"A child? Then he must be very disobedient, to make his mother travel so far to find him."
The giant stared blankly at the roasted meat in his hand, lost in thought.
The traveler let out a hoarse laugh.
"He is indeed very disobedient. He always stays up late, never eats on time, and constantly puts himself in danger. Because of this, whenever I see him, I can't help but scold him and tap his armor with my staff."
"That's good," the giant's mood turned low. "Disobedient children should indeed be scolded."
"Look, it's this staff. It doesn't hurt people, but it makes armor clang loudly." The traveler took out a wooden staff, its shaft very smooth.
The giant stared at the staff, lost in thought, until the traveler tapped him with it.
"Why did you hit me?"
"Because you're disobedient." The traveler pulled down his hood and face covering, revealing a weathered face.
Upon seeing that face, a flash of lightning seemed to strike the giant's mind.
He remembered everything.
His name was Roboute Guilliman, the Regent of the Imperium of Man, Lord of Macragge, and King of the Five Hundred Worlds.
As Guilliman recalled his past,
everything around him rapidly changed.
The wilderness vanished, transforming into the prosperous Macragge.
Euten's clothes also turned azure blue.
Everything reverted to how it was before the complete change.
"Lady Euten, how are you here?" Guilliman's voice was filled with emotion. He had witnessed Lady Euten turn to ash, so how could she be here again?
"Because there's a disobedient child." Lady Euten reached out and grasped Guilliman.
Her hand was tiny, only able to hold one of Guilliman's fingers.
Just like when a young Guilliman held her finger, letting her lead him through the garden.
"The Warp is an idealistic world. If one person truly loves another, that person is granted immortality. Lorgar only shattered my soul, but he didn't shatter your love for me, so I returned to your side."
Lady Euten extended her hand, and Guilliman obediently knelt on one knee, allowing her to caress his face.
"You child, you still don't know how to take care of yourself. Look at all that white hair."
"It must be tiring to bear such a heavy burden."
Lady Euten's heart ached, her eyes filled with tears.
Guilliman buried his head in Lady Euten's embrace. "It's not tiring. As long as you don't leave me, I won't feel tired."
"You must learn to say goodbye, to everything you've lost," Lady Euten said. "You still have a long way to go in your future. Don't always cling to the past."
"You must be strong, Guilliman. Don't let anger consume you. Understand it, control it, overcome it."
Tears flowed from Lady Euten's eyes.
When she passed away, Guilliman was still fighting battles abroad.
She could imagine how sad he must have been when he learned of her passing.
Just recently, she died in front of him again, driving him into a frenzy.
And now, she had to leave him again.
Lady Euten suddenly felt cruel; she was constantly hurting Guilliman.
"You have to walk the path ahead by yourself now, child."
Lady Euten wiped away the tears from her face. "Don't lose control like this again. It's very dangerous."
"If those evil entities take the opportunity to invade, you will become as terrifying as your brothers."
"Promise me, never do this again."
"Okay, I promise you." Guilliman looked up, gazing at Lady Euten.
"Can you not go?"
Lady Euten shook her head. "Learn to let go and say goodbye, Guilliman."
"I don't want to," Guilliman said.
"Be good," Lady Euten said gently. "When you fulfill your mission, when you reach the end of your life, I will come again. But for now, you must do what you need to do."
Guilliman was unwilling to let go, but under Lady Euten's gaze, he slowly released his hand.
Then, Lady Euten transformed into specks of light, dissipating into the air.
As Lady Euten dissipated,
everything around them changed again.
Guilliman returned to the boundless wilderness.
At this moment, a light appeared on the horizon, emitting ripples.
Voices accompanied the ripples, calling Guilliman's name.
It was composed of many people's voices.
Guilliman recognized Lion's voice, Sicarius's voice, and the voices of many of his descendants and the Imperium of Man's citizens.
They called to him, hoping he would return to the Imperium of Man, back to their side.
Guilliman took one last look around the wilderness, then stood up and walked towards the light.
As he took his first step, the pillar of light abruptly appeared before him.
He walked into the light, and a dazzling glare enveloped everything.
Guilliman felt a blur of white before his eyes, unable to see anything.
He instinctively blinked, and the glare dissipated, allowing the Primarch to see everything around him clearly.
Lion, Sicarius, and others were standing beside him.
When he opened his eyes, Lion excitedly hugged him. "You're finally awake, Guilliman."
"I thought you were going to sleep forever!!"
"Cough! Cough!" Guilliman coughed, extending a weak hand to push Lion away. "With such a big movement, I haven't even died at Lorgar's hands yet, and I'm going to die at yours first."
"Alright, alright, I was wrong." Lion let go and helped Guilliman sit up.
"My head hurts so much, it feels like something hit it hard." Guilliman reached back and touched the back of his head.
Lion instantly looked a bit awkward.
It was he who had hit Guilliman with the Emperor's Shield, sending the enraged Guilliman unconscious with a clang.
"It's just a headache, nothing serious." Lion changed the subject. "No other abnormalities in your body, right? You haven't been led astray by the Four Chaos Gods, have you?"
Guilliman: "..."
"How's the battle going?" Guilliman ignored Lion's question and instead asked about the outcome of the campaign.
"It's over."
Lion gave a detailed account of both the Webway War and the Vigil War.
Abaddon, relying on the blessings of the Four Chaos Gods, defeated Calgar and took the opportunity to destroy the Blackstone Fortress, leading to Vigil being swallowed by the Chaos tide.
The Nakmund Corridor was completely destroyed.
The Webway, with the help of Corax and Jaghatai Khan, successfully repelled the Nurgle demon army and Chaos Warbands led by Mortarion.
The Imperium of Man is now beginning to switch to Webway travel, and the situation is not too bad.
Hearing that Vigil had fallen, the Nakmund Corridor was destroyed, and countless worlds were swallowed by the Chaos tide,
and that Corax and Jaghatai Khan had to return to win against the Nurgle demon army and hold the Webway,
Guilliman felt a surge of guilt.
It was his impulsiveness that had led to such an unfavorable situation.
If they had followed their original plan, Magnus and those others would have posed no threat at all.
"It's okay, everything is over." Lion did not blame Guilliman.
"Where is the Saint?" Guilliman inquired about Alex's whereabouts.
Lion then relayed all the information he knew.
Including how he went to the Vengeful Spirit to save Sanguinius,
unexpectedly encountered Horus, was beaten to a pulp, and finally self-destructed with the enemy.
"You said the Saint is dead?" Guilliman felt the world spin, and he couldn't hold his water glass, which dropped to the floor.
"He's not dead." Lion called for servants, telling them to pick up the glass and clean the floor.
"Didn't you say he was beaten to a pulp?" Guilliman asked.
"Being beaten to a pulp doesn't mean he's dead," Lion said. "He's a higher-dimensional life form. Death is merely a temporary form of transformation for him. He died not long ago and was resurrected again."
"Now he should be discussing with Dante how to truly resurrect Sanguinius, as both the body and soul are ready, just waiting for the resurrection."
"That's good." Hearing Lion's words, Guilliman finally breathed a sigh of relief and asked about another.
"By the way, how are they going to resurrect Sanguinius?"
"The body isn't a problem; Cortana can help reshape it. But the soul is a bit tricky. The Saint has invited Trazyn and the Laughing God's avatar, planning to brainstorm ideas."
"What can we do?" Guilliman asked.
"Stop Abaddon." Lion shrugged. "This guy is incredibly arrogant, launching a full-scale war against the Imperium of Man with the momentum of destroying the Nakmund Corridor, intending to completely destroy the Imperium of Man."
...
On the Vengeful Spirit,
Abaddon had once again regained control of the Black Legion.
As for Magnus, Fulgrim, and Lorgar, they were naturally restrained by the Chaos Gods,
and even ordered to obey Abaddon's commands.
This was a great humiliation for the Daemon Primarchs, but they had no power to say no,
because everything they had was in the hands of the Chaos Gods.
Abaddon quickly reorganized the Chaos forces and launched a full-scale offensive against the Imperium of Man, aiming to completely crush the Imperium of Man.
As he was ambitiously preparing to execute his next plan,
an uninvited guest boarded his battleship.
Several Dark Adeptus Mechanicus performing a ritual died on the spot, their bodies transmuted into metal.
And the entire Vengeful Spirit underwent a strange transformation due to the arrival of the outsider.
Small metal beasts with bizarre tentacles rapidly scurried across the floor, repairing the damage sustained by the Vengeful Spirit.
The Imperium of Man's Saint's self-destruction had released unimaginable power, severely wounding the demons hiding in the battleship, and many systems suffered irreversible damage.
And the uninvited guest was rapidly repairing this dark battleship.
The Bridge also underwent a drastic transformation due to the arrival of this mysterious guest.
Tendrils of metal wire, molten metal, and crackling energy overflowed from every mechanical system on the Bridge.
They resembled a colossal mechanical spiderweb, with countless strands weaving through the air, intertwining at the center of this ancient space.
Servitors and crewmen who had been fused with their posts for millennia twitched and stood up, breaking free with the vitality granted by metal wires.
They shuffled on atrophied limbs, dragging data spike ports,
trailing conduits and cables like overflowing intestines,
And at the center of all the changes stood a tall humanoid creature.
It was composed of iron and flowing molten iron, its eyes burning with the flames of a forge.
"Who are you?" Abaddon asked.
"Abaddon the Despoiler, I am Ark Mechanicus – Vashtorr. I have come to form an alliance with you, to help you utterly destroy the Emperor's realm."
"Alliance? I don't need allies anymore," Abaddon said. "I'm about to bury the Imperium of Man in its grave."
"No, you do." Vashtorr said, "Humanity is about to obtain something that can change the galactic situation. They will inherit everything from the ancient races and rebuild the complex Webway."
"If you refuse to cooperate with me, you will find that the victory at the Nakmund Corridor is the beginning of your defeat, because humanity will fully turn to the Webway, establishing new faster-than-light routes at the fastest speed."
Abaddon stared intently at Vashtorr, and after some deliberation, he decided to let him continue.
Vashtorr introduced himself fully: he was a demon demigod of inventors, engineers, scientists, and artisans.
He was the master of the Soul Forge and a candidate for the fifth Dark God.
The reason he came to Abaddon was to use this opportunity to ascend.
"The outsiders are trying to collect ancient fragments to piece together a powerful artifact, and this artifact can open new Webways."
"Demons are always full of lies and deception, aren't they?" Abaddon said. "I will verify your words. Until I decide to trust you, I will not ally with you."
"Therefore, I bring another gift." Vashtorr said, "Your fleet needs to become stronger to contend with the outsiders."
Under Vashtorr's immense power, the Vengeful Spirit was reshaped, gaining a larger body and terrifying firepower.
It could destroy a planet with one shot and possessed shields capable of withstanding stellar destruction.
At the same time, Vashtorr also provided various dark technologies to enhance the Black Legion's combat power and helped Abaddon construct the magnificent Ark Mechanicus.
These Arks were enormous, composed of spacecraft submerged in Immaterium or derelict space stations, each as large as an asteroid.
They were filled with terrifying Chaos power, with unique metallic nerves connecting every area.
These Arks also possessed Warp gates and Warp beacons called 'Obeliskan'.
These beacons glowed in the Warp, guiding Chaos Warband vessels through the unpredictable Sea of Souls.
At the same time, these Ark Mechanicus also possessed daemon navigators called 'Ferrymen'.
They were the control core of the Arks and also crew members, capable of guiding the vessels through the Warp with ease, reaching any destination.
Each Ark possessed terrifying shields and firepower, capable of easily destroying Imperium of Man fleets.
With Vashtorr's help, Abaddon's Black Legion became powerful to an outrageous degree.
When Abaddon saw the magnificent colossal ships,
he revealed a satisfied smile and promised to help the other party seize those ancient artifacts and advance the prophecy.
Abaddon issued the order to destroy the Imperium of Man, and the first batch of created Ark Mechanicus became the main force.
Wherever they went, the Imperium of Man's armies collapsed, and countless worlds were twisted and destroyed.
The noose of death slowly tightened around the Imperium of Man's neck.