The Abyss-class battleship Triple Saint's Prayer was burning. The fierce firepower of the Rock had torn apart this giant vessel—a ship born in the Jovian shipyards and infused with Lorgar's blasphemous faith—that had once ravaged all of Ultramar and trampled countless worlds. It ultimately could not withstand the shards of Caliban.
The only regret Lion El'Jonson felt was that the Lorgar he had slain was merely a phantom, half-real and half-void, dissolving into shimmering light the moment the Fealty struck home.
Since Lorgar was not here, he could only have gone to...
Guilliman...
The Lion narrowed his eyes. Alexander had intentionally put on a show of being "immobile," but unless Lorgar was a complete fool, he wouldn't dare provoke Alexander on the Dora-Cabinet. Nor would he strike the Red Tear, where Angel clashed with Angel with power far exceeding a standard Primarch. That left only an assault on Guilliman.
Guilliman had never been a "pure" warrior. It wasn't a matter of martial skill; he thought too much. He couldn't achieve total purity in combat, which meant he could never truly hone himself into a blade.
Then again, Lorgar wasn't a warrior either—neither in spirit nor in technique. Paired with Guilliman, they were actually well-matched opponents.
The Lion's only concern was the fragments of intel gathered from the Red Corsairs: Lorgar had supposedly gained new power and had grown stronger.
"Roboute." The communication link finally connected. The Lion's voice carried a hint of urgency.
"I am fine." Roboute Guilliman's voice came through the vox. "Lorgar fled."
Fled?
The Lion breathed a small sigh of relief. It seemed that after ten thousand years, Lorgar still hadn't improved.
"I nearly killed him," Guilliman added, sounding somewhat regretful.
Nearly... killed Lorgar?
The Lion stunned for a moment. It seemed that in ten thousand years, Lorgar hadn't just stagnated; he had regressed. This was the only explanation the Lion could think of. Otherwise, how could Guilliman have nearly killed Lorgar in such a short time?
Surely Guilliman hadn't actually become that "Chaos Lord Regent" he had seen in his visions?
On the Honor of Macragge, Guilliman stared at the spot where Lorgar had just stood. A deep, abyssal blue scar stretched across half the office, writhing slowly in a deathly, silent manner, gnawing at reality and the severed half of Lorgar's arm.
Guilliman knew little of the Warp, yet he could feel the terrifying power emanating from that scar. It left him bewildered—this was power that had erupted from within his own body, even if only for a fleeting second...
Guilliman clenched his fist and turned to look behind him. Another version of himself, wearing a crown of the eight-pointed star, was watching him. Those crimson eyes lingered on Guilliman for a moment before the figure dissolved, as if it had never existed.
Lorgar slammed onto the floor of the Blackstone Fortress. His body trembled and curled up like a shrimp just hauled from the deep sea. He truly thought he was going to die just now. He was certain he had seen the Dark King—not the Emperor, but Guilliman. If the Emperor was a cold, dead sun made of obsidian, then the Guilliman Lorgar had seen was a cold, dead sea of stars, where every star was a reflection in countless obsidian mirrors.
In that near-death moment, Lorgar glimpsed a segment of history: Guilliman had defeated the Master of Mankind; the Lord of Ultramar had consumed the King of Ages. All of humanity fell under a single will, followed by the ascension of the Dark King. Fire burned away every human soul; all human will, memory, and ego flowed into Guilliman's body, leaving only empty husks hanging in the material world. But those bodies did not rot. Guilliman's will extended into every corpse, his multi-threaded mind playing the role of every single human being with exquisite precision...
Everything was Ultramar. Everything was Roboute Guilliman. From the outside, human civilization looked almost unscathed.
But Lorgar felt only disgust. The scene had shattered his psychological defenses. Curled on the floor, he actually vomited.
The Angel of Extermination hovered near Lorgar, silently observing him, his mind piercing into Lorgar's memories.
"Lord of Ultramar, King of Ages, Dark King, Chaos Regent Roboute Guilliman."
The Angel of Extermination murmured the title, his face tilting slightly in confusion.
"Adonai..." Lorgar's face was pale as he grabbed the Angel's foot in a near-pleading gesture.
"Do not fear. That is merely a false history that has not yet become reality. My birth disrupted causality, allowing it to surface slightly."
"Likely, you provoked Guilliman, and his intense rage caused the Guilliman of that false history to project a minuscule fragment of his power downward."
"If He truly existed, you would be dead, and I would be dead."
That said, the Angel of Extermination kicked Lorgar away, looking with wariness at the dark blue energy clinging to Lorgar's stump. "Do not come near me until that energy dissipates."
The Angel of Extermination ignored Lorgar further, his brow furrowing. Is what Alexander truly wants for Guilliman to become the Dark King?
Does he only care if the exterior looks human, but not the interior?
Of course, it was a solution. At the moment of Guilliman's ascension, all human souls, memories, and wills would merge into him. As the King of Ages, Guilliman would be all of humanity. If humanity is playing humanity, how can it be called false?
But no human could ever make such a decision. The Angel of Extermination mused for a moment. Has Alexander truly gone mad?
Has he completely succumbed to divinity, leaving only a god's perspective and losing his human mind?
If so, such a decision seemed logical. Surprisingly, the Angel of Extermination felt a twinge of sadness for Alexander—perhaps a remnant of the Emperor, or the influence of Isha.
"Father." At that moment, a communication from the surface came through.
It was Horus's voice. "I have found what you wanted."
The Angel of Extermination nodded slightly.
"Tell the Angel it is time to retreat," he said to Lorgar. "And then, let the Blackstone Fortress fall."
Lorgar nodded. This was part of the plan: to overload the Blackstone Fortress and let the fire envelop the planet's orbit to stall the enemy pursuit. As for the Red Corsairs, they would be sacrificed here... a necessary offering. They might not understand, but they had to accept it.
In the deep corridors of the Blackstone Fortress, Captain Sargotta was moving hurriedly.
She was once part of the Imperial Navy but had turned traitor due to shameful betrayals and disgusting abandonments. Eventually, she was taken in by Huron Blackheart. She actually loathed the Red Corsairs under Huron and despised the greedy pirate lords, yet she was undeniably loyal to Huron himself. This contradiction often felt bizarre even to her. Perhaps it was because Huron appreciated her talent... or because her talent and the naval victories she secured for the Red Corsairs earned her the respect of Huron and his men despite being a mortal.
Right now, Sargotta was grateful for her mortal status. Lorgar and the eerie entity he served clearly ignored her because she was "only" human.
Huron had claimed he would follow that strange entity, the Angel of Extermination. Was that really Huron?
Biometrically and physically, it seemed to be him, but Sargotta felt a slight dissonance. It wasn't a problem with "that" Huron, but rather his behavior when swearing fealty to the Angel—it just didn't seem like something Huron would do.
She had mentioned this dissonance to Garon the Soul-Eater. The psyker had sensed something too, but hadn't had the chance to investigate.
So, Sargotta began her own investigation. Using her clearance, she analyzed the status of various zones in the fortress and found one area that had never been activated since Huron "swore fealty."
Right here...
Hiding herself, she moved silently to the room. She touched the interface; her access was locked. Even her command clearance couldn't open this door. But Sargotta didn't stop. Her captain's clearance failed, but as a Red Corsair captain, she had secretly left herself a backdoor—a technique she had interrogated out of an Aeldari, using a pre-existing clearance interface within the fortress.
The heavy door slowly slid open.
Sargotta saw what was inside. Huron...
The Tyrant of Badab sat weakly in a chair, twisted tentacles burrowing into his skin, embedding themselves in his nerves and brain, binding him in place.
Sargotta's pupils contracted. Just as she thought—the Huron outside was a fake.
She rushed forward, pulling a dagger from her belt to cut the tentacles.
Just then, Huron opened his eyes with agonizing effort. He looked at Sargotta and reached out, refusing her attempt to save him. "...Run..." he choked out with the last of his strength.
Sargotta understood what he meant almost instantly.
Her handheld terminal shrieked an alarm: the core of the Blackstone Fortress was overloading. It looked like the precursor to firing its terrible beam weapon, but combined with Huron's warning, Sargotta realized the truth: that damned Angel of Extermination was going to detonate the fortress.
Sargotta did not betray the trust she had been given. She didn't abandon Huron to flee. She knelt by his side and quickly drafted a command to every ship: one group would act as a shield to protect the others from the blast, while the rest were to evacuate at maximum speed... many ships would still be lost, but she believed her arrangements would allow the Red Corsairs to survive. They would not be wiped out here.
She didn't truly love the Red Corsairs; she just didn't want to fail Huron's trust.
"We... never... yielded..." Huron squeezed out the words with his final breath.
Sargotta looked at him and smiled involuntarily. She knew the Red Corsairs were just collateral damage in the clash between the Angel of Extermination and Saint Alexander—a disposable tool, an insignificant pawn. They weren't noble people...
But, "Yes, my lord. We never knelt."
"At least we can take pride in that ourselves."
Then, the floor of the Blackstone Fortress turned scalding. A torrent of searing Warp energy erupted from the core, and fire ravaged everything, consuming Huron and Sargotta...
Hatred—intense hatred for the Warp burned within the Angel. This twisted weapon gripped Sanguinius's wrist, wild roars escaping his throat. A fist wreathed in fire smashed into Sanguinius's face. Sanguinius spat blood as the Dark Angel manifested behind him, its claws tearing jagged wounds into the Angel's body.
This Angel truly was a weapon specifically sculpted by the Emperor to combat the Warp. The more his enemy merged with the Warp or the stronger their psychic power, the more intense his hatred became, and his own psychic strength rose to match.
Sanguinius realized he was naturally ill-suited to fight the Angel. Even with Alexander's gadgets, it was difficult to destroy him completely.
He violently threw the Angel against the bulkhead of the Red Tear. The metal buckled, but the weapon gripped the edges of the breach, refusing to be sucked out into the Warp beyond the ship.
A moment later, the Angel seemed to sense something. He glanced toward the Blackstone Fortress in the void, let out a cold laugh, loosened his grip, and vanished into the Warp torrent.
Sanguinius panted heavily, his body covered in blood and burns. He turned his head toward the Blackstone Fortress.
Blazing fire erupted from the fortress, reality and Warp imagery clashing within the flames. Terrifying power surged in every direction, consuming Red Corsair ships and Imperial vessels that had strayed too deep into the enemy formation. But that wasn't the greatest danger. Sanguinius could feel the Warp energy from the fortress devouring the souls of the Red Corsairs and warping the local space. It was forming a hazy, indeterminate barrier, meant to completely cover the planet and block their pursuit.
Somehow, the Red Corsairs had reacted in time. Some ships were sacrificed, allowing others to escape, which slowed the expansion of the barrier.
"My Lord!"
Tyrell's voice rang out. "I found the coordinates of Sejanus's transmission!"
As he spoke, Tyrell quickly sent the coordinates to the Anywhere Door on the bridge.
So perfect—Sanguinius immediately knew Alexander's quiet influence was behind this. Without hesitation, he flew straight through the door.