Sharp claws pierced the girl's chest. Corax's figure emerged from the shadows; he stood behind her, bathed in blood, his face contorted and twitching as he gasped for breath. The previous struggle with Horus had left him with immense trauma—every fiber of his internal organs screamed with pain and the ebbing of life.
Yet, he bore it all in silence, hiding in the darkness, suppressing the urge to help Sanguinius while waiting for that one critical opening. He had succeeded. Scorching ash flowed from the girl's chest where the claws had transfixed her. She twisted slightly to look back at Corax, followed by the acrid scent of cinders burning Corax's trachea.
"Adonai?"
Only now did Lorgar realize what had happened. "Corax, how dare you—!"
Corax let out a roar that was almost animalistic. Lorgar was staggered by the sound; the pain, fury, hatred, and obsession woven into that cry made even a fellow Primarch instinctively feel terror.
The ash drifting from the girl scorched Corax's flesh and stung his soul. Overlapping visions of annihilation appeared before his eyes: he saw himself burning, his sons burning, and countless lives across the galaxy burning.
Ash mixed with sparks peeled away Corax's skin, causing his flesh to dissipate into cinders. Yet, Corax gritted his teeth and swung his other arm, plunging the second set of claws into the girl's back. He felt the sickening sensation of bone, viscera, and muscle being impaled.
Lorgar screamed, his voice becoming extremely distorted. The slaughter between Horus and Sanguinius ground to a temporary halt. Horus knelt on one knee, his body covered in layers of bloody holes, gore coating almost every inch of him.
Sanguinius hovered slightly on his wings, half of his skull slightly warped and blood staining half his face. Beta and Gamma remained where they stood, seemingly indifferent, watching the scene with intrigued smiles.
The world seemed to be drifting further and further away from Corax. His arms trembled as he looked at the girl impaled upon his twin claws.
"What... are you?" Corax's throat was raw and hoarse, his face a mask of ferocity as he questioned her.
The girl opened her mouth slightly, and scalding sparks spewed out. Her form beneath the fire began to change—it was a shell submerged in black-red flames, flesh almost entirely burned away, fire glowing brightly from within the skeletal remains.
Only ash layered upon the entity's body had composed the girl's appearance just moments ago. Through the fire, Corax could barely discern that the figure submerged in flames looked almost identical to Alpharius.
"Do you remember the ability the Emperor gave the Alpha Legion / me?"
The skeleton opened its mouth, and a voice that sounded both like the girl and Alpharius rang out: "The Astartes of the Alpha Legion can temporarily become Alpharius / me by drinking his / my blood."
"Appearance, memories, organs—even the soul becomes similar."
"Alpharius / I can also drink the blood of him / the Emperor to temporarily become him / the Emperor."
Sanguinius was the fastest to react; he was the first to realize what the girl had done. "You killed one Alpharius, let him split into two, and then force-fed one of them the blood of the Abomination...!"
Sanguinius beat his wings, looking down at Horus. "Then where is the real one? Where is the true Abomination?"
At that very moment, a crisp cracking sound echoed from the twisted Eight-Pointed Star. The formless mist shrouding the entire planet collapsed and dissipated, sinking into the Warp.
The chaotic energies of the four domains manifested in the high heavens—storms of fire, lightning, and crystal raged. War cries smelling of sulfur descended alongside the armies of the Blood God. Obscene shrieks tore at reality, and buzzing flies covered the sky. The entire world was churned into chaotic disorder.
Simultaneously, fallen leaves appeared out of thin air, and Lion El'Jonson stepped out from among them, his blade lunging straight for Horus. At the same time, the golden-armored figure of Constantin Valdor emerged from the Warp's tide, thrusting the Apollonian Spear toward Horus.
The figure impaled by Corax's claws twitched a finger. The Chaos Star, which had been on the verge of shattering, suddenly erupted with a searing, brilliant light. The daemons of seven domains wailed in unison as the chaotic energy of the domain of Erosion and Destruction tore through their bodies.
The dynamic equilibrium within the Eight-Pointed Star was instantly shattered. The faith accumulated within it, which had not yet flowed into Alexander's domain, was twisted and released, turning into a pure wave of Chaos that intertwined with the power of the Four Gods striking the planet.
The concept of space-time was the first to collapse. The moment was stretched infinitely long; past and present collided, the future arrived before the past could occur, and the present had been rehearsed ten million times in the past. Everyone's figure grew thin within the tides of Chaos; existence, will, and the tide itself merged.
Corax roared and screamed as his silhouette turned into a mass of pitch-black shadow, dragged from the end of time to its beginning before spiraling back. He saw one head of the Hydra burned to ash before him; he saw the Angel's form split into two—one gold, one black; he saw the Lion turn into a giant serpent of fiber biting its own tail; he saw Horus placed upon an altar named the Vengeful Spirit.
Then, all of it vanished in an instant, expanding then shrinking, sometimes revealing infinite detail, sometimes becoming so small it inspired dread. Ultimately, even his own will was submerged in this infinite transformation, temporarily sinking into the great tide of Chaos.
The clouds of the Plague Planet were hazy and indistinct. A narrow bolt of lightning briefly tore through the dense overcast, only to be quickly swallowed by the toxic atmosphere.
Atop a towering mountain, amidst peaks that pierced the clouds and the Warp itself, at the highest point of Mortarion's Black Manor—within the astrological laboratory belonging solely to the Daemon Primarch—Mortarion watched in silence as several dice tumbled across the table.
The daemon world of Sicarus, which had once belonged to Lorgar, had become a chaotic blur. The only thing Mortarion could be certain of was that at the final moment, the Eight-Pointed Star—infused with the sacrifice of most of the Chaos Astartes in the galaxy—had exploded.
The chaotic energies originally intended to drag Alexander into Chaos were released directly onto Sicarus. Carrying the power released by the Gods, they pierced through the causality, time, and existence of the planet and its surrounding space. That entire region of space had entered an indescribable state, turning into a massive Warp storm where a single thread of thought could drastically warp and shape reality, and the boundaries between individuals became blurred.
A mortal would have been drowned by the tide, their will dissipating into the Warp, but the Primarchs on Sicarus would not collapse so easily. Their wills were strong enough that they would inevitably re-aggregate their sense of self at some point and place.
But why did the Abomination do this?
Now the gaze of the Gods was drawn to Sicarus, and "Holy Doraemon" was still purging the faith coming from Chaos. Did he do all this just to disrupt everything and take the chance to escape?
Mortarion watched the dice shaking and shifting on the table, feeling an increasing sense of unease...
Then, a moment later, Mortarion slowly raised his head, his eyes filled with both fury and dread.
A greataxe was incinerated by fire in an instant. The black flames were so sharp, so lethal. Plague Marines clad in filthy green power armor fell among the grayish-white wheat fields. The fields turned to ash on the ground as the girl stepped forward, one pace at a time.
Peren Severi, a Lord of the Death Guard, felt a terror stemming from his soul for the first time. This girl had suddenly appeared in the wheat fields of his estate, and the moment she arrived, she ignited these grayish-white crops descended from the Barbarus wheat strain. This filled Peren Severi with rage.
He was not a man given to anger; even the Unchanged on his estate often remarked on their master's mildness. But this wheat—wheat produced from his own body—was his nostalgic link to the pale planet of Barbarus.
But the Plague Walkers laboring in the fields fell in clusters as if stricken by lodging disease. The Plague Marines who had sworn fealty to him were easily burned to ash by the girl. Even Peren Severi could not resist the power of annihilation radiating from her; the axe he had used for ten millennia, blessed with endless gifts, was easily destroyed.
He should flee...
This thought popped into Peren Severi's mind, which was largely occupied by the root systems of the wheat. It was no surprise—wasn't lingering on the edge of death also the way of the Grandfather?
Hadn't Peren Severi himself been lingering for these ten thousand years?
There was a common misconception in the outside world that the Death Guard were all fools whose brains had been rotted by Nurgle's plagues, unable to even see their own mutations. But ten thousand years is a very, very long moment. There would always be a few seconds where a Death Guard would notice their own deformities—see the pustules and the exposed internal organs. But what could be done?
To be a bit duller, a bit stupider—isn't that happier?
So, continue to linger...
Peren Severi looked stiffly behind him. More than half of the Death Guard loyal to him were dead or wounded, but standing behind him were not just Death Guard, but also the Unchanged who served as farmers on his estate. They wore crude uniforms clinging to their either sturdy or scrawny frames; there were some lupus sores or boils on their grayish-white skin, but compared to some Imperial citizens living in the filthiest Hive Worlds, they were quite normal—they could fully be called human.
They gripped farm tools, machetes, and various strange implements, standing together with the Death Guard. They didn't actually have many complex thoughts; Peren Severi understood that they simply wanted to protect their home.
Just like why they had followed Mortarion back then.
Peren Severi felt a slight daze. The wheat ear coiled around his forehead pushed its roots deeper into his brain, awakening some broken memory fragments.
He remembered where this wheat ear that had been wrapped around his brow for ten millennia came from. It was the last time he returned to Barbarus. While walking through the wheat fields near the village of his birth, he saw a girl harvesting wheat. The young girl gave her back-basket a shake, and the wheat ears within swayed gently—like a sliver of golden sunlight in a grayish-white world.
The girl was not afraid of him; of course not. He was a Death Guard, a son of Mortarion, the son of a farmer from Barbarus. The girl took a strand of wheat from her basket and wove it into a crown. She told Peren Severi that she had seen such crowns on the heads of many Astartes in Imperial propaganda holo-dramas.
Peren Severi wanted to tell her those were laurels, not wheat; he wanted to tell her that the best decoration for Death Guard armor was simplicity; he wanted to tell her the Primarch might be angry because of it. But in the end, Peren Severi picked the girl up, placed her on his shoulder, and let her place the wheat crown upon his head...
+ Will you not flee? +
The girl walked toward Peren Severi step by step, wildfires igniting the Death Guard Lord's estate.
"I am Death Guard." Peren Severi took a new weapon from the hands of a nearby Unchanged.
+ I am Death. +
The girl's eyes, glowing with a faint golden light, looked at Peren Severi.
"Then it is perfect!"
"I shall guard the people of Barbarus in the face of Death."
+ They are not Barbarusans. + The girl shook her head slightly.
"I cannot tell the difference so clearly," Peren Severi said indistinctly. But his brain, parasitized by the wheat roots, turned rapidly. Not everyone could be allowed to die here. He believed he and the Death Guard could hold for a few more moments. They were Death Guard; they were resilient enough.
Then, the Unchanged had to abandon their home; they had to flee, scattering into the thick mists of the Plague Planet, escaping to the underground cities and other Death Guard territories to report what had happened here so their Primarch could be prepared.
It would be difficult, but they were the children of Barbarus; they could do it...
The girl raised a finger slightly. Fire appeared at her fingertip like a ray of sunlight—so bright, so brilliant, so hot. Peren Severi even felt a brief daze; he seemed to see the swaying grain in that girl's basket again, like the only bright thing in an entire grayish-white world.
Like a sliver of twilight, like Death itself. Peren Severi instinctively gave the command signal from ten thousand years ago, gesturing for a portion of the Death Guard to assault with him and another portion to escort the mortals away.
He took a step that was almost resolute. Beneath the fire, his blessed shell was so weak it was incinerated by a third in an instant. The other Death Guard around him fell like grayish-white wheat.
Peren Severi was silent. There was no war cry, only the resolute second step, the third, the fourth... until the seventh step. He charged before the girl. Only seven other Death Guard remained to strike with him. The girl simply twitched a finger, and Peren Severi's weapon turned to flying ash...
+ It's here. +
Dark clouds suddenly shrouded the sky. Scales and dust fell from the heavens.
A massive scythe swept past Peren Severi, slashing toward the girl.