"My Lord..." Ahriman gasped, enduring the backlash from the severed covenant, his voice raspy as he asked: "What... is this?"
Positioned nearby, he perceived the primal malice radiating from the bird-like entity, yet he also sensed the indescribable mysteries tumbling from the shimmer of its brilliant feathers.
In Ahriman's eyes, the creature's true form held a fascination far greater than its previous incarnation as a Tutelary. Even battered and helpless, its very form seemed to embody boundless wisdom.
"Filthy corruption," Blazkowicz replied, offering no explanation regarding daemons or the Immaterium. He had caught the fleeting glint of inquisitiveness in Ahriman's eyes.
That unawed thirst for knowledge was precisely the bait capable of luring an entire Legion into damnation.
The Tutelaries were the handiwork of Tzeentch—a Dark God extending his claws to quietly corrupt a Space Marine Legion from within.
Magnus and the Thousand Sons were now destined to be brought to Terra, to face the Emperor's judgment in person.
As Blazkowicz imperceptibly tightened his grip, the Lord of Change's struggles grew weaker, until a sharp 'snap' echoed out. Its neck was broken cleanly, its form turning to ash and vanishing from the material universe.
With his covenant partner dead, a violent backlash struck the depths of Ahriman's soul. His face drained of color, and blood seeped from his seven orifices as he nearly collapsed to the ground.
Blazkowicz waved his hand, signaling the Doom Marines to purge the remaining entities.
In an instant, mournful wails from the daemons echoed across the field as over a thousand Thousand Sons legionaries swayed on their feet, reeling from spiritual shock.
"Sever your links with them," the Primarch's voice resounded, flat yet radiating unquestionable authority. "Any who disobey will be executed on the spot!"
Having witnessed the true nature beneath the Tutelaries' illusions, the Thousand Sons dared not defy the Primarch, fully grasping the gravity of the situation.
One by one, the legionaries chanted incantations under their breath, severing their covenant bonds with the Tutelaries.
Muffled groans echoed across the parade ground as the warriors endured the agony of soul backlash to dissolve their pacts.
Watching the daemon ashes drift through his fingers, Blazkowicz's expression remained utterly serene as he delivered his judgment upon the Legion: "You have five hours to recover your composure."
"Once rested, dispatch an astropathic message to Magnus detailing the critical nature of this affair."
He lowered his gaze to Ahriman: "I trust you now understand the catastrophic threat hidden within these Tutelaries."
"I understand," Ahriman nodded solemnly, a cold wave of lingering fear surging in his chest.
Had the Tutelaries suddenly turned during active combat to possess the warriors' bodies, it would have resulted in complete, unmitigated disaster. The immediate priority was to notify his gene-father to return to Prospero without delay to resolve the Tutelary crisis.
Those xenos scrolls of knowledge paled in comparison to the existential survival of the Legion.
"Starting now, the Thousand Sons will sweep Prospero and forcibly sever all links between mortal sorcerers and these Tutelaries," Blazkowicz commanded in a heavy, severe tone of warning. "Purge all leaked knowledge associated with them as the first phase of recovery operations."
"The Tutelaries are far too dangerous. All related lore must be confiscated, while their ultimate disposal remains subject to further deliberation."
"But..." Ahriman opened his mouth, a crease of hesitation knotting his brow.
The King of Warriors' demands were unyielding, and because this concerned Prospero itself, it rightfully required Magnus's explicit consent.
While Legions maintained mutual respect for each other's Primarchs, intervening directly on another Primarch's homeworld was an entirely different matter.
"There are no 'buts,'" Blazkowicz cut off his hesitation with absolute finality. "This is an order, backed by the authority granted to me by the Emperor."
"Out of brotherhood, when Magnus returns, I will explain everything to him in person."
With the matter settled thus, Ahriman could no longer offer resistance. Suppressing a quiet sigh, he straightened his posture, bowed his head to the ground, and spoke: "Understood."
Blazkowicz cast a deep look at him, nodded, and turned to lead his legionaries off the parade ground.
He had even more critical matters to attend to.
---
"Grand Duke," Blazkowicz called softly.
Astelan stepped forward from the Primarch's honor guard, halting half a pace behind to await his command.
Astelan held a title of nobility, having been knighted as a Grand Duke three hundred years prior for his military exploits. To this day, he stood as the sole military noble of the principal world of Argent D'Nur. Had he not survived the trials to become a Doom Marine, the noble class—aside from the Royal House—would have gone extinct on Argent D'Nur.
"Deploy legionaries to conduct an overt investigation across Prospero."
"Furthermore, deploy Ironclad Reconnaissance Units to gather intelligence covertly, confirming the true state of psychic activity across the planet."
"Before Magnus returns, I require a comprehensive report detailing the exact extent of psychic abuse on Prospero, so that I may deliver a full accounting to Terra."
Blazkowicz looked toward the distant, solemn pyramids reflecting their dim halos of light, his countenance darkening. With Tzeentch's tentacles reaching into the Legion, the situation on Prospero was best left for the Emperor to handle directly.
Only the Emperor possessed the authority to pass judgment on a Gene-Primarch.
"Understood," Alex nodded, falling back into formation to begin deploying his forces for the mission.
"Tizca..." Blazkowicz murmured softly under his breath. "Unrestrained psychic abuse and knowledge sought without reverence will ultimately be the undoing of this place."
He felt a sudden pang of regret, mourning the future fate of this repository of knowledge.
A scholar had once said: 'Knowledge itself holds neither good nor evil; its nature depends entirely on the one who wields it.'
Once, that statement had stood as an unshakeable truth. Yet now, Blazkowicz would counter the ancient savants: 'Certain knowledge is nothing more than sinful bait cast out by the Dark Gods.'
Prospero was rife with unrestrained warp usage, its esoteric lore lacking all discipline, driving its destiny toward the abyss of destruction. The only question was the manner in which it would meet its end.
As for Magnus...
On Requiem, he had shattered the psychic barrier, allowing daemons to invade. The Emperor had confined him to reflect on his actions, only allowing him to redeem his failure during the Rangdan Xenocides. Yet once the war concluded, fearful that the Emperor would settle old scores, he had led his Legion away from Terra at the first opportunity.
Now, with Prospero harboring a major crisis that could not be ignored—one tangled directly with the ploys of a Dark God—Magnus could not escape accountability.
Blazkowicz had no interest in filing petty reports, yet Prospero required absolute authority to suppress the entire world and purge its corruption at the root. He needed to nip the unholy hunger he had seen in Ahriman's eyes in the bud before it brought ruin upon them all.
---
Before long, the Thousand Sons Legion mobilized to purge the leaked Tutelaries and their associated lore.
Yet none of them anticipated just how arduous the task would prove to be.
With their illusions stripped away, the daemons of Tzeentch launched rampant possessions of the mortal population. In a world so saturated with warp energy, the daemons moved like fish in water, casting psychic spells with effortless ease and beating back the clearing forces step by step.
Ahriman's pride was ripped to shreds in the opening stages of the operation.
What he had assumed would be a routine recovery of knowledge ran into brick walls at every turn; mortal sorcerers colluded with their Tutelaries, violently resisting the Legion's enforcement.
A war concerning forbidden knowledge and warp power erupted on the Primarch's homeworld.
The tranquility of the mystical city bathed in esoteric light was shattered by the clamor of war. The conflict escalated continuously, spreading from Tizca across the entire planet.
Though mortal sorcerers lacked individual supreme power, their numbers were vast. Banding together, they fought back against the Space Marines.
Sorcery and psychic power—extraordinary forces drawn straight from the Immaterium—narrowed the vast gap between mortals and Astartes, grinding the purge operation into a bloody stalemate.
The Thousand Sons' clearing action faltered at every step. Mortals refused to surrender their power, resisting the imposition of inhibitor collars and the Legion's psychic control.
Psychic ability was the very bedrock of their existence; having once tasted such immense strength, how could they possibly allow themselves to be captured without a fight?
The Legionaries were stunned. They had never expected the mortals—who had always shown them profound respect—to rebel with such absolute, ruthless conviction.
The esoteric arts that had originally filtered down from the Legion's own Cults were now being turned back as the very weapons used to defy them.
The war was fought with grueling difficulty, turning remarkably ugly.
Ahriman had committed the sin of arrogance.
He had split three thousand Legionaries into small squads to strike everywhere at once, hoping to confiscate the dangerous knowledge as quickly as possible—yet he had fatally underestimated the mortal capacity for resistance.
He had assumed that a single command would suffice; that mortals would obey meekly, queuing up to hand over their forbidden texts and await the Gene-Primarch's decree.
The reality was precisely the inverse.
The mortals flatly refused to comply. They struck down messengers without hesitation, raising the banner of rebellion against what they deemed tyranny.
The counterattack hit with sudden savagery. The initial strategic miscalculation left the Legion caught in a desperate dilemma.
Ahriman's arrogance and disdain had cost the Legion dearly.
The rebels, conversely, were emboldened by soaring morale. They had once possessed nothing; they were never going to relinquish the power they had gained.
The lower-tier common-interest pacts stood united, setting aside past grudges with unspoken tacit understanding to rebel against the overlords who had gifted them power, attempting to wrench away even more strength and privilege.
Confronted by overwhelming numbers of insurgents, the Legion was forced to pull back its lines, holding Tizca and surrounding strongholds while awaiting reinforcements.
---
"The Legion can deploy at a moment's notice."
Aboard the flagship 'Royal Majesty', Blazkowicz stood before the massive viewport, clad in his dark-red robes as he looked down calmly at Prospero below.
The circulating air gently stirred his cloak as he folded his arms across his chest, his voice deep: "Maintain current alert status without engaging. Observe how the situation unfolds."
"A Primarch's homeworld does not require another Legion meddling in its local affairs."
The crisis of psychic proliferation had existed for a long time. Why would Blazkowicz snuff out a fuse he had intentionally lit early?
This rebellion had been fully within his calculations.
Mortals were rootless floating weeds to begin with; refusing to compromise or willingly surrender power, they naturally fought back against the Legion's orders with everything they had.
Ahriman could have proceeded with a gentler touch, advancing the confiscation incrementally to avoid a large-scale uprising.
Yet out of arrogance, despite being a grand psyker of the Corvidae gifted in divination, he had chosen not to cast his foresight to glimpse the consequences of violent enforcement.
Blazkowicz had simply detonated the buried landmine ahead of time, and Ahriman had recklessly poured fuel onto the fire.
Now that disaster had struck, Blazkowicz had no intention—nor reason—to clean up their mess.
"As it should be," Astelan said, resting his hand on his halberd with arms akimbo, looking out through the viewport at the bursts of psychic energy frequently erupting across Prospero. "Only when the stick strikes your own back do you truly feel the pain."
"Kindly words of advice will never compare to the sting of a lash."
"The bitter consequences of psychic abuse must be endured firsthand before they can truly grasp the gravity of their folly."
"Indeed," Blazkowicz nodded slightly. "Humanity generates arrogance and prejudice based entirely on the limits of their own perspective."
"Magnus obsessed over esoteric lore, deeming the rest of the galaxy ignorant while believing himself to hold the ultimate truth—yet he never bothered to reflect on what danger accompanied that knowledge."
"If warp power could be freely taught and abused to bring prosperity, why did the Aeldari fall?"
"Countless psychic arts and ancient ruins litter the universe, left behind by one destroyed race after another—a grim proof of warp energy's inherent peril. The unchecked abuse of psychic power will ultimately summon nothing but ruin."
"In the material universe, physical laws form the fundamental reality. Psychic power originates from the Empyrean—it is a dangerous, foreign intrusion. It brings brief wonders and conveniences, but it can never be permitted to become the main current."
As he spoke, Blazkowicz's thoughts drifted to the Necrons.
Though xenos, the Necrons offered valuable lessons.
Due to the existence of the Warp, virtually every race in the material universe had discovered and harnessed psychic energy to some degree.
The Necrons were the sole exception. They had delved into physical technology until it reached absolute mastery, wielding scientific advancements that functioned more like magic than warp sorcery ever could.
Standing at the pinnacle of physical law, the Necrons looked down upon psychic power with cold contempt.
Yet everything required balanced consideration; the Necrons' supreme dominance had not been forged under normal conditions.
Before the War in Heaven, the Immaterium had been calm and tranquil, its influence on the physical universe practically nonexistent. Back then, living races could develop technology unhindered, free from the terror of warp corruption.
Now, the Immaterium churned with raging, tempestuous waves, constantly beating against the barriers of reality. So long as a living being possessed a soul, it could not escape its touch.
Technology and knowledge were cursed; a careless, playful whim from a Dark God could drag an entire civilization down into ruin.
---
"A wild horse requires a set of reins," Astelan's voice broke in, drawing Blazkowicz back from his wandering thoughts.
He likened psychic power to a horse, for humanity could not cast aside its convenience for the foreseeable future. Yet reins were essential to govern and monitor its use, preventing it from trampling everything like a runaway beast.
"A self-evident truth," Blazkowicz agreed, raising his hand to point toward Tizca. "Yet many fail to grasp it. They believe instead that nature should be released, letting the horse run wild without constraint."
"Now that they have tumbled from its back and been trampled by its hooves, they must silently endure the cost of their recklessness, marking the pain into memory through their scars."
"Heh," Astelan let out a cold chuckle, his face devoid of emotion: "I doubt they will ever truly remember the cost."
"Psychic power is like treasure hidden within a hollow tree, guarded by a deadly serpent. Some keep a respectful distance, avoiding the threat entirely; others act with extreme caution, retrieving the treasure with long tongs."
He pointed toward the battlefield below, where psychic ripples were surging with increasing violence. "Yet some ignore the danger completely, plunging their bare hands into the hollow to scoop out treasure at will. What they do not realize is that the serpent is no physical beast—it is a curse that spreads alongside the treasure itself."
"The more you gain, the more you stand to lose."
"Grand Duke," Blazkowicz shrugged, shaking his head with a trace of quiet resignation. "Be that as it may, certain outcomes are simply unavoidable."
"Because we have witnessed the 'serpent' itself, we know the danger—yet not everyone is capable of understanding what that danger truly entails."
"Our well-meaning intervention might easily be misconstrued as selfish gatekeeping, keeping them from claiming the treasure."
"Only when they feel absolute, undeniable agony will they remember the peril. We cannot expect them to stop reaching into the tree—only hope they learn to wear a glove, harboring a shred of reverence in their hearts."
"We wait," Blazkowicz said, gazing down at the besieged city of Tizca. "The Thousand Sons garrison cannot hold indefinitely. The astropathic plea for help has already been dispatched. The Crimson King will soon return."
"Speaking from pure, cold logic, I hope the rebellion on Prospero escalates further. Only when a wound is cut deep enough will they tread with caution whenever the scar is touched again."
"We shall simply watch the situation unfold. Until Prospero explicitly begs for aid, our Legion will not intervene in their internal strife."
"Only by choking down the bitter fruit will they realize the depth of the sin they have cultivated."
"Understood," Astelan replied, a faint, cold smile touching the corners of his mouth.
Human nature always harbored a grim fascination with schadenfreude—especially after learning the truth, watching others swallow their own bitter harvest was an outcome easily observed.
In Tizca, the three pyramids remained radiant, yet they were shrouded in a hazy halo of light.
With shield systems activated, the Thousand Sons sorcerers also maintained psychic barriers, safeguarding the security of the capital city.
No sooner had the command to confiscate the Tutelaries been handed down than the rebels' assaults came in rapid succession, growing exponentially more lethal.
It was as though the mortal sorcerers had long been harboring a plot. Setting aside their factional squabbles and past grievances, they united to launch a relentless assault against the Legion.
The edict had been comprehensive, issued to the whole of Prospero; the retaliation proved equally comprehensive, rising from the entirety of sorcerous society.
This brutal, sudden counterattack caught the Legion completely off guard. Forced back step by step, they had no choice but to pull back their forces and consolidate their defenses in Tizca.
High atop a pyramid platform, Ahriman's face was as dark and cold as ice, his brow knotted in a deep scowl.
He could not fathom how a peaceful Prospero could fall into such absolute chaos over a single order.
The divinations of the Corvidae revealed that aside from Tizca, every other city on Prospero had completely slipped from the Legion's grasp.
The rebels assembled with frightening speed, surging out from their respective city-states like a tidal wave, arriving at the walls of Tizca within three days.
Looking down from the pyramid platform, an army of a million rebels was preparing to besiege the outer perimeter of Tizca's walls.
---
Ahriman was not worried about the rebels storming the city, yet a profound sense of bewilderment filled his heart.
In just a few short days and nights, the very psykers he had conversed with so cordially in the tea houses and streets seemed to have transformed into entirely different people.
They were no longer scholars studying the warp, but rebels who had cast aside past respect and camaraderie to launch a ruthless uprising.
Most of the warp sorceries wielded by these insurgents had been taught directly by the Legion's own scholars—arts that were now turned back as blades of treason, cutting deeply into the Legion.
Feeling hollow inside, he raised his eyes toward the spaceport, where the fleet of the Doom Marines hovered in quiet silence.
The King of Warriors seemed to have foreseen the rebellion, withdrawing his forces into the void to avoid entangled trouble.
Yet the Primarch seemed content to simply watch the show; the scanning waves of his auspex made no attempt to conceal themselves, sweeping over Tizca time and again, monitoring the ground war from the warships above.
"My Lord Primarch..."
Accompanying his quiet sigh, the rebel siege began in earnest.
The insurgent sorcerers formed psychic arrays to chant incantations, summoning strikes of warp lightning.
Searing streaks of pale-purple lightning, several meters thick, detonated out of thin air with terrifying force, slamming into the hemispherical psychic barrier and sending waves of violent ripples cascading across its surface.
Ahriman paid it little mind.
With over a thousand Legion sorcerers sustaining the barrier, the rebels' psychic bombardments appeared fierce on the surface, yet proved practically useless in practice.
The only true difficulty lay in the sheer numbers of the rebel horde, maintaining an uninterrupted stream of psychic barrage.
The Legionaries were forced to rotate in shifts to replenish their warp reserves, leaving gaps in ground defense that had to be filled by the mortal guard.
Surveying the surging, black mass of rebels below, Ahriman truly could not comprehend why this rebellion had erupted with such sudden, absolute fury.
---
While the external siege raged like wildfire, the interior of Tizca was far from secure.
From time to time along the streets, individuals would suddenly erupt into violence, striking at the garrison forces with psychic power to sabotage defensive points from within.
Ahriman watched all of this, pressing his hand to his temple and massaging it gently to soothe the mounting irritation inside his head.
Psychic knowledge had been made universal across Prospero, establishing a harmonious era of shared lore—yet now that rebellion had erupted, the individual destructive capacity of mortals had been elevated to an absolute peak.
Had this been any other Primarch's homeworld, the uprising might have been nipped in the bud.
Without psychic shields, a few atomic detonations or a sudden legionary strike would have instantly wiped the rebel forces into ash.
Yet this was Prospero—and the Thousand Sons could only rely on their city fortifications, holding out to await reinforcements.
"Chief Librarian!"
As he was lost in thought, a Legionary rushed up to report urgently: "The northwest corner of the city has been breached by the rebels!"
"Impossible!" Ahriman spoke in disbelief, stepping onto the platform's control mechanism to bring up a battle projection. "The northwest perimeter is heavily fortified, guarded by tens of thousands of mortal soldiers. How could it fall so quickly?"
"My psychic foresights tell me that Tizca will stand firm until the return of our Gene-Father!"
The warrior spoke at extreme speed, explaining rapidly as the holographic projection manifested: "It was the Tutelaries!"
"Those filthy entities slipped into the city through gaps in the barrier! They destroyed the automated defense arrays and slaughtered the garrison command!"
Hearing this, Ahriman's refined face stiffened into stone, the wood of the staff in his grip creaking under his tightening fist.
In the holographic display, the Tutelaries bore no trace of their former docility. Their hideous forms flickered like phantoms, dodging gunfire as they slaughtered the garrison forces.
"Awaken the Dreadnoughts. Assemble the Sekhmet Guard."
Ahriman turned, striding hastily away from the pyramid platform. "I will lead the strike team in person to drive back those filthy, unholy horrors!"
---
By the time he rushed into the pyramid command center, two Dreadnoughts had already awoken from their slumbering shrines, and a squad of Sekhmet stood fully assembled.
This was an elite force comprised of hero-Dreadnoughts and the Primarch's personal honor guard.
The members of the Sekhmet Guard wore Tartaros or Cataphractii Terminator power armor painted in brilliant crimson, wielding force tulwars and combi-bolters.
"Move!" Ahriman called out, stepping into the teleportation array.
The heavy footsteps of the Dreadnoughts and Terminators thundered across the floor, stepping through a hazy aura of light as they waited for their Legion brothers to chant the teleportation incantations.
The spells descended as glowing runic symbols. The teleportation array flared with intense warp light, purple lightning flashed, and the physical forms within the circle vanished from the command room alongside the radiance.
---
In the northwest corner of the city, a dense, dark tide of rebels flooded through the breach.
A hundred sorcerers chanted in unison, launching a combined spell that incinerated a Thousand Sons warrior into ash.
Bereft of Astartes leadership, the mortal garrison stood no chance, torn to shreds by the incoming wave of insurgents and warp beasts.
"For our rights! For Magnus!"
The traitors shrieked, their righteous slogans ringing out loudly even as a strange blue radiance flickered in the depths of their eyes.
They had already been possessed by daemons of Tzeentch and warp entities, mingling amidst the crowd to fish in troubled waters during the chaos, harvesting mortal souls.
"Execute the treacherous Ahzek Ahriman! Let knowledge flow once more!"
Agitators shouted from within the rebel ranks, raising their staves high. The surrounding mortal soldiers stared on with vacant, indifferent eyes, clearly under the influence of hypnotic sorcery.
Hidden in unseen shadows, the daemon-possessed wore sinister grins, greedily drinking in the souls of mortals.
'Opportunity strikes but once.'
They were no foolish Thousand Sons—they were cunning daemons.
It was abundantly clear that the entity above in the void had seen through their little games, yet had chosen not to purge the world himself—obviously intending to teach the Thousand Sons a harsh lesson.
Since that was the case, they would make the mess as glorious as possible, enjoying a magnificent feast before departing, leaving behind utter mockery for the foolish Thousand Sons.
"Ahriman, step forward! You cannot trample our rights!"
"He brings shame upon knowledge! He is a sinner of Prospero!"
The seductive, hypnotic voices of the daemons possessed immense provocative power. Those who heard it grew red-eyed and consumed by wild rage, gnashing their teeth in a desperate thirst to slay Ahriman with their own hands.
The daemons of Tzeentch knew precisely who they could push and who they must avoid, giving free rein to their mocking taunts.
---
"Foul beasts!"
A roar proved insufficient to contain his fury as the ambient temperature plummeted abruptly. Ahriman descended onto the battlefield alongside the Primarch's honor guard and the Dreadnoughts.
The mortal rebels froze in place; the sudden teleportation of elite Legion forces into the fight was entirely beyond their comprehension.
Even under hypnosis, deep within their subconscious instincts, fear of Space Marines was etched into their very bones.
Furthermore, the warriors standing before them were far more imposing and mighty than standard Astartes.
The Sekhmet Guard were clad in Terminator armor adorned with ancient Egyptian-styled accoutrements and symbols, bearing the Legion loop badge on their left shoulders and their respective Cult marks on the right.
Beyond the Terminators, the mortals had never even laid eyes upon a Dreadnought.
The presence of a Dreadnought chassis was considered sacred to the Legion, kept strictly within secure vaults and entirely alien to the mortal populace.
With their grand arrival, the mortals were paralyzed by the scene before them, and the battlefield fell into a brief, frozen hush.
While the rebels stood dazed, the Astartes had already completed their tactical assessments.
Ahriman looked upon the field of ruin before him, where rebels were slaughtering the garrison at will, and the corpses of his battle-brothers were being used as sacrifices for psychic arrays.
With insults, taunts, and filthy curses pouring into his ears, Ahriman's wrath erupted into a raging inferno. His eyes wide with anger, he raised his hand and unleashed a jagged bolt of psychic lightning.
The lightning crackled violently, vaporizing a swath of mortal rebels in an instant.
Yet a daemon-possessed host merely laughed with wild abandon, his body twisting in an unnatural contortion to dodge the psychic lightning.
"Is that all?" His taunt grew even more mocking. "Chief Librarian? Go back and read a few more books, then practice for a few more years!"
Even as he spat insults, he fled faster than anyone, vanishing into the crowd and leaving behind a string of mocking laughter.
"Seal the breach! Drive back the rebels!"
Ahriman did not pursue recklessly, leading his Legionaries to launch a direct assault against the mortal horde.
"All is dust!"
The Thousand Sons warriors let out a deafening warcry as the Cataphractii Terminators surged forward, forming an iron wall at the front of the formation.
Though Cataphractii Terminator armor was heavy and unwieldy, the forcefield generators mounted on its shoulders provided extra shielding for brothers advancing in the open.
Lining up their combi-bolters with the breach, the Terminators poured out overwhelming firepower!
'Bang—Bang—Bang—'
The violent thrum of bolter fire resounded with immense power, terrifying the mortals so utterly that many wet themselves on the spot.
The surging tide of bodies pushing through the wall's gap was brutally pushed back a hundred meters under just two seconds of sustained Terminator fire.
It left behind a pathway of shredded flesh and shattered bone—a carpet laid in blood.
"Reloading!"
With a heavy clatter, spent combi-bolter magazines hit the ground, the Terminators' vox-grilles hissing with command.
Servitors rushed forward clutching ammunition, reloading the Terminators' weapons.
The brief gap in firepower during the reload was seamlessly covered by the Dreadnoughts. The Legion ancients stepped to the flanks, leading the squad forward with heavy, thunderous strides.
"Traitors! How dare you betray the honor of the Crimson King?"
A roar erupted from a Dreadnought's vox-array; the ancient warrior could not stomach this shameful betrayal occurring upon Prospero.
They vented their utter hatred for treason in the most brutal fashion imaginable.
The massive staff of one Dreadnought surged with power as a psychic blessing descended, wiping away the fatigue of the mortal auxiliaries and boosting their morale.
The psychic limiter on the right arm of the second Dreadnought crackled with arc-lightning, manifesting a long whip of crackling energy that hissed violently as it grazed the ground.
"Traitors! Feel the wrath of Magnus!"
When the Dreadnoughts descended upon the battlefield, awakening broken warriors from the slumber of their sarcophagi, all they could feel was a cold, mechanical rage.
The Dreadnought was a blessing from the Emperor, allowing broken heroes to continue their sacred service.
Yet behind that glorious duty, being entombed within the sarcophagus was also a cruel punishment.
The warriors resting inside could no longer feel the twitch of muscle or the warmth of blood; through the neural cables plugged directly into their brains, the only feedback returned was the harsh, cold reality of a mechanical frame.
The consciousness of these selfless warriors often remained trapped in the moment right before their slumber—the final, irreversible wound that had laid them low.
Broken bodies trembled in the synthetic amniotic fluid, unable to process the reality before their eyes.
All they could sense were the mechanical alarms chiming in their minds and their own limbless, shattered remains floating in the fluid.
And so, the Dreadnought became the sheer embodiment of fury!
Driven by hearts consumed with hatred, they charged toward the enemies of the Imperium.
"For Tizca!" The Thousand Sons Dreadnought surged forward with massive strides, its electronic vox-array hissing with a dry, distorted screech—a sound far removed from the warrior's true, unbridled rage.
Inside the synthetic amniotic tank, the pilot could not roar. With life-support apparatuses stitched across his mouth, his pale chest heaved violently, incapable of letting out a genuine battle cry.
The entombed warrior despised this artificial silence, redirecting every drop of his hatred and fury onto the enemy.
The superhuman mind of a Space Marine served as the most responsive reactor core for the war machine. Battle-hardened ancients were infinitely better at seizing fleeting kill opportunities than any automated machine.
Within the dark, quiet tomb of the sarcophagus, electronic signals fed directly into the brain to synthesize an exterior view.
Warrior instinct locked onto the most dangerous targets instantly.
The Dreadnought's right arm raised its twin-linked lascannon, driving two crimson beams of light straight into the upper wall to disintegrate a rebel plasma cannon into floating trash.
'Boom!'
As azure plasma burst, several rapid volleys from the twin-linked lascannons wiped out the high-ground turrets and wall ammunition caches.
In a mere breath, every threat to the Dreadnought was erased.
"Traitors!"
The angry soul inside the sarcophagus burned brightly. As the Thousand Sons ancient unleashed his formidable warp power, the runes etched across the Dreadnought's chassis crackled with pale-purple lightning.
"You have forsaken Magnus! Your filthy flesh is unfit to tread the holy soil of Prospero!"
The mechanical voice shrieked as the Dreadnought plowed into the rebel ranks. Its upper torso rotated three hundred and sixty degrees, sweeping a long whip of warp energy into a whirling ring of death.
The psychic whip crackled with violent electricity; sweeping out with incandescent rage, anything it touched was instantly vaporized into ash.
"A tone for your sins with death!"
With guns blazing and force-whip sweeping, the Dreadnought vented its fury without restraint. Upon being awakened from slumber, Techmarines had downloaded the mission briefing directly into the warrior's brain, laying the truth bare.
He was filled with white-hot rage, mercilessly slaughtering these oathbreakers.
Those damned traitors had once sworn oaths of unconditional submission to the rule of Magnus.
They had sworn fealty, yet now they brought shame upon their Primarch with this vile corruption.
For oathbreakers, there was only one path: death!
The Dreadnought charged forward, autogun fire pinging harmlessly off its carbon-steel plates as atomic forcefields intercepted heavy ordinance and psychic shields warded off sorcerous attacks.
Beneath layers of defense, the Dreadnought became an unstoppable beast, trampling the traitors' pride beneath its tread.
Inside the sarcophagus, warp energy streamed like twin pillars from the ancient's eyes, pouring raw power from his ruined body to fuel the psychic shields and force-whip.
"Reform the line! Drive the traitors back outside the walls!"
With the Dreadnought briefly suppressing the rebel advance, Ahriman called out loudly, raising his staff to channel a psychic spell.
The mortal garrison was greatly emboldened; the spell restored their courage, rallying them behind the Astartes.
In an instant, a firing position built around the Dreadnoughts and Terminators was complete, advancing steadily with a wall of las-fire and bolter rounds.
The counter-offensive line pushed forward; in short order, the breach would be sealed.
"Heh... heh... heh..."
Just as victory seemed within reach, a low, sinister laugh echoed out from the shadows, laced with a chilling coldness that seemed to permeate everywhere, driving straight into the soul.
Ahriman's face turned dark, knowing the Tutelaries were lurking in the gloom.
Those filthy abominations had deceived the Legion with their guises, possessing mortal sorcerers to incite rebellion and tarnish the Thousand Sons' glory—wicked to the absolute extreme.
They would never allow the Legion to reclaim the wall without a fight.
"Let us make this game a little more interesting."
Sure enough, the mocking voice turned deeply venomous, chanting obscure, arcane incantations.
The battlefield temperature dropped abruptly as pale-blue vapors materialized alongside the spell, drifting like sentient, ethereal entities to seep straight into the bodies of the rebels.
"What is this?"
The Sekhmet sorcerers felt their minds shudder. The spell chanted by the Tutelary sounded impossibly intricate and incomprehensible even to them.
That mysterious power felt as though it had crossed the boundaries of time, descending onto the field laden with ancient, forgotten malice.
"Halt the advance!" Sensing imminent danger, Ahriman shouted a command, bringing the mobile line to a stop: "Hold position! Prepare for enemy assault!"
The squad halted immediately; even the Dreadnought stopped in its tracks, scanning the front with grave vigilance.
"Reloading!" The Terminators called out for ammo once more, meeting this unmeasured, mysterious spell in full battle readiness.
As the vapors plunged into their bodies through their senses, the rebels' pupils shrank wildly, their running frames trembling uncontrollably.
"Fire!"
The Sekhmet Guard pulled their triggers once again, their combi-bolters belching tongues of fire, raining a dense curtain of bolter rounds down upon the rebel line.
A cascade of bolter shells detonated, the dense flashes blooming like rolling boiling oil to lay down a shattered screen of fire.
"Heh... heh... heh..."
A sneer drifted from a thin, elongated throat. As a light breeze blew past, Ahriman's heart sank straight to the bottom of his chest.
The expected river of blood did not materialize. The blue vapor formed a fine veil in front of the charging crowd, absorbing the bolter impacts completely.
The traitor horde now breathed heavily, azure power surging through their veins beneath their tainted skin.
It was glaringly obvious that they had been augmented by some unholy force.
A mysterious voice echoed once again from the void, declaring with wild abandon: "Use your burning souls to drown the enemies in your path!"
As the words fell, the blue light in the rebels' eyes flared brilliantly. Letting out savage roars from their throats, they surged toward the Terminator line.
Compared to their normal pace, their charge speed had more than doubled!
The ground thundered violently. This suicidal charge fueled by burning souls crashed forward like a flood, shattering the earth of Tizca and trampling the City of Light underfoot.
"Fire!"
His voice trembling, a mortal officer raised his power sword high, commanding the soldiers under his command to open fire.
Through the gaps in the Space Marine formation, dense rain-like bursts of crimson las-fire slammed into the front ranks of the rebel horde.
Las-beams pierced through flesh, burning black holes through their bodies, yet the charging steps never wavered. The searing pain only triggered deeper frenzy in their shattered minds, accelerating their charge by another notch.
They were completely fallen—their souls ignited by the power of Tzeentch, reduced to pure fuel driving empty husks.
'Roar!'
Madness and frenzy erupted without restraint; they were going to burn through soul and flesh alike for one final, desperate dance.
Yet this frantic obsession placed them squarely against humanity, making them willing accomplices to the dark.
"Fire! Keep firing!"
The garrison officer screamed at the brink of mental collapse, his sword pointing frantically at the surging wave of bodies, his eyes bloodshot as he struggled to suppress the sheer terror of facing that horrific tide.
The garrison troops slapped in fresh power packs for their lasguns, squared their formation, and frantically pulled their triggers.
Aiming was no longer necessary—nor was there time for it. The rebels were surging forward like an overwhelming tide; firing indiscriminately was the greatest contribution they could make.
Over a thousand surviving garrison troops ducked behind the Primarch's personal honor guard and the Dreadnoughts, unleashing millions of crimson laser beams.
Yet these mottled, feeble beams slammed into the sea of bodies without causing the slightest ripple.
The rebels fought like raging lunatics, trampling over the bodies of their fallen comrades to charge forward in total defiance of death—looking for all the world like hideous walking corpses engulfed in flame.
The moment they surged out from the blanket of blue vapor, they lost all semblance of sanity, abandoning their firearms to swing mutated talons and blades as they screeched and hurled themselves at the defensive line.
'Hummm...'
Servomotors whirred softly as servitors finished reloading ammunition. Beneath the arms of the Sekhmet Terminators, gatling cannons spun up, spewing long tongues of flame.
Bolter rounds tore through the air in a continuous line of fiery blasts, carving a bloody furrow straight through the crowd.
As the bolter shells detonated with deafening pops, even the augmented flesh of the mortals could not endure the impacts, blowing them into shattered chunks of flesh.
"Change formation!"
The Cataphractii-pattern Sekhmet Terminators stepped back, swapping positions with the Tartaros-pattern brothers so that the more agile Astartes could take the front line.
The situation was clear: the rebels would inevitably close the distance into hand-to-hand combat. Changing formation was essential for engaging the enemy effectively.
Though Cataphractii armor offered supreme defense, it lacked a degree of fluid mobility.
"Armament disengaged."
A Tartaros Terminator growled softly as the locking clamps beneath his arm unlocked, allowing the gatling cannon to detach from his armor.
Receiving their orders, several servitors lifted the gatling cannon, kneeling beside a Cataphractii Terminator to begin mounting it onto his chassis.
In that brief gap, the rebels braved the bombardment of the Dreadnought's twin-linked autocannon, forcibly closing the distance to less than a hundred meters from the defensive line.
"Psychic Blessing!"
A cold, mechanical voice rang out, steady as frost. The staff-wielding Dreadnought completed its incantation, slamming the base of its staff into the ground to send a wave of warp blessing washing over the garrison's lasrifles.
Upon their next volley, the mortals were stunned to find that their lasguns no longer consumed ammunition; the beams shooting forth had transformed into rounds of concentrated warp energy.
Runic script flared across the Dreadnought's chassis, channeling warp power directly into the mortals' hands, using supernatural force to slay supernatural foes.
Sure enough, when the energy rounds slammed into the target, their power rivaled that of bolter shells, blowing the insurgents into clouds of blood mist.
Yet the tide of bodies was relentless, closing in before their eyes in a single breath.
"All is dust!"
A Sekhmet Guard let out a heavy sigh as psychic runes ignited across his Terminator armor. Raising his hand with a pulling gesture, he extracted the soul of a servitor and slammed it directly into his force tulwar.
The runes along the blade activated, erupting with searing warp flames.
The mutated corpses lunged right before them, their expressions twisted in manic fury as their poison-dripping claws glinted, slashing at anyone blocking their path.
Their movements were fast—but the Space Marines were faster!
The Thousand Sons sorcerers were not merely psykers; they were extraordinary warriors forged by the Emperor himself.
The Tartaros Terminators moved with lightning speed, and as the Primarch's personal guard, they were the absolute elite among elites—their martial prowess far surpassing that of ordinary Astartes.
The instant the enemy closed in, the Sekhmet Guard swung their force blades, carving out dozens of arc slashes in a split second!
The fiery blades cleaved through flesh without a hint of resistance; warp fire burrowed straight into spine and soul, reducing the victims to ash in the very next second.
Within a single second, over a hundred traitor fanatics fell dead before ten Tartaros Sekhmet.
Amidst unhuman, crazed shrieks, the sorcerer-warriors held force blades in one hand while channeling brilliant warp light in the other, chanting incantations through the vocal grilles of their power armor, weaving spells seamlessly into the storm of blades.
"Gravity!"
One warrior clenched his fist, and dozens of mutated bodies were twisted into a compact sphere of gore, bone and flesh mashed together in an instant.
"Lightning!"
Another summoned supernatural lightning, grasping it in his palm like a whip before lashing out to leave behind another swath of death and charred corpses.
"Frost!"
A sorcerer-warrior brought his armored boot down, freezing a forty-meter area into an absolute domain of ice as seven-foot ice spikes impaled bodies, leaving behind crimson pillars of frozen blood.
"Foresight!"
As hand-to-hand combat raged, Ahriman chanted a Corvidae incantation, casting a warp prophecy over his forces.
Invisible power transformed into threads of fate, wrapping around the Sekhmet Terminators and the Dreadnoughts to warn them of incoming danger.
Two layers of reality unfolded before the mortals' eyes: one was the unalterable "present" unfolding in real-time, while the other was a phantom glimpse of what was about to happen, guiding the mortal soldiers on where to fire.
The Terminators swung their blades in fluid, blurring arcs, effortlessly blending present and future to strike with devastating, surgical precision.
The soul-burning corpses surged forward like a relentless tide, only to be mowed down like wheat before the scythe.
Standing on the flanks of the formation, the Dreadnoughts lashed out with force-whip and maintained continuous fire with their lascannons, carving out an absolute vacuum on the field.
The Tartaros Terminators struck repeatedly, weaving psychic spells into their attacks to shatter the rebels' charging lines.
Once the gatling cannon was mounted, the Cataphractii Terminator stepped into the gap of the Tartaros line, pouring out sustained, heavy fire support into the crowd.
In an instant, two Dreadnoughts and twenty Terminators stood as an unshakeable barrier against the rebels' insane onslaught.
They were an isolated island amidst a sea of bodies—stout reefs holding firm against wave after surging wave.
"Celestial Fire!" Ahriman concentrated his focus once more, guiding warp energy into his focus staff.
The staff flared with orange-red flames, staining the blue vapor red as the fiery light tore open the sky.
Cascading torrents of warp fire rained down into the rebel formation like a world-ending storm of flame, incinerating over a thousand insurgents at once.
"Ahriman... Ahriman..."
Just as the garrison's morale reached its peak, a sinister, haunting voice drifted out from the shadows, like the seductive chant of a siren.
This time, the voice had an origin.
Following the call, Ahriman peered through the brilliant radiance of warp light to see a strange creature crouched atop the battlements of the city wall, looking down at him with a broad grin.
Ahriman recognized it instantly—it was the very same kind of entity that had been reduced to ash in the hands of the King of Warriors.
"What are you?" he demanded harshly, unleashing a bolt of lightning to slay a walking corpse charging the line.
He was absolutely certain that the bird-like abomination had died by the Primarch's hand.
His heart gave a sudden, violent spasm, the warp light on his fingertips wavering slightly as he realized with rising horror that these entities likely belonged to an entire species.
"What am I?" The Lord of Change shrugged its emaciated shoulders, shaking loose a few gorgeous feathers. "Why, I am your soul-bound Tutelary, of course~"
The bird's nictitating membrane opened and closed, golden eyes overflowing with mocking amusement. It had no intention of revealing its true identity to Ahriman; leaving those who considered themselves wise scholars to seek answers in vain was the ultimate mockery.
"For countless days and nights, we were intimate beyond measure, sharing our innermost hearts and thoughts with one another."
The moment those words were uttered, the minds of the Sekhmet shuddered violently, their guided warp energy nearly triggering a dangerous backlash.
Memories of their past soul-bindings bubbled up to the surface, filling them with a wave of deep, sickening revulsion.
These foul abominations had concealed their hideous nature, corrupting the sorcerers' pure pursuit of knowledge from the very beginning.
"Foul beast!"
Unable to contain its rage, a Dreadnought fired a bolt of lightning from its staff, aiming straight at the abominable creature atop the wall.
The Lord of Change spread its brilliant wings wide as its shadow was stretched long by the setting sun—as if opening its arms to embrace the Thousand Sons sorcerers, completely oblivious to the incoming lightning bolt.
Ahriman and his brothers felt a surge of grim satisfaction; if that strike hit home, the perpetrator would surely perish on the spot!