The Eye of Terror.
From an ordinary person's perspective, this vast vortex formed by a dense cluster of stars within one of the Imperium's six major galactic sectors—the Obscurus Segmentum—appears exactly as its name implies.
It is like a vast, glowing, malevolent eye, blazing in the depths of the Milky Way, a wicked jewel set into the galaxy's northwestern rim.
From the vortex's outer tendrils to its deep crimson warp rift, radiant streams of multicolored energy coil like enormous twisted branches or tentacles, writhing toward the borders of the Imperium in silent threat.
Here, the Warp and realspace coexist—overlapping, bleeding into one another.
Every soldier of the Astra Militarum stationed near the Eye of Terror, and even the Emperor's Angels of Death—the Astartes—can feel its presence. Not just through instinct, but in the marrow of their bones. A mortal's flesh and soul alike quiver before its malign influence.
Even the starlight that shines upon them from the Eye carries with it a palpable hostility, a venom that seeps into the soul and fills one with loathing.
Among the trillions of souls that populate the Imperium, few know its true history.
The Emperor's warriors only know this: beyond the Eye lies the enemy.
But curiosity is a human weakness—and though forbidden, rumors persist. Whispers not widely spread, suppressed by the Lex Imperialis, the Inquisition, and the Ecclesiarchy alike, tell of a truth long lost: that the Eye of Terror was once the heart of the ancient Aeldari Empire.
Once, it had been a realm of glory and splendor—until the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh destroyed it utterly.
Slaanesh's first scream shattered the Aeldari civilization. The surge of psychic energy annihilated nearly the entire race in an instant. Their souls were consumed, devoured by the newborn god, who now possessed the essence of nearly every Aeldari in the galaxy.
Thus fell the Aeldari—once the masters of the stars—plunged from the heights of godhood into ruin, their empire shattered into fragments, their surviving kin scattered across the void, forever hunted by Slaanesh and its daemonic legions.
Where the Aeldari Empire perished, the wound it left upon reality remained.
The birth of Slaanesh tore the veil between the Warp and the Materium, creating a massive dimensional rift at the heart of what is now the Eye of Terror. Raw, uncontrolled warp energy spewed forth, permanently scarring the galaxy.
All celestial bodies within that region—planets, stars, even entire systems—were swallowed into the Warp itself. Any vessel crossing its threshold would enter the Immaterium without the use of a warp drive.
Of course, for the Imperium of Man, this was no blessing.
The Eye of Terror harbors the most violent and unstable warp storms in existence, and countless arch-traitors, heretics, and Chaos warlords dwell within its accursed depths. To enter it is to step willingly into the grave.
This is a truth universally accepted within the Imperium. Even the most ancient and daring Navigator Houses dare not approach it.
Yet for the outcasts of humanity—the heretics, the apostates, the damned—it is paradise. For those who have turned their backs on the Emperor, the Eye is home. The very air tastes sweet with blasphemy.
Here, all who oppose the Imperium are welcomed with open arms.
...
At the outer edge of the Eye of Terror, near the daemon worlds bordering the Cadian Gate, an enormous Chaos fleet drifted through the shifting veil between reality and the Warp—a sea of shadow and madness.
It was vast beyond comprehension: a grand armada of battleships, battlecruisers, heavy cruisers, destroyers, and escorts beyond count.
Their once-glorious hulls were now desecrated, scarred by ritual sacrifice and corrupted by Chaos sigils—but beneath the layers of filth and mutation, one could still make out the faint silhouettes of ancient designs: Retribution-class battleships, Vengeance-class grand carriers, Hellfire-class dreadnoughts, Hades-class lance cruisers, and Avenger-class heavy cruisers—
Relics of a bygone age, the blueprints and secrets of their construction long lost to history.
Ten thousand years ago, these ships were forged in the sacred shipyards of the Forge Worlds that once served the Emperor. They had borne the glory of the Holy Great Crusade—only to fall into damnation, along with those who commanded them.
Ten millennia of war had tainted every vessel. From their armor plates to their inner decks, every weld seam, every bolt, every rivet was steeped in the blood and hatred of countless Imperial citizens.
Now, as the outer defenses of the Cadian Gate—the watchworlds, prison planets, and naval bases that ringed the Eye of Terror—fell one after another, every obstacle between the forces of Chaos and the fortress world of Cadia had been removed.
And at the heart of this blasphemous armada sailed the most infamous ship in all the galaxy—the Vengeful Spirit, a Gloriana-class battleship.
Just as they had once gathered around their Primarch ten thousand years ago, the hordes of Chaos now rallied once more—driven by undying hatred for the Emperor and His Imperium—advancing with arrogance and fury toward the Cadian Gate.
Yet… there had been a small complication.
"A single Cadian recon fleet and a battered flotilla of merchant wanderers managed to defeat one of my primary cruiser groups—and after destroying several of my capital ships, they escaped with ease."
A voice like grinding gravel, deep and commanding, echoed through the vast, dim command bridge of the Vengeful Spirit.
In the thick, oppressive darkness, the faint light wavered as if afraid to exist. The air was dense with the mingled stench of blood, rust, perfume, rot, and burning chemicals.
Corpses of multiple species hung from chains—so many that one could not count them. Skulls, flensed or whole, adorned the bulkheads like trophies, stacked in obscene piles across the deck.
"Is that so?"
A faint red glow pulsed from the neck seals of the speaker's ancient Cataphractii Terminator armor, illuminating his face—a face framed by a high, tight warrior's ponytail, the mark of the old Cthonian gangs. (Cthonia: the gang-world that birthed Horus, where this hairstyle symbolized defiance.)
Abaddon the Despoiler, Warmaster of Chaos, Lord of the Black Legion, sat upon his throne of blackened gold and obsidian, wrought from the bones of kings and angels alike. His expression was calm, almost amused, as he gazed at the servo-skull's hololithic projection of a ravaged daemon world.
His pitch-black eyes did not blink. He stared into the void, watching the flicker of dying starlight through the fractured vista before him.
Before the Chaos fleet loomed a shattered planet—nearly one-third of its mass sheared away, encircled by drifting wreckage and molten debris.
"Warmaster… we had surrounded the corpse-Emperor's fleet. Victory was assured. But then—two unknown vessels, of unidentified classification, appeared from the warp near the Cadian Gate. They tore open our formation."
Beneath the Warmaster's throne, the mortal cultists trembled. The towering forms of Abaddon's Bringers of Despair—his personal Terminator guard—watched with cold amusement, their crimson eyes glowing in the darkness.
"Those ships employed a vile, cowardly weapon of immense power," one cultist stammered, pressing his forehead to the cold, blood-slicked deck. "It shattered our blockade and destroyed our flagship. Chaos spread through the ranks—our command broke—"
"And when the Lords withdrew… we could not pursue."
Their words came in broken gasps, half-choked by fear. Scars crossed their skin like brands, and thick saliva dripped from trembling lips as they groveled on the floor.
Inside, their spirits were already broken.
The Chaos warband they had accompanied had been decimated—likely annihilated—by the Imperial's new weapon. The survivors had fled in disgrace. Rumors spread that Abaddon's Thirteenth Crusade, like those before it, was doomed to failure. Some whispered that their legion's losses would soon see them sacrificed to fill the ranks of others—or worse, made an example of to satisfy Abaddon's wrath.
Even among Chaos, punishment awaited failure—kill one to warn a hundred.
They had fled. Simply fled.
And before their cowardly retreat, they had turned on their supposed allies—raiding, looting, taking vast quantities of materiel and slaves before vanishing deep into the Eye of Terror. None knew what corner of the Warp they had slunk off to.
Worse yet—if they were going to run, couldn't they at least have taken us with them?!
By the Emperor's golden balls… by Slaanesh's cursed teats!
Clang—!
"Hmph. As expected—rabble, nothing more. Once Cadia is destroyed, it will be time to cleanse the ranks of this Legion."
Abaddon the Despoiler sat upon his black and gold throne, his armored right elbow resting upon its carved armrest, fingers rhythmically tapping the metal. His expression remained still—no smile, no frown, no flicker of emotion. He had long grown used to the unreliability of Chaos warbands.
Though the Black Legion remained the largest and most unified of all the forces of Chaos—drawing renegades and fallen champions from countless other traitor legions—Abaddon knew the truth better than anyone.
That unity was relative.
Aside from a handful of ancient Sons of Horus veterans, the vast majority of his followers were no longer disciplined soldiers of the Great Crusade, but deranged fanatics—drug-fueled berserkers, murderers, cannibals, hedonists, and thrill-killers of every imaginable kind.
Madmen all, their sanity long since lost.
They had no understanding of hierarchy or command, their obedience sustained only by fear and greed. Fights over spoils of war, disputes over slaves or relics—such things were commonplace, often ending in blood and fire.
To expect them to execute a grand, coordinated campaign—a meticulously planned Black Crusade—was laughable.
It was, perhaps, no different from organizing an Ork WAAAGH!
"So, even the rotting corpse of the Imperium still has some life left in it, does it?"
Abaddon's lip curled in disdain. "An STC construction module… interesting."
The Cadian Gate sat but a step from the Eye of Terror. Espionage, infiltration, trade with the more ambitious planetary nobles—such things were inevitable.
Though Imperial censorship was thorough, intelligence fragments had already reached Abaddon's hand. The Imperium believed the mysterious weapon to be tied to an STC—a Standard Template Construct capable of producing weapons of mass destruction.
Abaddon had seen the results for himself.
Whether the STC was real or not, he could not allow such a device to fall into Imperial hands—to be studied, reverse-engineered, or mass-produced.
A low, rasping chuckle escaped his lips as he rose from the throne, the corners of his mouth twisting into a cruel smile. "Already en route to Cadia, are they? Heh… such a gift must not slip through our grasp."
Sensing its master's intent, the blood-red Khorne Flesh Hound beside the throne—its hide gleaming with molten brass and black ichor—lunged forward. With a bone-splitting roar, it tore into the nearest cultist, ripping him apart in a shower of gore.
"Proceed with the original plan," Abaddon commanded, voice cold as iron. "Destroy Cadia."
He raised his left arm. The weapon upon it—a monstrous relic blessed by the Dark Gods—flared to life, its twin-linked bolters growling as the enormous talons unfolded. The weapon seemed almost alive, its silvered claws etched with runes that shimmered like oil-slick fire.
Embedded within the weapon's guard, a demonic brass face leered—its mouth twisting into a hungry grin, its eyes gleaming with infernal light. The aura that emanated from it was palpable—poisonous and suffocating.
Legends said that any who gazed upon it would feel the weight of its curse: the metallic taste of blood in their mouths, the stench of decay in their nostrils, and the phantom echo of screams—brothers slain by brothers, fathers by sons, gods by their own creations.
For an instant, visions of tragedy—of betrayal and divine despair—flashed through the mind before fading into nothing, as though it had never been.
In the long, bloody history of the Imperium, no weapon's name carried such infamy across the galaxy. From Holy Terra to the Maelstrom, from the Eye of Terror to the twisted hellscapes of Commorragh, its name was known to all.
The Talon of Horus.
The weapon that once drank the blood of kin and master alike—the blade that slew the Emperor's favored son, that tore open the age of heresy, and burned the galaxy in its wake.
Horus Lupercal—Warmaster, Primarch of the Sons of Horus, the gene-father of a Legion, the architect of the Emperor's greatest betrayal, the destroyer of mankind's future—the damned fool who ruined everything.
The Talon of Horus had once been a gift from the Dark Mechanicum to the Warmaster before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy. But now it belonged to Abaddon. As did the Vengeful Spirit.
From Horus' reclaimed corpse, Abaddon had taken the lightning claw, using it to slay the clone of his former master and to shatter the Worldbreaker warhammer.
Horus had been weak. Horus had failed. He was the true Warmaster now.
"We are returned!"
"Death to the False Emperor!"
The chorus of blasphemous war cries rose from the bridge in response, echoing through the ship's vaulted corridors. Abaddon turned without a word and strode away, entering his private sanctum.
His expression darkened, the weight of shadow settling over his features.
The air inside was cold—beyond mortal comprehension—like the breath of death itself. A chill from the void filled the chamber, and whispers began to swell, murmuring through the darkness, audible only to him.
"Ezekyle…"
"Ezekyle…"
"Ezekyle…"
"Ezekyle…"
From the Blood-Soaked Forge, the gaze of the Brass Throne.
From the ever-shifting chorus of feathers, teeth, and mutation.
From the fetid, rotting stench of disease and decay.
From the silken voice, neither male nor female, dripping with endless seduction and deceit.
"The World Eaters… the Thousand Sons… the Death Guard… the Emperor's Children… the Word Bearers…"
Abaddon murmured under his breath—words only he could hear.
The renewed blessings of the Dark Gods coursed through his transhuman flesh, flooding him with divine power—but there was no joy in him.
It was temptation. A trap. A leash.
The gods were impatient. They demanded war. They drove him toward the Imperium, whispering promises of eternal victory. The great feast was to begin again—the long-awaited banquet of the mortal realm.
As in the days ten millennia past, the suffering of reality would become their nourishment, their means of clawing ever deeper into the material universe.
"Cadia… Cadia… Cadia…"
He repeated the name of the fortress world, his gaze fixed upon the star map. Before him stretched the web he had woven—a vast, dark net that now closed around Cadia.
He told himself he was no slave. That he was a partner to the gods, not their servant. That the power and hatred they granted him were a bargain, not submission.
But was it true?
The Chaos Gods spoke in riddles. The Daemon Princes stirred in restless agitation.
Ten thousand years of preparation had come to this. The fires of war were burning again—and they would not be extinguished. Yet the greatest prize…
A different thought began to take root in Abaddon's mind.
"Is it that…? I must have it. Whatever it is—no matter the cost."
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