Fear was the purest weapon.
Konrad Curze had understood this long before he understood language.
Nostramo
Nostramo Quintus was not a death world in the conventional sense.
It had breathable air.
Water.
Cities.
Industry.
That was precisely the problem.
It was a mining world whose economy revolved around the extraction of adamantine and rare minerals. Generations of strip-mining had blackened the sky permanently. The sun was a dim memory behind industrial haze. Acid rain fell regularly. Streets were lit not by daylight, but by sodium lamps and furnace glow.
But the true rot was social.
The nobility monopolized wealth. Workers were disposable. Law existed only as a tool of power. Crime was not aberration — it was structure.
The world did not collapse into lawlessness.
It evolved into it.
The Child in the Dark
He did not land among shepherds.
He did not land among scholars.
He landed alone.
No tribe adopted him.
No noble sheltered him.
He learned language from overheard arguments.
He learned morality from observing suffering.
He learned anatomy from hunger.
For two years he survived in the underhive, hunting vermin — and sometimes men.
He could have become a monster.
Instead, he became something worse.
A judge.
Justice Without Law
Curze saw crimes before they happened.
He saw murder in a man's future.
He saw betrayal in a whisper.
He saw entire lives collapse in flashes of prophetic vision.
He also saw that every vision came true.
No matter what he tried.
He tested it.
He warned criminals.
They still committed the act.
He stopped crimes.
They reoccurred elsewhere.
The future did not bend.
It confirmed.
So he changed strategy.
He did not prevent crime.
He punished it.
Brutally.
Spectacularly.
Publicly.
He mutilated murderers.
He flayed rapists.
He crucified gang leaders in alleys where children would see.
At first, they called him another killer.
Then they learned the pattern.
Only the guilty died.
And they died horribly.
Doors began closing at night.
Crime plummeted.
Nostramo experienced something it had never known:
Silence.
The Midnight Haunter
They called him the Night Haunter.
He allowed it.
He ruled not from a throne, but from fear.
Nobles were given a choice:
Submit to his law.
Or join the examples.
He required families to witness the punishment of criminals.
Not for pleasure.
For deterrence.
It worked.
For a time.
Nostramo became orderly.
Efficient.
Terrified.
The Curse
But Curze was not content.
He saw further.
He saw himself.
A future of blood.
Brothers divided.
Cities burning.
A golden father turning away.
He tried to alter the visions.
He could not.
Every act he took seemed only to solidify them.
When the Imperial fleet entered orbit, he had already seen it.
The golden light.
The kneeling.
The eventual betrayal.
He knew what came.
And still, he waited.
The Emperor Arrives
The fleet descended like a second sun.
Yuki elbowed the Emperor lightly.
"Must you illuminate half the planet?"
The Emperor dimmed the photonic output slightly.
Fulgrim suppressed a smile.
Ferrus Meduson did not bother.
Rogal Dorn said nothing, but his eyes narrowed.
The city below was too orderly.
Too quiet.
That kind of quiet only came from fear.
The Meeting
They entered the highest tower of the capital.
The Night Haunter waited alone.
His guards had been dismissed.
He had seen this moment thousands of times.
The Emperor's presence struck like a psychic detonation.
Curze fell to one knee, clutching his skull.
The visions intensified.
This time they included faces.
Fulgrim.
Dorn.
Ferrus.
Blood.
Endless blood.
A pair of hands lifted his chin gently.
Yuki.
Her touch quieted the storm for a moment.
Not erased.
Muted.
"I have not seen you," Curze whispered.
"Of course not," she replied softly.
He studied her carefully.
He had seen the Emperor in countless futures.
He had never seen her.
That frightened him more.
The Emperor spoke.
"Konrad Curze. I have come to take you home."
Curze met His gaze.
"That is not my name," he said hoarsely. "I am the Night Haunter."
"You are my son," the Emperor replied.
Curze rose slowly.
"I know why you are here. I know what you will make me."
His voice steadied.
"I will come."
Because he had seen the alternative.
And it ended worse.
Aboard the Pride of the Emperor
Later.
Lucius paused mid-stride.
Someone was watching him.
Not physically.
Intimately.
Like a scalpel measuring skin.
"Tarvitz," Lucius muttered. "You feel that?"
Tarvitz frowned.
"Feel what?"
Lucius' hand moved to his blade.
"There's something here."
No auspex registered anything.
No sensor pinged.
Yet the sensation persisted.
Cold.
Analytical.
Amused.
Lucius snapped, drawing his blade and slashing the air.
"Show yourself!"
Tarvitz moved to restrain him—
—and froze.
The blade stopped inches from Yuki's chest.
She held it between two fingers.
"What are you doing?" she asked calmly.
Lucius swallowed.
She released the blade and walked past him without further comment.
Tarvitz noticed something subtle.
Her movements were slightly delayed.
As if guiding someone unseen beside her.
A shadow peeled itself from the corridor wall.
Konrad Curze emerged from darkness as though it were liquid.
"What were you doing?" Yuki asked lightly.
"Observing," Curze replied.
"That one interests me."
"Why?"
"I cannot see his end clearly."
Lucius' future was blurred.
Fragmented.
Unstable.
Much like Fulgrim's had been.
Curze's gaze shifted to Yuki.
She was worse.
She had no clear future at all.
Not absence.
Obscurity.
As if something beyond even his visions interfered.
"You are the one I cannot see," Curze said quietly.
Yuki did not answer.
She simply took his hand and continued walking.
Curze followed.
For the first time in his life, something unsettled him more than fate.
A person without a visible destiny.
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