The ground trembled faintly, and the storm-winds overhead tightened into denser vortices.
At the very pinnacle, the whirlpool turned slowly above the Throne's crown.
Golden, serpentine currents lit the engines; sacred power coursed through vein-like conduits, making the whole edifice exude ancient gravitas until even the air turned heavy.
A dense, pounding thrum grew clear—thoom, thoom, thoom—a heartbeat rolling across the sector.
Eternal, untouchable.
At the top, the Black Throne drowned beneath golden radiance, its glow mingling with the curling smoke of sanctified oils and candles—so holy it seemed one with the incense.
Sacred hymns swelled.
The High Ecclesiarch of the Urth Ecclesiarchy directed a choir tens of thousands strong, chanting paeans to the Savior in honor of all he had given for Mankind.
Everything felt profoundly sacred.
On a gantry of the machine-monument, the White Scars Primarch, Khan, and the Custodians lifted their gaze to the Savior upon the Black Throne.
A glint of respect touched their eyes.
The Hope-Primarch Savior was doing the same deed the Emperor once had—risking everything to wrest a future for the Imperium.
Of course, none of them knew the Black Throne plan had a success rate north of 99%.
Ordinarily, if an operation's odds dipped below 80%, the Savior wasn't keen to "send it." And whenever a plan involved the number nine or its multiples, he got even more cautious.
This time, he'd been shoved onto the stage.
"The Savior is harnessing that power…"
The Custodian Commander and his warriors felt the Emperor's presence and bowed deeply toward the Throne.
His Majesty the Emperor was the undying lighthouse—never snuffed out in the river of stars.
And the Hope-Primarch Savior now sought to control that power, to seal the Webway's veiled rifts.
Such things were well known to these ten-millennia veterans.
Upon the Golden Throne, the Emperor had beaten back warp surges time and again in just this way.
In the Palace alone, there were hundreds of thousands of such recorded repulses.
Without the Emperor's presence, Holy Terra and the entire Sol System would have been drowned in Chaos tides long ago, without the faintest bulwark.
Now the Savior took up that same labor—worthy of every Imperial warrior's utmost respect.
Khan frowned, worry cutting across his features. "Brother Eden… can he endure the Throne's backlash?"
The White Scars Primarch knew too well how terrible the Throne could be; even their Father endured crushing strain whenever it was driven,
his flesh taking ceaseless harm.
The Hope-Primarch Savior had pressed the Emperor's clone-body into service to shoulder the backlash, but he was not the Emperor.
None could know if he would succeed.
Not long ago, Khan had offered another plan: the two of them would share the Throne's backlash to dilute the damage.
That proposal was refused.
Even the White Scars Primarch's body could not withstand the Throne's intensity; not only the flesh, but the psyche itself would be drained dry, leaving irreversible injury.
Ten millennia past, Malcador the Sigillite, the greatest human psyker and Imperial Regent, had served as a living example: taking the Emperor's place upon the Golden Throne, and within days, being scoured of soul and life— reduced to ash.
Were the White Scars Primarch to link to the Black Throne, likely the same fate would await him.
From every angle, the only one who could take this mission—who could sit the Black Throne—was the Hope-Primarch Savior.
He was Mankind's sole hope to bind the Webway.
Khan, the Custodians, and the gathered Imperial personnel could only watch as that figure endured the Throne's erosion, waiting in tight-wound silence for the outcome.
The hymn to the Savior crested; the High Ecclesiarch and choirs were swept up in a vast, holy emotion.
Feeling ever more deeply the Savior's sacrifice, they wept.
Vmmm—
Eden floated above the Black Throne in a shock-and-awe pose, his whole being turning into a superconducting beacon.
All around him, the visible world shredded into golden turbulence.
For a heartbeat, he felt himself resonate with the cosmos—with the roiling Immaterium—commanding the abyss.
Perhaps that was why this grand engine bore the name Throne.
"I… am He who rules all, the Most High…"
The thought flickered through Eden's mind.
And the pain matched it—limitless pressure descended; every muscle, every cell ripped and reknit, and ripped again.
Only the Emperor's clone-body was monstrous enough to take it.
The deep, solemn hymn rolled on; amid the emotion, the choir's voices trembled and broke with sobs.
"…Oh come on—
Which absolute melonhead wrote this hymn? To anyone listening, it sounds like I'm about to ascend right now…"
Eden spasmed through the pain.
Once he caught the lyrics' gist, he went even number.
Yes, the hymn made the Savior look epic—but at a moment like this, drenched in such funereal solemnity…
Wildly inauspicious.
At times like these, all superstition was worth minding—no tripping in a gutter today.
If the Emperor got respectful tracks, so would he.
"Swap it to something upbeat—Emperor EDM if you must—anything's better than this funeral dirge…"
So Eden thought, already making a mental note to dock some faith points later.
He tried to ping the relevant crews—but found, to his dismay, every comms relay nearby was toast, and the energy density was so high even sound wouldn't carry.
He tried to push a message with psyker power—and even that was torture.
His link to the Warp ran too deep right now to thread a clean signal back into realspace.
The only way would be to burn a mountain of warp charge and manifest a literal miracle— then deliver the message.
He weighed it, and didn't. Besides wasting power, it would look even more like he was about to ascend.
Better to pour every iota of will and watt into driving the Black Throne.
Zzzrraaaap—
Under Eden's full control, holy energy gathered and crashed like a world-spanning tide toward the rifts across Commorragh.
The Immaterium's surges were shoved back, penned beyond the Veil.
"By the Emperor… this wave—landed!"
Eden felt the rifts knitting shut. Region after region's daemon tides slackened; fresh warp pressure ceased to pour in.
He saw the glimmer of success and drew in yet more sanctity to plug the central grand breach.
Seal that rift, and the job was done.
Ecstatic, he tasted the endgame. So many years of setup—mere inches from payoff.
Then, as he ramped the flow, a wrenching resistance hit—like barbed wire through the soul.
The Black Throne spat violent arcs; the entire construct shuddered into chaos.
Eden himself slammed out of the air, injuries flaring, his body mag-locked to the Throne. The holy radiance winked out.
"Crap!"
He had no time to check wounds. One thought pounded.
A life's worth of images reeled through his mind—like the lantern-slide before death. A century and change, flashing by.
Mercifully, the Throne's monstrous output hadn't torn him apart—but he could no longer keep mending the last rifts.
Worse—he couldn't get off the Throne.
Double flush, again—what a porcelain catastrophe.
The sight stunned everyone present; even the Ecclesiarchy's choir caught the pall, their solemn hymn now sounding like a send-off for the Hope-Primarch's ascension.
"Your Grace—give me something lively!"
At last Eden forced out words via telepathy to the High Ecclesiarch, requesting several return-of-Urth Savior hymns— the ecclesiastic equivalent of spring festival bangers on loop to lift the mood.
Anything but more "devotion and glorious ascension"—or he might actually ascend.
Then Eden pushed messages to Khan and the rest, steadying nerves, warding off panic.
He told them he was fine—that the Black Throne had hit a minor snag, and would resume shortly.
Relief moved through the gathered ranks as the Hope-Savior's word arrived. They kept their stations on the platforms below the Throne, though their tension only wound tighter.
In truth, Eden was bluffing. He had no idea what was wrong with the Black Throne, nor whether it could be fixed— nor whether he could get free of it again.
Eden sat weakly upon the Black Throne, unaware that his posture mirrored the Emperor upon the Golden Throne—only with a little more flesh on the bones.
If this didn't change, that flesh would likely go the way of the Emperor's—down to a skeleton.
Eeden and the Archmagos of Black-Mechanica, Kaul, locked eyes as the tech-sage came to inspect the Black Throne.
Silence stretched.
Eden finally broke it, staring at those wandering augmetic optics that refused to meet his gaze:
"You said there was no chance this plan could fail. So what exactly is happening now?!"
Kaul dipped his head, swallowing a mouthful of non-existent saliva, and stammered:
"My Lord Savior, I fear you have unfortunately encountered the 0.000000001% failure vector we accounted for.
But this is not a technical fault. I strongly suspect the Changer of Ways laid a snare, diverting the plan's destined trajectory."
Eden ground his teeth. "Didn't you just say—believe in science?!"
He almost laughed from sheer anger.
A moment ago Kaul had sworn up and down; now that things went sideways, he was babbling about Tzeentch and fate lines.
It stank of buck-passing.
The Archmagos's massive frame edged backward. In a small voice he reminded him:
"Correction: 'Believe in science' is a maxim you coined, my lord.
At the Urth Mechanicus Conclave, fifteen years ago, July 13th, at precisely 13:13, you said—"
"Fine, fine, I coined it."
Eden cut him off, not in the mood to quibble while his wounds still screamed.
"Just find a way to restart the Black Throne. If we can't finish the plan, you're staying here until it's fixed.
And Webby will cut your network access entirely and take over your personal accounts."
The Hope-Primarch's words were venom-tipped spikes, driven straight into Kaul's cog-heart.
His mech-face blanched from iron-black to chalk; his whole frame rattled like a bin of tools, parts clattering off his chassis.
He was, to put it mildly, terrified.
Kaul threw himself into the diagnostics like a machine possessed; his cogitators smoked from overload.
Soon, he isolated the cause of the stall—and proposed a new procedure.
"Will that… really work?"
Eden exhaled, doubtful. He asked again, more cautiously.
Kaul no longer dared to bluster; his tone went grave.
"My Lord Savior, it may be the only way."
"It seems… this end can't be avoided."
Eden shut his eyes in pain and finally made the call.
A hard call.
From now on, he'd probably be stuck in the same club—and he didn't mean the fun kind.
Steeling himself, he let his awareness sink into the Immaterium, reaching for the Emperor.
A twinge of guilt pricked him.
Because he was here to do something shockingly impertinent: ask His Majesty to… also sit the Black Throne for a while.
With his own "little sun" exhausted, he simply couldn't keep the engine running. Only the Emperor could shoulder it now.
The freshly repaired, Emperor-grade sacred machinery could make it possible.
In effect, it meant asking the Emperor to put one backside on two Thrones.
Double porcelain.
Whichever way you turned it, it reeked of heresy—and filial piety taken to a deranged extreme.
...
The Warp.
In the higher layers, holy power still tangled and wrestled with the unholy.
In that nowhere of no-time and no-space, the super-dimensional battle had raged who-knew-how-long.
The Emperor had crossed wills with the Blood God, the Prince of Pleasure, and the Changer of Ways countless times— a war of belief and concepts too blinding to look upon.
To witness it was to risk madness, even for psykers and high champions.
Flutter, flutter—
Tzeentch spread as a galaxy-shrouding black raven, abandoning half its feathers to finally slip the Emperor's bind.
The Changer bled for it.
Then a smaller, weaker consciousness poked its head, furtive, into the Emperor's quarter.
The Hope-Primarch.
…?
The sudden appearance drew the Emperor's query—an impulse of recognition and question.
Wasn't this boy driving the Black Throne? How is he here?!
"Your Majesty the Emperor… I've got a little something to ask you…"
Eden's "little sun" wavered like a guilty lantern, unsure how to start.
He couldn't very well say: I borked the Black Throne; the Veil rift won't mend; could you please sit on the black toilet for me?
And even that wasn't guaranteed—risk was sky-high.
Across the field, Tzeentch felt a cold clatter in its many hearts at the Savior's arrival.
A very bad feeling.
But the Black Throne isn't about me, the Changer thought. To avoid entanglement with that jinxed Hope-Primarch, I withdrew all my Throne-plots already. I didn't touch it.
It had only come to spectate the brawl of the gods—soaking in a little chaos and change.
Who could have guessed a casual look-in would end with a cursed beating?
The moment the Changer hesitated over flight, the Hope-Primarch's first sentence nearly stopped its hearts:
"I bring unfortunate news.
Due to the Changer of Ways' treachery, the Black Throne's ignition failed. Fortunately—"
He didn't finish.
The Emperor's wrath erupted like a volcano.
Fury at its zenith.
"Gaa!"
Tzeentch shrieked and bolted—too late.
The Emperor, a storm of golden fire, crashed over the Changer. The other two Dark Gods yielded the lane.
They had never seen the Cursed One this enraged.
If before he'd drawn a knife, now he'd yanked a grenade—a trade-blood for blood kind of fight.
Who'd stand in the way of that?
"No! I never meddled with the Savior's fate—this was an unpredictable eddy in the cosmic whirlpool!"
Tzeentch's shadow thrashed, having no stomach for a stand-up fight.
In all its endless life, rarely had it felt this wronged.
The Emperor didn't listen. He simply poured on.
The other two powers blanched at the spectacle and kept to safe remove.
They wanted to pile on, perhaps—but the risk calculus was murky; a single misstep would hand the advantage to rivals.
In high-dimensional war, timing is a flicker.
While they hesitated, the Changer turned to roast fowl, escaping to the Crystal Labyrinth at the cost of two jet-black wings left behind.
Its essence was savaged—directly diminished.
Worse, by more than tenfold compared to the Blood God's earlier deficit when he spam-funded his champion Ka'Bandha.
Years of hoarded change-power—down the drain.
Seeing the Changer's state, the Blood God and the Prince of Pleasure dared not drift closer to the Cursed One.
The Emperor still burned with wrath.
He'd paid dearly, too— but it was worth it. A demonstration required a target a touch less iron-hard.
A warning so the others dared not twitch.
The Savior's arrival was simply a pretext.
The Emperor was mighty—but not cocksure enough to face all the Dark Gods at once.
For millennia he had played upon their suspicion and fear, paying beyond the sustainable price to maintain the visage of the undefeatable—
cultivating the aura of a dark war-king who would go for your throat every time.
A deterrent to the pantheon.
In a private mental sanctum, the Emperor took human form again.
He looked upon the Savior with gentle eyes and a faint smile.
This outcome had lain within his estimates.
Truth be told, he had long been ready to give all for Humanity.
"Old man…"
Eden gazed upon the golden frame—the lord of mankind—and felt his heart sink.
Once more, the Emperor would bear greater pain, for mankind's sake.
Before he could speak, Eden felt the change.
The Emperor's vast soul began channeling, via the sacred machinery, into the clone-body—
gradually edging Eden's awareness out and taking his place upon the Throne, to endure its corrosion, and stride toward an unknown fate.
...
Beside the Black Throne.
Eden woke in his own Primarch flesh.
He looked at the clone-body reviving upon the Throne, and his feelings knotted.
"This time, we have to succeed. Khan and I are still waiting to go get pampered with you, Your Majesty…"
(End of Chapter)
(End of Chapter)
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