Chapter 478: Reclaiming the Old Lands! The Revival of the Imperium! The Four Gods Withdraw!
The threat posed by Daemon Magnus left many Primarchs deeply displeased. They turned their heads toward Horus, waiting for his command.
Horus glanced at the staff and orb in his opponent's hands, then ordered his men to activate the Universal Megacorp's Warp-nullification device.
Before Horus came to the Warhammer 40K universe, the Universal Megacorp had provided them with an array of weaponry and equipment, including a modified large-scale Warp-nullification device.
It could, in an instant, compress and wipe out an entire star system's Warp presence, ensuring that everything within that system remained absolutely clean.
This massive device had been installed aboard Horus's flagship, the Vengeful Spirit. Since arriving in this universe, the Primarchs had never used such a formidable tool.
It had been built for one purpose: to capture Daemon Magnus.
Now that Magnus had appeared, the time had come to put it to use.
Even as Horus gave the order, Magnus showed nothing but disdain.
No matter how powerful the device might be, there was no way it could stop him. He was the greatest psyker in existence, his psychic strength rivaling even that of Tzeentch himself.
Looking at those familiar faces, Magnus's scorn only grew stronger.
Even before his fall, he had held his brothers in contempt—mere brutish soldiers who knew only how to kill and smash. How could they compare to one as gifted, brilliant, and wise as himself?
And that so-called Warmaster Horus, surrounded by his Primarch brothers—what was he but a thug playing politics, nothing more than a street hood who only knew how to gather gangs and fight wars?
Unlike himself, always wise, always learned, with mastery over the secrets of past and present.
"Magnus, I know what you did before," Horus called out. "You fool—you shattered the Emperor's Webway, opened the door for daemons to invade Terra, and brought countless deaths to the Imperium.
"You were afraid of the Emperor's judgment, so you turned to Tzeentch. And you still dare think yourself above the rest of us? Out of all the brothers, you alone are the true fool!"
The Warp-nullification device needed time to fully activate, so Horus used his tongue as his weapon, stalling for as long as possible.
Magnus, however, cared little for such accusations. After so many years, he had rewritten all his sins in his own mind.
He hadn't "accidentally" broken the Webway—he had done it deliberately!
He hadn't "betrayed" the Imperium—the Emperor's refusal to permit psychic research was a shackle on his talents. Such an empire was unworthy of loyalty.
Now, seeing that decrepit corpse-Emperor chained to his Golden Throne forever, Magnus felt nothing but exhilaration.
It was all the justice the corpse deserved.
"Magnus! Get us out of here!"
Abaddon was nearly frantic. He had already been fooled once by Horus's delaying tactics. Now Horus was clearly trying the same trick again—only this time, the trap would be lethal.
Though Abaddon bore the title of Warmaster of Chaos, compared to daemon Primarchs like Magnus or Fulgrim, his rank was clearly lower.
Magnus was a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, nobility among Chaos. Abaddon, handpicked by all four gods, was in truth nothing more than a glorified worker—a high-ranking laborer without shares in the company.
Thus, his plea carried an almost begging tone.
He had a terrible feeling: if they didn't leave now, they would never leave at all.
But Magnus only sneered. "You're worried their Gellar Fields have shut us out of the Warp again? Heh. Relax. With me here, you have nothing to fear."
It was true that Gellar Fields could dampen or block Warp activity to a degree, but against Magnus's overwhelming might, such devices were toys.
He had already bypassed them once, tearing through the Warp to arrive here. Even if Horus activated another field, it would be useless.
Yet the very next moment, as the Warp-nullification field came online, the staff and orb in Magnus's hands suddenly went dark, like lamps snuffed out by a power outage.
The change was instantaneous.
Abaddon's heart sank at once. It was over.
They were all going to die here.
Magnus stared at his staff and orb, stunned—then a surge of terror like none he had ever known washed over him. Never before had he encountered such a bizarre disaster.
For a sorcerer accustomed to wielding psychic power, to suddenly find all of it gone was worse than death itself.
The atmosphere in the chamber turned cold and heavy with awkward silence.
The Primarchs stared at Magnus as though he were some clown in a circus, enjoying the spectacle. Sadly, their own Magnus was still in prison, reflecting on his sins—they could not test what it felt like to personally slay "themselves."
After multiple failed attempts, Magnus could only despair and send out a desperate plea to Tzeentch, begging his master to grant him power.
But there was no answer.
Magnus broke completely. He should have fled at once with Abaddon. Why had he lingered just to show off in front of Horus?
"Magnus, you are as arrogant as ever," Horus said coldly. "Arrogance demands blood as its price. Perhaps now you'll understand that truth. Oh wait—there will be no 'next time' for you."
He raised the Emperor's Sword, pointing it at Magnus. "Brothers, the Warmaster of Chaos is yours to execute. Make it quick—save us time and energy."
"Understood."
Fulgrim smiled as he drew the Blade of the Laer. Because the Warp was sealed, many weapons once enhanced by psychic enchantments had lost their potency.
Even the Emperor's Sword, once blazing with fire, had gone dark with the loss of psychic energy.
Only Fulgrim's blade, forged with a fragment of a void dragon, still glimmered with a deadly chill.
"You damned fool! Because of you, my Chaos legions are slaughtered here! Wait for Horus to cut you down!"
Abaddon spat venom at Magnus. Once, he never would have dared, but with death looming, venting his rage was all he had left.
"This… this can't be… how is this possible…"
Magnus seemed not to hear him. He stood frozen, still muttering spells, still making gestures—yet nothing worked.
The vanished Warp left him as lost as a child who had forgotten how to walk. Moments ago he had run wild with strength; now his legs would not move at all.
"Magnus, how does it feel to lose your powers?" Horus said as he advanced on the massive red daemon. "But more than your powers, what you should mourn is that you lost your very heart long ago.
"Don't think I'll show you mercy. We came here for one reason only: to wipe you out."
"No! Impossible!"
Magnus's roar was madness itself. He thrust his staff at Horus. Once, it would already have unleashed a blast of psychic force to scatter them.
But now—nothing.
But now, the staff in his hand was nothing but a decoration. As Horus strode forward, a single sword strike was enough to knock Magnus's staff flying to the side.
In the next instant, another blade fell—Magnus, unable to dodge in time, had his arm and abdomen slashed open by the Emperor's Sword. Agony and foul-smelling blood burst out together.
Magnus let out a scream of pain, his entire body beginning to tremble uncontrollably. Without psychic sorcery, he was nothing but a useless shell.
In close combat, Magnus could not rival any Primarch. At best, he was only slightly stronger than an ordinary Astartes.
What's more, after ten thousand years as a daemon, Magnus had poured nearly all of his energy into studying psychic arts. His skill in combat had long since withered away.
And standing before him was none other than Horus at the peak of the Great Crusade. At this stage, Horus's personal combat ability and command prowess alike were at their absolute height.
Killing a Magnus stripped of psychic power was no different to him than killing a mortal.
But Horus did not intend to grant this traitor such a quick death. He wanted Daemon Magnus to see with his own eyes the annihilation of the Chaos Legions.
At the brink of death, a man always thinks of many things.
The longer the moment is drawn out, the more the condemned recalls the details of his fears, his past.
Horus wanted Magnus to die steeped in regret and guilt.
The slaughter raged for three days, turning the void and planetary battlefields into oceans of blood. Countless corpses of Chaos warriors drifted across the war zones.
After being pent up for so long, the Primarchs and their armies surged with unstoppable momentum. With the aid of the Megacorp's AI weapons, the war became nothing but a one-sided massacre.
Much of the Chaos warriors' power had always lain in the blessings of the warp—healing, resurrection, unnatural endurance.
But stripped of that protection, they were nothing more than rotten flesh and splintered bone, filth to be crushed. An Astartes could simply smash into them with his bare body and pulp them into gore.
Before long, Daemon Abaddon and Magnus were hacked into bloodied wrecks and dragged before Horus.
Horus forced them to behold the mountain of corpses piled before him, the sea of blood at his feet—a terror meant to pierce the marrow of these Imperial traitors.
"Your legions are dead. Next, it's your turn."
At that moment, Abaddon and Magnus's eyes were already lifeless. They longed to strike a defiant, heroic pose, to spit in Horus's face with final courage.
But for some reason, they could not. Only the desolation of inevitable defeat filled their hearts.
Had betraying the Imperium truly been a mistake…?
Shhk!
Twin blades of cold light swept through. With a stroke, two heads fell, thudding to the ground.
Magnus's vision whirled, until sound and sight alike faded into blur, his consciousness plunging forever into darkness, into eternal sleep.
The severed heads of Daemon Abaddon and Magnus were immediately ordered by Horus to be carried to Terra and presented to the God-Emperor.
With Megacorp warships providing escort, the journey left no room for mishap.
Horus, meanwhile, pressed on to purge the galaxy of Chaos. The charred head of Daemon Fulgrim would next be used to cow the remnants of the Chaos Legions, breaking their will to fight.
Three years later, with the deaths of Warmaster Abaddon and the Daemon Primarchs one by one, Chaos—headless and directionless—was driven to its doom.
The Four Chaos Gods themselves could do nothing to halt the Imperium's Second Great Crusade. Their daemon princes perished one after another, forcing the Dark Gods to abandon all claim to the material universe and slink back into the warp.
Without Chaos resistance, the Primarchs reclaimed Imperial territory at ever-greater speed.
Facing the Imperium's impending rebirth, the Four did not panic. They had eternity to wait. For them, meddling in reality was but a passing amusement.
Even without Chaos legions, they could still feast upon the emotions of mortals from their warp lairs.
The fate of this universe was already written. The Chaos Star had seen four points flare and fall; once the weakened Emperor of Mankind perished—or fell—the fifth dark god would ascend. And the resurgent Imperium would crumble just as swiftly.
This Second Great Crusade, no matter how grand, changed nothing.
The rise of the Imperium, the countless Astartes crusades—in the span of cosmic eternity, they were no more than sparks, flashing and fading into darkness.
…
…
Holy Terra, before the Golden Throne!
Thanks to Necron engineers, the broken Webway had been repaired. With the Emperor's aid, the God-Emperor once again stood on his feet.
But it was only temporary.
The birth of the fifth Chaos God was inevitable. Universal law could not be defied. A ruler fated for death must fill the vacancy.
Time was running out for the Emperor. If Guilliman failed to complete his ascension ritual, then the Emperor might be forced back upon the Throne—or die on the spot, transfigured into a god of decay and destruction.
Substitution could trick the law, but never change it.
"This day has finally come. We have made so many sacrifices. Let them not be in vain."
The Emperor stood at the foot of the Throne's long stair, his voice heavy.
The Atlantean civilization was rushing toward extinction.
To the Atlanteans, Guilliman had become the supreme god. Under his lead, they conquered three civilizations within their cosmic pens, enthroning themselves as absolute rulers of that sector.
But just as the Atlanteans prepared to step further, beyond the confines of the pens, divine retribution descended.
Disasters, plagues, calamities followed in succession. The Atlantean civilization, like the oceanic empire in humanity's ancient history, hurtled toward its end.
And the cause of its fall was nothing but the whim of gods.
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