Chapter 35: Emperor's Light
Eternal night shrouded Nostramo. In the darkness, the cultists raised their heads, their eyes no longer human, transformed into something resembling an owl's unblinking stare.
Their weapons remained ready, prepared to attack any approaching enemy. They were willing to die for the God of Fate and the Owl deity they worshipped.
The Ruinous Powers manifested in countless forms. Nurgle shaped his Great Unclean Ones and Nurglings in his own grotesque image. The Blood God forged his daemons through endless war. Every daemon under Slaanesh displayed a perfect hermaphroditic form. Tzeentch's daemons were ever-changing, seemingly without any truly fixed appearance.
Among them, with the exception of Slaanesh's daemons, who sometimes appeared in female forms, the other Ruinous Powers would not present themselves as mortals. The Blood God despised meaningless disguises, particularly what he considered the weakness of mortal forms. Nurgle felt that such deceptions were disrespectful to his honest corruption. Both preferred to display their true, horrifying natures.
Because they would not adopt such forms, this was also why Wayne had not predicted the enemy's invasion method. His eyes had been blinded by his existing knowledge of Chaos.
During the Dark Age of Technology, insane bio-tech had tortured countless humans in their mad pursuit of human immortality. They threw entire planetary populations into bio-furnaces, using forbidden technology to reshape humanity itself.
In several star systems on the edge of the Ghoul Stars, trillions of humans had yearned for justice amid their suffering. They began believing in the Owl, hoping it could deliver salvation. The Warp, in its twisted nature, fulfilled their wishes in dark and corrupted ways. Regardless of whether the Owl deity had originally been just, that faith ultimately became Tzeentch's.
At the end of the Dark Age of Technology, after the artificial intelligence wars concluded, the Owl created its daemons and a brand new method of manifestation. The slaves and sufferers launched an uprising, slaughtering their tormentors. Guided by their corrupted deity, they fled to the galaxy's edge, establishing a dark empire in regions far from the Astronomican's reach.
Wayne's oversight became apparent. Tzeentch was now using residual faith-power to bypass Warp detection and directly invade Nostramo. Wayne hadn't expected the enemy to weaponize faith itself; his knowledge didn't include instances of Chaos using faith to circumvent the Warp and directly breach the material universe.
The power of faith could overcome even psychic null fields, allowing Tzeentch to defeat the Untouchables.
"I must warn you—" The Emperor began, but Wayne interrupted.
Wayne knew what the Emperor intended to say: that the Untouchables' anti-psyker abilities weren't invincible. He already understood their limitations.
Wayne stood near the contaminated perimeter, his eyes scanning the terrain. "You're going to remind me that the Untouchables aren't omnipotent. I know. In the future, when the Thousand Sons fight the Custodes, Sisters of Silence, and Space Wolves, powerful psykers will be able to ignore the Sisters' null-field and vaporize Custodians along with their vehicles."
"How many?"
"It's nothing remarkable. The Custodian Shield-Captain killed seven Thousand Sons Blade Masters in a single engagement. A Thousand Sons Captain vaporized five or six Custodes in retaliation. The Thousand Sons carved through Custodian forces all the way to Constantine Valdor himself. That entire battle was simply a contest of who could exert more raw power."
"Five or six Custodians? In one engagement?"
The Emperor took a deep breath. He had led the Custodes against Orks ten or even a hundred times their number without sustaining such catastrophic losses. What Wayne described suggested that at least ten Custodes had died in that conflict.
More importantly, why would the Thousand Sons ever fight the Custodes? He realized Wayne could perceive futures he himself could not, just as the man knew the Great Heresy would occur but not who would instigate it.
"Who caused all of this?"
Wayne continued analyzing the ground zero terrain, responding matter-of-factly. "Magnus. In his attempt to warn you that Horus had fallen to Chaos, he accidentally destroyed your Webway project."
The psychic manifestation of the Little Girl stiffened. "That's..."
Golden light erupted in her eyes, and for a moment, it seemed as if time itself had stopped. "How is that possible? Horus..."
Wayne saw that the Emperor's emotions were spiraling out of control.
In an instant, golden radiance enveloped the surrounding area. The cultists illuminated by it didn't even have time to scream before turning directly to ash, their souls consumed into eternal oblivion. Their blasphemous weapons melted into purified slag. How could mere cultists resist the Emperor's unleashed power?
This power was strong enough to annihilate the positions of thousands of armed warriors. Even distant daemons caught in the radiance dissolved into ash. Daemons, so threatening to mortals, were nothing before the Emperor's wrath.
Wayne realized this burst of power could solve fifty percent of his immediate problems. He had to push further.
"I know you love Horus. You couldn't bring yourself to kill him without abandoning your humanity, and even when you did abandon it, you hesitated for several seconds before striking. You cared deeply about your son, yet you never showed him that love openly."
"Is that so?" The Girl tilted her head.
"Chaos toyed with Horus, fracturing his mind. His personality shifted endlessly throughout the Great Crusade. He kept muttering about thirty years alone with you, about the Cthonian amulet you gave him, about wanting to prove himself worthy."
The Emperor's hands clenched into fists. "How dare they?"
The Emperor's radiance grew brighter and brighter. Wayne stepped back, shielding his eyes. Seeing this reaction, he continued deliberately.
"Oh, and half of Horus's soul was destroyed by Chaos, specifically, the noble part of him and the part that loved you as a father."
The radiance enveloped the entire battlefield with even more ferocity. Some mortals who looked directly at it had their eyes instantly vaporized. Most warriors could only turn their backs, praying for it to end quickly. They understood in that moment that gods truly existed in this universe. How else could one explain a sun appearing directly within a world of eternal night?
Across the hive city, Konrad couldn't help but speak as he witnessed this display. "Father? My biological father?"
He could no longer continue looking at the radiance. He turned to direct mortal warriors to take shelter.
This manifestation of the Emperor's power was as dangerous as it was purifying for humans living in perpetual darkness. Burn marks appeared on mortal skin, and some Nostramo residents were permanently blinded, their eyes burned away to nothing.
The Primarch used his own body to shield nearby mortals, leading them to evacuation points. As for the Scavengers, most were not Nostramo natives, and their enhanced physiology granted them some resistance. Even though the Emperor was exerting power to cleanse Hive City One of daemonic corruption, Konrad still felt immense pressure. He now realized just how bizarre both of his fathers were.
Konrad moved toward the nearest war vehicle. "Retreat into covered areas immediately!"
He connected to the internal vox channel. "All of you are warned, do not look directly at that radiance!"
Static crackled before the psyker Todd spoke. "This power has eliminated at least forty percent of the daemons. Sir Konrad, you need to find Wayne. I can sense that the enemy has not been routed, they're regrouping!"
"But the battle?"
"The daemon numbers have decreased substantially, and the survivors have been weakened. We can handle the remaining enemies, but we cannot lose Wayne, nor can we lose you, Konrad. Be careful. Go bring him back. Nostramo needs both of you to defeat this threat."
The Primarch wrenched open the war vehicle door. At nine years old, Konrad already stood three and a half meters tall. He barely squeezed inside and started the engine, which roared to life immediately.
"Understood."
This power was so immense that it harmed even allies, but being scorched by the Emperor's radiance was infinitely preferable to being utterly consumed by Chaos.
At ground zero, Wayne resisted the overwhelming energy with the psychic-dampening headband he'd been wearing. Otherwise, he too would have had his eyes burned away.
He noted that even his nanomachines couldn't fully stop the Emperor's exerted power, which was expected. Even when the Emperor fought alongside the Sisters of Silence, it never prevented His psychic might from crushing all enemies.
The Emperor's capabilities were that absolute. However, the current Emperor seemed far more approachable than his future self. After all, an Emperor who retained his humanity was far more reasonable than the cold and ruthless deity he would become.
Wayne reached out and patted the psychic manifestation, but saw the Little Girl form dissipate directly from overexertion. He smiled helplessly.
The psychic clone could only sustain so much output. After all, this manifestation was merely a fragment of the Emperor's power made manifest, and now that it had been released all at once, dissipation was inevitable.
"Thank you," Wayne said quietly.
He ignored the Emperor's fading clone and descended directly to ground level, surveying the ash-covered battlefield. Ground zero's entrance stood before him. The Owl emblem remained intact even after being bathed in the Emperor's radiance, as if declaring that the enemy had not yet been defeated.
Wayne paused before the entrance, studying the symbol carefully. Then he stepped forward with his nanomachines and entered directly. He had to cleanse Ground Zero of all Chaos corruption and end this threat completely.
[End of Chapter]