His life had been a fall—a plummet into a bottomless pit, a descent toward an unreachable abyss. He still remembered that deep cave on Cthonia, the cave of his father, Tarquaddon. "Do it, Abaddon," the voice echoed in his ear.
It was his father's voice, not Horus's, but Tarquaddon's—the most powerful warlord on Cthonia. He had gloated over his petty power, adhering to ridiculous and extreme traditions: for a child to come of age, he had to kill his four closest childhood comrades, letting their blood and souls become his strength.
Gue, Abaddon still remembered her warmth, hot as rage. She was the first person to kiss him; she whispered in his ear, teaching him the meaning of trust. Greydon, whose cunning eyes always flickered before Abaddon; he had stolen Abaddon's coin purse, and by the time Abaddon found him, he had spent it all on a ridiculous prostitute and invited Abaddon to join the fun.
He taught Abaddon the meaning of deception. Khas, whose jagged blonde hair Abaddon missed; a rival gang had stabbed him in the lower back, yet he had carried the unconscious Abaddon across half the city on foot.
He taught Abaddon the meaning of loyalty. Daesk, whose stone-like round head was unforgettable; no matter how many secrets Abaddon revealed to him, he remained silent, guarding them to the end. He taught Abaddon the meaning of resilience. They were Abaddon's blood, his soul, as much a part of him as the hand that gripped his blade.
"Do not disappoint me." His father's voice echoed: "You shall become the Despoiler of Worlds, the King of Breakers. This is the price of the throne and the crown."
"I do not want to be a King," Abaddon had said as his blade pierced his father's chest.
Then, he fled that bottomless cave... But had he truly escaped?
He didn't want to be a despoiler of worlds, yet he seemed to have been falling down that path ever since, paying the price for thrones and crowns. How many Gues had died for him? How many Greydons had met their end because of him? How many Khas had he killed? How many Daesks had he silenced?
Sejanus, Serrakus, Torgaddon, Loken, Sigismund, Khayon...
How many names had turned into ghosts as he fell? He never intended to lose them, never intended for it to end like this. But there was always a rage in his heart, a chaotic emotion driving him to become the Warmaster, pushing him deeper into the bottomless abyss...
Then, finally, today, he hit the bottom. Abaddon looked up from afar and saw those who had sworn fealty to him dying one by one, reduced to sacrifices for Chaos.
He was of no more value to the Gods. They had discarded him here. Yet, at this very moment, in the depths of the storm of madness and chaos, Abaddon felt a rare sense of peace. The turbulence and rage that had flowed through his soul from beginning to end vanished. Lying on the ground, awake within a dream, he realized with a start that his life was nothing more than a series of accidental actions born of haste, panic, and anger, clumsily piled together.
Under the manipulation of fate... no, the Gods... everything had fallen apart. What a shabby, pathetic, laughable life. He realized that perhaps from the moment of his birth, the Gods had chosen him as a mere tool.
"You die just like your father," a voice rang out beside him—mechanical, cold, and filled with hatred. "Soul-less, honorless, sobbing in a whisper, consumed by shame."
"In this moment, as everything ends, you push all responsibility onto the Gods, as if you were some tragic victim."
"No, Abaddon. You chose to blind yourself. You chose to be controlled by the Gods."
Stiffly and with great effort, Abaddon raised his head. He saw the slender figure in black armor, a golden laurel wreath upon his brow, and the Black Sword.
"Are you the condemnation of my conscience? A hallucination? A resurrected Sigismund... or have you come to collect my soul?" Abaddon asked hoarsely.
"I am here to make your death more meaningful." The Black Knight slowly raised his blade.
Abaddon's gaze froze, staring intently at the Knight. "I once deeply regretted killing you. When your body fell before me, do you know what I remembered?"
The Black Knight remained silent.
"I remembered Loken. Loken once advised me..." Abaddon laughed self-deprecatingly. "Loken urged me to surrender. He believed Dorn and Guilliman wouldn't kill half of the Astartes. He believed that if I swore fealty, I would be forgiven and could serve as an example for other traitors to follow."
"He believed we could rebuild the Imperium. Perhaps we would face some punishment, but the nine Legions weren't entirely unforgivable. Many of us were simply deceived, swept along the wrong path by the tide."
"Loken... he was such a naive idealist. For a moment, I actually believed him."
"It wasn't until I saw your blood flowing from my claws that I truly understood: we were already beyond redemption."
"Keep talking, as if I'm listening." The Black Sword tore through the air, lethal and dangerous. Abaddon scrambled to his feet; for an Astartes in Terminator plate, his movements were incredibly fast, yet he still barely dodged the Knight's strike.
"You really are Sigismund." Abaddon stared at him. "The appearance is different, and something inside is strange, but you are undoubtedly Sigismund."
The Black Sword interrupted him, the tip of the blade lunging for his face.
Abaddon raised his hand, and a blade appeared in his grasp—sharp and deadly—clashing with the Black Sword.
A crisp ring vibrated through the air. Abaddon looked down, surprised to find himself clad in his old power armor, equipped with his old lightning claw and power sword. "This is for the best," Abaddon whispered.
"I have always regretted killing you. Killing you when you were old and weak... it insulted your entire life."
"Now, let us have a fair duel, Sigismund."
Dark power flowed through Abaddon; the warp-fire of the eight domains nourished his flesh. He loathed this power, "But he promised me, this was a choice based on the 'Loken' part of him."
"Lies," the Black Knight spat in disdain.
"Yes, lies," Abaddon agreed, nodding. "But I am a Son of Horus."
"Sigismund, I now cast aside the title of Warmaster, I abandon the Black Legion. As a Son of Horus, I challenge... the Emperor's Champion."
Sword and claw clashed in an instant. Abaddon seized an opening, swinging his blade down in a vertical cleave. However, Sigismund's movements were clean, efficient, and unadorned; he dodged the strike effortlessly. The Black Sword leveled, its point thrusting toward Abaddon's chest. A surge of raw chaotic energy manifested around Abaddon, forcibly blocking the lethal thrust.
Their weapons met a second time, showering sparks. "I am stronger than you," Abaddon growled. "Sometimes I truly envy you, Sigismund."
"You are simple. You do not think. You do not doubt. You view yourself purely as his tool."
Abaddon swung his blade with savage ferocity, each strike more lethal than the last, wreathed in boundless chaotic energy. He even managed to suppress Sigismund, the peerless duelist. Abaddon knew his victory over Sigismund ten millennia ago had been a miracle—not because he had surpassed Sigismund, but because age and time had dragged Sigismund down to their level.
But now was different. He had the backing of the eight Chaos domains. Chaotic energy flowed through his flesh; eight daemons were empowering him...
"Merciless," the Black Knight whispered.
The Black Sword swung. Its strike was so fierce and lethal that it instantly shattered Abaddon's newly built confidence. The power sword in his hand was flicked away with ease, the force of the blow numbing his grip.
"Remorseless."
The second strike: the Black Sword thrust toward Abaddon's face. The point of the blade was a single, lethal dot. For a moment, the world went silent; Abaddon saw nothing but that sliver of darkness. At the final second, he barely managed to raise his power sword to block, but before the Black Sword, his weapon shattered into a thousand fragments. The shards sliced into Abaddon's face, leaving trails of blood. He retreated desperately, putting distance between himself and the Knight.
The Black Knight took a step forward in a simple, forceful manner. A killing intent born from a void pierced to the bone. In an instant, Abaddon's mind—enhanced by Astartes gene-seed—calculated hundreds of possible attack routes, and every single one was impossible to block; every one would take his life. Abaddon saw it: it was Sigismund, but not just Sigismund. Every Emperor's Champion who had ever wielded a Black Sword over the last ten thousand years was there. Those warriors gripped their swords, honing their souls, wills, and lives into the blades—tempering them into the weapon Sigismund once wielded. They were the Emperor's weapons, the Emperor's blades, just as the Black Sword was their weapon, their blade.
"Abaddon."
For the first time, the Black Knight spoke Abaddon's name. It was not a call, but a conclusion to a mission—to an Eternal Crusade.
+ Grip me. +
A whisper echoed. Abaddon recognized the voice: Drach'nyen. Instinctively, Abaddon clenched his hand, and the daemon-sword, shimmering with savage light, appeared in his grasp.
Abaddon let out a mad laugh. On that foul blade, born of humanity's first murder, ten million faces of those killed by murder appeared, screaming, shrieking, and roaring. All victims of murder in human history were there. Abaddon was astonished by Drach'nyen's boundless power; in the past ten thousand years, the sword had never been this strong. Damn it, has this sword been slacking off for ten millennia?!
There was no time to think. Guided by the frantic will within the sword, Abaddon swung at the Black Knight. The fabric of reality was torn; causality was broken. The outcome of "murder" was preordained—anything that was human would be murdered by this blade.
He felt the blade pierce the Black Knight. Abaddon's experience immediately told him something was wrong—that was not the feeling of cutting through flesh.
"Fearless."
Squelch!!
This was right. This was the feeling of cutting through flesh...
Eh?
Abaddon lowered his head. His body had been impaled by the Black Sword.
Drach'nyen had also impaled the Black Knight, but there was no flesh at the wound—only shattered metal, cables, and bearings.
"You are not human?" Abaddon gasped in disbelief, blood spitting from his mouth. He felt a power accumulated over ten thousand years within the Black Sword destroying his body, his existence. Hatred—the accumulated hatred of a ten-thousand-year Eternal Crusade—echoed within him, destroying everything.
"I am a weapon. I have been from the beginning."
"The Emperor's weapon. Humanity's weapon."
"We were shaped by humanity's desire for conquest, born for war—born to be weapons."
The Black Knight gracefully withdrew the Black Sword from Abaddon's chest.
Abaddon felt his body go limp, and he fell heavily to the ground.
"But... the Imperium... it was shaped by our hands. We conquered those distant stars, unified the galaxy... our blood, bones, and sacrifice formed the foundation of this Imperium... how can we be excluded...?"
Abaddon's voice was weak; he felt himself collapsing.
"You are always like this, as if you were forced to betray by your own nobility."
"If you truly loved humanity, you would not have pushed them to the brink of destruction again and again, torturing and insulting them."
The Black Knight stopped. Beneath the helmet that never revealed a face, there seemed to be a gaze of utter contempt. "You say the Great Crusade was all your credit?"
"Your power armor came from millions of strikes by laborers. Your warhammer came from the skills of the finest blacksmiths."
"The warships you ride require decades of effort from an entire planet. Every piece of your food contains enough nutrients to feed a family."
"Even the organs, genes, and surgeries that shaped your body came from the wisdom and labor of the Emperor, the Tech-Priests, and countless mortals."
"The Astartes are the Sword of Mankind, but the power to forge and wield the sword comes from humanity itself."
"A fine sword is worthy of respect; thus, they provide for us, revere us, and give us glory."
"But when the sword turns to strike humanity, it is no longer even a weapon—it is merely a destroyer."
"In the end, you do not love humanity. You only wish to stand above them."
"Ultimately, you are nothing but a Despoiler."
Abaddon struggled to stand, wanting to say something, but finally, he felt blood drown him—drowning his soul, his will. Just... a Despoiler...
The thoughts of Abaddon the Despoiler snapped here, vanishing, sinking into the darkness.
"What?" Lorgar looked with horror at the twisted Chaos Star. The star hung in the air, its rotation slowly grinding to a halt. At its center, Abaddon's head slumped—he was clearly dead...
The girl looked at this scene, not entirely surprised. "Ugh...!"
A claw pierced the girl's chest.