Dorn was starting to lose confidence.
A chill had spread through his whole body, and he wanted to put on a heavy suit of armor.
Only then would he feel at ease.
But the Savior remained motionless in his heavy armor, just staring back at him, and the atmosphere fell into silence.
Under the scrutinizing gaze of the Savior and the veteran Custodians, Dorn felt even more awkward.
He forced himself to stay calm and looked at the Savior with an expression that said, I'm fine, I was just asking.
Fortunately, the Lord of the Mountain Bastion always wore a stern expression, so no one could really tell what was going on.
"You should've said so earlier."
Eden's faceplate rose automatically. He sighed and waved a hand.
"We're already at the front door. Where am I supposed to find armor for you now?
Besides, there's no time."
At that moment, the doors of the Golden Throne chamber slowly opened, and dazzling golden light spilled out.
Eden lifted a hand and smacked the stubborn mule on the back hard enough to make it thump.
"Get your head up, brother.
We're Imperial primarchs. We clawed our way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood. We can't lose our nerve now!
And it's not like you committed some huge crime. What are you worried about?"
He thumped his own chest and made a confident promise.
"If anything really happens, I've got your back."
Dorn said nothing more.
He looked toward the Throne chamber doors, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the stairs.
Like a man walking toward punishment.
But before they had even reached the halfway point, they heard the Emperor's furious roar coming from the Golden Throne.
"Magnus... Dorn, how stupid can you be?!"
The voice came from the Golden Throne's speaker-system.
???
The moment Dorn heard that furious rebuke, he nearly jumped out of his skin and almost rolled right off the stairs.
Father was treating him like one of those rebellious sons, like Magnus?!
Eden caught him and steadied him with one hand.
"It's probably a misunderstanding. The old man occasionally remembers things from the past and gets a little muddled.
Just explain it clearly in a minute and it'll be fine."
There was no way the Emperor had truly lost His senses so badly that He would mistake filial Rogal Dorn for Magnus and start beating him like that.
"Sigh. So this brother isn't quite as tough as he looked."
Eden really had not expected that even the toughest primarch, the great stubborn mule, would go a little numb in the face of the Emperor's rising anger.
Still, that was understandable.
Any primarch would react the same way. Even if the Lion were standing here, he'd probably go numb too.
Even Eden himself needed to be fully armored before approaching the Golden Throne with peace of mind, just in case the Emperor's high-intensity holy psychic power came crashing into him.
Of course, the real reason Eden had armored up was so that if things turned bad, he could pull the stubborn mule out of the fire.
He still had to be loyal and help the man.
At this point, Dorn was hunched over, his legs were going weak, and even his steps had started to wobble.
Seeing this, Eden had no choice but to reach over and support him.
Honestly, he still preferred the way Dorn had looked before, all stiff-backed and unshakable.
Still, Eden had already quietly activated a virtual recording device.
Those recordings would be enough to hold this stubborn mule over a fire for the rest of his life.
Before long, the two of them finally reached the top of the stairs and arrived before the magnificent Golden Throne.
The Emperor's great body sat upon the Throne, countless cables linked into that skeletal frame, and His crimson electronic eyes looked down at them.
The fluctuations of holy psychic power had weakened for the moment, but the Golden Throne still radiated overwhelming pressure.
Dorn stopped instinctively, not daring to move any closer.
He stared at the Emperor's giant skeleton, equal parts fear and doubt filling his heart.
From where he stood, the Emperor's skeletal form on the Golden Throne looked... different from what he remembered.
In truth, the Emperor's skeleton had noticeably slimmed down, and some parts were missing.
A few ribs. Some finger bones. It was honestly a little hellish.
Dorn turned toward Eden, suspicion heavy in his voice.
"Savior, what happened to Father's body? It looks like... He's gotten a lot thinner?!"
The Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium, was one of the guardians of the Golden Throne.
If anything had happened to the Emperor, to his father, then this man would absolutely know every detail.
Dorn was even beginning to suspect that the Savior himself might somehow be involved.
After Dorn asked the question, an awkward silence settled over the chamber again.
Hm?
Only then did Eden suddenly remember.
He had previously taken a fair amount of bone dust from the Emperor's skeleton to forge his personal wargear, the Armor of Redemption.
And because he had scraped off rather a lot, the Emperor's old skeleton had slimmed down by a full degree and was now missing a few components.
It no longer looked complete.
He had repaired it afterward using special materials.
But those materials had apparently shattered under the recent surge of psychic pressure, making the current state look rather miserable.
Fortunately, the Emperor's skeleton was not quite missing whole arms or legs. It could still recover in the future.
It was not really a major issue.
As if no high-level being had ever carved a little off their own bones before. For entities at that level, it was not an irreparable injury.
At least there was room for restoration.
Eden himself had spent a long time drawing out and scraping off his own marrow and bone dust to manufacture sacred ash rounds.
That was how he had curbed Warp daemons.
He still had not stopped doing it even now. He had simply shifted over to manufacturing infernal weapons instead.
He had been stockpiling that kind of lethal armament all this time, and the amount had already reached a terrifying level, all in preparation for future strikes into the Warp.
It was all for the Imperium.
That said, there was no way Eden could let filial Dorn find out he had shaved bone dust off Dorn's father. At least not right now.
There was no way he could look Dorn in the eye and say, "Sorry, I scraped off some of your dad's bone ash to forge weapons. Please understand."
If he said that, the stubborn mule would fight him to the death.
Better to tell him later.
Eden was already planning to use the remaining bone dust to make gear for his primarch brothers, especially Dorn.
Once every one of them had happily used equipment made from the Emperor's bone dust and become a merry band of dutiful sons together, then nobody would have much left to say.
"Savior, what exactly happened to Father's body?!"
Dorn asked again, this time more sternly.
"I really didn't want to expose this. It concerns Imperial secrets. But at this point, there's no hiding it anymore."
Eden rubbed his nose and spoke in a mournful tone.
"The Emperor's current condition is actually the result of technical damage.
Sigh. You left the Imperium, stayed far away from the Golden Throne, and didn't return for ten thousand years. It's only natural you wouldn't know. I don't blame you.
Because the Golden Throne is so difficult to maintain, and because of the pressure from Chaos, that wretched machine has done tremendous damage to the Emperor's body.
We tried to repair it, but it accomplished nothing..."
"Really?"
Dorn stared at the Savior. He had the distinct feeling that something was off.
But before he could say anything else, a violent psychic force yanked him toward the Golden Throne.
Then the Emperor's psychic projection appeared upon the Throne, wearing golden armor and overlaying the skeleton beneath.
"Dorn."
The Emperor looked at that primarch figure, as solid as a fortress wall, and spoke slowly.
"My son, you've finally returned."
There was a trace of relief in His expression.
"F-Father..."
Dorn was flustered.
But when he realized there was no anger on the Emperor's face, the tension inside him gradually eased.
This primarch, son of the Emperor, dropped to one knee and lowered his head.
He had known it. Father would never treat him harshly, and would never truly condemn one of His most loyal sons.
This gene-forged primarch, this Lord of the Mountain Bastion who had wandered for ten thousand years, had finally seen his father again.
And his father had rarely called him son.
What kind of favor was that?
It was a touching picture of fatherly love and filial devotion.
"This doesn't feel right..."
But Eden had the vague feeling that something was off.
"Why does it feel like the old man is charging something up?!"
He could feel the suppressed holy psychic energy inside the Golden Throne. It was even more violent than what he had sensed outside.
Just as he was turning that thought over, the expression on the Emperor's psychic projection began to change.
He stared at Dorn with cold indifference.
"I had assumed you would repent, or at least admit your wrongdoing on your own.
Yet to my disappointment, you did not care in the slightest, and even sought to conceal your crime..."
Before Dorn could bask in any fatherly affection, surging holy flames came crashing toward him like an erupting volcano.
It was as if the Emperor had changed into an entirely different person. So severe. So violent.
And the speaker-system blasted out His furious words.
"Vicious, cowardly, ignorant fool! Do you intend to let Chaos use you as it used Magnus, and bring Holy Terra to ruin?!"
"I... I..."
Dorn was completely dazed by the outburst.
He dropped to his knees below the Throne, unable to think of a response.
"This is bad!"
The moment Eden looked at the Emperor's projection on the Golden Throne, something in his chest skipped.
The stubborn mule had hit the absolute worst possible luck. He had run straight into the Tyrant Emperor personality.
And this Tyrant Emperor seemed different from the ones before.
He was profoundly unsettling, as if something deeper was struggling to emerge.
Eden did not have time to think further. He hurried forward and tried to intervene.
"Your Majesty, calm down. Dorn did not commit any-"
But it was already too late.
A violent psychic surge exploded outward, and the Tyrant Emperor's hand came down like a solid backhand from nowhere.
The belt was out.
There was no wind-up at all. It was like the old man had skipped straight to the jump-smack!
What the hell?
Right in front of Eden's eyes, Dorn spun into the air with a loud smack, actual tears flying in an arc behind him.
As he was launched away, the man even looked back in this direction, seemingly regretting that he had insisted on acting tough.
He should have put on the Blackstone protective armor the Savior had prepared.
Boom boom boom boom boom!
The Emperor's fury surged higher, and the holy psychic power of the Golden Throne erupted again.
This was no longer just a psychic slap. It was a full psychic bombardment, crashing into Dorn's face and body again and again, every hit landing hard.
The entire Throne room shook violently.
"Hiss-"
Watching the Emperor deliver that fatherly barrage to Dorn, Eden himself was going numb.
He had not expected the old man's temper to be this explosive.
Was He actually treating filial Dorn like Magnus?!
As he watched the stubborn mule get suspended in midair and beaten senseless by the Emperor, Eden felt a little conflicted too.
After all, the old man was disciplining His own son. It seemed like Eden did not really have the standing to interfere.
What Dorn had done in creating the breach was not exactly a world-ending crime, but it certainly was not nothing either.
And it really could have become a disaster. The kind that might have ended in betraying the Emperor.
After all, what Magnus had done to the Webway had left an enormous shadow in the Emperor's heart.
And now Dorn had been unlucky enough to trigger that buried shadow.
How could he not get strung up and beaten for it?
"Poor stubborn mule..."
Eden drew in a deep breath and silently observed a moment of mourning for Dorn.
There was no way the man was escaping this beating. It was just turning out a little harsher than expected.
Once the Emperor calmed down and returned to normal, it would probably be fine.
But the way things developed quickly exceeded Eden's expectations.
As the Golden Throne's psychic output continued to rise, the situation began turning dangerous.
Mixed into that blazing holy psychic light were arcs of black lightning, swelling larger and larger.
This was no longer simple discipline. It had become a genuine attack. The Emperor's power seemed to be slipping out of control.
The Emperor had stopped speaking entirely. His eyes had turned utterly cold as He unleashed wave after wave of attacks.
And under that onslaught, Dorn was being badly injured.
???
"He's really trying to beat him to death! And why is that stubborn mule just standing there? Why doesn't he run?!"
Realizing things had gone bad, Eden immediately drew on his own psychic power to intervene.
Electric arcs spilled off his armor. Then golden psychic power condensed into a beam of light, igniting the Warp-mechanical device suspended in the air above the Throne room.
That mechanism in midair unleashed a similarly brilliant psychic force and formed a barrier.
Boom!
The barrier smashed against the Emperor's holy psychic power, blocking the attack for Dorn. Gold light burst into dazzling streams from the collision and scattered outward.
With the help of the Warp-mechanical construct he had previously brought into the Throne room, something akin to the Golden Throne itself, he managed to resist the Emperor's psychic assault.
"I am not Magnus. Even if You beat me to death, that will still be my answer..."
At that moment, Dorn was covered in wounds and was taking the barrage in numb despair. He did not even have the courage to resist.
Nor could he believe that the Emperor, his father, would truly treat him like this.
His injuries worsened with every passing second. His vision blurred, and all sound around him began to fade.
Then in the next moment, the impact of the holy psychic power suddenly vanished.
A gentle golden barrier descended before Dorn, blocking the Emperor's psychic assault.
After that, another golden figure appeared and stood before him, facing off against the Emperor's projection.
"It's fine, brother!"
Strong yet gentle psychic radiance swirled around Eden.
He slowly turned his head, lifted his faceplate, and flashed the stubborn mule a broad grin with a thumbs-up.
When Eden said it was fine, then it was fine. If he said he'd protect his brother, then he would protect him.
Even against the Emperor.
"What is that?"
Dorn noticed the source of the Savior's vast psychic power. He struggled to lift his head and look up.
Then he froze.
Suspended in midair, he saw something like a smaller mechanical throne, and seated upon it was... another Savior?
Dorn was bewildered. He had no idea what he was looking at.
The smaller mechanical throne hovered in the air, positioned directly opposite the Emperor's Golden Throne.
The two faced each other from across the chamber.
That was the Warp-mechanical construct Eden had gone to enormous lengths to install in the Throne room, essentially a scaled-down Golden Throne.
And sealed within it was a fresh clone of his.
That was right. He was sitting on the throne too, planted squarely on that miniature Golden Throne.
If the Emperor could sit the throne, then so could the Savior.
Of course, Eden had not done this because he wanted to sit facing the Emperor so the old man would not feel lonely.
He had done it as a precaution, in case the Emperor ever truly became the Dark King and rose from the throne.
This was only a partial version of that process, but it still let him draw more power from the Sun of Hope, enough to restrain the Emperor's darker force at a crucial moment.
If one day the old man really did transform into the Dark King, Eden could at least try to hold him back.
That would buy time for the necessary plans to be carried out.
And right now, it was the perfect tool for saving Dorn, so that the stubborn mule would not actually be beaten into ruin by the Emperor.
At this point, the collision of the two Warp-based psychic forces had become almost tangible, and all kinds of visions were erupting from the clash.
"Brother, the old man's still half-asleep. He can't properly control his power!"
Eden strained to block wave after wave of the Emperor's unstable strength, then turned his head with difficulty and shouted back.
"Fall back first. We'll come again another time when it's safe!"
But the instant he looked back, he saw that Dorn had already gone unconscious, rear slightly raised, face-down on the floor.
The pose had a certain defeated-CG elegance to it, not unlike Guilliman, Lord of Ultramar and master of the legendary primarch posterior...
(End of Chapter)
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