Chapter 354: The More Hades Thought About It, The More Chaotic Everything Seemed
The Council of Nikaea.
Hades silently mouthed the words. He donned his black armor and let the servitors approach to polish it for him—something he would usually refuse, because it was unnecessary.
But he was about to attend a council, and the attendees would clearly include more than just the Emperor.
Rescuing Angron had cost him far too much time, and the time-flow inside the Great Rift was even more deranged. Hades had not expected that once he emerged, Imperial history had already reached the point of the Council of Nikaea.
This meant he had missed Ullanor—and the coronation of the Warmaster.
Hades was unsure of the Emperor's intentions. Horus was still Warmaster, but from a practical standpoint, it could only be Horus. None of the others could bear that mantle.
What Hades did not know was what the Emperor had prepared for Horus's possible fate in the times to come.
Likewise, Hades had no idea what the Emperor intended for this Council of Nikaea.
What was certain was that even in the original canon, the Emperor's purpose in calling the Council was anything but simple.
In the original story, the Council of Nikaea was actually a chaotic struggle among multiple factions. The event had two layers: the open proceedings, and the hidden undercurrents behind them.
On the surface, the Primarchs and various mortal Imperial bodies debated and voted on whether to ban the Librarius.
Mortarion and Leman Russ were absolute opponents of the Librarians. The rest offered their own positions—Sanguinius, Fulgrim, Curze, the Khan, and others supported the Librarius.
In short, each Primarch—or their chosen speaker—performed on the stage the Emperor had built, giving speeches to win support for their position.
But in truth… Magnus never had any chance of winning. Even Sanguinius and Fulgrim, who stood with him, understood this. The Emperor's attitude was ambiguous, but far from inscrutable.
The true nature of the Council was to chastise Magnus. The Librarian question was merely a tiny piece of bait floating atop the vast ocean of the psyker issue.
However…
Hades blinked. He felt the presence of his Black Domain.
Perhaps that was the very reason the Emperor had summoned him.
If the Council were truly only an internal Imperial affair, things would be far simpler.
In reality, Tzeentch also left his mark upon Nikaea.
First, on Magnus's side: during the break in the debates, Magnus underwent a powerful prophetic vision—one he had not initiated himself.
He foresaw Horus's fall.
Hades did not understand why the first thing Magnus thought to do after this vision was return to Prospero, rather than speak to the Emperor immediately, who was right there at the Council.
Perhaps Magnus realized there was something wrong with the eye he had sacrificed—perhaps he had done something the Emperor would not permit, and thus did not dare face him.
But maybe… the Emperor had not given Magnus any chance to speak at all. Maybe the Emperor summoned him immediately afterward and coldly pronounced his fate—because behind the scenes, something else had occurred:
The incident of the Imperial conservator.
Simply put, the Imperial conservator—Kasper Ansbach Hawser—had originally been a mortal skjald of the Space Wolves, using song and story to recount the parts of their history not written down.
But the Wolves had long noticed that the Imperial conservator's origins were not simple. His memories of his past had in fact been twisted—he was a Thousand Sons spy, used to observe the Wolves.
The Thousand Sons had altered the memories and personalities of mortals with psychic powers, then used them to carry out tasks the legion desired.
This was undeniable proof that the Thousand Sons had crossed a forbidden line. If this evidence was confirmed, Magnus would stand no chance of redemption at Nikaea.
Thus, Russ brought the Imperial conservator backstage, hoping—before Fulgrim, Captain-General Valdor, the Death Guard's First Captain Calas (Hades did not know whom Mortarion sent this time), and the Sister of Silence—to prove that Magnus and the Thousand Sons had committed unforgivable crimes.
But, unsurprisingly, something went wrong.
While the others went out onto the stage to argue with Magnus, the Custodian Amon—tasked with guarding the Imperial conservator Hawser—was suddenly taken over by someone claiming to be Amon, the Thousand Sons Primarch's attendant.
Words carry their own kind of magic. The Custodian's first name was Amon, and the Thousand Sons' attendant was also named Amon. That overlap of names somehow allowed the latter to temporarily control the Custodian.
The Thousand Sons' Amon then fed the Imperial conservator Hawser a pile of nonsense, got into a fight with the Space Wolves who had noticed something wrong, and afterward the possessed Custodian fainted—while the real perpetrator escaped under Custodian pursuit.
First, Hades had no idea how a Custodian could be controlled.
Second, he had no idea how a Custodian could allow Amon to escape.
This entire affair reeked of blatant "Custodian slander." Hades declared that he knew absolutely nothing about it.
But what if the one possessing the Custodian wasn't the Thousand Sons' Amon?
What if it was… a daemon of Tzeentch?
Yes—Tzeentch had intervened again. And this time the Thousand Sons truly were innocent.
When the Emperor learned that a Custodian had been possessed by a "Thousand Son," he became furious. He ultimately chose to chastise Magnus—who by then, with Tzeentch's help, had already foreseen Horus's fall—in front of everyone, and declared the ban on the Librarius.
And so, the question arises.
What exactly was Tzeentch's purpose in appearing at Nikaea?
The entire situation was dripping with irony. Never mind the fact that a Tzeentchian plot had unfolded right under the Emperor's nose and the Emperor still failed to realize it.
Just consider Magnus: he foresaw Horus's fall in the Emperor's presence, yet the Emperor, enraged over the "Thousand Sons" possessing a Custodian, could no longer trust him—and instead harshly reprimanded Magnus, warning him to stay away from the warp.
Magnus did not follow the Emperor's warning. After returning to Prospero, he chose to prophesy again, to verify whether the fall he saw truly awaited Horus. When he realized it was real, he made the psychic call that could be said to have ignited the entire saga.
Astral webway channel, boom.
Could he not have just told the Emperor face-to-face at Nikaea?! Why wait until returning to Prospero to make the call?!
Oh, right—because after the Custodian incident, the Emperor was in no state to believe him.
So why was a Custodian so effortlessly possessed by Tzeentch? How did the Emperor fail to see it was Tzeentch himself behind it?!
…The Emperor, the great almighty psyker, was apparently not as omniscient as Hades once imagined. Or perhaps… the Thousand Sons' psychic "signature" was simply too similar to Tzeentch's, making even the Emperor unable to distinguish them?
Whatever the case, Hades could practically picture Tzeentch laughing himself breathless—assuming he even had lungs.
And finally, the last question:
How much does the Emperor of this timeline already know?
What can he actually do at this Council?
And knowing that he is heading to Nikaea… will Tzeentch still dare to appear?
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